by J. M. Hewitt
Don’t get complacent, she warned herself as they walked into the lobby. Don’t forget your fears.
As they swept soundlessly up to the ninth floor she felt a new emotion: unexpected bitterness. It twisted at her insides. Punctuated even more as he opened the door to his apartment and she stepped inside. A modern kitchen, flat-screen TV and a magnificent view of the River Irwell.
This could have been Jordan’s life. He could have known this… this richness, this life. Instead he had been born and raised in a council house with a two-bar fire and damp in the bathroom. This flat was a different world. She wondered where Martin had got all his money. Surely history teachers didn’t earn enough to live in a place like this? And did Jordan know? Had he seen this for himself, had he wanted this for himself? He had liked nice things, loved them. Expensive and opulent; this was what her son had aspired to.
‘Do you rent?’ she asked, suddenly.
‘No, it’s purchased, clear and free of a mortgage these days.’
He said it like it was nothing, like it was no big deal, as though everyone lived like this. She waited for more, defiantly, staring.
‘I got compensation,’ he said, reluctantly, she thought, in answer to her narrow-eyed glare.
She forced out a hostile laugh. ‘What for? Did you lose a limb? I can’t see lasting damage on you.’ Her words were crass, she knew she sounded bitter, but she couldn’t help herself.
He smiled, but there was no humour in it. His eyes were cold, bleak and black.
The silence stretched on, until he said, ‘My parents were on the Air France flight 4590.’ He nodded, as if affirming it to himself before looking back to her. ‘The one that crashed in Paris,’ he added.
She remembered it instantly. One of the last Concorde flights from Paris to New York, everyone on board had died when it had crashed into a hotel minutes after take-off. Jordan had been small, she remembered sitting in front of the television, watching it on the news, the flames and the smoke and the twisted metal on the screen, holding him tightly, her emotions all over the place since she’d become a mother. She remembered actually feeling relief that she couldn’t afford to take Jordan on holidays which involved aeroplanes.
For a moment her suspicious thoughts halted, sympathy replacing them, and for just a single second her own situation paled. ‘God, Martin, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m… really sorry.’ But even as she said the words, and meant them, her brain turned over again, bringing to the forefront her fears of what he had done to her son. Because what would that do to someone, a double tragedy like that? Could it make the person left behind lose their heart, their soul, their mind?
‘I want to go to the hospital now,’ she said suddenly. ‘I want to see him.’
He held her steady gaze. ‘Car keys,’ he muttered.
She saw a bunch on the worktop, pointed at them. He scooped them up, ushered her out of the apartment, down in the lift again in a silence that was deafening. The drive to the hospital in Oldham passed in silence. Martin parked up and went around to the passenger door to open it.
She ignored his outstretched hand and pulled herself out of the car. They walked in silence for a moment until she turned to him and said, ‘Did you have to do this… with your parents?’
The hand came to his face again. At the last moment he seemed to notice and he forced his arm down to his side. He answered with a brief, single shrug. She narrowed her eyes, wanting more, needing some sort of knowledge from someone who had been there of what to expect.
‘I didn’t do all that… really,’ he said and his voice was serious, his face shadowed with pain.
‘How so?’ she asked.
‘I-I didn’t have to look at them.’ He spoke in a hurry, looking down at his feet. ‘There was… no point. We had to look at their things, personal items, purses, wallets, stuff like that,’ he finished weakly.
‘You said “we”?’
‘My sister,’ he clarified. ‘My younger sister. I found it very difficult, so she forged ahead, very clinical. No, not clinical: strong,’ he corrected, nodded again. ‘She was strong.’
She didn’t reply, and as if taking her silence as an affront he gripped her arm. His fingers dug in, pulling her back, but she strode ahead.
‘You’ll let me come in with you?’ he asked, taking long strides to catch up to her.
It was her turn to shrug.
He pursed his lips. Did he regret wanting to come in with her? Would he fail her, like he had his parents? Or was he afraid to see what he had done? The thought came again, unbidden, that he had something to do with the disappearance of her boy. Let him see, let him take it all in. She would see by the look on his face if this was something he had done.
