by Adam Croft
I finally find it under a pile of clothes on the bed. I pick it up and look at the screen. It’s Rebecca Atkinson-West, the headteacher at St Bartholomew’s, where Chris works. I answer the call.
‘Oh, is that Megan?’ she says, in a tone of voice which sounds disappointed and disapproving. I’m not sure how the woman does it, but she somehow manages to make everything sound condescending. Chris says she’s alright, and I’m sure she’s fine as a headteacher, but she’s not the sort of person I’d like to spend much time with.
‘Yes, he left his phone here. Sorry. Can I take a message?’
‘I really should speak to him directly,’ she says, and I get the sense that perhaps this isn’t just her being patronising; it actually sounds like quite a serious moment. But how many things can be that serious that the headteacher would phone a staff member in the middle of the school holidays? Unless… Unless it’s connected to Riley Markham.
‘The only problem is I don’t know when he’s going to be back in,’ I say. I’m not technically lying; I’m just choosing not to add the detail about Chris only being in the back garden.
Rebecca sounds conflicted ‘Ah. Well, I suppose it’s probably best if you can pass the message on to him as quickly as possible. I really should speak to him directly, but the news will only get to him some other way. I guess it would be better if it came from you.’
Gee, thanks, I want to say. ‘If what came from me?’
I hear Rebecca sighing on the other end of the phone. When she speaks, her voice sounds frailer than usual. I don’t know if it’s fear, panic or what, but it concerns me.
What she says concerns me even more.
‘The police have found another body. It’s another one of our pupils. A young boy.’
My breath catches in my throat and I don’t know what to say.
‘Oh god,’ I finally manage. ‘Who?’
‘You mustn’t breathe a word of this to anyone until the family have been told, Megan. You have to promise me. Chris will need to know, but it’s not public information yet.’
‘Alright. I promise.’ I can only imagine the pain it would bring to the boy’s family to hear of his death via Facebook or a WhatsApp group, rather than from the police.
‘His name was Kai Bolton,’ she says.
‘Was he in Chris’s class?’
‘Not this past year, no. A couple of years ago.’
‘What happened?’
She takes a moment to compose herself. ‘They’re not sure yet. I imagine probably a few things, but they won’t tell us anything until they’ve investigated further.’
‘Was he… a good kid?’ Even though I’ve never even heard Kai’s name before, for some reason I want to know all about him. I feel I need to get to know these children, especially if…
‘He had a bit of a troubled background. Nothing serious in the grand scheme of things, but definitely a broken family by local standards. He was in trouble more often than not, but… Well, no child deserves this, do they?’ For a few moments, I detect a heavy hint of sadness in Rebecca’s voice. I’ve never known her to show any sort of emotion at all, so this all feels quite alien.
‘I’ll let him know. Kai Bolton?’ I say, confirming his name, although I know I’m never likely to forget it. It’s now indelibly printed on my mind, and always will be.
‘Yes. Thank you, Megan. Tell Chris if he needs to call me, he can do. Any time. Day or night.’
‘I will. Thanks.’
I end the phone call and put Chris’s mobile back down on the bed in front of me. I look across it and out through our bedroom window to the rolling fields and treetops beyond. The thought of two young boys having met their deaths here in recent days is absolutely devastating. I try to imagine how I would feel if it was my own son — the son I never had — but I can’t. Maybe it’s my brain protecting me, knowing the thought would be too painful.
‘Alright?’
Chris’s voice startles me and shocks me back into the here and now. I spin around and he looks at me quizzically.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asks.
My eyes inadvertently flick towards his mobile phone, and his gaze slowly carries over towards it. He looks at the phone for a couple of seconds before looking back at me.
‘What have you been doing?’ he says.
‘Nothing. Your phone rang.’
I see him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat.
‘Who was it,’ he says, more as a statement than a question.
‘Rebecca. She called because she has some news.’
‘About Riley?’
‘Sort of.’ There are so many thoughts going through my mind, I don’t know what to think. I just want to scream and throw myself out of the window, but that isn’t going to do me any good. ‘She said the police had found another body. Another boy from the school.’
Chris just looks at me, his face not changing in the slightest. Gradually, he starts to drain of all colour and his eyelids begin to flicker.
‘Who?’ he asks, almost whispering, after what seems like an age.
‘A boy called Kai Bolton.’
He nods slowly. ‘Where was he found?’
‘She didn’t say. I didn’t ask. But she said you can call her any time of the day or night. She wanted to make sure you found out either through me or through her before anyone else tells you.’
He nods again, then sits on the bed before lying down on his side, bringing his knees up to his chest and letting out the most pained, agonising sobs I’ve ever heard anyone make.
24
Megan
I held Chris for almost half an hour. I’ve never seen a grown man cry himself to sleep, never mind in broad daylight. I don’t imagine he’s been getting much sleep at night these past few days, even though he’d never say so himself.
All that was going through my mind as I held him was how could I possibly have thought he was a killer? I know this man like nobody else, and I could see how he’d responded to the news of Kai’s death. That’s not the sort of act someone can just put on. Is it?
