Harvest (6 page)

“
I don’t know why she
keeps doing that. She never seems to settle. She runs from one room
to the next a couple of times a day. More frequently lately
though.”

Jenny rubbed Claire’s arms
comfortingly.

“
Jason, do you think you
could stop for a bit, play with Amy? Keep her company. Could be
what she needs.” Claire’s voice sounded strained –
desperate.

He nodded, grateful for a
chance to escape from the grief that weighted the air between the
two adults. His mum explained she would go home and he could come
down whenever he wanted tea. He headed quickly to Amy’s room before
his mum could join Claire in crying. He didn’t know what to say or
do when his mum cried, it left him feeling powerless. She shouldn’t
be allowed to cry in front of him, and his insides twisted as soon
as he had thought it, feeling guilty for needing her to be strong
for him.

He stood in the doorway to
Amy’s room and found her sitting cross-legged on Emily’s bed with
her back to him as she coloured in a picture. Emily’s absence left
a gaping hole in the room, and it seemed wrong to him that Amy had
been left behind to play and sleep in what was now a crime scene,
although Jason was unsure of what crime had been committed. It
wasn’t talked about in front of him – and on some level that he
would never admit to anyone, he was glad of the protection. But, it
was still her room.

What must Amy be feeling? He
could hear his mum and Claire crying openly together as they parted
on the doorstep. It made him think of all those nights when his
parents had argued. Even now when he was trying to sleep at night
he could hear his mum sobbing through the thin walls. Lately Jason
didn’t know if it was because she missed his dad or because of what
had happened to Emily. His mind strayed into a place in his
imagination that he avoided going, where he imagined what life
would be like without his mum: his dad hadn’t been back or called
since he had left; they didn’t even know where he was now. Jason’s
granddad was old and had cancer and was in and out of hospital, and
every time he was admitted his mum told Jason how long happy and
full a life his granddad had had, but his life now was painful and
unhappy – preparing Jason for when he didn’t come back from
hospital. So Jason knew that if something happened to his mum, he
would be alone. Amy and her mum and dad must be realising something
that Jason had lived with for months; that family and the love and
protection it gave was fragile and could be broken at any time.

He thought it odd how something
missing could change things so drastically, like when he was
younger and had seen the fairground with its bright attractive
colours, madcap clowns and entertainers and its rushing and soaring
rides. He had begged his dad to take him, and that night he had.
The sun had gone down. The lights of the fair flashed and raced
causing the shadows and the dark (which he had been frightened of
back then) to leap out at him. The dark made the clowns look
sinister with their blood red mouths, and it hid the ground from
view making the high rides seem higher and more frightening than he
could cope with.

Now he was older, but he had
other fears.

There were so many bad things
in the world, bullies, hoodies, war, perverts, murderers, bombs,
fighting. They had always been there, at school, in the street as
he walked with his mum, on the TV in the background while he did
his homework or played, but since his dad and Emily had gone they
all seemed so much more real and frightening.

He took advantage of Amy being
oblivious to him and tried to be the Jason he had always been with
her. She didn’t need someone else talking slowly and clearly to her
like she was deaf, as adults had seemed to do with him about his
dad. Jason stepped into the room and soft-footed over to the bed
and ventured a natural, “Hello.”

Amy looked up and gave him a
half-smile, her face puffy and flushed, then returned to her
drawing. Seeing she had been crying, and having heard his mum and
Claire’s grief in the other room, stirred something overwhelmingly
sad within him. All the people he loved were hurting and he
couldn’t think of a word or a gesture that could make them happy.
He was powerless and wanted to crawl away and get lost in games,
but he knew he couldn’t escape the worries in his head and the
heaviness in his chest.

He sat beside Amy on the bed
and put his arm round her. She was shaking a little. She snuggled
into him, resting her head under his neck while she scribbled on a
dog-eared sheet of paper. Jason’s eyes grew hot and moist and he
swallowed against the emotions he felt for his mum, Amy, Claire and
missing Emily – even for his dad. Hoping Amy didn’t sense his
weakening.

“
What you drawing?” Jason
asked meekly, knowing she wouldn’t reply, but just needing
something to say to break the quiet.

She carried on with her idle
work. Jason picked up some other scattered drawings and leafed
through them. They were all of her room and her toys, but one of
them featured a little girl. That’s when Amy’s reality hit Jason,
without her having to speak. Whenever the girls put themselves in
pictures, it was always both of them. This crayon girl was alone.
He squeezed her tight.

“
You like the green and
yellow crayons, don’t ya?” he remarked at the colours that swirled
within most of the pictures. Behind the girl in the picture was a
green scribble with yellow splodges that had some symmetry within
the spirals and swirls that threatened to swamp her. Somehow there
was something in that picture that teased the hairs on the nape of
his neck. She scribed two words next to it. Two words that labelled
the thing that was in her picture, and she looked up at him, not
with tears in her eyes, but fear.

Jason jolted when Claire’s voice
broke the moment as she called for him to collect some drinks for
them from the kitchen. He slipped from the bed to collect them and
tried to understand what Amy had shown him in her picture and what
it meant. He hesitated in the doorway and turned back to her. Amy
had stopped her drawing now and was sitting bolt upright looking
warily around her with awkward jerks of her head like a dog that
had heard a sound only it could tune into. Claire called him again
before he had a chance to ask Amy what was wrong. Reluctantly he
left Amy to collect their refreshments from her mum.

Claire passed him two large
glasses of cola with lively frothing heads. She slipped a chocolate
bar into the gaping pocket of his combat trousers. “Don’t tell your
mum.” She winked at him in an impression of her former self.

A door slammed shut with a
terrible bang.

