Burnt Paper Sky Page 10

  I glanced at DI Clemo, wanting a show of support from him, but he looked as though he’d just been slapped, hard, across his hollowed-out cheeks. The cameras were still all trained on me, and the journalists were scribbling in their pads or typing, with fingers flying. The flashguns fired like strobe lights. The noise levels were rising.

  DI Clemo, on his feet beside me, begged for calm. He put his hand on my arm and guided me firmly back down into my seat. Patches of sweat had appeared under his armpits, staining his shirt.

  ‘I’m sorry that Ms Jenner hasn’t been able to finish reading the statement,’ he said. ‘As you can understand, this is a very distressing time for her. I’ll read the rest of it myself, if you’ll bear with me.’

  Frustration crackled in his voice. DCI Fraser stood up and whispered something to him. DI Clemo looked down at the script before continuing, and when he spoke again he sounded calmer, though still tense and tightly controlled. Sitting beside him, I still felt powerful, pleased that I’d said my piece. The wound on my forehead began to itch and I scratched it while I listened to him finish reading the script:

  ‘This is a message for whoever might be holding Ben. I would like to reiterate that this is an unusual situation for all of us, and you might not know what to do next. Our suggestion is that you speak to someone, tell someone you trust, it might be a friend or a family member, or, as we’ve said, a solicitor, and ask them to help you get Ben back home safely. Ben’s safety is a priority for all of us. He needs his family. Thank you.’

  Noise erupted.

  ‘We’ll do a couple of questions,’ Clemo shouted, ‘but one at a time. Hands up.’

  He picked a man near the back. ‘Can you explain why no description of what Benedict was wearing when he was abducted has been issued?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid I can’t give you any information about that at this time.’

  Clemo pointed to a woman who sat in the front row.

  ‘I’d like to ask Ms Jenner a question,’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to happen.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said, foolish me. I leaned forward so that I could hear her.

  Her voice rang out, direct and clear. ‘Why are you smiling, how did you injure your head, and how did it happen that Ben was separated from you in the woods?’

  And that was what it took, to make me realise what I’d done and how stupid I’d been. My euphoria disappeared. It was a fizzled out firework, a limp balloon.

  I’d smiled because I’d felt triumphant. I’d felt triumphant because I’d taken the initiative, reached out to my son, spoken to the abductor as they should be spoken to, without mercy.

  Now I saw how stupid I had been. If my euphoria and my misguided sense of conviction had been a long stretch of golden beach that I’d basked on momentarily, then reality was the turning tide that was going to swamp it, an unstoppable mass of cold, black water lapping around rocks, shifting shingle and rising until it engulfed me.

  I pushed myself back into my chair until the edges of it dug into my shoulder bones.

  ‘Don’t answer that,’ Clemo snapped at me, and then Fraser was on her feet and she had to shout to be heard: ‘This press conference is over. We’ll update you again this afternoon.’

  The journalist had one more thing to say: ‘Rachel! Did you know you’ve got blood on your hands?’

  Her voice drifted up above the other sounds and activity in the room, as if it were a wayward feather, caught on a breeze. It captured everyone’s attention. All eyes were on me.

  I looked at my hands and there was blood on one of them, greasy red smears like ink, revealing the contours of my fingerprints on my thumb and first two fingers. With my clean hand I touched the gash on my forehead. It felt damp. I’d made it bleed when I scratched it.

  ‘Get me out of here,’ I said to Zhang. I said it under my breath, but I forgot that the microphones were on and my voice rang out, loud and urgent.

  They got me out quickly. Even so, the noise in the room swelled again in a swift crescendo, and by the time I’d travelled the few paces to the door they were all shouting, a chorus of ‘Rachel, Rachel, just one more thing, Rachel,’ and they’d got to their feet and were straining towards me.

  Zhang propelled me out through the doors. They swung shut behind us and we stood for a moment in the corridor. I could hear Fraser shouting to try to restore order. I sank to the floor.

