Bone by Bone

by Sanjida Kay

  ‘In Simikot. Our connecting flight to Kathmandu has been cancelled. I’ve been going spare. Someone phoned and cancelled our seat reservations. I gave our PA hell, but she’s no idea who did it. There are flights leaving, but not many and they’re all booked. There isn’t another one until Saturday night and even then there aren’t enough seats for all of us.’

  Laura looked down the narrow length of the garden. The dead brown ash leaves that had shrouded the strawberry tree had blown away and the berries had all turned scarlet. She did a swift mental calculation. If Matt and his crew couldn’t fly out of Simikot until Saturday, it meant they wouldn’t be able to leave Kathmandu until Sunday. Then they’d have to reach India and from there fly to London via Amsterdam or Paris before driving back to Bristol.

  ‘Tuesday,’ said Matt. ‘It means the earliest I could be home won’t be until Tuesday but I’ll probably need to give those seats to the athletes and catch a later flight. I can’t believe how much money we’re losing – booking all the new tickets plus excess baggage. The athletes’ agents are saying we need to pay them for the extra time,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry, it means another few more days until I can see Autumn. I can’t think who could have done this to me.’

  ‘I can,’ said Laura. ‘Your schedule was on my laptop.’

  ‘So?’ said Matt.

  She could picture him clearly now, dishevelled, sun-burnt, running his hand impatiently through his windswept hair. Laura started from the beginning, explaining what had happened. She told him about Aaron sitting in their house, drinking red wine and resetting her password, how he had threatened her at the gates of the school playground, about Autumn’s mangled bike, the lost photos, the infected emails, the pornographic virus, the copied essay, the boy who had attacked Autumn in the nature reserve, the vandalized garden, Autumn’s shorn hair, how her bank cards had been stopped, the alarm disabled. She didn’t care how much the call would cost Matt or his company or the BBC, whoever would foot the phone bill and the use of the satellite phone – or what he would think of her. He had to know what was happening to his daughter.

  ‘He actually let himself into the garden and wrote Bone by Bone on the wall of your house?’ said Matt. ‘Jesus. Is Autumn okay?’

  She stared straight ahead at the grey clouds drifting past, the branches of the trees shaking, stark against the white sky.

  ‘She will be. I’ve taken her out of school.’

  There was a pause and she could tell he was debating whether to argue with her. He took a breath and said, ‘Tell her I’m sorry I can’t Skype her tonight and give her a bear hug from me. You were right – I mean, about her travelling to London. I’ll come to Bristol as soon as I get back and stick around. Take her out for the day. Maybe to the zoo? She’d like that, wouldn’t she?’

  As soon as she’d hung up, the phone rang again, startling her.

  ‘Laura.’ Jacob said it tersely, as if she were a bank manager or a sales person, someone he had no desire to speak to. ‘I changed my mind after you spoke to me. I thought about how frightened you must feel. So I Googled him. Aaron Jablonski. I found his mobile number.’

  ‘Oh.’ She wanted to feel relief – Jacob had decided to help her – but his tone was so ominous, her whole body tensed.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve been completely honest with me,’ said Jacob.

  She was stunned. Of all the people who might turn against her, she’d never considered Jacob to be one of them.

  ‘Aaron tells me you assaulted Levi. You knocked him down and he cut his head open! Laura, how could you? He’s a child.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘Aaron showed me the photographs of the bruises and the gash on his cheek.’

  There was a heavy crack and boom of thunder, alarmingly close, and a fresh squall of rain. Laura said nothing. Was she going to have to defend herself to Jacob too?

  Yes, she thought, squeezing her eyes tightly together and rubbing her sore wrist. Yes, I have to. He’s the only friend I’ve got.

  She took a breath and was about to explain when Jacob cut across her.

  He said that he’d made an appointment to speak to Aaron last night. He’d been surprised to find that the address he’d given him was for a flat on the main road through Filton, in an impoverished, run-down area. The apartment was above a place that sold reptiles; next door was a sex shop called My Only Vice. Both establishments had their windows blacked out.