‘Hi, Emma, Martin, we’re ready for you now, come with me,’ said Paul, standing outside the main entrance, raising his head and speaking in clipped tones as they approached.
It was too soon, too quick for Emma. She resisted the urge to run away.
An endless stream of police cars went down the bottom of Riverside Drive. Emma had still not returned. Jade sat in the window seat with her head in her hands.
What was going on down there? Had Jordan been found? Had Emma done something stupid? If she had, Jade felt responsible. She shouldn’t have left her last night after she had gone to see her. She should have insisted that Emma come over and stay for the night, every night, forever. Because Nan would have done that.
‘Nia,’ Jade called, coming to a decision. ‘Get your coat, we’re going out.’
As Jade unfolded the pushchair and strapped a happy Nia in, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. Should she take her little girl to the waterside? What if Emma had thrown herself in? What if – God forbid – Nia saw Emma or Jordan’s dead body being pulled out?
But there was no other option. There was nobody else to look after Nia.
Nan was gone. Emma was gone. Jordan was gone.
She slipped a packet of Milkybar buttons in her pocket and wheeled Nia down the road.
For once the old woman wasn’t in her window, but was out in her front garden. She wasn’t pretending to do anything out there, she simply stood, in her coat and scarf and gloves, watching as the sirens made their way past the end of the street. Jade paused. Usually she avoided Mrs Oberman. She’d never liked Jade, she knew that, knew the woman disapproved of her being a schoolgirl mum, not that she had been, in the end. But something made her cross the road to Mrs Oberman’s side, and at her gate she stopped. Perhaps it was the fact that Jade had been mirroring Mrs Oberman recently, parking herself in her own window, watching outside, waiting for news, waiting for more sirens… always waiting.
‘Do you know what’s going on?’ she asked, gripping the handlebars of Nia’s pushchair tightly.
Mrs Oberman turned to face her, and Jade felt her face redden as the woman’s eyes travelled from her head to her feet and back again.
‘Lots of police,’ she replied, eventually.
‘I’m worried about Emma, that she’s done something stupid,’ said Jade. She narrowed her eyes. ‘You heard about Jordan, her son?’
Mrs Oberman nodded. Looked at Nia for the first time. ‘You’re taking the child to the canal?’
Jade felt her chest on fire now. ‘I have to, I need to find out what’s happened, if it’s Emma, or if it’s…’ she glanced at Nia who seemed happily distracted as she poked at Mrs Oberman’s brick wall. ‘Or if it’s Jordan,’ she finished in a hushed whisper.
Mrs Oberman pulled her gloves off, walked over to her gate. ‘Leave the child with me,’ she said.
Jade started. Leave Nia with wicked, nosy Mrs Oberman? She started to shake her head, offered weak words of thanks and refusal, but Mrs Oberman opened the gate and walked out, coming to a halt beside her.
‘The police won’t tell you, or me, or any of us in this road if it is her or him.’ She put her hands on Jade’s, on the handlebars of the pushchair. ‘Go and see for yourself, the child and I will wait insi
de.’
If it had have been Nan, or Emma, they would have told Jade to stay in her own house and they would go and see. But perhaps that was the problem, thought Jade, maybe she’d spent too long being protected, maybe Mrs Oberman was right, she should see for herself. She should be the grown-up one, after all this time.
And she would have to, she realised, because if it was Emma in the water, then there really was nobody left.
Jade wasn’t being given an option, she could see that. She paused again, one hand on the hood of the pushchair. Nothing bad could happen. Mrs Oberman was nosy and bitchy and a bit snobby, but she wasn’t about to abduct Nia, or hurt her. Was she?
And besides, it would take minutes to get to the canal and back, fifteen minutes at the most, just to put her mind at rest, just to make sure it wasn’t Emma or Jordan they were pulling out of the water.
Remembering the chocolate, she pulled it out of her pocket and held it towards Mrs Oberman.
‘Take this, in case she gets grouchy,’ said Jade.
