The Rumour

by Lesley Kara

  Shapes resolve in the darkness. Shadows loom. The ghost of a family house stretches out in three directions: the corridor and stairs ahead, a room on each side. Both doors are open but there’s no light coming from either of them. No sound either, apart from a faint rustling and scratching. It seems to be coming from the walls. I shudder. It must be mice. Or … a shiver of revulsion makes my shoulders tense and rise. Or rats.

  Just the thought of them makes me cringe, but I have to keep going. If Marie and Karen have Alfie in this house somewhere, rats are the least of my problems.

  I hold myself rigid, stomach muscles so tight they ache. Mum steps out from behind me and turns into the doorway of the room on the right. The floorboards creak under her step.

  ‘Marie!’ she calls out. Her voice startles me. Something scurries across the floor and I freeze.

  ‘Marie!’ she calls again. Louder this time. The name echoes in the house.

  She pulls her phone out of her pocket and switches the flashlight on. I do the same on mine and follow her in. The room is empty apart from two old-fashioned easy chairs, the fabric torn and stained. Squashed cider cans and spliff-ends litter the bare floorboards and the charred remains of a fire fill the grate. The air is colder in here than outside. Thick and still.

  The beam of white light snags on a tiny plastic figure and my heart stops. It’s R2-D2. And though I know loads of kids have figures just like it and that any child in the past could have dropped this here, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is his. This is Alfie’s. It would have been just like him to smuggle it to school in his pocket.

  My hand closes round it till the plastic digs into my palm. I stretch my hand out towards Mum and slowly uncurl my fingers. She gasps.

  ‘Alfie!’ My scream ricochets round the room. What has she done with him? Where is he?

  Mum pulls me out of the room and into the one across the passageway. As she enters, the dusty threads of a cobweb snag on my chin and trail across my nose and mouth. I splutter and brush them away, goosebumps surging down the backs of my arms.

  The room must once have looked grand. An oval-shaped table with six hard-backed chairs takes centre stage and on the floor lies an ancient, dusty rug. Heavy velvet curtains still hang at the boarded-up windows, their ends pooling on to the floor.

  Apart from more litter there’s nothing else here, so we ease our way along the hall towards the back of the house and the kitchen, my heart thumping painfully. My flashlight sweeps the torn lino floor and dated cupboards, the bare wooden counters ringed with ancient stains. We see it at the same time, both of us cringing in horror – a Perrydale Primary School sweatshirt pinned to one of the counters by a kitchen knife, the blade warped and rusty. My knees buckle. Mum grips my arm so tight I feel her fingers pressing on the bone.

  ‘No!’ Her voice is barely audible.

  I reach for the knife, hands trembling, and wrench it free of the fabric. It falls from my hand as I lift the sweatshirt up and check the back of the neckline, knowing what it’s going to say before I see it. ‘Alfie Critchley’ in red cursive letters, my own clumsy stitching round the edges of the tag. I bury my nose in the fabric, inhaling his scent.

  ‘Up here,’ comes a voice from somewhere above us. A now familiar, gravelly voice.

  We freeze and look up to the ceiling. Mum darts towards the stairs, but I run after her and pull her back. Insist on going up first. I strain my ears for sounds of Alfie, but if he’s here, he’s keeping silent. Dread twists in the pit of my stomach. An empty, griping pain. What if he can’t make a noise? What if she’s keeping him silent by …?

  I force the dreadful images from my mind and concentrate only on climbing the stairs. Rain spatters down on us from above. I crane my neck back and a drop of water lands straight in my left eye, making me flinch. There must be a hole in the roof somewhere. The treads creak and I motion to Mum to step on the outer edges in case the joists are rotten. Some of the spindles that support the handrail are missing and the carpet is dangerously loose. It’s sodden and rank-smelling.

  With each step we climb, the smell of cigarette smoke gets stronger. The wallpaper – an old-fashioned print of sprigged flowers – is peeling away in damp scrolls. Chunks of plaster are coming loose too. The darkness presses at our backs the higher we climb. Behind me, Mum’s breaths come fast and shallow.

  At the top, a strip of dull yellow light shows under one of the doors.

