Ben (20 page)

I thought having tickets would be the end of our suffering. After killing so many hours waiting for the flight, we presented ourselves at the check-in desk – and stood open-mouthed as the woman behind the counter screamed.

‘The dog! The dog!’

We all looked at Ben and wondered how anyone could be scared of him. But the woman wasn’t afraid for herself.

‘Where is his box?’ she demanded.

Box? Even when we made out what she was saying in her excitable, high-pitched voice, we didn’t have a clue what she meant. She calmed down and pointed again at the little corgi.

‘The dog can’t fly without a box.’

It was the first we’d heard of that. Dad explained that no one had told us anything about a box when they sold us the ticket. Now it was too late to go and buy one. So, if the woman didn’t mind, Ben would be coming on as he was.

‘No, no, no, I’m sorry, this is not possible.’

‘Then I’m not going either!’ It was Danny. He scooped the oblivious corgi up and hugged him close to his chest, whispering, ‘I won’t leave you,’ into the dog’s ear. I felt my heart break, watching. We’d all coped as best we could over the last weeks and Danny had drawn a lot of solace from the company of his lovable pet. The idea of them being separated now was too much to contemplate.

And there was something else. Something symbolic. This Ben wasn’t going to be abandoned like his namesake, not if Danny had anything to do with it. He didn’t have to say anything, I just knew. It was an irony too grim to bear. I stared from the dog to the window and questioned again my own decision to leave.

I heard the airline woman call out to someone. All veneer of calm had disappeared. She ran over to another company’s desk and even when I couldn’t see her, the noise of her voice squealing and squawking carried. It was the same pitch and volume as Xanthippe’s – another reminder of the life I was abandoning.

We can laugh about it now but at the time it was horrendous. Danny was distraught. He was not getting on that plane without that dog. And what were we thinking, wandering around the airport with a dog on a lead? It’s farcical, really. Did we imagine Ben would just get a seat in economy with us? That he’d have a meal, pop to the toilets when he needed to? It was another example of how we weren’t thinking straight at all.

From somewhere a box was produced and, with minutes to spare, we were finally allowed to board. Danny wasn’t happy that Ben would be stowed away from us in the hold: part of him was convinced the airline staff were lying. Dad had to physically separate boy from dog, then drag Danny away.

I tried not to look out of the window as we took off over the Aegean, then banked left to head inland towards Albania and beyond. Somewhere out there, down below us, maybe on one of those islands passing underneath right now, was my son. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

I awoke as the Olympic 737 made its descent into Yugoslavia. It was the third time I had flown and the first time I’d done it without
Ben. What I would have given to have that small boy sitting on my lap again now. I even missed the screaming as his little ears popped.

The plane was on the ground about an hour. I didn’t question it and I was too zoned out in my own little world to notice why. Suddenly, there was a kerfuffle at the front of the plane as three suited officials boarded and spoke to the cabin crew. I didn’t take it in even when one of them pointed in our direction and marched down the aisle. Only when the footsteps stopped at the row behind me did I start paying attention. One of the men gestured to Dad and said, in heavily accented English, ‘You can’t take the dog into England.’

It sank in with Danny before the message reached Dad’s brain. My brother was uncontrollable.

While Mum tried to calm him, Dad learned that Ben hadn’t been booked in for Manchester.

‘You’re mistaken. It was done in Athens,’ he explained.

‘It was never done. Manchester has no papers for the dog. This plane cannot leave Yugoslavia with the dog. You have two choices.’

Danny clawed hysterically at the small side window as the plane finally took off once again. Stewardesses looked over disapprovingly, but they didn’t say anything. They knew a child in distress when they saw one, and they also knew why he was upset.

Hundreds of feet beneath us, Dad let poor Ben out of his cage to stretch his legs and answer the call of nature. Danny had tried desperately to get off with them but the officials had not allowed it. Dad wouldn’t have permitted it anyway. He read the newspapers; he knew Yugoslavia was not a safe place to be. Troops from both the pro- and anti-independence armies were heading towards the airport at that very moment.

On board the plane, Danny wasn’t the only one in tears. We couldn’t blame the poor Greek woman too much for forgetting to fax over Ben’s paperwork – she’d been busy enough finding his box. Without her, we’d all still be in Athens, and our tickets would have been wasted. Even so, it was torture knowing we’d left someone else behind.

We landed in Manchester not knowing what had happened to Dad. All we could do was wait. We checked the arrivals board and saw a flight due in from Belgrade in four hours. We prayed Dad and Ben would be on it.

They were. Had they missed it, I don’t know when we would have seen them again. The next day, Belgrade airport was closed as the warring troops battled for the area. Dad had only just made it out.

It seemed so unfair that all this was happening to us. We couldn’t even get home without a drama and without nearly losing one of us – and a dog. That God I didn’t believe in had a lot more to answer for.

We picked up our cases and headed for the exit to phone Uncle Derek. Around us there were tearful reunions as family members welcomed travellers home from all around the world. Everyone was so happy – and so oblivious to the suffering in their midst.

I couldn’t have hated them more.

Watching your loved ones in pain can be worse than feeling it yourself. As well as Derek and Nancy, Terry and Anne had also arrived to shuttle us back to Sheffield. I saw each one of them momentarily scan the hall for Ben. They couldn’t help it. It was habit. We were all just so used to seeing him.

Dad had arranged accommodation as best he could. He and Stephen would stay with his sister. Mum and Danny would stay with hers. Ben the corgi was in the custody of the quarantine officers for the next six months, and I would be staying with Grandma and Granddad.

We set off there first, in convoy. Mum wanted everyone to hear the full story in person. As soon as Grandma saw me, she broke down. She said what the others had thought. ‘I can’t believe he’s not coming back with you. It’s not real.’

