Someone Else's Son (22 page)

She jumped back to a certain spot on the footage and slowed the fuzzy grey image down to a frame a second. The time stamp on the bottom right corner of the screen showed it to be 10.34 a.m. on 24th April 2009. This morning. Or yesterday, Dennis thought, not knowing which side of midnight it was.

‘See? Those five youths have come from the direction of the school where the stabbing happened. They go down Bottle Road and can be followed all along there up to Acton Lane. I’ve tracked them right to Harlesden Station.’

Dennis leant in to get a better look. He could only see the backs of the boys. They all wore hoods. ‘Any faces?’ he asked. They were running, virtually tripping each other up in slow motion.

‘Not a one. Not clear, anyway. I’ve sent some frames off to be enhanced to see what we get. I’ve also requested the station’s CCTV, but I won’t get it until tomorrow morning.’

Dennis nodded. ‘That tracksuit top, the one with the white stripes on the sleeves . . .’ He paused, squinting. ‘I’ve just been up close and personal with it.’ He allowed a small grin. ‘Get someone to find out where it’s from. How common they are.’ Identifying these youths was one matter, but proving they had anything to do with Max’s murder was quite another.

 

Dennis’s head hit his pillow at 3 a.m. Five minutes later, he was up again, in his boxers, sweating, pacing, unable to sleep. He wondered if she was awake and considered calling her. Was she alone, sobbing on her bed or curled up in the arms of a loved one, weeping intermittently? Perhaps she was rampaging around the streets of London, wielding a knife, lashing out at gangs of youths, slashing justice back into her life.

He decided that Carrie Kent would be doing none of these things. Knowing her the way he did, he reckoned she would be sitting by herself, silent, staring at a wall or whatever happened to be in her way. She would be sipping water from a glass, having eaten nothing all day, and, on the outside, she would appear serene and in control, as if nothing very much was wrong. Inside her head, however, there would be a torrent of crazed thoughts and blames and what ifs and should haves and, yes, in the mix of utter regret, would be the seed of revenge. Knowing her as he did, Dennis was sure of one thing: she wouldn’t rest until she found out who had done this to her son.

No one
, she had once said when their bodies were spent and knotted in sheets,
no one will ever make my life not perfect
.

Carrie sipped a glass of water. It was the middle of the night. Several hours ago, she’d insisted everyone leave. With people around her – Leah, the police, Brody, and later that woman Fiona – it was just all too real, too sore, too unbearable.

Alone, she made up her own reality. She spent a few seconds believing that she’d woken in the night from a stomach bug – why else would her belly be churning? – and she’d taken some medication, choosing to sit by the open window to breathe in the cool night air. Then she was a kid and it was Christmas Eve and, again, she was unable to sleep because of the butterflies in her tummy.

The next lie she invented involved Brody. Somehow, she thought, if we were still together, this wouldn’t have happened. She imagined she was waiting up for his homecoming after a week-long conference in the States. She couldn’t sleep, knowing that his warm body, the body that he cared for so well by exercising and eating all the right things, would soon be pressed along hers. And even if they didn’t make love because he was too tired after the journey, they would just hold each other and be thankful that they had one another, that they had Max, that they had a nice house and good jobs and really, it was already the perfect life, wasn’t it?

Carrie’s body shivered and every muscle contracted, causing her to cry out in pain.

Max was dead.

Her son had been murdered.

Nothing was perfect. Nothing ever had been.

 

When her eyes opened, it was both light and unbearable. Her neck was stiff from dropping sideways on to the arm of the chair and the rest of her was sore from shivering. Then she remembered. It was a flood of wretched realisation although, through the intermittent dozing, she hadn’t completely been able to escape the horror.

Carrie stood up. She didn’t want to eat but knew she had to. In the kitchen she peeled a banana. She glanced at the clock. Six fifty. Normally, she’d be up and would have done twenty minutes on the treadmill. A shower followed by coffee, fruit, toast, whatever Martha had put out, would precede time catching up with emails and show briefs . . . just as she had done yesterday. Nowhere in the grand plan did it say anything about this.

