Tania Carver: Cage of Bones

She stopped in the living room, looked at the mess from the previous night. Just like them. Turn up, trash the house, piss off. But she couldn’t complain. She had helped them do it. And the place wasn’t exactly tidy to begin with.

She reached the kitchen, looked in the fridge, found some bacon.

‘You wanna bacon sandwich?’

Sitting at the table expectantly, Ben’s eyes lit up. ‘Yeah… ’

‘Well make me one an’ all.’

Ben frowned as Donna laughed at her own joke. ‘Put the kettle on. D’you know how to do that?’

He nodded, took the kettle to the sink, filled it with water, crossed back to the counter, flicked the switch.

‘Good lad.’

He smiled, enjoying the praise.

Donna put the pan on the gas, started to cook the bacon.

‘Some Coke in the fridge. Get yourself some.’

Ben did. Donna went back to cooking. He wasn’t a bad kid. She had known worse. She had been worse. But he still wasn’t her responsibility. And she would let Faith know in no uncertain fucking terms as soon as she bothered to turn up.

She served up the bacon sandwiches, slathering margarine and ketchup on Ben’s white bread first. He wolfed his down. Donna lit a fag to accompany hers. Rubbed her eyes.

‘You got to go to school today?’ she said to the boy.

He shrugged, nodded. ‘S’posed to.’

Christ, what an upheaval. Donna’s head was ringing. The sandwich and the fag hadn’t helped. ‘Well you’ve got a day off today.’

Ben smiled.

Sooner Faith came back, sooner she could go back to bed. Once she’d given her a bollocking, of course. Made sure she knew she owed Donna for this.

She sipped her tea, dragged smoke deep within her lungs. Started to feel human again.

Unaware that Faith wouldn’t be coming back.

Unaware of the large black car sitting outside her house.

Waiting.

‘So… let me get this straight. He was found in a cage?’

DC Anni Hepburn stared straight at the bed, nodded.

‘Of bones?’

Anni nodded again.

Marina Esposito looked at the woman speaking, gauging her response to the words. Hoping it tallied with her own.

‘My God… ’

It did.

The child was lying on the bed before them. An undernourished, skeletal frame, his closed eyes black-rimmed, haunted-looking. He carried an ingrained residue of filth in his skin and hair. His already pale skin was bone-white where a patch on his arm had been swabbed clean and a feeding drip inserted. His broken fingers had been temporarily splinted and set. He was sleeping, heavily sedated, in the private hospital room. The lights had been taken right down so as not to sear his eyes when he woke up. The machines and monitors provided the only illumination.

Beyond formal questions of process and procedure, Marina didn’t know what to think. Didn’t want to allow herself to conjecture. So she stuck with formality.

‘Dr Ubha.’

The doctor drew herself away from the child in front of her. Marina could tell this was already out of the woman’s frame of reference.

‘What’s been done for the boy so far?’

Dr Ubha seemed relieved to receive questions she could answer. ‘The first thing we did was to stabilise the patient. Checked his height and weight. Treated his cuts and abrasions. Set his broken fingers. Then we took samples.’

‘Samples?’

‘Blood, hair, fingernail scrapings.’ She swallowed, eyes flicking back to the boy in the bed. ‘Anal. We should have the results later today or tomorrow.’

‘What’s your first opinion?’ said Anni.

Dr Ubha shrugged. ‘Impossible to say at the moment. I need to get a full blood count, check for markers of infection, nutritional deficiencies… he needs a bone density scan, his hips, his joints… ’ She sighed. ‘His teeth are in terrible shape. He must be in a lot of pain.’

‘Apparently he bit one of the demolition team,’ said Anni.

Dr Ubha raised her eyebrows. ‘It’s a wonder his teeth didn’t fall out.’

‘Anything for us to go on?’ asked Anni.

Dr Ubha shook her head once more. ‘Nothing much beyond what you see before you. He’s been in that cage, or something like it, for quite a while. It’s a long time since he’s seen daylight, had decent food, anything like that. We’ll have to wait until he comes round to see how socialised he is. My guess is, not too much. There is something, though. Something odd.’

‘You mean odder?’ said Anni.

‘Yes. Right. I see what you mean.’ Dr Ubha pointed to where his feet were under the covers. ‘There was something on the sole of his right foot. We thought it was a scar at first, but when I looked at it more closely, it seemed to have been deliberately made.’

‘Deliberately scarred?’ said Marina.

Dr Ubha nodded. ‘Looks that way. Like a… brand.’

‘A brand?’ said Anni. ‘Like you’d do with cattle?’

Dr Ubha said nothing. Shook her head. ‘Never seen anything like this before.’

Marina looked at the child in the bed. Her hand went to her stomach as she thought of her own. She had vowed never to get pregnant. The tough upbringing she had endured plus the horrors she saw on a regular basis as part of her job all reminded her that bringing a child into the world – the world she worked in – was one of the stupidest, most selfish things a person could do. And then she found herself pregnant. It was unplanned, unwanted. And to make matters worse, the father wasn’t her partner; it was Phil Brennan. Everything about it had been wrong. But now, nearly two years on, things were different. Her life had changed for the better. Phil was now her partner. Their daughter was nearly one. And it took something like the sight of the boy in the bed to remind her that while bringing a child into the world might not be the most stupid, selfish thing imaginable, it was one of the most terrifying.

The gloom of the room was getting to her. ‘Shall we step outside?’

The antiseptic air in the corridor and the harsh overhead strip lighting felt warm and welcoming in contrast to the dismal darkness of the boy’s room. Judging from the way the other two women were unconsciously gulping in deep breaths, Marina reckoned they must have felt it too.

Marina had come straight away, as soon as Anni had hung up. No further appointments for a while, and the tone of Anni’s voice told her that this was not only urgent but important. More important than yet another assessment of whether some stroppy, self-deluded officer was fit to return to active duty.

Marina enjoyed working with Anni. She knew how hard it was to be a woman and have any success in the force, but to be a black woman in an area where there were hardly any took real determination. And Anni had plenty of that. But she was also bright enough not to let it show.

It was clear she was on Phil’s team. The denim jacket, cargo trousers and dyed blonde hair said that she had embraced the unorthodoxy and creativity he encouraged. From that had come confidence. But not arrogance. And that, Marina had discovered, was a rare trait in a police detective.

Phil’s team. When she thought about it, Marina reckoned she must be a part of that now. Especially as the police force was now her official employer.

Josephina, the daughter she and Phil Brennan shared, was approaching her first birthday. And, both of them being working professionals in fulfilling careers, they had agreed to share parenting duties equally. Feeding, cleaning, upbringing. They wouldn’t fall into outmoded patriarchal systems. They were a partnership; they would do things together.

It hadn’t lasted. Not because of any stubbornness or ideological need, but just because of circumstances. They had fallen into the pattern of most first-time parents. One working, one staying at home. Phil had kept working. He did his share but he still walked out the door in the morning, had something else in his life, could compartmentalise. Marina had tried, and found that she couldn’t. Work had been too demanding. So she had stayed at home with the baby. And she had begun to resent him for that.