by LK Fox
What had happened between Buck’s car and the waste ground? Where had Gabriel been taken? What had been done to him? And how could I discover the truth? I had no way of finding the man who had stolen my son’s life.
I had set out to be Gabriel’s guardian angel, to protect him from afar, and instead I was now responsible for his death.
Nick
Ben had always wanted to understand why I felt closer to Gabriel than he did.
He could never understand that Gabriel had been my saviour. I was determined that he would not grow up like me, following the time-honoured course of a million failed musicians: drink, drugs, the painfully predictable crash-dive towards oblivion. You have no idea how incredibly boring addicts are until you clean yourself up and spend an evening with your so-called ‘friends’ again. You see them from the outside, and it’s truly pathetic. They could be wearing badges: Liar. Thief. Cheat. They even give off a different smell. I got over the worst of it without help from anyone else. I got rid of all the people I once knew. I made amends as best as I could.
Gabriel was proof that I could put someone else first. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what Ben had wanted at all.
I had to think about Buckingham now. What if he had confided in someone? What if his wife knew something of his habits? I doubted that their flat contained any evidence. If he was prepared to rent a run-down apartment and keep the proof of the abduction at work, why he would tell his wife anything at all?
I still had the dragoon in its plastic bag, and had placed it in the drawer of my bedside table. The soldier was a symbol of what I had lost. It was too risky going to the police now. I could get a good team and a breakthrough, but it was all a matter of luck. I might get another one who thought I was acting suspiciously, like Redditch.
Not knowing what else to do, I was back at work, which should have felt like a return to normality, but it didn’t. I opened a spreadsheet and studied my workload, portioning it out without thinking.
My ability to do this always amazed Matthew, who marvelled that I could miss half of our key meetings, skim the briefing notes, then drift in and lay it all down straight out of my head. The truth was that my former job had been much more demanding from a technical point of view. The hardest part of this new career was the risk of empathising too much and becoming over-involved. Plans, layouts, spreadsheets – they were the easy part.
I was still thinking about whether I should tell Matthew what had happened at the school. I was pretty sure I could trust him not to talk to anyone else, but eventually I decided against it. I thought about the Prisoner’s Dilemma again, the idea that the only way to survive was by thinking the worst of people. If I assumed the worst about Buckingham, what did I get? That he deliberately set out to kill our son for some perverse reason of his own –which would mean that he really just wanted to hurt me. Having achieved his aim, he returned to the same spot on the anniversary of his crime. But why would he risk everything to do that?
The John Nash part of me said there could only be one answer: he planned do it again. He needed a place where no one would ask what he was up to. I always thought that perhaps Gabriel had fought back before an assault could take place, and had been killed in the process. Except that the coroner had found no evidence of physical violence. Possibly a foreign object introduced across the nasal passages and mouth. That was all he was prepared to say. And why would Buckingham have waited a whole year to do it again? Did it take him that long to get up the nerve? Would he complete what he set out to do this time, something unspeakable?
The burden of knowledge weighed on me throughout the day, growing stronger by the hour. I watched Matthew at work and confession balanced on the tip of my tongue.
Finally, I decided I should talk to Ben. He had the right to know more than anyone. I needed to tell him what had happened, even though I knew he would resist hearing it.
The receptionist at Excite was an incredibly over-qualified graduate called Daisy. She in turn had a way of weighing people up in order to stick a Friend or Foe label on them as soon as they stepped through the door.
As usual, her eyes barely met mine before they returned to her touch-screen. She knew very well who I was and always took Ben’s side because he was an employee and she was probably a little in love with him. Most of Ben’s workmates had been supportive over the past year, which meant they were most likely set against me. Daisy was pleased to be able to tell me that Ben was in a meeting and couldn’t be interrupted under any circumstances.
‘Is he with clients or is it internal?’ I asked, knowing that she always stalled unannounced callers. ‘If you can get him on the phone, it will only take a minute and I’ll be gone.’
She looked doubtful, but could see I wasn’t going to go away and might possibly get noisy; plus, I looked a mess so she wanted me out of the reception area’s clinical environment. She rang his number. ‘You can take it over there.’ She pointed to a phone at the end of an acid-green counter the size of a cliff.
‘Ben, I’m sorry to bust in on you like this,’ I said. ‘I know you’re probably still pissed off with me—’
‘I’m about to go into a meeting, a real one. Is it that important?’ He knew it was; I had never turned up at his office without first calling him.
As he came down the corridor to meet me, I got another chance to see what I had lost. Ben had changed his look even from my last meeting with him; he had trimmed his beard from hipster to CEO, and appeared antiseptically beautiful in his charcoal suit. The new exterior was presumably designed to suggest leadership qualities. Looking at him, it was hard to imagine what he’d been through this last year. There were certain things I’d never told Ben, mainly about my past as an insecure post-adolescent junked-out wreck attempting to get a music career off the ground. There was a great deal to be ashamed of, not that I could accurately recall much of it. But I also knew there were things he had never fully explained about his disconnection from Gabriel, his marriage and its end.
