“And Mikey?” Kelly prompted.
“I don’t know. I heard his scream go past me. He must have gotten scared and taken a wrong step, or it knocked him off so it could get to David.”
“You poor boy.” Rachel sidled up to him again and stretched her arm around him.
“You believe me?”
“Of course we do.” Rachel answered. Craig saw Kelly nod so he threw Jason a wink of reassurance.
Kelly leaned forward, her hands folded on her knees, her tone soft but even. “The authorities are having trouble getting hold of your mum.”
“She’s in hospital, like I said, visiting my granddad. Whittington hospital.”
Kelly nodded. “So, I said I would take responsibility for getting you to her. I think after what you have been through that’s the best place for you. We were all going to the Royal Free hospital together, so we can take a detour and go to the Whittington. One more passenger won’t hurt. You okay with that?”
“Yeah, great.” Jason was already on his feet. “Anything to get me out of this building. I never want to come back here.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Jason allowed himself to be shepherded through the corridors of the hospital by Kelly Rachel and Craig, following the directions that Kelly had been given in the reception area. Being in the middle of the adults and in the large busy corridors he felt small. He felt even smaller as they got closer to the private room that his granddad had been moved to. The fear and worry he had lived with at The Heights had distracted him from other worries, ones about his granddad dying and how when he did die he would join his dad, Emily and Amy as another person Jason had lost. He would only have his mum left. Suddenly he realised that it wasn’t he that seemed smaller, but the world and the people in it. If he lost his mum he would have nothing left.
His mum could not go home. He had to make sure that they didn’t go back to The Heights even if it meant telling her the truth, or at least something like it. Craig’s hand, that had been clamped to Jason’s shoulder since they had arrived in the hospital, steered him into a quieter narrow corridor. The grip was strong but gentle, and Jason felt some of that transfer into him. He was glad to be with this group of adults, Rachel accepted his story and was quick to comfort him, Craig spoke to him like an adult and seemed protective over him; how he day-dreamed a big brother would be, and Kelly had authority that was respected by others and shielded him. With these three he felt protected, and most importantly he trusted them and they believed him.
Kelly, who had taken the lead, held up her hand and they all stopped. “Your granddad’s room is up ahead, I am going to go and talk to your mum first, tell her about the incident you were involved in.”
Jason nodded and Kelly walked further down the corridor and hesitated at a doorway and knocked on the door jamb, his mum appeared and met Kelly without looking his way. Both Kelly and his mum spoke quietly, and although he couldn’t hear what was being said, he saw his mum raise a hand to her mouth the way he had seen countless people do on TV when they had received bad news, she closed the door to granddad’s room so that he couldn’t hear. Kelly put her hands on his mum’s shoulders and he knew she was telling her that Jason was okay and he wasn’t in any trouble. Kelly beckoned for him to join them and he could see the relief on his mum’s face. Craig’s hand fell away and Jason found himself rushing to his mum. She crouched to his height and wrapped her arms around him. He fitted in his mum’s arms perfectly and it was so much more comforting than the hugs Rachel had given him. The embrace was tight, strong and long. Hugs had become like this since dad had left.
“I am so sorry I left you, Jay.” The hug tightened. “I didn’t want you to be here. Sorry I left you.”
“It’s okay.” He could hear her breath catching in her throat and he knew she was going to cry. He spoke more firmly. “It’s okay, mum.”
“Your granddad isn’t going to be with us long.”
“I know.” He admitted after a little while.
She pulled away but stayed on her knees at his height and wiped at her red eyes. “I don’t want you to see him the way he is now. He wouldn’t want you to see him that way. He would want you to remember him the way he was.”
Granddad had been a military man when he was younger, and he had remained tall and broad and strong. As fun and loving as granddad could be he didn’t do emotions, he had always relied upon nanny to do that for him. When Jason had stayed with his grandparents he had always gone to his nan for comforting any grazes, frustrations or sadness. It was always her that made a fuss of him and gave him sweets, treats and pocket money, maybe that was why granddad held back – didn’t want to spoil him. Granddad did answers to questions, rough and tumble games, learning to ride bikes and swim, and disapproval.
