by Fiona Barton
“No, thank God. Just some burns on his cheek and hands.”
“So he could simply have gone off to recuperate. Or come home?”
“Home” reverberated in his head. It was where he should be. At home with Eileen.
“Home?” Kate said.
“Well, yes. If I was injured and traumatized, I might well head for home.”
There was another telling silence.
“Does it make me a bad mother if I say I hadn’t even considered that?” she whispered.
It might do, he thought. Am I a bad husband, talking to you instead of caring for my wife?
“Look,” he said, shifting himself in his seat. “No one is perfect. And you’re in the middle of a media storm, Kate.” On the wrong side for a change, he thought, but he refrained from twisting the knife. “It’s hard to think straight. Did Jake have a return plane ticket?”
“We bought him a flight home last Christmas. We e-mailed the ticket and he said he’d picked it up, but he didn’t catch the plane. A friend of his said he was having a few problems at the time . . .”
“Right. But he might have banked it for later. Was it a flexible ticket? The embassy might be able to talk to the airline. Or the police may have already made the call, if they really are interested in finding him. Have you spoken to the investigating team?”
“No. Not yet. All the stuff about Jake is coming from the papers, not the police. I’ve been told by Lesley O’Connor that the cops are not interested in him. They said he was irrelevant to the inquiry. I don’t know what he told them, but the police said they couldn’t even say for sure if he’d been at the hostel. My sense is that the police are satisfied it was an accident and the girls died from smoke inhalation. Case closed.”
“And what are the parents saying about that?”
“Well, they thought the same. But this coverage has unsettled them—of course it has. And there are new reports about a previous death at the hostel today. A suicide. Totally unrelated. But it ramps up suspicions, doesn’t it? As far as I’m concerned, the press are looking for someone to blame and they’ve fixed on Jake because of that photo. It’s classic. Trial by media if you look a bit odd.”
“Yes, you have got form,” Sparkes said, not letting her off the hook. “Do you remember that poor schoolmaster in Bristol who was practically accused of murder by the newspapers because he had a strange hairstyle?”
“Not my paper,” Kate said quickly. “Anyway, I don’t even know if Jake knew the girls. No one has come forward to say he did. And he’s not here to defend himself. It is so unfair.”
“I can put a call through to Interpol to see if there’s any alert for Jake,” he suggested. “If the Thais aren’t looking for him, you could run it and spike the press guns a bit.”
“Oh God, could you?”
“Let me make the call, Kate. Are you on your mobile number out there?”
“Yes. You will ring me as soon as you’ve spoken to them, won’t you? And thanks, Bob. I am so grateful.”
* * *
• • •
Afterward, Sparkes sat back and mulled it all over. He’d already put the call through to Interpol as soon as he’d seen the story.
And he hadn’t told Kate about the chat he’d had with Hilary Young at the coroner’s office the previous evening. It was police business, not for the media. He’d rung Hilary when he heard the girls’ bodies were being repatriated. The local coroner would be opening an inquest as soon as they arrived in the UK and came under his jurisdiction, and Sparkes wanted to touch base about timings. He and Hilary had chatted about the case and wondered together whether the families had considered having the bodies cremated before coming home.
“It’s cheaper and there would be no autopsy here if they did,” Hilary had said. “They might prefer that. I hope the embassy is giving them all the options.”
“I’ll make sure they know,” Sparkes had said. It had all been very run-of-the-mill stuff. But of course, Sparkes hadn’t known then about Jake Waters going AWOL. That put a whole different complexion on things.
THIRTY-THREE
The Reporter
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 2014
I’m trying to make myself understood by the Thai police when my phone beeps and I see that Mick is trying to get through. I’ll call him back when I’ve finished.
“My name is Kate Waters,” I begin again. “Do you speak English?”
The voice at the other end, the third so far, says, “Sorry, sorry,” and I’m put on hold while someone who can understand me is found.
“Hello, hello,” I call into the phone politely when no one comes. I want to scream, “Pick up the phone,” but it won’t help. There’s no one there. Just white noise. I hang up and try again. I know the number by heart now.
“Hello. My name is Kate Waters,” I repeat, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice. “Do you speak English?”
There is the sound of mouth breathing and complete incomprehension.
“Don’t put me on hold . . .” I shout when I realize what’s happening, but too late—I am back in limbo.
The embassy, my first call, had been polite but firm. “We cannot get information about airline passengers, Mrs. Waters. I am sure you understand there is strict security around air travel. Perhaps the police can help you.”
It takes another ten minutes and one final redial before I finally get through to someone who asks the magic question: “How can I help you?”
I fall over myself trying to tell my story in the simplest terms, editing my language as I go along. “My son is Jake Waters. He was injured—hurt—in the fire at Mama’s Paradise Bar and Guesthouse. Where the two English girls died.”
“Yes,” the officer says.
“Can you understand me?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. I don’t know if he can or not.
“Are you looking for my son Jake Waters?” I try.