  ‘Not here,’ said Zhang. She gripped my arm by my elbow, pulled me up.

  ‘I feel sick,’ I said.

  The urge to vomit was overpowering, faintness was making my head lurch and spin.

  ‘This way,’ she said.

  She swept me down the corridor and more or less shoved me through the doors of a ladies’ toilet. I burst into a cubicle and hunched over the bowl, throwing up the liquids I’d had that morning and then nothing but bile.

  The retching was painful, convulsive and it took long minutes to subside.

  ‘Are you OK?’ It was Nicky. She crouched behind me, and I felt her hand on my back, rubbing between my shoulders. I couldn’t reply. The smell of my vomit was sharp and unpleasant. It made me feel ashamed. I leaned against the cubicle partition.

  Nicky extracted a clean tissue from her bag, which she passed to me. She said, ‘Oh Rachel.’

  ‘I’ve been so stupid.’

  I dabbed the tissue at the edges of my mouth. She handed me another and I spat on it and tried to rub the blood from my fingers.

  ‘You should have stuck to the script.’

  She reached over me and flushed the toilet.

  ‘What do we do now?’ she asked Zhang, who was watching us.

  ‘We wait, somewhere more comfortable. When you’re ready.’

  ‘Wait for what?’ I asked.

  ‘Honestly,’ Zhang replied, ‘at this point, I have no idea.’

  JIM

  Fraser was furious after the press conference. I went to her office. She didn’t invite me to sit. Her eyebrows were so far up her face they disappeared into her hairline. Disbelief and disappointment fought to dominate her expression.

  ‘Am I right in thinking that Avon and Somerset Constabulary pay you a salary, Jim? And that’s not a rhetorical question.’

  ‘Yes, boss, they do.’

  ‘Then I need to see some evidence that you’re earning it! Not pissing it away! What the hell happened in there?’

  ‘I’m sorry, boss. Rachel Jenner went totally off message. I didn’t see it coming. I tried to…⁠’

  ‘Did you prepare her properly?’

  ‘I thought I did. We went through the script and she seemed happy with it.’

  ‘Seemed? Or was?’

  ‘I asked her if she was happy with it, she said yes. I thought she’d cope fine. I didn’t have a crystal ball, boss.’

  ‘You’re not going to have any fucking balls if you carry on like this. I’ll chop them off personally and use them as Christmas decorations for the girls’ lavvy. Rachel Jenner challenged the abductor. It’s the most dangerous thing she could have done. Even the desk sergeant could have told you that. The fucking street cleaner I drove past on my way in this morning could have told you that! I am not prepared to have a dead child on my hands because you’re gambling on the mother’s state of mind. If you send somebody into a press conference you need to know they’re prepared, not send them in on a wing and prayer.’

  She was pushing the end of her pen towards me in little stabbing motions.

  ‘I’m sorry, boss.’

  ‘This case has the potential to turn into a big hairy beast if we don’t find the bastard who’s got Ben Finch quickly, and I don’t like beasties, Jim. Start using your head.’

  ‘I will.’

  It was a proper dressing down. It was the worst start to the case I could have imagined. I braced myself for more, but she was finished.

  ‘Sit down for God’s sake,’ she said, and then, ‘Are we looking at a guilty mother?’

  ‘It’s pos
sible. An outburst like that could be masking some kind of intense emotion. It could be guilt.’

  ‘Or grief? Or fear?’

  ‘It could be any of those things.’

  Fraser’s pen was tapping again, this time on the desk. ‘We need to watch her carefully. Make sure Emma knows. Guilty of something or not, Mother’s a loose cannon. How did Dad react?’

  ‘He was angry.’

  I’d had to restrain John Finch outside the press conference. He’d shouted in the corridor, blaming me, blaming Rachel, sobbing again, afraid that Rachel’s threats could have done Ben more harm than good. He was right to fear that. It’s what we were all thinking.

