Aiden sat quietly at a little table in the corner of his hospital room. Dr Foster joined him at the table, sitting opposite him. The psychologist reached into her bag and removed a notepad and pen. “Would you like to write or draw anything, Aiden?”
I watched eagerly as Dr Foster pushed the notepad and pen across the table. I rubbed one hand with the other, hoping and wishing he would lift the pen. If he could communicate with us in even the smallest way, that would be something. It would be wonderful.
Aiden stared down at the notepad but didn’t make any move to pick up the pen. I chewed on my bottom lip, while Rob stood on my right side and Jake hovered on my left. DCI Stevenson had left us in the care of two ‘family liaison officers’ while he went back to the police station to work on the case. They were waiting in the corridor to give us some space. Denise and Marcus, they were called. Dr Schaffer was doing his rounds on the ward. As much as it felt like Aiden was the only child in the world, he wasn’t. He wasn’t even the only child in the world who had been through the same suffering.
“Perhaps you could draw us a nice picture,” Dr Foster went on. “Doesn’t matter what it is, anything that pops into your mind.”
His gaze never moved from the pen and paper, and in my mind I imagined that he really wanted to take the pen. I rubbed my hands again, hoping and praying he would. He leaned forward and I leaned with him, almost stepping towards them. But I didn’t. I hung back, giving them space. It must have been off-putting, having us all watching him like that, but there was no way I was letting the psychologist in the room with him without me there.
Then, in one quick, fluid moment, he snatched up the pen and pulled the notebook towards him. I let out a breath, only then aware that I’d been holding it. Dr Foster glanced up at me with a small, hopeful smile on her face. What if Aiden could write? He’d been proficient for a six-year-old before he was snatched, but I had no idea what he’d been taught or not taught since then. Did he have books where he’d been? Had he kept a diary of his world? I screwed my eyes shut and opened them again. Aiden was drawing in the notepad. He was drawing something.
I turned to Rob and then to Jake, my chest heaving up and down. This was good, it had to be. This was a step in the right direction. Finally. And after this, how long would it be before he started talking again? Then he’d be able to tell us what had happened to him. We’d find his kidnapper and throw him in jail, unless I murdered him first. If it weren’t for prison… I shook my head, forcing the dark thoughts away, though one question remained… Could I?
While Aiden scribbled in the notebook I resisted the urge to step closer and lean over his shoulder. Aiden deserved a moment to express himself. There was a terrible tale inside him that one day he would need to tell the world. Let him breathe, I thought to myself.
Slowly, Aiden’s hand came to a stop. I wasn’t close enough to see what he had drawn, but I knew he had been scribbling rather quickly, veering his fist from one side of the page to the other as he worked the pen.
“That’s wonderful, Aiden,” said Dr Foster as Aiden pushed the book back to her. “And what is this a drawing of? Is it the place you were when you were away?”
My heart skipped a beat, but Aiden’s face gave nothing away. He was as blank and calm as always.
“Shall we show this to your mum?” Dr Foster asked.
He didn’t reply, of course, but I stepped towards the table anyway. With a face as pale as milk, Dr Foster lifted the sheet of paper. It was filled with one untidy, black scribble with ferocious pen strokes that almost completely filled the page.
11
I could’ve kicked myself for not thinking to give Aiden a pen and some paper before the psychologist saw him. Aiden was always a visual child. He hated colouring books as a child, preferring to scribble or paint on blank sheets of paper. I bought him his first watercolour set when he was four. Bishoptown-on-Ouse has an abundance of spots perfect for the exploration of young mothers and their sons armed with a painting set. We found a huge oak tree which turned into the HQ for a badly-behaved fairy king. Aiden painted orange and red leaves on a thick brown trunk. The Ouse was the perfect spot for a tsunami, so I drew little surfers on top of his blue waves. Aiden loved to paint with colours. He copied the pictures from his favourite comic books, creating his own messy versions of Superman and Spiderman.