“Yes,” he says. Why are you asking closed questions? I shout in my head. Ask him something he has to answer in words of more than one syllable.
“Why?”
“We have some questions.”
We’re in business!
“What do you have questions about? I understand you have closed the case.”
“That is a police matter. Do you know where your son is?”
“No, I am very sorry but I don’t. I am desperate to find him, too.”
“Yes. Well, please call me if you speak to him.”
“I will,” I say, but I cross my fingers behind my back like a child. I wonder if I will.
“Have you checked to see if my son has left Thailand?”
There is a pause. “Does he have a plane ticket?”
“He might do. I’m not sure . . .”
“I see. Which airline? We will check.”
I give him the information I’ve found in my e-mail to Jake, carefully enunciating the reference number.
“Thank you, Mrs. Waters.”
* * *
• • •
Bob rings to tell me Jake had been put on an Interpol alert list. “It’s a Yellow Notice—saying he’s a missing person. The girls were on the same list until their bodies were identified. So it’s good news. A Red Notice—an international arrest warrant—would have marked him down as being hunted for a crime.”
“Thanks, Bob, but I’m not sure the media will be interested in the nuances of color coding. They’ll just write that Interpol is looking for him. I think I’ll keep quiet on that one.”
* * *
• • •
I finally call Mick back and he gives me his bad news. “There’s more dirt,” he says. “Joe has just had a chat with one of Jake’s old girlfriends from school. It seems Jake was kicked out of university.”
“Kicked out? He said he’d jacked it
in because it wasn’t the right course for him.”
“Well, he didn’t. He cheated and got caught.”
I feel like I’m going mad. Everything I thought I knew is being pulled from under me.
“Put Joe on,” I bark at Mick.
“Hi, Kate,” Joe says nervously, and I can imagine the face Mick would have pulled as he handed over the phone.
“What is this crap you’re writing about Jake being thrown out of university?”
“So you didn’t know?”
“Of course I didn’t know. What sort of question is that?”
“Well, it’s a ring-in. A former girlfriend who saw the firestarter stuff in the papers and phoned to see if we were interested in her info. Terry passed her on to me.”
“Who is she? Did she want money? I bet she did. Go on—tell me. I want every cough and spit.”
Joe hesitated.
“What?”
“She said Jake was doing drugs. I’d better tell you that up front.”
I close my eyes and wait for the horror to unfold.
“So, basically he was sent down for copying essays from the Internet. His ex says that he was clever enough to write them himself but he was too busy having a good time.”
In my head, I can see Jake the morning we put him on the train to Durham Uni. He’d asked us not to drive him—“It’s such a long way. The train is fine”—and he’d been embarrassed that we were there at the station, waving and making a fuss, but we didn’t care. It was a rite of passage—our firstborn setting off for adulthood. He’d looked like a young Stephen Hawking with his geeky glasses—a bit of an affectation, we knew—and his beautiful smile.
What had happened to that boy? The one I thought I knew? Maybe the game had changed for Jake when he got to university. He’d never really had to try in order to succeed before. He’d always been top of the class at school. And if he thought he was going to fail—like the episode with the saxophone instruction, when despite having begged for lessons he gave up after just three months, as soon as it started getting hard—he just moved on to something else. He’d got used to life being easy. But there must have been lots of Jakes at uni. He’d said everything was fine when he rang home. But maybe there’d been hints if I’d cared to listen. I’ve always been so good at reading between the lines when I’m interviewing people, hearing the stutter of truth beneath polished lies. But not this time. I suppose I wanted to hear only good news. Good news doesn’t take as much emotional energy, does it? And I was busy with other people’s bad news.
I try to remember the phone calls, the clues I should have picked up. He’d said that everyone in his course had been top of their class and some of them were cleverer than him, but Steve and I had teased him about it. Poor Jake—it must have been a shock to find that he might have to work to keep up. He’d definitely tried at first. He’d told us about spending his evenings in the library—“You wouldn’t recognize me, Mum. I’m almost a geek . . .”—how he’d read all the books on the course list and boasted when he got good marks for an essay.
But perhaps making an effort lost its shine after a while and he lost focus. If it was going to be that hard, maybe he thought it wasn’t worth it.
Joe is still speaking, giving the gory details of my son’s fall from grace, and I tune back in.
* * *
• • •
“The girlfriend said he started getting drunk every night and snorting a bit of coke. His friends were doing the same. He began gurning and sniffing in lectures and thought he was brilliant when he was actually speaking complete rubbish at tutorials.”
“What an idiot,” I mutter.
“Jake told her that his personal tutor gave him a friendly warning at the beginning of the second year. He told him he needed to spend more time on his essays. That drugs were not making him cleverer. That they were turning him into an almighty pain in the arse and he was in danger of failing. But Jake just denied it all and carried on. His friends were very worried about him, Kate.”
“So worried, they’re selling information about him. Nice.” Why didn’t he tell us? He didn’t phone as much, but why should he? He didn’t need his mum checking up on him. Or perhaps he did. Did I ring him? No, I texted. Shorthand caring. Not the real thing. And then he stayed up in Durham for the summer. He said he was working.
