Someone Else's Son (16 page)

‘I want to remember my fucking password.’ She punched in more keys, but it just didn’t feel right, wasn’t the familiar pattern her fingers made every morning to get things going, to see who was going to be on the show, to find out from her agent about the week’s bookings, interviews, appearances . . . ‘Leah?’ Carrie gripped the worktop. Words were grit in her mouth.

‘Do you remember the phone call from school, Carrie? Being at the hospital?’

Carrie felt Leah wrap around her, the tickle of her hair as it brushed her face.

‘Yes. I think so.’ Everything was blurred. Carrie pulled away and stood up. She went for more coffee, but it was all gone. It had made her heart beat faster; made her blood plump up her veins.

‘I’ll make some more.’ Leah refilled the machine. ‘Dennis wants to talk to you. He
needs
to.’

‘Yes.’ Carrie walked around the kitchen, her shoes clicking on the tiles. ‘Why?’ She felt it was right that they should talk; there was always so much to discuss. Sometimes they even spoke about when they were lovers, but for the most part they skirted around their brief affair. ‘Is it about Max?’ Carrie allowed her feet to fall sideways out of her shoes.

‘Yes. About Max.’ Leah guided her towards the living room. It was filled with police. ‘Talk to Dennis about Max, honey.’

She was used to everyone falling silent in her presence. She adored it when all eyes were on her. Being guest of honour at receptions, opening shopping centres, being interviewed on late-night chat shows, hosting
Reality Check
, Carrie Kent was never happier than when she was the centre of attention. But this wasn’t right.

‘I need to ask you some questions, Carrie. And I need your permission to take some of Max’s things away for analysis.’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘That’s all fine.’ She felt better sitting down, her long back supported by the white leather of the chaise, her head not so crazy. Whatever Dennis wanted.

‘First of all, I need to ask you if Max had any enemies. It may seem obvious but it could make things incredibly easy. Anyone he’d fallen out with.’

Easy? Things didn’t feel as if they would ever be easy, though her mind wouldn’t allow her to know exactly why. She thought her lips might be swelling up.

‘He didn’t have any enemies.’

‘Are you certain?’

She felt the nip of a frown. ‘He was a quiet boy.’ Carrie recalled telling him to stop making a din when he played that guitar. He had obeyed immediately and the house had once again become peaceful. She thought she might have heard a sob but that was all. ‘I don’t think he had any enemies.’

Something snagged in her heart.

‘What about at school?’

‘School?’ Carrie allowed her eyes to close. She saw a little boy aged eight, posing in his new uniform. They’d just bought it. He’d wanted her to take a photograph of him in his blazer and cap. Maroon and green. ‘He went to boarding school when he was eight.’ Then an image of a taller Max, a young man with a smattering of stubble and close-cropped hair, unlike the frizz of his boyhood; an image of him shouting, thumping the wall, yelling that he couldn’t go on there any more, that he was leaving.

Was blood leaking from her vessels, seeping into the tissue, bursting from under her fingernails?

It hurt so.

Carrie counted six people in the room apart from her. She wasn’t even sure she was actually there. Her soul felt loosened from her body, detached from reality. She wouldn’t have minded if they’d separated completely. She counted the panes in the Georgian windows. Thirty-six.

‘Tell me about his school.’

There was so much. She summed it up. ‘He was average.’ Why did she settle on that?

‘How long had he been at Milton Park High?’

Carrie had to think what month it was now. April. Not long since her birthday. Max had given her a garden shredder. He’d wrapped it in pink paper. She’d left it in the garage for the man that came on Thursdays to use.

‘Since last September. Two thousand and eight. He left Denningham the previous term.’

‘How come?’ Dennis sat close to Carrie. She sensed the urgency in him, smelt it on his breath. She looked away.

‘There were some kids, he said. Mean kids. That kind of stuff.’ Carrie swept back her hair. Her voice was a whisper, barely there. Did saying it mean it was suddenly true? ‘Max was different. Sensitive.’ She’d never introduced Max to Dennis the few times he’d stayed over. Either Dennis had left before Max got up, or the other way round. Max would have caused a fuss.

