Fire Damage: A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked

She and Scott had not overlapped in Afghanistan, but she had probably passed him somewhere in the air over Europe last February, her coming back, him going out to the tour which would cost him so much. Scott was in his early forties, well respected, no nonsense, someone who got the job done, and well. He had seemed to command respect among senior Afghan figures, had achieved some successes where others, who came before, had failed.

The heavy sky cast little light and the low-ceilinged room, with its twin box sash windows, was dim. It was an austere room, masculine, a dark leather chesterfield sofa and two matching leather bucket chairs opposite, a plasma television on an oak stand in one corner, no books or photographs. Jessie had expected something more modern and feminine, but, except for a simple watercolour – a toddler Sami asleep in his cot, dressed in a pale yellow sleep-suit that made him look like a beautiful baby girl – Nooria’s influence seemed minimal. Major Scott was sitting by the window, in one of the bucket chairs, which he had turned to face the garden.

Approaching from his right side, Jessie caught a glimpse of the handsome man he would have been before the attack: blond-haired, well defined cheekbones and a square jaw, softened now with stubble a few days old, tall and well built, she could tell, even though he was sitting. The beige carpet muffled her footsteps; he seemed unaware of her presence. Halfway across the room, she stopped.

‘Major Scott.’

Jessie’s first, strong impulse when he stood and turned to face her was to recoil. Forcing her expression impassive, she held the gaze of his one good eye through the tinted lens of his sunglasses. The left side of his face was so badly burnt that the skin had melted, slid away from the bones underneath, leaving threads of brown, tortured tissue. Batman’s Joker dropped into a vat of acid. His nose resembled that of a skeleton: cartilage all that was left to form shape, scarred skin stretched over the nub and grafted into place. A pair of gold-framed aviator sunglasses covered his eyes. As he stood, Jessie caught the glimpse of his left eye through the side of their frame: an empty socket, the skin around it patchwork, only a glistening burgundy cavity remaining. He wore a blue polo neck jumper and jeans. The skin down the left side of his neck was like liquid, disappearing under the dark wool.

Jessie held out her right hand. ‘I’m Dr Jessie Flynn.’

He nodded, shook it briefly. ‘Thank you for taking on Sami.’ His voice was clipped, strained, at odds with his words.

‘It’s my job, and one I’m very happy to do. He’s a cute boy.’

‘But you probably signed on for adults, not for children.’

‘I did a master’s in Child Psychology before my Clinical PhD so it’s one of my areas of expertise.’ She attempted a joke. ‘Helpful for dealing with many of the adults I see too.’

Scott didn’t smile. He had already turned back to the chair, which he angled a little into the room, but not entirely, so that Jessie could see the good side of his face, but not make direct eye contact. She felt foolish for trying to lighten the moment – it had been inappropriate. She took a seat on the sofa where he had indicated.

‘Actually, Major Scott, I need to see the whole family, not just Sami.’

‘What?’ His voice was incredulous.

‘For a child like Sami, if I’m to understand what’s going on and to help treat him, I need to see all of you – individually.’

The animosity in his voice shocked her. ‘I didn’t refer him to an Army psychologist because I wanted someone poking around in our lives. I referred him because I had no choice. He was supposed to start school in September, and instead he’s raving. Your job is to sort him out. The rest of us are fine.’ The last sentence said bitterly. Scott was clearly anything but fine.

Jessie persisted. ‘His problems haven’t arisen in isolation and you and your wife need to deal with them. You’re the ones who are with him twenty-four hours a day.’

‘He has post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s bloody obvious. I’ve seen it in the field countless times and that’s with grown men.’ He spoke through gritted teeth, barely suppressed fury in his voice. There was an undercurrent of something else too, making his voice tremble. Fear? Fear and helplessness. Emotions Jessie knew well. ‘His mother’s always been overprotective, made him too sensitive. Seeing me in the hospital tipped him over the edge. Other kids might have been able to handle it, he couldn’t.’

‘It may be post-traumatic stress disorder – probably is – but it’s complex and very intense. He will be having nightmares, terrors, be imagining frightening images, while he’s awake and while he’s asleep. As you said, it’s hard enough for grown men and women to handle, terrifying for a little boy.’ Her mind flashed to Sami, writhing and sobbing in her arms. The man is burnt. The girl is burnt.

