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Mr Jacoby sighed and withdrew, then reappeared a moment later and handed Davey a Mr Kipling Dundee cake and a Mars bar.

‘Here you are. For teatime. I hope they find your brother soon. You give my best to your mother and gran, all right?’

Davey had pilfered industriously from Mr Jacoby’s shop for years and now felt a bit embarrassed as he took the offerings and mumbled his thanks.

Life had been so simple and suddenly everything was just so wrong. How had it happened? Davey had no idea, but as he walked away with the Mars bar melting in his jeans pocket, images kept crowding into his head. Images of the money he and Shane had failed to spend, of the piece-of-shit cardboard bird he’d made for Nan – and of Steven’s skateboard nose-diving gently into the silt.

He never had any luck, however hard he tried.

He carried on to Shane’s, where they ate the Dundee cake with their fingers in the back garden and threw what was left into Shane’s neighbour’s pond.

40

‘HOW DO YOU do?’ Charlie asked Jonas through the chain link. ‘How old are you? I’ve got a mouse in my house. He’s white. His name is Mickey. You can play with him if you want. Have you got any biscuits? I’m hungry.’

Charlie wiggled his fingers through the fence and touched Jonas, resting his pinkie on his shoulder, or stroking his hair like a child with a loved toy.

Jonas ignored him, just as he ignored Steven and the bones that thudded over the gate. It was food and he was hungry. But the thought of eating meat made him feel sick. He thought about Sunday lunchtimes, staring at the bloodied flesh on his plate while his mother cleared the table around him and his father became increasingly red-faced at the waste.

You liked meat a month ago.

But he didn’t like it now.

There are children starving in Africa.

Jonas didn’t care. Africa was welcome to his meat.

Every day the faceless man came into the kennel to clean it, and Jonas squeezed his eyes shut and curled up small so the man wouldn’t notice him.

It worked.

Since that first night of those cold hands, the huntsman hadn’t even come close to him. He carried a single key in his pocket that opened every padlock. He let himself into the kennel each day, scraped up shit with a short-handled shovel and sluiced the cement with milky disinfectant. Then he unwound a thick brick-coloured hose and sprayed any remaining mess into the little drain hole, refilled the water bucket and moved on.

Once he’d finished, Jonas could breathe again. Feel his ribs press down on to the ground again like long chill fingers cupping his torso, reminding him that he was still alive.

He was not let out into the meadow with the children. He could not even stand upright because he was never let off the short chain. He didn’t know why, but he also didn’t care about the lack of movement. Moving would only draw attention to himself, when he wanted to be invisible.

Only his stomach seemed aware of the time that had passed.

‘I heard your tummy!’ Charlie said beside him. ‘Grrrrrrr. Grrrrrrr. Like that.’ His smile faded and he added a plaintive, ‘I’m hungry.’

‘Give him your meat if you’re not going to eat it,’ said Steven Lamb.

Jonas didn’t look at Steven and tried not to look at anything else either.

Cages filled with children, with no one to protect them.

This problem was too big and he was too small to do anything about it.

People hurt children. He’d had no answer when he was a child up at Springer Farm and he had no answer now that he was a child again.

All he could do was to close his eyes curl up tight, and hope it was all over quickly.

* * *

‘Hey,’ said Steven. ‘Mr Holly?’

No answer. The man had barely moved since they arrived. He hadn’t eaten at all. A few times Steven had seen him drink from the steel bucket, and he had pissed into the drain at the front of the cage. Once he’d cried in the night, like a baby.

It was embarrassing and it was bloody annoying.

Mr Holly was an adult. And a policeman. And he was doing nothing to help them – or even himself.

Unless he was playing some sick game. Trying to pretend to be one of them, when really he was in on it with the huntsman … Steven knew it was unlikely but he was still loathe to give the man the benefit of any doubt.

‘Hey!’ he said more sharply. ‘Charlie’s talking to you.’

Jonas Holly slowly closed his eyes.

Steven kicked the fence. ‘Hey!’

Nothing.

Behind him, Jess started to sing quietly. ‘Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda …’

Charlie twisted his fist back through the fence.

‘C’mon, Charlie!’ said Kylie, and she and Maisie started to sing along. ‘You’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me …’

Charlie clapped and joined in. ‘We all sing Matilda, we all sing Matilda …’

Steven got up and ran his eyes and his fingers around his tiny prison, seeking escape.

Not for the first time.