The Moment She Left

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Remind me of his name,’ Andee prompted.

  ‘Tyler Bennett.’

  ‘And can you think of any reason why he’d follow you here now, three years after you left the north?’

  ‘No. Unless he wants to make trouble again.’

  It was hard to imagine what sort of trouble when the boy had already caused so much, but Andee guessed he could always try doing the same again should he, for some warped reason, feel inclined to. However, Blake wasn’t a teacher now, so nowhere near as vulnerable, and besides, she couldn’t see Graeme swallowing any of the boy’s nonsense.

  ‘OK, I’ll get on to it,’ she told Blake. ‘If he comes back at all let me know,’ and ending the call, she put the phone on the table and tried to decide whether or not to attempt an embrace with her children.

  Since they didn’t appear to be inviting one, she decided to give it a miss and attempted a smile instead. Though this wasn’t an encounter she was looking forward to, it had to happen, and the fact that they’d come she’d decided to view as a promising start.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ she began, reminding herself that they were her children, not strangers she had no idea how to reach. ‘I know you’re both busy . . .’

  ‘You don’t need to patronise us,’ Alayna interrupted tartly. At eighteen she was all wild blonde beachwaves, impossibly long legs and, today at least, supercilious attitude.

  Swallowing a reprimand for rudeness, Andee tried again. ‘You’re looking good, both of you,’ she said, attempting another smile.

  With a weary sigh, Alayna flopped down on the sofa and took out her phone. Luckily she didn’t look at it, saving Andee the trouble of telling her to put it away again. Luke, fortunately, had stuffed his into a pocket. In contrast to his sister he was as dark-haired as Andee, with his father’s arresting blue eyes and raffish good looks, and he was fast reaching Martin in height and build too. Though his manner seemed no friendlier than Alayna’s, at least he wasn’t coming over as entirely hostile.

  ‘I asked you here,’ she said carefully, ‘because I want to try to explain what’s going on between Dad and me.’

  ‘We kind of know that already,’ Alayna retorted. ‘You’re screwing him up big time, and he’s got no idea why.’

  Wishing Alayna would just listen, Andee said, ‘He knows why I’ve left . . .’

  ‘But it’s not like he’s cheated on you,’ Alayna interrupted. ‘You just upped and went and now there’s some bloke you’re getting involved with . . .’

  ‘I’m not involved with anyone,’ Andee came in forcefully. ‘It’s not the reason I left. I will admit that there was someone, when Dad and I were apart, but it ended when Dad and I decided to get married.’

  ‘So you dumped him too?’ Alayna snorted.

  Annoyed, but letting it pass, Andee said, ‘I wish I had the same feelings for Dad that I used to when you were growing up and we were all together as a family, but I’m afraid I don’t. I still care for him, very much, and that’ll never change, but I’ve come to realise that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with him.’ There, so now they had it. It hadn’t been so difficult really, just shattering for them and in truth not so good for her either.

  ‘So why did you marry him?’ Luke wanted to know. ‘You didn’t have to. No one forced you.’

  ‘I thought, at the time, that I still loved him, or that we could get back what we’d had before he left . . .’

  ‘That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?’ Alayna interjected. ‘He left you, so now you’re getting your own back and leaving him.’

  Suspecting Martin had planted that suggestion, Andee said, ‘Do you really think I’d do something like that?’

  ‘I never thought you’d leave him at all,’ Alayna countered sharply, ‘so how do I know what you’d do?’

  ‘He was crying last night,’ Luke told her. ‘I’ve never seen him cry before.’

  Realising how hard that must have been for her son, to see his strong and beloved father in tears – and again wondering if it was all a ruse on Martin’s part to get them on his side – Andee tried to think what to say. But what else was there? She’d told them the truth, that her feelings had changed. There was no more.

  Suddenly welling up, Alayna wailed, ‘Don’t do this, Mum, please. He’s really upset, we all are, and we want you to come home.’