  ‘I own a house in Montpelier,’ said Aaron bitterly, when Jacob had stepped out of his Land Rover and introduced himself. ‘My bloody ex-wife still lives there. I’d rather have come to you,’ he’d added. ‘It’s not a fit place to receive a client.’

  Inside it was dark. Damp bloomed on the walls. A pile of dirty laundry, including a school uniform, was heaped in one corner and there was a tower of take-away cartons next to the sink.

  Levi was there, in the dismal sitting room on his own, watching TV with the lights turned off. He barely looked up when his father and Jacob arrived. Perhaps because it was dark, and since Jacob was wearing jeans and a jumper, Levi didn’t recognize him at first.

  They sat down at a greasy table behind the sofa.

  ‘Let’s see your laptop then,’ said Aaron.

  ‘I haven’t come about a computer,’ said Jacob.

  Aaron’s whole demeanour changed then, said Jacob. He couldn’t explain it, he didn’t move a muscle, but Jacob had the impression that he was suddenly different. Laura could imagine it: Aaron sitting opposite Jacob in his waistcoat and shirt, neatness sprung from this den of mess, watchful, his martial-arts-honed body poised.

  Jacob explained that he’d come because he was Laura’s friend and her daughter, Autumn, was being bullied by Levi. At that point Levi had spun around and pointed at him.

  ‘That’s him, that’s the soldier I was telling you about, Dad.’

  ‘Is that true?’ asked Aaron. ‘Are you the man Laura hired to beat my son?’

  Jacob shook his head. He said that Laura had asked him to talk to Levi but that he hadn’t touched him. Aaron turned the TV off and switched on the lights and then sat back down at the table. Jacob had been about to go on to say that Aaron was now cyber-bullying Laura when Aaron interrupted.

  ‘My son is innocent,’ he said fiercely. ‘I know, I swear, there is no way he would hurt a girl, a little girl like Autumn.’

  That was when he’d told Jacob about Laura’s attack on his son and shown him the photographs of Levi’s injuries. Aaron said he’d been about to go to the police regarding Jacob’s assault on his son, but now he’d met him, he believed Jacob hadn’t hit him and he wouldn’t report him.

  ‘She’s hounding me, Jacob. She’s gone to the school, God knows how many times, to complain about me and my son. She’s reported me to the police for vandalizing her little girl’s bike. That garden you two were working on – the police came round here, accusing me of destroying it. I mean, do I look like the kind of man that would trash a lady’s garden? All I want,’ he said, his voice trembling, ‘is to care for my son. I’m working flat-out to gain custody of him. That woman’s accusations could jeopardize my case.’

  Jacob cleared his throat. His voice sounded louder – as if he’d put his mouth closer to the receiver. He said, ‘The bottom line for me is how can you trust a person who beats a child? I want you to know that going to speak to Aaron was the last thing I was willing to do for you. I don’t want you to ask me for help again. I don’t want to work with you. I don’t want to run a business with you. When you’re in college, I don’t want you to speak to me. If you ever go back to British Military Fitness, I will act as if I have no personal connection to you. You no longer exist for me.’

  There was a click as he hung up. For several minutes Laura simply sat in her office, watching the strawberry tree tossing in the wind, holding the phone in her hand.

  AUTUMN

>   When she woke, it was as if she’d been transformed during the night. Her bones were made of lead. Her head was filled with dandelion seeds, soft as thistledown, like the clocks her mother had taught her to blow, telling the time as the seeds drifted away: what’s the time, Mr Wolf? One o’clock, two o’clock… Her mouth was dry and she felt nauseous. She thought she’d feel better, knowing that she didn’t have to go back to school, but she was worse.

  She lay in bed and thought about her mum. She could hear her bustling around downstairs; the smell of coffee and burnt toast drifted up to her room. Because of her, her mum had lost her job. She didn’t believe her mum thought it was all fine and soon she’d be some big-shot boss, hiring and firing employees at will. She couldn’t imagine her like Barney, all red in the face, telling people off: and if you bring that kid again…

  Her mum had been saving up to start her own company with Jacob and now that wouldn’t happen. Her mum would return to being at home and she’d be sad, like she used to be; that time when she was a colourless version of herself and nothing had been fun. And it was her fault.

