“Is it too soon for visitors?” DCI Stevenson poked his head around the corner.
“No. It’s fine,” I replied.
The last two hours felt like a lifetime ago. After Aiden had pointed out the fluid pooling on the ground, we’d struggled back up the steps and out into Rough Valley forest. The contractions were worse than before, which meant Aiden had to prop me up as we struggled through the trees. I shouted. I screamed. I yelled.
The police weren’t far away. They’d been coming for me, just as Stevenson had promised. He was the first to reach me. He hooked my arm over his shoulder and guided me through the dark wood, the light from his torch bouncing up and down like a scene from The Blair Witch Project. As we stumbled through the forest I told him about the underground bunker and the cage.
“I think it’s Hugh,” I whispered. “Aiden won’t say but the… body has the same blond hair. I think it’s Hugh and he’s been dead this whole time.”
Stevenson had only nodded.
He didn’t understand. Hugh being dead this whole time meant that I had been afraid of a ghost. Aiden’s kidnapper was a monster. A spectre. Though once very real, even in death Hugh had turned my life upside down to the point where I’d even suspected my own son of siding with his kidnapper. I’d become my own worst enemy, my paranoia seeking out danger in every corner whilst blinding me to the true threat: my husband.
Now, with the bright hospital lights overhead, Stevenson bobbed his head up and down and cooed at my baby. The smile on his face was genuine, and I was pleased with us all for surviving this long, arduous journey.
“How’s Rob?” I asked.
“Stable, they say,” he answered. “We got to him in the nick of time, I reckon.”
“And Josie?”
“She was tied up to her bed with a gag over her mouth. She’s shaken up, but she’s given us a statement about Jake. He dragged her up there and tied her up, but aside from a few bruises she hasn’t been hurt.”
I nodded. Aiden carried Gina to the other side of the room and sat down in the visitor’s chair.
“Jake?”
“Deceased.”
I nodded. I wasn’t happy about it. I wouldn’t be dancing over his grave or breaking out the champagne, but I was relieved, and that relief lifted a heavy weight from my heart. It was over. Or, at least, it was almost over.
“And the bunker?”
“There’s not much we can do at night. Forensics will go in first thing in the morning. We’ll need Aiden to make a statement. Is he… is he talking?”
“A little.”
DCI Stevenson rocked back on his heels, awkwardly. “That’s good.”
“There’s one other thing,” I said.
“What is it?” Stevenson asked, frowning.
*
I knew that one day Aiden would want to tell his story. Some stories are told from the beginning and they don’t stop until the final word. Some stories start at the end or the middle and they show you the beginning. I knew that Aiden’s story would take a lifetime to tell, but we had the rest of our lives to explore it. In the week that followed Gina’s birth (not Jake’s death, not the discovery of Hugh or Rob’s assault; it was Gina’s birth, the start of life) Aiden revealed a tiny island in the midst of an ocean. The glimpse he showed me was enough for the time being. I knew he would show me the rest when he was ready.
Why was I so confident that Aiden would tell me his story? Because we tell stories to heal. Aiden has a lot of healing to do. We both do. We’ll both be healing together.
Forensics found Hugh’s DNA all over the bunker. They found the paperwork detailing the purchase of land in Rough Valley Forest. No one had been suspicious because of Hugh’s dealings with various property developers. A few companies had bought small plots of Rough Valley but no one had built on the land. Hardly anyone ever went into Rough Valley Forest, a fact that Hugh had exploited.
After an appeal for information a builder came forward to admit he’d been hired to adapt an old World War II bunker as a living space. Hugh had told the man that he was thinking of turning it into some sort of ‘glamping’ spot. The place was decked out like a caravan, with a portable water tank and a generator for electricity. Hugh would need to replace them on a regular basis so Aiden could survive on his own in the woods. Because the part of the woods Hugh bought was private property, none of the public paths went even close to the bunker where my son was kept. No one heard the generator. No one. When Aiden escaped, he told me he was afraid he’d be in trouble for killing Hugh. He had turned the generator off and hid it beneath a pile of leaves.
There was no record of the bunker on any plans or included in any maps. Hugh had thought this endeavour through from the beginning to the very end. Aiden told me about Hugh’s intentions to end it by killing him, but how he had been unable to do it in the end. I didn’t like to think about what had happened the day Aiden escaped from the bunker.
I had a hard time putting together the idea of the Hugh who invited me into his home, who made us delicious roast dinners and served us fine wine, with the Hugh who snuck away from home and work to visit my kidnapped son in his private bunker. But I learned a lot about Hugh from Aiden.
Josie came to see me in hospital after Gina was born. She was in tears. Her shirt was on inside out. I gently told her to turn it the right way and she stared at me open-mouthed.
“Tell me,” I said. “Tell me you didn’t know.”
“I thought it was affairs,” she said. “That’s what everyone told me. They saw him with women. I just…”
“The day of the flood. You were there. Were you stalling me?” I asked.
She shook her head so quickly that she seemed almost manic. “No. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I…”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I know you didn’t know. He went to extreme lengths to hide this side of himself. I don’t blame you.” I reached out and took her hand.
