Chapter 20

LIAM

I'm used to noisy worksites—you can't take down buildings without a few bangs and crashes, but finding what turns out to be a time capsule left by former kids and teachers means calling a halt to my demolition. The library is silent for days—in stasis—caught in a weird kind of suspended animation where everything needed for the project is ready and waiting, only nothing happens.

That could describe me, couldn't it? Not that I'm ready for a rebuild like Glynn Harber. More like, if this were any other job, I'd have already moved on. Made tracks. Created distance. At least I'd have made some phone calls instead of getting all creative with excuses to stay right where I am when I could be pulling my next Blackpool job forward. But here I am on Friday, still here, still pitching in with Dom's team, and still hunting in the foundation for more old music. The whole time, I keep getting drawn to that outdoor classroom like it's my magnet, and right now? It sounds like Rowan's staging his own demolition.

That's the sound the kids make, and I'm not the only one who hears it. Dom's already at the barrier, watching his daughter go wild with a shaker. She also marches with all the other kids, and that's what accounts for all the thumping while Rowan plays for them on his whistle. He points at each child in turn, and each one gets a moment in the spotlight.

Dom's delighted. "Jesus. What a fucking racket."

He isn't wrong. These kids make enough noise to raise the dead, and with so much more than Pringles shakers. Upturned buckets and washing-up bowls get beaten with spoons, and a tambourine jingles. It's chaos. Madness.

The kids love it.

Another drumbeat is near constant. One little boy bangs out a determined boom boom boom, his arms swinging like it's a job he's paid for; he's so focussed, only he bangs on a real bass drum, not an upturned bucket. That's where Rowan joins him to finish this music session by sitting behind a snare and launching into the kind of solo that shouldn't be possible on so little equipment.

He's got skills, no doubt about it. Rowan doesn't hog the limelight with them. He shouts, "High hat, Hadi," and that little boy takes the drumsticks, and goes all out, which must be a signal for the whole class to go nuts.

If I were anywhere else, I'd grab a pair of the ear defenders I usually hate wearing. Trap myself listening to my internal fucking bullshit? No thanks. Actively lock myself in with my incessant high-pitched whine and static? Fuck, no.

I save wearing defenders for moments that might cause additional aural damage—for real explosive bangs and concussive crashes. Here? I soak up high decibels like a twat with no sense of self-preservation until the headmaster approaches.

I nearly swerve away then. Not because Luke Lawson makes me nervous. Apparently, that's Rowan's wheelhouse. At least, that's what I notice when he finishes playing his whistle again with a wild and wicked flourish only to spot his boss watching. Him going still so quickly is enough to keep my feet planted. So is the way Rowan doesn't move for several long and silent seconds.

It's like some kind of paralysis has got him.

I've seen that strike before, and not only under fire half a world away from Cornwall. I've witnessed it on moorland only a ten-minute drive from here, haven't I? Saw him go this still after a performance that seemed to surprise him as much as me until I started clapping. I clap again now like I did then, and the acoustics here must be similar as under that tor because my claps thunder all over again, and Rowan's thaw is instant.

I'd think I was mistaken that he was nervous if I didn't see him wipe his hands on his trousers before heading for his boss, who he joins at the fence along with the class teacher.

I join my own boss then at the barrier just behind them, but it's Rowan I don't take my eyes off.

I can't.

At least Dom doesn't take the piss out of me for that this time. He's too busy being a nosy fucker, like me. We both eavesdrop on a conversation that starts with his boss telling Rowan, "That was brilliant."

"Really?" Rowan's smile is tiny. Barely there. Uncertain. It should still come with a health warning especially when he meets my eyes over Luke's shoulder for a split second.

I nod firmly, and there he goes all over again, grinning. Fuck a health warning. A smile like his should come with a prescription for bedrest. With him. It's so brilliant.

"Really brilliant," Luke confirms. "And Charles just told me about your quick thinking. Thank you, Rowan. That was brilliant of you as well."

"It was?"

"Yes." Luke explains why. "He said you noticed Hadi's reaction to the demolition work in the courtyard."

He must mean where I got creative by suggesting me and Dom's team could take down a storm-damaged gable at the end of the stables. Working on that had seemed a good way to fill time while the library was off-limits. Spending the next hour taking down the rest of the storm damage had been a no-brainer. Now I get to hear what us making that pile of rubble prompted.

"Charles said that you shifted gears fast to mask the sound." Luke turns to include us, giving a sudden and stark reminder of a photo on this school's website. Not that I spent a lot of time searching it while I was away on my last job, just long enough to find Rowan's photo on the staff page. Now Luke shows me those forehead furrows, aiming what he says next directly at me.

"My son." He points to a very happy drummer still playing with that high hat, his ting ting tings now so much lighter. "The sound of that stable wall coming down would be a horrible reminder for him." Of what I'm not sure until another overheard conversation trickles back about some kid here having PTSD. All Luke says is, "Rowan must have realised that drumming might help to mask your demolition."

The class teacher confirms that. "I didn't realise Rowan's little legs could run so fast." His gaze is merry, sparkling. "Whoosh! Off he went, like a rocket at break time."

That's around the time we got noisy, bringing down granite blocks and smashing them into useful pieces for the library rebuild. I'm still not clear on how that relates to those PTSD initials, which feels a lot like wearing my defenders. I'm alone, but for once I want to know more—to be involved in this conversation—to be part of a group that has Rowan at its centre. I'm all ears as his teacher finishes explaining.

"Then he was back with part of the school drum kit."

"No. This is pretty much all of it." Rowan points to that bass drum, a snare, and that high hat. "Glad it was enough to make a difference."

I've seen Rowan covered in sheep shit while laughing. Seen him blissed out after coming so hard you'd have thought it was the first time anyone lit that fuse for him. But this version of happiness on him? It's like watching a rose unfurling. He's pink with pleasure. "It was no big deal to change plans."

