She sniffed as she wiped away her tears, then blew her nose. ‘You must think I’m a right drama queen. I’m sorry to put all this on you, Elliot, but I couldn’t face telling Mum. She’s never liked Holly and this proves she was right all along.’
‘You should give your mum a chance. She loves you a great deal and she’s so proud of you. I know she wants to help.’
‘Maybe. But I don’t like to bother Mum and Dad with my stuff, anyway. They have enough on their plate.’
‘Is that why you didn’t tell them about the text messages?’ he asked, getting a shrug in response.
‘That’s a lot to deal with on your own, Chloe. Whatever they have going on, I know your parents wouldn’t want you to keep important things like that from them. It’s their job to help with this stuff. What about Ben? Does he know?’
She shook her head. ‘I did tell someone,’ she said, bursting into tears again. ‘I told Holly.’
They mulled over the situation for a while together. At one point the front doorbell sounded. Chloe sat bolt upright on the bed, wide-eyed. ‘Who’s that?’
Elliot guessed that she feared it might be Holly. ‘Don’t panic. We won’t let anyone in that you don’t want to see.’
But the next thing they heard was Lisa answering the door and shouting to Ben that he had a visitor.
Eventually they agreed that Chloe would visit Holly’s house that afternoon to confront her. She looked terrified at the prospect, so Elliot offered to accompany her. Thankfully she declined, although she did make him promise not to say anything to her family yet.
‘One thing at a time,’ she said. ‘I’m worried enough about seeing Holly.’
‘Relax,’ he told her. ‘What’s the worst that can happen: that your friendship comes to an end? If a mate of mine did that to me, I don’t think I’d miss them. Plus there’s always Saima. It sounds like she’d be delighted to get close again. Whatever happens, Chloe, will you promise me that you’ll tell your parents about it later today?’
‘Fine.’
He left her to compose herself and went to find Lisa. While descending the stairs, he heard muffled voices coming from the lounge, the door of which was shut.
Drawing closer, he recognised the sound of Ben talking to a male voice that he couldn’t pinpoint. He tiptoed past the door, torn between minding his own business and an urge to eavesdrop. When he reached the kitchen, he found Lisa sitting at the table, reading a magazine. She looked up. ‘At last. How did you get on?’
He nodded. ‘Pretty good. She’s upset. It’s to do with her friend Holly, but she’s asked me not to say anything—’
‘What? Come on, El. I’m her mother.’
‘I know, Lisa, but I promised her.’
‘I don’t care. I want to—’
‘Listen, I got her to agree to tell you later on. But first she wants to see Holly to make sure she has her facts straight.’
‘I knew that girl was trouble the moment I laid eyes on her. She was the one who drove a wedge between Chloe and Saima.’
‘I think Chloe knows you feel that way about Holly already.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Just something Chloe said. She’s fragile. I’d tread carefully.’
Lisa slammed her magazine on to the table. ‘Tell me you’re not giving me parenting advice.’
‘I’m trying to help. Don’t shoot the messenger.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap. It’s hard being the one trying to hold everything together in this family, that’s all. My daughter’s upset about goodness knows what, my husband’s gone AWOL, and my son’s having a secret discussion in the lounge with a strange man I’ve never seen before in my life.’
It suddenly dawned on Elliot what might be happening with Ben. ‘Yes, I heard someone at the front door. What’s that all about?’
‘No idea. It was a guy in his late twenties, I’d say: small, skinny, balding. He introduced himself as Henry, but Ben appeared before I could ask any more details. He didn’t exactly look happy to see this guy, but he whisked him into the lounge and asked me to stay out.’
‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’
‘I caught a little at the start.’ Lisa lowered her voice, holding a finger up to her lips. ‘Ben asked how Henry had found him and he said something about an IP address. That’s a computer thing, isn’t it?’
Elliot nodded.
‘Do you think I’m okay leaving them alone?’ Lisa asked. ‘It seems a bit weird.’