She wasn’t about to quote statistics to Scott, but she knew them by heart. For every hundred veterans of operations in Afghanistan, around twenty will have post-traumatic stress disorder. Disorder characterized by alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide. ‘He needs his parents to understand exactly what he’s going through, be there to help him appropriately when he needs it. Which is now. All the time, in fact, twenty-four/seven, until he’s over it.’

He sneered and curled his lip. ‘You can see Nooria. She’s the kid’s mother. She’s the one who cares for him day-to-day. Now do your job and leave me alone.’

He had turned back to the window – conversation clearly over – his gaze almost stretching out through the glass, as if he wanted to smash through it, run away across the fields and take possession of someone else’s life. Jessie couldn’t blame him. Standing silently, she made her way to the door. There was a macho cult in the military, one she had come across many times before, that forbade asking for help. She was surprised that he had referred Sami, but having seen the child, he had clearly had no choice. She’d go and see Sami now, but she wasn’t finished with Major Nicholas bloody Scott.

6

The second door on the right was closed. Jessie stood outside for a moment, her ear pressed to the cold wood to see if she could hear any noises. There were none. She knocked and when she received no reply, pushed the door open.

Her first glimpse of Sami’s bedroom revealed the polar opposite of what she had expected for a little boy, the only child, in a relatively affluent family. It was a good size, a decent double, with a single oak-framed bed pushed against the wall to her right, a window opposite and a large oak chest of drawers to her left. Beneath the window were four coloured plastic toy buckets, filled with toys. The walls were a soft sunshine yellow, the same shade as Sami’s sleep-suit in the watercolour Nooria had painted of him. That was the limit of where the room met with her expectation.

The curtain was drawn across the window, recessed overhead electric lights on full, giving the room a harsh, office-like glow. The yellow floral curtain must have been backed with blackout material, because not a single ray of natural light penetrated its folds. On his bed were a sheet and pillow, but no covers: no duvet or blanket. No Thomas the Tank Engine or Bob the Builder bed linen. There were no cuddly toys, not a single teddy bear, on the bed. It was bare, the whole room cold and institutional, similar to the Military Police holding cells she had seen last year while assessing a soldier who had broken his girlfriend’s jaw in four places with his fist and was on suicide watch.

Sami was sitting underneath the window playing with some toys, his back to her. Next to him on the floor was the huge, black metal Maglite torch. Even though the room was flooded with light, the torch was switched on, its beam cutting a pale cylinder to the wall, lighting floating motes of dust.

Jessie remained in the doorway. If she had learnt anything from her experience yesterday it was to maintain her distance until he was entirely comfortable with her presence. The dull thud from her temple reminded her of that.

‘Sami, it’s Jessie Flynn. I’ve come to see you.’

For a moment, she thought that he hadn’t heard her: he made no movement, no sound, no indication that he had done so. Then, slowly an arm reached out, a hand closed around the shaft of the torch. Shuffling around on his bottom, dragging the torch with him, the little boy half-turned towards her.

Jessie smiled. ‘Hi, Sami.’

His face showed no expression. He didn’t smile back. He didn’t frown.

‘Can I come in?’

No expression still, his huge dark eyes fixed on her face. The scrutiny intense, unwavering. Then a barely perceptible nod.

‘Thank you.’

Stepping through the doorway, Jessie pushed the door closed behind her. She wanted privacy, a physical barrier to the sounds of their interaction floating down the stairs. Though she knew that she was putting her reputation at risk shutting herself into a room with a child, she had a strong sense it was important they weren’t overheard. For his freedom of mind; for her own.

‘What are you playing with?’

‘Dolly.’

‘Can I play with your toys too?’

Severe or not, she had secured her hair in a bun this time, but had softened her look with a pale blue V-neck jumper, white jeans and trainers.

Again, an almost imperceptible inclination of his head. Jessie crossed the room, lowered herself on to the carpet next to him.

One of the four plastic tubs lined in front of him was full of dolls: four or five of various sizes, plus their accessories: a pink potty, a couple of milk bottles, plates, bowls and spoons, bibs, a few changes of sleep-suits in pastel colours. Sami, cradling one of the dolls in his lap, was halfway through changing her clothes.

