Someone Else's Son (17 page)

She swallowed and said blankly, ‘OK. Thank you.’

Dennis turned her to face him. This wasn’t the woman he knew, the woman he had worked with for years, the woman who commanded a prime-time television slot and shocked, appalled or incited outrage. Carrie Kent didn’t say
OK
, and rarely did she say
Thank you
.

‘Who did it, Carrie?’ He made her look at him. ‘Who did this to your son? He must have had friends visit, talked about who he liked, disliked. You’re going to have to help me here.’

‘I . . . I . . . work long hours. I wasn’t always home.’

Dennis could almost smell it, the guilt seeping out. He found himself wanting to cup her face, push back her hair, draw her to him. It had always been on her terms.

‘Let’s hope his computer and phone throw up some answers. Meantime, I’ve got detectives interviewing every pupil and member of staff here.’

‘Will you go to his old school?’ Carrie asked quietly.

‘If necessary, yes. Depends what we uncover here. Tragic as this is, it could just be a case of Max being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kids carry knives. They use them.’

Carrie nodded and walked back to the waiting car. Dennis thought how small she looked. He would take her home then get back to the incident room for an update.

As they drove away from the school, raindrops smacked against the windscreen – slow at first but then urgent and heavy. The dark sky had come from nowhere. He prayed that forensics had made good progress.

 

‘Jess.’ Dennis nodded a greeting. She sat down on the other side of his desk. They’d talk things over between them first, before releasing an updated brief to the rest of the team. ‘Anything?’

DI Britton dutifully handed over a couple of reports. ‘The first of the school interviews. To sum up, Max wasn’t a particularly popular pupil. His classmates said he kept himself to himself and hadn’t really bothered making friends since he’d joined the school in September. It was almost as if . . .’

‘What?’ Dennis leant forward on his desk but then retreated when he saw the piles of other cases that needed dealing with. He couldn’t face them.

‘It was as if the other kids enjoyed slagging him off, even after he was dead. Like it made them feel big.’

‘Pack mentality,’ Dennis added. ‘Anyone in particular?’

‘A couple of names kept coming up. Gang-related stuff. Blake Samms and Owen Driscoll were mentioned. They’re both off the Westmount estate. If they’re not directly involved, I reckon they’ll know something. No one was particularly willing to talk, but that’s normal.’

‘Have we paid a visit yet?’

Jess nodded. ‘I’m expecting the guys back soon.’

Dennis bit his lip. He drained cold coffee from a plastic cup. ‘I’m going to see the father after the brief. Want to come with me?’

‘Most definitely,’ Jess said, already standing. ‘Should be interesting.’

‘How come?’ Dennis put on his jacket. His right shoulder ached.

‘Because he lives on the Westmount estate too.’

 

He’d sent Fiona away. He wanted to be alone, utterly and finally drenched in solitary darkness. He wanted to gouge out his ears so he was deaf; cut out his tongue so he’d never speak again; slice up his skin so that nothing could be more painful.

Brody’s heart had been ripped out.

Never before had such an image been so cruel. His son – tall and skinny with stubble and piercings – was still a toddler in his mind, yet a man as he lay cool and still on the morgue slab. His hands had driven over the landscape of Max’s face, his body – the gentle mound of his chest, the fuzzy warmth of the hair on his legs. The doctor had told him to stop, not to touch any more, that he could be disturbing evidence.

His son had become nothing more than a mind full of memories and a zipped-up body bag of potential clues. Minute traces of skin under his nails, a globule of spit on his cheek, a stray hair caught up in his clothing. Brody knew that there wouldn’t be a square inch of his son’s body left unexamined. At the end of it, the forensic pathologist would know Max better than he had.

Brody tensed. He knew someone – more than one person? – was approaching his flat. The kitchen window always rattled when anyone heavy-footed came along the concrete walkway outside. He just wanted to be alone.

As expected, there was a knock. It wouldn’t be Fiona. She obeyed her orders and would stay away until he called her. The only other person to ever visit was . . . was Max.

‘Police. Professor Quinell, if you’re in there, we’d like to speak to you.’

