BLOOD SECRETS a gripping crime thriller full of suspense by Gretta Mulrooney Page B

once Rowan took off. Sheila’s a funny one but when you think about it, it’s good she stepped up or the household would have ground to a halt. It’s hard to warm to the put-upon look though. I do feel bad for saying that. As for Teddy being depressed . . . He was such a vague presence, so . . . muted , I’m not sure that anyone would have noticed.’
    ‘Do you have any thoughts on the odd note he left?’
    ‘I never understood it. I do know that he was into mystical stuff about Druids and such, and teenagers can be so weird. My daughter went through a strange phase at fifteen, flirting with Scientology, but luckily she outgrew it when her hormones settled down. They’re an alien race, adolescents. Of course, maybe his father’s departure left him a lot unhappier than we realised. I know Tim struggled with it but he was always more vocal and emotional, which is probably better in the long run. He used to have terrible nightmares and he sleep-walked. He was still wetting the bed when he came here, I felt sorry for him because he was so ashamed. I do think coming here helped him and he had male company with my son Luke and my husband. I always think that’s so important for boys.’
    Swift didn’t enlighten her about Tim’s real feelings. She seemed a well-meaning woman.
    ‘I believe the last time you saw Teddy was when you picked Tim up during that July.’
    ‘That’s right. I’d visited just after Christmas and he was his usual unobtrusive self. He was pleased at getting a book about Druids. I remember he showed it to me. It was called something like Secrets of the Druid World . Then when I fetched Tim in the summer, he waved from his bedroom window. Poor lost boy. Poor Teddy. They look after him well in that care place, but what kind of life is it?’
    ‘Presumably you don’t have any ideas about why someone would have attacked him?’
    ‘Heavens, no. He was such an inoffensive boy. He didn’t deserve what happened to him. Well, nobody would deserve that, would they?’
    ‘Okay. Thanks for your help.’
    ‘I probably haven’t been much help to you. What do you think you can find out?’
    ‘It’s early days to make any prediction.’
    He gave her his contact details and rang off. He looked through his notes so far. Quiet, mystical, unobtrusive Teddy. Poor Teddy. Even the diminutive of his name with its echoes of the nursery seemed to accentuate his passive presence in the family. Yet there was anger and resentment in his note that belied the picture of a studious homebody. Swift made more coffee and browsed the web for a while, reading articles about the Otherworld. He flagged one about Druid beliefs for further study:
     
    Druids believed that the soul was immortal and that the dead were transported to the Otherworld by the God Belenus. Life then continued in this location. After the person died in the Otherworld, they were reincarnated to live again in another entity. This might be a plant or the body of a human or other animal. The soul rested in the Otherworld between each incarnation. After a person learned enough at each level, they moved to a higher realm, with its own Otherworld. This path continued until the individual reached the highest realm called the "Source."
     
    Swift, who held no beliefs about supreme beings or life after death, thought it sounded a relentless and exhausting process. He could see that if you were a miserable teenager who viewed life through a bleak lens, believing that people were self-serving and exploitative, it would hold its attractions. You might well be enticed by the magical promise of better things to come and animals and birds helping you. He thought back to when he was fifteen and his mother died. He recalled the feelings of desolation and confusion that swamped him, emotions that no kind words could alleviate. He remembered also how secretive he had been as a teenager, needing to fly under the radar. His stepmother’s blundering, well-intentioned interest