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remember that. You could have yellow or red, but everyone wanted the red ones.’
    Sue asked, ‘Did they have pedals, Eddie?’
    I had to think for a while. Then I remembered. ‘No. You pushed them with your feet.’
    Sue turned to Rob. ‘Nursery school, then? Or day care?’
    Rob asked me, ‘Nothing after that?’
    ‘He didn’t like it,’ I told them. ‘He told Mum people would get nosy if I was going in and out. He said he liked to keep his family to himself, and I was no one else’s business.’
    ‘Family?’ Rob Reed leaned forward. ‘Eddie, do you remember ever being with your mum and living with anyone else? Some other sort of dad? Sometime before?’
    I shook my head.
    ‘Your mother never talked of anyone?’
    I didn’t want to tell him that she’d stopped talking. So I just looked at the trainers they had given me. I really liked them. They were the sort the boys who rode their bikes around the flats wore all the time.
    ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘I’m sure we’ll find out something.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I think we might as well call it a day, unless you have some questions of your own.’
    I only had one. ‘Where’s my mum?’
    ‘Right now, she’s busy seeing doctors,’ Rob Reed said.
    I felt a stab of panic. ‘Is she ill?’
    ‘Come on!’ he chided. ‘Think about those bruises. And her head must be sore. We think she needs a few days to recover, then she’ll be more herself, and you can see her.’
    ‘Is she in that hospital? Where you took me?’
    ‘No, not in that one. In another one. Safe, well away from Harris.’
    Somebody opened the door. I couldn’t see a face but I heard what she said. ‘Hey, Rob. Want to wind up for the day? The poor lad can’t be older than seven.’
    Rob Reed asked one last question. ‘Is that right?’
    I look back now, and find it really strange to have to say this. But out of all the scores of questions I was asked that day, and all the days that followed, that was the only one I couldn’t even try to answer.
    I had no idea.
Linda Radlett, Foster Carer
    I didn’t ask the boy questions. I simply settled him on the sofa alongside Rob and said, ‘Well, you’re a nice surprise. We were just saying, Alan here and I, that life was getting dull and what we’d like to see most in the world is a fresh face.’
    He didn’t know how to respond, so he sat tight, glancing at Alan from beneath that mop of hair he’d clearly hacked at himself. The nurse who bathed him must have had a go at tidying him up. But if there’s one thing that I recognize from all the kids that come through here, it’s the remains of a do-it-yourself haircut.
    He didn’t look too worried, though. And I’m not surprised at that. There’s no way Alan and I look threatening. I will admit I have turned ‘motherly looking’ over the years, and Alan is pink, soft and bald. (One of our kids once said my husband looks like a walking sausage wearing a really tight belt. And, though the description still amuses me, it is so close to true I never bring it up.)
    Alan asked Rob, ‘Fancy a beer?’ and Rob said, ‘Sorry, can’t,’ then followed up almost at once with, ‘Oh, God, why not? It’s been a day and a half. But just the one, mind.’
    ‘We’ve got alcohol-free.’
    Rob looked much happier. ‘That’s just the ticket. Save my licence for another day.’
    The boy’s eyes were mostly down. But he was keeping tabs. Every few seconds he’d glance up, fast as a bird’s peck, from beneath his fringe. He clearly wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but he had that same look so many of the children who come to us keep on their faces. Blank, so they don’t set anyone off. If they could make themselves invisible the poor mites would. And watchful, because they’re used to trouble springing out of nothing and nowhere.
    Be prepared.
    Yet even that first night there was something unusual about his wariness. It seemed intelligent – more on the ball than most of the