We wait while he mops up his tears.
“We can do this another time,” I say.
“No! I want to now. I want to say it all.”
He talks. The tale he tells is of a night where he found out a devastating truth about his own origins. It continues with a journey through the city center where he felt vulnerable and confused about what he and Noah were doing at first, and then increasingly frightened. Everything he says fits with the CCTV images we have, and with the evidence: the sodden backpack, the letters. He’s extremely articulate, but I’m continually reminded by words he uses and gestures he makes that he’s just a boy, and that all of this is far too big for him to have to carry on his shoulders alone.
“It’s my fault he’s dead,” he says when he’s finished talking us through it all.
“It’s not your fault, Abdi. Noah intended to take his life.”
“None of it’s your fault,” says his father.
“I didn’t believe him. I just thought he was lying when he said he was dying. If I’d believed him, maybe I could have stopped him.”
“It was always Noah’s intention to take his own life on Monday night. Even if you’d tried, I’m not sure you could have prevented him. And if you’d stopped him then, he would probably have found another way on another day.”
“But I pushed him. He shoved me first, but I shouldn’t have pushed him back. I had so much going on in my head, though, I couldn’t deal with his stuff. So I didn’t think, I just did it.”
“Did you intend to push him into the water?”
“No. He tripped, and then it was like he let himself fall. He spread his arms out before he hit the water, and it covered him up so quickly. But I should have tried to save him.”
“No,” I say. “You shouldn’t. Not if you can’t swim. You would have risked your own life.”
“I thought that my own life was over that night. It was doing my head in.”
“It’s not over,” Nur says. He cups the boy’s face in his hands gently and looks into his eyes. “Your life’s not over, Abdi. It’s only just beginning.”
Shortly after that, I take my leave.
Ultimately, it’s not my call, but I hope we won’t be charging Abdi with anything, and I shall be arguing strongly against it unless there’s clear evidence to support it. A criminal charge wouldn’t be a just outcome for a kid who got sucked into somebody else’s world so very deeply, and who’s dealing with the fact that his own world is a far more difficult and complicated place than he thought it was, by miles.
When I get home, I have a quick phone call with Fraser. When she pulled Abdi from the scene in St. Werburgh’s, she fell badly and broke her wrist. She’s home and in a cast. I hear opera playing in the background. She lets me know that she’s pleased with the outcome of the case and pleased with my work, but also that she’s got a new understanding of painkiller addiction.
“Off my bloody head, Jim, that’s how I feel. There’s no way I can be on these while I’m working. Anyway, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s still the weekend and my husband is cooking me a roast that I’d like to go and partake of if you don’t mind.”
Regardless of the good outcome of my first case back, it occurs to me that next week’s unlikely to be much fun if Fraser’s working with a broken wrist and no painkillers. No matter—I’m fired up for whatever the week brings.
In the meantime, there are a lot of hours to get through before tomorrow. I feel my adrenaline crashing. I want to talk to somebody else about the case, but there’s nobody here.
I call Woodley. It goes to voice mail, and I leave him a message congratulating him on his work on the case. “It was good to work with you again,” I tell him. It’s definitely easier to say in a message than in person.
Perhaps it’s a streak of masochism that makes my finger hover over Emma’s name on my contact list, but I decide that it would be a very bad idea to call her. I don’t even know what I’d say.
I put my work clothes on to wash.
I turn on the TV and turn it off again.
I notice the message light flashing on my landline answering machine. I press play.
“Hi, Jim. It’s Francesca Manelli. Dr. Manelli. I noticed you called on Friday evening and hung up. I wondered if you’re okay. I’m in the office for a few hours today if you want to call back. I’m glad you called. I’m always here if you want to talk.” She leaves me her mobile number before saying goodbye.
I replay the message and note the time stamp. She left it yesterday. I wonder if I’m imagining that her tone sounds warmer than it perhaps should if she was being strictly professional. I replay it again. I don’t think I am imagining it, and I don’t think it’s usual for therapists to give clients their mobile phone numbers.
I don’t call back right away, but I think I might, maybe next week.
I relax a little bit, but I still don’t know what to do with myself.
Late on Sunday afternoon, as afternoon fades into evening, I’m back outside, perched on my parapet under a patchy sky, smoking a cigarette and watching the weekend walkers on Brandon Hill start to head home as the city darkens, when Becky lets herself into the flat.
She says nothing, but makes us each a cup of tea and climbs out to join me. She takes a cigarette from my pack and I light it for her. There’s a strong smell of Sunday dinner from one of the neighboring flats.
Becky’s huddled inside a big parka, but I can see that her wrist has been clumsily bandaged. I don’t mention it.
The blossom on one of the trees on Brandon Hill has burst. As the streetlights brighten against the dying light and paint the blooms with an orange haze, they start to look artificial.
“It’s a pretty view,” Becky says. Her voice sounds rough.
“You can stay as long as you like.”
“Thank you.”
“But he doesn’t come near this building or even this street.”
“It’s properly over this time.”
“I hope so.”
We smoke.
