So there it was. The information that I’d waited more than nine months to learn. The best part of a year. As I sat in the sunshine talking with Alex, for a moment it had seemed that our troubles were behind us. But the knot had yet to be fully unpicked.
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The Forgotten Children
Don’t Tell Meg Trilogy Book 3
Chapter One
1992 David had known that he was going to hang himself since the previous Thursday. That was the day Gary Maxwell had told him that he would be chosen again. He couldn’t take it anymore. It was time to end it.
There were people at the home that he’d miss. It was as if he had two lives there. The other kids were great – when you’re thrown into a predicament like that, you tend to stick together, you make the best of it. They tried as hard as they could to protect the young ones. They kept them naive as long as they could, but there was only so long that you could shield them from the horror.
It should have been an incredible place to grow up. Sure, they’d all experienced horrible things. They all had sad stories to tell: mothers who’d turned to drink or had nervous breakdowns because of errant or violent fathers; absent fathers who wanted no part in their children’s lives; parental deaths from car crashes, cancer, suicide and even one murder. David’s parents had died in a plane crash as they jetted off for a holiday of a lifetime, while he was left at home with his gran.
All known tragedy was in that place. They were a bunch of forgotten children, cast out into the world because of misfortune or the inadequacy of the adults in their lives, and transferred into the care of Gary Maxwell, the man in charge of Woodlands Edge Children’s Home.
Gary ruled by fear. If there was an inspection or official visit, they all got neatly in line. There was no dissent, no attempt to rock the boat. If there was as much as a hair spotted out of place, if they brought any kind of shame or unwanted attention onto the home, a horrific punishment would be waiting. You’d see it in Gary’s eyes. He’d take whatever feedback he was given graciously and humbly. Maybe it was a remark about one of the children being spotted out late at night in town, or perhaps a love bite on a teenager’s neck. But if it was commented on by anybody who could make life difficult for Gary Maxwell, there would be hell to pay.
You could feel the tension among the kids. Gary would say something like: ‘That’s really useful feedback, I appreciate that. Don’t worry, I’ll rectify that problem straightaway.’
They’d know what he meant. It would fall at their feet. If it was one of the girls, and she had a friend, her friend would get pulled into the punishment too. He was a bully, and there was nothing they could do to stand up to him. He was responsible for housing them, feeding them and looking after their welfare. And he was a monster. David had tried telling on him. Many times. His most recent attempt was the reason that he was now sneaking out to the tree with his dressing-gown cord wrapped around his hand.
They had teachers and counsellors, of course they did. They’d ask how things were going, how the youngsters liked it at the home, whether they had friends, how safe they felt. But Gary never left any signs. There were never any bruises. They’d give all the right answers, anything to keep him away from them. Whenever David answered their questions, it was as if Gary was in there with him, sneering at him, poring over everything he said, making sure that there were no clues in there that might reveal his true nature.
David had tried to speak up soon after it had started. He was only thirteen, and was shocked and numbed. An older boy, Jacob, had been with him in that place. Jacob had tried to protect David. He’d attempted to draw the man’s attention away from him. He’d failed, of course. That kind of person was used to getting what he wanted. He didn’t understand the word no, and didn’t care a jot about the youngsters.
Jacob hanged himself a fortnight after that night. He’d seen what had happened to David. He’d done his best to protect him, then comfort him, but there was nothing either of them could do. They had no voice. They were in the care system but no one individual cared for them. The people who should have looked out for them were gone. The children were on their own.
It was Bob, the only support worker in that place who genuinely cared about the youngsters, who found him. He hadn’t seen Jacob at first as he cycled into work on that summer morning, but as he looked towards the trees, his attention was drawn by a thrush singing loudly among the greenery. It was perched on Jacob’s shoulder.
The nylon cord from Jacob’s dressing gown had supported him well enough to stifle the last breath from his miserable life. David never saw the body – they kept the children well away from the area. But they all knew what a relief Jacob had found in his death. He was safe. It couldn’t happen to him again.
David sobbed for several nights over Jacob, but then his thoughts turned to what his friend had done. He looked at the long, sturdy branch of the tree which overhung the fence. It was strong enough to take a man’s weight. Jacob must have stood on the fence to fasten the cord, placed the noosed end around his neck, and then jumped off. David worked through his death, moment by moment. The noose would have had to be pulled tight, really tight, as it took his weight. It would also have to have been knotted properly, or it would have slipped out. He’d have to research that in the library at school. Is that what Jacob had done?
The noose would have cut deep into the skin. His eyes would have bulged, and his head must have felt as if it was exploding. Hanging there, he could have got out of it if he’d changed his mind. It would have been possible to move his legs back onto the fence, to take his own weight again. David knew why he hadn’t. Jacob wasn’t making a half-hearted cry for help. He wanted out. He meant for his life to end.
David thought about how his body would jerk and convulse when he jumped from the fence. And he would jump. It would instantly tighten the noose, finishing him off faster. If they found him too soon, they might revive him. David didn’t want that; it had to be final. A few moments of fear and pain, and then it would be over. At last.
