by S A Tameez
“Yeah… it’s lovely.”
“Good.” She gloated. Proud of her cooking, proud to be a mother. Proud of his response.
“I’m sorry about snapping at you the other night,” he said, “I was just surprised to see you and it was hard for me.” His face looked as if it had lost its colour.
“I know, baby, I know.” She reached over and held his hand. This is what she wanted. She needed him to open up to her, talk to her. She wanted to be there for him and could no longer be ignored. She thought to walk around the table and embrace him in her arms but feared she would break into tears and there was no time for that.
“Norman, listen, I think it would be a good idea if you…” she paused.
“If you…” he gazed up her.
“I was thinking that perhaps you might want to go and stay in Brighton for a while. We still have the place there and no one’s renting it now.”
“Erm… I have university and—”
“I feel you need a break. University won’t miss you for a few weeks, I’m sure. The semester has just started and like you said before, not much happens at the beginning of the semester.”
He smiled with both his mouth and his eyes like he did when he was a young boy. His eyes glowed and widened with excitement. She, even if only for a moment, felt like his mother again. She was fulfilling her God-given role. Protector, supporter, guardian.
“I love that place,” he said spooning another mouthful.
“I know. I do too.”
“Are you coming?” Her insides became warm at his question. He asked because he wanted her. He wanted her to go with him. He needed her again. But she couldn’t go with him, though she wanted nothing more. Run away from their worries, run away from their troubles.
“No,” she said and began collecting the dishes. “I have a few things to do here and besides, it wouldn’t be much of a break with me around, right?”
“OK,” He held her gaze as if wondering whether she was serious. “I will let the university know tomorrow and—”
“Don’t worry about university sweetie, I will contact them in the morning.”
“You want me to go tonight?” he said putting his fork down on the table.
“Only if you want to. I mean, I can cancel the taxi…”
“You already booked the taxi?”
“Yes, I mean, to be honest, the place hasn’t been empty for a while and I want you to make the most of it before someone snaps it up for the next 6 months.”
“That makes sense, but today, like now?”
“Yes, you do want to go, right?”
“I’ll get packing then, I guess.”
“I’ll clear the table and be up in a minute and give you a hand.”
“I’m sure I’ll manage,” He smiled.
“Yes, of course,” she returned the smile, “I’m sure you will.”
Jessica drew the curtains and stared anxiously at the deserted street. The taxi should have been here at 8 pm and it was now 3 minutes past. Every minute was torturing her. She needed him to get out of here, she needed him to be safe. Her eyes caught sight of headlights at the top of the road, and she prayed it was the taxi and not the Police.
A black Toyota Prius crept down the road and stopped outside the house.
“Norman!” she called as casually as her nerves allowed, “Your ride is here,”
Norman walked down the stairs lugging a small suitcase and a laptop sleeve.
She hugged him.
“It’s going to be fine. Everything will be OK. I will never let anything happen to you.”
“I know mum,” he said, “I’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” She held onto him tightly before hurrying him along.
She watched from the window as he got in and the car pulled away.
She gasped loudly as if she had been holding her breath the entire time. Only when the taxi got to the end of the road, she plunged to the floor and hugged her knees. Unable to stop herself, she sat frozen and cried until she fell asleep.
Chapter 21
“Right,” Nick said as he barged into the office, “What’s going on?”
“I did some digging on Melisa Maddison and seems there are some anomalies with her accounts.”
“Go on?” He plumped himself on the chair to ease the weight off his aching soles.
“Her friends had told us about her having huge amounts of money and the story of her father being some business tycoon.”
“Yes, I read the report.”
“Well, the truth is her father has never sent her any money – she hasn’t got a penny in her accounts – she’s heavily in debt.”
“Are you sure?”
“A hundred percent!” she pushed a statement towards him. “And what’s more interesting is that Melisa Maddison is not her real name. Her real name is Felicity Marshall.”
“OK, so she’s broke and had changed her name. Doesn’t mean much. People change their names all the time and most of the people I know are broke.”
“Yeah, but do they lie to their best friends about it?”
“So, why is she lying?”
“I’m not sure but I think we ought to find out.”
“OK, but it’ll have to wait. Did you get the warrant for Norman Hyde’s property?”
“Right here,” she said and unfolded the paper, “He lives with his mother,”
“Brilliant. Give me a few minutes to brief the officers and let’s make a move.”
Nick stood in front of a small team of uniformed officers. Most of them young, with fresh faces and looking eager to do something. He remembered being one of them. Eager, full of life and determination. A time before life throws some brutal blows and beats you to the ground.
“Right, the property is in Southwark,” He placed a map on the table and pointed to the street. “You know the drill. We need to get in discreetly. Three in the front with me and three around to the back.”
There was knock on the briefing room door and Fiona White, an Indexer, walked in. “Sorry to interrupt sir,” she said to Nick quietly, “but we might have something on CCTV. You asked to be informed straight away.”