‘Was he being bullied?’

Carrie thought about this. She’d met some bullies in her time on the show. Parents who bullied their children, employers who made their workers’ lives hell, deranged men who drove their wives to seek refuge – they came in all shapes and sizes.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Definitely not. He would have told me.’ She felt sick.

‘But you just said there were mean kids—’

‘I didn’t say they were bullying Max, did I? There’s a difference.’

Dennis pulled a face which told Carrie that he didn’t think there was.

‘And how was he getting on at the local comp?’

‘It’s not
local
.’ Carrie briefly covered her face. ‘The school is in Harlesden near where his father lives.’

Carrie saw clearer than ever the precipice upon which she existed, that precarious place between the two realities of her life. Hampstead and Harlesden, only a short bus ride or chauffeur-driven limo apart. The desperate people she had on her show and her own privileged existence were at opposite poles of the universe but she couldn’t do without either.

Then there was her and Brody – a marriage doomed from the start.

Mother and son.

Her life then. Her life now.

Her life yesterday. Her life today.

Black and white.

‘Did it happen at school?’ A seepage of truth, of realisation. Sudden clarity.

Dennis nodded.

‘I want to see.’ She’d never even been to the comprehensive.

Dennis looked at his officers. A series of nods were exchanged. ‘When we’re done.’ He continued. ‘Carrie, was your son involved in any gangs? Perhaps since he moved schools he might have fallen in with the wrong crowd. Did he take drugs? Was he a drinker?’

‘Why are you asking me these things? Of course not. Max was a good boy.’ Carrie pressed her fingers against her temples. The pain between them was unbearable. Max would never be in a gang. He wasn’t like that.

‘Shall I get you a painkiller?’ Leah stood up from crouching beside her and soon returned with some pills.

Carrie took them. She began to rock. ‘This wasn’t meant to happen. He was my son. No one takes my son.’

‘Carrie . . .’

She stood. She strode to the kitchen and opened the lid of her laptop. Her fingers typed the password and her computer flashed to life. ‘My son’s first words,’ she said to the detectives following in her wake. Then the tears fell as if they had been waiting in her eyes all her life. ‘I was the only one who heard them.’

Unable to hold herself upright any longer, Carrie folded on to the floor, wondering who had been there to hear Max’s last words.

No one noticed when Dayna left the house. Kev had got back in a bad mood and lashed out at anyone in his way. He’d been laid off again. No more work, he said. All the jobs dried up like dog shit in the sun. He’d still been able to afford a slab of beer and a bottle of whisky, she noticed, as she slipped down the stairs. She put on her jacket and went out. Her mother and Kev were bickering in the kitchen about the police sniffing around earlier. They were worried about their benefits. Lorrell whined on the floor.

Outside, the air was cooler than this morning. She couldn’t believe he was
dead
. It was crazy. Her feet marked urgent strides and her head went dizzy. The walk that she’d done twice a day for the last few years suddenly seemed unfamiliar. She’d never particularly thought of her neighbourhood as ugly, but today it seemed apocalyptic, otherworldly, as if she was the only one left alive picking through the grey rubble after a nuclear war. Racks and rows of pebble-dash and iron-framed buildings spanned the horizon as far as her bloodshot eyes could see. The only relief, the only colour, in the entire scene was a bright red crisp packet blowing round in circles. Dayna picked it up and put it in her pocket. She didn’t like to see litter.

Ten minutes later, the top storey of the science block came into view over the rooftops. Endless lessons, pointless, she thought, chin in hand, backside sore from those stupid wooden stools, a desire to mix up all the colourful chemicals to see what havoc could be wreaked; to teach them all a lesson.

There was still some kind of fuss going on at the school.

Once she rounded the corner she’d be in full view of whoever was at the main entrance gates. As it was, she could already see the bright yellow jackets, the luminous tape blowing in the breeze, the neon-blue pulse of a police light.

Staying in the shadows, she took small steps. She strained her neck. Within the boundaries of the tape was a kind of tent thing. Four white-suited men were on their hands and knees just inside it. Looking for remnants of Max, she thought.

