The Wrong Boy

by Willy Russell

Clustered around the radio, the neighbours closed their eyes and held their breath as the police spokesman told of the item of clothing discovered on a stretch of common ground at the side of a cinder track. It was too early to say exactly, the police spokesperson said, but yes, he could confirm that the item was an item of female underclothing. And yes, the size of the undergarment would indicate that such an item belonged to a child.

  The neighbour women exchanged anguished glances; Mrs Machonochie started to cry.

  But me and my Mam knew nothing about neighbours; of prayers and of candles, of vigils that stretched from dusk until dawn.

  Or of the reluctantly retired milkman from Gatley who, rather than lying in bed and pondering his predicament, said he’d rather be up and out and walking the dog, relishing the morning and the walk down the towpath, beneath the old bridges and along by the lock.

  We didn’t know about him. Or his dog, that was usually so obedient, suddenly running off that morning, off towards the sheds and derelict buildings where it barked and it yelped and despite its master’s repeated calls, refused to give over and come back to heel.

  We didn’t know.

  Didn’t know that the milkman had had to leave the towpath and go across to the abandoned buildings, cursing the yapping dog and intending to put it back on its leash.

  We knew nothing of that; or of the sudden shock, the milkman’s disbelieving stare, the pounding of his heart as he looked again, down through the rusted metal grill, down into that darkness; and saw in the shadows the small face, the wide, terrified eyes staring back up at him.

  My Mam and me were unaware.

  At first they thanked God, the gaggle of neighbours, thanked God that the child had been found alive. There were hugs and smiles and tears and kisses as they wrapped themselves up in the wonderful news, the crowd growing bigger, swelled by the curious, the downright nosey, the aimless and bored. But as they stood waiting for the child’s homecoming, making plans for the welcome home, the word went amongst them; of how someone said that when she’d been found, the girl’s dress was in tatters, her underclothes missing, her legs scratched and bloodied, her arms badly bruised.

  They stopped thanking God, the friends and the neighbours, as the details emerged and the facts got around. According to police who’d been called to the scene, she was less like a child and more like an animal, terrified and trembling and, so far at least, too frightened to talk. Such was the trauma, the ordeal that she’d suffered, a police spokesman said she might not speak again.

  But regardless of that, the same spokesman promised, the force would be doing everything in its power to find whoever it was who was responsible for this evil act and for the indescribable suffering of this helpless child.

  And then someone asked someone if they knew the location, if they knew where it was that the girl had been found. Then someone told someone who’d heard it from someone who knew for a fact, it was at the canal!

  Me and my Mam didn’t know. Me and my Mam were eating pizzas, and we were best friends again. That’s why my pizza tasted like it was the nicest pizza in the whole of the universe, because my Mam was friends with me again. And I felt safe and I felt happy – because I knew I never ever had anything to worry about in the whole of the world, as long as me and my Mam could keep on being best friends.

  But I didn’t know. And my Mam didn’t know.

  About the neighbours who’d given up thanking God; and instead remembered, back at the beginning of summer, something that had happened down by the canal. Tales that they’d heard about innocent children, grim goings-on, unmentionable things. And a boy! From over on the far side of the estate. A boy who was old in the head, they said, much older than his years; a boy not fit to be called a boy, a beast of a boy, a dirty boy.

  And everyone had said back then, back at the beginning of summer, back when it had first started, when all those children from the other side of the estate had been lured down to the canal and forced to do unspeakable things, everybody had said that that wouldn’t be the end of it; said that something should have been done. Because kids like that, kids who can exert their influence, who can lure away and snare the less clever ones, kids like that aren’t kids at all; left unchecked, a kid like that is a tragedy waiting to pounce.

  But me and my Mam didn’t know.

  My Mam and me, we were watching the Ewoks, the Wookies, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi and the rest of the gang.

  And now it was the little girl who was in the hospital, with her mam and dad, the policeman and police lady at the back of the room as the lady doctor kneeled and dabbed at her bruises, put cream on her scratches, as she casually asked, ‘Somebody did something to you, didn’t they, Paulette?’