He looked back the team of uniformed officers and then back at Fiona.
“Contact Zoe and give her the details, and thanks!”
“Sir.”
“Now,” he addressed the officers, “we want to make this as painless as possible. As you might have noticed, we’ve got the press turning this into a shit storm. The last thing we need is us drawing attention to ourselves. We’re looking for an IC1 male, Norman Hyde. The property is owned by his mother, and this is his last known address.”
****
Jessica Hyde spent the last two hours hacking through the forest in her garden in a bid to distract herself. She couldn’t think about Norman, and she definitely couldn’t think about the blood-stained hoody hidden in her room. Though she could think of nothing else.
Jessica hated the thought of an overgrown garden as much as she hated someone squeezing a tube of toothpaste from the middle or opening a packet of crisps upside down. She religiously hoovered the house twice a day and stored packs of toothbrushes to clean the tiles in the kitchen and the bathroom.
She sat on the sofa in the living room, clasping a hot cup of tea and sobbed. Norman had been in Brighton for a while, and though she missed him, it was the best thing she could have done for him. She was the only person he had, and she wouldn’t let him down – not as a mother and not as a guardian.
She had already tried to call him twice; he hadn’t answered. She thought to call again when the bloodstained hoody crossed her mind. Like a ghost, she floated up the stairs and sat on her bed.
She had to get rid of it. She should have done it days ago. But how? She couldn’t just throw it in the bin. It’s not something you can just throw in the bin – she had seen enough CSI to know that was a bad idea. But she had to get rid of it.
She carr
ied the bag to the kitchen without looking at it once – she couldn’t bear the sight of it or the thought of the story behind it. Removing a candle lighter from the drawer and an old newspaper, she headed out to the back garden. She removed the lid of the small metal incinerator her ex-husband insisted they buy and stuffed it inside. She then gathered some of the dead grass and twigs she had chopped down earlier and dropped them over the hooded top.
She scrunched a few pages of the newspaper and scattered them on top and then lit them. Within moments, the contents in the incinerator were ablaze. Her eyes fixed hypnotically on the flames as she cried. She had to protect him. She had to do whatever it took. It might have made her a bad person, but it didn’t make her a bad mother. A mother would do whatever it took to protect her child.
Was what she was doing wrong? She didn’t know. Was it what she had to do? Absolutely. They didn’t know Norman like she did, no one did.
She thought back to the afternoons he came back from school with his uniform torn and dirty – cuts and bruises on his face. He was the perfect target for mindless bullies. Smart, funny, witty and didn’t conform to every pathetic trend floating in the foolish atmosphere. He wasn’t conned into buying the latest phones and fashion – he used his own mind, and this was something the bullies couldn’t handle then, and the world couldn’t handle now. He was a good human and even good humans make mistakes.
“Police!” A loud voice and banging at the front door. Footsteps marched towards the gate of the garden. “Open or we’ll force our way in!”
She looked at the incinerator and then back to the house. She strode into the house and towards the front door.
“I’m coming,” she said as naturally as she could. She stopped, placed her palms on the door and took a deep breath.
“What do you want?” She demanded as she opened the door.
“DS Nick Bailey,” a non-uniformed man with three police officers marched in.
“What’s the meaning of this?!”
“Ma’am, we have an arrest warrant for Norman Hyde – is he here?”
“He is not here!” she shouted, “And you’re getting your dirty shoes all over my carpet! I demand you stop at once!”
“Are you, Mrs Hyde?”
“Yes!”
“Can you tell me the whereabouts of your son?” DS Nick Bailey said as the other Police officers marched around the house looking for Norman.
“He is not here! Can you please stop!”
“Please try to remain calm. We have a warrant to search the premises, and it will be best you cooperate,”
“What do you want with Norman?”
“We need to question him regarding an inquiry,”
Jessica’s heart thumped so hard that she was afraid the detective would hear it. Her mind travelled to the incinerator burning everything away.
“Can you tell us where he is?” the detective asked.
“No, I have no idea. He goes to university, and he would not be involved in a murder or any such thing! You’ve got it all wrong!”
“I didn’t mention murder, Mrs Hyde.” Nick pointed out.
“Sir,” A police officer called from the top of the stairs, “One of the bedrooms is locked.”
DS Nick marched up the stairs. Jessica followed him.
“Where are you going?” She asked.
“Mrs Hyde, is this Norman’s room?”
Jessica nodded. She wanted to scream at them to stop but the words were caught in her throat.
“Is he inside?” the detective asked as he banged on the door, “Noman Hyde!” he shouted.
“I told you, he’s not here!”
“Do you have a key for the door?”
“No, he has the key.”
The detective looked at one of the police officers and nodded.
“Can you please step back, Mrs Hyde,” the detective instructed and then gently moved her back.
