by LK Fox
In the kitchen, I opened my laptop and scrolled through the news, searching for reports, half-expecting to come across a paragraph stating that an unidentified man had fallen from a balcony at a charity institute, and that the police were treating his death as suspicious. I tried a dozen different word searches and found nothing. An investigation would barely have started, so it was probably too early for the press to have picked up the story.
Even as I tore myself apart over Buckingham’s death, I knew that Gabriel’s abductor had gone for good, and with it the truth had been taken away from me.
Now, after more than a year of thinking about Gabriel, I began to fear for my own safety. There was a chance it might not be over. If Buckingham’s company was at all concerned about his death, I reckoned they would look a little harder and find a way to track me down. The security guard might have got a good look at me. Then they could pressurize the police into conducting the kind of full-scale investigation that would eventually lead them to my door.
I had made a mess of everything. I told myself that none of it would have happened if I hadn’t glanced away that morning outside the school, but this was a lie because the problem went much further back. It had taken me years to find my place in the world. All the nights of drinking, the blackouts, the posturing before indifferent audiences. You really have to be suffering from a severe lack confidence to get up on a stage.
Long after the band had collapsed, I went to karaoke nights, trying to overcome my fears. I still couldn’t believe that Ben had bothered with me at all. I had so little confidence that I was almost relieved when he left. He had proved that I was right to believe I wasn’t good enough for him.
And all that had brought me to this low ebb, sitting in my empty flat, wondering if I could be found guilty of causing someone’s death.
I remembered I had been careful to park under the cover of trees, away from any CCTV. It was likely that the Peugeot would show up on other CCTV sites around the gardens. The Foundling Charity’s atrium had been clear of surveillance because of the redecoration. I couldn’t be certain about the common areas, but I hadn’t noticed any wall-mounted devices. I felt sure I had left nothing behind, but I decided to get rid of my trainers, just in case.
I was pretty certain I had left no identifiable marks at the institute, but I had no way of being sure that I was in the clear. I wished I had taken a proper look at Buckingham’s body. I had been super-careful, and hoped that a nice, incompetent local police unit would write his fall off as an accident. I was pretty sure that the teen they’d posted on security hadn’t got a good look at me, but there was a chance I’d been picked up on a camera tucked away somewhere. I just needed to behave normally, so I caught a bus went to work.
Normal. It’s hard to say what constitutes a normal life. A partner, a kid, a job, stability. By implicating myself in someone else’s death, I didn’t see how I could ever be normal again.
I decided to leave the car a few streets away from the flat, in the kind of deserted cul-de-sac where there was a good chance that it would be stolen by kids.
What else?
It disturbed me that I had not had time to wring an admission of guilt from Buckingham. And I was confused: how had Buckingham done it? I was fairly certain now that Gabriel had never met him before. How did he manage to lure a child into his car in broad daylight?
I went to the bathroom and threw hot water on my face, feeling as if I hadn’t slept in a week. I was faced with a limited set of choices. I could admit the accident and deal with the consequences, an avenue I automatically ruled out after the events of the last year. I couldn’t see I would ever get a fair trial.
So, my options: I could head down to the place Ben’s uncle owned in the country and lie low for a while, or stay where I was, get on with my life and hope that the matter ended there. I needed to hear the voice of a friend, so I called Matthew.
The first thing he did was apologise for the other night. ‘I shouldn’t have dragged you out like that.’
‘I don’t blame you, Matt. You knew it was coming up to the anniversary. I shouldn’t have got pissed.’
‘I was just as bad. After you left, I couldn’t get a cab to take me and threw up in a litter bin. If that isn’t class, I don’t know what is.’
‘You know what happens when we drink.’
‘I know what happens when you drink, but I needed a night out as well. You’re not the only one who’s been suffering.’ Matthew’s father had undergone a fatal stroke two months earlier, and he had the pressure of keeping our company turning over. ‘By the way, the guy I was seeing?’ he said. ‘I went round to his flat to try and patch things up, and the place was empty. His landlord said he just took off one morning without paying his rent. No note, nothing. The effect I have on men! Can this week get any better? Listen, can you do me a favour?’
‘Sure – what?’
‘Get your arse in here and do some work, before we lose what remains of our business?’
I went to the office. Matthew and I shared a cramped room above Costa Coffee behind Farringdon Station. It had been the stockroom of a wholesale store until someone figured they could rent it for a fortune by putting in a few power points. Most of the time our toilet failed to flush and the broadband went down to almost nothing, but we weren’t there much and, anyway, I preferred it to my old job, working in a barn of a room filled with identical beige cubicles. There, I was just another chimp in a box. Here, creating designs, drawing up plans, ordering plants, supervising the gardens, teaching volunteers and running courses in the hospices, we had a real sense of freedom, and the knowledge that we were making a difference in people’s lives.