  Paulette, at first, looked at the doctor. Then glanced up beyond her, to the back of the room, where her mam and her dad were stood with the police. Paulette stared, eyes wide, unblinking, at the face of her father who stared back at her, small beads of sweat on his upper lip glinting, as the doctor asked Paulette again, ‘Can you tell us who it was, Paulette?’

  Nobody was looking at the face of her father; nobody saw it, apart from Paulette, the glint of warning in his eyes, the threat.

  ‘It’s all right, Paulette,’ the doctor said. ‘You know we examined you when you first came in?’ The doctor smiled and nodded, ‘Well, that’s how we know, Paulette; that’s how we know about somebody having done something bad to you.’

  Paulette stared beyond the doctor’s shoulder, saw her mother staring down at the floor like a zombie; saw the tears running down the police lady’s face.

  ‘The person who did it,’ the doctor asked, ‘do you know that person, Paulette?’

  Eyes still fixed on the face of her father, Paulette Patterson began to nod.

  All that warning and all those threats in her daddy’s eyes didn’t count for anything now; not here. It was easy now, with the lady doctor being here and the policeman and the police lady.

  ‘Can you tell me?’ the doctor asked. ‘Can you tell me the name of that person?’

  Paulette Patterson nodded once more, still staring at her father as she quietly said, ‘Him.’

  Paulette watched her father, his head tilted back against the wall, mouth sagging open.

  And if the doctor had followed the gaze of the girl, then the doctor might have known. If the policeman hadn’t been so concerned with comforting his distraught companion then perhaps he might have seen.

  But the doctor didn’t follow the gaze of the girl. Her face creased in a puzzle, she looked at Paulette and said, ‘Who? Paulette, who’s him?’

  And in that moment, Paulette’s daddy came back; his head tilting forward from the wall, her proper daddy; the daddy in whose face there was no longer any threat or warning, no jaw clamped in anger, no quiet fury in the eyes; only silent desperation, fear and pleading; and helpless appeal.

  And in that look Paulette saw what she needed to see; saw love, saw kindness and care, repentance, regret and remorse. Paulette saw love in the eyes of her father; the only love she’d ever known.

  And when the lady doctor asked once more, ‘Who, Paulette, who do you mean, him?’ Paulette Patterson took a deep breath, turned her eyes from her daddy and looking directly at the doctor, said, ‘The Beast Boy. The Filthy Boy who lives near the canal.’

  But we never knew, me and my Mam.

  We were ten-pin bowling and eating gooey doughnuts. And even on the way home in the taxi, we didn’t know.

  The taxi driver said to my Mam, ‘Well, the pair of you look as if you’ve had a really good time.’

  And my Mam told him, ‘We’ve had a brilliant time.’ She hugged me and smiled at me and said, ‘Haven’t we, Raymond?’

  I nodded as she told the taxi driver, ‘We’ve had a really great day out together, me and my son.’

  My Mam turned and smiled at me again. And then, as we pulled into our street and my Mam reached for her bag to get the money for the taxi, I heard the taxi driver saying, ‘Aye aye! Wonde
r what the bizzies are up to?’

  That’s when I saw it, parked outside our house, the police car and the two policemen standing by it. Just for a second I thought there was something wrong. But then I heard my Mam saying, ‘Oh it’s them! Look, it’s Eric! And … what’s-his-name? His mate … Dave who took y’ to the hospital. Look,’ she told me. ‘Ah! They’ve come round to see how y’ are; isn’t that nice of them? Come on,’ my Mam said, as she paid the taxi driver, ‘they’ll be dead pleased to see y’.’

  We got out the taxi, me and my Mam in her new shoes and her new dress and her Urdu hairdo.

  ‘Hiya,’ she called out as we walked the few steps towards them. ‘Look,’ she said, putting her arm around me and gently pulling me forward. ‘Look, fit as a fiddle he is now and the doctor said there’s nothing to worry about at all.’

  As she reached into her bag and took out the door key, my Mam asked them, ‘Have you both got time for a cup of tea?’

