A VISITOR

A VISITOR

Matt was chopping wood again. There were blisters on his hands and the sweat was running down his back, but the pile never seemed to get any smaller. Noah was sitting a few paces away, watching him. Matt split another log apart and threw down the axe. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“How long have you been here, Noah?” he asked.

Noah shrugged.

“Where did Mrs Deverill find you? Were you born here or did you escape from the local lunatic asylum?”

Noah glared at him. Matt knew he had difficulty understanding sentences with more than four or five words.“You shouldn’t make fun of me,” Noah replied at last, scowling.

“Why not? It’s the only fun I have.” Matt picked up a handful of wood and dumped it in the wheelbarrow. “Why don’t you go anywhere?” he asked. “You’re always hanging around. Don’t you have a girlfriend or anything?”

Noah sniffed.“I don’t like girls.”

“Do you prefer pigs? I think one or two of them fancy you.”

Matt leant forward to take the axe and as he did so Noah’s hand shot out, grabbing hold of him. “You don’t know,” he rasped. He was so close that Matt could smell the rotten food on his breath. His fat lips twisted in an unpleasant smile. “Sometimes Mrs Deverill lets me kill one,” he said. “A pig. I put the knife in and I listen to it squeal. We’ll do the same to you…”

“Let me go!” Matt tried to pull away but Noah was incredibly strong and his fingers were clamped on to Matt’s arm in a vice-like grip.

“You laugh at Noah. But when the end comes, it’ll be Noah who laughs at you…”

“Get off me!” Matt was afraid his bone was going to break.

Just then a car pulled into the yard. Noah released his hold and Matt fell back, cradling his arm. There were four welts where the fingers had held him. The car was a Honda Estate. The door opened and a man got out, dressed in a suit and white shirt but no tie. Matt recognized him at once. It was Stephen Mallory, the detective who had interrogated him after the Ipswich break-in.

Noah had seen him too. As Mallory looked around him, the farmhand scurried away, disappearing behind the barn. Matt walked over to the detective. He could feel a sense of excitement stirring inside him but tried not to show it. Although Mallory was partly responsible for sending him here, he was exactly the man Matt most wanted to see.

“Matthew!” The detective nodded. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

“You don’t look it. You’ve lost a lot of weight.”

“What are you doing here?” Matt was in no mood to talk.

“I’ve been to a conference in Harrogate. It’s not that far away so I thought I’d look in and see how you were getting on.” Mallory stretched. “I have to say, it wasn’t an easy place to find.”

“If you think it’s hard getting in, you should try getting out.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Matt glanced over Mallory’s shoulder. Mrs Deverill was somewhere inside the house. He knew she’d come into the yard at any moment and he wanted to talk before she arrived. “I was going to phone you,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don’t want to stay here. You told me that the LEAF Project is voluntary. Well, I’m volunteering myself out. I don’t care where you send me. You can lock me up in Alcatraz if you want to. But this place sucks and I want to go.”

The detective looked at him curiously.“What were you doing when I arrived?” he asked.

“What does it look like?” Matt spread his hands, showing the red calluses and blisters. “I was chopping wood.”

“Have you started school yet?”

“No.”

Mallory shook his head.“This is all wrong,” he said. “This shouldn’t be happening.”

“Then do something about it. Get me out of here.”

There was a movement in the doorway behind them. Mrs Deverill had appeared and Noah along with her. She had put on a brightly coloured apron and was holding a basket of apples. Matt wondered if they were for Mallory’s benefit, just like the suit she had worn when she went down to London.

“Don’t say anything,” Mallory muttered quietly. “Leave this to me.”

Mrs Deverill came over. She seemed surprised to see someone there.“Can I help you?” she asked.

“You don’t remember me? Detective Superintendent Mallory. We met in London. I’m with the LEAF Project.”

Mrs Deverill nodded.“Of course I remember you, Mr Mallory,” she said. “And it’s a great pleasure to see you, although it might have been a courtesy to let me know you were coming. If I recall correctly, you were supposed to give me twenty-four hours’ notice of any official visit.”

“Do you have something to hide, Mrs Deverill?”

“Of course not.” The hard eyes blinked. “You’re welcome any time.”

“The fact is that I picked up a report from the local police,” Mallory said. “Something about a false alarm at a place called Glendale Farm. Matthew was involved.”

“Oh yes.” Mrs Deverill rearranged her features into a look of concern. “Matthew and I have already spoken about that. I was very sorry that he wasted the policemen’s time. Still, in the end there was no harm done. I think we’ve both put it behind us.”

Matt wanted to speak but Mallory warned him with his eyes.

“Why isn’t Matthew at school?” he asked.

“It’s my feeling that it’s too early,” Mrs Deverill replied. “I have discussed the matter with my sister. She happens to be the head teacher. We both agree that he would be a disruptive influence. We’ll send him to school as soon as he’s ready.” Mrs Deverill smiled. She was doing her best to appear friendly. “Why don’t you come inside, Detective Superintendent? I’m not sure we should be discussing this in front of the boy. Perhaps I could offer you a cup of tea?”

