His Kidnapper's Shoes

by Maggie James

  I sobbed for the chicken dinner we wouldn’t eat together, for the park we wouldn’t visit, for the thriller that would go unwatched. I wept for her batik skirts and tie-dye blouses, the flash of her opal ring and the jangle of her silver bracelets. Most of all I cried for the loss of the only warmth and love I’d ever known. My beloved Gran was gone and somehow I had to carry on without her.

  Eventually screams came from above, though, and I dragged myself up, and went to tend to my hungry and wet baby, mechanically changing his nappy, bringing him downstairs whilst I heated up his milk and did my best to soothe his furious howls, tears still running down my cheeks all the while. He must have picked up on my anguish because I couldn’t settle him, but I didn’t mind the loud wails and his flailing legs because they told me he was alive, wonderfully and gloriously alive.

  I went back upstairs and put warm clothes on my baby before settling him in his pram and walking into town. I found a funeral parlour and wheeled the pram in.

  ‘I need to arrange a funeral,’ I said. Then I flopped down in a chair, sobbing.

  The next day, I started to look through Gran’s things.

  I found what I was looking for in her chest of drawers; a brown envelope, containing her will. She’d left everything she had to me, including the house.

  I realised I couldn’t stay there. Too many memories of Gran filled the place; besides, it needed too much repair work. I made up my mind. I'd go into town tomorrow and find a solicitor; when everything went through with the will, I’d sell the house.

  Afterwards, I wanted a fresh start. Needed one, as well. Apart from the birth of my baby, I’d only known unhappiness in this small Hampshire town. Mum’s drinking, Gran’s illness and death, Matthew Hancock and the still vivid horror of my rape. I needed to get away. I’d rent a little flat for my baby and me somewhere else, perhaps in Bristol. A city, with more opportunities for jobs and training. The more I thought about things, the more a fresh start in Bristol seemed like the right thing to do.

  All actions have consequences, they say. I guess that must hold true for decisions as well. Would I have acted any differently, if I’d been able to foresee what would happen because of moving to Bristol? My heart, gut and soul scream no, no, no, loud and proud, to me, Daniel. That choice led me eventually to you, my dearest son. Your presence in my life today is the consequence of that decision, made so long ago by a frightened and grieving eighteen-year-old, and you’ve always brought me such joy, no matter what you think of me right now.

  I’m all too painfully aware you believe you hate me. Perhaps you do right now, but what I’m going to tell you will make you understand why I acted the way I did. I’ve told you why I decided to move to Bristol. Now I’ll tell you the rest.

  A few weeks after Gran’s death, my solicitor had dealt with much of the legal stuff and things were moving along nicely, or so I thought. In my naïveté, I was making plans again, and I should have realised God would be somewhere in the background, laughing.

  Anyway, life seemed good the day my solicitor told me I’d be able to put the house on the market in the near future. I’d be moving to Bristol fairly soon, I thought; my new life beckoned. Gran’s death still clawed at me, raw and painful, hitting me hard every single day. I knew she’d be happy I was moving on with my life, though. I went to bed early, my head full of plans, checking a sleeping Daniel in his cot at the foot of my bed, transfixed by the sight of his tiny fingers sucked between his lips. He smelled of baby shampoo and contentment, his essence warm and delicious and utterly mine, and he enchanted every part of me.

  I slept more deeply than usual. It was after eight when I woke up.

  My intuition immediately kicked in, warning me something was wrong.

  The most awful sensation, deep in my gut, that I couldn’t ignore, told me. Every instinct, every nerve in my body, screamed at me to get out of bed, right away. I think something in the terrible silence alerted me.

  You see, normally there would be some sort of noise from Daniel, even when he was sleeping; my mother’s ears were attuned to the sound of his breathing, however faint it might be. It was something I had come to take for granted; the faint snuffles he made when asleep, or the way his arms and legs bumped against the sides of the cot as he wriggled around.

  No sounds came from my baby that morning.

