Like This, for Ever

sure he stayed beneath a streetlight. Oliver had just seen his friend reappear from the clubhouse when someone jumped him from behind. A large sack had been pulled over his head and then he’d been picked up and carried.
    ‘Were you put in a car or a van?’ Dana had asked.
    Oliver had shaken his head. ‘He just carried me,’ he said. ‘I don’t think we went far.’
    They hadn’t gone far. Oliver had been found in the choir stalls of a nearby church, less than five hundred yards from where he’d gone missing. Once inside the building, his abductor had flung Oliver down hard on his face, kneeling on his back to prevent him getting up. He’d tied his wrists and ankles and then put a gag around his mouth and a blindfold around his eyes.
    ‘I couldn’t really breathe,’ said the child. ‘It got worse if I struggled, so I had to stop. I thought I was going to suffocate.’
    ‘You’ve been very brave,’ said Dana. ‘Can you tell me anything about this person’s voice?’
    Oliver shook his head. ‘He never spoke to me,’ he said.
    He never spoke? So how could they be sure it was a he?
    ‘Not at all?’ asked Dana. ‘Not even to tell you what to do?’
    ‘No, he just pushed me and pulled me.’
    ‘Oliver, this is quite a difficult question, but can you tell me anything about how big this person was?’
    Oliver looked puzzled, so she tried again. ‘I know you didn’t see him,’ she said, ‘but he carried you and got quite close to you. For example, did he seem as big as your dad?’
    Alan Kennedy was around five foot eleven and strongly built. Oliver looked at his dad, standing silently in the corner of the room, and shook his head. ‘More like Martin,’ he said.
    Martin, Oliver’s teenage brother, looked at his dad in alarm. ‘I was at home all night, wasn’t I, Dad?’
    Dana smiled at the older boy. ‘I think Oliver just means whoever attacked him was about your size,’ she said. ‘Which is very useful to know.’
    Martin Kennedy was about Dana’s own height, somewhere around five feet four inches tall. The height of an average-sized woman.
    ‘So if he didn’t speak to you, he didn’t threaten you at all?’ said Dana.
    Oliver shook his head.
    ‘Can you tell me what happened next?’ asked Dana.
    ‘It all went quiet,’ replied Oliver. ‘I heard the door being closed and the key turned, so I figured he’d gone. I didn’t dare move for ages, but then my arms and legs started to hurt so much I had to.’
    Oliver’s mother inched herself closer to her son. Her right arm was stretched over his pillow, her left hand clutched both of his together.
    ‘I realized I could move my wrists a bit,’ said Oliver. ‘I had quite a thick coat on and he’d taped my wrists together round the sleeves. When I twisted them around and rubbed them together, it got looser.’
    ‘He’s got tiny wrists,’ said his mother, reaching out one finger and gently stroking the back of her son’s wrist. They looked pink, a bit sore.
    ‘Go on, Oliver,’ said Dana.
    ‘I managed to get my hand free,’ said Oliver. ‘It took ages and it hurt, but I kept on going because I knew once he came back he would …’
    ‘Your son is an extremely brave young man,’ said Dana, turning to the boy’s father, giving Oliver a chance to take a breath and his mother time to wipe away the tears. When she could hear that his breathing had calmed, she turned back. ‘Once you had a hand free, were you able to get the rest of the tape off?’
    He nodded. ‘Off my eyes and mouth first. Then my legs. I was in some sort of room. It was really dark. I couldn’t see much but I could hear buzzing, like machines. It was like the boiler room at school.But I couldn’t get out. He’d locked the door. I banged on it for ages but nobody came.’
    Jesus, the search must have passed within yards of the church.
    ‘So what happened?’
    ‘In the end I gave up. There was another door and when I opened it I was in the church. I knew where I was then, but I still couldn’t get out. I couldn’t even find a phone. I thought there might be one in the vestry but it was locked.’
    ‘So you just had to wait?’
    Oliver nodded. ‘There was a bolt on the boiler-room door. On the church side, I mean, so I locked it. So if he came back, he wouldn’t be able to get to me. Then I went and hid in the choir stalls. I don’t know if he came back. If he did, I didn’t hear him.’
    ‘You brave, clever boy,’ said Dana, as, across the room,