  And it must have been then that she noticed, my Mam; noticed that the two nice policemen didn’t have quite the same nice look about them as they’d had the night before. One of them looked away as if he was embarrassed. And the other one reached out and opened the back door of the police car.

  ‘What’s up?’ my Mam asked.

  But a man got out the back of the car then. And he said, ‘Mrs Marks? I’m Detective Sergeant Culshaw. Do you think I could have a few words with you please?’

  ‘He’s all right,’ my Mam said, pulling me closer and beginning to look worried. ‘He’s right as rain now.’

  The detective man cleared his throat and then nodded towards the house as he said, ‘I think it might be better if we went inside.’

  My Mam paused for a second. And then she noticed Mrs Caldicott from across the road gawping out through the window.

  My Mam opened the door then. And let them in.

  He told my Mam it might be better if they spoke in private. And then he looked at me. My Mam twigged and said why didn’t I go upstairs and get ready for bed and she’d be up to see me in a minute. I didn’t want to go to bed. I didn’t want to leave my Mam. She still had her new dress on and her new hairdo and her new shoes. But it didn’t feel the same any more. Because my Mam had started to look like a mam.

  ‘Raymond!’ she said, and she was being sharp with me. ‘Go on, up to your room.’

  I just went then. And I walked into my room so that my Mam would hear the creak of the floorboards and think I was just doing what she’d told me. But then I quietly crept back towards the door, making sure that I avoided the creaky bits until I got to the top of the stairs.

  I heard my Mam’s voice at first, all high-pitched and nonplussed as she said, ‘What d’ y’ mean, where was he? He was at the canal. Ask these two! It was them who pulled him out.’

  I crept down the stairs until I got to the third stair from the bottom and I could see over the banister into the front room. I saw the two ordinary policemen sat there on the settee, and the detective sergeant looking at his notebook.

  ‘And that was at … six thirty-five p.m. when the officers found him and fished him out. But prior to that, Mrs Marks, can you say roughly what time it was when you last saw your son?’

  ‘What d’ y’ mean?’ my Mam asked. ‘Last night?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘We know his whereabouts from six thirty-five, because that’s when the officers here came across him. But before that, what time would it have been when you last saw him?’

  ‘Why are you asking me this?’ my Mam said.

  But nobody seemed interested in answering my Mam’s questions and the detective man just said, ‘Was it ten minutes, half an hour, an hour … what?’

  It all fell silent and I knew that my Mam must be thinking back. ‘I can’t be definite,’ she said, ‘but I think it was about … it must have been some time round about half-past five. I know it wasn’t long after we got back from seeing …’

  The detective man just looked up at my Mam as she tailed off. He smiled at my Mam then. ‘Seeing what, Mrs Marks?’ he said.

  My Mam nodded. ‘Seeing the … psychotherapist,’ my Mam said. He looked at her, the detective man. My Mam sort of laughed nervously and waved her hand. ‘It was nothing,’ she said, ‘nothing. There was nothing wrong with him after all. Dr Janice has explained it all to me now.’

  The detective just cleared his throat. And then he sniffed. But I saw him glance at the other two policemen. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but let’s just get back to … so what time would it have been when you got back from seeing the … psychotherapist?’

  My Mam thought really hard then. And she said, ‘Well, it must have been about half-past five. I mean I can’t be exact but—’

  ‘Five thirty!’ he said, interrupting my Mam and writing it down in his notebook. ‘So you can’t verify your son’s whereabouts for that hour or so between five thirty and six thirty-five.’

  ‘What d’ y’ mean?’ my Mam said. ‘Of course I can verify his whereabouts, I can tell you exactly where he was. He was sitting out there in the backyard!’

  There was a pause then, as if the detective man didn’t know what to say about that. And then I heard my Mam say, ‘But why am I being asked all this? What the hell is this all about?’

  ‘Would you mind,’ the detective said, ‘if I just took a look out of that window?’

  ‘The window?’ my Mam said. ‘No, I don’t mind if you look out the window. Why should I?’

  It went quiet again for a second. And then I heard the detective’s voice coming from further away down the front room. And he said, ‘So while he was out in the backyard, Mrs Marks, you were out there with him, were you?’

