Page 85 of Little Children

‘There’ll be money behind it somewhere, just like the legal stuff. It’s big betting, but you won’t find the odds at William Hill.’

‘Underground,’ Kim said.

‘Probably fixtures and a league,’ Penn added.

Given the number of boys missing in recent years, she couldn’t help but wonder what the hell they’d stumbled upon.

‘Okay, Keats, thanks for?—’

‘Yeah, that’s actually not why I called you. You were probably minutes away from figuring that much out yourself.’

He stood at the foot of the body and gently pulled the sheet down to the toes.

‘In addition to the multiple fractures to every phalanx in his hands, there is one recent fracture to both the triquetral and the hamate.’

She frowned, and he grabbed her by the hand and then squeezed at the point where her hand met her wrist.

‘Okay,’ she said, pulling her hand away.

‘Bear that in mind as you take another look at his bruises.’

Kim said nothing. The extensive bruising looked exactly as it had when she’d seen it earlier.

‘He’d had a really bad fight?’ Kim asked.

Keats moved around the table, talking as he went. ‘A bruise starts off red as the blood appears under the skin. In one to two days, the haemoglobin in the blood changes, and the bruise looks blueish, purple or black.

‘Bruises turn green or yellow somewhere between five to ten days. After ten to fourteen days, they are yellowish brown or just brown. Mild bruises can last a few days to a week. Severe ones can last several weeks or longer.’

‘That’s a lot of fights,’ Kim said, seeing the timeline of the bruises everywhere on this young boy’s body.

‘Take a look at his wrists and remember what I said about the most recent injury.’

Kim saw what looked like rope marks on both wrists.

‘That injury to his hand meant he couldn’t fight,’ Kim said as Keats’s discovery began to dawn on her.

‘He wouldn’t even have been able to make a fist.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Kim said, putting together the clues Keats had laid out for her. The malnutrition, the injury, the wrists, the bruises.

‘I don’t get it,’ Penn said, looking from one to the other.

Kim had to swallow down nausea before answering.

‘He was no use to his captors as a fighter, but he had one last purpose as he slowly starved to death.’

She took a breath before saying the words that told her they were dealing with monsters.

‘He was tied up and used as a punching bag.’

Fifty-Three

It was almost seven before Bryant had a moment to chat to Stacey alone.

As instructed, Roy had never returned, and just ten minutes earlier Red had called to stand them all down.

Slowly, Dickinson, Adil and finally Carly had filtered out, right before Iris had entered with her cleaning trolley.