‘We can go in here.’ He indicated a glass box with two chairs that seemed determined to refute their sole function. When he asked me what the problem was I saw Daisy look up and try not to appear interested.
I waited until the door was shut and stood awkwardly before him, not sure how to begin. I hadn’t planned what I was about to say. Ben leaned against the back of a chair with his arms tightly folded, counting down the seconds, waiting for an answer. There was always a time limit on his patience.
Finally, I said, ‘I told you I saw Gabriel’s abductor.’
A look of warning glinted in his eyes.
‘I didn’t imagine it, Ben. There were witnesses at Long Lane Elementary who saw him as well.’
‘Please don’t tell me you’ve been back there again.’
I couldn’t bring myself to reply.
‘How do you know it was him?’
‘Because he was doing what he did the first time round, kerb-crawling the school.’
‘I don’t think it’s very likely he’d do that. Anyway, you kerb-crawl the same school.’
‘I recognised his car from the time before.’
‘So you suddenly remembered that this was the same guy. We’ve already been over it, Nick.’
‘I think you’d better sit down.’
‘I’m fine standing.’
‘Ben, I tracked his vehicle.’
‘God, I knew you were going to say that. Why? What were you expecting to happen?’
‘I don’t know – I—’
‘Tell me you didn’t confront him or do anything stupid.’
This wasn’t turning out how I’d expected. ‘I took the stupid option,’ I said. ‘I caught up with him. I found something. Ben, we had a fight about it and he slipped. It was an accident. I was nowhere near him.’
‘What?’ Ben’s face clouded. ‘I’m not getting the full story. You followed him where?’
‘To an office. I think it’s his place of work.’
‘So other peopl
e saw you?’
‘No, this was last night.’
‘And then you had a fight?’
‘He tried to jump me. It wasn’t my fault.’
‘Is this another one of your fantasies?’ I caught him glancing through the window, worrying that Daisy might still be watching.
‘I know it was him, Ben.’
‘Look, you know you haven’t been well . . .’
Before he could say anything else I pushed my hand into my jacket pocket and handed him the sketch of Gabriel and the bag containing the dragoon. ‘I found the drawing in his flat. He’d hidden the soldier at his office.’
Ben remained silent as he unzipped the bag and studied its contents. He was about to take out the dragoon when I stopped him.
‘Don’t. There could still be prints on it.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t just find this at home somewhere?’
‘No, I swear. Listen to me, he didn’t want anyone to find it, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away. He recognised me, realised I was on his case and needed to retrieve it fast because it’s concrete evidence. The sketch is old. I think he was watching Gabriel for a long time.’
‘Then take this stuff to the police.’
‘I can’t. I kind of – he fell. He didn’t get up.’
‘Wait, what are you saying?’
‘I think I killed him.’
Ben’s mouth opened. I thought he was going to speak but he stayed silent and stared.
‘I didn’t mean to. He slipped off some scaffolding. It wasn’t my fault and, before you go crazy, nobody saw it happen, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t think anybody saw me go into his building, but if anyone did see, we’ll need that soldier as evidence. It’s a direct link to the abduction.’
‘So this really happened.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you push him?’
‘What? No, he lost his balance. Ben—’ I needed to connect with him, if only because of this physical link with our shared past, but when I brushed his arm he flinched violently. The receptionist was now looking over with interest, eager to ask if there was a problem.
‘Ben, you realize what this means, don’t you? It’s finally over.’
He looked back at me with something close to contempt. ‘How can you say that? Whether it was an accident or not, you can’t settle the score like this! So he admitted he did it?’
‘No.’
‘So you just waltzed up and accused a stranger.’
‘You know what it did to us – to you,’ I said, although, looking at Ben now, it was hard to see that the loss of his child did anything at all. ‘He had the dragoon.’
‘Nick, you’ve got to tell the authorities. Although you probably need to stay away from that guy Redditch—’
‘I’m not asking you to do anything, Ben. I’ll make it right, I just needed to tell someone.’
He looked aghast. ‘You thought that making me complicit would bring about some twisted kind of closure?’
‘It was an accident that would never have occurred if this man hadn’t first committed a terrible crime. Anyway, I’m pretty certain they can’t connect me with his death.’
‘Pretty certain. Well, that’s reassuring.’ He rose and paced about by the window, trapped by the exposed surfaces of the room as Daisy watched us in fascination. ‘How can you be sure of that? How many times in the past have you told me about the stupid mistakes people make? What if this gets out?’
‘I’m not going to the police. I can’t, now.’
‘Maybe you won’t have to. Maybe they’ll come to you. And if they do, what will you say, that you described what you’d done to your ex?’
‘You were the one person who had to be told. You must be able to see that.’
‘Well, it was the last thing I needed.’ He squeezed past me and held the door open. ‘You can’t come here again.’
I turned away so that Daisy couldn’t see me. ‘This isn’t about me compromising you. Why are you always like this?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
I stood my ground. ‘I think you do. I think there’s something you haven’t told me.’
‘I think you’d better go,’ Ben said.