  The door isn’t fully closed. The wood must have expanded in the damp air and the strike plate’s out of alignment with the latch. Steeling myself for what I might find on the other side, I rest the flat of my hand on the door and push gently.

  50

  The room is empty apart from a single bed and a wardrobe. The light is coming from a large candle in a saucer in the floor. Alfie’s coat is hooked over the handle of the wardrobe door. I’m across the room in a flash, tugging it off, clutching it to my chest along with his sweatshirt, hugging it tight as if, by some miracle, he’s still inside it. Mum pulls at the wardrobe door, but it’s jammed shut.

  ‘Alfie? Alfie, are you in there?’

  At last, the door judders open and in that split second dread floors me. I sink to my knees, still clutching Alfie’s sweatshirt and coat against my neck, and find myself staring at two empty hangers and some scrunched-up newspaper. He’s not inside. Wherever else he is, he hasn’t been shut up in this wardrobe.

  ‘Marie?’ Mum’s voice rings out in the stillness of the house. ‘Where are you?’

  Nobody replies. We check the other rooms. With boards covering the panes of glass, they’re as black as windowless cellars. Without the flashlight on my phone, we’d be stumbling around half blind. We search each and every cupboard and wardrobe, compelled to check even the smallest of spaces.

  I can’t bear to think that Alfie might be here somewhere, locked up in the dark, scared out of his wits. But apart from an old suit hanging up in one of the wardrobes and some ancient sling-back sandals, there’s nothing here. The beds are still made up and there are pictures on the wall. Ghost bedrooms – their previous inhabitants long since departed.

  In the bathroom, I snatch the filthy shower curtain back and stare into the limescaled bath. The rank stench of damp and mould fills my nostrils.

  ‘Up here.’ The disembodied voice seems to come from above the bathroom ceiling.

  Ahead of us, at the end of the corridor, is a spiral staircase leading up to the top floor. A faint glow filters down from above. Rainwater trickles down the steps and drips through a hole in the floorboards at the foot of the staircase.

  Mum’s already edging her way up, one hand on the wall, the other on the handrail, planting her feet carefully on either side of the sagging treads. The boards are rotten. This whole place is a deathtrap.

  My knees tremble as I follow her up, aping her movements, the muscles in my chest clenched. If Marie has hurt Alfie in any way … God help me, I’ll kill her. I’ll tear her limb from limb. Panic rears up inside me. Panic and rage.

  There’s only one door in this tiniest of square landings at the very top of the house, and Marie is behind it. Mum reaches out for the handle. I’ve never been so terrified in my entire life. This moment. This time. This place. It’s all there is. It’s all there ever will be.

  The door swings open on a small attic room. Candles flicker from various vantage points, the light creeping on the walls. A slow, ghostly dance. An odour of mildew and dust mingled with cigarette smoke and damp cardboard assails my nostrils.

  Marie is directly facing us. She’s sitting on a wooden chair positioned in front of an old-fashioned dormer window, the glass grey with encrusted grime. A framed photograph of Robbie Harris is wedged on her lap so that his smiling, cherubic face is looking straight at us. At her feet is a small pile of dog-ends.

  My eyes scan each shadowy corner, but the images I’ve been holding at bay in my head aren’t ones that meet my gaze now. Alfie isn’t here. I don’t know whether to be relieved o
r horrified. Because if he isn’t here, where the hell is he? What has she done with my son?

  ‘Come on in, Sally,’ Marie says, her smile a deathly grimace, gesturing to an empty chair tucked under the steeply pitched eaves.

  She’s wearing a pale-pink tracksuit that must once have fitted snugly but now hangs off her in folds. Her skin is grey and waxy. In different circumstances, I’d find the sight of her pitiful. Now, she inspires nothing but hatred and dread. Nothing but pure, unadulterated rage.

  ‘Where is he?’ I cry. ‘What have you done with him?’

  ‘All in good time, love. All in good time. Your mum and I need to have a little chat first, don’t we, Sally?’

  I lunge towards her, grab her by her thin shoulders. I could wrestle her to the ground if I wanted to. I could kill her right now with my bare hands.

  ‘Where’s my son? What have you done with him? Is he here somewhere? In this house?’