He’d tried to tell Bob what had happened to him, several times, but the words just wouldn’t come out right. He could barely explain it to himself, so how could he begin to tell Bob? He was so ashamed. David was sure that Bob knew that something was going on, but he too was scared of Gary. He had a wife and kids. He needed his work. Nevertheless, David was certain that he would have helped if they’d told him. It would have been difficult for him, but he would have stepped up. He’d have had to.
David came the closest to it that day. He almost blurted it out. He saw tears in Bob’s eyes – he sensed what he was going to say. He wasn’t stupid. The inquest had put Jacob’s death down to depression. That was only half of it. He’d been on fluoxetine, several of them were on it; David was too. So yes, he was depressed. But his only release would be when he was eighteen years of age and could walk away from Woodlands Edge Children’s Home, and Jacob couldn’t wait that long.
David had seen Bob in Gary’s office later on. He’d never seen Bob like that – he was really angry. He was shouting through tears, his face red, partly through anger, partly through frustration. Gary just sat there, giving him that cold, calm stare. Someone else would pay for it later.
The children were aware that Bob had stormed out of the home. The rumour was that he’d quit his job, there and then, on the spot. There was a hush among the children that night. They knew what was coming. In trying to help David, Bob had made it worse. He’d tried to hide the identity of his informant from Gary, but Gary wasn’t stupid. He knew that David liked talking to Bob.
Sure as anything, David was chosen again that night, along with his friend James. He was just thirteen. Gary would punish David through James, but he’d make sure it was bad for him too. That’s how Gary Maxwell maintained his c
ontrol.
Suicide is often talked about as if it’s done on the spur of the moment. But people who think about killing themselves know better. They’ve had it worked out for ages. They know where it will happen. They’ve thought through every detail. They’ve considered everything that could go wrong. They know the time, the method and the place. They will have toyed with it a thousand times before it happens. They will have stepped back, waiting another day, hoping that things would get better.
They might have considered the people they were leaving behind, wondering what difficult times awaited them after their death. But ultimately when you’re in that dark, impenetrable place no light can get in. It’s all you think about. David knew that he was going to kill himself that night. He knew that there would be no turning back.
As he perched on the fourth bar of the fence, the carefully tied knot pulled tight against his neck and he watched his frosty breath in the cold night air. There would be no breath left soon. He’d be half frozen by the time they found him; it wasn’t getting light until after eight o’clock, it was right in depths of winter.
He jumped, with complete certainty that this was what he wanted. He felt the noose jerk tight, squeezing his neck. He was gasping for breath. His legs began to thrash, he wanted this more than anything, but his body was resisting, it was fighting to stay alive. David’s eyes felt as if they were going to explode from his skull, and the cord dug more tightly into his neck as his body began to convulse. The last thing he was aware of as he slipped out of consciousness was the blood on his hand from where the nylon cord had cut so deeply into his neck.
None of it bothered him. He craved it. David wanted to die. He was pleased to see the back of his miserable, wretched life.
I looked out of the window of my second-floor flat and watched the youth screaming at his girlfriend – one-night stand – wife – whatever she was. He had tattoos all over his neck, wore a V-neck T-shirt and a cap put on back-to-front. The poor girl looked scared out of her life. I’d counted all of the expletives that I knew at least once and had clocked a few in there that I’d never heard of.
Apparently she was a slag because she’d done something that wounded his sensibilities. I wanted to warn her to run for her life. Get away from the oaf. Find a nice man. The look on her face told me that she’d be back. Whatever had happened in her life, she didn’t think that she could do better.
What had I been thinking of when I moved onto this estate? It was a complete shit-hole, full of the terminally unemployed and unemployable. I suppose the flat itself was fine – modern, clean, and I had enough space, but I’d thought the landlady was a bit keen. She’d got me signed on the dotted line within five minutes of walking through the door.
I didn’t have many choices. My house was worth less than I’d paid for it. Less than we’d paid for it – I hadn’t seen the person who was supposed to be paying half of the mortgage costs for the best part of a year. That’s why I was in a fix. I didn’t earn that much as a radio journalist; it wasn’t a bad salary, but I certainly wasn’t rolling in it.
But it wasn’t the mortgage that was the problem. It was the small matter of the murders that had taken place there. That tends to put buyers off. The asking price had gone down and down, eventually arriving at the breakeven point. When I thought it couldn’t go any lower, I began factoring in a loss. I’d have a couple of thousand pounds to make up. Well, I didn’t have it. My financial resources were depleted. Our life had been set up around two professional salaries, and I’d had to pick up everything when Meg walked out of my life.
I knew things were getting desperate when I started to read one of those leaflets that gets pushed through your letterbox as if it were a literary classic. Debt? Divorce? Death? Don’t worry! We’ll help you fix it. We’ll buy ANY house, ANYwhere and in ANY condition. It was the capital letters that did it. What did I say? A literary classic. I was at the end of my tether. I had no home of my own that I could live in and very little money.