  Only a terrifying silence occupied the house besides me. A silence so thick it sent shards of dread deep into my gut.

  I threw back the duvet, rushing to the cot. I grabbed the inert body lying face down under the quilt.

  Daniel was cold. So cold.

  No breath came from his tiny body.

  And his skin, well, no baby should be such a pallid, unhealthy shade.

  Cot death. I had heard of it, but such things only ever happened to other people. I had never even thought about it in connection with Daniel, my baby who had always been healthy and seemingly full of life.

  Now he lay unresponsive in my arms and my voice rose high into the room, pleading, saying ‘God, no, no, no, no, no, please, God…’

  I opened his mouth, and put my lips around the tiny ones I’d marvelled at the night before; trying to force air and life back into lungs I later realised had ceased working hours before. I pressed down on his chest, willing the heart underneath my fingers to start beating again, pushing reviving blood around his limp, pale body.

  I don’t know for how long I did all that. Time had stopped for me when I grabbed my baby from his cot.

  I blew into his mouth, and I pushed down on his chest, and all the while hot tears ran down my face and those shards of dread in my gut twisted, cutting my soul with denial that this had happened to my beautiful Daniel, to the baby who occupied the whole of my very existence. It wasn’t possible life could be so cruel. Life had already handed me my drunken mother, a brutal rape, and then taken my beloved grandmother. It shouldn’t snatch Daniel from me as well.

  It already had, though. My fervent pleas to some unknown God who I didn’t believe in anyway went unheard.

  I slumped back on my heels, eyes unseeing through the tears, the dead body of my adored Daniel in my arms, and I screamed. Huge furious shrieks tore from my throat, filling the silence of the empty house with my rage and denial and utter devastation. There was nobody to hear them, in that house so far from town, and I screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore, my throat raw. I held Daniel with one arm while I pounded the floor with the other until the hurt in my bruised and battered fist stopped me.

  I lay on the floor, curled around the body of my baby, for the rest of the day. The room grew dark as night came and still I lay motionless on the cold carpet.

  I’d stopped crying. Tears seemed pointless. No way would they ever be capable of expressing even a tiny part of the raw emotions within me. I had died inside, along with my baby.

  I woke up on the floor the day after, cold and stiff, with my baby even colder in my arms.

  I knew I should tell someone he’d died.

  But I didn’t.

  I don't know if you can understand all this, Daniel. Grief had probably obscured my judgement. I don’t think I thought very clearly back then. Perhaps I believed if I didn’t tell anyone, if I didn’t register the death, then it hadn’t really happened and my baby hadn’t died.

  Telling somebody would have made it all real, you see, Daniel. I’d have ended up with a death certificate in my possession, as I had with Gran, a stark piece of paper making it official and turning the nightmare trapping me into stark reality. I’d have had to choose a coffin. At the thought of my baby’s body in a tiny wooden box, I broke down all over again. Misery of such savagery and depths swamped me, the likes of which I hope to God you never have to deal with, Daniel.

  On the evening of the second day, I knew I had to let go of my baby.

  I washed and dried him and dressed him in his best clothes. I wrapped him up against the night air outside and placed him gently in his baby sling. I went to the shed at the bot
tom of the garden, and took out a small shovel.

  I put on my coat, and left the house with my baby and the shovel, walking away from town, down the little track leading to the nearby woods, where I’d often walked with Gran. I was familiar with those oak-covered hills from my time living with her. Dog walkers came to let their dogs off the leash in parts of them. I didn’t go near those areas. My baby had to be somewhere safe, out of the way, far from keen noses and digging paws, away from the sacrilege that would be to his beloved body.

  So I carried him, held tight against me in his sling, along with the shovel, up higher, away from where the dog walkers frequented. I panted up the hill until I stood, hot and sweating, deep amongst the trees. I found one that was still young, a sapling really, and it seemed to me to be the perfect tree under which to lay my baby. The sapling would rise and thicken with age, its roots would wind around his body and that way he would never truly die. This beautiful tree would hold him safe and secure within its embrace and the lifecycle in the trunk, the branches, the thrusting roots, would give some sort of existence back to him. I’d found the tree of life.