  ‘Do we think he’s genuine?’

  ‘I think he is. His wife’s confirmed his alibi. They were both at home together on Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘It’s a soft alibi.’

  Fraser was right. We all knew how often spouses or parents offered alibis to keep their families out of trouble, motivated by love, or by fear, or both.

  ‘OK, let’s crack on. Damage limitation with the press, I’ll see to that, and for you the priority is interviews. I want information. Somebody saw something. Tell Emma to get Mother home.’

  ‘Should I interview Rachel Jenner again?’

  ‘No. Just warn her off speaking to the press. There’s going to be a reaction to this, I don’t think I need to spell that out. When you’ve done that I want you to get over to Benedict’s school. We need to show that we’re being supportive to the school, and the community. You can interview his teacher while you’re there, see if she’s noticed anything different about Ben lately.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  The assignment felt like a punishment for letting the press conference get out of hand, and it probably was. A DC should be doing it, and both of us knew that.

  ‘I’ll get down there straight away.’

  She softened slightly. ‘I would ask a DC to do it but the Chief’s keen that someone with rank is seen to be there.’

  If that was supposed to feel like a comfort, then it was a very small one.

  RACHEL

  What happened next was that the attitude of the police towards me tightened, or perhaps I should say sharpened. It was clear as day to me, even though on the surface they still showed appropriate concern.

  I first realised it when DI Clemo came to see me after the conference and could barely contain his irritation.

  Zhang had brought me yet another cup of tea that I couldn’t drink, and sat my sister and me in a boxy interview room until my nausea had subsided to a manageable level and I felt ready to travel home.

  When Clemo appeared his eyes were burning. He remained standing, his bulk dominating the space.

  ‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘you do understand that things didn’t run entirely to plan at the press conference?’

  He was handling me. I tried to say something, to justify what had happened, but he held up a hand, even though he’d asked me a question.

  ‘Let me finish if you will,’ he said. ‘Our primary concern now is that there may be some kind of backlash against you. We suggest that you keep a very low profile around the press, as low as possible.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Don’t talk to them. It’s very simple.’

  ‘It’s for your own protection,’ said Zhang, ‘and Ben’s.’

  ‘What do you mean by backlash?’ Nicky wanted to know.

  ‘Precisely that. This is a high-profile case. The press conference was, unfortunately, sensational, and for all the wrong reasons. The public want to find Ben as much as we do, but unlike us they might not be looking for evidence before making accusations. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘I understand,’ said Nicky. ‘They’re going to say that Rachel did it.’

  ‘They’re already saying it.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Go home, shut the doors, pull the curtains, don’t speak to any journalists. DC Zhang will drive you back.’

  ‘What about Ben?’ I said.

  ‘We’re going to continue to do everything we can to find him and we’ll keep you posted on our progress.’ It was a phrase that was as bland and meaningless as a corporate slogan. If I’d ever had a connection with him, I felt as if it was lost now.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said.

  At home, Nicky and Laura and I watched in silence as the footage from the conference played on national TV.

  I’d been filmed in close-up. I looked as if I’d crawled out of a primitive encampment after a long siege. The injury on my head was prominent; it drew the eye like a disfigurement, and livid red spots on my pale cheeks made me look feverish, and deranged. My eyes sagged with grief and exhaustion, and roved around the room, restless and jumpy. Every flaw and muscle twitch and emotion was visible on my face, and the moment when I addressed Ben’s abductor was the worst. There wasn’t a trace of dignity or vulnerability, or love for my son. I simply projected a raw, ugly rage that looked heinous, and unnatural.

  And yes, the blood on my hands was visible.

  When I finally disintegrated, and was hustled from the room where the conference was being held, I looked like somebody fleeing a crime.

  I don’t know why I’m describing all this to you, because unless you’ve been living in Timbuktu you’ve probably seen it. In fact even if you had been living there you’d have been able to look it up online.