He’d grown up with a set of parents who loved art and who loved to paint and draw. And of course he needed that outlet now. But the picture I saw in that hospital room was not Aiden. It was spiky and harsh. It was painful to look at. Dr Foster gave me the sheet of paper to keep and even as we were driving home from the hospital I took the paper out and stared at it, following the lines with my finger.
There were no recognisable shapes within his drawing. There was nothing that could be used in the investigation. Aiden had not drawn us a pretty picture of his prison, nor had he drawn us a map of where he had come from out of the woods. There was nothing except pain and anger in his work, and I didn’t need to be any kind of therapist to see that. But I did feel that it was worth visiting Dr Foster again, so we arranged some dates for over the next few weeks. She pushed things around but managed to fit Aiden in as a priority around her other clients, and I was grateful for that.
The next day, Dr Schaffer informed me that there was little reason to keep Aiden in the hospital. Aside from the old injury on his ankle, there was nothing wrong with him. His growth had been somewhat stunted, but otherwise, he was healthy. I would be taking him home tomorrow.
That Saturday disappeared in a blur as I rushed back to the house, made up the bed in the spare room, and placed the one stuffed toy I’d allowed myself to keep after I declared my son dead. It was a small, soft dragon with red scales that shimmered when the light hit them. My mum had given it to Aiden when he was a baby, representing her Welsh ancestry. I placed it on the pillow and folded the bedding around it to make it look like it had been tucked in. It was silly, but I used to do that when he was a toddler. Then I took the clothes from the shopping bags around the room and folded them into the drawers. Poor Jake had given me his credit card to use and I had gone a little wild, trying to somehow make up for Aiden’s ten years of hell with expensive jeans.
At one point I dug out a couple of pieces of his artwork and tacked them to the wall. Then I thought better of it and pulled them down again. Aiden wasn’t a little boy anymore. The dragon, though—that had to stay. He had never slept without it when he was little. He needed to know I remembered.
The next morning I woke with butterflies in my stomach at the thought of bringing my son home. With it being a Sunday, Jake was off from work, of course, but I suggested he give us the day to settle in. He agreed, eager to do what was best for Aiden, and, I think, a little guilty about the way he’d reacted in the hospital.
Rob picked me up to take me to the hospital, driving his dad’s car. We’d decided that it would be too much for Sonya and Peter to be there. We wanted to keep this simple and quiet. There was the threat of the press looming above us. They would find out soon, we were certain of that, but how much, and when? That axe was yet to fall.
“Are you ready?” Rob asked as I pulled the seatbelt across my body.
“Are you?” I replied.
He’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and I noticed the hint of a tattoo peeking out from underneath the sleeve. It was black, with a slight tail looping down.
“A dragon?” I asked.
“Like Aiden’s,” he replied.
“I found it and put it on his bed.”
“He never slept without it,” Rob said.
“I know.” I pressed my finger into the corner of my eye and tried hard to stop the tears building up. “No, I’m not ready for this. But I won’t let it show. I won’t.”
“It’s all right, Em. You’re doing a good job. Fuck, you’re doing better than I am. And you have the…” He glanced at my belly.
“The baby? It’s fine, she’s not the elephant in
the room. You can mention her.”
“She? So Aiden will have a little sister. That’s great. It’ll be great for him.”
“I hope so.”
Rob was quiet for the rest of the journey, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through his mind. After a few minutes I gave up and thought of Aiden. There was a nervous tickling in my stomach as we pulled into the hospital carpark. It was early October and the leaves of the old sycamore trees on the edge of the paved area were turning amber and gold. Low-hanging mist obscured the autumn colours and blurred through the parked cars. The windscreen wipers squeaked across the glass, smearing fine rain into milky streaks.
“So what’s he like?” Rob asked as he unclipped his seatbelt.
I gave him a look as if to say ‘Who?’ With Aiden in hospital I’d spent a fair bit of time with Rob, and I was already allowing myself to relax. I remembered giving Rob that look a hundred times when we were together. He’d always tested my patience, but at one time that had felt like a good thing, an exciting thing.
“Hewitt.”
