Billy Cooper had a secret never to be told.

Parents and teachers banned their children from using the well-worn trail across Berkley Common, ever since Alice Goldsmith disappeared on her way home from school one glorious Monday afternoon in September.

Billy met Alice only once, during lunch break on his first day at the school, the same day she disappeared. He hid himself away at the far end of the playground under cover of a small copse of saplings, staring out through the criss-cross wire fencing at passing traffic.

"Whatcha doing here?"

Billy twitched around to find a group of girls confronting him, their arms crossed in tight knots. The leader, a small girl with golden pigtails and rosy cheeks resembled a toy doll, a toy doll with an ugly frown.

"Yeah, you tell him, Alice," a lone voice called from the back of the pack.

"You're that Billy Cooper, the weirdo, ain't you?" When Alice spat out his name, her face screwed up into a tight red ball that made her pretty face appear demented. "What's he wearing? I bet even Oxfam refused them clothes." Behind her, the triangle of friends giggled in unison.

Unseen by anyone except Billy, a dark shadow landed in a tree behind the group, its beak as black as soot, the large body feathered in midnight and moonshine. The creature hopped purposefully to the edge of the branch.

"Are you listening to me, or what?" Egged on by her followers, Alice's pink mittens rolled into balled fists at her hips. "Sharon Matthews stood next to him in assembly, said he stinks like he's pooped his pants." After refolding her arms, she tilted her head to one side. "Ain't they got a bath where you live?"

Behind Alice, the group's laughter changed from giggles to raucous guffaws. Billy stared at blades of lawn between his shoes.

"How old are you?" said Alice.

"Nine."

"Well, we're ten and we was here first, so piss off, panty pooper."

Amid a final burst of laughter, Billy thrust his hands into the pockets of his school jacket and ducked away, back to the sanctity of the school building, pursued by chants of 'Billy Cooper, Panty Pooper'.

That afternoon, on her way home from school, Alice disappeared.

A month before, during the school holidays, Billy's mother had uprooted them both from a squat in Marlborough and brought them to Berkley, to live with Colin, another of her string of casual encounters. Billy feigned invisibility around them, her mother's boyfriends, to avoid sparking any violent tendencies, a ploy that worked more often than not.

Colin, a ruddy-cheeked LGV truck driver in his late thirties, pudgy and jovial, displayed no outward signs of aggression and appeared grateful for the company in his otherwise solitary world.

Late on Saturday evening, the week before Billy started school, Colin and Billy's mother returned from a local pub both the worse for wear. Ten minutes into a late night action movie, Billy's mother lay slumped in the armchair rattling out gentle snores. Billy, in his pyjamas, adopted his usual position, scrunched up on the floor next to the arm of her chair, watching the small television and waiting for the adults to retire so that he could make his bed on the couch.

That evening, Colin pointed the remote at the television and silenced the programme.

"You wanna play a game, little man?"

"Okay." Billy answered.

"It's a secret game, mind, so you mustn't tell your mum, okay?"

Billy continued looking at the television but nodded once.

"Only, your uncle Colin's off next week, driving his big lorry down to Spain and Italy."

Colin had allowed Billy to sit in the cabin of his Scania flat nose truck. The memory of the stench of leather, old tobacco and Colin's body odour could never taint the other sensation of flying, far above the ground, free from the world.

"So why don't you come over here and sit on your uncle's lap. Give him a cuddle before he heads off."

From an early age, Billy had learnt to endure these ordeals rather than resist. But as he got older, the beaters became easier to bear than the fondlers; the bruises they left might be visible but at least they were external and faded in time.

Only once had he informed his mother about one of her boyfriends who had hit him. Once only, because to witness his mother endure an even worse beating, to see her kicked, punched and dragged by her hair in spite of Billy's own painful attempts to intervene, had been enough to convince him that silence was better than any alternative.

He clambered to his feet and moved across to Colin's chair. Bitter whisky breath stung his nose and eyes. Turning around, he shifted himself into the man's lap and, staring ahead, began counting backwards from five hundred.

Lost in his personal mantra, he missed the dark shadow perched on the window ledge outside their third floor flat, its dark eye burning into the room.

Early Sunday morning, while his mother and Colin slept off their hangovers, he escaped the flat, emerging into a warm summer's day. Sore parts of him still burned from the night before but he had learnt to shut out the aches and cries of a healing body.

Only one other early riser had braved the morning, stepping out bleary eyed to fetch milk and the Sundays from the local newspaper shop. Billy wandered the streets until he came to the edge of the common where he spied a track on the other side of the road leading into the undergrowth.

He peered along the deserted road before crossing and disappearing into the path. Trees and bushes thrust him into a verdant gloom, the smell of rotting leaves and damp loam hung thick beneath the trellised sky. The anonymity felt comforting. Some way off he heard a passing car. With his breath held, he listened as the engine roared and then faded into the distance. Moving onwards, he traced the path deeper and deeper until finally he surfaced at the edge of a lake.