  Going to her, Andee said, ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know this isn’t easy for you, it’s not easy for me either, but please try to understand that feelings, emotions, can be incredibly complicated and most of the time it’s as though they have a life of their own. I promise you, if I could bring mine back for Dad and make you two happy, I would, but it just doesn’t work like that.’

  As Alayna sobbed into her shoulder Andee watched Luke, wishing she could think of a way to reach him too, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes, and she knew he wouldn’t want her to try and comfort him. He was too grown up for that now.

  ‘I hope you understand, both of you,’ she said gently, ‘that it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. You’ll always matter more to me than anyone else in the world . . .’

  ‘Apart from yourself,’ Alayna sniffed. ‘You’re putting yourself first . . .’

  ‘Why shouldn’t she?’ Luke interrupted harshly. ‘She’s got as much right to her own life as anyone else, and it’s not like you’re a kid any more. You don’t even live at home . . .’

  ‘Why are you having a go at me?’ Alayna cried. ‘I’m just saying, if we matter so much, why is she breaking up our family?’

  ‘Stop,’ Andee said gently, before Luke could hit back. ‘Your brother’s right, sweetheart, you’re both at uni now, and before too much longer you’ll be off living your own lives, probably a long way from here . . .’

  ‘But this is our home.’

  ‘Of course, and that’s not going to change. Both grannies will always be here, and I’m sure Dad and I will too, just in different places.’

  ‘Which means you’ll be making us choose who to go and stay with and that’s not fair. It’s not like we’re trying to make you choose between us . . . I mean, how would you like that . . .’

  ‘Alayna, try growing up,’ Luke muttered angrily.

  Alayna glared at him. ‘I thought you didn’t want them to break up either,’ she growled.

  ‘I don’t, but if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen, so chill, for God’s sake.’

  ‘God I hate you sometimes,’ she seethed.

  ‘You hate everyone who won’t do what you want.’

  ‘Enough,’ Andee came in firmly. ‘Falling out with each other isn’t going to get us anywhere . . .’

  Luke got to his feet. ‘I need to go,’ he said, checking the time on his phone.

  ‘No, I’m going,’ Alayna declared, leaping up too. ‘You’re the mummy’s boy, so you stay,’ and before Andee could stop her she’d run down the hall, slamming the front door behind her.

  Andee turned back to Luke, and saw to her relief that he didn’t seem about to follow, at least not right away. As his eyes came to hers she sensed how hard he was struggling with this and reached for his hand.

  ‘We’ll get through it,’ she promised.

  ‘I know that, but I just can’t stand seeing Dad so upset.’

  ‘He should be talking to me, not to you.’

  He nodded, keeping his head down, until eventually he looked at her again. ‘I want you to do whatever’s right for you,’ he said hoarsely.

  Surprised and touched, she said, ‘Thank you.’

  He shrugged and started for the door.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said, ‘and thanks for trying to understand.’

  After he’d gone she stood at the window watching the street below until he came out of the building and started off towards the old town. She was so close to tears that her vision was blurred, and by the time she’d cleared it he’d turned a corner and disappeared.

  Taking a breath to steady herself she rea
ched for her phone to call Martin, but before making the connection she clicked off again. Venting her anger at him for burdening the children with his feelings and using them to guilt-trip her wasn’t going to help the situation. Right now, she couldn’t think of anything that would, apart from time, so deciding to try and refocus her thoughts she opened her computer to check if there were any emails from Leo Johnson yet.

  Finding nothing, she deliberately didn’t try to read anything into it, since she knew very well that he had other priorities, and moving on she called up the names of the lead detectives who’d conducted the Manchester end of the search for Jessica. Maybe one of them could throw some light on Tyler Bennett’s whereabouts, just in case it was him hanging around the shop.

