Ten

Victor had been surprised by his effect on Archer. The child’s entire body had seized up tight. Then he’d slowly walked away through the trees. Victor would have needed all the sensitivity of a concrete block to miss the fact that something had gone badly wrong with him. He’d gone after the boy, calling his name. When he touched one of Archer’s narrow shoulders the boy had dropped down in a faint. As Victor picked up the boy, marvelling at how light he was, he noticed the dead stare of the eyes. Immediately, he returned to his sister’s farm at a run. At that moment he believed the boy would die in his arms. Yet the jog of being carried revived him.

‘Put me down,’ Archer insisted.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll get you indoors, then we can get someone to look at you.’

‘Put me down.’ The voice rose. ‘Let me walk.’

Victor gently set him down. ‘What happened back there?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You might be coming down with a bug.’

‘I’m not. I’m fine.’

Before Victor could say anything else the boy raced across the field to join the other children at the barn, where they still tucked into snacks. What now? Report Archer’s fainting spell to Laura? Had the shock of seeing Victor in the woods caused some kind of blip that made him keel over? Of course, he knew what he had to do. He decided to find Laura.

Laura was busy in the farmhouse kitchen with a teenage girl who complained loudly that she had a headache. When Victor signalled he needed to speak to her she mouthed, just give me a minute. Then she broke a couple of tablets out of a blister pack. The girl kicked up a fuss. ‘Is this all? My head’s splitting. It’s my period!’

Victor returned to the yard. There Archer held a juice box in his hand as if it had just dropped down from another planet. He stared at the carton, eyes glassy.

He doesn’t know what to do with it, Victor told himself, the kid must have had one hell of a shock. From twenty paces away, Victor checked the boy over the best he could. His clothes weren’t dishevelled, no sign of physical injury. Maybe he’d got himself lost in the woods and given himself a scare. Victor knew he’d be overstepping the mark if he interrogated the boy so he decided to stay put until Laura emerged.

There were around twenty children standing outside the barn. Most were dropping their empty cartons into a box that had been provided for refuse. Often school parties would squirt what remained of the juice on to other kids, however the children from Badsworth Lodge were not only well behaved but there was a sense of stillness about them. They could be so uncannily quiet at times. Maybe it was just because Badsworth Lodge was a specialist centre for troubled youngsters. These kids today were unusually subdued. It didn’t take long to recognize the source of their unease. Jay stood near the barn. Although the kids didn’t make a fuss about it they quietly gravitated to the other end of the yard to keep their distance. Jay, meanwhile, did nothing but watch them with those large eyes of his.

‘Victor? Did you need me?’

He turned to see Laura. The breeze toyed with her hair. ‘Can we speak?’

‘Weren’t we due to meet up at eight? It’s just we’ve got to get the children back to the lodging houses by three.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know what it is . . . some are out of sorts today.’

‘We don’t have much in the way of transport on the island, but I can borrow a tractor and trailer.’ He smiled. ‘That passes for a limo service round here.’

‘The walk back might be just what they need, so I’ll pass on your limo service this time. Thanks though, I appreciate it.’

‘No problem.’

‘Sorry if I sound like a clock-watcher but I can only spare you five minutes.’

‘Can we go into the field? We best chat out of earshot.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Concern appeared on her face.

‘It might be something and nothing . . .’ He opened the gate to the field. Lou noticed where they were going and pointed to her watch.

‘We run a tight ship.’ Laura sounded apologetic. ‘We try to get them into a routine.’ She gave one of those little shrugs again that Victor found heart-warming. ‘You see, at Badsworth Lodge spontaneity is too close to chaos for the children’s liking. Generally, they’ve led unstable home lives so routine, such as meals at set times, is comforting.’ When they’d put distance between them and the children she said in a businesslike way, ‘So, what have you got?’

‘About twenty minutes ago, I saw Jay go off into the woods alone. He doesn’t know the area so I decided to bring him back to the yard.’ This time it was Victor who shrugged. ‘I didn’t find Jay, but I found Archer. When he saw me he reacted like he’d seen a . . . I don’t know . . . a monster. He just froze in shock. It was as if he was so scared he could hardly move his legs. When I caught up with him he just fell in a heap. Out cold. Like a lump of dead meat. He came round a few minutes later, even so, I have to admit to being worried about him.’

‘I’ll check him over. Thanks for telling me.’

Victor reacted with surprise. ‘You aren’t going to ask him what happened?’

‘Not yet.’

‘But—’

‘Victor, children at Badsworth Lodge aren’t like the ones you normally meet. You’ve heard of planets out there in the solar system, where gravity’s so powerful a bird would weigh the same as a cow. Or it’s so cold that the atmosphere has turned to ice. Well, Badsworth Lodge is another world. Normal rules of human behaviour don’t apply there.’