* * *
• • •
“Apparently he started nicking bits of other people’s stuff from the Internet when he’d forgotten to do assignments,” Joe went on. “And then whole essays. They caught him. There was a formal disciplinary process and he was asked to leave.”
“Christ” is all I can say.
“We’re running it, Kate,” Joe says quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
“Really?” I say. “How is this a story? It’s got nothing to do with the fire. I suppose Jake dumped this girl? That’s why she rang. She’s got an ax to grind.” It is my last feeble attempt to kill the story. But I’ve trained Joe too well.
“No, she said she dumped him because of the drugs. They were changing him. And I’ve checked her story out. It adds up. The university has issued a statement confirming he was sent down.”
“Well done, you.” I hate myself for sounding so bitter. Two days ago, I’d have been cheering him on. But I can’t now. You see, I’ve been where Joe Jackson is a thousand times, hoisting up the truth in triumph. We’re taught that the truth is all that matters. My first news editor used to say: “It doesn’t matter how beautifully you write a story. If it isn’t accurate, it’s worthless.”
Everyone wants to know the truth. Except those who don’t. Those who stand to lose by it. I know that now.
“I need to tell Steve,” I say and put the phone down on Joe.
My poor husband goes very quiet when I spell it all out. “Oh, Katie,” he says. “What happened to him?”
“I don’t know, Steve. Maybe he got in with the wrong crowd?” And I wince at the tired excuse used by the parent of every child in trouble.
“Please come home, love. Freddie and I need you here. And we don’t even know if Jake is still in Thailand . . .”
I feel desperate and angry that he is asking me to leave Thailand knowing Jake may be here, but I can’t put up much of an argument to stay. “Okay,” I say reluctantly. I make it sound as if I’m agreeing only for Steve’s sake, but in truth, I’m too tired, too broken, to do anything else. I ring the travel agent and change my ticket for the next flight. In my other life, I’d have experienced the familiar ping of happiness to be going home at the end of a job. But it isn’t the end, is it?
After I’ve packed, I turn on the television to shut out the silence, but the try-too-hard action movie fades to wallpaper and I sit there attempting to put myself in Jake’s shoes. I try to imagine the shame, the devastation of the moment he was sent down from university. Maybe heading off to Thailand had seemed the obvious choice. He’d have a gap year and get back on track. He just needed a bit of R and R. Traveling, meeting new people to put things into perspective?
But it seemed Jake had slithered down the loser slope, looking for handholds and hiding from the truth. He’d cut himself off from his family, fending us off with the occasional e-mail and even rarer phone call. His friend here in Bangkok, Ross, had said Jake had felt he couldn’t go home. Couldn’t tell his mum and dad he was in trouble.
He couldn’t let us know what he’d become. A failure.
THIRTY-FOUR
The Mother
FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2014
Malcolm had thrown himself into the complexity of the arrangements with something resembling enthusiasm. She knew it was because this meant he didn’t have to think about the future without Alex, and she tried not to puncture his bubble of activity. She sat and watched him on the phone, talking about permits and documents. She’d have to ask him about them later. He was keeping a note o
f everything in his special book. Lesley noticed that his handwriting, which he had always been quietly proud of, was getting smaller and tighter.
He frowned as something was spelled out to him. It was almost as if he was at work in his office at the council. He looked businesslike and in charge. Not like a grieving father. Until he caught her eye and his face sagged.
“Sorry,” he mouthed and held up five fingers to show how long he’d be.
“I’ll get us a coffee,” she mouthed back.
Lesley listened at the door before opening it. She knew the drill now. Smile and say nothing. The reporters had worked out a rota to camp outside their room in pairs when the hotel had threatened to throw them all out if they kept blocking the corridors.
“So sorry, Mrs. O’Connor,” the charming manager had said, smiling. It had taken a bit of time to get used to the permanent smiles. At first Lesley thought they were mocking her when she complained about the door knocks late at night.
“Why are you laughing about this?” she’d said to the girl on reception. “It’s very upsetting.” The girl had smiled even more and Lesley had marched off. Clive had told her later it was a cultural tic that tripped up many Westerners.
“She was smiling her apology and then her embarrassment when she saw you were upset,” he explained.
“How was I supposed to know that?” she’d said to Malcolm. “Bloody silly carry-on. Do you think I should go and say sorry?”
“Just leave it, love.”
She’d got used to hearing the next shift of reporters arrive, settling down on the chairs they’d placed outside her door. They looked as if they were in a dentist’s waiting room.
She wondered who it would be now. Joe from the Post? She hoped so. He always jumped up when she appeared. Lovely manners. He reminded her a bit of Dan. Or George from the Telegraph. He was serious and respectful. Not like some of the others. Louise Butler, for one. She always stood too close, pretending to care. But she didn’t fool Lesley, not with that hard mouth.