‘Better here than somewhere else.’
‘Exactly.’ She paused. ‘Do you know what? No, I shouldn’t …’
‘Go on. If you were thinking it, you might as well say it.’
She lowered her voice further still. ‘Don’t say anything, but I’ve always wondered whether Ben might be gay. If this Henry hadn’t been so much older … the vibe between them. It almost seemed like, you know.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I’m his mother. You pick up on certain things. Mike and I have discussed it a few times. We’ve agreed to wait and see if Ben brings it up with us.’
At that moment the lounge door swung open and Ben came out, a deep frown on his forehead, followed by his visitor, whose eyes were glued to the floor. They both appeared flustered and neither looked in the direction of the kitchen, disappearing towards the front door.
‘What’s going on?’ Lisa mouthed, unable to see the hallway from her seat.
Elliot shrugged, peering in that direction but seeing nothing helpful. He did, however, hear Ben tell the man to ‘never come here again’. Then there was the sound of the door opening and closing.
Shortly afterwards, Ben appeared at the entrance to the kitchen.
‘Everything all right?’ Lisa asked him.
He gave a half-hearted nod.
‘Henry didn’t stay long.’
‘No.’
He gave Elliot a look – brief yet intense – before announcing that he needed to speak to his mother.
Elliot got the idea. ‘I’m going to pop out for some fresh air,’ he said, spotting a good opportunity to hunt down Mike.
As for Chloe, she was still in her bedroom. He popped his head in, only to find she was ready to go, so they headed out together, leaving Ben and Lisa alone for what Elliot hoped would be a very productive chat.
CHAPTER 38
NOW
Wednesday, 25 July 2018
‘Stop.’ Elliot reached forward, placing a hand on Mike’s forehead. ‘Be calm.’
And just like that, the red mist surging through Mike’s mind was evacuated.
He’d had a short fuse as a child. They’d even nicknamed him Hulk for a while at primary school after he’d lost it with a bully and chased him around the yard in a rage. It had been much less of a problem as an adult – until bloody Liam Hornby came along with his belligerent behaviour and career-wrecking false accusations.
Ever since then, it didn’t take much to make Mike angry. Like the fight Elliot had saved him from in the pub. Like his nasty, cringeworthy behaviour towards Lisa in the restaurant last Friday. Alcohol made it worse. Mike hated himself when he got like that, but once the scales tipped, it was as if he was someone else: a creature led by his emotions rather than rational thought.
Sitting there cross-legged on that grassy spot near the stream, Mike tried to remember what Elliot had said to make him angry, but he couldn’t. It was gone. All that remained was calm. And clarity, he realised: the alcohol’s effects puzzlingly wiped away.
Elliot’s hand was still pressed against his forehead, eyes locked on his, like searchlights probing his soul. Mike stared back, wanting to ask what was happening, but he found he was unable to speak or, come to think of it, to move. This was certainly odd, but he was too calm to be concerned.
Elliot started speaking. His voice was serene, warm and soothing, its measured rise and fall enchanting; almost … pleasurable.
‘I’m here for you,
Mike. I can help you, if you trust me. I can relieve you of your burden. But you have to tell me. You have to let me in and share the heart of it: the poison eating away at you, stifling you, holding you back. I need you to tell me everything, Mike, without reserve. Then I’m going to take away your pain, so you can move on with your life.’
‘It’s no big secret,’ Mike said, his tongue moving freely again. ‘Even those idiots in the pub knew about it, thanks to all the press coverage.’ He found he wanted to explain things to Elliot; for once, he was able to do so – to think about that awful time – with detachment. The fury didn’t rise up in his chest like usual.
‘Liam Hornby is what happened to me. His lies wrecked my career and now there’s nothing left for me. I’m burnt out and useless. Teaching is the only thing I’m qualified to do and I can’t do that any more. I tried something else, driving the van, and look how well that turned out.’
