Sentinel by Joshua Winning Read Free Book Online

addition to the whole macabre circus.
    When the service moved outside into the rainfall, Nicholas got a sense of just how many people had turned up to pay their respects. Half of them he didn’t recognise, but some he did – his parents’ friends mostly, all looking smarter in their Sunday best than he had ever seen them.
    As the mourners congregated beside two freshly-dug pits in the cemetery grounds, Nicholas caught the eye of a scrawny woman whose hair had been scraped back into a tight bun. He knew her. Alice Gibbons, one of his mum’s livelier colleagues. From across the holes in the ground, Alice fixed Nicholas with such a despairing look of pity that the boy found himself doing the one thing he didn’t feel like doing. He smiled. There was just something about that wretched look that jolted a bizarre response out of him – one that both masked his true feelings and endeavoured to reassure the woman, somehow, that all of this was okay. He was okay. Couldn’t be better. He looked away before she could respond.
    The coffins were lowered into the earth. It swallowed them expectantly and Nicholas sensed the beginning of a horrible finality. His parents were gone, and nothing would ever return them. The rain that pounded the graveyard streaked his face, mimicking the tears that he couldn’t shed here. Sam’s comforting hand on his shoulder couldn’t help.
    In a towering oak that spread finger-like branches above them, a raven perched, hunched against the downpour.
    When it was all over, Sam drove Nicholas and Tabatha back to the house. There was to be no wake – Sam had explained that it would have taken too much organising, but Nicholas knew that the convention had been skipped for his sake. He wasn’t entirely ungrateful for that – at least he wouldn’t have to face all of the people from the church who had looked at him with such cloying compassion.
    At the house, a bleary-eyed Tabatha mumbled something about making a pot of tea before disappearing into the kitchen. Nicholas stood with Sam in the dim hallway.
    “That went as well as can be expected,” Sam said, bobbing on his heels. “Quite a good turn-out, don’t you think?”
    “They knew lots of people,” Nicholas said. He felt leaden inside. Heavy and empty at the same time. A used tin can.
    “Indeed,” Sam said softly. He took a breath, as if mustering the strength to go on. “As we discussed, I have arranged for your departure tomorrow–”
    “Tomorrow?!”
    Tabatha had emerged from the kitchen, red-eyed with a scrunched up tissue in her hand. Apparently realising her outburst, Tabatha blushed and hastily added: “Meaning no disrespect, but we’ve only just had the funeral. You don’t think it’s a bit soon, Mr Wilkins?”
    “I admit, things have been put on something of a fast track,” Sam mitigated. “But I feel that it would be for the best if Nicholas–” he turned to address the boy directly, “–the best for you if you were with your godmother as soon as possible. I’ve spoken with social services and they agreed, though it took some convincing that they didn’t need to come and see Nicholas. Luckily I know somebody there.”
    Nicholas was grateful for that. He didn’t understand any of the legal stuff that happened in a situation like this, but he didn’t fancy having to sit and talk to an overly-friendly therapist about his feelings. He was quite happy keeping them to himself.
    “Are you really sure that’s the best thing, Mr Wilkins?” Tabatha asked, stuffing the tissue up her sleeve.
    “I do,” Sam persisted. “It is in the interest of all that Nicholas is given a chance to settle down after all this. I believe that Nicholas is most safe – by that of course I mean safe emotionally – with the people that his parents wished him to be with. Fresh surroundings will do him a world of good.”
    “What do you think, Nicholas?” Tabatha asked, rubbing his arm.
    “If it’s what Dad wanted...” Nicholas said.