“Yep. So all we know about its residents at the time of the fire—in which most of them died—comes from a skimpy old police file, actually from one interview in that file, with a staff nurse who survived the blaze. By the way, there was no problem establishing arson as the cause. Apart from the orphanage’s four buildings going up in flames at the same time—and apart from gas cans being found in all four—the outer doors were jammed shut with wooden wedges.”

“Meaning the goal was mass murder. But it sounds like the fire was the end of the story. What was the beginning?”

“According to the nurse’s statement, a couple of years before the fire, a strange little kid was discovered one winter morning, literally on the front steps. The kid appeared to be mute and illiterate. But then they discovered that he was fluent not only in Bulgarian but also in Russian, German, and English. This nurse got the idea that the kid was some sort of idiot savant with languages—he was that good. So she got him some basic grammar books, and sure enough, during the two years he was there he learned French, Turkish, and God knows what else.”

“Did he ever tell them where he came from?”

“He claimed total amnesia—no memory of anything prior to arriving there. His only link to the past was a chronic nightmare. Something involving a carnival and a clown. They ended up putting him in a separate room at night, away from the other kids, because of how often he’d wake up screaming. For some reason—maybe because of there being a clown in the dream—the nurse got the idea that his original mother had been in some kind of creepy little traveling circus.”

“Sounds like quite the unusual child. Any big red flags pop up before the fire?”

“Oh, yeah. Big one.” Hardwick paused dramatically.

It was one of his habits that Gurney had learned to live with. “You want to tell me about it?”

“A couple of kids made fun of him, something about the nightmares.” Another pause.

“Jack, for Christ’s sake—”

“They disappeared.”

“The kids who made fun of him?”

“Right. Off the face of the earth. Same thing with an aide who didn’t believe his amnesia story, kept taunting him about it. Gone. Zero trace.”

“Anything else?”

“More weird shit. Nobody could tell how old he was, because in the two years he was there he never changed, never grew, never seemed to look any older than the day he arrived.”

“Like Peter Pan.”

“Right.”

“Was he ever called by that nickname at the orphanage?”

“There’s nothing about that in the Bulgarian file.”

Gurney ran the story back through his mind quickly. “I’m missing something. How do we know this orphanage kid is the same kid the Panikos family adopted?”