No. Granddad would not want to be seen vulnerable and frightened. Frightened? The only time he had seen granddad sad and scared was when nan had died, it had frightened Jason to see him that way, but he had reassured Jason that as strong as men were there were times they all needed to cry like children. “I don’t want to go home.”
“Oh, you have had a terrible day, honey. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to do.” She struggled back onto her feet and pulled him to her side. “Thank you so much for bringing him to me Kelly. It was really nice of you…”
“It was nothing really.”
Rachel stepped forward. “Have you got any family or friends that perhaps Jason could stay with for a few days? Give you one less thing to trouble you.”
Jason knew there was only Claire and they hadn’t heard from her since Amy.
His mum shrugged. “There isn’t really anyone. He will have to stay here.”
“I wonder if Kelly and myself can help out. I realise you don’t know me, but I would be more than willing to have him over at mine for the night, or even a few days if it helps.”
Jason knew he would be safe at Rachel’s, but his mum looked surprised and uncomfortable and she made shapes with her mouth but couldn’t find the words, he leapt in before she could say no. “Mum, really it would be okay, Rachel’s local and she’s really nice, and a friend of Kelly’s, and she’s a policeman.” Jason yelped and clutched his ear that was suddenly sore and realised Kelly had flicked it.
“I am not a police man: just because you have a truncheon it doesn’t mean you are a man. I know several men that would benefit from that advice.” The last part she said directly to his mum.
She laughed at this and seemed to relax. “I can second that.”
“Seriously though, I’m spending the day and possibly the evening with Rachel and I drive, so I am more than happy to fetch him back and forth for you. He has said a few times that he didn’t want to go back home, I think what happened on top of everything else that’s been happening at The Heights really shook him up.”
He watched his mum stare down at him, and she rubbed her forehead and chewed her lip. “It’s very kind of you, but I don’t know…”
“Mum! Please! I don’t want to go home. I want to stay at Rachel’s.”
“I don’t know you…”
Rachel’s mouth briefly turned down at the corners. “It’s because I’m a kook…”
His mum looked surprised and lost for words for a few moments. “I don’t know what Jason has told you about what I said, but I never said those exact words.”
“It’s okay you were only concerned for your friend. You might not agree with my methods, but my motives are that I care and I want to help and I can do both in this situation. And I can do it without any spirits by just rustling up some tea for your boy and getting some use out of my spare room.”
She held her hands up in surrender. “You got me. You all make perfect sense, and Jason seems more than happy with the idea. If he’s happy then I am happy. Are you sure it’s okay with you Rachel?”
With a fizz of excitement in him he wrapped himself around his mum again and thanked her.
Rachel rummaged in her bag. “I have a mobile, but
I have to confess my knowledge ends at the power button. I’m sure Jason will work it out though, so if you need to contact me…” She leafed through her address book. “I believe this is the number. I’m sure they make all this technology to make me feel more senile.”
“I have my own phone.” Rachel looked surprised at Jason. “Mum can call me on that.”
Jason listened as Rachel, Kelly and Craig said goodbye to his mum and offered awkward sympathies. “I will catch you up at the lift.” The three nodded at Jason and headed for the lift.
His mum smiled down at him. “You need to run along, honey. I need to get back into granddad.”
“I know.” He was safe, but he had to make sure she was safe too. “Mum, there was another murder at The Heights today. I don’t want us to live there anymore.”
She sighed heavily. “It’s our home… Claire and Brian are there…”
“I know that, but the building has changed, Claire and Brian have changed. Dad’s gone so our home is different too. Nothing is the same.”
His mum looked into space and after some time she looked back at him. “I know.”
That had been easier than he had thought. “Do you like granddad’s home?”
“Of course I do, it was my home, remember?”
