“Nick? Nick, can you hear me?”
“I couldn’t tell, either. If he’s . . .” Craig steps out of the darkness.
“Call the police. He needs that ambulance. Call them,” I yell, as he stands as rigid as the watching trees, staring blankly down at me. “Now,” I scream.
He jerks into action, taking out his phone, swearing when he can’t get any reception. “Where are they? Where is that fucking detective?”
Two firsts in one day, I think hysterically. First Craig calling me Izzy, now forgetting his usual decorum and using bad language. Maybe it takes a tragedy to crack the smooth, polished veneer he shows to the world: something so completely beyond his control that he is forced to behave just like everyone else. Flawed, fallible. Frightened.
“Nick? Darling, can you hear me? Please. Please wake up. Please, come back to me. I promise I’ll never let you go again.”
* * *
White walls. White bedsheets. The bright, stark minimalism of the hospital room bizarrely reminds me of Katie’s house. I wonder how she will bear to live there now, surrounded by ghostly reminders: Jason’s schoolbag by the door; his rugby clothes still in the washing machine; conversations, hopes, and plans left to hang awkwardly in the air for a while, before fading away into the distance of time, leaving only the shadow of memory, the ache of loss.
I lean over and take hold of Nick’s hands, torturing myself by imagining them lying forever still. I cannot imagine never hearing his voice again; I tremble for the silence that will greet Katie each time she returns home. She’s already lost one child; now another has left her. She gave Jason life, but he didn’t want it anymore.
My heart splinters into a million pieces. What happened between these boys? How can a fun Friday-night sleepover have ended with such tragedies?
“Izzy, can I have a word?” DCI Maxwell knocks gently then hovers at the door.
“Oh. Yes. Please.” I’m desperate to talk to him, and this will be my first chance since the shock and commotion of finding Nick, the yellow swarm of high-vis jackets in the woods, the surreal blur of the ambulance journey. “Here?” I look down at Nick’s bandaged forehead, the tubes and wires crisscrossing his body, the ventilator breathing for him.
I can’t leave him. I’m terrified I might miss the first glimmer of life; the tiniest sign that Nick knows I’m here. The doctors told me it’s possible he can sense my presence. They’ve induced a coma to allow the swelling on his brain to subside; they’ve used phrases like severe hypothermia, contusion, blunt-force head trauma.
They just haven’t been able to give me a concrete prognosis—nothing beyond a sense that Nick’s recovery is as much down to luck as to medical science. He may live, he may not; he may walk out of here with his brain function fully intact, or he may never walk again. My beautiful dancing boy.
“Here’s fine. Mr. Brookes, you stay, too.” DCI Maxwell nods at Craig, who sits quietly in the corner, lost in his own thoughts. “I’ve asked our family liaison officer to join us as well. Jo Peters. She should be here any second.”
“She?” I have a flashback to a tall figure in Katie’s hallway, arms comforting a distraught mother. I’m sure DS Clarke mentioned a man’s name. I try to remember it, but details slip through my exhausted brain. “Not the same one as . . .”
“Matt Haynes is still with Mrs. Baxter. Jo will check in with him, though. Once we have a clearer idea of the connection between Jason’s death and Nick’s injuries. We’re still waiting on the pathologist’s report. And things have escalated pretty fast over the last few hours.”
“Escalated?” I look expectantly toward the door. “Where’s DS Clarke?”
“Back at the station. She’ll still be assisting me, though.”
“Assisting you?” I frown. “I thought she’s been doing a great job.”
“She has. A terrific one. We just need a bit more experience behind the wheel now.”
“Oh. Right. I see.” I don’t see, and I feel a stab of irritation on DS Clarke’s behalf that she has been superseded.
“So, I’ll come straight to the point, Izzy.” DCI Maxwell pulls up two low, leather-padded chairs, gesturing for me to take one of them, before sitting down himself. He waits for me to settle before continuing. “There have been a couple of developments since we brought Nick in last night.”
“Developments.” It should be a positive word; he makes it sound the opposite.
