Burnt Paper Sky (11 page)

The retching was painful, convulsive and it took long minutes to subside.

‘Are you OK?’ It was Nicky. She crouched behind me, and I felt her hand on my back, rubbing between my shoulders. I couldn’t reply. The smell of my vomit was sharp and unpleasant. It made me feel ashamed. I leaned against the cubicle partition.

Nicky extracted a clean tissue from her bag, which she passed to me. She said, ‘Oh Rachel.’

‘I’ve been so stupid.’

I dabbed the tissue at the edges of my mouth. She handed me another and I spat on it and tried to rub the blood from my fingers.

‘You should have stuck to the script.’

She reached over me and flushed the toilet.

‘What do we do now?’ she asked Zhang, who was watching us.

‘We wait, somewhere more comfortable. When you’re ready.’

‘Wait for what?’ I asked.

‘Honestly,’ Zhang replied, ‘at this point, I have no idea.’

Fraser was furious after the press conference. I went to her office. She didn’t invite me to sit. Her eyebrows were so far up her face they disappeared into her hairline. Disbelief and disappointment fought to dominate her expression.

‘Am I right in thinking that Avon and Somerset Constabulary pay you a salary, Jim? And that’s not a rhetorical question.’

‘Yes, boss, they do.’

‘Then I need to see some evidence that you’re earning it! Not pissing it away! What the hell happened in there?’

‘I’m sorry, boss. Rachel Jenner went totally off message. I didn’t see it coming. I tried to…⁠’

‘Did you prepare her properly?’

‘I thought I did. We went through the script and she seemed happy with it.’

‘Seemed? Or was?’

‘I asked her if she was happy with it, she said yes. I thought she’d cope fine. I didn’t have a crystal ball, boss.’

‘You’re not going to have any fucking balls if you carry on like this. I’ll chop them off personally and use them as Christmas decorations for the girls’ lavvy. Rachel Jenner challenged the abductor. It’s the most dangerous thing she could have done. Even the desk sergeant could have told you that. The fucking street cleaner I drove past on my way in this morning could have told you that! I am not prepared to have a dead child on my hands because you’re gambling on the mother’s state of mind. If you send somebody into a press conference you need to
know
they’re prepared, not send them in on a wing and prayer.’

She was pushing the end of her pen towards me in little stabbing motions.

‘I’m sorry, boss.’

‘This case has the potential to turn into a big hairy beast if we don’t find the bastard who’s got Ben Finch quickly, and I don’t like beasties, Jim. Start using your head.’

‘I will.’

It was a proper dressing down. It was the worst start to the case I could have imagined. I braced myself for more, but she was finished.

‘Sit down for God’s sake,’ she said, and then, ‘Are we looking at a guilty mother?’

‘It’s possible. An outburst like that could be masking some kind of intense emotion. It could be guilt.’

‘Or grief? Or fear?’

‘It could be any of those things.’

Fraser’s pen was tapping again, this time on the desk. ‘We need to watch her carefully. Make sure Emma knows. Guilty of something or not, Mother’s a loose cannon. How did Dad react?’

‘He was angry.’

I’d had to restrain John Finch outside the press conference. He’d shouted in the corridor, blaming me, blaming Rachel, sobbing again, afraid that Rachel’s threats could have done Ben more harm than good. He was right to fear that. It’s what we were all thinking.

‘Do we think he’s genuine?’

‘I think he is. His wife’s confirmed his alibi. They were both at home together on Sunday afternoon.’

‘It’s a soft alibi.’

Fraser was right. We all knew how often spouses or parents offered alibis to keep their families out of trouble, motivated by love, or by fear, or both.

‘OK, let’s crack on. Damage limitation with the press, I’ll see to that, and for you the priority is interviews. I want information. Somebody saw something. Tell Emma to get Mother home.’

‘Should I interview Rachel Jenner again?’

‘No. Just warn her off speaking to the press. There’s going to be a reaction to this, I don’t think I need to spell that out. When you’ve done that I want you to get over to Benedict’s school. We need to show that we’re being supportive to the school, and the community. You can interview his teacher while you’re there, see if she’s noticed anything different about Ben lately.’

‘Yes, boss.’

The assignment felt like a punishment for letting the press conference get out of hand, and it probably was. A DC should be doing it, and both of us knew that.

‘I’ll get down there straight away.’

She softened slightly. ‘I would ask a DC to do it but the Chief’s keen that someone with rank is seen to be there.’

If that was supposed to feel like a comfort, then it was a very small one.