Matthew was seated on the old hardwood floor, surrounded by boxes of data and laptops with keyboards that needed washing after years of being used as table-mats. He laid out the groundwork for the week ahead. He had a fondness for crass IT-nerd T-shirts and low-butt jeans that made him look like an ageing teenager who’d spent his life wanking in his bedroom. I looked at him and marvelled. He had no idea of what I’d been through. He just thought I’d been slacking lately.
I clicked with Matthew, even though I’d let him down a few times in the past year. Men are pretty basic units. We’re not capable of nurturing grudges for very long. We can upgrade to run sensitivity programmes, but they slow us down. Because of this, I think there’s a direct compatibility between males and computers. We degrade unless we get new operating systems from time to time.
I needed to feel normal, for a little while. Work was the answer. I thought if I kept my head down and concentrated on the job at hand, I wouldn’t see Buckingham lying there every time I shut my eyes. Planning a project was the only thing that could keep me together. As I sat cross-legged on the floor of my office, scribbling on bits of paper and making notes on my laptop, my mind was filled with fresh ideas for our Birmingham garden project.
Except I had trouble concentrating. I told myself, He took a life, you took a life, cause and effect. It’s all behind you. You won’t rely on Ben any more, because you know something he doesn’t and you’ll never be able to tell him. It’ll deepen the separation and will ultimately be good for both of you.
Self-delusion is what separates us from chimpanzees.
But I still couldn’t help wondering; what if I had somehow left a trail that connected me to Buckingham?
Ella
I knew that Gabriel would be down in the country for a couple more days before being taken back to ‘Long Lane’, which had to be a school. It meant that I could get a head start on him and check out the place.
I remember everything about that day. The street was veiled in a wet, grey shroud that covered everything except the railings and the walls. I’d always imagined that Gabriel would go to a much nicer school, in a smarter area.
The children started to go in. I studied the parents outside the railings and wondered why they still waited after their children had passed through the gates. I watched the other
mothers. A Chinese woman in a plastic raincoat, an Indian girl in her pink furry coat texting on her mobile, a mother in ridiculously tight jeans and a grey hooded puffa jacket, a fat man trying to light his cigarette in the rain. I bet the same people went every day. I should have been standing there with them.
Above us, a turmoil of screaming seagulls dipped over the school’s roof. When the birds were driven inland it meant there was a storm coming.
‘Why are we at the school?’ Buck asked me. ‘He’s not even here.’
‘I just wanted to see it for myself,’ I replied, trying to sound casual.
‘Why aren’t you ever honest with yourself? Let me tell you what you really want. You want this man and his perfect partner to feel the loss and pain that you felt.’
‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘Even just for a short time.’ There was something about Buck that always made me tell him the truth.
He shrugged. ‘Then we have to show them that you can’t just buy a child like some kind of lifestyle accessory and take something so precious for granted,’ he said. ‘You know, if you want to do something that will change their lives, we could really teach them a lesson.’
I agreed in principal, but my mind was blank. ‘How do you mean?’
He took me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes. ‘This is about you and your own well-being, Ella, not them. Revenge is never about the other person, it’s about satisfying the one who’s taking it.’ He took my hand and stroked it gently. ‘You know you can never legally get your child back, but maybe it’s the time to forget about the law. It’ll be risky, but you’ll feel better afterwards.’
‘What do you suggest?’
‘I have an idea. We should wait outside the school and take Gabriel away if the opportunity arises.’
He must have read the doubt in my eyes because he said, ‘Admit it, Ella. It’s what you want most of all but you can’t bring yourself to admit it. Well, you’re not alone any more. We’re in this together. Let me do this one thing for you. We’ll come back to the school when your son is there and we’ll simply take him.’
‘He’s six years old, nearly seven,’ I said.
‘Then that would be the perfect time,’ said Buck. ‘On his seventh birthday. It would make more of a point.’
I was worried about the practicalities as much as anything else. After spending days and nights thinking about it, I finally turned the plan down, even though it was what I really wanted to do. If something went wrong, Gabriel would think of me badly, and I had only ever wanted him to be happy – I couldn’t take that risk. Gabriel seemed content. I didn’t want to be a party to anything that would disturb him in any way. What would he think about this strange woman he might or might not still recognise? What if he started to scream and tried to run away?
What if he rejected me?
That was when Buck suggested going alone. He said he would do it, bring my son to me and let me spend a few peaceful hours with him. We could walk in a park together, just play and talk, and then we would take him back to his home.
Better, but still I resisted the idea.
He told me it was natural to be worried about all those things. He said I had to think of myself for once and do what was right for me, that I was the one who needed healing, and they were the ones who deserved to be given a wake-up call. In the face of his cool logic it was hard for me to disagree.
I thought it over. Buck had been there for me in my darkest hour – had helped me all this time to track my son, and then Ryder . . .but what did I know about him, really? I hadn’t met any of his friends. And why did he live in that awful flat? Where did he disappear to for days at a time? And why would he even want to help me in the first place?
‘Let me do this for you,’ he said. ‘Let me put everything right.’