Claire pushed past him and ran
towards Amy’s room. Jason was so startled by the noise, the rough
treatment and Claire’s fearful shouts for Amy that he didn’t have
to time to think or put down his cola, but followed as fast as he
could without slopping his drink all over the floor. He rounded the
corner and found Claire standing at Amy’s closed door. The handle
jumped up and down and urgent little thumps sound from inside the
room.

Claire grabbed the handle and
plunged it down and leaned into the door. It opened a few
millimetres, meeting strong resistance. A soft green light spilled
out from the narrow crack before the door was sharply forced
closed.

Claire jumped back from the door
in confused surprise and Jason staggered away a few shuffled paces
in a defensive instinct. Amy wasn’t strong enough to force the door
shut against Claire, and by the sounds of it Amy wanted out just
much as Claire wanted in. His limbs felt like rubber and he crossed
his legs against an urgent tingling in his bladder. The green light
frightened him.

Claire promptly regained a
strong hold on the handle with one hand and spread another against
the door, then leapt at it, throwing all her weight against the
wood. The door cracked open under her exertion and Amy escaped
through it. She tangled into her mum’s legs, clambering around her
and frantically pulling her away. Claire instantly dropped into a
crouch and swept Amy into her arms. Jason watched the door swinging
smoothly and idly open on its hinges in the wake of being released
from Claire’s efforts, now that Amy had escaped it didn’t seem
stubborn at all. The green light was gone.

On the twelfth floor Craig
hesitated outside Kelly Mason’s front door for a moment then
knocked and waited, trying to ignore a dull anxiety that squirmed
uncomfortably in his stomach and tickled his throat. Craig had sat
at home for an hour with Vicki’s judgement of him burning in his
chest and festering in his thoughts.

He disagreed with her; he
could make an objective journalist.
The things that
Claire had said were fact, and the content of what she said would
conjure emotion in most people. He was sure that as cynical as
Vicki was, even she was only half-joking about the mother killing
her daughter, and despite Vicki’s dislike of children, the human
side of this story couldn’t be lost on her personally. He reminded
himself that he had given up trying to work out Vicki’s mind a few
weeks after they had met.

Craig knew he could
handle interviews better, but while he was a photographer he
wouldn’t get the opportunity, he wasn’t qualified to approach any
paper but his local rag, and Vicki’s boss, the editor of
The Camden Gazette
, wanted to keep
him where he was; easier to employ a new writer rather than
possibly lose a photographer.
The
Hampstead and Highgate News
had shown little interest
beyond their regular writers and contributions from established
freelancers.

After returning to his
flat Craig had looked about his home knowing that two floors above
him in another flat, a family was falling apart and a mother was
losing her heart and mind. This story was too close to home for him
to pass up. He had always enjoyed writing, he had poured over short
stories as a kid, never really finishing anything, and even when
his love of photography had taken over his writing had been
knocking around in the background. He accepted he was a
photographer now, but if he
was
to get
into writing, he reasoned he had to do something sometime. If
writing news was part of that then with something happening on his
doorstep he had just the opportunity and the unique perspective to
understand how this hit those around him. He needed an outlet for
his creativity – he certainly wasn’t getting from his
photography.

Kelly Mason was a local
policewoman. He didn’t know her, but he had seen her in the lift
and collecting her post on the ground floor. He had found her flat
number easily enough from her mailbox in the lobby. Perhaps she had
a perspective, possibly some thoughts of her own from a resident’s
point of view. She might even be involved in the case. Now he stood
at her door, unsure and wondering how far his charm would get
him.

The door opened suddenly and
Craig gave the woman that stood there an obvious second look. The
Kelly he knew looked dowdy, plain, her uniform being her defining
feature. The woman in the doorway was a youthful woman looking to
be on the verge of thirty with dark amber eyes and faint freckles
dusting her flushed cheeks, while her brunette hair, normally in an
efficient tight bun behind her hat, now fell about her face in long
chocolate waves. She usually seemed shapeless, almost devoid of sex
under her layers of uniform and the baggy luminous yellow jacket,
but now in black trousers and a tight roll-neck jumper, slack at
her neck, she had a figure.

Kelly frowned uncertainly at
him as if she never had visitors, and now she did her neck and
cheeks burned in a creeping red blush. “I think you have the wrong
flat,” she said.

“
Kelly?” He stared at
her, almost seeking reassurance that it was really the plain woman
he had seen before. “Sorry – let me explain... I’m a
journalist...”

“
Haven’t I seen you about before?” she said, trying to
place him. “The photographer for the
Gazette
?”

“
Yeah,”
Craig admitted, surprised she knew him. “I do some work for
the
Gazette
when I get it. I’m
trying to get into the writing side.” He shook his head in
frustration with himself; she didn’t need his life story. “You
don’t know me. I live in this block. Craig Digby”

“
I thought that was it. I
have seen you coming and going.”

He held his hands up in
surrender and cut in. “Yeah, don’t worry. You haven’t arrested me
before.”

She laughed pleasantly. “What
brings you to me?”

He dared himself to ask what he
wanted. “It’s just that I’ve heard a lot about the Chambers case.
I’ve interviewed the mother and was wondering if you had any
dealings in the case, and if you could spare me a few minutes for
some questions yourself?”

Kelly looked strangely
dejected and apologetic. “I’m sorry, Mr Digby,” she said with
authority. “I
am
a liaison
for the Chambers and the station as I am local, but I can’t talk to
you about any details. It’s more than my job’s worth – and I don’t
think it’s right. The family needs time and space to
themselves.”

“
I’m not asking for
anything confidential. Just an interview on the police aspect,
that’s all,” he tried hopefully.

A shrill pinging from within
her flat interrupted their conversation; Kelly briefly cast a
distracted look over her shoulder, and relaxed her tone. “That’s my
dinner… I don’t think there’s much I can actually tell you that’s
not already been in the papers.”