Burnt Paper Sky (10 page)

In the car on the way to Kenneth Steele House, gobbets of sound blurted out of the police radio on the dashboard, and the stop and start motions of the commuter traffic made the ride uncomfortable and slow. Nicky had put on make-up and a perfume that was sickly. I wound down the window a little to dilute the smell, but the air I let in was dirty and damply cold.

Nicky and Laura had persuaded me to wear a skirt, boots and shirt, so that I would appear presentable. They hadn’t been able to do anything about my forehead. The gash was too angry and raw. I didn’t care what I looked like.

None of us had spoken much, just a few murmurs of advice from Laura about how to face a camera from her college media training, which I hadn’t been able to concentrate on, but had nodded just the same.

In the kitchen, just before we left, they’d left me alone momentarily, and I saw the notepad Nicky had been using the night before. It lay face down on the table. I flipped it over, knowing I shouldn’t, unable to stop myself.

‘Notes’ Nicky had underlined and then she’d jotted down some statistics: ‘532 missing kids UK 2011/12.’

I read on: ‘82% abductions are family kidnappings. Of non-family abductions, 38% kids taken by friend or long-term acquaintance; 5% by neighbour; 6% by persons of authority; 4% caretaker or babysitter; 37% by strangers; 8% slight acquaintances.’

There was more: ‘Crime is most often a result of interactions between motivated offenders, available targets and lack of vigilant guardianship to prevent crime.’

I couldn’t stop reading. I was transfixed by it, carried along by the dry academic tone, and the horror of the content. The next paragraph began: ‘First law enforcement response is CRITICAL.’

She’d underlined that, two lines drawn so hard that they’d gouged the page. What I started to read next was worse: ‘When abducted child is killed, killer—’

Before I got further Nicky came back into the room and snatched the notepad from me.

‘Don’t look at that!’ she said. ‘Not now.’ She ripped off the pages of notes and put them in her handbag. ‘You mustn’t look. We’re not there yet. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left it out.’

‘How the hell are you finding this stuff?’ I asked. ‘What is it? Where’s it from? Show me!’ I held my hand out for the notes, but she wasn’t having any of it.

‘Don’t concern yourself with that. Honestly, Rachel, don’t think about it. Let’s go. It’s time to go. Let me look at you one more time.’

She held me gently by the shoulders, looked me over, a frown fleetingly crossing her brow when she looked at my forehead, and all the while I searched her eyes for clues to what she’d read, to how and where she’d found the information so quickly and to the side of her personality which allowed her the detachment to look at the darkest side of this in a way that I simply couldn’t contemplate.

At the police station they showed me into the same room as the previous day. Somebody had arranged four Jammie Dodgers on a plate for us. The centres of the biscuits were crimson and resinous, like excretions from a wound. The room smelled of stewed tea.

I sat there with Nicky, Zhang and Clemo going over a statement that he wanted me to read out, an appeal to Ben’s abductor. I looked over the words with a sense of detachment and surrealism. They didn’t resemble my speech in any way. I felt deeply uneasy.

Clemo was like a coiled spring.

‘Are you going to be OK with this?’ he said.

‘I think so.’

‘It’s important that you’re calm, and clear, as much as possible. It’s absolutely paramount that we don’t alienate the abductor.’

I took shallow breaths, focused on the page in front of me. The words swam across it.

‘Are you sure you can do it?’ he asked again. His voice sounded pressured, desperate for a ‘yes’.

‘Do you want me to do it?’ Nicky asked. I looked at her, her face straining with the need to help.

What could I say? I was his mother.

‘No. I want to do it. I have to do it.’

‘Good girl.’ It was enough for Clemo. He was up out of his chair, checking his watch.

‘Will you be ready to go in fifteen?’ he said.

I nodded.

‘I’ll see you in there. I’ll be sitting right by you. Emma, bring them down in ten minutes. Cabot Room.’

In Zhang’s wake Nicky and I travelled carpeted corridors until we reached a set of double doors labelled
CABOT
ROOM
. Inside, I was invited to take my place behind a narrow table that was set up at one end of the room. The line-up was Zhang, me, Clemo, DCI Fraser and John, who acknowledged me with a nod, his jaw set in an effort to control his emotions.

