Someone Else's Son (45 page)

Outside, the sparrow flew down from the wall and began tucking in to the bread. Soon there were half a dozen other birds pecking at the crumbs.

‘All I had to do was let them know it was there,’ Carrie said.

‘What, pet?’

‘Max,’ she continued in a daze, watching the birds. ‘I should have let him know I was here.’ Carrie stood and gathered her keys and bag. She slipped on a jacket and faced the hall mirror square on. A stranger stared back. ‘And I didn’t,’ she finished, turning and heading down to the car.

 

‘I hope we’re bleedin’ getting paid for this, is all I can say.’ Dayna’s mother leant against the sink, forking bacon into her mouth.

‘Well, no one asked you to say yes, did they?’ Kev mopped up egg with a slice of white bread. He wasn’t dressed. He had no intention of going to the studio with his stepdaughter. ‘Something for nothing, these folk. Don’t know why you’re bothering.’

‘ ’Cos she bleedin’ wants to help that lad, that’s why.’

It was the first sympathetic thing she had heard her mother say in ages, Dayna thought, staring into her cereal. She couldn’t eat, though. She’d be sick on the telly if she did. ‘I do. Oh, I do,’ she whispered, but only Lorrell heard.

‘Here’s my baby, Mummy,’ she said, holding up a plastic doll. No one was listening. Her mother and Kev were still bickering about whether Dayna would get paid for appearing on
Reality Check
.

Dayna frowned at her little sister. She put a finger over her mouth.

‘Sshh,’ the little girl hissed back.

‘I think it’s got past money, Kev. Can’t you see how upset our Dayna’s been these last few days? She ain’t eaten nothing and she’s been chucking up every day, ain’t you, love?’

‘Mmm,’ Dayna replied. She just wanted to get it all over with; to get to the studio, to be dazzled by the lights and Carrie Kent with her fabulous clothes and no-nonsense manner. She wanted to be torn apart in front of a baying audience and thrown to them afterwards, bloodied and bruised from their attack, just like Max had been.

Why had she agreed to do this?

Because she deserved it.

There was a knock at the door. Lorrell scrambled off her chair and ran to answer it. When Dayna glanced down the hall, she saw a man dressed in black wearing a cap. He was bending down talking to Lorrell, who soon came trotting back to the kitchen.

‘That man has a car for Dayna,’ she said. Her voice wobbled with excitement and she dribbled some of her breakfast.

‘Oh no,’ Dayna said in response. ‘He’s early.’ She leapt up from the table and ran straight past the man who was still standing at the door.

‘Ten minutes, miss,’ he called out as she passed. ‘I’ll be waiting outside.’

Dayna tore up to her room to change for the third time, exhausting her entire wardrobe. Jeans didn’t seem entirely right but were pretty much all she had. Seconds later, she was hopping back into the faded things and pulling on a clean T-shirt. Over the top, she wore a dark jacket. She looked OK, she thought. Just normal.

Whatever that was.

She didn’t understand why everyone else in the world saw her differently. Was it because she’d dyed her hair with everything from boot polish to household bleach over the years that made them hate her? Was it because she’d pierced her own ears over a dozen times, some done with a compass point in the loos when things had got really bad? Or perhaps it was because of her blue nail varnish or armfuls of bangles or the way she smiled or smelt or spoke or laughed or cried, like she was doing now.

‘Stop it, fool,’ she snapped at herself. She stuffed some tissues in her pocket, grabbed her phone and ran downstairs. ‘Mum,’ she panted at the kitchen door. ‘I’m going.’

‘Not on your own, you’re not,’ her mother said. She dumped her empty plate in the sink, grabbed her old coat off the back of the chair, and shoved her fags and lighter into her pocket. She left a kiss on Lorrell’s head. ‘Be a good girl for Daddy, Los. And wave to sis on the telly.’

Squinting in the sun, as if the brilliance was guiding them to a better place, Dayna stopped before she got into the car. ‘Thanks, Mum. Thanks for coming with me.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world, love,’ she said.

Dayna used the silence of the journey, while her mother puffed smoke out of the window, to contemplate if that was because, like most of the guests who appeared on the show, her mother just wanted her five minutes of fame, her share of upside-down glory to tell the world how hard done by they were, or if, indeed, her mother really cared about the truth.

