He clenched his mum’s hand as they walked through the security gates into the huge, red-brick building that looked like a hospital, but wasn’t. She gazed down at him and smiled.

‘Remember: if anyone asks, we’re visiting your uncle.’

He tried to smile back, only his mouth didn’t want to move. He didn’t have an uncle and he didn’t like the way it smelt in here – like stale sweat. He wished that she wouldn’t make him come. The air was so full of anger that he expected it to actually crackle and hiss around them. Once a month they got the train from Brooklyn Bay for the two-hour trip to visit the strange man whom she made him call John. He’d asked if John was his dad, even though he knew that he couldn’t be. A proper dad would be home to take him to school and the park to play games. Jake’s dad played football on the green with them a couple of times a week. This man his mum liked to drag him to visit wasn’t really dad material; his shaved head showed an alarming number of scars on his scalp. He had thick, dark stubble on his chin and scary black eyes, which made him think of a monster.

They went through the door into the room where his mum had to empty her handbag onto a table and let a guard in a uniform search it. They would pat her down, then do the same to him as he cowered behind her. He didn’t know why they did it – all he ever had in his coat pocket was a stick of liquorice and his favourite dented, yellow Matchbox car, which he carried everywhere with him.

They would have to go and sit in the large room with tables and chairs. It reminded him of the school dining room; at least it didn’t smell as bad as the soggy cabbage the dinner ladies served. Only they never brought food out here – instead, a line of men were let in, each of them wearing the same clothes as the others, faded blue shirts and denim trousers. John was always the last man to be marched in, flanked either side by two of the biggest men he’d ever seen. He was always handcuffed and the men never left his side, only stepping back enough that they could still reach out and put their hands on his shoulders should they need to.

It was John’s eyes he didn’t like. They stared right through him and he always felt as if they were probing into the depths of his soul. He would sit and stare at his toy car or at the other kids in the room, anywhere but at the man in front of him. Some of the kids would be sitting on the other men’s knees, laughing and smiling. John didn’t laugh or joke; he always looked angry.

His mum would take the dark red reporter’s notebook from her handbag, along with the silver Parker pen that he was never allowed to draw with, and began to ask him questions. Sometimes he’d answer her and sometimes he wouldn’t. There had been a few times when John had just sat and stared at her, for the whole hour they were there. Not talking or moving, he’d just stared at his mum, those unblinking eyes watching her every move. He wanted to beg her not to come here, to this bad place. He’d asked her last time why they had to come and she’d cried for hours. She told him that she had to know the truth and the only way to find out was to keep on coming, even though she didn’t want to. He didn’t understand, but he didn’t ask her again because he didn’t like to see her cry.

Today was a lot different from the last time they’d visited. John was smiling and talking as if his mum were his long-lost friend. She kept her head down and wrote everything he said in the notepad. He did the same, keeping his head bowed; he didn’t look at John unless he had to. He knew the man behind the table was staring at him with those eyes so dark that if anyone asked he’d tell them they were black. It felt as if they were burning into the back of his brain. He looked down at the car in his hand, turning it over and over.

‘Is the kid a mute?’

‘No, he is not!’

‘Why doesn’t he speak?’

‘You scare him.’

This made John laugh. The sound was so alien to him, and what must have been every other person in the room, that a hush fell over it. All eyes turned to look in their direction. John was laughing so loud that he lifted his head to look at him. Then he stopped as abruptly as he’d started and winked at him.

‘You don’t need to be scared of me, kid. If I’d wanted to hurt you I’d have done it a long time ago, same with her. I could have killed her with one hand, squeezed her neck until it snapped in two and carried on eating my bacon sandwich with the other. That’s how easy it is.’

The two guards stepped forward; one of them drew the truncheon from his belt and poked John in the back with it.

‘Watch your mouth.’

He held his hands up and the heavy chains securing them rattled. ‘Sorry.’

His mum looked John straight in the eye. ‘Then why didn’t you?’

‘Because I liked you, I always did. You were much prettier than your sister; she had a mouth on her, that one. It didn’t do her any good in the end though, did it? She had a smart mouth and look where that got her.’

He looked at his mum, waiting for her to speak and tell John to shut up. He knew exactly where it had got his Aunty Linda. She was dead – her body had been found on the playing fields near to the house they lived in now. He’d heard the kids at school talk about the naked woman who had been found stiff and cold near the swings. It had upset him at first to hear people talking about his Aunty Linda like she was nothing, and he’d got into a few fights over it which had made it worse. One day he’d gone into school and found a yellowed piece of newspaper inside the desk he always sat at. Someone had written the word ‘prostitute’ in black felt tip across his aunt Linda’s smiling face staring up at him. He knew that a prostitute was a bad woman and he’d crumpled the paper up and thrown it into the bin. There had been sniggers from Mitchell and his gang of mates, who sat behind him on the back row. Now he never talked to them. He didn’t talk to anyone except his mum and his friend Jake. It was easier that way.