Dayna had wanted to take a closer look, to revisit the exact spot to make it real, because right now she didn’t think it was real at all. The only thing she knew for certain was the taste of the bile in her throat. Was the blood still fresh or had they washed it away? she wondered, getting closer. Picking up her pace, she bravely walked past the railings. She might just get a glimpse. No one would notice her; no one ever did, except when they wanted to beat her up.

She marched past, but there were too many people in the way to see anything clearly. She glanced sideways again at the spot where she’d left Max with the ambulance men.

Take time back, she thought. Rewind.

She cradled her belly. It ached. She wanted to throw up.

The door of a parked car opened wide across the pavement. Dayna darted out of the way. A woman got out.

She squinted at her, staggering sideways.

Didn’t she know her?

Dayna walked backwards for a few paces, hugging her coat round her. She stared at the woman as she was escorted into school by the police. One of them was that cop from earlier. Dayna thought the woman looked empty, lifeless, so very, very sad.

Then it struck her.

‘Oh,’ Dayna called out involuntarily. Wasn’t she the one off the telly?

The blonde woman stopped and turned. She lifted her dark glasses and stared at Dayna. She’d been crying. The woman’s mouth opened but then she dropped her glasses down on to her nose again and allowed herself to be led through the school gates.

It’s
her
, Dayna thought. It really is. Her heart sprinted and stumbled in her chest. What was Carrie Kent doing here? Was she making a show about it already? Was Max going to be on telly?

‘Oh no,’ Dayna whispered. She felt her feet breaking into a run. ‘No,
no
. . .’ she called out, charging down the street. She’d seen what that woman could do to people.

Dayna headed for the shed. She needed to be alone, near Max. Today wasn’t real and she would just wait for it to pass. When morning came everything would be all right.

 

Dennis wanted her to see the blood. The scene had, according to forensics, already been photographed and was now being thoroughly searched. Various items found there had already been sent away for analysis. Rain threatened and, even though a tent had been erected over the incident area, they had to work swiftly. They couldn’t have evidence washed away.

‘Is this it?’ Carrie asked.

Dennis nodded. He could almost believe they were checking out the scene for filming. He was so used to production techniques and hearing about camera angles, lighting and such, he had to remind himself that this was Carrie’s tragedy, not some stranger who would go on to become yet another statistic.

‘Whoever did this fled in a hurry. We know there were several of them.’ Dennis noticed Carrie turn away, bow her head. ‘Unfortunately we haven’t recovered the weapon. But at least there was a witness.’ How useful she would prove to be, though, was beginning to concern Dennis. The girl had so far been unhelpful. Whether she was lying or still in shock and unable to think coherently was as yet undecided. His experience told him it was the latter.

‘There was?’ Carrie whispered.

‘We’ll be interviewing everyone. We hope to get fingerprints, DNA, CCTV footage.’

Dennis felt himself detaching as Carrie nodded, walked up to the tape, teetered on the edge of the crime scene as if taking one step closer might send her over to the afterlife.

‘He died here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Just this morning. I don’t understand. This morning isn’t long ago, yet it seems a lifetime away. As if I never even had a son.’ Her voice was thin. ‘All those years together.’ Carrie lifted the yellow tape. She wobbled. ‘Just gone.’

‘You can’t go in there.’ Dennis was quick, his hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry. We have to observe from here.’

Carrie nodded. ‘Is that blood?’

‘It’s where the paramedics helped Max.’ It was easier to say it like that.

‘Max’s blood?’

Dennis was forced to say yes. He wanted her to show anger or vow revenge. He wanted her to remember something helpful, a lead, to swear not to rest until they’d caught the killer.

‘It’s so dark. Like treacle.’

Dennis felt Carrie’s cold fingers searching for his until they settled in his fist. He held her hand tightly, thrown by her vulnerability.

‘There’s so much of it. Did he suffer?’

‘He was stabbed, Carrie. Repeatedly.’

It was as good as saying yes, he suffered an agonising, drawn-out death and was left for dead in the dirt. Dennis didn’t like doing it but he wanted a reaction. He needed Carrie’s help.