Found

by Erin Kinsley

  She smiles up at him.

  ‘Hi, sweetie,’ she says. ‘That was Rose, from the police. Do you want to know what she said? It was quite important.’ She pats the step beside her as encouragement, and Evan comes down and sits beside her. ‘They’ve got them, Evan. They’ve got the men who took you.’

  She isn’t prepared for Evan’s reaction, the burying of his head on her shoulder, the racking sobs and the way he clings to her. She puts her arms around him and pulls him close. The lounge door opens, and Jack appears. When he sees Evan crying, he looks concerned.

  ‘They arrested them in Sunderland,’ she says to Jack. Then she looks down at Evan, only now understanding the threat that he’s felt, the fear that they might come for him to silence him. ‘They can’t get you now, sweetheart. They’re all locked away. And they found Liam. Liam’s fine’ – though she knows this is a lie – ‘and there was a little girl there too. Rose says it was thanks to you and what you told them in Harrogate that they found them. She says thank you from Liam’s mum and dad.’

  Jack’s thinking of returning nightmares.

  ‘I think you should stay,’ he says. ‘It’s quite a shock for this young man.’

  ‘It’s a shock for us all,’ says Claire. ‘I’d better ring your dad and let him know.’

  ‘And I think we should have a little celebration,’ says Jack. ‘A cup of tea, and chocolate digestives all round.’

  Jack’s right about the nightmares. A while after midnight, Evan shouts in his sleep, but Jack’s so tired, he doesn’t hear him.

  But Claire hears. Pulling on her dressing gown and slipping on the fluffy rabbit slippers Evan gave her for Christmas, she makes her way to his room, and as Jack has advised her, opens the door as quietly as she can.

  The books Evan had in his Christmas stocking are on the bedside table, and one has a bookmark in it about halfway through. But instead of the book he’s currently reading, she hunts to the bottom of the stack, for a ragged old copy of Winnie the Pooh, and by the light seeping through the doorway, she finds the page she wants.

  Evan is troubled and restless in his sleep, but Claire sits at his bedside and begins quietly to read.

  ‘I don’t feel very much like Pooh today,’ said Pooh.

  ‘There there,’ said Piglet. ‘I’ll bring you tea and honey until you do.’

  FORTY-SIX

  3 January

  In the mirror, there’s no trace of the vital, fit, good-looking man Jack used to be. Instead, he’s been replaced by someone barely recognisable, an old man with flabby biceps in a baggy vest. He’s lost weight in his face, and there are blue bags under his eyes which make him look as if he hasn’t slept in months. And he hasn’t slept in months, not the long hours of deep slumber he used to fall into the moment the light was out, with Dora beside him in the best place in the world, his own bed in his own house. Sleep these days is erratic, demanding his surrender at odds hours of the day so he has no choice, wherever he is, but to find a place to make himself comfortable and close his eyes. Yet when he most feels the need for it – in the lonely night with the place beside him empty – sleep is elusive and refuses to take him, so what used to be the world’s best place is nothing more now than a reminder of all his world is lacking.

  Wetting his face, he rubs shaving cream into the short stubble on his jaw. He makes the first swathe with the razor, then rinses the soap and whiskers from the razor in the basin and makes a second cut.

  The pain which hits him is astonishing in its severity and suddenness, as if he’s suffered a violent sledgehammer blow to the chest. Without knowing how he got there, he finds himself on his knees, leaning on the toilet seat with one arm, holding himself with the other, as if doing so will help reduce the pain. He’s going to be sick, but doesn’t want to be, as being sick’s incompatible with lying down. He lies down now – his body compels him – as his mind is urgently weighing the possibility that this might be it, whatever it becomes. Yet there’s a remnant of instinct crying out, a glimmer of hope that he might survive, if he can get help. It’s that instinct which makes him struggle to shout – though the best he can manage is more of a groan – and realise if there’s to be help, he must let them in. Before the black descends, with everything that’s in him he reaches up and turns the key to unlock the bathroom door.

  What Jack remembers next is a view of the basin pedestal and his face on the bath-mat; the pressure of the door in his back, and someone calling his name; two men in green suits, and a yellow mask over his face; a needle in his arm, and the lessening of pain; being manhandled into a chair, and a skewed view of the pictures on the landing walls; Evan’s tearful face, and the worry written on Claire’s; the slam of the ambulance doors.

  Beyond that, nothing.

  Even though he feels like death, tender and sore inside and weighed down with a tiredness that makes it an effort to raise a cup of water to his lips, Jack’s cheered to see their faces. Matt’s hiding his concern behind a smile full of relief. Claire just looks pleased to see him, and Evan’s beaming and proud to be carrying gifts – black seedless grapes, a James Patterson paperback and a copy of Farmers Weekly.

  Evan’s intrigued by the environment, the mechanics of the automatic bed, the table-on-wheels with its jug of water, the drip and needle arrangement in the back of Jack’s bruised hand.