‘You could still teach,’ Elliot replied. ‘You were cleared of the charges. Leaving the profession was your choice. It wasn’t forced upon you. Why did you feel unable to continue?’
Mike thought about this. It was strange to be able to consider the topic, which usually made him so riled, in a disconnected way, as if it was someone else’s life rather than his own. His official line, which he repeated now to Elliot, had always been that the lack of support from the head and his other colleagues had been the final straw. There was truth in this. After he’d been suspended on full pay, he’d barely heard from them. Although they’d said to his face that they believed his version of events – and had no doubts about his innocence – it hadn’t felt that way. Rather they’d seemed to distance themselves from him. He’d felt like a gangrenous limb being tied off in preparation for amputation.
The other thing he mentioned was the way he’d felt judged by the court of public opinion. Again, this was nothing new. He’d said so countless times before to whoever would listen. There was also truth here. Look at those men in the pub. They thought he was guilty, apparently unaware of the fact the charges had been dropped. Even those who had read or heard about him being cleared probably thought there was no smoke without fire. It was easy to think the worst of people. The media encouraged this with its sensationalised reports and headlines, dragging his name and reputation through the gutter while his accuser remained anonymous, thanks to his age.
If he was to start afresh at a new school, how long would it be before some parents got wind of what he’d been through? Probably a matter of days. It would only take one curious person doing an Internet search to find out. And once that happened, would they feel sorry for the terrible ordeal he’d endured? Doubtful. More likely they’d ring the headmaster to voice their concerns about the ‘child beater’ teaching their little poppet. Then how long until some innocuous thing he did got misinterpreted in light of his ‘colourful past’ and someone made another false allegation?
There was no way on earth that he or the rest of his family could relive that hell again: the media intrusion; the rumours and name-calling. At a particular low point he’d been spat at in front of his children, for crying out loud.
Elliot, whose hand remained glued to Mike’s forehead, nodded as he listened to all of this. When Mike stopped there was a long pause, as if Elliot was processing the information. Usually Mike would have found the silence awkward, particularly in light of the hand on his head and the way he was being scrutinised. But it wasn’t like that. He remained calm, like a theorist analysing some abstract concept from the comfort of a recliner.
It did occur to him that if anyone was to walk past while the two of them were like this, the situation would appear very odd. Not that he cared.
Finally Elliot spoke. ‘I understand everything you’ve said to me, which makes sense, but it’s not what I’m looking for. What’s truly holding you back lies deeper.’ His eyes fluttered shut as he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. ‘I believe it’s something you’ve never told anyone before. You may never even have admitted it to yourself. I can sense it, but … the details aren’t there. You need to take me back to when it happened: this moment between you and the boy, when you were alone in your office. I want you to imagine yourself there again and describe it to me.’
‘Fine,’ Mike replied. How often had he relived that time in his dreams before waking in a cold sweat, sleep banished by a single intrusive thought: what might he have done differently to avoid that horrendous outcome?
The little psycho, fresh from telling Mike to go screw himself, now had the gall to feign innocence while grinning at him. He’d been caught red-handed attacking his classmate with stinging nettles, for God’s sake.
‘Don’t give me that, Liam. You knew exactly what you were doing. I asked you where the nettles came from. Well?’
A shrug in reply – all the more infuriating considering the nastiness of the incident, which was surely premeditated. Mike was struggling not to lose his rag.
‘What do we have to do to get through to you? Why are you so determined to cause trouble at every opportunity? It’s not for my good that you come to school, Liam. It’s for your own. You’re the one—’
The eleven-year-old was leaning back in his chair and yawning now. What the hell was the point?
‘You’re a—’
He was saved from saying something he’d later regret by the ringing of his desk phone. ‘Hello?’
Beth, from the school office, needed the key for the safe. He decided to take it to her to allow himself a moment to cool down.
‘Stay where you are,’ he told the boy, whose large frame and arrogance always made him seem so much older than he was. ‘And don’t touch anything. I’ll be back to deal with you in a moment.’