A thin web of mist still covered the surface despite the warming sunlight that dappled the trees and edges of the water. Flies buzzed beneath the vapour, occasionally touching the still water and creating gentle ripples.

In a clearing less than ten feet away, a row of black-billed magpies lined the backbone of a bench, twitching their heads to keep one dark eye on him. At first he froze, mesmerised by the sight.

Around him, the wind ceased its breathing and the trees incessant rustle faded away as though everything had stopped to listen. He raised a finger and counted out the seven black and white figures all the while stepping closer to the seat.

"One for sorrow, two for joy," he whispered. His mother had taught him the rhyme. "Three for a girl and four for a boy. Five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never to be told."

Within three feet, the birds became agitated and flew off in a flurry of wings. One sole form remained at the end of the bench, the seventh magpie, larger than the rest with contrasting feathers glistening as black as an oil slick, as white as smooth alabaster.

Once again, Billy crept forward until he was able to seat himself at the far end of the bench. The bird remained, eyeing him cautiously.

"Good morning, Mr. Magpie." he said. "How are you today?"

When the creature sidled two steps towards him and nodded twice, Billy let out a laugh of pure joy. He pushed a hand into the ripped pocket of his jacket and let his fingers trace the remnants of an old biscuit. Pinching the crumbs between thumb and forefinger, he placed them on top of the bench, halfway between himself and the creature. Within seconds of removing his hand, the bird wobbled forward and pecked at the morsels.

"I wish I could be a magpie." Even though Billy talked to himself, he enjoyed the bird's cool observing presence. "Honest I do. It must be great to be able to fly away whenever you want to."

Again, the old magpie nodded.

"I'd live here with you. Away from all that stuff back there." Billy talked into his lap. "And none of them could ever lay a finger on me again."

Without him noticing, the magpie had sidled up next to Billy's head. When the boy turned and jerked his head back at seeing the bird so close, it jumped down onto the bench and pecked at his hand. Billy scooped some more fine crumbs from him pocket and sprinkled them on the bench.

"Will you help me, Mr. Magpie?"

The bird twisted its dark eye to Billy before returning to the crumbled biscuit.

In the four weeks that followed Alice's disappearance, Berkley town, and in particular, Lonesome Primary School playground, woke every morning to a messy array of television cameras, vans and persistent journalists.

Ms. Morgan, the Headmistress, a stern woman in her forties who rarely smiled, became a focus of media attention. Her face appeared alongside photos of cherubic Alice and Alice's parents, on the cover of national newspapers, appealing for witnesses.

One Saturday morning, she even appeared on a morning breakfast television programme, her usual harsh voice tempered with awkward appeal, her face caked with unflattering make-up.

"Isn't that your head teacher, Miss what's-her-name?"

Billy's mother sat cross-legged on a kitchen chair. He placed a mug of black coffee and a plate with dry toast next to the two headache pills on the table in front of her. Her sleep-tussled hair hung in untidy strands; dark bags sagged beneath the bloodshot eyes of her pale, unmade face.

Since moving into Colin's flat, she had taken a part-time job as a barmaid to help contribute to the bills. Working the afternoon and night shifts, she rarely got home before two in the morning and rose after ten o'clock. For the third morning in a row she had been up before him. Earlier, he heard her throwing up in the bathroom. The previous evening, tidying the flat, he had found the pink packing of a First Response pregnancy testing kit tossed carelessly into the bin.

"Morton, is it?"

Billy nodded. He didn't correct her. Until his mother had returned to the bedroom and transformed from peasant to princess, he could not bring himself to look at her for very long.

"She sounds like Margaret bloody Thatcher." Billy had no idea who that was. He took another bite of toast.

"Listen Bill, Mum's got to pop to the doctor's at eleven, got a bit of a dicky tummy." She tipped the pills into her mouth, lifted the cup to her lips and took a mouthful of coffee. In one sharp motion, she tilted her head back and swallowed. "I'll call Stan, tell him I can't do the afternoon shift but you'll have to get your own tea again tonight, is that okay?"

At that moment, the shrill buzz of the front door bell sounded followed by two loud, precise bangs on the knocker. His mother unfolded her legs, startled.

"Who on earth could that be this time of the morning. Can't be Colin, he's got a key. Go and find out love."

The police constable at the front appeared impossibly tall. Billy had grown used to seeing policemen and women, they turned up at his school almost every day. This particular man seemed uncomfortable, his eyes seemed sad as though he didn't want to be there.

"Is your mummy or daddy home?" His gaze drifted past Billy. "Oh, good morning, madam."

Billy felt his mother's hand on his shoulder.

"Yes?" His mother didn't like the police and her tone became unnaturally flat and curt. "What can we do for you? Is this about that little girl?"

"Do you own this property, madam?"

"No, it belongs to Mr. McDonald, Colin McDonald. We're staying with him for a while. Why?"

"Can I come in please?"

Billy stood to one side and allowed the man to squeeze past him. Back in the kitchen the policeman sat with his back to the television.