  Chapter Seven

  Blake was sitting on the edge of Jessica’s bed staring at the project she’d put together, aged twelve, after he and Jenny had taken her and Matt to an Edvard Munch exhibition in London. She hadn’t done it for school, she’d done it for him because of his interest in the artist, carefully choosing Munch’s works and words in a way that had impressed him then, and could just about break his heart now. His mind, his very soul, were in the blackest depths of despair. He tried so hard not to go there, had learned over time that there were ways to avoid it, but there were other times, such as now, when it sucked him in like a helpless victim and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  She was dead. He was never going to see her again. He’d never hear her laughter, her anger, her tears, her beautiful singing voice. There would be no more pride or fatherly fear for his girl; no more plans for the future, jokey reminiscences of the past, setting up for gigs, or arranging a wedding. They’d never paint pictures together again, or visit galleries or get excited about new talents, or share opinions, or spring surprises on each other. The fear of her never returning to his world, the dread of it, was so consuming it stole the air from his lungs, crushed the very beat of his heart.

  He was asking himself if he’d been guided by some inexplicable fatherly instinct today to come and pick up this project, with its postcard of The Scream on the front, because she was trapped somewhere, screaming for him to come and find her.

  Jess, Jess, Jess, he cried silently, desperately, as though he were answering her desperate plea.

  There was no answering cry. There was only a voice from the past, hers, apologising for some silly falling-out they’d had. ‘I’m sorry I got so mad,’ she said tearfully. ‘I didn’t mean any of what I said. Please don’t be hurt. You know I love you all the way round the world and back again.’

  All the way round the world and back again.

  It was how far he’d go to find her, as many times as needed, but where, dear God where, should he look along the way?

  Forcing his head up, he dried the wretched tears from his face and looked around the room. It hadn’t changed. It was still hers in every way. Her concert and fashion posters were pinned randomly to the walls amongst the portraits he’d done of her – Jess as Picasso’s Woman in a Green Hat; Jess as Jawlensky’s Girl in a Flowered Hat; Jess as Van Gogh’s Peasant Girl in a Straw Hat. There were other paintings they’d done together, photographs they’d taken and books they’d read. Nothing had been moved, not the soft toys she’d collected over the years, nor the dressing gown hanging on the back of the door, nor the mess on the dressing table, nor shoes stuffed into a collapsing rack. Even the pile of fresh towels Jenny had put on the bed ready for when she got home were still where Jenny had left them.

  They couldn’t clear anything out yet; if they did it would be giving up, and he wouldn’t allow himself to do that. She might be dead, but until someone could tell him that for certain he had to find a way to bring her back to her mother and brother, to him. They weren’t complete without her and never would be. It felt as though all the purpose had been stripped from their world, that every thought had to be about her because it was the only way of keeping her with them.

  But she wasn’t with them, and today, because it was a bad one, he felt sure in his broken heart that she was dead. If it were true, if she was lost to him, it would be better to know than to endure this never-ending hell of wondering where she was, what might be happening to her. Tomorrow he’d probably feel differently. Tomorrow he might hear her so clearly in his mind that he’d know beyond a doubt that she was out there somewhere. And of course she was, she had to be, because people didn’t just disappear. They might not come back, or ever be found, but they were still somewhere . . . Which led him to the small, but horrific comfort that could be found in the stories of girls who’d returned to their families after being imprisoned for months, even years, by some sick maniac whom no one had even suspected. They were hidden in cellars, or sheds, or bunkers far from anywhere they could be heard if they called for help, or screamed out in fear or pain.

  Did someone have Jess in captivity? Had they tied her up, locked her into a windowless space, drugged her, done whatever was necessary to put her beyond the power of escape? Were they even now using her, abusing her . . . He inhaled sharply and closed his eyes, as if the image, the obscenity, could be shut out so easily.

  Why didn’t he know? As her father he should have some kind of instinct, or telepathic connection that would help lead him to her.

  ‘We should consult a psychic,’ Jenny had said when it started to become evident the police weren’t getting anywhere. ‘Anything’s better than sitting here waiting and trusting people who don’t know any more than we do.’

  He hadn’t argued, nor had Matt, because like Jenny they’d considered anything worth a try. A neighbour had recommended someone in Cornwall, so they’d taken Jess’s first teddy, a photograph, a track of her singing, and her diary aged nine, to try and help the woman to pick up some vibes.