“I should have seen it.” She wiped tears away with the back of her hand. “I should have known the signs. After things with my dad… I thought I’d recognise it if it ever happened again.”
“I keep thinking about one night when Aiden was, I don’t know, maybe two or three, and we stayed at your place for the night. Hugh took Aiden to bed, all wrapped up in his arms. I followed them up the stairs a few minutes later and watched him tuck Aiden into bed. He was singing this lullaby really softly. I remember thinking about what a good dad he’d make. I went into the bathroom and I cried for you both because you couldn’t have children and you so deserved them.” I shook my head. “I was so wrong. And I should have known that day when Aiden sang that little song to himself. It was the same song. I should have known. Instead, all these weeks I’ve been afraid of a ghost while my own husband…”
Josie touched my hand lightly. Tentatively. “They wore masks.”
Hugh had made Josie feel safe in the same way Jake had made me feel safe. They’d done it by hiding behind their masks. Why should either I or Josie feel guilty for that? Why should we feel weak? People who prey on the vulnerable aren’t strong—they’re cheaters. While the rest of us are working hard to keep our lives in control, these cheaters are taking our lives away from us. They steal and they lie because they can’t connect with people, they don’t know love, and they don’t know what it feels like to be loved.
I almost feel sorry for them. But not quite.
When Josie left I felt very hollow and empty, but she wasn’t part of Aiden’s story, and that was my priority until everything was over. Aiden had to come first.
The media had not let us out of its greedy fist just yet. The remarkable story of the baby born just hours after the discovery of the grisly body in the bunker was splashed all over the papers. We sold millions of copies for them. But I was fiercely protective of Aiden. I ignored every phone call and every offer that came my way. I kept my cool and I learned not to scream at the reporters.
After Josie left my hospital room, I got out of the bed
and took Aiden’s hand. Gina was nestled in the crook of my free arm. We walked together through the wards to bright white room filled with six beds. Three on either side. It wasn’t visiting hours and I knew I shouldn’t really be there, but I didn’t care.
“Here she is. The miracle.” Rob was propped up with pillows, smiling at us, his eyes twinkling. The same eyes as Aiden.
“Do you want to hold her?” I asked.
He nodded. His head was still bandaged, and I could see by the way he moved that he was still in some pain, but I passed Gina across to him, making sure he cradled her head, which he did with great care.
“She looks like you,” he said. Then he smiled across at Aiden. “How you doing, buddy?”
Aiden fidgeted next to me, looking down at his feet. “Okay.”
Rob turned to me with tears in his eyes and I met his gaze while heat radiated through my chest and into my veins. I nodded and mouthed the words ‘he’s back’. Then I placed my hand on top of Rob’s and squeezed it. We remained like that for at least five minutes, none of us quite believing we were there, alive, and—mostly—in one piece.
*
After being discharged from the hospital I went back to Jake’s house because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. The first thing I did was take down every photograph, strip the beds, and throw his clothes into a bin bag. I would never take pleasure in his death, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be surrounded by his belongings.
Once all of that was done, I had only one more task, and it was to do with Aiden’s story. Hugh had planned his kidnapping down to the letter but I never believed he’d set out to take Aiden. It didn’t make sense to kidnap a child to whom he was so close. As soon as Aiden went missing, every person in my life would be under scrutiny. But Hugh got lucky. Aiden decided to wander off to the river in the middle of a flood. Not only that, Jake pushed Aiden into the river. Hugh came across Aiden floating in the river, fished him out, and took him to his bunker while the rest of the world assumed that Aiden had drowned. Then all he had to do was come up with good excuses to everyone for disappearing so often (business trips and long hours to Josie; affairs to his brother and colleagues). I found out that Hugh would live in the bunker with Aiden for days, staying overnight. Then, when he actually did have to go on business trips, Hugh would drive back from York or London to check on Aiden, put more petrol in the generator, and replace the water. Keeping him alive was a lot of work, but taking him had been convenient. Too convenient.
There was one missing element, and I knew exactly what it was. I also knew what I was going to do about it after forensics finished examining the scene of the crime, because there wasn’t any other DNA evidence inside the bunker aside from Aiden and Hugh. That left me with one choice.
I dropped Aiden and Gina off at Sonya and Peter’s house. Then I got in my car and drove towards Bishoptown school. I took a turn off the main road and instead headed down Singer Lane to the third house on the left. When I got out of the car I checked my pocket, locked the car, and knocked on the door. Mrs White from across the street waved through the window and I waved back.
The door opened and I stepped through, not even bothering to wait to be invited in. I reached into my pocket, retrieved the knife, and pressed the point against her throat.
“Are you alone?”
She hesitated but she answered. “Yes.”
“Shut your curtains in the living room.”
I hid the knife behind my back and followed her into the living room. She did as I’d asked.
I’d been in Amy’s living room about a year ago when we met for takeaway and movie night with a couple of the women from school. It had been tidier then. Amy had left a few mugs on the coffee table, as well as a stack of newspapers. One of them was spread open, with her face shown in a little bubble above a picture of me getting into a car with Aiden.
“You’re not on the front page anymore,” I noted. “That has to hurt.”