“I’ve had a long chat with Nick’s consultant, and we’re both agreed. The bruising on his body wasn’t only caused by climbing out of the woodshed. Yes, it looks like he panicked and fought his way out. His torn clothes, the splinters under his skin, scratches on his midriff. They all fit with that. But he shouldn’t have needed to fight his way out at all. Not if he was hiding there voluntarily. For a dare, as Samir said.”
“I knew something felt wrong.” I flick a glance at Craig, remembering his insistence that I was just overthinking things, but his eyes are fixed on the detective. I turn back to him. “Are you saying Nick was forced into that shed?”
“I’m afraid so,” DCI Maxwell confirms. “Nick may well have gone into the woods of his own accord. But he wasn’t alone.”
“What? How do you know? Are you sure?” I’m desperate for the detective to be wrong, even though I’ve witnessed his caution for myself: he never joins the dots until he’s double-checked each and every one first.
“Yes, I’m sure. Because whoever was with Nick locked that shed from the outside.”
“No. Oh, no.” I want to weep at the pain and terror Nick must have suffered.
“Ah, Jo. Come on in.” DCI Maxwell raises a hand in greeting as a middle-aged woman in a blue trouser suit enters the room, wafting sweet, heavy perfume that makes me feel light-headed. “Izzy, this is Jo Peters, the family liaison officer I mentioned.”
“I’m so sorry to meet you in these circumstances,” Jo says formally.
“Thank you.” Automatically, I accept her handshake, but my attention returns immediately to DCI Maxwell as questions pile up in my head, clamoring to be answered. “You mentioned developments?”
“Yes. And there’s no easy way to put this, Izzy. Mr. Brookes.” DCI Maxwell nods at Craig, who moves closer now, taking his glasses off, his eyes black holes of shock.
“It wasn’t just a prank, was it?” I jump in. “That’s what you’re going to tell me.” I shake my head. “I knew it. I’ve been thinking and thinking. What Samir said . . .”
“You’re right. This went way beyond a game of Chicken,” DCI Maxwell says meaningfully. “As I said, I’ve had a long chat with Dr. Lynch. In addition to the bruising around Nick’s wrists and ankles, she found scrapes. Chafing. Rope burns, in point of fact.”
“Rope burns?” The sick feeling in my stomach gets worse. “You mean . . .”
“In Dr. Lynch’s opinion, Nick’s injuries are consistent with his having been tied up. I’m sorry, Izzy, there’s more. The FSIs have now carried out a fingertip search around the shed. They’ve recovered a knife. I’m afraid this is now an attempted murder investigation.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Murder . . .” The word is so stark, so shocking, I can’t believe it has anything to do with my son. Staring at Nick’s bandaged forehead, I remember the rocks; I try to replace the image I’ve had in my head of Nick slipping on them in the dark with a picture of him being struck by one. “He didn’t just fall and hit his head, did he?”
“I’ve asked Dr. Lynch to consider that possibility.”
If I wasn’t sitting down, my legs would give way. “He was assaulted. Tied up. Then locked in that shed and left to die. And a knife . . . But he doesn’t have any knife wounds?” I mentally catalog Nick’s injuries, my imagination tumbling back to the woods once again—only this time visualizing Nick running not toward an adventure, but away from danger.
“Correct. Thankfully, Nick wasn’t stabbed,” DCI Maxwell confirms. “We think the knife was used purely as a threat. To c
oerce him into the shed. You don’t need to inflict actual injury with it for a knife to be considered an offensive weapon. Curiously, though, the only prints found on it were his.”
“Oh. But . . . how can that be? Did the other boys mention Nick having a knife?” I picture Adrian’s bedroom, Nick’s backpack against the wall. Had he hidden it in there? But why? Where would he even have got it? “Was it a penknife?” Nick doesn’t have anything like that.
“No. It has a very unusual blade, as a matter of fact. DS Clarke is investigating potential sources. Samir and Adrian know nothing about it. They’ve both gone in to school this morning—their parents thought it best to maintain normality—but I had an officer pull them out of their first lesson, to ask about the knife and clarify Samir’s statement one more time.” He pauses. “I’m really sorry to give you all this information at once, Izzy. I know it’s a lot to take in. Are you OK? Can I get you anything? Some water?”