  Claire’s finding chairs as Matt sits down on the bed.

  ‘How are you feeling, Dad?’

  Jack wants to lie and say he’s fine, but he’s feeling so unwell it’s too much effort.

  ‘Better than I did when I was lying on that bathroom floor. I thought my time had come.’

  ‘We brought you these,’ says Evan, and lays the presents on the over-bed table. ‘I wanted to get you a Mars Bar, but Mum says you’re probably not supposed to have chocolate for a while.’

  ‘What have they said to you?’ asks Matt. ‘What have they done?’

  ‘Angioplasty.’ Even though Jack should be feeling better, his breathing still feels difficult, as if something heavy is weighing on his chest. ‘Some sort of stent. They should have done it years ago. Might have avoided all this drama if they had.’

  ‘When are you coming home, Grandpa?’ asks Evan.

  ‘I don’t know, son,’ says Jack, and as he says it he’s suddenly homesick, for the simple pleasures of his old armchair and a hot cup of tea, for the view across the valley and the bleating of the sheep, for cold air that smells of rain and grass, and for Millie running ahead of him across the yard. He misses it all, and feels a sudden, devastating sense of loss as if it might be lost to him for good, and he wants to cry.

  But he doesn’t want to make a fool of himself.

  ‘Pull up a chair, youngster,’ he says, ‘and help yourself to some of those grapes.’

  ‘Don’t you want them?’ asks Evan, but he’s already pulled half a dozen from their stalks and is popping them in his mouth. ‘Do you want me to read to you? We brought a book in case you do.’

  Jack thinks of the nights he’s read to Evan, whether Evan in his sleep heard him or not, and it strikes him how, sometimes, life takes odd turns.

  ‘I found nine eggs this morning when I went to feed the chickens. I fed the sheep too. I think one of them is lame, but I couldn’t catch her by myself to see the problem.’

  ‘Your dad will help you, won’t you?’ Jack looks at Matt as he speaks, and Matt frowns, sensing his father is talking about more than rounding up sheep. He gives Jack’s hand a squeeze, and is surprised when Jack replies with pressure of his own, a tight grip which leaves his knuckles white. ‘You must all help each other. That’s what families do.’

  Sensing Jack’s uneasy mood, Claire tries to change the subject.

  ‘Would anyone like coffee? I saw a machine just outside the ward.’

  ‘Hot chocolate,’ says Evan, without hesitation.

  ‘I’ll
have one, yes,’ says Matt. ‘Dad?’

  Jack shakes his head.

  ‘Evan, you come and help me carry them,’ says Claire. ‘I can’t carry three.’

  Jack watches them until they disappear past the nurses’ station.

  ‘You will look after him, won’t you?’ he asks. ‘He’s got a tough time coming up. You’ll have to take care of him while it’s going through the courts.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Dad. You’re just feeling a bit down after the operation. They fill you full of drugs and you don’t know whether you’re coming or going. You’ll be home to look after him yourself in a couple of days.’

  Jack doesn’t answer. On the monitor above his head, the line showing the rhythm of his heart is steady as it should be, but Jack can’t shake a sense of dread, that the regular rhythm is no more than a diversion, and that an enormous change is waiting in the wings.

  That night, alone in the dark, Jack can’t sleep, probably because he isn’t alone at all. Even from the luxury of a bay to himself he can sense other bodies nearby, occasionally hearing their snuffling and snoring. It isn’t truly dark either, with fluorescent light leaking from the nurses’ station, where from time to time the night shift gathers to chat and keep the patients awake.

  But despite physical evidence to the contrary, Jack feels alone, and he senses the darkness deepening. He decides to keep his eyes closed so as not to see it, but with them closed he senses something else, someone standing watching him from the end of the bed.

  He opens his eyes. No one is there, but the sense that someone’s close by won’t go away.

  ‘Dora?’

  He glances up at the machine tracking his heart – all the lines look normal – and closes his eyes again against the light he doesn’t want.

  As soon as his eyes close, he senses again that someone is there, alongside the bed now, almost touching his face. Maybe one of the nurses has come to take his blood pressure, and he waits to hear her speak, but no one tries to wake him. Lying perfectly still, he listens, but if someone is there, their breathing is silent. After a while, he finds he doesn’t mind them being there. He’s finally easing into sleep, tempting himself to drift off by replaying memories he loves: the first lambs of spring running on the home field; Dora on their wedding day; the day Matt first rode a bike; happy young Evan and himself hand in hand, carrying their fishing net down to the stream.

  When the pain hits, it’s a harder blow even than in the bathroom, an explosion in his chest which takes away his breath and numbs his arms. There’s a moment he knows he should press his red button, but the thought of doing so is transitory and floats away.

  Dora. His last thought is the certainty that it’s Dora waiting at his bedside, and he’s grateful that she’s there. Her presence soothes his strong objection that his time has come too soon.

