Read Philip Brennan 03-Cage of Bones for Free Online Page A

Once she’d given her a bollocking, of course. Made sure she knew she owed Donna for this.
    She sipped her tea, dragged smoke deep within her lungs. Started to feel human again.
    Unaware that Faith wouldn’t be coming back.
    Unaware of the large black car sitting outside her house.
    Waiting.

9
     
    ‘S o … let me get this straight. He was found in a cage?’
    DC Anni Hepburn stared straight at the bed, nodded.
    ‘Of bones?’
    Anni nodded again.
    Marina Esposito looked at the woman speaking, gauging her response to the words. Hoping it tallied with her own.
    ‘My God … ’
    It did.
    The child was lying on the bed before them. An undernourished, skeletal frame, his closed eyes black-rimmed, haunted-looking. He carried an ingrained residue of filth in his skin and hair. His already pale skin was bone-white where a patch on his arm had been swabbed clean and a feeding drip inserted. His broken fingers had been temporarily splinted and set. He was sleeping, heavily sedated, in the private hospital room. The lights had been taken right down so as not to sear his eyes when he woke up. The machines and monitors provided the only illumination.
    Beyond formal questions of process and procedure, Marina didn’t know what to think. Didn’t want to allow herself to conjecture. So she stuck with formality.
    ‘Dr Ubha.’
    The doctor drew herself away from the child in front of her. Marina could tell this was already out of the woman’s frame of reference.
    ‘What’s been done for the boy so far?’
    Dr Ubha seemed relieved to receive questions she could answer. ‘The first thing we did was to stabilise the patient. Checked his height and weight. Treated his cuts and abrasions. Set his broken fingers. Then we took samples.’
    ‘Samples?’
    ‘Blood, hair, fingernail scrapings.’ She swallowed, eyes flicking back to the boy in the bed. ‘Anal. We should have the results later today or tomorrow.’
    ‘What’s your first opinion?’ said Anni.
    Dr Ubha shrugged. ‘Impossible to say at the moment. I need to get a full blood count, check for markers of infection, nutritional deficiencies … he needs a bone density scan, his hips, his joints … ’ She sighed. ‘His teeth are in terrible shape. He must be in a lot of pain.’
    ‘Apparently he bit one of the demolition team,’ said Anni.
    Dr Ubha raised her eyebrows. ‘It’s a wonder his teeth didn’t fall out.’
    ‘Anything for us to go on?’ asked Anni.
    Dr Ubha shook her head once more. ‘Nothing much beyond what you see before you. He’s been in that cage, or something like it, for quite a while. It’s a long time since he’s seen daylight, had decent food, anything like that. We’ll have to wait until he comes round to see how socialised he is. My guess is, not too much. There is something, though. Something odd.’
    ‘You mean odder?’ said Anni.
    ‘Yes. Right. I see what you mean.’ Dr Ubha pointed to where his feet were under the covers. ‘There was something on the sole of his right foot. We thought it was a scar at first, but when I looked at it more closely, it seemed to have been deliberately made.’
    ‘Deliberately scarred?’ said Marina.
    Dr Ubha nodded. ‘Looks that way. Like a … brand.’
    ‘A brand?’ said Anni. ‘Like you’d do with cattle?’
    Dr Ubha said nothing. Shook her head. ‘Never seen anything like this before.’
    Marina looked at the child in the bed. Her hand went to her stomach as she thought of her own. She had vowed never to get pregnant. The tough upbringing she had endured plus the horrors she saw on a regular basis as part of her job all reminded her that bringing a child into the world – the world she worked in – was one of the stupidest, most selfish things a person could do. And then she found herself pregnant. It was unplanned, unwanted. And to make matters worse, the father wasn’t her partner; it was Phil Brennan. Everything about it had been wrong. But now, nearly two years on, things were