45

He’d never seen a laugh quite as ugly as the neighbour gave then. It bared his yellow teeth and brought up bile in the coughs that lived with it.

“The girls' mothers, well, that’s a bloody good question. And yes, your new guardian would never speak to you about them, you’re quite right about that,” heaved the neighbour.

Calum shrank back from him again. Felt his back press up against the wall. He was still sitting, pulling his knees in towards his chest. He quietly waited in hope that he’d continue. He watched as the neighbour stood opposite him, almost at a lectern, as though he were about to give a speech. But instead, he’d lifted a lid off a case before him and stood, gently palming the items within.

“Your Mr Armitage wouldn’t have told me anything about them had sweet Bethany not told me her recollection first, though she’d been so young then. She asked me because she had questions herself, and had come to discover, as you will soon, that this guardian you’ve found for yourselves speaks in riddles. Granted, he’d make you feel as though he’d told you the story. But I know the man, I know how hard it is to get him to tell the truth.”

The neighbour stepped back before crossing his arms across the base of the case that lay before him. He bent forward and rested his forehead on the hard bone of his right forearm and exhaled deeply. He spoke then.

“The girls had been young, Bethany, the middle sister, was six when it happened. She had recalled the arrival of the great man from England who had been welcomed on their reserve. He’s not easily forgotten, that one. Your Mr Armitage lived with them for three years, travelling with them, learning how they build, how they use the land, what and how they cook. He’d listened to their stories and embedded himself with their people.

The girls knew each other then, but as many of the young children did. Their mothers were close, but they were by no means sisters, though they would become so that night. As Bethany recalled, they’d been out, out playing in the woods. One of the boys had built a shelter, and a whole group of the kids were planning to stay there that night. Some of the older boys had turned it into a real camp, and they played music. They sat singing and eating breads they’d taken with them. Bethany said she smelt smoke before she could see it through the trees. They ran back then. It was dark, but they followed the sound of the screaming and the crying. When they arrived, they saw the house. It would be mostly rubble by the time the fire engine arrived.

The other children who’d arrived back were in the arms of their mothers. Their fathers took the girls home, but quickly became utterly useless. Here, I’ll thank him for that. For that and nothing more, I daren’t say what further horrors those girls might have known had he not intervened at that moment.

Enough of that. He did plenty of damage, too. I’ve wondered whether the great man did all the damage. Regardless, those were the circumstances of the deaths of the girls' mothers. Tragedy strikes and the guardian appears, as he has again for you.

When he’d finished, he asked Calum, “Why do you ask?”

“Um, may I ask, what were their mothers like when they found them? I mean, did they have their eyelids? And, well,” he hesitated, “their scalps?”