 An unsuitable marriage by Collette Dartford. Narrated by Sarah Borges. Prologue. It was Olivia who found the boy. She only went to the changing room because she thought that was where she had dropped her keys, and there he was, suspended from a coat hook, a black leather belt round his neck. At that moment she knew why people claimed not to believe their eyes. It seemed an odd expression, implying one's eyes had the capacity for deceit. But now she understood it completely. His face was ashen, a grayish sort of white, his lips tinged with blue. Olivia clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle a cry. She wanted to call the boy's name, but she was too shocked to remember it. Instead she lunged forward, grabbed his legs in a kind of bear hug, and took the weight of his body in her arms. The obvious thing was to shout for help, but the changing rooms were out of bounds after supper, so nobody would hear her. She released her right arm, taking all his weight in the left, reached up to the metal buckle, and pulled it undone with a hard tug. The boy slumped forward over her shoulder. Freddie Burton. Of course. Olivia laid him on the bench that ran under the row of hooks, and felt his vividly bruised neck for a pulse. Newhouse parents had to take the first aid course, otherwise she wouldn't have known that the carotid pulse can be felt on either side of the windpipe, just below the jaw. It was weak and faint, barely there. Freddie, she said, her voice artificially calm. Freddie, it's Mrs. Perry. You're going to be fine. She didn't know if that was true, but it seemed the right thing to say. As gently as she could, she maneuvered him into a sitting position, and from there managed to roll him over her shoulder. His build was as stocky as hers was slight, and he felt awkward and heavy as she carried him, firemen-like, along the dimly-lit corridor and out into the deserted quad. His bony shoulder pressed painfully into hers. She breathed through the pain, the way she had when Edward was born. A biting wind whipped fallen leaves into a frenzy. Its ghostly howls drowned Olivia's pleas for help, and she braced herself to scream. From the pit of her stomach, she released a shrill, desperate sound, bringing Leo Sheridan, Freddie and Edward's