Page 39 of Child's Play

Felicity looked heavenward and offered a sad smile.

‘In one of her lessons I was captivated by one of her studies. She talked of a little boy she met when he was nine years old. The poor thing had been locked in a small boxroom for most of his life. He was fed once a day and left in the dark. There was no interaction and no love. He wasn’t chained and the door was not locked. He had been trained, conditioned to never leave. The boy had been born to two addicts.’

‘Drugs?’ Bryant asked.

‘Alcohol?’ Kim asked.

Felicity shook her head at both of them.

‘Computer games. They spent every hour glued to the Xbox playing each other and other folks online. The woman hadn’t even known she was pregnant until the little boy popped out. They didn’t know what to do, so they put him in the spare room and watched YouTube videos on feeding.’

‘Is this for real?’ Bryant asked, although Kim remembered reading about something similar in the newspaper.

‘Oh, it’s real. Life went on as normal for the couple. Fed the child once a day, kept him in nappies and only got found out when the council insisted on inspecting the property’s boiler following a recent fatality in a similar home.’

‘What happened?’ Bryant asked.

‘Neighbours were horrified, parents were imprisoned, authorities began pointing fingers and the little boy was put into care.’

‘And?’

‘And now you can see why Belinda’s classes were electric, officers. She made the students care. She told stories of real children, real situations, people she’d met and interacted with.’

‘And the boy?’ Bryant insisted.

‘Is unlikely to see the outside of an institution for the rest of his life. Belinda explained that the conditioning of those nine years had destroyed his ability to love, trust and communicate. He couldn’t bear to be touched. Even someone brushing against him would prompt hysterical reactions. He hadn’t learned anything and consequently was locked into a world that no one else could understand.’

‘How awful,’ Bryant whispered.

And Kim agreed but was no stranger to the harm that parents could do. Then something else occurred to her.

‘But Belinda was a teacher, a professor not a medical health practitioner, so how did she know of these children?’

‘She studied them, Inspector. Any chance to interact with a troubled or damaged child was a gift to her. She never wanted to stop learning of the lasting effects of early childhood experiences.’

There was something here that was feeling unpalatable right now: the idea that the woman had met with damaged and broken children to study and analyse them and their suffering, but without the clinical training or knowledge to help them.

‘We suspect Belinda was planning to take a trip. Would you have any idea where?’ Bryant asked.

Felicity shrugged. ‘To my knowledge she rarely took holidays or mini breaks, so if she was going somewhere it was probably to further her knowledge.’

‘Okay, thanks,’ Kim said, standing. ‘And would you mind pointing us in the direction of Charles Blunt?’

‘Of course, but why?’

‘We believe he was Belinda’s last known lover.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, making no attempt to hide her shock.

‘We believe so,’ Kim repeated, realising that Belinda had managed to keep her relationship secret from everyone. Her friend hadn’t known and her boss hadn’t known, yet the sister she didn’t likehadknown. Their relationship was growing stranger by the minute.

‘I think you’re mistaken but I’ll take you to Mr Blunt myself.’

Kim fell into step behind the woman, already wondering what they were going to find.

Twenty-Six

‘What the fuck was that about?’ Lynne hissed as they exited the courtroom.