‘Could I play with one too?’

No verbal reply, but another tiny nod.

Jessie reached into the bucket and retrieved a doll. It was large, the size of a real newborn, dressed in a baby pink sleep-suit with a fairy castle embroidered on the front in lilac, underneath the castle the words ‘Baby Isabel’ stitched in gold cursive script. A glittery pink plastic dummy was jammed in her mouth; glassy pale blue eyes stared fixedly back at Jessie. She had not been a ‘dolly’ girl, or into princesses either, preferring Scalextric, or arranging her cuddly toys into intergalactic battle groups based on snatched episodes of Dr Who, lying behind the sofa, watching through her father’s feet, when she was supposed to be in bed.

‘Do you like dolls?’

He nodded. ‘Sami like dolls.’

He had finished changing the doll, was looking longingly at Baby Isabel. Jessie passed the doll to him.

‘The girl likes dolls.’

The girl.

‘Which doll is the girl’s favourite?’ Jessie asked softly.

Without hesitation, he held up Baby Isabel.

‘Why does the girl like Baby Isabel best?’

He shrugged.

‘Is it because she’s got beautiful blue eyes?’

Another shrug.

‘What about her sleep-suit? The castle? It’s very pretty.’

He ran his fingertips gently over the silky castle, but still didn’t reply.

‘Sami, who is the girl?’

He looked up, his brow furrowing. ‘The girl,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘The girl likes dolls.’

‘Is the girl you?’

He met her gaze blankly. She resisted the instinctive temptation to repeat the question with her hands spread, palms upwards, body language that would have tapped into an adult’s subconscious, urging them to respond.

‘Are you the girl, Sami?’

‘Grrrrrr.’ The growling sound, deep in his throat, a faint rumble.

Reaching out, he started gathering together his doll things, shoving them back into the plastic bucket, tossing each one in quickly as if it had become too hot to handle. A deep furrow had entrenched itself in his brow.

‘Sami, are you feeling frightened? There’s no need to be.’

‘The dolls are the girl’s.’ There was a quiver in his voice.

Hugging Baby Isabel tight to his chest, he stroked her hair, dipped his head and gave her a gentle kiss on the cheek, and then tucked her carefully back inside the plastic tub.

For a long time, Sami remained silent, the torch clutched to his chest, light radiating out from him like a lighthouse beam. His gaze was hooded, turned inwards on itself. Jessie had no idea what he was thinking, what emotions were churning through his fragile mind. But at least she had the sense that he felt more comfortable with her, was beginning to trust her.

Psychology with children was like watching a toddler learning to walk: a few baby steps forward, a totter backwards, a fall. Endless frustration. It couldn’t be rushed. Children’s minds were not robust enough to be actively delved into, forced, in the way that many adults’ could. Play was the only way to access the trauma a child of this age had experienced. Play enabled the child to reveal themselves at their own pace, as and when they felt comfortable to do so. It required extreme patience, not one of Jessie’s strongest points despite her chosen profession, and she sometimes wondered how she had ended up doing a master’s in Child Psychology at all.

No. She knew why.

7

‘What would you like to do now, Sami?’

He didn’t respond. Clutching the torch to his chest, he stared rigidly at the floor.

In one of the buckets was a plastic play-mat with fields and fences, winding lanes printed on it. There was also a farmhouse, and a collection of plastic farm animals.

‘How about we play farms?’ Jessie suggested.

‘Yes,’ Sami murmured. ‘Play farms.’

Jessie hefted the bucket over and set it in front of him. Pulling out the play-mat, she spread it on the floor between them. She placed the farmhouse in the centre of the printed cobblestone farmyard and sat back on her haunches.

‘Why don’t you get out some animals, Sami?’

He nodded, aped in a monotone, ‘Sami get animals.’

Both hands gripping the shaft of the torch, he hoisted it over the edge of the bucket, spotlighting each animal in turn.

‘Here is a sheep.’

Balancing the torch on the edge of the bucket with one hand, he reached in with the other and picked out the sheep. Placing the sheep in one of the fields on the play-mat, he reached back into the bucket.

‘Here is another sheep.’

He stood it next to the first.

‘Here is a cow.’