Chris finds it difficult enough not to tell me what he’s got me for my birthday. I can’t imagine for one moment he’d be able to keep a secret as huge as this. But knowing all that still doesn’t stop the gnawing, bugging feeling in my gut. The voice that shouts out loud Something isn’t right.
I’ve read the same news articles and true crime books as most other people. I know how it goes. All the friends and family say ‘I had no idea they were capable of something like that!’ or ‘But he seemed so normal!’.
Chris is still asleep upstairs, and Evie is playing with her toys in the living room. I watch her as she picks them up and throws them back down, or practises bashing them together. It’s not really playing as we know it, but she’s learning what to do.
For some unknown reason that really rankles with me, we have to have the TV on in the background. It doesn’t matter what programme, and there doesn’t need to be any sound, but the moving pictures alone seem to keep Evie calm.
Right now, the TV is tuned to BBC News 24. I wanted to watch, to see what was being said about Riley and Kai, to try and find out more about the sort of act that could break apart a community and countless families.
From what I can make out in the silence, there’s some sort of political meeting going on in Brussels, and we keep seeing the same shot of the Prime Minister walking up a path towards a large white door, smiling as she enters.
And then I see it at the bottom of the screen. It’s the name of our village that catches my eye and, being the last word in the headline, it takes a minute or so before it scrolls back round again. Every word is one I’ll never forget.
And there it is, the twenty-four-hour rolling news letting the nation and the world know that a second young child has been found dead in our village. There’s no mention of his name, so I can only presume that not all friends and family have been told yet. It’s only right they don’t find o
ut this way, but it will have the unintentional effect of making every other person in the area panic that it could be a member of their family.
The camera cuts back to the studio, and I unmute the TV. I have a feeling the subject’s about to move on to the latest killing. I’m right.
‘—a second child’s body,’ the newsreader says, leaving me to piece together the first half of the sentence for myself. ‘Police say they are not yet ready to name the victim, nor have they commented on any connection between this and the murder of seven-year-old Riley Markham last week, whose body was found less than three hundred yards from the site of this most recent incident. Lisa Rhodes reports.’
The image on the screen changes to one that I instantly recognise. It’s the stream that runs near our house. The stream I often walk down with Chris and Evie. A place I know like the back of my hand. A place I’ll never be able to walk again.
‘A quiet, quintessential English village. And now home to two brutal killings of young children,’ the reporter begins, making me angry at the way she’s portraying our community. ‘Although police have been reticent to link this most recent discovery with the death of another young boy just last week, it’s clear that local residents are deeply concerned about the events in their village.’
The shot cuts to a replayed interview of a man with a beard, whom I don’t recognise. ‘It’s just terrible. Dreadful,’ he says, before mentioning the fact that he walks his dogs along the river every day and couldn’t imagine such a thing happening here.
Then the camera switches to one of the mums I recognise from the village. I don’t recall her name, but I know her son is Daniel Crawford. Chris has told me all about Daniel. She holds her son close to her hip as she tells the off-camera reporter ‘I don’t feel safe down here any more. Definitely not. I know the police aren’t making the link yet, but everyone else is.’
‘It’s clear that this is a small village community shocked to its core,’ the reporter says, now in full view as she holds a microphone up in front of her mouth. ‘Locals tell me it’s one of the last places of its kind in Britain — the sort of village where you feel safe leaving your doors unlocked, where everyone knows each other. This, for them, has been a brutal reminder of what lurks in the modern world,’ she says, talking as if we’re some sort of third-world redneck backwater. ‘For now, though, the focus is on finding the killer or killers of these two innocent young boys, and ensuring they’re brought to justice.’
And, just like that, the news moves on to the England cricket team’s latest collapse against the West Indies. As if everything that was just said is irrelevant.
I sit for a few moments, watching the screen. Evie makes a half-chuckling half-gurgling noise, and I force a smile for her. I pick her up and carry her on my hip through to the kitchen. She protests, but it’s tough. I’ve got things to do. I need to occupy my mind before I go crazy.
I put her in the doorway bouncer in the bedroom, and she soon stops complaining. Instead, she bounces up and down quite happily. At least I know she can’t get into any mischief here.
The sun starts to stream in through the window. It won’t be long before the sun goes down. I really should think about putting Evie to bed, but I’m desperate for the loo.
I keep the door open. I can see Evie in the doorway bouncer from here and, more importantly, she can see me.
When I’m finished, I turn on the hot tap, ready to wash my hands, but freeze. I turn the tap off and look more closely. My heart jumps when I realise what I’m looking at.
There are bloodstains in the sink. It looks as though someone’s done a half decent job of clearing up after themselves, but there are spots and splashes on the side of the sink that have been missed. They’re streaked with water, as if someone has been desperately trying to scrub blood from their hands.
I look over at Evie, with her huge beaming smile. But all I see is a killer’s genes looking back at me.
25
Last year
Chris squeezes my hand as I try to get into position, the blue paper tearing underneath me as my body squirms.