Nicky found a place at the side of the room. She had to stand because every chair was taken. The room was packed with journalists. TV cameras were set up at the back, photographers beside them. There were more lenses trained on me than I could count.

Those who were sitting had laptops, or tablets, or recording devices, which they were busy checking. Behind us the wall was emblazoned with a large Avon and Somerset police logo, and on each side of that two identical posters had been put up, showing Ben’s photo, and a phone number and email address for information.

On the table in front of us was a bank of microphones, wires snaking from the back of them. I poured myself an inch of water from a carafe and sipped it. My mouth was dry, my heart thumping. The noise in the room was oppressive. Motor drives and voices meshed together to make a messy ball of sound from which my name sometimes erupted.

Clemo called the room to order on a signal from DCI Fraser. I clutched my script, forced my eyes to run over the words. I hadn’t really come to terms with what they wanted me to say. The carefully modulated phrases that they’d written for me made me recoil.

Clemo started things off and he was concise and authoritative. He spoke briefly and then introduced me, telling the room that I was going to read out a statement. I put my script on the table and smoothed it out, cleared my throat.

‘Please,’ I said, but my voice died away. I started again: ‘Please can I appeal to anyone who knows anything about Ben’s disappearance to contact the police as DI Clemo has requested. Ben is only eight years old, he’s very young, and the best place for him to be is at home where he can be with his family and friends because we all love him very much and it is making us very anxious not knowing whether he is safe and well.’

I felt tears running down my face. I heard my voice get twisted up by my grief. I felt Zhang’s hand on my back, saw Clemo shift uneasily in his seat beside me. I took a deep shuddering breath and went on:

‘If you are the person who is with Ben then please make contact. You don’t need to ring the police directly, you can talk to a solicitor, or someone you trust, and they will help you get him home safely. This is an unusual situation for all of us…⁠’

I dried up again. I’d reached the bit of the speech I hated. Clemo’s words ran round in my head: ‘Remember we want to humanise the situation,’ he’d said, ‘that’s why we’re offering the abductor a chance for forgiveness, so that they aren’t afraid to get in contact.’

I tried to gather myself. Clemo whispered something in my ear, but I couldn’t hear what he said, because it was then that I heard John sob. He was hunched over the table, his head in his hands, his face red and distorted. He began to cry noisily, his shoulders heaving, his grief physical and terrible.

I gave up trying to read. I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t say the words on the script and, most powerfully of all, I couldn’t fight the idea that had crept into my head with a certainty and clarity that almost took my breath away.

I carefully folded up the script, placed it in front of me.

You see, the thought that I had was this: that Ben and his abductor were watching. They were watching John break down and watching me speak words that weren’t mine: submissive, tame words.

I was sure of it, and I couldn’t stand it any longer.

I stood up, and all the camera lenses in the room rose too, trained on my face. I moved my gaze along them and, in my mind, through each one I met the eye of Ben’s abductor.

‘Give him back,’ I said. ‘Give. Him. Back. Or I will hunt you down myself. I will find you, if it takes me my whole life. I will find you and I will make you pay.’

Then, as Clemo was saying ‘Ms Jenner!’ and standing beside me, not knowing how to stop me, I spoke to my son. I looked deep down those lenses, willing Ben to hear my words, and I said: ‘I love you, Ben. If you are watching, I love you and I’m going to find you. Love, I’m coming to get you. I promise.’

I smiled at him. I was entranced by the fact that I might have just managed the first communication with my son since he disappeared, imagining him hearing my words in a strange place somewhere and feeling less alone, less confused, perhaps even feeling hope.

The reporters began to call to me then, but I felt triumphant. If Ben was watching then I had just made contact with him. He hadn’t witnessed his parents simply looking broken, his mother speaking in words that weren’t hers. Instead I’d told him that I was going to find him. Now I felt euphoric, as if I’d done something that was really and truly right and honest, something pure, even, amidst the horror of it all, and in my naivety I felt sure that that rightness and honesty should have some power to lead us to Ben.

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.