He repeated the process, his torch beam picking out a brown cow, a group of chickens, a dapple-grey carthorse, two pink pigs. Each animal was arranged carefully on the play-mat, the chickens in the cobbled farmyard by the farmhouse, the pigs in the sty, the cow and the horse in different fields. He seemed to be enjoying the game. For the first time since Jessie had met him, she heard animation in his voice, saw a flicker of light in his eyes.

‘You like the farm animals?’ Jessie asked.

Sami met her gaze and smiled a tiny, tight smile – the first hint of a smile that she had seen.

‘Sami like animals,’ he murmured. He looked back to the play-mat. ‘All the animals are in the farm. The sheeps, the cow, the chickens, the horse, the pigs, are all in the farm.’

Jessie glanced into the bucket; there was a dark shape at the bottom.

‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘Here, look, you’ve missed one.’

At the bottom of the bucket was a donkey. A black plastic donkey. Reaching in, she retrieved it, held the donkey out to Sami.

He cringed away, his face a mask of terror. Only his shoulders moved, their rise and fall exaggerated, as though he was struggling to catch his breath.

‘The donkey is dead,’ he whispered, through pale lips.

He stared at the donkey, unblinking. Shadows ringed his eyes, dark smudges in the pallor of his face.

‘The donkey is fine,’ Jessie said, her voice deliberately higher in pitch, jolly. She placed the donkey on the play-mat, in the same field as the carthorse. ‘Look he’s fine. He’s in the field with the carthorse.’ She turned the donkey ninety degrees so that it and the carthorse were nose to nose. ‘They’re having a chat. What do you think they’re talking about, Sami?’

He had started to tremble, his breath coming in quick, shallow bursts.

‘The donkey is burnt.’ Reaching out, he pushed the donkey on to its side with the tip of one finger. ‘The donkey is dead.’

‘No, Sami. The donkey is made from black plastic. It’s just a black plastic donkey.’

Sami shook his head. He rocked backwards and forwards on his haunches.

‘The donkey is burnt. The donkey is dead.’ He started searching frantically around him, eyes wide with fear. ‘Where is the blanket?’

Jessie wanted to touch him, to reach out and wrap her arms around him, keep him safe. But she couldn’t. Wasn’t allowed to. Modern political correctness made cuddling children – even distressed ones – forbidden. She had already taken a risk shutting the door.

‘Blanket? Why do you need a blanket, Sami?’

Ignoring the question, he delved into the dolls’ container, tossing dolls and pieces of equipment out on the carpet behind him.

‘Where is the blanket, where is the blanket, where is the blanket?’ he chanted in a singsong voice, almost under his breath. He found a pink doll’s blanket, a silky rabbit embroidered in one corner.

‘The girl knows.’

‘What does the girl know?’ Jessie asked softly.

‘Here is the blanket,’ Sami muttered.

Shuffling back across the carpet on his knees, he reached the play-mat. He laid the doll’s blanket over the donkey. Carefully, he tucked the blanket under the donkey, flipping it over so that the animal didn’t touch his skin, rolling the donkey up. He laid the roll of blanket containing the donkey on the carpet next to Jessie. Picking up the Maglite, he shone it on the roll.

‘The donkey is burnt. The donkey is dead.’

‘You think the donkey has been burnt? And the donkey is now dead?’

The little boy’s face looked suddenly old, lined with fear and sadness. ‘The donkey is dead.’

‘So you’ve covered it with the blanket?’

‘The torch can see. The donkey is burnt. The donkey is dead.’ Tears welled up in his eyes and a barely audible croak came from somewhere at the back of his throat. ‘The Shadowman came. The girl knows.’

8

Jessie found a parking space at the far end of Aldershot high street, shoved a couple of pounds in the machine and tacked the ticket to her windscreen. For a Tuesday afternoon, the high street was unexpectedly busy: shoppers, trussed up in padded coats, scarves and hats, gloved hands clutching bulging plastic bags, scurrying along, heads down against the chill wind cutting between the buildings.

She popped into Pret A Manger to grab a sandwich, ate it, sitting at a stool in the window, chewing but not tasting the malted granary bread, tuna and rocket – fuel rather than enjoyment. Back on the high street, she scanned the shops on either side of her, caught sight of the green triangular Early Learning Centre sign a hundred yards to her left.