“Supportive,” I said. “Reliable. A good husband. He’ll be a great dad.”
“Better than me, then.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said in a raspy voice, struggling with the door to the Ford. “Does it matter? Fucking grow up, Rob. You weren’t there, I moved on. I’m happy, all right? What’s done is done and it doesn’t matter anyway. None of it does. Aiden is all that matters now.” I let go of the door handle and sighed. “So can you deal with this? Can you work through your pathetic issues and be a man? Be a dad? Because if you can’t, then turn around and drive out of this carpark right now and never come back into Aiden’s life. He needs stability and he needs love. It’s not an either/or situation here. I need you to give him both.”
Rob held his hands up in surrender. “All right, all right. I know, okay. I know he needs that from me. I’m going to be there for you both. I promise.”
His words freed a part of me, lifting a suffocating weight from my chest. Who knew that what I’d needed the most was his reassurance that he’d help? I guess I’d been carrying too much on my own to breathe.
Outside the car, the air was full of drizzle with a strong breeze rustling the auburn leaves. Though it was a small hospital in an affluent area, St Michael’s still had that faded hospital look, with a dirty-beige painted exterior and steps grimy with moss leading to the entrance. I pulled my woollen cardigan closer to my throat to stem the chill.
We walked the familiar steps towards the ward and exchanged pleasantries with Dr Schaffer. The family liaison officers from the police were already there. PC Denise Ellis was a short but sturdy woman of Afro-Caribbean descent. PC Marcus Hawthorne was tall, lanky and pasty-faced, with limp red hair. Though I preferred DCI Stevenson to keep us updated, the two of them seemed mild-mannered and professional, never raising their voices and always offering us cups of tea and coffee.
We walked into Aiden’s room to find him standing at the window staring out. He was dressed in jeans and a striped jumper that I’d dropped off at the hospital. He hadn’t had his hair cut, so it was still straggly and touched the tops of his shoulders. His eyes were slightly red-rimmed, though I doubted it was from crying. More likely he’d had a bad night’s sleep. I hoped he didn’t have any nightmares, but I was almost sure he did.
“Are you all set?” I asked, again with the bright, cheery voice that sounded forced. I kept reminding myself of annoying TV presenters on the kids’ channel, bright-eyed and blonde with a permanent grin fixed to their faces.
Aiden moved away from the window and towards me, but again he didn’t say a word. He didn’t really look at me either, but at least he was walking towards me. That was a start. It was an acknowledgement of my presence. It was better than nothing.
“Right then, pal,” Rob said. “You’d better say your goodbyes to Dr Schaffer and the others. We’re taking you home, mate. Mum’s got Walnut the Dragon all ready for you.”
I’d almost forgotten that bit. Aiden insisted on calling his dragon Walnut because my mum loved her Walnut Whips, and I was always teasing her about the walnut addiction. Somehow, Aiden latched onto the association between his Nana and the walnuts. Hearing the familiar name hit me in the gut with a bomb of emotion. It erupted through me, fireworks extending to my fingers and toes. That was what I used to have. That was my perfect, happy time.
Aiden followed us silently as we made our way back through the hospital to the carpark. His footsteps were quiet, though he still moved with a stiff gait. The jeans and jumper I’d bought for him were for a much younger child, yet they still hung loosely on his hips. Dr Schaffer had told me to cook plenty of protein-rich foods, like chicken and fish, to help build up his muscles.
I longed to take his hand but I refrained, aware of how much he disliked being touched. Instead, I matched his stride, stepping along with him, and facing the rest of the hospital with him as we walked him out of the building together. All eyes were on him. Every nurse stopped what they were doing to stare at the boy who had come back from the dead. Every room we passed, the patients and visitors peeked out through the doors. And the closer we got to the front of the hospital, the more a seeping sense of dread worked its way through my system. I glanced at Denise, and saw the tension running along her jaw. She felt it too.
Word had got out.
If the hospital staff and patients knew who Aiden was, that meant gossip of Aiden’s strange arrival had started to spread. But how far had it gone?