What happened next was that the attitude of the police towards me tightened, or perhaps I should say sharpened. It was clear as day to me, even though on the surface they still showed appropriate concern.

I first realised it when DI Clemo came to see me after the conference and could barely contain his irritation.

Zhang had brought me yet another cup of tea that I couldn’t drink, and sat my sister and me in a boxy interview room until my nausea had subsided to a manageable level and I felt ready to travel home.

When Clemo appeared his eyes were burning. He remained standing, his bulk dominating the space.

‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘you do understand that things didn’t run entirely to plan at the press conference?’

He was handling me. I tried to say something, to justify what had happened, but he held up a hand, even though he’d asked me a question.

‘Let me finish if you will,’ he said. ‘Our primary concern now is that there may be some kind of backlash against you. We suggest that you keep a very low profile around the press, as low as possible.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Don’t talk to them. It’s very simple.’

‘It’s for your own protection,’ said Zhang, ‘and Ben’s.’

‘What do you mean by backlash?’ Nicky wanted to know.

‘Precisely that. This is a high-profile case. The press conference was, unfortunately, sensational, and for all the wrong reasons. The public want to find Ben as much as we do, but unlike us they might not be looking for evidence before making accusations. Do I make myself clear?’

‘I understand,’ said Nicky. ‘They’re going to say that Rachel did it.’

‘They’re already saying it.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘Go home, shut the doors, pull the curtains, don’t speak to any journalists. DC Zhang will drive you back.’

‘What about Ben?’ I said.

‘We’re going to continue to do everything we can to find him and we’ll keep you posted on our progress.’ It was a phrase that was as bland and meaningless as a corporate slogan. If I’d ever had a connection with him, I felt as if it was lost now.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

At home, Nicky and Laura and I watched in silence as the footage from the conference played on national TV.

I’d been filmed in close-up. I looked as if I’d crawled out of a primitive encampment after a long siege. The injury on my head was prominent; it drew the eye like a disfigurement, and livid red spots on my pale cheeks made me look feverish, and deranged. My eyes sagged with grief and exhaustion, and roved around the room, restless and jumpy. Every flaw and muscle twitch and emotion was visible on my face, and the moment when I addressed Ben’s abductor was the worst. There wasn’t a trace of dignity or vulnerability, or love for my son. I simply projected a raw, ugly rage that looked heinous, and unnatural.

And yes, the blood on my hands was visible.

When I finally disintegrated, and was hustled from the room where the conference was being held, I looked like somebody fleeing a crime.

I don’t know why I’m describing all this to you, because unless you’ve been living in Timbuktu you’ve probably seen it. In fact even if you had been living there you’d have been able to look it up online.

The footage went viral. Of course it did. I understand these things now.

My sister and Laura reacted in ways that summed up what was to be the response of the whole country, Nicky representing the minority view.

Laura: ‘Everybody’s going to blame you. They’re going to say you did it. You look guilty.’

Nicky: ‘No they won’t, they can see how much you love him, how brave you are.’

Peter Armstrong came round later on. I hadn’t spoken to him since he’d taken Skittle away from the woods to get treatment, but he’d phoned regularly and Nicky had kept him updated. He was coming over to bring the dog home. He was sanguine about the reaction to the press conference.

‘It’ll blow over,’ he said.

He was a slender man with a stomach that had been concave since his divorce. He had dark hair that circled a significant bald patch, and stubble. He wore jeans, a loose sweater and trendy trainers that looked too young for him. He worked as a web designer, mostly from home, and I’d always thought he needed to get out more.

‘And anyway, it’s only ever a minority of people who overreact to these things. As soon as they find Ben, everybody will forget. Don’t dwell on it. Keep faith, Rachel. Your friends will still be there for you.’

We were kneeling around the dog basket, petting Skittle. The dog’s hind leg was in a pristine cast, which dragged behind him when he tried to walk. Now he was lying down, his tail managing a drowsy thump or two, but no more. He was wondering where Ben was. I was wondering what he’d seen.

‘The police spoke to the vet,’ Peter said. ‘They asked if Skittle’s injury could tell them anything about how he got hurt.’

‘And?’ said Nicky.

I could tell she liked Peter. He was the opposite of her husband in looks. Simon Forbes was twice the size of Peter. He had the unruly dark hair that their girls had inherited, albeit a tad salt-and-peppery around the edges by now, and dressed in corduroys, well-worn brogues and pressed shirts in country checks under old-fashioned blazers. However, aside from this difference, the two men did share a gentle, sensible quality that appealed to my sister.