“No, thank you, Mrs Deverill.” Mallory looked around him a second time. “I haven’t seen very much,” he went on, “but it seems obvious to me that living conditions on this farm are entirely inadequate for Matthew’s needs-”

“We were examined before he came,” Mrs Deverill interrupted.

“And frankly I’m appalled by Matthew’s physical condition. He looks as if he’s been worked to the bone. You’ve actually broken the law by keeping him out of school.”

“The boy’s been perfectly happy here. Haven’t you, Matthew!”

“No.” Matt was glad he’d been given a chance to speak. “I hate it here. I hate this farm. I hate you, most of all.”

“Well, that’s gratitude!” Mrs Deverill snapped.

“I’m going back to London,” Mallory said. “And I want you to know that I’ll be contacting the LEAF committee the moment I arrive. I’ll be recommending that Matthew is removed from your care with immediate effect.”

Mrs Deverill’s face darkened. Her eyes were like razors. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Are you threatening me, Mrs Deverill?”

There was a long pause.

“No. Why would I want to do that? I’m a law-abiding person. And if you really think that Matthew would be better off locked up in some sort of juvenile institution, that’s your business. Nevertheless you aren’t meant to be here, Mr Mallory. You weren’t invited, and this visit of yours is a violation of our agreement. You make your report, if you want to. But you’ll be the one who ends up with the red face.”

She turned on her heels and walked back into the farmhouse. Matt watched her go with a sense of elation. Mallory had defeated her. For the first time, he could see an end to his ordeal.

Mallory leant towards him.“Listen to me, Matt,” he said. “I’d put you in the car and take you with me if I could-”

“I wish you would,” Matt said.

“But I can’t. I don’t have any right and technically I’d be breaking the law. Mrs Deverill could even say I’d abducted you and in the long run I might be doing more harm than good. But give me twenty-four hours and I’ll be back. And then we’ll get you out of this dump. OK?”

“Sure.” Matt nodded. “Thanks.”

Mallory sighed.“If you want the honest truth, I was always against the LEAF Project,” he said. “It’s just a gimmick… another bit of government spin. They don’t really want to help kids like you. They’re only interested in massaging the figures, reducing the number of children behind bars.” He walked over to his car and opened the door. “Well, as soon as I’ve put in my report, they’ll have to listen to what I say. And whatever happens, I promise you Mrs Deverill will never get custody of anyone ever again.”

Matt watched him go. Then he turned and looked at the farmhouse. Mrs Deverill was standing in the doorway. She had taken off the apron and was now dressed all in black. She too had seen the detective leave, but said nothing. She stepped back, disappearing into the house. The door slammed shut behind her.

It was dark by the time Stephen Mallory reached the motorway and the fast route back to Ipswich. He was deep in thought as he steered his Honda Estate into the outside lane.

He hadn’t told Matt the whole truth. There never had been any conference in Harrogate.

Stephen Mallory specialized in juvenile crime. He had met many young delinquents, some only ten or eleven years old, and, like so many of them, it seemed to him that Matt wasn’t so much a criminal as a victim. He had already spoken to Kelvin, who was in a remand centre awaiting trial. He had met with Gwenda Davis and her partner Brian. He had read all the reports. But even so, he felt that there was something missing. The boy he had met was nothing like the one he’dbeen reading about.

And so, immediately after he had handed Matt over to Mrs Deverill, he had decided to see if he could fill in the missing pieces. He was in London anyway. Nobody would know, or care, how he spent the afternoon.

He had taken a taxi to a police records office in south London. Everything he needed was there in a cardboard box, one of about a hundred, filed away with a reference number and a name: FREEMAN M.J. There were articles cut out of the local newspaper in Ipswich, reports from both the local and the metropolitan police, a post-mortem report and a psychiatric assessment from a doctor who had been attached to the case. The story was exactly as he had been told. A road accident. The parents killed. An eight-year-old boy left behind. Adoption by an aunt in Ipswich. Mallory had read all of it before. But then, at the very bottom of the box, he had stumbled on a witness report that he hadn’t seen. It changed everything.

It was a signed statement by the woman who had been living next door to Matthew at the time of the accident; she had in fact been looking after him when it happened. Her name was Rosemary Green. Mallory read it twice, then ordered a taxi to take him to Dulwich. It was four o’clock in the afternoon. He doubted she would be in.

But he had been in luck. Rosemary Green was a teacher and arrived home just as he stepped out of the cab. He talked to her outside her small Victorian house with pink and white honeysuckle trailing all the way up the front wall. It was strange to think that Matthew Freeman had once played in the garden next door. It couldn’t have been a more different world from the one he would later inhabit in Ipswich.

