What You Left Behind (27 page)

I am bad for doing my exercises. They’ve taken me to the Manor kitchen and put me in a chair. Jo is making tea for everyone while Sonia wrings her hands. A short while ago Tony went outside but now he is back again looking puzzled.

“It’s OK, love,” he says to Sonia. “It’s all going to be fine.”

But I can see that Sonia thinks it won’t be. Since Simon, nothing’s been OK for her.

Lana comes downstairs and my heart lights up as she enters the kitchen. She blusters in, red-faced and anxious. She can’t seem to get out what she wants to say.

“You won’t believe it, but I was followed by Frank this morning.” She’s breathless. “It was so scary and I didn’t know what to do
and …” She stops and looks at everyone, frowning, noticing how serious they all are. “Is there news?” she asks.

“Nothing,” Jo says in a way that makes her sound virtually dead. She is already going gray-skinned and empty like Sonia. But I promised Freddie I wouldn’t tell and now I don’t know what to do because I am already in lots of trouble and Tony will send me away to the place that’s for people like me.

“The police are doing everything they can to find Freddie,” Sonia says, giving Lana a brief hug. She stays stiff in her mother’s arms. “He’s not really been gone that long.”

“I know, but I wish he’d come back,” Lana says, placing her bag on a chair beside the back door and joining the group cautiously. She comes to stand near me.

“Gil gave us a bit of a fright,” Sonia says.

Then Lorraine comes back from wherever she went. She goes over to Stella, who is tapping away on her phone, looking bored. I wasn’t really going to steal it.

“I was getting my muscles in shape for a girlfriend but now I’m not allowed to,” I tell Lana, but no one’s listening. They’re all looking at Lorraine. She stares at Adam, who’s hardly said a word. It looks as if he’s guarding the door. They are whispering.
We’ll talk later
is all I hear.

Lorraine comes up to me. “Gil, can you tell me how you came to have Stella’s phone?” She isn’t sunken or waxy-looking like Sonia.

“You need to think very carefully,” Adam says.

That’s what Tony always says.

“Freddie gave it to me,” I say. It is the truth.

“When was this?” Lorraine asks.

“When I didn’t want to help with the barbecue.” That is true too.

“He went off for a walk, remember?” Tony says. “Then Jo went to look for him, and Freddie.” He stares at Jo and she goes red.

“So you went for a walk and then what, Gil?” Lorraine asks. “You saw Freddie? You know he is still missing, don’t you?”

I nod although Freddie’s not missing. “I get muddled,” I tell them. “I went walking through the village and then I saw Freddie.”

My legs start jumping up and down. I hate it when they do that.

“You just need to tell us the truth, Gil,” Adam says.

There are too many faces staring at me. It’s frightening, like I don’t even recognize them.

“Freddie gave the phone to me I didn’t steal it like you all think I am not a thief.” My insides hurt like there’s electricity in me. “The smoke stings my eyes you see.”

“That’s why he didn’t want to help me cook,” Tony chips in.

“And I had all those little food things in my hand and I was getting sticky and greasy and I asked Freddie if he had a tissue and he told me to fuck off.”

“Then what happened?” Lorraine asks.

“I wiped my hands on my shorts and I licked them too because those things you made were yummy Sonia.” I smile at her but she doesn’t see.

“Did Freddie say anything else to you?” Adam asks.

“He asked me if I was going back to the barbecue.” I press my hands on my knees to shut them up. “I said yes I would be doing that because I’d only gone for a little stroll but I ended up in the village because I like walking you see and I walk everywhere,” I say to Lorraine and Adam. “It makes my mind work more straightly. It helps me think and talk and I might meet a girlfriend to ask on a date.”

“What did Freddie say after that?” Jo says.

“He asked me to give the pink phone to Stella when I went back to the barbecue.”

Stella gives me a little smile.

In my mind I can see Freddie searching in his pack for the phone. He couldn’t find it and things spilled out and I tried to help him and
when I said,
Hey, isn’t that Tony’s computer?
he suddenly went mad, telling me to get lost and piss off and then I went hot-red inside and started yelling back and waving my arms at him because when people are horrid to me I can’t even help it.

“I am sorry I forgot to give you your phone Stella and I am sorry that I read some of your text messages and I am sorry that I was doing my exercises wrong and I am sorry that I ate too many of those things you made Sonia and then felt sick.” I cover my face with my hands. My legs start up again.

“Don’t worry, Gil,” Stella says. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

She is nice.

“You’ve done really well,” Tony says. “Did Freddie say where he was going?”

I shake my head.

“Which way did Freddie go after he’d given you the phone, Gil?” Adam says.

“I didn’t see,” I tell him through my hands. I wish they’d leave me alone.

My arms start shaking so I clutch them round my body.

Then there is the slam of car doors and the crunch of gravel across the back courtyard.

“Thank God, it’s the police,” Tony says, and goes to let them in.

S
OMETIMES
I
WOULD
like to go off, walk all the way to one of those other countries that are on the internet. One day I will go to Ecuador and China, see Victoria Falls and climb Ayers Rock. Then I won’t have to do bad things anymore.

Probably nothing to worry about … will send out alerts anyway … local search … depressed state of mind …

There are two more policemen in our kitchen. One is in a pale blue shirt and brown trousers and one is in a uniform.

“We’ll need a recent photograph of your son,” the policeman without the uniform says to Jo. “If you’re convinced he’s missing.”