*
As I left the building, I wondered again, Why doesn’t he care? What is he trying to hide? I walked towards the tube, looking into other people’s faces as I passed them, and felt the pressure of an immense conspiracy gathering forces. It seemed to involve Ben and Redditch and everyone who had failed to react as I expected them to. The more I discovered, the less I could be sure of.
I thought back to Ben’s reactions over the past year. I couldn’t pinpoint a single time when he had allowed grief to overwhelm him. I didn’t understand how he had been able to close the door on Gabriel’s death so easily, as if it was just another box to be packed away. I used to think humans were too messy, too analogue. I preferred to work with layouts, circuitry, blueprints, gardens – anything other than chaotic, uncontrollable people; you never knew what they were going to do next, and they never explained their intentions clearly. Then I moved into horticultural therapy and discovered that people were as mystified by their own actions as those who observed them.
Ben resenting my closeness to Gabriel didn’t explain everything. He had never talked much about his past, and I’d put that down to his coming out late and not wanting to discuss his mistakes. Now I was absolutely convinced that he was holding something back.
After my walk from the station I felt a little better, ready to reset the world and start afresh. I needed to create some order around me.
‘Where the hell did you go?’ asked Matthew when I walked back in. ‘We were about to sit down and hold a meeting about Birmingham, or was I imagining it?’
‘I haven’t been feeling right since we went out and got drunk,’ I told him.
He slapped his forehead. ‘Oh yeah, right, Monday was all my fault! I tied you down and forced alcohol into your system. Well, I could really use you right now. If I can start bringing you back into the meetings—’
I knew he meant If I can rely on you to be here, but let it go. ‘You can count on me,’ I told him. ‘Let’s get some work done.’
For a few minutes, it seemed that I might be able to forget everything that had happened, but every time I closed my eyes I saw a man dropping from a wooden platform.
Ella
Everything I ever did was for my son’s happiness.
In the year that followed Gabriel’s death I tried to find Buck, but I had no idea where to look for him, other than at the flat we had shared. But there was never any sign of him. I asked the Indian kids in the flat below, but they hadn’t seen him lately, or weren’t prepared to tell me if they had. I had no other leads.
It’s hard not to form habits. We create them even when we try not to. The one thing I had been most used to doing in my adult life was observing. Now I became an observer watching another observer.
I started following Nick Maddox more often. Sometimes just to the supermarket, sometimes to his office. A couple of times, I sat behind him in the cinema. I dressed in different outfits, pinned up my hair, let it down, wore black tights or jeans, high heels and flats. I guess it would have seemed strange to an outsider, but he and I had a long history, and I had become what I was because of him. What spurred me on was the sheer unfairness of it all. He got a second chance to make amends for his past. I got nothing.
When the first anniversary of Gabriel’s death drew near, a terrible pain grew inside me. Instead of finding it easier to put the past in its place, I found everything was worse. I was so alone. I even went back to my father’s house and sat outside it, tucked in my usual position behind a bay hedge. The sight of Karen and Harry arriving in a taxi with their arms full of her yellow Selfridges bags was enough to send me away again.
One day late in September, when I was still keeping an eye on Nick, he returned to Long Lane Elementary school. I wondered what he hop
ed to find there. Was he searching for peace of mind, or trying to keep his anger alive? I wondered how much he knew or understood about what had happened. If he thought Gabriel had been kidnapped on that day, was he hoping the kidnapper might return? . . . Was I?
Nick would leave his car around the corner from the school and study the children going in, shifting a little closer each time, slipping back into the shadows if he thought he might be recognised. If his soul was unable to find rest, my own dreams for a peaceful life had also been shattered. Sometimes I stayed nearby, a guardian angel who had failed in her duty, distantly watching the only surviving player.
We had come full circle. Autumn withered away into winter, and on the anniversary of the abduction even the foul weather returned to re-create that terrible morning. It was obvious to me that nothing would keep Nick from coming back to the site where he had last seen his son alive – how could he not honour the anniversary? Gabriel would have been eight years old.
I still felt horrifically guilty for what had happened. I needed to be with him, just from a distance. I began my vigil at his house in Blackheath soon after 8 a.m., because he would have to head for Long Lane Elementary School a little after that. When he finally appeared at the front door, I was startled to see the state he was in. His hair was sticking out at all angles, his eyes were dark and red, and he looked like he’d got dressed in under thirty seconds.
For a moment, I wondered if he had started taking drugs again, returning to the bad old days of Ryder.
I knew where he was going, and could get there ahead of him. Then I took up my old position, ready for his arrival.
He was running late, just as he had been a year earlier. I looked about and was struck by something odd. Two workmen had blocked off part of the kerb with a yellow sign explaining that the electricity company was working there. The red-and-white plastic tape surrounding it flapped in the rain.
The roadworks, the cars, the rain, the parents . . .
A miserable-looking woman in a yellow plastic raincoat. An obese guy trying to keep his cigarette dry long enough to light it. A young mother in skin-tight jeans and a hooded jacket. The usual crowd. It was how it had looked one year before. No, not exactly – but if I half-shut my eyes, it could have been the same day.