  Marie looks me right in the eye, challenging me to let go of her. ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she says. ‘I’m no match for you physically, not the state I’m in. But what good would that do, eh? I won’t tell you where Alfie is until I’ve got what I want.’ She jabs a finger towards Mum. ‘From her. Anything happens to me, you might never find out where he is.’ A strange little smile passes across her lips. ‘You’d better just hope I don’t peg it in the next few minutes.’

  A cry of anguish erupts from my lungs. We should have called the police. Whatever Marie said, we should have called them straightaway. Mum’s not the only one I’ll never forgive. I’ll never forgive myself for being so stupid, for doing exactly what Marie said instead of phoning the police like any normal person would have done. I’ve been an idiot. A stupid, fucking idiot. Running here at Marie’s bidding. Straight into her trap.

  ‘You’ll never get away with this,’ Mum says. ‘You’ll go to prison. For Christ’s sake, Marie, where is he? What have you done with him?’

  I wait with bated breath for her reply. All I want to do is hold my son in my arms. All this other stuff with Mum … the shock of the last few hours, it’s nothing compared with the thought of losing Alfie. Nothing.

  Marie inclines her head towards my phone. ‘Turn that off and throw it on the floor where I can see it.’

  I stare at her.

  ‘Do it,’ Mum hisses.

  ‘You too, Sally. You too.’

  ‘I don’t have a phone,’ Mum says, turning out her pockets for Marie to see. She throws me a brief glance. She must have hidden it somewhere else.

  ‘Oh dear. Left in a bit of a hurry, did you?’ Marie points to the chair again. ‘Go on, Sally, take a pew.’

  Mum does as she’s told. I stand in the doorway, my feet rooted to the threshold.

  ‘Whatever you want to say to my mum, it’s got nothing to do with Alfie. He’s an innocent little boy. My little boy. Not hers. Just tell me where he is, Marie. I need to see him. I need to know he’s okay. You can’t do this.’

  ‘My brother was an innocent little boy too. Still got murdered, though, didn’t he?’

  Mum leaps to her feet. ‘But I didn’t …’

  ‘Shut up and sit down!’ Marie snarls. ‘You want to see your grandson again, you shut the fuck up and listen! I mean it, Sally. You’re not in charge here. I am. The sooner you accept that, the better it will be for everyone. Especially Alfie.’

  My stomach churns with dread and nausea as I turn my phone off and lay it on the floor.

  Mum lowers herself stiffly into the chair. ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘A full confession, that’s what I want. A full confession on video for the world to see.’ Marie glares at Mum. ‘This has destroyed our family for long enough. It ruined my mum’s life. It’s ruined mine too. And my dad’s. It’s consumed us.

  ‘But first things first, eh, Sally? Tell your daughter what happened that day. Tell her why the jury got it wrong. Tell her why you should have gone down for murder, not manslaughter.’ She fiddles with her phone, holds it up in front of her.

  ‘Speak nice and clearly now, won’t you? And don’t miss anything out.’

  A small germ of hope flutters somewhere deep inside me. ‘Does Karen know you’re doing this? Has she got Alfie somewhere?’

  Marie laughs. ‘Karen doesn’t have a clue. Oh, she knows about her Uncle Robbie, of course. She’s always known that. But, as far as she’s concerned, I’ve given up on all that now. All that anger, all that hate.’ She strokes what’s left of her hair. ‘The cancer, you know? Puts things in perspective.’

  Her eyes flash in the candlelight. ‘Except it doesn’t. When I saw her at the playground that time, I recognized her straightaway. I’ll never forget your face, Sally. Not in a million years.’ She shakes her head. ‘You’ve forgotten mine, though, haven’t you? Still, that’s what dramatic weight loss and a lifetime of smoking does to you.’

  ‘So where’s Karen now?’ My voice comes out high and strangulated. ‘I don’t understand. Where’s Alfie?’

  ‘She’s on her way to the hospital with Hayley. The silly girl knocked her head on the sink. Karen left Alfie with me because you were on your way to pick him up, she said. Forgot her phone too, in the panic.’