He was only gone for a couple of minutes, but when he returned … Damn, how could he have prepared himself for that?
His office had been completely ransacked: files and paperwork all over the place; his computer knocked to the floor. And that smell! The bastard had pissed all over the carpet. And there he was, sitting back in his chair, a wide grin slashed across his face, like it was the funniest thing in the world.
Mike was literally shaking with rage. ‘What the hell have you done?’ he yelled.
‘Stop,’ Elliot commanded, snapping Mike back into the present. ‘That’s it.’
Mike was confused. He didn’t understand. He’d not even got to the part when Liam had smashed his own head down on to the desk, breaking his nose and spraying blood everywhere. Or later when he’d received that fateful phone call from the kid’s dad, who’d called the police and vowed to fight tooth and nail to ensure Mike ‘went down’ for what he’d done. Surely that was the moment when his world had come crashing down around his ears; when he truly realised the gravity of the situation.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked Elliot, although as he said this, a little voice in the back of his mind was whispering something else: a message meant for him alone. It was warning him to keep his trap shut or else.
Or else what?
Mike felt his heart starting to race, the calmness ebbing away.
‘I felt it,’ Elliot said. ‘I saw it in your mind’s eye. It was there for an instant – and then it was gone. Did you see it too?’
‘Um, I’m not sure.’
‘Think yourself there again, Mike. Picture exactly what you saw, what you could smell and what you felt like when you walked into your office and witnessed the devastation.’
‘Okay. I’ll try.’ Mike cast his mind back again. He remembered handling the cool metal of the long, chunky safe key as he passed it to Beth. She smelled of hairspray and fags. Next he was walking back to his office, a hint of bleach in the air, mixed with the familiar scent of stale gym kits from PE bags on pegs along the corridor. He was wondering what to say next to Liam and feeling a lot more calm, thanks to those couple of minutes away from him.
Then bang.
That awful scene of devastation again.
The lovely office he’d worked so h
ard to earn.
His personal, private space.
Wrecked.
And that smell.
The ammonia-laden reek of urine taking over the entire room while that shit grinned at him.
‘Yes, that’s it.’ Without warning, Elliot jerked his hand away from Mike’s forehead. ‘Now how do you feel?’
‘I’m devastated. Shocked. Furious. Raging.’
‘And? Set it free.’
‘I want to …’ He let out an exasperated sigh, the syllables refusing to form themselves.
‘Yes? Don’t stop now. Keep going.’
‘I want to … I want to …’ He was struggling to control his breathing now, panting like a woman in labour. Beads of sweat ran down past his temples.
‘Come on, Mike. There’s nothing to fear.’
‘I want to pick up that little shit and throttle the life out of him. I want to punch him so hard that his face caves in. I hate that bloody arsehole!’
As soon as the words had left his mouth, Mike gasped. He threw a hand up to his lips, wanting to cover them; to stifle the terrible thing that he’d uttered; to somehow take it back.
But it was too late.
He’d said it now.
The truth was out.
‘I didn’t actually do any of that … He really did—’
‘It’s okay, Mike.’
‘No, it’s not. I’m a teacher. I mean, I was a teacher. How could that thought have even crossed my mind? I really wanted to hurt him in that moment, Elliot.
‘God, I’ve never told anyone that before. Not even Lisa. If he hadn’t have done what he did to himself, maybe … I don’t know. What if that’s something I’m actually capable of? How could I ever teach again knowing that possibility?’
He paused for a couple of seconds before adding: ‘Maybe I actually am the monster I was accused of being.’
Elliot shook his head. ‘Thoughts and actions are two very different things, Mike. You need to focus on what happened, not what went on inside your head. And as I promised, I can help with that. Hold on tight.’
Hold on tight, Mike thought. What did he mean?
But before Mike’s brain could formulate an answer, quick as a cat, Elliot pounced on him. He came with both of his hands this time, clamping one on either side of his head.
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