There had been something about the animals in that farm that had resonated with Sami, both good and bad. In the two sessions she’d had with him, he hadn’t smiled once. The animals had achieved the hint of a smile at least, if only a fleeting one. They had also delivered the opposite: abject terror. From today’s observations, she believed that they might provide her with a way to access his mind; a door, ajar a fraction now, that she could perhaps push open. Particularly if she could recreate the farm, the timing and sequence in which he received the animals in the more controlled environment of her office at Bradley Court.

The Early Learning Centre was empty: the rush to stock up on large multicoloured plastic objects for kiddies’ Christmas presents had clearly not yet begun. A blonde sales girl, early twenties, was standing behind the counter, texting on her iPhone.

She glanced up and smiled. ‘Let me know if I can help you.’

Jessie returned the smile. ‘Thank you.’

The shelves bore a bewildering array of toys in all shapes, sizes and colours: dressing-up and pretend play, dolls and doll houses, vehicles and construction, art, music and creative play, a whole range of beach toys, incongruous given the single-digit temperatures outside and the chill rain that had begun hammering the shop’s plate-glass window.

‘The baby toys are on special, if you’re interested.’ The shop assistant had finished her text.

‘Oh, no, thank you. Actually, I’m looking for a farm.’

‘Action figures and play-sets … at the back,’ she continued, when Jessie couldn’t catch sight of the sign. ‘Follow me.’

At the back of the store were boxes of every conceivable kind of play-set: dinosaurs, pony club, police, army – tiny green plastic warriors in jungle camouflage – schools, hospitals and farms.

‘This farm is wonderful.’ The sales girl held up a large vinyl box. ‘The actual box unzips down the sides … look … and flattens out to become the play-mat.’ She rotated it so that Jessie could see. ‘It’s got a farmyard, fields and even a pond, printed on both sides. There are ducks inside to go on the pond. And it comes with a plastic farmhouse, a tractor and all the other farm animals.’

But were any of the animals black? Could she ask the question without sounding committable? Did she have a choice?

‘It looks perfect.’ Jessie paused. ‘Are, uh, are any of the animals black?’ she asked in a voice so quiet that even she could barely hear herself over the patter of rain against the plate-glass window.

‘Excuse me?’ The sales girl eyed her, unsure whether to take the question seriously.

‘Are any of the animals black?’ she repeated. ‘I, uh …’ How to explain this so she didn’t sound insane. The truth was far too complex. ‘My nephew likes black animals. His … his cousin – my sister’s boy, not my brother’s … this farm is for my brother’s son. He has a black plastic donkey that Sami … that Sam loves, so I wanted to make sure that at least one of the animals was black. He, uh, he likes black animals …’ she tailed off.

The sales girl didn’t look convinced, not that Jessie could blame her.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But you can always buy extra.’ With a tilt of her head, she indicated a row of narrow shelves, stacked one on top of each other, bearing small plastic toy animals of every description. ‘I know they’re a bit expensive, but they’re Schleich.’ She paused. ‘Hand-painted in Germany,’ she continued, ‘each one unique,’ when it was obvious that Jessie had never heard of Schleich.

‘Perfect, thank you. I’ll take the farm set and I’ll have a look at the Schleich animals.’

While the sales girl wandered back to the cash desk and her mobile, Jessie chose two from the Schleich set, a jet-black cow and a black-and-white collie dog, looking carefully through the dogs until she found one that had just a couple of small white patches on its body. How would Sami react to an animal that was mostly, but not entirely black? Would it engender the same horror in him as a wholly black animal?

She put the rest of the dogs back, ordering them one behind the other, so that, from the front of the shelf where customers stood to choose, they were perfectly aligned. She glanced at the other animals. They were in disarray, as if a tribe of kids had come in and trashed them, which they probably had. Looking at the mess in front of her, she felt the familiar crackle of electricity travel across her skin, a tightness around her throat.

Laying the cow and the collie on the floor beside her, she rearranged the horses, one behind the other in the same manner as the dogs, the foals, the goats, the sheep. She was so absorbed in the task that she didn’t hear the sales girl approach.

‘I can do that.’

Jessie started. ‘Oh, hi. It’s OK, I’m nearly finished.’

‘I can do that,’ she repeated, an edge to her tone. ‘It’s my job.’