Jo nods her head and turns this way and that, searching in her bag. “I’ve got one somewhere.” She pulls a passport-sized photograph from her purse. “Here, keep it.”

“I am drawing a picture of Freddie,” I suddenly say without realizing. “It has snakes in it too.” My voice is loud and bumps around the kitchen.

Everyone stares at me.

They don’t know what I notice, how I remember everything, how the inside of my head is ulcerated and sore from all the information it holds, every snippet of everything I see vying for space. The whole world lives in there, crawling inside me, tormenting me, twisting me up and making me into someone I’m not.

Their eyes drill into my skin.

“It has got your Stella in it too,” I tell Lorraine, while pointing at Stella. “I am really good at drawing,” I say to the policeman.

“I see,” he says. “I understand you saw Freddie last night?”

“Yes but I’ve never even killed anyone in the whole world, not even Simon.” My legs are off again.

“No one thinks anything of the sort, Gil,” Sonia says.

I see the sad look in her eye. I didn’t mean to mention Simon and upset her, but sometimes I want to pull things apart.

Everyone is nodding in agreement and now I’m itching all over.

“Gil really is an amazing artist,” Sonia continues to the policeman. “You see, he’s autistic.”

“What we mustn’t forget is that Freddie is an adult,” the policeman without a uniform says to Jo. “It’s not a crime to go off without telling anyone. I’ve got two boys in their twenties myself. I understand what you’re going through.” He scratches his head.

Jo is staring at him and her eyes are blacker than ever.

“If his mother says he’s missing, then he’s bloody well missing,” Lorraine says. Her voice sounds like an angry wasp.

She doesn’t look like a detective. Her Stella is my friend but not my girlfriend.

“Is there somewhere quiet I can sit with Mrs. Curzon?” the man asks resignedly. “I’ll need to take a few details.”

“Of course,” Sonia says. “You can use Tony’s study, Jo.”

If I were to draw Sonia’s face it would look tight and painful, like her skin was being stretched to almost tearing.

My eyes dart between them all, sizing them up, preparing a new picture in my mind. There’s something building up inside me as I sew them all up, stitch it all together. They don’t feel what I feel; don’t see what I see.

“Dean didn’t kill himself.”

The words explode from my mouth. A picture in words.

“You are all wrong and I am not wrong and I am going to do another drawing because it hurts too much just like last time.”

I stand up to leave but there are two hands on my shoulders, holding me. I feel the detective’s warm breath on my face.

24

Lana had come downstairs to find the kitchen full of people. She still felt panic-stricken from being followed that morning, and now her parents, Gil, Lorraine, Adam, Stella, and two policemen were crowded into the room. She was glad Lorraine was there for her mum’s sake.

She wondered if she should tell these detectives about Frank, how he’d tailed her all the way home, looming large in her rearview mirror. At one point she thought he was going to nudge her bumper he was so close behind her. Several times he dropped back, only to come close again. She had no idea why. In the end, she decided to say nothing.

The older, fatter detective pressed Gil back down into the chair.
Lana saw the shock on Gil’s face, saw how he implored her to help him as he stared at her, his cheeks drawing up into peach-colored crests beneath his watery eyes. She had no idea what to do.

“You and I need to talk,” the detective said.

“Finally,” Lorraine muttered under her breath.

“I think there are some things about the Dean Watts case that need clarifying once and for all.”

Lana didn’t like him. There was something greasy about him, something insensitive, too, as if he didn’t care one bit about finding Freddie.

“It was a little over four weeks ago that the Dean Watts case hit my desk.” He was talking to everyone. Lana flinched as he caught her eye. “Do you know why it was brought to the attention of CID?”

Lana glanced at Gil as a drop of spit flew from the detective’s mouth and landed on his cheek. She prayed he would keep quiet about what he knew.

“Given what had happened around here, it’s to be expected,” Adam said.

The detective drummed two fingers on Gil’s shoulder. Lana knew that this would be driving him mad. “Correct,” he said.

She felt strange, as if she were in someone else’s body. She wasn’t even conscious of holding herself upright.

“Any suicide cases within a five-mile radius of Wellesbury get special consideration. In the last year there have been thirty-seven suicides in the county. Three of them fell within the designated radius, and that’s including Dean Watts and Lenny Jackman. This is well under the national rate but …” He paused, his eyes flicking everywhere. They settled on Lana. “But of course we want to be certain there won’t be another cluster.”

Lana braced herself, slowly, inwardly. She stared at her hands. They were shaking. She edged a step closer to the back door. The dogs were suddenly crowding around her legs as if she was going
to take them for a walk. Instinctively, her hand reached for the two leads hanging on a hook. The small action sent them into a frenzy of circling bodies and wagging tales. Daisy let out a small bark.

“But it’s OK because Dean didn’t kill himself,” Gil said.

The detective was still looking at Lana intently. She broke his stare and turned to her mother, wondering if anyone else had spotted the tremors in her arms and legs or the twitch at her jaw. She wanted to grab her mum and run away.

Instead, she hooked the dogs’ leads onto their collars.

“The investigation after Dean Watts’ death followed strict guidelines,” the detective went on. “In this case, I am completely satisfied that it was suicide. The postmortem showed alcohol and drugs in his blood. The lack of tire brake marks on the road and indentations in the shoulder were consistent with such an act. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and no evasive action was taken. A full report was delivered by Traffic. Oh, and there was a suicide note,” he added smugly.