"What is your relationship to Mr. McDonald?"

"He's my boyfriend. Why?"

"I see," The policeman looked at Billy and then over at a picture of Colin on the sideboard. "And when did you last see Mr. McDonald?"

"Two weeks last Tuesday. He's a truck driver. Due back any day now."

Colin had called on Sunday to say he would return Tuesday night but as the week progressed and there was no sign of him, his mother had become increasingly fretful. Being thrown out once the initial gild of partnering had scraped off, once the irritation at the invasion of privacy had started to resurface she could understand, but none of her previous liaisons had ever just upped and deserted her.

"Mr. McDonald's truck jack-knifed on a deserted country road outside Granada and crashed into a petrol station. Mr. McDonald and his passenger were killed instantly. The Spanish police believe he swerved to avoid something, an animal or a flock of birds perhaps."

Billy felt his skin prickle. His mother covered her mouth with a hand.

"Oh, my God. Poor Colin."

"Do you know if Mr. McDonald has any next-of-kin? Anyone else we can contact?"

Billy heard nothing more of the conversation. Behind the policeman's head, on the television, Ms. Morgan's eyes flickered to someone off camera then back to a spot at the bottom of the screen that only viewers could see. For the first time ever, Billy saw not the usual confident woman who patrolled the schoolyard but the uncomfortable nervousness of a woman out of her comfort zone.

His mother recovered from the shock quicker than Billy had expected. Once she had closed the door on the policeman, her main concern centred on whether they would be thrown out with Colin gone.

"Okay. Better put my face on. Don't want to give the doctor a fright, do we?" She kissed the top of his hair before heading into the corridor and leaving Billy alone with Ms. Morgan.

On hearing the front door close, Billy rose and went to the living room window. His mother had chosen to wear her cream woollen coat, black high heels and a matching scarf pulled over her blonde hair. He could only see her from the back but knew she was also wearing dark glasses and clutching her fake Burberry handbag.

She strutted across the car park as though on a catwalk, heading for the steep stone steps leading into the high street. Next, she would pose at the top and light a cigarette, like an actress in an old black and white film. He had watched her do the same thing many times before. With the cigarette lit, she dropped her lighter back into the bag and turned to descend the steps, but then something drew her attention.

Two dark winged shapes appeared to collide with each other in mid air and swoop towards her head. Instinctively, she brought a hand up to cover her face as the shadows rushed past. This time, she turned in Billy's direction, staring in mute horror at the sky. The shapes doubled backed and hurtled down towards her. Once again, instinct forced a hand to her face but also caused her to step backwards. Before she could right herself, her left heel slipped from the top step and she lost her balance, falling backwards and disappearing down the steep stairway.

Billy, the palms of his hands pressed to the window pane, watched as the policeman they had met earlier appeared and rushed down the steps in the direction of his fallen mother.

A week after the accident, Billy's mother sat reading an old Sunday tabloid she had brought home from the pub the night before. She still wore a bandage around her right ankle and hobbled slightly. They had only kept her in overnight but even so, Billy had overheard the doctor telling a nurse that his mother had lost her baby. Until now, she had not once mentioned her pregnancy to him.

"Your Ms. Morgan, eh? Who would have thought?"

The tabloid had run an exclusive about Ms. Morgan's affair with another woman, publishing photos of them holidaying on a Greek Island, laughing, both of them tanned and happy. In class, when somebody had thumped Billy's knee and passed the crumpled page to him under his desk, he looked at the photos and felt a sudden, inexplicable sorrow.

A week later, she resigned.

On the positive side, Colin had no surviving relatives and the local authorities agreed to transfer the council flat into his mother's name. For once in Billy's life, he had somewhere to call home. No matter what the cost, he cherished this more than anything else in his life.

Sadly though, for Alice's family, their daughter never returned home.

In the tenth week of the investigation, the same publication dug up information implicating Alice's father, alluding to his own father's history of domestic violence and, despite the police publicly corroborating Mr. Goldsmith's alibi, the world's glare finally settled on a new and plausible suspect.

After the initial shock, the kids at school grew to savour the attention. Alice's small clutch of girlfriends giggled nervously into TV cameras and when prompted, made huge, sad eyes and told touching stories about Alice. A playground boast became how many times you had managed to appear on television, even if in the background, in the playground, or on the high street while interviewers thrust microphones into the faces of random locals.

By January, as the first snows of winter fell, other world news overtook the events in Berkley and although life would never really return to normal for the generations who lived through Alice's disappearance, a semblance of order returned with some firm conditions, one of them making the path across Berkley Common strictly off limits.

Not for Billy though. He had grown to love the well-trodden trail that wound among wild gorse and rough grass, through the ancient forest of oak and elm, surrounding and concealing Seven Islands Lake, the songs of the chaffinch and meadow pipit, and on a really lucky day, the sight of a lone Kingfisher swooping to kiss its own reflection on the surface of the lake. In the woods, he felt an unwavering peace, a primordial kinship.

And, of course, in the woods he met his special friend.