Fire Damage: A gripping thriller that will keep you hooked. Kate Medina

he saw his father in the hospital, he started wailing, screaming and crying. Wouldn’t go near him. He hasn’t been right since. Eight weeks or so ago that was now.’

      ‘So you’ve worked here a while?’

      She nodded. ‘Nooria employed me nine months ago. Late February it was, shortly after Major Scott left for Afghanistan. I do a bit of housework and help out with Sami. Nooria loves to paint. She’s doing a foundation course in fine art at the Royal College of Art in London.’ Wendy pointed to a framed graphite sketch on the wall, Sami as a baby, with that trademark curly hair and huge dark eyes.

      ‘It’s wonderful.’

      ‘She certainly is talented. That’s where she is now. She goes to college on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.’

      Wendy continued to talk about Nooria’s painting, but Jessie tuned out. She glanced surreptitiously at her watch. She had agreed to meet Ben Callan at ten to four for the session with Starkey, wanted to have a good look through the file Callan had given her before the meeting. It was half-past twelve now.

      ‘Is the Major …?’ She let the words hang.

      ‘Oh course, yes. Sorry. I’m a talker. Always have been, always will be. In there, the sitting room.’

      Jessie had never met Major Nicholas Scott, but she had heard about him when she was working with PsyOps – 15 Psychological Operations Group – in Camp KAIA, the second of her two tours of duty in Afghanistan. PsyOps was a tri-service, ‘purple’ military unit, parented by 1 Military Intelligence Brigade, of which Major Scott was part, but they drafted in psychologists from the Medical Corps to advise.

      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