  She thought of all the things she hadn’t told her mum: about Levi following her to school and what might have happened if the man and the dog hadn’t appeared, or she hadn’t seen the other children in Briar Lane. About Levi sitting in the park, late at night, watching her and how he knew she knew he was there. How he was really behind the paint-attack. That he’d cut off her hair. And that terrible… thing on Facebook. It made her stomach twist in knots and she couldn’t breathe properly, but she couldn’t tell her mum because she’d be even more worried than she was already. And what would happen when the police came and took her away? Would she have to go to prison? Who would look after her then? Her dad? He’d only ruffle her hair and tell her to stand up for herself.

  Her mum was always there for her. She didn’t disappear off to Nepal or Namibia. Her mum loved her, even when Autumn hadn’t been nice to her. Actually, she thought, with a hot rush of shame, she’d often been angry or sulky. Mum had taken her away from school and those horrid girls and Levi. Her love for her mum was so big it hurt to think about it. It was like a sharp-edged disc inside her chest. She’d paint an extra-specially nice picture for her, she decided.

  She rubbed her eyes and stumbled downstairs to attempt to eat some breakfast. She didn’t want her mum to be anxious.

  She lay on the sofa, sipping hot Ribena and watching CBBC. She couldn’t even bring herself to get up and put Deadly 60 on or set out her paper and inks. Her stomach was sore, a dull but sharp ache, as if she’d swallowed a bag of nails, all heavy and spikey, and so, when her mum was on the phone, she crept outside to the garden for some fresh air. She still wasn’t dressed and it was cold. The air was like needles piercing the back of her throat. She took deep, raggedy inhalations and watched her breath freeze in clouds around her. She was a dragon from a fairy story. She gave a little roar. After a few moments, she felt calmer, and the pain in her stomach eased but her fingers and toes started to go numb.

  She turned to go back inside and that’s when she saw it. The words in the white-grey dawn, livid and blood-thirsty, scrawled unevenly over the house.

  Bone by Bone

  She didn’t know what it meant but it must be a warning, a grisly message to her and her mum, of what might happen to them if they didn’t leave it be, if they didn’t stop complaining about Levi and his dad to the school, to the police… The words were spray-painted, the edges blurred when you got up close, the paint gloss-smooth over the little lumps in the wall, like the house had goose bumps. There were some drips, shiny-sticky.

  She thought she was going to retch. She put her hand over her mouth and backed away. She looked up and saw her mum in the window of her office. She was on the phone, holding the receiver with one hand and gesturing with the other. Her face was a pale smudge through the condensation and the tangle of ash branches. She might turn around at any moment and see her.

  Autumn was frozen to the spot. It was her fault that this had happened too. It must have been Levi. She could imagine him wielding a spray can, dreaming up the words that would terrify her, the small, secret smile he had when he was hurting her, the frightening light in his eyes. He knew where they lived. If she’d told her mum about him waiting for her that morning, or about the times he’d sat on the swing and watched her, maybe she could have stopped him. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Did her mum even know about the words on the wall? She hoped not. She’d be afraid, knowing that Levi had, somehow, climbed into the garden. He was so agile and athletic, maybe he’d scaled the fence using the strawberry tree like a rope and a ladder.

  She looked up one more time and, averting her eyes from the message, she ran back indoors and locked the kitchen door behind her. She would have to make sure her mum didn’t go into the garden.

  LAURA

  Laura thought Autumn would be her old self now that she didn’t have to return to school, but she seemed even more unhappy. She was tired, withdrawn, almost catatonic. She spent most of the morning lying on the sofa and groaned and flat-out refused when Laura asked her to come to the bank with her. Laura gave up. She’d go later, when Autumn felt up to it.

  As soon as she got the Internet up and running again, she could set up a new email address and start searching for schools outside their catchment area. And she had all the time in the world now that she had no job to go to, or school run to do. She’d start right now, by phoning their Internet provider – and then calling Barney to see if he’d calmed down. Maybe she could persuade him to let her take unpaid leave?