 

Carrie sat in the dressing room. Her stylist pondered the clothes rail in a less enthusiastic way than usual. The whole studio, in fact, had taken on a sombre air and Carrie appreciated that. While she didn’t want people to treat her differently, she couldn’t bear the noise and clatter of real life just yet.

‘How about this?’ the stylist suggested, holding up a slate-grey skirt with a dark striped shirt.

‘I don’t think so.’ Carrie’s hair was in rollers. ‘It needs to be different today.’ She was fed up with people choosing her clothes for her and she was sick of people swiping at her face, her hair, brushing things off her, adding bits to her and fussing over her as if she was a helpless child. She remembered the interview when she got the man to confess to killing his family. The clothes weren’t important. ‘I’ll just wear what I came to the studio in.’

The stylist knew better than to argue, given Carrie’s state of mind. The show would still be watched whatever she was wearing. The viewers tuned in for the edge-of-the-seat debate, argument and resolution. Today their sympathies would lie entirely with the presenter.

‘Jeans and sweatshirt it is then.’ She clapped her hands together, as if punctuating the beginning and end of a fight that wasn’t going to happen. As the stylist left the dressing room, Carrie thought she saw her pull a face at the make-up artist who was just arriving.

‘I’m not trying to be awkward,’ she called out, but the woman had already gone. ‘I just want her to feel at ease, to be able to talk to me as if . . . as if maybe I was her mother.’ Her voice was small and she didn’t think the make-up girl was even listening. ‘Just a touch. Nothing over the top.’ The girl nodded, chewed her gum and took out her brushes.

 

‘Is she here yet?’ It was eight forty and Carrie was in Leah’s office pacing about. She was shaking – one minute freezing, the next too hot. Her bones ached and felt brittle as they bore her weight, as if the sorrow of the last week had eaten away at them from the inside out. ‘Has anyone bloody well seen the girl yet?’

‘Calm down, Carrie. She’ll be here.’

‘But is she actually in the building?’

‘Sally called the driver and they’re stuck in traffic. They’ll be here soon.’

At this news, Carrie paced more vehemently. ‘What if they don’t make it? I could interview her on the phone, couldn’t I? Or we could take the cameras out to the car. Whatever happens, the girl is going on television.’

‘Carrie, don’t get your hopes up.’ Leah stood from behind her desk. ‘She could still back out. And even if she doesn’t, the leads might not come in.’

‘Does she have a mobile phone? Why didn’t she have a police escort? Can’t we get one?’

‘Calm down. Please.’ Leah grabbed her. ‘You’re getting in a state. You need to be in control for the show.’ Leah swept a strand of hair off Carrie’s face. ‘Why don’t you go and get changed and have your hair done.’

‘I already have,’ Carrie retorted. ‘If I go on looking like I normally do, she’ll be freaked and won’t speak. I need to get on her level.’ Carrie dropped on to a chair, barely perched on the edge. ‘What if she won’t talk to me? What if no one phones in?’

‘Carrie, Carrie.’ Leah handed her a glass of water. ‘Are you sure you want to go ahead with this? It’s not too late to pull out.’

‘Of course I don’t want to pull out. The simple fact is, I don’t see any other way forward. If I don’t do everything I can to get justice for Max then . . .’ Carrie stopped. She couldn’t imagine the emptiness her life would hold. She hated herself for only noticing the purpose of her existence once it had gone. ‘Then I won’t be able to live with myself,’ she finished, not believing that explained a tenth of how she felt.

 

Dennis insisted that Jess sit and wait with the girl before the show. It was her, after all, who had got her to agree to the appeal and, in case of any last-minute second thoughts, he wanted Jess’s persuasive skills on hand.

‘She won’t renege,’ Jess said.

‘So sure? She’s not exactly been a reliable witness so far.’

‘I told her about the Plummer boy. I told her how the mother had fallen apart after the kid was killed.’

‘And she gave a hoot?’ Dennis parked the car in the usual spot at the studio. He liked it that something was usual when nothing much else was.

‘She thought about it deeply. She understood how the publicity had helped catch his killers. It was when I told her that a member of the gang involved had agreed to appear on Carrie’s show, albeit incognito and with a disguised voice, that she changed her mind. I offered her the same anonymity but she refused. She’s not like normal girls, Dennis. I only spent an hour with her but, well, she seems older than she really is. Wiser, in a sort of naive way as if everything she’s been through has made her . . . different.’