“Let’s move in there then.” He said brightly and shrugged to show how obvious the answer was.
“Okay.” She said slowly. She thought about it and answered more firmly. “Okay, we can do that.”
“Thank you, mum.” He couldn’t have stopped his Dad leaving, he couldn’t have stopped Emily and Amy being taken, and he couldn’t stop his granddad from dying, but just maybe he could keep his mum safe. “Promise me, promise me one thing. Stay with granddad all night. Don’t go home. Even when granddad …” He couldn’t say the word ‘dead’, talking about someone you loved as dead always struck him as having some kind of magical influence on events. “Even when granddad isn’t here don’t go home.”
“What?” She frowned. “Where do you want me to go?”
“I’m serious. Look at all the things that have happened at The Heights, I don’t want you going there on your own.”
She smirked and poked him. “Hey, monkey. I’m the parent, remember.”
It was nice to see her be like that with him, it felt normal. How he wanted things to be normal again! “I know that.” His face went hot and he knew he had gone red. “You are the only parent I have. That’s why I’m asking you not to go to that place on your own.” His throat got tighter and choked his voice and his eyes were hot, and he knew he was close to crying. It wasn’t easy to keep himself under control as he spoke his feelings. “You think I am being silly, but you are all I have and I don’t want to lose you.”
Near to tears herself his mum dropped back down to his height and pulled him close again. “I’m sorry. Of course I won’t go home without you. I love you.”
“I love you too.” Over her shoulder he saw into the private room his granddad was in. His granddad no longer looked tall, broad, proud and strong. In the large bed and surrounded by instruments he looked small, his illness made him bony and frail looking, and the hospital gown that was too small for him looked like a dress. It showed too much of his granddad’s naked body where it didn’t fit him properly. His insides knotted up at seeing his granddad that way, angry at the hospital for ruining how he saw his granddad in his head and angry for his granddad, who if he was aware of his situation would be suffering humiliation as well as a painful death. “I love you mum.”
Jason ran to the lift just as it arrived for the others, satisfied he was out of sight of his mum he cried openly with relief at his mum and him being safe, and sorrow for his granddad, his mum and himself. Not caring at being seen as a child. Because he had seen his granddad become a child once and he knew there was no shame in it, especially when the world had made him grow up too fast.
Chapter Twenty Seven
Kelly glanced over her shoulder at Craig and Jason trailing behind her and Rachel in the corridor of the Royal Free. The boy had stopped crying during the journey from the Whittington and Craig was now speaking softly to him. Craig was good with Jason, he was caring but he didn’t wade in with the smothering sympathy that Rachel gave the boy, he offered a quiet strength and reassurance and was more likely to cajole him with a joke or a nudge to tease out a smile.
Rachel caught onto Kelly’s direction of attention. “I think we did quite well getting young Jason out of harms way. It feels good knowing we can at least keep him safe from whatever is happening.”
“It does feel good. I just wish I understood what we were keeping him safe from.” Kelly tossed her hands up in the air in a gesture of despair.
“So do I, dear. In time. But judging by Jason’s description I won’t be wishing that to be any time soon.”
Kelly’s mood joined Rachel’s grave tone. “No. I guess not.”
“Now that we are nearly there I feel very awkward.”
“I think it’s me that should feel awkward; I’m here to heavy someone I don’t know, to leave someone else I don’t know, alone.”
“Yes, quite. Thank you again. But what I meant was that I am afraid that my relationship with Cat is complicated. Even with her being in a coma I find it difficult being around her. I am ashamed to say, that we parted on bad terms.”
Kelly glanced at Rachel expecting an explanation but it didn’t come. “You are here now. I’m sure if Cat knows that you are here it will go some way to bridge the gap between you after whatever happened.”
“You don’t know Cat…” As they turned the corner Rachel stepped close to the wall and jerked Kelly after her, and discretely pointed down the corridor. “That’s him. At Cat’s room. Dreadful man. He troubles me.”