We spent the night before apart. I stayed alone in the flat, and lay awake all night. By the time Monday morning dawned I’d had another change of heart. I swear on my life that I went to the school that day with the express purpose of telling him not to go ahead.
My stomach was light and fluttery. He told me he would be driving his gun-metal-grey BMW. I checked along the kerb by the school: a silver Nissan, a white Toyota, a silver Mercedes, a huge green jeepy thing, a blue Renault – and there it was.
I peered through the windscreen of the BMW and saw Buck reflected back. He was wearing his usual suit and the red Nike baseball cap with the curved peak pulled down over his eyes, but he slowly pushed it up as I passed. It was enough of an acknowledgement. I knew then that the arrangement we’d made between us couldn’t be unmade, and that he was going to go through with it, whatever happened.
The rain fell, the cars came and went, and most of the children disappeared into the school. A blue Peugeot came into the road too fast, braked sharply and backed up, impatiently looking for a space.
I watched as the door opened and my son climbed out. If I just reached over and touched his face, would he have any recollection of me at all?
I felt a jolt in my heart, a rush of fear for what I’d set in motion, but it was too late to stop. I thought of scaring Gabriel away and telling him to run inside, but Ray was determined to go through with it now. All I could do was watch – I felt like I was outside myself. Here, but in some other place. I looked at the street and felt a great space between me and everyone else. As if it was a movie set, and I the star of my own film.
Gabriel was saying goodbye to his father. Nick Maddox was reciting something – a poem? And then the boy was stepping on to the kerb . . .
. . . and in the road the ridiculous jeepy thing was attempting a three-point turn, but the woman behind the wheel had no idea how to control the car, and when I looked back Nick’s vehicle was starting to pull away. Its path was blocked by the woman driving the tank.
Buck’s BMW nearly hit the blue Peugeot, then went around it and headed off. I felt sick and dizzy. I couldn’t tell if Gabriel was inside.
I don’t remember what happened after that. A sense of let-down, a lack of certainty.
There was a part of the park that hardly anyone visited. The original plan was to head there, to a big oak tree that stood alone, away from the path. We had discussed the spot in detail. I was to buy sandwiches and lemonade and we would keep Gabriel amused, play a few games, calm him down if he started to get upset.
But then we couldn’t go to the park because it was raining so hard, so the back-up plan dictated that Buck should bring Gabriel to his flat. I didn’t think he would be frightened, because I was his mother. I knew what he was like better than anyone. He’d be trusting and gentle, and then, when it was time to leave, I would kiss him goodbye and give him a hug, and the nightmare would finally be over. Buck would make the same trip in reverse and drop the boy a mile or so from his home, because by that time the police would be watching the school.
And while I was spending those last precious hours with my son, Nick Maddox would endure a day of hellish fear. It would be enough to know that he would suffer the same pain of loss I’d endured, if only for a short time. After that, I would consider the books balanced and the debt cancelled, and we could start our lives afresh.
I didn’t care whether the ordeal made Nick Maddox a better person or not. My only concern was that he would learn what a precious gift he had been given and never forget that fact. I only cared about my little boy blue.
The minute hand crawled around the clock and I realised that I should have seen a sign of Buck by now. I paced about, made coffee, tried to settle, paced some more. Still nothing. He had told me not to call him, that he would make contact when he was ready, so all I could do was wait.
I wondered what could have gone wrong? Had his nerve failed him? I’d seen him at the school. What could have happened?
It was getting close to lunchtime and I’d still not heard anything. I was starting to panic now. The worst part was the feeling of powerlessness that settled over me.
I realised to my horror that, if he didn’t co
me back, I had no other way of contacting him. I couldn’t help but think that either he’d been caught or Gabriel had refused to get in the car.
I figured the only way to find out what had happened would be to call at Nick’s house under some pretext, but I was too afraid – that kind of plan had gone wrong too many times in the past.
I cursed myself for allowing Buck to go through with it. I remembered what Marleena had told me, back at the clinic: ‘You act on impulse. You’re irresponsible. You can be a danger to yourself. You’re a danger to your child.’
It’s true, I was all of those things, and there was nothing I could do about it, no one I could talk to without implicating myself. No way to explain what had happened.
By five in the afternoon, I knew he would never call. Maybe Gabriel had managed to get away? But, in that case, why hadn’t Buck returned? As I cycled through every possible worst-case scenario, I bit my nails until they bled.
There was no sign of him that night, or the next morning. I wrote down everything that had happened in my sketchbook, so that if there were ever questions in the future I would be able to explain my position with clarity and precision. It was very important to keep a record of events.
*
The next day passed in an endless cycle of regret and recrimination. I felt sick. I couldn’t sleep. I sat at the window all night and watched the street, cursing myself for what I had done.
Save him from harm, I prayed. Save him from me.
It was just a small piece at the bottom of the Evening Standard website. The body of a young boy had been found on a piece of waste ground near the school. They didn’t give his name, but I knew who it was. A detective inspector appeared on TV praising the efficiency of his team and blaming the local property developers for not properly restricting public access to the site.