So he was right. More than one.

Brody hauled himself to his front door. He’d never seen it, of course, but Fiona told him it was dirty and grey and looked as if it belonged in a prison cell. Brody didn’t care. It kept the world out. He stood still.

‘Hello? Is anybody home?’ More knocking.

It had to be done. Brody opened the door. Male and female, he thought, catching a vague whiff of perfume.

‘Professor, I’m Detective Chief Inspector Dennis Masters and with me is Detective Inspector Jess Britton. We’d like to speak to you about your son.’ A pause. ‘We are so desperately sorry about your loss.’

Brody nodded and allowed them in. He sensed the hesitation in their footsteps, probably because the place was a shithole. That’s what Fiona and Max always told him.

‘In here,’ Brody growled. His voice was hoarse. Tears stung his useless eyes. ‘Please, sit.’ He swept his hands along the sofa, sending papers and CDs and clothes to the floor.

‘Thank you.’

Brody heard the creak of the old springs as they took a seat. He sat in the armchair opposite.

‘My detectives are working round the clock on this case. I’m hopeful that we’ll catch the person who killed your son, Professor. I can’t begin to imagine what you and your ex-wife must be going through.’

Carrie. He’d not gone back to her at the hospital, couldn’t face what their reunion actually meant – that they had failed as parents. What, he wondered, was she doing at this exact moment? Same as him – her body barely functioning, every breath a struggle, her eyes burnt out from crying, her heart sluggish in her chest. He felt an overwhelming desire to hold her, like he’d done just after she’d given birth to Max. He’d never felt so close to anyone as his new son and his beautiful wife.

‘No,’ Brody replied. ‘You can’t imagine.’

He would call her. When the police had gone. They should be together at this time, in spite of everything. Nothing mattered now.

‘I need to ask you a few questions.’

Brody nodded. His head pounded.

‘Do you know if Max had any enemies? It may sound obvious but if there was anyone who had a grudge then we need to speak to them.’

Brody nodded again. ‘There were three boys at his school who were giving him trouble.’ Brody stopped for a breather, recalled the shouting match he’d had with his son when he’d tried to discuss things. ‘Irony is that he left his last school for the same reason.’ He could still recall the last message on Max’s phone verbatim . . .
don’t want no dirty shit like you round here . . . We’re gonna make you drink bleach
. . .

‘Why do you think kids picked on him?’

Brody could have spent an hour talking about how his son was different from other teenagers, how having a recluse for a father and a famous mother set him apart, that he never quite fitted in. How liking maths and knowing how to program a computer in six different languages since the age of eight had won him the disrespect of his peers; how having a passion for entering competitions – not just a couple, but dozens and dozens a week – had driven him further away from those who should have been his friends.

‘Max was different. He was quiet, thoughtful.’ Brody heard the scratch of a pencil on paper.

‘Why would that upset anyone?’ This time the woman’s voice.

‘Kids pick on anyone different. Makes them feel good about themselves, I guess.’ Brody suddenly felt a wave of nausea cramp through his guts. It was simple. He’d not been there when his son needed him most. His hands shook as they gripped the side of the armchair.

‘Can you give me any names?’ Masters asked.

‘No, but I can give you a description and a mobile phone number.’

‘A description?’ The detective was incredulous, having obviously noted his disability. ‘How come?’

‘Last year, when I learnt about the kids that were giving Max a hard time, I tracked them down. It was easy enough. Fiona, my assistant, came with me and told me what they looked like. It could be nothing of course . . .’ He stopped, hating himself for not pursuing this.

‘The descriptions, Professor?’ the woman said.

Brody rattled off a mobile phone number from memory and repeated the exact words Fiona had used in the café. It was a start, albeit too late.

The detectives mumbled to each other, their words obscured by the yells of youths outside, but
matches
and
Westmount
were in the mix.

Westmount? Had Max run into trouble on his estate?

‘Did your son have a girlfriend, Professor?’ Masters asked.

‘He always denied it,’ Brody replied. He recalled Max’s coyness. It was as good as a yes. ‘But I think there was a girl.’ He remembered her cheap scent.

