Blood Family Read Free Page B

Indeed, kids come in here looking a heap more battered than that after a rugby match.
    He didn’t speak. But he would answer questions, so it was clear his brain still worked. Mostly he shook his head, or nodded. But when an answer was necessary, as when I asked him, ‘Can you tell me your name?’ he shot a look at his minder – that nice, tubby, half-bald chap called Rob – and then came out with it all right. ‘Eddie.’
    I ran my eyes over his clothing. The shirt was huge and close to clean. But I couldn’t even tell what he was wearingover his arse because it was such a rag. So I just said, ‘Well, Eddie, I’m afraid we have to take this shirt away from you now.’
    Rob muttered, ‘He won’t be sorry about that,’ so drily that I guessed the shirt must have belonged to this Bryce Harris bloke that they’d arrested.
    I eased off Eddie’s clothes. That’s when I thought I’d see real damage. These household bullies aren’t daft. They often concentrate on places no one sees. But there were no marks on his trunk or buttocks. Rob Reed stretched out a hand to stroke his head while I did all the private checks that children hate – especially the kids who think they know what’s coming after. Eddie did shrink from my touch. But I would guess that could be simple modesty. And I must say that I saw nothing on his body anywhere to lead me to assume he’d been abused that way.
    He didn’t even have nits.
    We did take photographs, although I couldn’t see them helping in any court case.
    ‘No paperwork, I suppose?’ I asked when we’d gone through the tests. ‘No medical card or name of a family doctor, or anything?’
    ‘Fat chance,’ said Rob. ‘They will send someone in tomorrow to take a better look. But I’m not hopeful. The place was a tip.’
    ‘If you find nothing, then we’ll have to start his shots again.’ I made a note. ‘He may have had his first fewbefore his mum took up with Sunshine.’ I spoke directly to the child. ‘Eddie, do you remember a doctor or a nurse ever giving you any injections? Sticking a needle in your arm and telling you that it would only hurt a tiny bit and it would soon be over?’
    Either he didn’t understand or didn’t answer. He was staring at the polished floor. So I said, ‘Never mind,’ and peeled off my protective gloves. ‘I think that’s it for now.’
    I wrapped the boy in one of our little furry dressing gowns so he could be taken along to the unit for something to eat and a bath while one of the hospital volunteers looked him out some fresh clothes. But at the door Rob stopped and looked back enquiringly. I shrugged. We do try not to talk about these children over their heads as though they were dead or unconscious. But Rob’s a good man and he takes his job to heart, so I did want him to know that, so far as I could tell, there wasn’t anything he couldn’t see for himself. A few old bruises. That was it. I only wish that all the kids that poor man’s brought in here had been so lucky.
    Mind you, it’s not my job to check the damage to the poor child’s mind and sense of self.
    That often never heals at all.
Eddie
    When we came out again, the sun was so bright that it hurt my eyes, and I kept blinking. Rob Reed noticed that. (He noticed everything.) ‘If that keeps up,’ he said, ‘we’re going to have to take you to have your eyes checked right away.’
    That seemed to make him think of something else. ‘Ten-minute break in the park?’ He grinned. ‘Might as well seize the chance to start on the sunbathing.’
    He stopped the car. ‘Don’t move,’ he said, surprising me because I hadn’t thought of it. ‘I’m coming round to let you out the other side.’ I could see why. The cars went whizzing by so fast they made me dizzy.
    He took my hand and led me over lumpy grass. ‘Sit facing this way.’ He put me with my back to the sun. And when I felt my head and neck get hotter, I thought it was because the nurse who’d put me