I’d got my previous landlady killed. I’d been living in a static caravan at the Golden Beaches holiday park. Only that had now closed – because of me and the fact that my presence there had resulted in two deaths on the site, including its poor owner, a lovely lady called Vicky, whose death haunted me at night. I was a shit magnet.
In Meg’s absence, I’d begun the process of selling the house to the company which had so thoughtfully thrust their leaflet through the letterbox of the flats. It was a miracle that I’d even seen it. The post arrived through a single letterbox at the front of the building. If you were lucky, you found your letters stacked on the bottom step of the staircase. If your envelope looked like it might contain money, you’d never see it again, unless the person opening it had been disappointed. In that case, you’d have to retrieve it from the back of the radiator in the shared hallway, avoiding the dog turds on the well-worn carpet, courtesy of the guy who lived in the ground-floor flat and was always too pissed to walk his dog.
I had to keep telling myself that I wouldn’t be there for much longer. The house would be sold, and I’d be able to pay off the personal loan I’d taken out to cover the gap between what I’d paid for it and what it was now worth. Then I’d start to put my life back together. Probably without Meg. I had to accept that now.
My friend Ellie had lined up a great job for me in London, but I’d ducked out at the last minute when a three-month attachment had come up in Blackpool. After what Alex had told me about Meg living there, I had to take it. And I needed to get away from home; there were too many terrible memories. I had to find Meg and work out what was going on: if there was still a marriage to fight for, if I had a kid.
I was what is known as a district reporter. I worked from a tiny office, which was located on an industrial estate on the edge of the town. All I had to do was find a couple of news stories every day, turn them into three-minute radio reports, file them to the main office, and then I was done. No staff to manage, no rotas to maintain, just a straightforward reporting job in the seaside town where my wife was living. Or hiding, more like.
I didn’t know where she was, but Alex had managed to track her down to Blackpool. That was her home before we met. It was the closest I’d been to finding her for months. We had to talk, I needed to get things sorted. She’d been running away from me long enough. There was only so long she could hide in a town the size of Blackpool in the middle of winter. The tourists were all gone; it was like a ghost town most days.
I had the three months of my attachment to find her. After that it was back to my regular job. I’d been in Blackpool for one month already, so I had just over eight weeks to sort everything out. There was a small chance my attachment might be extended, but it was unlikely. Whatever happened with Meg, I’d seek work in London then. The house would be sold, I’d be paying back the personal loan, the time would be right.
To think I’d had the offer of a room in Spain too. I couldn’t take Alex up on her suggestion, not when I saw the Blackpool job advertised on the intranet site at work. I was straight in there. I knew the manager of the Lancashire radio station from my student days; we’d risen through the radio journalism ranks together. It was a bit of a demotion for me – same pay grade, less responsibility. He knew that I’d breeze the job. I’d be a safe pair of hands for three months. Everybody knew about the shit I’d been through, and the company was happy to cut me some slack.
When I returned from visiting Alex in Spain, I spent a few weeks in a grubby hotel and then managed to get the Blackpool job sorted out. I had a weekend to find a flat and I’d ended up in the only one that I could afford. At the holiday park I’d been able to supplement my income working in the bars, but I had no appetite for that now.
I knew I’d made a terrible mistake the minute I arrived to move my stuff into the flat. There was a syringe discarded to the side of the front step. I assumed it belonged to one of my new neighbours. Maybe it was a house-warming gift?
I was travelling light; m
y stuff was still in storage. That was another thing about this flat. It was furnished. All I had to do was load my clothes and laptop into the car and I was away. Forty years old and travelling lighter than I was when I was twenty.
I watched the idiot on the pavement outside slap the young girl across the face. She stopped dead and looked at him. He put his arm around her shoulders, guiding her towards the door to the flats. She didn’t resist, but let him steer her back inside. And I watched it, too spineless to intervene. I didn’t want to cause any friction with the other residents. I had to see them on the landing from time to time, although they tended not to keep the same hours as me. I let her go back into that flat where it would start all over again the minute the door closed behind them.
‘You’ve lost your colour already! I’ll swear that Blackpool actually reverses the tanning process it’s so bloody cold.’
It was good to be laughing with Alex on Skype again. It was pissing with rain in Blackpool. My huge living-room window was steamed up as the internal and external temperatures fought it out for supremacy.
Her camera looked out onto a glorious, sunny Spanish scene. The garden was mainly covered with terracotta tiles; there was a swimming pool, and I could see that the sky was a beautiful blue colour. To think I’d been sitting out in that very garden only five weeks previously.
‘It’s not so bad. What else can you expect from the north of England in November? It’s a bit shit up north! Hey, maybe Blackpool could use that as their advertising slogan?’
‘Yeah, probably not!’ Alex chuckled. ‘Anyway, enough of the chitchat. Have you made any progress yet? How’s your leg?’
‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘I’ve drawn a complete blank. And the leg is okay. It gives me occasional aggro, but nothing too serious. I’m going to go and talk to the old ladies at the Methodist church again to see if they can give me any more clues.’
Don't Tell Meg Trilogy Box Set Page 49