  She sighs and shakes her head. ‘Too bad my mum couldn’t have found her earlier, when you were just a kid. Too bad Mum went to her grave knowing she was still out there somewhere, living the life she’s never deserved to live. I’m doing it for her. For my poor late mum. Your mother took little Robbie away from us and ruined our lives. And unless she tells the truth for once in her diabolical life, I’m going to ruin hers, and yours.’ She narrows her eyes. ‘And Alfie’s. What did you think of that photo, by the way? Karen did it as a joke – she didn’t notice my little addition. Bet you did, though.’

  My blood freezes.

  ‘Now do as you’re told, Joanna. Sit down and listen to your mum’s confession. Then maybe, just maybe, you’ll see your boy again.’

  Mum looks ready to pounce. She grips the sides of her chair and leans forward. ‘You’ll never get away with this, Marie,’ she hisses. ‘You’re insane if you think you will. Breaking the injunction is one thing, but abducting a child …’

  Marie laughs. ‘I don’t care. By the time this comes to court I’ll probably be dead. I’ve got stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, in case you hadn’t noticed. Now come on, Sally. Camera’s rolling. We’re all ears, aren’t we, Jo?’

  51

  Mum holds my gaze as she speaks. Her face is bleak. Her voice bleaker.

  ‘We were playing,’ she says. ‘A whole gang of us.’ Her eyes slide towards Marie. ‘Marie was there too. And Robbie. I was the one in charge. I was always the one in charge. Mainly because I thought up the games.’

  My chest feels like it’s going to explode with fear and tension. I have to make myself breathe in and out, will my lungs to expand and contract. It’s no longer something that just happens automatically. All I can think of is Alfie, frightened and alone. Where has she taken him? Is he here in this house, shut up in one of the rooms? Did we miss somewhere? What if there’s a cellar and he’s all alone down there in the dark? Why didn’t we think of that?

  But all I can do is listen while Mum talks.

  ‘Scary games, they were. There was always something threatening us, something we had to escape from. A fiend of some sort, swooping at us through the rubble of the flattened streets. An escaped convict, with chains on his feet. A gun-slinging cowboy intent on revenge. And only I knew how to outwit him.’

  She rocks as she speaks.

  ‘All the others did what I said. I think they were a bit scared of me. I’d had a good role model, you see. I knew how scary people acted. I knew the sorts of things they said. The way they looked at you and turned your insides to liquid. I was acting out the only thing I knew. What happened at home. What I’d seen. What I’d heard.

  ‘We didn’t want Robbie joining in. He was too small and he couldn’t run fast enough, but Marie had to look after hi
m so we didn’t have a choice. He kept whingeing and spoiling the game. Then I found an old kitchen knife in one of the derelict houses we used to play in. I picked it up and started brandishing it around. All the other kids ran away, squealing. They knew it was just a game and they loved it, pretending to be scared. They knew I wouldn’t really hurt them.

  ‘But little Robbie didn’t run away. He wanted a turn at being the baddy. He wanted the knife and he tried to grab it out of my hands. I snatched it away and it sliced right into his fingers.’

  She closes her eyes. ‘It was just an accident. I didn’t mean to do it. But then he started screaming and crying and saying he was going to tell his mum and dad and they’d send me to prison, and I just wanted him to shut up before all the others came down and saw what had happened. I just wanted to scare him a bit and tell him to shut up because it was an accident.

  ‘I pinned him against the wall, my hand on his collarbone.’

  My hand flies instinctively to my neck.

  ‘I’d seen my dad do this a million times to Mum and it always stopped her talking.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I had the knife in my other hand, but I’d never have hurt him with it on purpose.’ She looks straight at me, beseeching me with her eyes. ‘Never. But it’s hard holding a little kid still, and Robbie suddenly lunged forward. I didn’t know a little boy could be that strong, but he was so angry it was like he suddenly had the strength of a much older boy. The knife went straight into him. Then Marie was right next to me, screaming her head off, and then they all were.’

  Marie shakes her head in disgust and stops filming.

  Mum bows her head and starts to cry. ‘If I hadn’t been holding that knife, if I hadn’t been so determined to be the baddy at all costs, it would never have happened. If I’d just let him be the baddy for a little while, let him have his fun … He was only a little boy.’