Jessica stared in horror as the officer barged into the door twice before the lock snapped. She tried to scream for them to stop again, but again, the words wouldn’t emerge. This was the sort of thing she only ever imagined happening in movies. She felt like a bystander watching helplessly as brutes barged their way into her home. They couldn’t do this. Surely, they couldn’t.
A single unmade bed sat in the corner of the room; a few clothes scattered on the floor, but the detective’s eyes fell on the wall on top of his computer desk. It was covered with images of a girl – the girl.
She knew they were there. She had seen them a few times when he was in the shower and had left his door open. He was a very secretive boy, but she knew all his secrets. She knew about the photos, and she knew of the other things.
“Seize the computer, search through the wardrobes and look for a blue hoody,” he said and then faced the wall with the collage of pictures again.
It was obvious he recognised the girl. It was as if she could see into his brain and watch it process what it was observing. It was busy putting two and two together and getting six.
So absorbed in not losing him that she forgot about his room, the photos on the wall. She knew exactly how this would look to the outside world. She should have put them into the blazing fire as well.
She had failed. Failed as a mother, failed as a guardian and failed as a protector.
“Sir,” a police officer poked his head into the room, “We’ve found the remains of a piece of clothing in the garden furnace. It’s burned pretty bad, but we’ve salvaged what we could.”
Jessica’s stomach hit the ground. The world felt as if it was spinning faster than it should be.
“Don’t let anyone near it and get Forensics here immediately.”
“Sir,”
“And what colour was the clothing?” Nick asked as the officer was leaving.
“Blue… looks like a top and there are some stains on there – possibly blood.”
“Jessica Hyde,” Nick faced her. She knew what was coming next, “I’m arresting you on suspicion of tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later may rely on in court.”
His words sounded muffled. She could no longer make sense of anything he was saying, she lost all sensation in her legs. This was happening. This was actually happening. It felt as if every drop of blood in her body rushed up to her head and flooded her brain. She collapsed on the floor and everything went black.
Chapter 22
Zoe knocked on the door of the room where two officers were reviewing hours of CCTV. Although she was relying heavily on the footage to provide them with something useful, she felt sorry for the poor souls who had to do it. She couldn’t imagine herself sitting there watching for hours, not even knowing what they’re looking for, worried they may miss something but trying to chew threw it as fast as possible.
The two officers sat with the screens zoomed-in on a man wearing dark clothing, dark hair with silver streaks.
“This guy fits the description you sent us,” one of the officers said.
Zoe leaned over to the screen and looked at the man. He really did look like George Clooney – looked way too handsome to be a serial killer. It would be a shame, a damn shame if this were their guy.
“We think he might be a local,” the other officer said.
“What makes you say that?” she asked, excited that they might have a chance to catch this guy.
“Well, we watched four days of footage in and around Russell Square and we’ve spotted him on Southampton Row on more than one occasion.”
“OK,” Zoe said, “That’s good.”
“Wait, it gets better,” the officer said, “He used the ATM outside the Imperial Hotel twice last week. Once on Tuesday at 16:34 and once on Friday at 15.03.”
“You sure it was him both times?”
“Pretty certain,” He pulled up both images of the man side by side. On one, he was wearing a black jacket similar t
o what the witness described and in the other, he was wearing a blue jeans jacket with fur around the collars. The officer was right – different attire, same person. Kind of guy who would look great in anything he wore.
Nothing about the man, his appearance or his demeanour suggested he was involved in murder. He looked like an actor or a middle-aged model or anything – just not a killer. In her line of work, and life experience, however, she had come to realise looks can be deceiving. What you saw and what you think you saw can be two very different things – and if you combine this with what you wanted to see, then you can no longer trust your eyes or your thoughts. That’s why Zoe kept everyone at arm's length. She couldn’t afford to have people get too close – influence her mind – influence her decisions – influence her judgement. She wouldn’t get stung twice.
“You want us to send the details to the Indexers?” the officer asked.
“Erm… what? Sorry,” Zoe said snapping out of her trance, “Yes, send images of the suspect and notes on locations and the details of the ATM. We need to get in contact with the bank that runs that ATM and get the details of the card he used.”
“Yes, ma'am,”
Zoe thought about the little café Nick introduced her to. She could see why he liked it. Without realising, she had fallen in love with it. It wasn’t the café or the coffee; it was the escape. She never thought of herself as the kind of person who needed to escape. Life was too short and there was too much to be done to stop and reflect. What did reflecting do anyway apart from digging up dirt from the past? The past should be buried, and the future is still not determined – which leaves you with the here and now.
She sat at the desk and looked over to where Nick would usually sit. She wondered what he was doing – whether he had found Norman Hyde. She then thought about their trip to Nottingham and their awkward conversation. She replayed her reaction and cringed. She wasn’t even sure why it bothered her so much and then realised it wasn’t what he said that bothered her – it was him saying it that bothered her. Had it been anyone else she was sure she would have ignored it or changed the subject. She didn’t know why she felt like this but desperately needed to think of something else – anything else. Just not this. Not Nick.