‘What about best mate, someone he was close to?’

Brody thought. ‘I don’t think so.’ He suddenly felt desolate, empty, perhaps how Max must have felt knowing there was no one for him to talk to. ‘He would chat with me occasionally.’ Not enough, Brody thought.

‘Did Max have a bedroom here?’ the woman asked. ‘Could we take a look?’

‘When Max stayed with me, he slept on the couch.’ What kind of father was he, he wondered, that his son didn’t even have a space to call his own? Max had a room at his mother’s of course, but when he was here – which had been more often recently – the couch was where Max crashed after they’d watched a movie or played chess. ‘This is a one-bedroom flat.’ Brody was justifying the arrangement. ‘But he kept some stuff in a drawer. Over there.’ He indicated the dresser.

‘Do you mind if we take a look?’

‘Go right ahead.’ Brody didn’t care about possessions. They could take what they liked. None of it would bring his son back. He heard the drawer open, paper sliding, the clatter of something else, the drawer closing again.

‘There are some leaflets I’m taking, if that’s OK with you, Professor. We need to build a picture of Max.’

So do I
, Brody thought as his empty heart ached.
So do I
.

 

Back in his office, DCI Masters found that several interview reports had already been emailed to him. CCTV footage from the area was being scanned. Initial pathology findings concluded that the blade of the murder weapon was around twelve to fifteen centimetres long and clean-edged.

‘No shit,’ Dennis said, enlarging the photograph of Max’s naked torso. He twisted his head round. Half a dozen or more wounds cross-hatched his skin – neat mahogany gashes in his dark skin. Dennis speed-read down the rest of the initial report. Blood tests had revealed moderate levels of THC present but no alcohol. A more detailed document would follow after an extensive examination of the body. ‘Ghastly,’ he found himself saying, perhaps thinking more about Carrie and her future than the faceless torso on his monitor. He switched screens. At the bottom of one of the school interview summaries there was a recommendation that Samms and Driscoll be brought to the station for further questioning.

Dennis reached for his phone and glanced at his watch. ‘Get the little sods in here,’ he ordered. It was going to be a long night.

Carrie didn’t think she’d been born angry. She didn’t think, either, that she’d been born with an ambition to fix things – to fix the world.
Nature or nurture?
her mother used to ask when Carrie came home from university and sprayed their quiet semi with fury and outrage.

‘I don’t know where you get it from, Caroline Kent. Certainly not from my side of the family. You used to be such a quiet little girl.’

Carrie didn’t remember herself as a quiet child at all. Inside her head, from an early age, there raged a torrent of morals battling out issues over which she had no control. At school, if there was ever an argument, if someone was hurt or left out or being too pushy, Carrie would step in to sort things out. It won the respect of those she helped, but lost her many friends in the process. She grew up with other kids either in awe of her or hating her.

It was, if she was completely honest with herself, all about being in control.

‘And not losing it,’ she told Leah during their first year at university. It was 1986 and they were both studying Broadcast Journalism.

‘I don’t get that,’ Leah said. They were sunning themselves on a grassy bank, both of them on their backs staring up at the intensely blue sky. A plane left a trail thousands of feet above. ‘I have absolutely no control over my life whatsoever. And that’s fine by me.’

Carrie sat up and leant on her elbow. ‘How can you say that? Why are you even here studying then?’

‘Because my parents made me.’

Carrie flopped down again. Her turn not to understand now. She’d known Leah for seven months. They shared a flat with two other girls. That Leah wanted life to just
happen
to her both fascinated and angered Carrie. It was such a waste. Things should be steered, manipulated, taken care of.

‘So you don’t want a say over your own destiny?’

‘Nope.’ Leah flung her arm across her eyes. The sun was so bright.

‘That’s shameful.’

‘I like to go with the flow. See what happens.’

Carrie thought about this. ‘But how can anything happen to you if you don’t orchestrate it?’

Leah never had a chance to answer the question. She suddenly doubled up, moaning in pain. A ball had hit her right in the stomach.