  Either she wasn’t very good, or they’d taken the wrong things, because they’d come away knowing no more than they had before going.

  ‘We should never have come to Kesterly,’ Jenny had wept when they’d got home. ‘It wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t.’

  She’d known that made no sense. Jess had disappeared in London, but Jenny had felt compelled to say it anyway, and Blake understood that it was her way of trying to blame him for the way their lives were imploding.

  Usually he let her, because he blamed himself. On that occasion he’d hit back in an outburst of frustration and self-loathing. ‘You think I did it, don’t you?’ he’d accused. ‘In your heart you believe I molested that boy.’

  She’d turned away, shaking her head. It was Matt who’d raged, ‘No one believes it. We all know it was about revenge.’

  Tyler Bennett was a tough, cocky kid from a highly dysfunctional family on a notorious estate, an unpleasant thug who, when at school which wasn’t often, had done his best to disrupt lessons, goad and humiliate teachers and ridicule those who wanted to learn. Everyone was nervous of him; there was never any knowing who he’d turn on next, no way of guessing what sort of punishment he was planning for a victim who had no idea they’d even committed an offence.

  The last person anyone had expected him to turn on was Mr Leonard, the art teacher. Everyone liked Mr Leonard; his lessons were fun even for those who weren’t much into the subject. He had the ability to make trips around galleries and museums interesting, and if some of the girls had a crush on him, which invariably happened, he always pretended not to notice. The same went for the boys, though Blake couldn’t remember suspecting any of them of being gay, only of some misplaced hero-worship.

  Though Tyler Bennett would never have admitted it, he was one of those boys. He didn’t tend to act up in Blake’s class in the aggressive way he did in others, although he was often loud and argumentative, or did his best to put down the more talented students. But he was rarely difficult with Mr Leonard himself. It was only when Blake had one day shouted across the art room, ‘Tyler, leave it alone if you can’t get it to stand up,’ that the trouble had begun. In spite of the students knowing he’d been respon
ding to Tyler’s noisy and fruitless efforts to erect an easel the entire class, with the exception of Tyler, had exploded into laughter.

  Tyler Bennett can’t get it up appeared scrawled on the art-room blackboard the next morning. By the end of the day it had made its way on to just about every black- or whiteboard in the school.

  Two weeks or more went by and there was no sign of Tyler. Calls to his home from the secretary’s office elicited no reply, and none of his regular gang was forthcoming about where he might be. Then out of the blue he was back, not for assembly or classes, but for a visit to the art room where Blake was still clearing up after school. He said he was looking for one of his mates, and Blake half expected a posse of them to come piling in behind him to teach him their own kind of lesson. Instead, Bennett closed the door, stayed for ten minutes or so chatting about Man United’s game the previous Saturday, and then left.

  In spite of finding the visit odd, Blake hadn’t thought much more about it until the Head called him into his office the following day. Tyler Bennett was waiting with his mother and uncle and Blake sensed right away that this wasn’t going to be good. Apparently the boy had made some very grave allegations, and though the Head told Blake privately afterwards that he wasn’t inclined to believe them, he was sorry, he had no choice but to suspend Blake while the matter was investigated.

  So the police and social services came to interview Blake, as well as questioning other teachers and students, Jenny, his neighbours, and parents of other students, some of whom were, like Tyler, from the notorious Ordsall Estate. Exactly what the authorities were told Blake never found out, he only knew that in spite of no charges being brought it was no longer possible to go on teaching at that school, or living where they were. Tyler’s gang had already targeted their house several times with paint bombs, packs of dog poo, fireworks, and the kind of threats that Blake couldn’t afford to ignore. He knew, because everyone did, that Tyler had been involved in the beating of a man whose only crime was to ask the boy to pick up the litter he’d tossed into his garden. The man’s injuries had been extensive, and might have been even more serious had a neighbour and his Rottweiler not come to the rescue.