“What are you doing here, Emma?” Amy asked. She backed away from me with her hands behind her back. Her eyes were wide, like a frightened puppy. I could tell she was attempting to back up to the vase on the bookcase behind her. I strode across the room and she yelped as I placed the knife edge against her cheek.
“They’re not going to be able to prove it. That’s why I’m here. Aiden told me you put the idea of him going down to the river in his head. You kept telling him how pretty it would be and how brave he would be if he went. You told him the bridge was going to sink and that he should go and watch. You told him I’d be proud of him for sneaking out of school. Then you deliberately turned your back as he wandered out of the classroom. You knew the school would be too distracted with the flood to notice. Then you sent a text to your boyfriend Hugh to tell him where Aiden was. You knew what Hugh was and you helped him. You’re sick.”
Amy took another step back but I saved her the trouble by knocking the vase onto the carpet. I pressed the knife so close to her skin that it drew blood.
“And then, when Aiden came back, you logged into Hugh’s Facebook account and you checked him in at a Las Vegas airport. That… that, the police might be able to trace back to you—”
“They won’t,” she snapped. “I covered my tracks. Hugh showed me how. He learned all kinds of tricks on the internet when he was feeding his habit.”
“Then I suppose I’ll have to serve out my own justice,” I said.
“I didn’t hurt any kids,” she said. “It was… I…”
“What?” I snapped. “Spit it out. Tell me your justifications for doing what you did.”
“We took drugs together, all right? We took drugs and we experimented. It all got a bit out of hand. He used to strangle me sometimes and we’d talk about things in bed. We told each other the darkest parts of us.” Her eyes glittered and she smiled at me. I was tempted to cut the smile from her face but I couldn’t. Not yet, anyway. “I bet you don’t know what that’s like, to crave that kind of darkness. You’re so… normal. Boring. You never deserved Rob.” She sneered, her frightened puppy act slipping. “You’re so… vanilla. You don’t understand what it’s like to live on the edge. I wanted to help Hugh because he was… free. Knowing that I’d helped him was enough for me. I got to go to work every day with the knowledge that I knew what had really happened to your son. I knew every day. Hugh even let me go down there once, while Aiden was sleeping.”
“Why the fuck did Hugh trust you?”
“Because he knew me!” she exploded. “He was the only one who did. That’s why I protected him when Aiden came back. I knew the police would sniff around his house if I didn’t do something to account for his disappearance. That’s why I logged into his Facebook. Everyone thought he was having an affair, but I figured out what must have happened.”
“You weren’t protecting him, you were protecting yourself,” I said. “You thought the affair you had with Hugh might come out and lead back to you. But you’re an idiot, Amy. You’re not good at this at all, not like Hugh. You craved your fifteen minutes of fame when you should’ve been keeping quiet. Didn’t you realise that Aiden would start talking eventually?”
“I thought he’d come back wrong,” she said. “I figured he was retarded and would never say a peep.” She shrugged. “He is your son, after all.”
I ignored the dig. “You’re weak. Hugh was controlling you and you can’t even see it,” I said. “He was controlling everyone. You. Me. Josie. Aiden. That’s what he wanted. Complete control.”
“No,” she said. “I allowed him to.”
“You’re pathetic.”
“Whatever,” she replied. “You’re a bitch. You never noticed me. None of you. I was nothing to you all. A follower. The dirt on your shoe. You never deserved Rob. He’s better than you.”
“You’re sick,” I said, pressing the knife harder against her skin. When a red bead trickled down her face she started to cry.
“Don’t hurt me! Please!”
I let out a long, hot
breath right into her face. “Do you know what it felt like to kill Jake? I saw the life fade from his eyes. I tasted his blood when I ripped his wrist open with my teeth. I could rip out your throat right now.” She whimpered and closed her eyes. “The only reason I won’t do that is because I’m not an idiot like you. I’m not about to waste my life over a cretin like you. I have a life now. I have my son back and I have Rob back. I have a daughter. What do you have? A stack of newspapers with your name in them. You’re not worth going to prison over. So I’m going to tell you exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to sell this house. You’re going to quit your job. You’re going to take the blood money you received from the lies you told and you’re going to move far away from here. You’re never going to show your face again, because if I see you, I will plunge this knife into your belly and I’m going to keep cutting until I reach your lying mouth. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
*
It was a steep climb. My legs ached and my back was sweaty, but the view was beautiful. I lifted Gina’s hand and waved to the tiny, scurrying people below. She was strapped to my chest, nuzzled against my skin.
“Do you remember this place?” I asked.
Aiden nodded. “We used to come for picnics.”
Bit by bit, day by day, I was learning what Aiden remembered and what he didn’t. He remembered my mum and dad, he remembered the school, but he didn’t remember his favourite food or the football team he’d supported.
I spread out the blanket and placed the picnic basket down. It was cold, and the grass was wet, but I’d brought a waterproof blanket and we were all covered in thick layers to keep us warm. I removed the baby halter from my front and sat down on the blanket, putting Gina on my knee. She looked funny in her little ski suit, all red nose and cheeks.
“Isn’t it lovely down there?” I said.
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