‘It wouldn’t hurt to ask Archer what—’

‘But it might cause more damage than you can imagine. I have to tread carefully. We are a specialist unit, just like some hospitals specialize in cardiac care. We treat some of the most troubled individuals in the country. Listen, when something unpleasant happens to one of those children –’ she nodded at the group – ‘they invariably clam up. They repress emotional hurt. It’s second nature. Because being emotional is seen as weakness, which invites bullying. It’s not pleasant, Victor, but those children learnt that one way to survive abuse is to lock away the truth.’

‘Point taken. It’s just that when Archer collapsed I thought he was dying.’

‘A typical Archer response. He saw his father murdered. If things get too much for him, even if it’s a violent cartoon on television, he just shuts down.’ She smiled. ‘OK, I know what that look you’re giving me means. I will talk to Archer, but it will be softly-softly, you follow? A word here, a hint there.’

Victor acquiesced with a nod. ‘Though I don’t think you need to look far. From the way the children are avoiding Jay it would be my guess he’s what frightened Archer.’

A breeze from the river blew Laura’s hair out in rippling strands. ‘Ah, Jay. Of all those we’ve seen at Badsworth Lodge he is unique. We’ve had troublemakers of course. A while ago we had an episode that we refer to as the Green Dragon Winter. Children were terrified. They said a green dragon lived under the floorboards. What’s more, they claimed they were shrinking in size and were frightened that they’d fall through the gaps in the boards to be eaten.’

‘Now that is surreal. But Jay?’

‘No, nothing to do with Jay. The green dragon frenzy took place before Jay arrived. It took us a month to discover that a fifteen-year-old was spiking meals with LSD. The kids were tripping on acid. Now that kind of trouble we can understand – eventually. Yet with Jay he doesn’t really do anything. Normally, he’s just so passive.’

‘He tells the children things,’ Victor said. ‘He gets under their skin.’

‘And Jay is our responsibility. He’s been through all the care homes. Frankly, we’re his last hope. After us, there’s nowhere else for him to go.’

‘But he’s clearly freaking the others out.’

‘So what do you suggest?’ Laura’s eyes flashed with anger. ‘That we tie a rock round his neck and chuck him in the river?’

Victor met her glare. ‘You know I’m not suggesting that. But it’s clear the other children are frightened of him.’

‘Like I’m frightened of him?’ She fixed him with those bright, defiant eyes. ‘Like you’re frightened of him?’

‘I’m not frightened. I’m—’

‘He knew about Ghorlan.’

‘Not frightened, though I’ll admit to a burning curiosity.’ Victor felt a creeping unease. ‘I’m going to break my own rule about not asking questions. What is it with Jay? What’s he done?’

‘He’s done nothing.’

‘Oh?’

‘No, it’s what the world did to him.’

‘You’ve lost me.’

Laura’s expression was grim. ‘Do you remember, about seven years ago, a news story about a ship called the N’Taal?’

‘The N’Taal? That’s an unusual name. I’m sure it rings a bell.’

‘It ought to,’ she told him. ‘There’d been religious persecution of a minority faith in West Africa. After a church had been burned with dozens of the congregation still inside there’d been an exodus of refugees. There’s the usual conspiracy theories. The main one being that the government of this country wanted rid of this tribal group so they provided the ship. Of course, it was a tub of rust that barely floated.’

‘I remember something about a shipwreck, that’s all.’

‘There’s more to it than that. The N’Taal, with almost four hundred refugees on board, sailed round the northern hemisphere for weeks. At every country where they sought refuge they were turned away. Nobody wanted to help. All these developed nations insisted they’d exceeded their quota for refugees for that particular year, so this sorry spectacle continued. The ship tried to enter port after port. Each time they were denied access. In increasingly desperate straits the freighter with this human cargo struggled across the Atlantic. There was a storm, the ship sank . . .’

‘And they all died,’ Victor added in a quiet voice.

‘All but one.’

‘Jay?’ Astonished, he glanced at the boy in the farmyard; he stood alone as any marooned sailor on a desert island. He radiated solitude.

Laura nodded. ‘The story ran for weeks. Remember the Miracle Moses Boy? Found in an inflatable raft a week after the ship sank. He was just four years old.’ She gave one of those little shrugs that seemed to convey so much. ‘Nobody has been able to identify him. He was named Jay by the captain of the ship which rescued him. His age is just guesswork. He’s mixed race. He didn’t speak at all until he began speaking English, which he picked up from his carers.’

‘So he’s a mystery?’

‘And we keep his presence at Badsworth Lodge a secret. The press are eager to know what he’s doing now. If they found out the kind of trouble that surrounds him the media would besiege the house. The damage to Jay and the other children doesn’t bear thinking about.’

Victor said, ‘I won’t breathe a word. You can trust me.’

She looked him in the eye. ‘Yes, I believe I can. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’

‘Wait there’s more, isn’t there?’

‘We can leave that for later.’ She gave a tired smile. ‘I’ll see you at eight.’

With that she walked back to the farm where Lou was gathering the children together.