Mrs Green didn’t have much to add to what she had already said. Yes, she agreed that her story didn’t seem likely, but it was true. She had explained it to the police at the time and she stood by it now, six years later.

Mallory had drunk two miniature bottles of whisky on the train back to Ipswich. A copy of Matthew’s file was on the table in front of him, as well as the late edition of the Evening Standard. The newspaper belonged to one of the passengers sitting opposite him. Mallory had almost snatched it out of the man’s hand when he saw the story on the front page.

A bizarre suicide in Holborn. A twenty-year-old criminal called Will Scott had been found dead in a street close to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The cause of death was a knife wound to the heart, which police believed to be self-inflicted. Scott had a record for aggravated burglary and assault, and was a known drug dealer. Three witnesses had seen him following a middle-aged woman, dressed in a grey suit with a silver brooch shaped like a lizard. Police were urging her to come forward.

A coincidence?

Mallory remembered the brooch Mrs Deverill had been wearing. She had arrived late to the meeting, and she might well have come through Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He felt certain she must be the woman referred to in the article, although he had no idea how she could have been involved in Will Scott’s death. But from that moment on Mallory had been worried. He had found himself thinking more and more about Matthew and he was certain that the boy shouldn’t be in her care.

Then, only a few days later, he had intercepted a routine transmission from a police station in York: something about another death, one that had been reported by a fourteen-year-old boy from the LEAF Project. It had been enough for Mallory. He had cleared a space in his diary and headed north.

Now, driving back from Lesser Malling, he was very glad he’d done it. What he had seen had been a disgrace. The boy looked ill. More than that, he looked traumatized. And Mallory had quickly noticed the welts on his arm. Well, he would soon put a stop to it. He would hand in his own report the very next day.

He checked his speedometer. He was doing exactly seventy miles an hour. He had moved into the central lane and cars were speeding past him on both sides, all of them breaking the speed limit. He watched the red tail lights blur into the distance. It was raining again, tiny drops splattering against the windscreen. Was it his imagination or had it become very cold inside the car? He turned on the heater. Air pumped out of the ventilation grilles in the dashboard, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. He switched on the windscreen wipers. The road ahead shimmered and bent as the water swept over the glass.

Mallory glanced at the clock. It was half past nine. He was at least another two hours away from Ipswich– it would be midnight before he was home. He turned on the radio to listen to the news. The voices would help keep him awake.

The radio was tuned to BBC Radio 4 but there was no news. At first Mallory thought there was nothing on the radio at all and wondered if it had broken… like the heating. It really was very cold. Perhaps one of the fuses had blown. He would have to take the car into the garage when he got back. But then it came on. There was a burst of static and, behind it, something else.

A faint whispering.

Puzzled, he leant down and pressed the button that was preset to Classic FM. Mallory liked classical music. Maybe there would be a concert. But there was no music. Once again, all he could hear was the strange whispering. They were definitely the same voices. He could even make out some of the words they were saying.

“EMANY… NEVAEH… NITRA… OH… WREHTAF…”

What the hell was going on? Frantically Mallory pressed button after button, his eyes never leaving the road. It was impossible. The same voices were being transmitted on every station, louder now, more insistent. He turned the radio off. But the whispering continued. It seemed to be everywhere, all around him in the car.

The cold was more intense. It was like sitting in a fridge– or a deep freeze. Mallory decided to pull over on to the hard shoulder and stop. The rain was coming down harder. He could barely see out of the windscreen. Red lights zoomed past. Blinding white lights sped towards him.

He pressed his foot on the brake and signalled left. But the indicator had failed and the car wouldn’t slow down. Mallory was beginning to panic. He had never been afraid in his life. It wasn’t in his nature. But he was afraid now, knowing that the car was out of control. He stamped his foot down more urgently on the brake. Nothing happened. The car was picking up speed.

And then it was as if he had hit some sort of invisible ramp. He felt the tyres leave the road and the whole car rocketed into the air. His vision twisted three hundred and sixty degrees. The whispering had somehow become a great clamour that filled his consciousness.

Mallory screamed.

His car, travelling at ninety miles an hour, somersaulted over the crash barrier. The last thing Mallory saw, upside down, was a petrol tanker hurtling towards him, the driver’s face frozen in horror. The Honda hit it and disintegrated. There was a screech of tyres. An explosion. A single blare from the loudest horn in the world. Then silence.

***

Matt was sound asleep when the covers were torn off him and he woke up in the chill of the morning to find Mrs Deverill in a black dressing gown, looming over his bed. He looked at his watch. It was ten past six. Outside, the sky was still grey. Rain pattered against the windows. The trees bent in the wind.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“I just heard it on the radio,” Mrs Deverill said. “I thought you ought to know. I’m afraid it’s bad news, Matthew. It seems there was a multiple pile-up on the motorway last night. Six people were killed. Detective Superintendent Mallory was one of them. It’s a terrible shame. Really terrible. But it looks as if you won’t be leaving after all.”

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