‘Different is bleeding right.’ Dennis grunted and rubbed his neck, stretching and cracking it. ‘There’s something deep inside me been gnawing away about all this, Jess, and you know what? It’s not so deep any more.’

‘The only thing gnawing at you, Den, is getting an arrest. It’s the pressure eating you up, not some sense of moralistic community duty—’

‘Don’t you ever,
ever
imply I don’t care about morals, detective. This happens to be the son of a dear . . . a good friend of mine. Morals and statistics and appeasing the powers that be, let alone the community, don’t even come close to watching Carrie suffer because some little shit decided to take out her son in the playground.’ Dennis clicked off his seatbelt and flung open the door. His face was scarlet and his lips were sucking in air as if he was suffocating. Had Jess spotted it was all a ruse for how inadequate he felt?

‘That dear, huh?’ Jess closed her car door with a fraction of the force used by Dennis. He didn’t reply as they walked side by side through the television centre’s security and then on into the bowels of the building where he knew he’d find Carrie and her crew.

Yes, that dear, he thought.

Dayna wanted to slide her hand across the cool leather of the back seat of the car and reach out to her mother. She wanted to be pulled to her chest, have her head pressed against her shoulder and be told everything was going to be all right as she spilt the mess that was stuck inside her. She felt constantly sick and had a permanent headache. She couldn’t sleep properly and when she did, her dreams were filled with Max dropping first to his knees – the blood silently coursing from his body – and then crumpling on to his side as he gave up on life.

‘Mum,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ She turned from the open window. Smoke escaped her lips as she spoke.

‘I’m scared.’

Dayna’s mother stared at her, shocked almost that her daughter could even be contemplating such an emotion. ‘Think of the money, girl. It’ll be all right, you’ll see.’ A hand did reach across to Dayna but it gave a playful pinch on her thigh.

‘There isn’t any money, Mum. You know that. I’m doing this to help Max.’

Her mother just grunted, not believing that there wouldn’t be something in this for her.

As the traffic finally flowed again, Dayna turned and watched London transform from her grim neighbourhood into foreign streets filled with expensive cars and exclusive shops and hotels. When it came down to it, her mother was just like the bullies at school. They did what they did for gain, sometimes financial, sometimes to big themselves up, and sometimes, she knew, they did it because there wasn’t any other way for them to act. It was kill or be killed. Simple. She wasn’t aware of her mother ever having a sense of ambition or pride. Like the kids at school, she was just out to get what she could.

The television centre was the biggest building Dayna had ever seen. It was constructed from the same dreary nineteen seventies brick as her school, yet somehow managed to appear modern and cared for with two glass wings flanking the older curved central part. She thought it looked a hub of information and entertainment as she gazed at quick-paced men and women coming and going across the neat plaza where the car was now parked. How she wished she could be part of a world like this.

Slowly, she opened the car door. She emerged to the driver, who held the door and instructed her mother where to go. Dayna listened because her mother was too busy stubbing out her butt on the ground. The driver coughed and winked at Dayna. She felt sad and special at the same time.

‘Bye and thank you,’ she called out as she and her mother were swept through the revolving doors. Ahead of them was a long reception desk and already the woman behind was smiling in greeting. Minutes later, they each had a plastic wallet on a cord to wear round their necks and a floor plan to guide them to studio four.

It was when they were alone in the lift that Dayna said she couldn’t do it.
Wouldn’t
do it.

‘Don’t be fucking stupid. My girl on the telly.’

But Dayna began hammering buttons. She hit the emergency stop with her fist and banged her forehead on the wall. ‘No!’ she screamed and when the voice came through the intercom asking what the problem was, Dayna said quite clearly, ‘Nothing. Everything’s fine.’ And the lift began moving again.

 

Carrie was told that Dayna was finally in the building. ‘Not in the studio though, is she? Anyone actually seen her yet?’

Leah was on the phone and held up her hand to pause Carrie. ‘OK, thanks. That’s great.’ She hung up. ‘They’ve just arrived in the studio. Let’s go.’ Leah saw the change in Carrie’s eyes – the way her pupils grew from anxious slits to black discs indicating her inner turmoil. She knew Carrie didn’t want to be doing this show any more than the girl did, but the chances of the Met getting a call post-show were high, especially with such raw material as they were about to put out.