  As she waited for the call centre to take her off hold (there were three people in the queue ahead of her), she wondered how she was going to afford the mortgage. She’d have to find a tenant. A new job if she couldn’t talk Barney round. And what was she going to do about Autumn’s education? The council was unlikely to support her plea to place her daughter in another school when they heard Social Services had been notified and she was facing a court case for assaulting a child. In the meantime, what should she do about Levi? Mr George hadn’t phoned her back. There seemed to be no end to the lengths Aaron was prepared to go to bully her and Autumn. The school hadn’t intervened. Neither had the police.

  PC Emery had rung that morning. She’d sounded kind, asking her if she was okay, if her little girl had heard anything in the night, if Laura had managed to switch the alarm back on (Yes, No, Not yet). Then she’d cleared her throat and said they’d gone to see Aaron Jablonski, who’d denied using the key code to her garden, letting himself in, and spray-painting poetry on the wall.

  ‘He said, “I don’t even know who Emily effing Dickinson is,”’ said Emery. ‘At any rate, he couldn’t have been responsible. Mr Jablonski had an emergency call-out last night. For IBM. He showed me the paperwork. He clocked off at 5 a.m. Got an hour’s sleep before we arrived on his doorstep.’ There was a pause and Laura expected the police officer to wind up the conversation. Instead, she said, ‘While we were there, we went through Mr Jablonski’s records. He keeps a hard copy and a computer record of all the call-outs he makes, his time-sheets and his invoices for the work. There was no record of him ever visiting you at 6.30 p.m. on the twenty-sixth of October to mend your laptop. On the day in question, he made two call-outs to private residences in Filton and Abbey Wood and then he drove straight to the MoD’s site, also in Abbey Wood, where he worked until 8 p.m.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ Laura had said, before hanging up.

  She had no evidence to back up any of her claims. There was no one on her side.

  Laura, standing in the hall glaring at the phone, realized that she only had one option left. There was one thing she hadn’t done – spoken to Levi’s mother.

  At three in the afternoon, she packed a bag with some of Autumn’s books, a pad and felt tips, a couple of apples and a carton of juice. She tossed some clothes towards Autumn, who was still lying on the
sofa.

  ‘Come on, Autumn. Put these on and let’s go.’

  ‘Where? I don’t want to.’

  ‘You won’t have to even get out of the car. Come on, hurry.’

  ‘I’m not wearing these!’ she said disgustedly.

  It seemed to take forever for Autumn to return from her bedroom dressed in a different outfit and put on her shoes.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked again.

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ said Laura.

  ‘I don’t like surprises.’

  As they pulled over on the kerb, a hundred yards away from Ashley Grove, Autumn sat up straight.

  ‘You promised I wouldn’t have to go back to school.’ Her voice was high-pitched, bordering on hysteria.

  ‘It’s okay. School’s almost finished. Everyone will be coming out and going home in a minute.’

  ‘Why are we here, then?’

  ‘I’m going to find out who Levi’s mother is.’

  Autumn stared straight ahead. ‘You’re not going to ask him, are you?’

  ‘I brought some things for you to do. In that bag. It could take a while. We don’t know if he’ll go straight home or not.’

  Laura, who hadn’t taken her eyes off the children starting to filter out of school, spotted Levi. He was unmistakable. Taller and broader than the other kids, there was something polished about him. In the dull light, his skin gleamed. From this distance, she could see how like his father he was – the same spare figure, the square shape of his jaw, the jut of his chin were all Aaron’s. As he came out of the school gates, he pulled a black woollen cap over his head and slouched, his gait rolling, down the road. With a lurch, Laura recognized the hat. It was the one he’d been wearing when she’d pushed him and he’d hit his head.

  She put the car into gear and pulled out. It was a long shot, trying to follow the boy, but it was the only option she had left. She didn’t dare go after him on foot as he’d easily see her and Autumn. In any case, she thought he might have some activity, an after-school club to attend; he might be heading to Filton to see his dad, or hang out with friends, and they could be waiting for a while. At least they could stay warm in the car.