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a ledger?
    She swept one three-year-old off his feet and away from a small girl he was tormenting. ‘Stop that or I’ll put you in a cage!’
    â€˜No, you won’t,’ the boy chortled, not at all upset by the threat.
    A young girl called Hetty came and took the child from her. ‘You can’t frighten him, Mrs Freeman, he knows you’re too kind.’
    â€˜I am?’ Rose said in disbelief. ‘How did I ever give him that impression?’
    The boy giggled again as Rose walked away, declaring that something had gone seriously wrong with her image.
    A deep masculine laugh caught her attention. Sitting on the floor was a man she’d never seen before, nursing a baby on his lap and trying to play snakes and ladders with a four-year-old girl. He had fair hair and vivid green eyes – good-looking in a rugged way.
    Miss Palmer, the woman in charge of the home, came to greet her. ‘I’ve just heard that they won’t be sending us any more babies for a while, as we’re overcrowded already.’
    â€˜That’s a start, I suppose.’ Rose glanced at the man again.
    â€˜That’s Jon,’ Miss Palmer explained. ‘He started life here and comes to play with the children when he can. Jon, this is Mrs Freeman. She’s just been banging a few heads together, trying to improve our overcrowding problem.’
    He clambered to his feet, holding the baby in the crook of his arm, and smiled at her. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs Freeman. Someone needs to do that.’
    She shook hands with him and then pointed to the child on the floor. ‘The little girl has just sneaked your counter down a snake, I think.’
    â€˜She does like to win.’ He grinned, sat down again and carried on playing.
    The next morning Jon walked the short distance from his Wandsworth flat to another children’s home, Wilkins House. Smaller than Standish House, it took boys from the ages of five to ten, and it was the one he devoted most of his time to. These boys were old enough to know
that they didn’t have any family and, in his experience, they were the most vulnerable.
    Jon strode along, enjoying being home again after another stint abroad. He loved London – it had a special atmosphere all its own. He’d travelled widely but never found anywhere he liked as much. He took a deep breath: it even had a unique smell. Not that everyone liked it, but he thought it was wonderful. Some of the places he’d found himself in were disgusting. And with that thought, the memories of his early life came flooding back. He had been only a few days old when he’d been dumped on the orphanage doorstep. The overriding impression he had of that time was one of loneliness, but it wasn’t until he went to the infants’ school that he realized how different his life was from that of the other children. The mothers used to wait at the gates, smiling, when they saw their children, but he was ushered on to an old bus with the name STANDISH HOUSE on the side in big black letters. He’d begun to ask questions then, becoming angry and rebellious, resulting in the loss of many a meal in punishment.
    But there was worse to come. At six, he had been transferred to Wilkins House and found himself in the care of a brutal man. That made him even more difficult to handle, and for years he fought everyone in sight. The anger was still there when he remembered the thrashings and the long dark hours shut in the cupboard under the stairs. Oh, that man really knew how to punish small boys! Some of the other poor little devils hadn’t coped as well as he had, and he could remember sitting outside that cupboard talking to the terrified child inside to stop him feeling so alone. Jon clenched his hands, wanting to
hit that brute, even after all these years. He had got out as soon as he’d been old enough and had been working ever since. Ten years ago he’d got the job