It was 16 September 1991. The first day of the rest of our lives.

We’d come back to England partly for medical help, so I set off to register with a local GP. I was still on Grandma’s road when a woman did a double-take of me, then walked on. I ignored her, but I had the sense of being watched the whole way there. Just
before I walked into the surgery, another stranger said, ‘You’re Ben Needham’s mum.’

I racked my brain trying to place her face.

‘Do I know you?’

‘You were on the news, love. I’m so sorry for you.’ She gestured at her husband and children by her side. ‘We all are.’

I was gobsmacked. I’d spoken to every major news outlet while I was in Kos, but I hadn’t seen a single headline. I had no idea that the story of Ben’s disappearance had been front-page news on every paper and led the national agenda on TV for a week. All of Britain knew everything about us. Naturally, the Sheffield local press had given Ben’s disappearance blanket coverage, which explained why I’d felt so many eyes burning into me. I had to get used to the fact that I was a celebrity for the worst possible reason.

The GP knew exactly who I was as well, so I barely had to explain myself. For an instant fix she prescribed a course of diazepam, a strong antidepressant. For the longer term, she booked me in for two therapy sessions a week. She was a trained grief counsellor so if anyone could help me, it was her.

Mum and Dad had the same treatment. Stephen refused. He wanted to work through his problems without strangers.

I could see his point. I understood how medicine could help. Even as I left the first therapy session, I couldn’t honestly say that my doctor had done anything. It was only looking back I realised that that is the point.

In therapy sessions, the counsellor doesn’t say much. They want to hear from you. It was just such a relief to let it all out. In Kos, we had all lived in each other’s pockets. We depended on each other to get through the next hour, the next day, the next
week. The last thing Mum, Dad, Stephen, Danny or I wanted to do was hurt anyone else by revealing how much pain we were in. So we had put up brick walls around ourselves so the others didn’t know how we truly felt. But of course they were all feeling the same things.

All the pain, all the anger, all the horror that had been locked up, suppressed for the last two months, came tumbling out. I could actually feel the weight begin to lift from my shoulders. Years later, I know those sessions helped me a lot more than any drug. Mum and Dad say the same.

There was also more we could do to help each other. Four weeks after we arrived back in the UK, Dad secured a three-bed-room council house on Tunwell Avenue, in Ecclesfield, very close to where I live now. I loved my grandparents but for those four weeks with them, I felt isolated from the only people who knew and felt exactly what I was going through. Going to bed was the hardest. Alone with my thoughts, I replayed every doubt and misgiving I’d had about coming back. I dreamed about Ben at night and I was smiling when I awoke. Then I remembered.

The new house needed work so Dad said we’d do it ourselves, to get in more quickly. Stephen and Danny tackled the overgrown garden. Me, Mum and Dad worked on the inside, stripping carpets and wallpaper, plastering and painting. With the diazepam, the counselling and the physical labour, we just about got through the days.

As soon as we put our paintbrushes down, however, the guilt loomed large. How was this helping to find Ben? At least the daily routine of visiting the police station or sitting outside the nearby café had felt like we were doing something. Dad had covered
hundreds of miles searching around Kos. Over there, I could walk the streets, check alleyways and passing vehicles for a sign. As fruitless as it was, at least we were doing something. Now, 2,000 miles away, we were caged animals. I could not have felt more useless.

We weren’t the only ones desperate for activity. Simon’s father, Cliff, wrote to his local MP, Sir Peter Tapsell, who passed information about the case to the Home Office. They in turn contacted South Yorkshire Police, who contacted me. I was assigned a liaison officer, the lovely matter-of-fact copper, DS Bert Norburn, who said he would be my point of contact for all matters to do with Ben’s case.

‘You mean South Yorkshire Police are investigating it now?’

When he nodded I could have kissed him. It was all we had wanted, right from the moment Ben disappeared. It was no shame that the Kos police didn’t have the expertise to hunt for a missing child; the only shame was that they were too proud or lazy to ask for help. For the first time, I felt confident the right things would be done.

There was a caveat, however. South Yorkshire Police’s remit stopped at the UK borders. Any investigation they did would run alongside the Greek efforts. Any results would be passed onto Kos and it would be up to Dakouras and Co whether they acted. I already guessed the answer to that, but Bert assured me everything that could be done from the UK end would be.

The first thing South Yorkshire Police did was to announce a press conference. Bert didn’t pull any punches about what it would be like for me.

‘This could be really helpful. But,’ he warned, ‘I guarantee it will be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do.’

He wasn’t exaggerating. The Sheffield police station has a large room designed to host dozens of members of the press and television companies – and it was packed to the rafters as I gingerly took my seat alongside Bert and the lead investigating officers. Behind me, on a giant projection screen, were huge pictures of Ben’s face. I hated having my back to them but every glimpse I took brought the tears closer.

The detective in charge led the presentation. He gave a synopsis of the events of July, and then outlined the purpose of the conference.

‘We’re appealing to any British tourists heading to Kos, to Corfu or any of the Greek islands or mainland to be vigilant for a little blond boy who looks out of place.’

As the holiday season was nearing its end, he also had a message for those who had already been away.

‘If you’ve been to Kos, please check your photographs, check your videotapes and home movies. Look in the background: is there a little boy? Have you got a picture of Ben in your holiday album?’

It was powerful stuff. Then the spotlight was turned onto me.

I was absolutely petrified. Journalists called out questions and at first I just sat, too stunned by the whole scene to speak. When I did open my mouth, there was a lightning storm of camera flashes and I had to turn away. I was so annoyed with myself. I had essential information that I needed to give out but it was hard. Flash after flash, question after question. It seemed like a lifetime but it was only an hour. I got through it but I must have looked shocking.