Mrs Oberman ignored her outstretched hand, pulled the pushchair inside her gate and backed up the path towards the door.
Jade, feeling foolish, pushed the chocolate back in her pocket, sure that Mrs O perceived her as a bad mother again. She could imagine Mrs Oberman’s thoughts. What a silly little girl, what a bad mother, bribing her child with chocolate so she’ll remain well behaved. In my day…
‘Nia, Mummy will be back very soon, you be good, please,’ she said, and before she could change her mind, rush at Mrs Oberman and snatch the pushchair from her grip she turned tail and ran towards the canal.
Twenty
DAY FOUR
Jade saw the white tent first. She knew exactly what it meant. With fingers that clawed nervously at her throat Jade pushed her way to the cordon.
‘Excuse me, please, sir,’ she called to an officer who was positioned by the opening of the tent. ‘I need to know who it is.’
He glanced at her, looked away, and then seeming to decide she might have something worthwhile to say he covered the few feet to the police tape.
‘My friend is Emma Robinson, Jordan Robinson’s mother, I need to know if whoever you’ve found is him… or her.’ She swallowed as she heard her own words.
‘I can’t give any information, love,’ he said, with an apologetic grim look. ‘The deceased has been taken away for identification.’
‘Was it a man, or a woman?’ she whispered, suddenly feeling like she didn’t want to know, not right now, not yet. Because if she didn’t know then she could return home, and it wasn’t yet real that one of the few people in her life might well be dead. She held her hand up, as she lost her nerve completely. ‘No matter, it doesn’t matter, I’ll just…’
‘It was a man,’ he said. ‘That’s all I can say.’
She let her breath out in a whoosh. So, not Emma. She smiled and wanted to reach over the tape and grab him, offer him her thanks, but as soon as the relief came it was trampled by dread.
Not Emma. But that meant it could finally be Jordan.
* * *
‘It’s not Emma,’ she said as soon as Mrs Oberman opened her door. ‘It was a guy, so…’
‘So it could be her boy.’ Mrs Oberman nodded, pulled the door fully open and stepped back. ‘Come in, she’s in there.’
Mrs Oberman’s house was exactly how Jade had imagined it. Old fashioned decor, swirly patterned carpets, dark wood furniture. Jade’s eyes widened as she stepped into the lounge, she even had an ancient box-shaped television instead of a flat-screen.
Probably black and white, with just the five terrestrial channels, she thought with an inward snigger.
Immediately she felt bad. Mrs Oberman had done a nice thing, a good deed today, possibly for the first time in her life. And there was Nia, sitting on a tiny chair, a set of pencils in front of her and a block of paper.
‘Mummy, I made you a picture!’ squealed the little girl as her mother came in.
Jade stooped down to hug her child, before spinning around to face Mrs Oberman. ‘Thank you for this, I really didn’t want to take her down there, I didn’t know what I would find.’
Mrs Oberman gave a nod. Short and sharp, one that said, no thanks necessary.
‘So, we’ll go then.’ Jade stood up, deftly removed the pencils and pad from Nia’s grasp and put them on the table at the same time as wrestling Nia into her coat. Nia grabbed for the paper, pulling off a sheet and shoving against her mother. As she struggled with Nia’s coat, Jade glanced around the room. Photographs filled the sideboard and the fireplace. Black and white ones, coloured pictures which had a sepia tinge to them. They were old, old faces of old family that for one reason or another never came to call anymore.
Mrs Oberman cleared her throat. Jade stood up, waited for Mrs Oberman to speak, to say goodbye, to ask Jade to let her know if she heard anything further about Jordan, or Emma. Instead, the older woman retreated into the shadowed hall. Jade followed, looked left and right.
Mrs Oberman had vanished. Through the opaque door that presumably led to her kitchen she saw a shape moving around.
Shrugging, frowning at what had turned out to be the strangest hour she’d ever had, Jade let herself and Nia out of the house, and pulled the door closed behind her.
Paul’s radio crackled static into the silence of the mortuary viewing room. Carrie bristled, but didn’t need to say anything. He grappled for it on his belt, flicked it off.
