Blood Family Read Online Free PDF

children we get who come from violent homes. Too many of the ones who have been lifted out of that particular sort of danger are so concerned with keeping a weather eye out for the next blow-up that they don’t have a single brain cell left to use in more enriching ways. The rest of their mind is not just empty for their age, it’s all but frozen.
    Not this little guy. He sat there, cautious, vigilant; but he was interested . If he reminded me of anyone, it was Orlando, who was much the same age, and came to us while the police were tracking down his aunt and cousins after the crash that orphaned him instantly. Until that weekend, Orlando had obviously had the best of everything – a steady home, kind school, a host of hobbies and a lot of friends. And though he knew the worst, and kept on bursting into tears when he remembered, in betweentimes he had that same outgoing, curious look as if he couldn’t help but think, now- this -is-interesting about everything that went on under our roof, from the way Alan held his knife and fork to my recycling system, from how I swore when that cat next door got at the robin’s nest to why no one had finished papering the downstairs lavatory.
    We’ve done this job so long that most of them remind me of some other child. And Eddie was like Orlando. So I was very tempted to believe there had been good in his life. From what Rob said, it clearly wasn’t that Bryce Harris chap I’d seen on television being led into court under a blanket. And somehow I was doubtful it was his mother, since the first officer to trawl the neighbouring flats for information reported back to Rob that Eddie’s mum had been a fairly pitiful mess right from the start.
    The boy was cooped up in that flat for years. Everyone who noticed him on the day the family moved in presumed that he lived somewhere else – off with some parent from a previous relationship, even in care. It never occurred to them that he was still in there. Had it not been for some good busybody who saw his face at the window and poked the Social Services into action, nobody would have known. He could have died in that flat, been buried in some ditch, and no one would have been any the wiser. You ask yourself, how can a child become invisible like that? But it is easy enough if, like Bryce Harris, you know how to do a moonlight flit, notletting your down-trodden partner leave any word behind, or take a single step towards a new life for herself and her young son.
    I followed Rob out to his car. ‘Do we even know his full name ?’
    ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘There’s someone going back tomorrow, to sort through the crap in the flat. They usually find something.’
    ‘Can’t you ask his mother?’
    He made a face. ‘Not sure what’s happening there.’
    ‘Nobody asked her when they took her out?’
    ‘Linda,’ he said, ‘you’ve simply no idea what state that woman was in. She was just whimpering flesh. She’s been that bastard’s punchbag for three whole years. Frankly I doubt she knows her own name now, let alone his.’
    ‘He didn’t bring anything away with him? No cuddly toy? No blankie?’
    I watched him looking shifty. Then he said, ‘I didn’t know if I should give it you.’ He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a grubby-looking book.
    I turned it over to read the title. ‘ The Devil Ruled the Roost ?’ I flicked it open. Dense print and narrow margins, with quite a few old-fashioned illustrations tucked under sheets of tissue. ‘Oh, come on, Rob. This can’t be his.’
    He blushed. ‘I found it propping up a table leg. But he did seem to want it.’
    ‘I can’t think why. The child can’t possibly read at this level.’
    ‘Linda, we don’t even know if he can read full stop.’
    I didn’t hand it back. You never know. But mostly what I was thinking was that, given they’d had the mother and the child all day, they didn’t seem to have got very far at all.
Eddie
    I loved both of the