Raven's Gate

that was stapled shut and labelled. Then he showered. He had no privacy, just as he had been warned. There was a policeman in the room with him the whole time but he still managed to enjoy the shower; the rush of water, scalding hot, shuddering down on his head and his shoulders, washing away the blood and the horror of the last hours. It was over all too quickly. He dried himself, then pulled on a grey T-shirt and undershorts that had been laundered and pressed as flat as paper. Finally, he was taken to a room which could have been a ward in a hospital, with four metal beds, four identical tables, and nothing else. The room felt as if it had been cleaned fifty times. Even the air felt clean. It seemed that he was the only occupant.
    He climbed into bed, and before any doctor could arrive he was asleep. Sleep came as quickly as a train in a tunnel. He simply lay back and kept on falling.
    Meanwhile, in a room downstairs, Stephen Mallory was sitting opposite a crumpled, sullen-looking woman who was managing both to scowl and to yawn at the same time. The woman was Gwenda Davis, Matt’s aunt and legal guardian. She was short and drab, with mousey hair and a pinched, forgettable face. She wore no make-up and there were heavy bags under her eyes. She was dressed in an old, shapeless coat. It might have been expensive once but now it was frayed at the edges. Like the woman who was wearing it, Mallory thought. He supposed that she was about forty-five. She seemed nervous, as if it was she, not her nephew, who had been accused of something.
    “So where is he?” Gwenda asked. She had a thin, whiny voice that made every question sound like a complaint.
    “He’s upstairs,” Mallory said. “He fell asleep before the doctor could see him but we gave him a tranquillizer anyway. It’s possible he’s in shock.”
    “
He’s
in shock?” Gwenda laughed briefly. “
I’m
the one who’s in shock, I can tell you. Getting a call in the middle of the night like this! Having to come down here. I’m a respectable person. All this business with knives and burglary. I’ve never heard such a thing.”
    “I understand you share your house with a partner?”
    “Brian.” Gwenda noticed Mallory had taken out a pen. “Brian Conran,” she continued, and watched as the detective wrote it down. “He’s in bed. He’s not any relation to the boy. Why should he come out in the middle of the night? He’s got to be up first thing in the morning.”
    “What’s his job?”
    “What’s it to you?” She shrugged. “He’s a milkman.”
    Mallory pulled a sheet of paper out of a file. “I see from Matthew’s record that his parents died,” he said.
    “A car crash.” Gwenda swallowed. “He was eight years old. The family was living in London then. His mother and father were killed. But he’d stayed behind.”
    “He was an only child?”
    “No brothers or sisters. No relatives either. Nobody knew what to do with him.”
    “You were related to his mother?”
    “I was her half-sister. I’d only met them a few times.” Gwenda drew herself up, crossing her hands in front of her. “If you want the truth, they were never very friendly. It was all right for them, wasn’t it. A nice house in a nice neighbourhood. A nice car. Nice everything. They didn’t have any time for me. And when they died in that stupid accident… Well, I don’t know what would have happened to Matthew if it hadn’t been for me and Brian. We took him in. We had to bring him up all on our own. And what did we get for it? Nothing but trouble!”
    Mallory glanced again at the report. “He had never been in trouble before,” he said. “He started missing school a year after he came to Ipswich. From there it was downhill all the way.”
    “Are you blaming me?” Two pinpricks of red had appeared in Gwenda’s cheeks. “It was nothing to do with me! It was that boy, Kelvin Johnson… He lives just down the road. He’s to blame!”
    It was eleven o’clock at night. It had been a long day and Mallory had heard enough. He closed the file and stood up. “Thank you for coming in, Ms Davis,” he said. “Would you like to see Matthew?”
    “There’s hardly any point seeing him if he’s asleep, is there?”
    “Maybe you’d like to come back in the morning then. The social services will be here. He’ll also need legal representation. But if you’re here at nine o’clock—”
    “I can’t come at nine o’clock. I have to make Brian his breakfast