‘The vet said that the leg looked as if it was broken with one clean blow, but that could have happened in different ways. It could have been a fall, or it could have been somebody striking him. No way to tell which.’

For a second or two there was silence in the room, an emptiness, which nobody wanted to fill with words, because we were all thinking about what that might mean for Ben, and how bad that could be.

‘How’s Finn?’ I asked Peter.

‘Finn’s upset. He can’t wait to have his buddy back.’ He struggled to keep himself composed. ‘But he’s OK. He’s OK I think.’ He didn’t look sure. ‘School are working hard to handle things.’

I hadn’t thought of that yet, of how Ben’s disappearance would affect the other children.

‘What are they doing?’ Nicky put some tea down in front of Peter.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Well, they’re not ignoring it, the Head has spoken to the children about it, I know that much.’

‘What’s he like?’ Nicky wanted to know.

‘He’s new.’

‘People say he’s a drip,’ I said. I hadn’t met him myself, but that was the consensus in the playground, swiftly delivered by parental posses, after the man had been in the job for less than two months.

‘Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far,’ said Peter.

Peter was a smoother-over of problems, an appeaser. ‘I think to be fair he’s been lying low, getting to know the role, and the staff.’

This was a polite way of saying that nobody had seen him since he started because he hid in his office most of the time, and that he hadn’t yet begun to tackle any of the school’s most obvious and urgent issues.

‘He’s very experienced, so we’re hoping he’ll be good for the school in the long run.’ Peter was also an optimist.

‘Miss May?’ I asked. She was Ben’s teacher, Finn’s too.

‘I think she’s been good.’ Peter sounded surprised. He wasn’t a fan of Miss May. I thought it was because she intimidated him, and maybe because he fancied her just a bit. He’d never admit to it, but I’d seen Peter blush when they talked in the playground. She was young and pretty and had a high attendance amongst fathers at parents’ evening.

I liked her on the whole, which was good, because this was the second year in a row that she’d been teaching Ben. There were certainly worse teachers Ben could have got: dishevelled and angry Mr Talbot, for example, who never marked any work and shouted. Or sociopathic Mrs Astor, who hated children pretending to be animals and was frequently off sick with stress.

Ben had been shy of Miss May at first, but she’d swiftly won him and the other pupils over by demonstrating that she could do a backflip in front of the class, and then cemented their relationship by helping him after John and I separated.

Ben had melted down after John moved out. He’d become tearful and emotional and sometimes angry. It was so out of character, that, very reluctantly, and against all my instincts to be private, I’d had to go into school and tell Miss May what had happened, and ask her to help us pick up the pieces. She’d done that in spades, offering Ben copious amounts of support, and I had to credit her for helping us rebuild our lives since Christmas.

‘From what I can gather from Finn, she’s been talking to the children about it, but not letting them dwell on it,’ Peter said. ‘She seems to be keeping them busy. She was in the playground yesterday after school, talking to parents, as was the Head, which people were pleased about. Most of the staff were actually. It’s beyond the call of duty I’d say.’

Peter was prone to using military metaphors in his speech. It was one of the things that had put me off accepting his offer of a date when he’d tentatively asked me out after my split from John became public knowledge. It was at odds with his creative-type persona, as if he’d somehow manufactured that personality type for himself, and not arrived there naturally.

‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Nicky. ‘I’d say it’s exactly what they should be doing.’

‘What are they telling the children?’ I asked. ‘About Ben?’

‘They’re telling them that he went missing in the woods, that’s the phrase they’re using, “went missing”, and that everybody is looking for him.’ Peter took a noisy sip of tea. ‘Finn’s been having nightmares since Sunday, because of being there in the woods with us I think.’

The thought of Finn’s concern and the memory of his anxious face in the car park made me feel Ben’s absence more vividly than ever. I thought of Baggy Bear upstairs, on Ben’s bed, and his nunny. I thought of Ben without either of his favourite objects, without me, without comfort, somewhere out there, going through something that none of us could imagine.

I crumpled.

‘Oh I’m sorry,’ said Peter. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve put my foot in it. That’s the last thing I meant to do.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I should go.’

Nicky showed him out, said all the things that I couldn’t, like ‘thank you’ and ‘we’ll let you know if we hear anything’, and ‘thank you again’.

I found Laura in the front room. She was on the sofa, hunched over her tablet.

‘I think this has the potential to go wrong for you,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s all over the net. Facebook, Twitter, comments on news websites, everywhere.’

‘What is?’

‘I was right. They’re saying you’ve done something to Ben.’