‘
Why!
’ she yelled out, throwing the banana skin across the room. She fought to keep the fruit in her stomach. She was a mother, goddammit, just like any other mother, but now she had lost her only son. Why was she feeling this differently? Why was she separating from her grief, unlike all the other mothers and fathers and siblings that she’d interviewed over the years when they’d lost loved ones?

Carrie thought of the dozens of times she’d sat in grim houses and tried to prise coherent words from a bereft mother. Lorraine Plummer, she thought.
I’m so lucky
, Carrie recalled,
and you’re not
. It was that separation that had kept her going. Feeling good about her life wasn’t wrong, was it?

Perhaps, she thought, I’m not so very different from any of them after all.

She heard the key in the lock. Who was it? Brody home from work . . . Max off to school?

Shit
.

‘Oh, my love,’ came the voice in the hall. Then it was in the kitchen and Martha was sweeping across the tiles with her arms outstretched. ‘Oh Carrie, my pet, I’m so desperately sorry. I got over here as soon as I heard. It was on the radio news. No one told me. That’s the first I knew of it.’

The gap that was never crossed between the two women was bridged by Martha’s outstretched arms. They wrapped around Carrie’s shoulders and she was surprised at how strong they felt. How
good
they felt.

‘Don’t,’ Carrie heard herself say, when what she really meant was yes, wrap me up and hug me tight until this pain goes away.

Martha withdrew immediately. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that . . .’

‘I know. I know.’ Carrie allowed her hands to drop to her thighs. She slid on to a stool. Martha went for the kettle and filled it. All the while she was shaking her head.

‘Do they know who did it?’ Martha leant on the worktop opposite. She had been crying. Carrie was suddenly so glad she was there.

‘Not yet.’ Carrie couldn’t stand it if they weren’t caught.

‘I lost a son.’ It was as if Martha had used all her courage to say that; as if it had worn her thin and pale over the years.

Carrie looked up and raised her eyebrows. She had little energy to speak.

‘My son. Stillborn. That was years ago now. I only had him for the nine months he was inside me. He was born with his eyes open. Conned the lot of us for a few moments.’ Martha almost laughed. ‘He never stopped kicking, that whole time. Then . . . nothing.’

The two women, separated by several decades, by huge amounts of money, by looks, by fame, were now threaded together in a mini-flash of understanding. Carrie had never considered that Martha might have suffered such loss. It made her think, but only for a moment, before her own troubles took over again. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’

Martha came round the worktop and grabbed Carrie’s hands. ‘And I won’t have any of this crying alone. I’m here, right? I’ll move in. Max was a good boy. He was a nice boy. This is terrible and he would want me to be with you. Max liked me being here.’

‘He did?’

‘Of course. Sometimes this house was as empty as a cave and I’d see the look on his face when he knew I was here, pottering in the kitchen.’

Christ, Carrie thought, reeling. How would she survive the guilt?
More
guilt. ‘I wasn’t here for him.’

‘You were a good mother.’ Martha’s voice echoed in the vast room. They both knew that what she really meant was no, Carrie hadn’t been a good mother, but for now we must pretend she was. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’

Carrie nodded. Her mobile phone rang.

‘Dennis,’ she said. ‘No, I didn’t sleep.’

She kicked her bare feet against the stool rung. Her toenails were painted. Her mind screamed out that she’d had that pedicure when Max was still alive, that each of her toes had been painted pink while her son was still drawing breath.

‘You did?’ Carrie suddenly stiffened. ‘Did you arrest them?’ She flushed then paled. ‘Why not?’ She wilted, her shoulders falling forward under the weight of a false alarm.

‘No, oddly, I don’t know what I’m going to do, detective,’ she snapped. ‘What would you suggest? A little holiday perhaps, or a week at a health spa? Or maybe straight back to work and forget about the whole thing.’ She was salivating with anger. There was a pause, Carrie listening, followed by, ‘Just catch my son’s killer, Dennis,’ and then a string of expletives. She hung up, slamming her phone on the worktop.

She sobbed continuously for an hour.

 

Martha insisted Carrie change her clothes. A shower was too much effort but a clean blouse, some comfortable linen trousers, a soft sweater gave her the tiniest amount of a normality that seemed both long gone and unattainable.