‘Just lie back and get yourself comfortable,’ the sonographer says. ‘I’m going to put this gel on your tummy. It’ll probably be a bit cold, so I apologise for that.’
Everything’s cold at the moment. Summer is well and truly gone, and I’ve come to the realisation that I don’t have any jumpers that will fit my growing belly. I’m certainly not going to spend a load of money on clothes I’ll only be wearing for a few weeks, though.
‘You might already be aware, but at this scan we’re going to have a look at baby’s internal organs and see how the growth is going. There’s a chance we might also be able to determine the sex. It’s very usual that we can’t tell, depending on how baby’s positioned, but would you like to know the sex if I’m able to see?’
I look at Chris, and he looks at me.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes please,’ ignoring the personal dislike I have for medical professionals referring to ‘baby’ rather than ‘the baby’ or ‘your baby’, as if it’s the poor bugger’s name.
The sonographer moves the scanner over my belly, and begins to push and prod. That’s one thing they never show you on TV — how bloody hard these people shove the scanner into you during an ultrasound. I yelp a couple of times, partly through my own pain but also because I’m worried she’s going to hurt the baby.
‘It’s alright. She knows what she’s doing,’ Chris says, as if he can read my mind. I often think he can.
‘Okay, there we go,’ the sonographer says. ‘Baby’s in a good position. I’m just having a look at the mouth and nose area now. That all looks fine. No signs of a cleft palate. Spine looks good, too. I’m just going to see if I can encourage baby to turn over now and get a look at the chest area.’
She pokes and prods me even more, and I bite my lip to stop myself yelping in pain.
‘There we go. Can you see that there? That’s baby’s heart. You can see all four chambers here, look.’
I look through misty eyes. She’s right. I can quite clearly see the internal workings of my baby’s heart. It’s absolutely incredible. Just seeing my baby is one thing, but being able to see inside its body is a minor miracle.
She pokes around a bit more, checking the baby’s kidneys and other internal organs, and makes lots of reassuring comments.
‘Baby looks absolutely fine,’ she says. ‘Very healthy. You must be doing all the right things.’
Chris lets out a small laugh, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. I’ve already filled a bookcase with every pregnancy and baby book I could find in Waterstone’s, and I’ve digested every word on every page. After what we went through to try and have a child in the first place, I’m not about to take even the smallest risk now.
‘I hope so,’ I say, hearing my voice cracking ever so slightly.
‘So do you want to know the sex of the baby?’ the sonographer says again.
I don’t need to look at Chris this time. We both agreed from the start — from before I was even pregnant — that we would want to know the gender. It would allow us to prepare, mentally more than anything, and would make everything more real. As strange as it sounds, even with a small person growing inside me, it still hasn’t really hit home that we’re going to be parents, that in a few weeks from now we’ll be solely responsible for a tiny baby. Our child.
I’ve always said I’d be happy with a boy or a girl. To me, all children are precious and we’ve waited so long I really couldn’t care — as long as the baby is happy and healthy. But Chris’s family are more traditional. They’ve always put more stock in the boys. ‘The paternal line’ as Chris’s dad always used to call it.
They’ve got a tradition of passing the father’s name down and using it as the first-born son’s middle name. I think that’s sweet, and we’ve talked about the possibility of doing that if we have a boy. The sense I got from Chris was almost the expectation that it would be a boy.
I’ve always imagined us having a boy, too. Lots of our friends have young boys and whenever I think of my baby, it’s a boy I imagine. I don’t know if that means anything. Probably not. Maybe it’s a mother’s intuition, at best.
Chris has always been great with his nephews. He takes them to the park to play football, and buys them the best Christmas presents. He always seems to know exactly what little boys want — remote-controlled helicopters, robot dogs, the lot. He manages to pitch it just right, and every year seems to win the unspoken Best Uncle award.
With his nieces, though, he seems clueless. ‘I don’t know anything about little girls,’ he always says, before making a joke of it. ‘I haven’t been one yet.’ He might joke, but I think it’s actually quite sad to witness the fact that he can’t bond with his nieces as well as he can with his nephews. It’s as if his relationship with them is missing something.
‘Yes. If you’re able to tell,’ I say to the sonographer.
‘These things are never one hundred percent certain,’ she says, ‘but I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve not been wrong yet. Besides which, I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t as sure as I could be.’
I look at Chris and smile. We’re about to find out the sex of our baby. The child that we’re going to bring into the world, love and nurture until the day we die. The completion of our family. Our son.
‘It’s a girl,’ the sonographer says, and I see Chris’s smile begin to fall away.
26
Megan
I’ve seen that face many times when I fall asleep. It’s haunted me ever since that day. Of course, Chris said he didn’t mind whether we had a boy or a girl, and claimed that he was just surprised when the sonographer told us we were having a girl.
I scrutinised his face when Evie was born. I should have been more focused on her, but all that was going through my mind was that Chris was going to be disappointed. That he was going to reject our child. That he was going to resent me for not providing him with a son.
