Kate Medina - Fire Damage - A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked

Jessie held out her right hand. ‘I’m Dr Jessie Flynn.’

He nodded, shook it briefly. ‘Thank you for taking on Sami.’ His voice was clipped, strained, at odds with his words.

‘It’s my job, and one I’m very happy to do. He’s a cute boy.’

‘But you probably signed on for adults, not for children.’

‘I did a master’s in Child Psychology before my Clinical PhD so it’s one of my areas of expertise.’ She attempted a joke. ‘Helpful for dealing with many of the adults I see too.’

Scott didn’t smile. He had already turned back to the chair, which he angled a little into the room, but not entirely, so that Jessie could see the good side of his face, but not make direct eye contact. She felt foolish for trying to lighten the moment – it had been inappropriate. She took a seat on the sofa where he had indicated.

‘Actually, Major Scott, I need to see the whole family, not just Sami.’

‘What?’ His voice was incredulous.

‘For a child like Sami, if I’m to understand what’s going on and to help treat him, I need to see all of you – individually.’

The animosity in his voice shocked her. ‘I didn’t refer him to an Army psychologist because I wanted someone poking around in our lives. I referred him because I had no choice. He was supposed to start school in September, and instead he’s raving. Your job is to sort him out. The rest of us are fine.’ The last sentence said bitterly. Scott was clearly anything but fine.

Jessie persisted. ‘His problems haven’t arisen in isolation and you and your wife need to deal with them. You’re the ones who are with him twenty-four hours a day.’

‘He has post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s bloody obvious. I’ve seen it in the field countless times and that’s with grown men.’ He spoke through gritted teeth, barely suppressed fury in his voice. There was an undercurrent of something else too, making his voice tremble. Fear? Fear and helplessness. Emotions Jessie knew well. ‘His mother’s always been overprotective, made him too sensitive. Seeing me in the hospital tipped him over the edge. Other kids might have been able to handle it, he couldn’t.’

‘It may be post-traumatic stress disorder – probably is – but it’s complex and very intense. He will be having nightmares, terrors, be imagining frightening images, while he’s awake and while he’s asleep. As you said, it’s hard enough for grown men and women to handle, terrifying for a little boy.’ Her mind flashed to Sami, writhing and sobbing in her arms. The man is burnt. The girl is burnt.

She wasn’t about to quote statistics to Scott, but she knew them by heart. For every hundred veterans of operations in Afghanistan, around twenty will have post-traumatic stress disorder. Disorder characterized by alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide. ‘He needs his parents to understand exactly what he’s going through, be there to help him appropriately when he needs it. Which is now. All the time, in fact, twenty-four/seven, until he’s over it.’

He sneered and curled his lip. ‘You can see Nooria. She’s the kid’s mother. She’s the one who cares for him day-to-day. Now do your job and leave me alone.’

He had turned back to the window – conversation clearly over – his gaze almost stretching out through the glass, as if he wanted to smash through it, run away across the fields and take possession of someone else’s life. Jessie couldn’t blame him. Standing silently, she made her way to the door. There was a macho cult in the military, one she had come across many times before, that forbade asking for help. She was surprised that he had referred Sami, but having seen the child, he had clearly had no choice. She’d go and see Sami now, but she wasn’t finished with Major Nicholas bloody Scott.

The second door on the right was closed. Jessie stood outside for a moment, her ear pressed to the cold wood to see if she could hear any noises. There were none. She knocked and when she received no reply, pushed the door open.

Her first glimpse of Sami’s bedroom revealed the polar opposite of what she had expected for a little boy, the only child, in a relatively affluent family. It was a good size, a decent double, with a single oak-framed bed pushed against the wall to her right, a window opposite and a large oak chest of drawers to her left. Beneath the window were four coloured plastic toy buckets, filled with toys. The walls were a soft sunshine yellow, the same shade as Sami’s sleep-suit in the watercolour Nooria had painted of him. That was the limit of where the room met with her expectation.

The curtain was drawn across the window, recessed overhead electric lights on full, giving the room a harsh, office-like glow. The yellow floral curtain must have been backed with blackout material, because not a single ray of natural light penetrated its folds. On his bed were a sheet and pillow, but no covers: no duvet or blanket. No Thomas the Tank Engine or Bob the Builder bed linen. There were no cuddly toys, not a single teddy bear, on the bed. It was bare, the whole room cold and institutional, similar to the Military Police holding cells she had seen last year while assessing a soldier who had broken his girlfriend’s jaw in four places with his fist and was on suicide watch.

Sami was sitting underneath the window playing with some toys, his back to her. Next to him on the floor was the huge, black metal Maglite torch. Even though the room was flooded with light, the torch was switched on, its beam cutting a pale cylinder to the wall, lighting floating motes of dust.

Jessie remained in the doorway. If she had learnt anything from her experience yesterday it was to maintain her distance until he was entirely comfortable with her presence. The dull thud from her temple reminded her of that.

‘Sami, it’s Jessie Flynn. I’ve come to see you.’

For a moment, she thought that he hadn’t heard her: he made no movement, no sound, no indication that he had done so. Then, slowly an arm reached out, a hand closed around the shaft of the torch. Shuffling around on his bottom, dragging the torch with him, the little boy half-turned towards her.

Jessie smiled. ‘Hi, Sami.’

His face showed no expression. He didn’t smile back. He didn’t frown.

‘Can I come in?’

No expression still, his huge dark eyes fixed on her face. The scrutiny intense, unwavering. Then a barely perceptible nod.

‘Thank you.’

Stepping through the doorway, Jessie pushed the door closed behind her. She wanted privacy, a physical barrier to the sounds of their interaction floating down the stairs. Though she knew that she was putting her reputation at risk shutting herself into a room with a child, she had a strong sense it was important they weren’t overheard. For his freedom of mind; for her own.

‘What are you playing with?’

‘Dolly.’

‘Can I play with your toys too?’

Severe or not, she had secured her hair in a bun this time, but had softened her look with a pale blue V-neck jumper, white jeans and trainers.

Again, an almost imperceptible inclination of his head. Jessie crossed the room, lowered herself on to the carpet next to him.

One of the four plastic tubs lined in front of him was full of dolls: four or five of various sizes, plus their accessories: a pink potty, a couple of milk bottles, plates, bowls and spoons, bibs, a few changes of sleep-suits in pastel colours. Sami, cradling one of the dolls in his lap, was halfway through changing her clothes.

‘Could I play with one too?’

No verbal reply, but another tiny nod.

Jessie reached into the bucket and retrieved a doll. It was large, the size of a real newborn, dressed in a baby pink sleep-suit with a fairy castle embroidered on the front in lilac, underneath the castle the words ‘Baby Isabel’ stitched in gold cursive script. A glittery pink plastic dummy was jammed in her mouth; glassy pale blue eyes stared fixedly back at Jessie. She had not been a ‘dolly’ girl, or into princesses either, preferring Scalextric, or arranging her cuddly toys into intergalactic battle groups based on snatched episodes of Dr Who , lying behind the sofa, watching through her father’s feet, when she was supposed to be in bed.