  The footage went viral. Of course it did. I understand these things now.

  My sister and Laura reacted in ways that summed up what was to be the response of the whole country, Nicky representing the minority view.

  Laura: ‘Everybody’s going to blame you. They’re going to say you did it. You look guilty.’

  Nicky: ‘No they won’t, they can see how much you love him, how brave you are.’

  Peter Armstrong came round later on. I hadn’t spoken to him since he’d taken Skittle away from the woods to get treatment, but he’d phoned regularly and Nicky had kept him updated. He was coming over to bring the dog home. He was sanguine about the reaction to the press conference.

  ‘It’ll blow over,’ he said.

  He was a slender man with a stomach that had been concave since his divorce. He had dark hair that circled a significant bald patch, and stubble. He wore jeans, a loose sweater and trendy trainers that looked too young for him. He worked as a web designer, mostly from home, and I’d always thought he needed to get out more.

  ‘And anyway, it’s only ever a minority of people who overreact to these things. As soon as they find Ben, everybody will forget. Don’t dwell on it. Keep faith, Rachel. Your friends will still be there for you.’

  We were kneeling around the dog basket, petting Skittle. The dog’s hind leg was in a pristine cast, which dragged behind him when he tried to walk. Now he was lying down, his tail managing a drowsy thump or two, but no more. He was wondering where Ben was. I was wondering what he’d seen.

  ‘The police spoke to the vet,’ Peter said. ‘They asked if Skittle’s injury could tell them anything about how he got hurt.’

  ‘And?’ said Nicky.

  I could tell she liked Peter. He was the opposite of her husband in looks. Simon Forbes was twice the size of Peter. He had the unruly dark hair that their girls had inherited, albeit a tad salt-and-peppery around the edges by now, and dressed in corduroys, well-worn brogues and pressed shirts in country checks under old-fashioned blazers. However, aside from this difference, the two men did share a gentle, sensible quality that appealed to my sister.

  ‘The vet said that the leg looked as if it was broken with one clean blow, but that could have happened in different ways. It could have been a fall, or it could have been somebody striking him. No way to tell which.’

  For a second or two there was silence in the room, an emptiness, which nobody wanted to fill with words, because we were all thinking about what that might mean for Ben, and how bad that could be.

  ‘How’s Finn?’ I asked P
eter.

  ‘Finn’s upset. He can’t wait to have his buddy back.’ He struggled to keep himself composed. ‘But he’s OK. He’s OK I think.’ He didn’t look sure. ‘School are working hard to handle things.’

  I hadn’t thought of that yet, of how Ben’s disappearance would affect the other children.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Nicky put some tea down in front of Peter.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Well, they’re not ignoring it, the Head has spoken to the children about it, I know that much.’

  ‘What’s he like?’ Nicky wanted to know.

  ‘He’s new.’

  ‘People say he’s a drip,’ I said. I hadn’t met him myself, but that was the consensus in the playground, swiftly delivered by parental posses, after the man had been in the job for less than two months.

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t go quite that far,’ said Peter.

  Peter was a smoother-over of problems, an appeaser. ‘I think to be fair he’s been lying low, getting to know the role, and the staff.’

  This was a polite way of saying that nobody had seen him since he started because he hid in his office most of the time, and that he hadn’t yet begun to tackle any of the school’s most obvious and urgent issues.

  ‘He’s very experienced, so we’re hoping he’ll be good for the school in the long run.’ Peter was also an optimist.

  ‘Miss May?’ I asked. She was Ben’s teacher, Finn’s too.

  ‘I think she’s been good.’ Peter sounded surprised. He wasn’t a fan of Miss May. I thought it was because she intimidated him, and maybe because he fancied her just a bit. He’d never admit to it, but I’d seen Peter blush when they talked in the playground. She was young and pretty and had a high attendance amongst fathers at parents’ evening.