“I’ll get it.”
Craig has been so quiet, I jump at the sound of his deep voice. He doesn’t wait for me to reply before hurrying out, and I wonder if it’s not water he’s going in search of but a place to hide his tears. I can’t stop mine; they flood out of me, along with a tirade of anger.
“Of course the boys know nothing about any knife. Because this was all Jason’s idea, wasn’t it? That’s why he killed himself. Out of guilt. Fear. Whatever.” Fury overrides rationality; desperation to find answers overtakes my distress at Jason’s death. “‘True friends don’t tell.’ He did his best to make sure of that, didn’t he?”
“There’s nothing forensic to place Jason Baxter at the scene,” Jo interjects gently.
“Jo’s right,” DCI Maxwell says, nodding at her. “As I say, the only prints on the knife were Nick’s. We’re working on the assumption that his assailant was most likely wearing gloves. But we can’t dismiss the possibility that Nick brought the knife with him into the woods. That he was secretly carrying it. Pretending to be a spy, or a soldier, perhaps.”
“Playacting. That does sound like Nick,” I admit. “But a knife? Where would he even get one? And Nick’s never been into war games. He’s terrified of violence.”
“Most people are.” DCI Maxwell’s eyebrows arch. “It’s one thing zapping baddies in video games. Quite another when faced with a living person. Whoever hurt Nick and forced him into that shed clearly has the stomach for cruelty, but maybe not for bloodshed. Rather than simply stabbing him, they played a game of mental cruelty. But the intent was equally deadly. Nick wasn’t supposed to get out of there alive. Whoever did this—”
“Whoever . . . You’re saying it wasn’t Jason? But what about Nick’s phone? Jason must have been the one who hid it. Did you check it for fingerprints? Were his on it?”
“Yes. They were,” he confirms. “So were yours, of course.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” I kick myself again for my carelessness.
“Not just yours. All the boys’ prints were on it. That’s not unexpected, though, given they were at a sleepover together. Kids pass their phones around, don’t they?”
“Yes, but . . . So the phone isn’t proof of anything? And only Nick’s fingerprints were on the knife.” Thoughts hurtle around my brain; understanding still hangs frustratingly out of reach. I return to the only theory that makes any sense to me. “But what makes you so sure Jason didn’t do this?”
It’s not that I want him to be guilty; the absolute last thing I want to believe of my friend’s son is that he tried to kill Nick. It’s just that, in a bizarre sort of way, I find it less terrifying to imagine Nick being assaulted by a friend than a complete stranger. The idea of him having been targeted, pursued through the woods and held captive by some random monster is so appalling, I simply can’t deal with it.
“As Jo said, there’s nothing forensic to place Jason Baxter at the scene at all. Or any of the boys, in fact,” DCI Maxwell emphasizes. “We can’t completely rule it out, of course. But we did a thorough search of the Atkins’s house. None of the kids’ shoes were muddy.”
I follow the direction of his eyes as he looks pointedly at my boots, which are still filthy, as are the hems of my jeans. I came straight to the hospital in the ambulance with Nick last night; changing my clothes was the last thing on my mind. “I guess they would have been,” I concede, “if the boys had been in the woods.”
“I would certainly suggest so. It’s possible Nick slipped out of the house without Beth Atkins hearing. It’s extremely doubtful that three boys—or even one, for that matter—could have cleaned their shoes in the middle of the night without her noticing.”
“Yes, you’re right. Of course. Who, then? Who did this? What kind of animal would try to kill a twelve-year-old child?” I stare tearfully at Nick.
“Sarah’s working on a psychological profile right now.” DCI Maxwell takes out his phone, checking for messages. “We’ll set that against information we find from other angles of the investigation. I wasn’t planning to go into it all in detail right now, but . . .”
“I’m not sure Izzy can take much more waiting,” Jo says, giving me a rueful smile.
“Yes. Please. Tell me now,” I say, desperate to know.
“Right.” The detective sits back in his chair. “Perhaps the simplest thing is if I walk you through our projected scenario for Friday night. Yes?”
“Yes.” I’ve imagined it endlessly myself; I want to hear his version.