Kelly recognised Mr Malik from The Heights, he wasn’t an easy man to miss with his drab grey clothes only fitting him where his shirt buttoned tight to his neck, and his trousers were belted to his waist, the rest of the material hung and flapped around his rakish frame. He was standing and staring through the large wall of windows into Cat’s room. She had seen him plenty of times in the lift and lobby, fetching shopping or going about his day with his wife. “I know him. If you take everyone in to your friend’s room I will talk with him.” He struck her as a pleasant man, nothing out of the ordinary, harmless enough.
Craig and Jason caught them up and Rachel whispered for them both to follow her through to Cat’s room. Rachel closed the door behind them. Malik broke his stare to watch the newcomers enter, he ignored Rachel’s curt nod in his direction and returned to his transfixed gaze in at Cat.
Kelly waited a few moments before walking up to him and stood her ground a good arms length out of reach from him. “Mr Malik?” He didn’t respond and she shifted uncomfortably where she stood. “It is Mr Malik, isn’t it?”
He turned his head slowly in her direction like a planet’s surface rotating its features into the sun. His face was as skeletal as she had remembered it but it shone with an unhealthy clamminess, while his eyes were slimy and yellowed like raw eggs that might run from their sockets. He looked sickly, diseased. He breathed a slow hiss. “I know you…” he spoke as if he was wrestling with control of his memory.
“Kelly Mason. PC Mason. I live in The Heights. We have met before. In passing.” She offered him a guarded smile from a place between diplomatic openness and formal authority. He made no sign of acknowledgment. “I have been asked to speak to you.” Without the weight of her uniform behind her approach she felt like she was on weak ground, bringing back memories of questioning Rachel the first time they had met back at the Chambers. “I have been asked to speak to you about the amount of time you have been spending here.”
His top lip curdled at one side in a grimace of distaste. “It is a free country. Is it not?” The words rolled from his tongue with a barely concealed edge of hostility within his silky polish drawl. He returned to staring into the room.
The dark tone that thickened his v
oice with a threatening strength convinced her that he was capable of being a very different person to what she had previously imagined. “Her relatives don’t remember her ever mentioning you before, and not having seen you with her, or having anything to do with you it struck them as odd. They are unsettled that you are always here. The relatives want their privacy.”
She stood her ground in the silence that followed, but he did not defer to her authority as she imagined. He didn’t even return to face her. She floundered for something to say, but her actions were restricted and it was clear that Malik was not going to speak to her any further. She tried to ignore an uncomfortable anxiety dancing at the nape of her neck. He was odd and it unsettled her. Kelly decided that any rephrasing or change of approach was futile in the face of being ignored. “Okay, Mr Malik. I am not here on any official capacity at the moment, but I will be reporting you to security and I will be making sure there are some uniformed officers stopping in regularly so that you observe visiting hours.” He didn’t answer but continued to stare. She stepped into the room, shut the door behind her and began snapping all the blinds shut against him.
“How creepy is he?” She hushed to the others over her shoulder as she finished making sure the blinds were secure. “He always seemed to be a bit eccentric before, but now he seems totally unlike how I remember him.” Facing the others she suddenly found herself replacing one uncomfortable scene with another. Tucked neatly into smooth undisturbed covers was a girl in her late teens or very early twenties, who lay before her trapped in sleep and dreams. Craig and Jason looked equally uncomfortable.
“Please don’t feel awkward.” Rachel asked from a chair at Cat’s side. “It’s actually nice to have people here with me. Cat, this is Kelly, Craig and Jason. They all live at The Heights. The people I told you about.” Rachel addressed the others again. “This is Cat. I’m sorry I dragged all of you here, but at least you can see my concern. If anything, Cat was a loner. I know I have been out of her life for a while but… but some people don’t change, and one of the many things Cat is, is consistent. She pushed everyone away from her after her mother died, and if that Malik is a little heavy on the religious side then I just can’t place her having a relationship of any kind with him, especially one that inspires someone to stand on vigil for her.”
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