“Why do we want the people who hurt us?” Becky says when the ash on her cigarette’s long enough to droop.
She looks at me as if she actually wants an answer. A tear slips down her cheek.
“Because we’re afraid of being alone.”
Noah Sadler’s funeral is held at a crematorium on the outskirts of Bristol two weeks later. The nondenominational chapel sits in the middle of generous and well-tended grounds, where carefully tended spring planting has been allowed to gently brush and frame the memorial stones of the dead.
Noah’s mourners arrive in large numbers. The car park fills quickly, and the overspill vehicles stack up along the edge of the long driveway, most of them taking care not to track onto the close-cut grass.
Jim Clemo notices this as he arrives on his bike. It’s a late-morning service and he’s come straight from work. At the side of the chapel he hastily ties a black necktie around his neck and removes his cycle clips from his suit trousers. When he enters the chapel, he accepts an order of service from a man whom he assumes to be a family friend, and finds an unobtrusive spot near the back to sit in. From where he’s sitting he notices the headmistress and some of the staff from Noah’s school.
It looks as if a fair few of the students have turned out, too.
Jim doesn’t notice Emma Zhang, who’s found a seat that’s even more discreet than his. She sees him, though, and leans backward to ensure that his view of her is obscured by another member of the congregation.
One of the last cars to arrive is Nur Mahad’s taxi. It travels down the drive and circles around the crematorium.
Abdi, Sofia, and Maryam Mahad get out of the car near the entrance while Nur finds a spot to park in. The only spaces left are a few minutes’ walk away, at the far end of the driveway. He arrives back at the crematorium just in time. His wife and children have been shown to seats near the front of the chapel, reserved for those contributing to the service.
Th
e music playing is a classical piece that Noah chose because he knows his mother loves it. It’s a Dvořák piano trio, spare and beautiful. The guests talk quietly, some already weeping. The chapel is packed to capacity.
Abdi Mahad declined to do a reading at the funeral, in spite of Noah’s request that he do so in the notes he prepared with his father. Instead, in agreement with Ed and Fiona Sadler, Abdi will be delivering some of the eulogy. The bulk of it will be given by a family friend of the Sadlers, but they also wanted a young voice to speak for their son.
They asked Abdi to talk for a few minutes, no more, and only if he felt happy to.
According to Noah’s wishes, the mourners hear a reading from The Little Prince and a performance by some of the Medes College students of Abba’s “Super Trouper,” chosen because Ed used to sing it in the car to make Noah and Fiona laugh.
After that, it’s Abdi’s turn to speak. He stands up, steps carefully past his father, who’s on the end of the row, and walks to his place at the lectern, head bowed.
He touches the microphone and clears his throat.
Somebody in the congregation is crying audibly. A few coughs punctuate the silence between sobs.
Abdi takes a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolds it, spreading it out flat on the lectern. His handwriting covers the page. He wrote this speech with Sofia’s help. It doesn’t say everything he wants to say, and it’s not as nuanced as he would like it to be, because this is not the time or place. But there’s truth in it. In most of it.
Dear Noah,
You wrote me a letter just before you died, and this is my reply.
I feel angry with you for taking your own life, but I understand why you did it.
You did it because you spent years suffering from your disease, and you didn’t want to suffer anymore. You did it because you wanted to save yourself and your family and your friends from seeing and feeling some horrible things in your last few weeks. You did it because you were tired of the disease that had owned you for more than half your life.
I never knew you without your disease. When I met you, it was already part of you, and I saw that you had to get up every day and deal with the fact that there was something destructive inside you. It must have been hard to live like that.
But I wish you hadn’t ended your life early, because it means you stole from the people who loved you and the people who cared for you. You stole time, and you stole our goodbyes. We would have liked to spend your last weeks with you, whatever it was like, and we would have liked to be able to say a proper goodbye.
This is my goodbye. These are things that I would have said to you if I’d had the chance.
You were a good friend to me because you were funny. You were my favorite chess partner, even if you were impossible to beat sometimes. You helped me out sometimes. When I felt stupid, you told me I was smart. When I felt like I didn’t belong, you told me that I did. When I felt like I couldn’t do something, you told me I could. You judged me on my inside, not my outside. You drove me nuts sometimes, but you made up for it at other times.
I believe that you were a better person than you thought you were.
I will miss you.
Rest now.
Your friend, Abdi
Acknowledgments
This story owes thanks to many. Enormous amounts of gratitude must go to the following people, without whose support, talent, and hard work this book and my career would be far lesser things: Helen Heller, Emma Beswetherick, Emily Krump, Liate Stehlik, Amanda Bergeron, Tim Whiting, Cath Burke, Jen Hart, Molly Waxman, Lauren Truskowski, Elle Keck, Julia Elliott, Aimee Kitson, Stephanie Melrose, Dom Wakeford, Thalia Proctor, PFD agency, Camilla Ferrier, Jemma McDonagh, and the team at the Marsh Agency, the publishers and editors of my translated editions, and the wonderful sales teams who get my books out into the world.
Special thanks to Elsie Lyons for the stunning cover design.