She looked at Emma, standing to her right. In front of them was a large window, the curtains on the other side of the glass tightly closed. Carrie’s hand hovered over the two-way communication button.
‘Tell me when you’re ready, Emma,’ she murmured.
‘Wait!’ Emma’s voice rang out, shrill and loud in the quiet of the room. Carrie looked at the man by Emma’s side. Martin – the father, the one who hadn’t been in the picture. He didn’t look at her, didn’t offer any comfort to Emma. He kept his eyes down, staring at the floor.
Carrie breathed in, then out, resisted looking at the clock, knowing that once this part was over she would have work to do, either a result or more questions. Whatever it would be she needed to be back at the station, updating, issuing instructions, all depending on the outcome of this identification.
It was part of Carrie’s job to prepare the people in front of her. She explained what they were about to see, remaining professional and strong, but inserting little touches on the arm of the waiting family. Feather-light bird strokes that didn’t come naturally, but she had practised over the years.
‘A waxy-white tinge to his skin, a bit puffy, a little cut underneath his right eye,’ Carrie had said earlier, before continuing, ‘a separate sheet is pulled up to his chin. You may notice there is a blue shade to his lips and eyelids.’
‘I’m afraid,’ Emma said suddenly, now, her eyes darting between Martin, Paul and Carrie. ‘I’m afraid because once I’ve seen him, here, it’s the end. If I don’t see him like this,’ she gestured towards the curtained window, ‘it’s not yet real. He’s not yet gone. There’s still a chance.’
‘I understand.’ Carrie gave a brittle smile. She didn’t, because she’d never had the body that had been missing for almost two decades. But she could imagine. ‘Is there anyone else who can do this for you? Anyone you would like to do this part, for you?’
She hoped Emma would say there was, someone else not as close to the boy, someone a little removed. A neighbour, a friend, perhaps. Carrie turned her gaze to Jordan’s father, wondered what he must be feeling, thinking, going through. He didn’t even know he had a son until yesterday. Imagine – a child, discovered and lost in twenty-four short hours.
Carrie lowered her eyes. She shouldn’t judge; it could happen to anyone. Briefly, she imagined her colleague Paul in Martin’s position. An unknown child turning up, a result of a long ago one-night thing. It could have happened, could still happen. She glanced at him, but he remained impassive.
It would be a shock; she wondered if Martin had other kids with another woman. But this, what Martin was experiencing, to have found and lost a child in a day. It was a hundred times worse than discovering you had a child. Or was it? What if this man in front of her hadn’t wanted children, what if Jordan had found out about his father, where he lived, where he worked, had been hassling him at all times of day and night?
Carrie made a mental note to speak more to Martin later, get a handle on exactly when he had found out about Jordan’s existence, if he’d had any contact with the boy, if his earlier words about just finding out yesterday were a lie.
In the meantime she waited, glancing over at Emma, saw her internal struggle. Carrie had no need to ask her what she was thinking. Her face said it all.
* * *
‘Do it,’ Emma said, practically spat the words. ‘Show me.’
To her left, the Detective leaned forward, said in a low voice, ‘We’re ready.’
Slowly, the curtains in front of Emma opened.
Emma stared down at the boy on the other side of the glass. He wasn’t the waxy-white people spoke of. He was grey. So grey that to Emma his skin looked almost black in parts. His eyelids were not blue, they were purple, like a fresh bruise. She wondered if it was only her who saw those colours, and if maybe there was something wrong with Carrie’s eyes.
The second hand on the clock in the cold, sterilised room ticked on. Emma realised they were waiting for her to speak, these cold, emotionless men who stood in front of her.
Emma opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She cleared her throat.
‘It’s not him.’ she said, her eyes going from Carrie to the technician, over to Martin, down to the cadaver to Paul again. ‘This isn’t Jordan.’
She expected a murmur. Something akin to excitement, a buzz that trickled through the occupants of the room, some sort of response. Instead there was a hushed silence. Through the window, the technician lowered his gaze to the floor. Carrie looked at Martin. At that moment Emma knew exactly what he was thinking.