We were only two or three paces out of the glass doors when a wiry man with a hooked nose stepped into our path.
“Matthew Grey from the Yorkshire Post. Is this Aiden Price?”
Marcus stepped forward, shielding Aiden from the intrusive man, while Denise whispered to me, “Don’t say anything.”
Rob and I put our heads down and walked on, guiding Aiden gently away, but the man sidestepped Marcus and approached Aiden directly.
“Are you Aiden Price?”
“Get away from him,” I said between my teeth. This time I did take Aiden’s hand. I pulled him away from the reporter and hurried to the car with my heart beating hard and my chest tight.
This time it was only one. Next time, we wouldn’t be so lucky.
12
PC Denise Ellis put the kettle on as soon as we made it into the house.
“They’ll find out where you live soon,” she warned. “They can’t come onto the property but they’ll hang around the boundaries with cameras. We’ll do what we can to keep them away. It might be time to get a lawyer and maybe someone in public relations to help.”
I didn’t want to deal with all this. Aiden had only just taken his shoes off. I’d bought him Velcro trainers: I didn’t even know if he could tie his own shoelaces, and I didn’t want him to feel embarrassed by not knowing how. We were all crowded awkwardly in the kitchen. All I could think about was how PC Ellis had just left the teabag on the very expensive ash kitchen side and how it might stain, and how PC Hawthorne still had his boots on.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked. My hands were at it again, one rubbing over the other. “Won’t it be expensive?”
Denise stirred milk into the tea. “Yes, but you can potentially make quite a lot of money, you know. There are newspaper interviews, TV interviews, the lot. They pay well and you get to tell your story.” The stirring stopped and she looked up at me. “But don’t speak to anyone until the investigation is over. When we put the kidnapper behind bars, that’s when you can start talking to the press.”
“No one is telling this story except Aiden.”
“I know, but the press are going to hound you. What we can do, if you want, is release a statement asking for privacy at this difficult time. It never works, but then if they cross the line, you’ve warned them not to.”
She handed me a hot cup of tea and I blew on the liquid to cool it.
“They’d better leave Aiden alone,” Rob said. “They h
ave to, don’t they? He’s a minor. He’s just a kid.”
“The problem is,” Marcus said, “they already know who Aiden is. We would usually keep his name out of the newspapers, but it was reported on during the flood. Everyone knows Aiden’s name.”
My heart sank. More than anything I wanted Aiden to have a happy, normal home after everything he’d been through. But he was already famous, and he didn’t even know it.
“We’re here to help you deal with everything.” Denise tried to smile reassuringly, but neither Rob nor I returned the smile.
The tea cooled on the table as we took Aiden around his new home. He followed us placidly with small, stiff steps. I found myself rambling as I walked through the house, desperately trying to fill the silence.
“Jake chose the carpets, he loves white and cream. He’s lovely. You’ll get to know him soon. I thought you might want to get used to the place first, though. Jake will be home soon and then you can get to know each other. He’s out buying food for us and running errands. We’ll have a stocked up house for you soon. A proper home.”
“Is anyone allowed to spill in this house?” Rob asked with an eyebrow raised, his eyes roaming across the luxurious cream throws over the sofas.
I chose to ignore him. “And that is one of my paintings. It was Jake’s idea to hang it on the wall.” I gestured to the large abstract acrylic hanging up on the corridor wall. I’d painted it shortly after the flood. It represented a great deal of pain for me, with the reds swirled into blues, but Jake had insisted that we display it. He said it was his favourite artwork of all time and I couldn’t resist his excited smile. Over time I grew to look at that painting and see his smile rather than Aiden’s coat in the water. Perhaps now that Aiden was back, I’d find something else to see in those swirls of colour.
“It’s good, Em,” Rob said.
I’d never shown him the painting before, not even in the aftermath of the flood. I’d always kept it to myself. It was only when Jake found me with a knife in one hand and red coating my arms, sat on the floor next to a pile of torn canvasses, that I had finally shown someone.
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