"No. It was a lot." His boss is firm about this. "Today? To Hadi? Your quick thinking was everything."

I blink at what that praise does to Rowan. You'd think no one ever told him that he was useful. He almost squirms with pleasure. I see more of that when his class teacher tells him, "It was beautifully planned. You having all those buckets and washing-up bowls ready? Genius. Good thing we had enough spoons. One set of real drumsticks really isn't enough to keep in your box of tricks, is it?"

Luke's frown deepens. "Is that really all we've got? One set for all the little ones?" He pulls out his phone, tapping a note to himself. "Right. The next time I can squeeze some cash from the budget, whatever you need is at the top of the list." His forehead is still furrowed when Charles clasps his shoulder.

"Hadi wasn't scared for long, I promise."

I blurt, "Scared?" before realising I'm not part of this conversation. Not part of this school. I'm passing through, that's all. I still can't help apologising. "I'm sorry. It was my idea. I didn't?—"

"Mean to scare anyone?" Luke's gaze drops. I realise I'm clutching the barrier. I can't let it go, not when he says, "Of course you didn't mean to. You were only doing your job."

I've heard that before. Seen it written in reports. I also took responsibility back then like Luke does now.

"I'm the one who should have predicted and planned to keep him safer." He also answers more of my unasked questions. "Because in Cornish, the words Glynn Harber mean valley refuge, and a refuge is exactly what Hadi and his sister needed after losing their family in Syria. It's what he still needs whenever he's reminded."

Little Maisie Dymond lifts her arms up on the other side of the fence, and Dom vaults the barrier to head for the gate, perhaps to shield her from hearing this. I cross it too, so Luke can keep his voice down, and Rowan drifts in my direction until there's only wood and wire between us. He's almost shoulder-to-shoulder with me, and I'm glad he's there to lean on when his boss gives more detail.

"Jamila is too little to verbalise what happened when they were first shelled."

"First?"

"Oh, they've both survived multiple shellings. The first was the worst. Hadi lets us know every single time he faces what orphaned them both. That's how I know that I set off this latest crisis, not you."

He's devastatingly honest, but I get it—there's no denying pain when you're the one who caused it.

Luke watches his son, his voice still low. "Only I set it off here." He gestures around us at this high-sided valley. "Right where he's meant to feel safest."

Maybe I shouldn't ask, but the question slips out. "How?"

"By crossing a bridge in the woods while carrying his only surviving family." Here's another bare look from Luke. "That's where he lost his family—on a bridge. I didn't know that. Not then. And I didn't realise the one in the woods was in such bad shape until it almost collapsed with me and Jamila on it. It breaking must have sounded just like…"

Warfare.

Like the end of the world for another family unit.

I don't need the fine detail. I can easily imagine, so I nod, and he continues.

"It all came back then. Everything he'd locked away. Now he can't face any type of crossing, but he wants to. He's got more than enough language to tell us that. He wants to stop being frightened. To stop losing sleep. To stop checking over and over that we're all still with him. That's why Charles and Rowan have been building bridges for him. Not to relive that moment or all of his awful losses. Everything they've been doing for weeks now has been to help him rebuild trust in himself. To grow his resilience."

"It's working?"

"Hopefully. Small and steady exposures should help him." He points out what I thought were trip hazards. "A bridge getting bombed isn't the only conflict Hadi's lived through, but this is the first time he's been able to tell us about losing his family. Up until now, he hasn't ever mentioned them. He's still only vague now. The detail is too painful, but he's voiced how alone it left him. How isolated. How each time he can't cross a bridge feels like letting down his special people."

I'm aware that Luke keeps talking, but I can't look away from Rowan. Not yet. Not when his face bleeds pure compassion, likehe understands this.

Luke's voice fades. "Hadi thought I was disappointed when he broke down that first time."

Rowan nods, his eyes suddenly shiny, and fuck whoever told him that word was his label. Fuck a school he's already told me he didn't fit in. Disappointing? I don't fucking think so.

I'm jerked back to the here and now by his boss directing a question at Rowan. "Loud noises scare him, so we've been avoiding them. What made you give him something even louder to bash away on?"

Here's another frozen moment until Rowan chokes out, "Because Charles told me that getting really physical helps when kids are stuck, and—" His mentor nodding must help. This floods out faster. "Drumming drowns out everything else. Can feel like a fight you actually get to win. Makes you feel powerful when you have no choice?—"

He stops as abruptly as he started until his boss murmurs, "Go on."

Rowan does. "I don't know when I forgot about that powerful feeling." He scuffs at playground flooring as soft as his confession. "But I did forget, right up until I got here, so really you're thanking the wrong person."

It's me he lifts his eyes to.

Me his gaze searches.

"I wouldn't have remembered without Liam. He set the beat with his sledgehammer this afternoon. I just followed. We all did."

His mentor agrees. He also casts a quick glance between Rowan and me. I'm almost sure he winks before asking. "Luke, wouldn't it be a good idea if Liam got to meet our guest this evening?"

Luke nods. "To look through what's in the time capsule? Good thinking." He faces me. "Come back at seven? Share some supper with us and meet an expert at preserving old papers? He's going to work through the contents with the pupils. The whole school will be there. Actually…" He looks over his shoulder to where Dom dances with his daughter. "I better invite Dom's crew."

He leaves to do that while his son must have left the high hat to bang again on that big bass drum. It might as well be thumping away inside my chest when Rowan asks, "I know crowds aren't your thing. It'll probably be really noisy." The only word for his request is hopeful. "Want to come with me?"

He already told me wild horses couldn't drag him back to his old school.

Right now, wild horses can't drag me away from this one.