  I started to dig. When my arms ached and my back hurt, and the hole was about as deep as I could make it, I squeezed my baby tight. I kissed him for the very last time. Then I lowered him tenderly into his grave, and laid the little teddy bear I’d bought for him after his birth on top of him. I covered him with the earth, sobs choking my throat all the time, patting the soil down and finally heaving some heavy stones on top. He was at rest now, and he’d sleep beneath those tree roots forever.

  Darkness had fallen by the time I finished. Exhaustion, both physical and mental, overwhelmed me; I stumbled down the hill, back towards the house.

  People talk about closure and stuff, but I don’t think my grief would have been lessened in any way had I registered the death and given Daniel a proper burial. It wouldn’t have changed the awfulness of it all. Although I realised what I had done with Daniel was wrong in the eyes of the law, I didn’t regret it. I could never have had my baby cremated as I had with Gran; somehow, I found the idea of flames burning into his delicate flesh utterly abhorrent. And I didn’t like the idea of burying him in some anonymous cemetery, flanked by the corpses of strangers. No, his grave was somewhere wild, beautiful and peaceful and the oak tree would take care of my baby forever.

  Has your anger towards me lessened at all, Daniel?

  12

  CAN OF WORMS

  Daniel stared at the monitor on his computer, willing his fingers to take the first steps on the family history website Tim had showed him.

  His mother had been born in 1967, or so she’d told him. Any sister of hers who might have given birth to him would have been younger, he suspected, but he didn’t think he should take anything for granted. Perhaps she had been older. Best to keep his search parameters reasonably wide, he thought. He decided to research births between 1957 and 1973 in the online register, under the name of Covey, in the town where his mother grew up. Covey wasn’t the most unusual of names, but it wasn’t exactly common, either. With such a large timespan to look through, it took longer than he thought. His shoulders ached and his eyes hurt by the time he’d finished.

  The only registered birth attributed to his grandmother, Madeleine Jean Covey, in that area of Hampshire during the time span in question was that of his mother, Laura Susan Covey.

  He tried again, this time not including Hampshire. He’d assumed there’d been no change of home for the Covey family, but checking was essential in case what his mother had said hadn’t been accurate, or an outright lie. This took even longer, but the result ended up the same. He found no trace of Madeleine Covey having given birth to any children other than Laura.

  He might have missed what he was looking for, of course. He’d try another angle; he’d attempt to find an entry in the death register. If this hypothetical sister had died, it had probably happened around the time Laura turned eighteen. He had to hope she had never married and taken another name; he was screwed otherwise.

  He scanned through for the death certificates of anyone named Covey during the period 1983 to 1988, the timespan in which he thought the sister had probably died. None appeared to fit what he was looking for. Nobody of the right age to be his mother, with the name of Covey, had died in the area of Hampshire where Laura Bateman had grown up.

  From what he could see, there had been no sister. His mother wasn’t his aunt. He rubbed his hand over his jaw, sighing. This looked like a dead end.

  The phone rang. Shit. He’d been so wrapped up in what he’d been doing he’d forgotten to call Katie.

  ‘You’re neglecting me already.’ He registered the laugh in her voice.

  ‘I’m sorry, Katie. I got pretty tied up with this online family history thing.’

  ‘You find anything?’

  ‘Nope. Mum was indeed an only child as far as I can tell. No trace of any sister, in either the birth or death records.’

  ‘Well, that’s one avenue of enquiry knocked on the head. Don’t forget. You still have the DNA option to follow. You looked into that anymore?’

  ‘No. This has taken up most of my time. But I'm definitely going to do it. Especially now the family history thing has turned out to be a blind alley. I’m going to Mum’s tomorrow. I’ll get some of her hairs from her brush whilst I’m there.’