  ‘No,’ my Mam told him, ‘I never said that. I wasn’t in the yard, I was in here.’

  ‘The whole time?’ he said. ‘The whole time your son was in the yard, you were sat in here?’

  ‘That’s right,’ my Mam said.

  ‘So then how can you be so certain’, he said, coming back up the room, ‘that your son was definitely out there in the yard?’

  ‘Because that’s where he was!’ my Mam said. ‘Sitting out in the backyard playing with his Star Wars figures.’

  I heard him sniff again. And then he said, ‘But you can’t be certain of that, can you, Mrs Marks? Because as you’ve just told me, you were sat here in this room. And even if you’d been sat at the window, Mrs Marks, you still couldn’t be certain that your son was sat out there. Because as I’ve just discovered for myself, your backyard can’t be seen from anywhere in this room.’

  My Mam got narked then and I heard her say, ‘Now listen! You come in here, asking all sorts of questions and looking out of my windows and I haven’t even got the first clue of what this is all about. I don’t know what business it is of yours,’ she said, ‘but I’m telling you now, window or no window, I know exactly where my son was: he was sat out there sulking in the yard and I was sat in here, and I can remember it exactly because we still weren’t speaking properly because I was mad about the things he’d been saying! He just went off with his Star Wars figures and played in the yard. And I sat in here. But don’t you come into this house,’ she said, ‘saying what did and what didn’t happen, because, I’m telling you now, Raymond was in the yard.’

  He changed then, the detective, suddenly sounding all soft and upset and telling my Mam he was sorry.

  ‘Honestly, love,’ he said, ‘I really am. I’ll tell you the truth, Mrs Marks,’ he said, ‘I hate it myself, having to bloody disturb people and go around asking all sorts of questions. It’s not just you, love,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to go and interview all sorts of people. But believe me, Mrs Marks, I don’t choose to do it. I’m just told to get out there and make certain enquiries. It’s just like ticking people off a list, y’ know. I’m just the dogsbody on this. I just have to establish the whereabouts of, y’ know, a few people and then they’re ticked off the list and that’s that.’

  As soon as my Mam began
to speak, I knew that he’d managed to make her feel a bit sorry for him and all his difficulties.

  ‘Well, I’m not trying to make your job any harder than it is,’ my Mam said. ‘But if I just knew what this was all about! I don’t even know what it’s to do with.’

  He laughed then, the detective. And he said, ‘Hey, Mrs Marks! You don’t know what it’s about? What about me? An enquiry like this; I’m just told to get out there and ask some questions. But that’s all I’m told. I don’t even know what it’s about myself. It’s probably nothing. Kids causing a bit of trouble in the neighbourhood and somebody’s put in a complaint. Not even worth the bother. But we have to be seen to be doing something. So muggins here, I get sent out to make a few enquiries.’

  My Mam started to sound really relieved then. ‘Well, you can take it from me,’ she said, ‘our Raymond’s not been involved in any trouble. In fact,’ she said, ‘he’s barely been out the house this summer holidays.’

  He nodded then, the detective. ‘Well, like I say,’ he told my Mam, ‘me doing this, a bit of checking up, it keeps the public reassured. Lets the community see that we’re doing something.’

  And I started feeling relieved myself then. Partly. It’s just that there was a bit of me that couldn’t help wondering; if it was just some kids who’d been messing in the street or something like that, how come there was a detective sergeant and two uniformed policemen sitting there in our front room?

  Perhaps it was all right though. Because I could hear my Mam and she wasn’t scared or worried or anything like that now. She just told the detective, ‘I wish you’d explained that in the first place. Because with you saying you were a detective, you had me dead worried. I thought detectives were really important. I thought it must be something really serious. I didn’t think detectives had to do things like this, making enquiries when it’s just some kids who’ve been getting a bit out of hand.’

  ‘Hey, you’d be surprised,’ he said, laughing. ‘It’s not all action and glamour like they make out on the telly, y’ know. Routine, Mrs Marks,’ he said, ‘most of it. Plodding, boring, bloody mind-numbing routine work, most of it.’