My research would be sorely lacking if it wasn’t for the two retired detectives who very kindly advise me on police procedure and other related things. Thank you both. Thanks must also go to Frank Hemsworth, who patiently fielded my questions about IT. Any mistakes made in the novel are mine alone!
On the home front, thanks go to my writing partner, Abbie Ross, and to all my wonderful friends and family who prop me up and regularly lose me to my writing, but put up with both very gracefully. Biggest, warmest, and most grateful thanks of all are reserved for Jules, Rose, Max, and Louis, all of whom have no choice but to live through the writing process with me every single day, and somehow remain generously and unfailingly supportive throughout. I couldn’t do it without you.
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About the Author
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Meet Gilly Macmillan
About the Book
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The Story Behind Odd Child Out
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About the Author
Meet Gilly Macmillan
GILLY MACMILLAN is the bestselling author of What She Knew and The Perfect Girl. She grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire, and lived in Northern California in her late teens. She worked at The Burlington Magazine (UK) and the Hayward Gallery before starting a family. Since then she has worked as a lecturer in photography and now writes full-time. She resides in Bristol, England.
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About the Book
The Story Behind Odd Child Out
A long time ago, one of my children was diagnosed with a rare cancer. He was a thirteen-month-old infant with gray-blue eyes and skin on his temples as soft as velvet. He had an infectious, mischievous laugh and perfect small hands that would grip yours hotly and tightly.
Early on in his grueling treatment I left the hospital one morning to visit a local supermarket to buy some supplies. There was no shop or restaurant on-site for parents to use, even though we camped by our children’s bedsides day and night.
The walk to the supermarket was a welcome break from the pediatric oncology ward and the institutional machine that is hospital life. The movement felt good, the fresh air felt good, the freedom felt good. For a few minutes.
As I walked the aisles of the supermarket, I experienced a numbing wave of disorientation at the sight of the other shoppers moving purposefully between the rows of products packaged in hues that were oversaturated and overstimulating to my ward-worn eyes. I was acutely aware that these people didn’t know where I had been ten minutes before or what I had seen. As I stood—probably reeking of despair, as my hair and my clothes had surely absorbed the smells of the hospital—I realized that my son’s illness and treatment had comprehensively destabilized me. But if you had glanced at me, you’d have seen nothing more than an ordinary youngish woman contemplating the sweet-smelling shelves of bakery goods. You would never have known how the fear I felt silted my mouth, coursed through my blood abrasively like grains of sand, and whitened the tips of my shaking fingers, which were well hidden under the cuffs of my coat.
I bought nothing. I left the store and returned to the hospital. I raced up the stairs and along the corridors to my son’s room. I leaned into his crib and smoothed down the silken hair on his head. I traced the curve of his ear with my fingertip and watched the rise and fall of his chest while my husband went out instead of me.
After that, during all the months while my son was gravely ill and enduring treatment, I avoided public spaces where life’s carousel kept turning so flagrantly and I fled the cheap sympathy offered by those who love a victim. I felt altered, as if I could never navigate my life by the same compass again. I felt wounded—whether mortally or not, I wasn’t sure then.
I was drawn to safer places: family and friends who didn’t judge, who didn’t sugarcoat, who were extraordinary enough to have the stamina for us as we put on a brave face for them and fell apart
in front of them in turns. People’s compassion helped up to a point, but my emotional wounds were salved most gently and effectively by something unlikely.
By chance I came across a sculpture called the Pazzi Madonna. It was created by the Italian artist Donatello almost six hundred years ago. It’s a carved marble relief depicting Mary and Jesus. The religious aspect did not matter to me. What mattered was the power of its portrayal of a mother and her child.
Seen in profile, the mother’s forehead leans gently on her baby’s. Their eyes connect, his hand reaches upward to clutch the scarf at her neck, her arms enfold him, and his body curves to hers. She is his protector. The relief is carved from unyielding marble, but it couldn’t be more delicate or fluid in its expression. There is nothing else to it apart from a carved square frame, cutting her off at the waist, as if we glimpse them through a window. The baby’s toes rest on the sill.
The image spoke volumes to me across the centuries. In its simplicity, it absolved me for feeling such grinding sorrow and it told me that my ferocious feelings for my son as he suffered were acceptable and appropriate and somehow true. It did so because it told me a story about fundamental things, about a common humanity that lies at the core of each of us.
The events of Odd Child Out play out in my home city of Bristol. My main characters live there, and it’s where their worlds collide. They share a home city, but on the surface of it little else. Their disparate experiences and situations create tension as the story unfolds. As I wrote, I considered what else they might have in common. Their flaws were the first thing to spring to mind; these are the nuts and bolts of fiction, after all. Some of my characters also share a feeling of being outside the “norm” of society, just as I did that day in the supermarket. I remembered Donatello’s sculpture. I thought about how the fundamental emotional needs for my main characters in Odd Child Out are the same. These people may not always be compassionate or fair or even likable at times, but they love and are loved; they crave affection and deserve our understanding and empathy.
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