  ‘Remember to find some with the root still on.’

  ‘Will do. Anyway, enough of me and my weird family issues.’ He lowered his voice, injecting a truckload of molten sex into it. ‘You wearing that black silk thong I like so much?’

  The phone call didn’t end for another hour. Sated and grinning, he sat down afterwards at his computer, typing ‘private DNA tests UK’ into Google. He browsed through a few sites, bookmarking one that thankfully explained the science bits in plain language. The test could be done with hair samples and through the post, as Katie had told him.

  He read a bit further into the website he'd bookmarked.

  Shit. Apparently, consent forms came with the kit they sent out; the testing company required his mother’s agreement to do the procedure. He wouldn’t be asking for her permission any time that century, he thought.

  Daniel considered his options. All two of them.

  First one. He could stop this, right now, and put the whole thing behind him.

  Not going to happen, he told himself.

  Second one. He could falsify her consent.

  By the time he clicked off the website, he'd ordered the test kit. No going back now.

  The next day was Sunday, and he’d promised his mother he’d go over as usual for lunch. He felt like a total asshole when he thought about what he was going to do. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t invade her privacy; so what did he think sneaking into her bedroom to steal a hair sample was, if not exactly that? He was betraying her trust; whether he related to her as his mother or not, he knew he meant the world to her. She'd be devastated if she ever realised he held more warmth in his heart towards the unknown woman from his memories than he did towards her.

  I’m an asshole, all right, he thought, but I’m going to do this anyway. I have to.

  It didn’t prove hard to get what he’d gone for. He’d brought with him an envelope for the purpose. He excused himself shortly before the time came to go, saying he needed to use the toilet.

  He went into the bedroom that his mother shared with his stepfather. No sign of a hairbrush on the dressing table. Then he spotted a handbag on the floor by the wardrobe. He pulled it open and reached in a hand.

  Bingo. A large wooden hairbrush, complete with tangles of hair clogged in the bristles. There was plenty, surely enough for the test. Looking closer, he saw tiny pale bulbs attached to the ends of some of the hair. He started pulling hair from the brush, stuffing it in the envelope.

  The test kit arrived two days later. He picked up the envelope of hair and started looking through the blonde strands. By the time he finished, he’d fou
nd six hairs with the roots on. The bare minimum required, but it would have to do. He took another envelope and started to pull hairs from his head, one by one, until he ended up with six with the roots attached.

  He’d seen his mother’s signature often enough to be able to do a reasonable copy. Besides, the testing company would never know otherwise anyway. The kit would go in tomorrow’s post. They’d get it Thursday, postal service allowing. He reckoned he’d get the results by Friday of the following week, maybe even earlier. He refused to think about what he’d do if the test showed she wasn’t his mother. One step at a time, he told himself.

  He still felt shitty about what he'd done. He’d phone Katie. She’d reassure him, they’d make plans and by the time they ended the call he’d be able to deal a lot better with all this. Hell, they’d probably have themselves some hot dirty phone sex again.

  He grinned, and pulled out his mobile.

  After he sent the test kit off, he did his best to put the whole thing out of his mind. Katie played the same game. She merely nodded when he told her he’d sent off the kit, asked him to call her as soon as he got the results, and changed the subject.

  To pass the time, he turned back to his art, which he’d neglected since meeting Katie. Paint, brushes and canvas helped keep his thoughts at bay. He’d dabbled in all forms of painting since he was a child, finally settling on acrylics as his chosen medium, revelling in the thick, sensuous quality of the paints. His latest creation was the most deeply personal thing he’d ever attempted. The outlines were deliberately blurred and the colours muted, the shapes of the woman, girl and child fluid, as if they were melting. The whole mood of the painting was surreal, dream-like, in an attempt to portray the hazy quality of his distant memories. He found a soothing catharsis in getting them out of his head and onto the canvas, purging the figures in his mind into the paint; art helped him forget, at least for a while, his anxiety about the DNA analysis.