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my teeth. (It was the same way Mr Perkins said, but using a brush with bristles that stood up made it feel different.)
    Then she turned down the light till it was just a glow and sat on my bed.
    ‘Story?’
    ‘Yes, please.’
    So she read one or two. I don’t think I was listening. I was just looking around the room. I felt so high up in that bed, and worried that I might fall out. And I was wondering if my mother had had a bath as well, and if the nurses in the hospital had a cupboard with pyjamas and a toothbrush.
    ‘Do you think my mum’s all right?’
    She broke off reading the book and leaned her face down close to mine. ‘You know she’s in the hospital. And you know she’s safe there. No one can get at her. So we’ll just cross our fingers and hope your mum’s already starting to feel better.’
    I crossed my fingers hard.
    ‘And no one can get at you, either,’ she told me. ‘You are just as safe here. We lock the doors really well at night. So you sleep sound. And we’ll start thinking about everything else tomorrow morning, shall we?’
    I must have nodded.
    ‘Kiss?’
    I don’t know why I shook my head. I used to like it when Mum hugged and kissed me. But she turned at thedoor and blew a kiss from there. (I didn’t understand what she was doing till the next night, when she did it again.)
    She left the door half-open. I slid out of bed and listened through the gap. Linda was going into the kitchen. Before the door closed behind her, she said, ‘Alan, remind me to phone the dentist tomorrow. Did you see his mouth?’
    I wasn’t scared. I’d visited the dentist with Mr Perkins. If I felt anything, it was excitement. I shut the door, then pulled the downie off the bed to heap it in the corner. It was a whole lot puffier than the blankets I had shared with Gem. But still I couldn’t sleep for a long time.
PC Martin Tallentire
    For all the fuss in the papers, we knew we couldn’t keep Bryce Harris locked up for long. He’d barely touched the boy. And when I phoned the hospital to see if I could get to see the mother, they told me that they’d given her some knock-out drops, and she’d be no use for a day or two.
    Or even then, I thought, if I know her sort. We see them often enough, these women who’ve been eased away from all their friends and family, their jobs, and anyone who might support them in the business of leaving a thug. It happens in all sorts of families. Sometimes it’ssimple intimidation: threats, bashings and the like. In others, the way it works can be more subtle. Everyone’s friends and relations get up their noses now and again. Most people let it be. They just back off until they feel a whole lot less annoyed, then they pick up the threads. But when one of these grim control freaks gets involved, you’re in big trouble. You are so much easier meat if you’ve no one to turn to, no one to say to you, ‘Excuse me? He did what ?’ ‘He hit you where ?’ ‘Christ, I would not put up with that – not for a single moment!’
    And so the bully gradually and deliberately pushes all of these people out of your life. Your mother: ‘The old cow hates me! I can tell! You’re going to have to choose. It’s me or her!’ Your sister. ‘She’s a bitch! Look how she didn’t even speak to me when she was round here last time. This is my house and I don’t want her here!’ Your friends are easily frozen out. Even the girlfriend you have known for years stops calling for a while because her child’s sick, or she’s distracted or depressed, and in the bully steps. ‘She can’t be much of a friend.’ ‘I never mentioned it, but you should hear the things she says about you behind your back.’ On it goes. ‘Well, you can visit your Aunt Sue, but I’m not taking you. I’ll need the car for work. You’ll have to get to Scotland on the bus.’
    Throw in the sulks and tempers, and the occasional stray fist let loose to put you right (‘That was your fault, that was. You