‘Now, pet, I want you to eat this.’ She delivered a plate of scrambled eggs and toast to Carrie, who stared at it as if it were poison. ‘You can’t expect to function on thin air, can you?’ A cup of tea was placed on a mat and sugar that Carrie never took was stirred in. Martha was a good woman. Carrie felt ashamed she’d never noticed.

‘Thank you.’ She ate. She felt queasy.

‘What are they saying? What are they doing?’ Martha had kept mostly silent, allowing Carrie time and space to eat and talk when she felt like it.

‘They brought two boys into the police station last night.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Then they let them go.’ Carrie curled her fingernails into her palms. It hurt and she liked it. ‘They caught them and then they let them go free.’

‘But, pet, maybe it wasn’t the right lads, y’know. Maybe they were just helping them with their inquiries, eh?’ Martha placed a hand gently on top of Carrie’s, but Carrie pulled away. It didn’t feel right.

‘They also saw a gang of boys running away from the direction of the school. On CCTV. They’re having it enhanced.’

‘Well, that’s good then. All these things happening, see? They’ll catch him in no time. The police are amazing these days, pet.’

Carrie nodded, remembering all the behind-the-scenes bungles Dennis had told her about when his guard was down. When his pants were down more like, she thought, pushing her head into her palms. ‘I need to speak to that teacher. Max’s English teacher.’ She stood and fetched her bag and keys. Things had to be got on with. She didn’t trust Dennis and his team to get inside the case, to pursue the
story
behind this – the emotions, the reasons, the cause. That was what, she believed, would ultimately lead them to Max’s killer. It was her speciality; what she did every week of her life. She got results.

‘I’d like it if you stayed here,’ she said to Martha, smiling briefly. ‘And Max would have liked it too.’

‘I’ll fetch my stuff from home then.’ She stood and collected the crockery as Carrie left. ‘You be careful now, pet.’

 

Denby Terrace was unremarkable. Redbrick two-up two-downs curved down the gentle slope towards the railway beyond. These few streets didn’t seem nearly as rough as the triangle of roads that encased the school her son had chosen for himself.

There was nowhere to park so she bumped the car up on to the kerb on double yellow lines. She didn’t care if she got a ticket. The air smelt of kebabs and hot spicy sauce – perhaps a leftover from last night’s post-pub fallout or maybe preparation for the evening. It made Carrie feel even queasier. She doubted her stomach would ever feel normal again. It was swimming with adrenalin, tea, anger.

She knocked on number twenty-four. She was about to knock again when a young woman answered. ‘Yeah?’ She was wearing a short robe and her bleached hair was messy.

‘Is Tim here?’ she asked. ‘Tim Lockhart?’

‘Who wants to know?’ The woman was abrasive. She clearly didn’t like being disturbed by a stranger, although there was a flash of a frown, a quick glance up and down Carrie as if she was wondering. A quick shake of her head convinced her that no, TV celebrities didn’t come knocking on doors down this street.

‘I’m the parent of a boy he teaches. Taught.’ There was no smile. Carrie couldn’t manage it.

‘Come in then.’ The woman made Carrie wait in the hall while she went upstairs. A moment later a man came down, bleary-eyed with his hair sticking up in tufts. He rubbed his face and squinted at Carrie, also disbelieving what he thought he saw.

‘Mr Lockhart?’

‘Yes. How can I help?’ The man appeared well-mannered and led the way to a small sitting room.

‘I’m Max Quinell’s mother.’

Mr Lockhart’s face suddenly became expressionless as if that was the right thing to do in front of someone who had just lost their son. He swallowed audibly and then exhaled. He flopped down on to a brown settee and indicated with a loose sweep of his hand that Carrie should do the same. His head was now in his hands, but still his face showed nothing other than he’d had a rough night’s sleep.

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Quinell.’

Carrie didn’t correct him about her name. She thought that every time she heard someone say they were sorry, the lump of grief in her throat would just get bigger and bigger until she couldn’t breathe.

‘I want to talk to you about Max.’

‘Of course.’ The woman walked past the door, dressed now, glancing in to see what was going on. Tim edged forward on his seat. ‘I was off sick yesterday, but got the call from the head in the evening.’ He coughed as if that was evidence enough to confirm his illness. ‘And of course it was on the news.’