Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

The boy had stopped crying and seemed unnaturally still.

‘I think we’re supposed to try and keep him awake,’ I said. ‘People with hypothermia just want to sleep. And it’s the worst thing for them. I read that somewhere—’

‘I reckon you should leave that child to us, you’ve already done quite enough,’ said PC Jacobs.

‘What?’ I queried.

I turned to look at him, bewildered for just a moment.

The expression on his face told me everything. Light dawned. I supposed it would have been obvious to any onlooker from the beginning. But I wasn’t an onlooker. I was directly involved. And in PC Jacobs’s eyes, far more directly involved than I actually was.

‘Y-you can’t believe I had anything to do with this?’ I blurted out. ‘I just found the little boy in my stables, that’s all. Well, my dog did really, she led me to him. I’ve no idea how he got there.’

He just stared at me.

‘You can’t believe I’m involved,’ I repeated. ‘You’d have to be mad to think that.’

‘Mrs Anderson, the last time you and I had dealings you swore at me and this time you’re suggesting that I’m mad,’ said PC Jacobs in a very level tone of voice. ‘I might suggest to you that you are not helping your case a great deal.’

As I searched for a suitable reply a kind of moaning sound came from the bundle in the chair. I took an involuntary step towards the child. Immediately PC Jacobs moved forward as if to stop me touching the boy. I rounded on him.

‘If we don’t help that child, he’s going to die,’ I said. ‘It will take an ambulance a minimum of half an hour to get here from Okehampton. And that’s if it leaves straight away and there’s no traffic. By then it could be too late. Whatever you think of me, PC Jacobs, I’m a mother. I was once, anyway. That child needs heat and warm milk. There are hot-water bottles and proper blankets in the big cupboard on the landing. Perhaps one of you could fetch them while I warm some milk?’

Neither officer moved nor responded for a moment.

‘Let her help, Jim,’ said PC Bickerton eventually. ‘I’ll get the blankets and the bottles.’

PC Jacobs nodded, although he still looked uncertain.

‘You just watch her,’ said Bickerton over his shoulder as he left the room, taking a kind of control for the first time.

‘Don’t you worry, I will,’ said PC Jacobs, his face set in stone.

I lifted the Barbour a little and rested a finger on the boy’s chest. He was still dangerously cold. I thought his heartbeat was slower than normal, and he remained bound hand and foot.

‘We have to get these ties off him,’ I said, rummaging urgently in a kitchen drawer for scissors.

‘I’ll do that,’ said PC Jacobs, grabbing the scissors from me as if he feared what I might do with them.

Then he set about cutting and untying the little boy’s bonds while I took milk from the fridge, poured it into a bowl and put it into the microwave to heat it quickly.

PC Bickerton was quick too with the blankets and the bottles. I took two bottles from him and filled them with water from the hot tap, cooling it to what I judged to be just the right temperature with some from the cold.

‘We need to take these coats and bits and pieces off him, wrap, say, one blanket round him, then wrap the bottles inside a second blanket like a cocoon,’ I said, not sure where I got that idea from but it sounded like a good one.

PC Bickerton nodded his agreement and began to help me, holding the child while I did the wrapping. PC Jacobs reached forward with one hand to check the temperature of the hot-water bottles. Only after he had felt them carefully did he gesture for me to go ahead.

What did he think I was going to do, for God’s sake? I wondered. Scald the little boy to death?

Once we had him securely and warmly wrapped I took the bowl of milk from the microwave, checked its temperature, and did my best to spoon-feed the child just a little of it. Fortunately his lips were already slightly apart and I was able to insert the tip of the spoon inside his mouth quite easily. But at first he made no swallowing motion and I prayed I wouldn’t choke him. I tried two or three spoonfuls and could see milk running out of the side of his mouth. I didn’t think I was being very successful and guessed I’d better stop. Then suddenly he coughed, and I could have sworn I saw his little Adam’s apple move. I reached out to touch his face just as he started to cry again. Tears ran down his cheeks, which I thought were just a little warmer than they had been earlier.

PC Bickerton was crouched by the chair, one arm around the little boy.

I looked across at him.

‘I think he’s coming back to us,’ I said.

PC Bickerton began to smile and so did I. I couldn’t help it. Neither of us could help it. There is something wonderful about watching life return to a human being, particularly one so young as this.

Within seconds I realized that Bickerton and I were beaming at each other. At that moment we believed we had done this, that we were responsible for the child’s apparent recovery, and it was a good feeling.

Then pandemonium broke loose.

An ambulance, a paramedic on a motorbike, and what felt like half the Devon and Cornwall police force arrived all at once.

It was DS Jarvis who led this medley of assorted medics and police officers into my kitchen. And if anybody had knocked on the front door, I certainly didn’t hear them. Jarvis, looking out of breath and out of temper, stood in the doorway for a fraction of a second.

Then he bellowed his first set of instructions.

‘Bickerton, Jacobs, you bloody fools, get that woman away from that child.’

Strong arms pulled me upright and away from the little boy, whom, just a moment ago, I’d been so pleased to have helped.

Jarvis strode swiftly across the room and leaned close to the child.

‘That’s him all right,’ he said, as if there had ever really been any doubt. ‘That’s Luke Macintyre.’

I seemed to be surrounded by police officers of both sexes, in uniform and in plain clothes. And all of them made it quite clear exactly what they thought of me. They half pulled me out of my own kitchen and into the sitting room. It seemed I was not even going to be allowed to remain in the same room as that poor maltreated child.

I realized for the first time, probably, just what terrible trouble I was in. And I had absolutely no idea what I could do about it, or who there was in all the world who might help me. Now, surely, my life was truly over.

It seemed an awfully long time before anyone would speak to me.

‘I can explain, you know,’ I said to the woman police community support officer who seemed to have been deputed to keep an eye on me, along with another, male, PCSO I could just see standing in the hallway outside the sitting-room door.

What did they think I was going to do now, for goodness’ sake? Did they really think I might make a run for it? Did they really think I was that crazy? Yes, actually, they did, I told myself. And that was pretty frightening.

‘You’ll have to wait for DS Jarvis,’ said the woman PCSO. She had a pale elfin face and wispy blonde hair protruded from beneath her cap. She was very pretty. Obliquely, I found myself wondering how she got on with the boys back at the station.

Sexist, stupid, and quite bizarre under the circumstances. I supposed I was no longer really capable of rational thought, so the remains of my brain kept dashing off at tangents.

‘He won’t be long, I’m sure,’ she said.

I nodded, defeated.

I could hear snatches of conversation from the kitchen. All the doors seemed to be standing open. DS Jarvis and PCs Jacobs and Bickerton were talking in loud, clear voices.