“OK. So, first off, Nick goes into the woods for the dare. As per Samir’s statement.”
“You’re sure about that?” I frown, still struggling to believe that Nick would have overcome his fear of the dark and small spaces to accept such a challenge.
DCI Maxwell nods. “As I said, we’ve spoken to Samir again this morning. Adrian, too. Both together and separately. Their stories are consistent. The evening started with a dare they all decided on.”
“Trained officers interviewed those boys, Izzy,” Jo chips in. “There’s no indication they’re lying. The initiation trial seems to have been real. Tragically, the boys had no idea what would happen once Nick entered those woods.”
“Without his phone,” I point out.
“Yes. And that may indeed suggest a degree of spite on Jason’s part,” DCI Maxwell says. “Possibly to ramp up the fear factor. Unfortunately, we can’t question him about that.”
“No. Of course not.” I feel a wave of guilt before remembering the videos I watched online—the “dares” Jason had seemingly encouraged other kids to attempt. “I found this website. Dare or Die. Jason set it up.” I should have mentioned it before, I realize. I’d meant to several times, but on each occasion I got distracted by bigger things: the press conference; the news about Jason’s death . . . “It’s probably not important now.” Even if Jason was the instigator for the “terror test,” a far worse crime was committed that night.
DCI Maxwell takes out his phone, loading the Internet. “Dare or Die, you say?”
“Yes. But it disappeared. At least, I couldn’t find it again. It was full of stunts like this, though. YouTube videos of kids doing crazy dares.”
“I’ll get the guys to look into it. It may be relevant; it may not. We certainly didn’t see it when we retrieved Nick’s Internet search history. Nor any of the darker websites or social media kids sometimes get hooked into. Dare or Die.” He pauses, thinking. “It sounds like it might at least add weight to the idea of Nick going voluntarily into those woods—for a challenge or playacting some kind of mission. Whatever. The key point is that he appears to have left Beth Atkins’s house alone. None of the boys, including Jason, was with him.”
“Fine. So Nick wanted to go into the woods, to prove himself worthy of joining their little gang, or whatever.” It’s hard to speak around the lump in my throat. “Tell me this, then: how does a simple, stupid kids’ dare turn into attempted murder?” My voice cracks. I stand up from the chair and stride to Nick’s side, wanting to lay down next to him and sob out all th
e heartache I feel that it’s always him who is singled out for the amusement of others.
DCI Maxwell shoots a questioning glance at Jo.
“I know this is stressful, Izzy,” she says. “Perhaps we should leave it here for now. Talk later once you’ve had a chance to—”
“No. Please. I have to know. Everything.”
“OK.” DCI Maxwell pauses a second longer, then begins again. “So, Nick is sitting in the woodshed, thinking he just has to tough it out. But someone else comes along. Let’s call them Suspect A. Nick comes out to see who it is—perhaps expecting it to be one of his friends. It isn’t. It’s someone who, for whatever reason—and we’re still working on a motive—wants to do him harm.”
I want to scream in frustration. “Who, though? I need a name. I need—”
“To answer that question, we need to break it down into smaller ones. Such as: did Suspect A know Nick was going to be in the woods? Or did he or she just happen upon him?”
“While out for a midnight stroll, you mean.” Craig huffs as he walks back into the room—tellingly, without any water. His eyes are bloodshot, though, as if he’s been crying.
“Precisely.” DCI Maxwell doesn’t flinch at the sarcasm. “Which leads us to the likelihood that Suspect A had found out about the dare, most likely from one of the boys. Adrian and Samir insist they told no one. Perhaps Nick did, whether intentionally or not.”
“You searched his texts. And emails. DS Clarke said you found nothing suspicious.”
“Correct. But the Internet is vast. Chat rooms, the dark web. Less dramatically, Nick might simply have chatted to someone online, through instant messages, which—”
“Disappeared along with his Facebook account,” I finish for him, wanting to stamp my feet in frustration.
“Exactly. DS Clarke had a word with the boys about that, by the way. They said they felt it wasn’t right to leave the photos up. With Nick being missing. Adrian helped Nick set up the account. He took it down for him.”
The Sleepover Page 16