  2.43 a.m., and at Ainsclough Top the phone is ringing, heralding bad news, just as it was the night Evan was lost. Befuddled with sleep, Matt hurries down the stairs and grabs the receiver before the caller rings off. As he listens to what the nurse is saying, he’s looking at the photograph of Jack and Evan, his younger, fitter father and his happy, smiling son.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ says the nurse. ‘It was totally unexpected. There must have been another problem we weren’t aware of.’

  Matt is in a daze.

  ‘What do we do now?’ he says. The question is rhetorical, a reflection on the abyss of the future, but the nurse answers with practical details on undertakers and morgues.

  Matt understands none of it. When he puts the phone down, Claire’s standing beside him. She puts her arms round him, and Matt begins to cry.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  9 January

  In the days following Jack’s death, some difficult decisions must be made. Matt and Claire are suddenly the owners of two properties, the Berkshire house where their life has been, and Ainsclough Top, where Evan is happier – as is Claire, now.

  Matt and Claire are sitting in the kitchen, drinking tea and looking out on the view Jack loved, the view Matt grew up with. The rain has turned to sleet, and there’s already a covering of white on the home field. Evan is in the lounge, staring at the scattered pieces of an Airfix model, seeming to lack interest in any pastime at all.

  ‘I can’t just quit,’ says Matt. ‘We have a mortgage to pay, remember?’

  ‘Not for much longer,’ says Claire. ‘Whichever house we sell, there’ll be no more mortgage. Evan doesn’t want to live in that house again, and I don’t care about it either. It would get snapped up. Close to motorway links, good school catchment area. All the reasons we bought it will sell it again.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘We’ll live here.’

  Matt’s cup is at his lips. Over its rim, he raises his eyebrows in incredulity.

  ‘Look at this place,’ says Claire. ‘Matt, it’s gorgeous.’

  Matt laughs.

  ‘It’s old and draughty and bitter cold. Set one foot outside now and it’ll freeze your extremities.’

  ‘But Evan doesn’t mind that. He loves being outside. He’s flourishing here.’

  Matt lowers his voice.

  ‘He’s not flourishing, Claire. He’s reclusive. He has no friends and no prospect of any. He’s got the body of a young man and the emotional age of an eight-year-old.’

  ‘That’s a defence,’ says Claire. ‘It’s the plaster on the wound while it heals. One day that plaster’s coming off, and there’ll be a new Evan underneath. In his own time, when he’s ready.’

  ‘I wish I shared your optimism.’

  ‘What’s the alternative, anyway? If he never moves on, where else can he be safe but here? What’s your suggestion, that we move to Maidstone or Bracknell or Slough, where he’ll stand out like a sore thumb? I know what you’re thinking, Matt. You’re thinking you don’t want to give up your company car and your designated parking place and your smart office and your seat at that big table in the boardroom.’

  ‘I don’t see what’s bad about that. I worked hard for those things.’

  ‘I know you did, and I’m not criticising you for that. But in case you hadn’t noticed, something bad happened to us, and that changes everything. Our ambitions don’t count any more. The only thing that counts is doing what we can for our son, the same way as we would have done if he’d lost a leg or suffered catastrophic brain injuries. He’s crippled, Matt. The only thing is, we can’t see the damage. But we owe him our support until he doesn’t need it any more. Please, think about alternatives.’

  ‘What alternatives?’

  ‘There are other jobs, Matt. Other companies. Couldn’t you try looking for a job near here? You know it’s what your dad would have suggested.’

  ‘It’s just not what I see as my future. Our future. We like the urban life.’

  ‘We used to. Things are different now. Please.’

  She reaches out across the table, offering her hand. He hesitates, and then takes it.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ he says.

  As the second hymn ends, the vicar beckons Evan from the front pew. Outside, the day is bitter, bright and blue; inside the church, the cold of centuries accumulated in the stone floor is numbing Claire’s feet. There’s the scent of white lilies, beeswax polish and, from the prayer books and embroidered hassocks, the mustiness of damp. Except for a throat-clearing cough, the rows of mourners behind them are silent. As he walks to the lectern, Evan’s new black shoes sound loud.

  He’s getting taller, filling out, and in his suit, shirt and tie, Claire thinks anyone would take him for a normal young man on his way to adulthood. And any normal young man would be nervous at the prospect of what Evan’s about to do. For Evan, it’s the equivalent of a difficult assault on Everest, and Claire feels so proud she could cry.

  Painstakingly printing in his childish handwrit
ing, Evan’s copied out on to card what he intends to read. He, Matt and Claire have written the words together during an evening of reminiscence, Evan eating chocolate digestives in Jack’s honour, Matt and Claire toasting him in Glenfiddich.

  Evan props the card up on the lectern.

  Claire’s afraid for him. She’s afraid he won’t be able to speak, more afraid he’ll look a fool. The silence grows long. Flushed with embarrassment, Evan glances down at his card and clears his throat.

  Beyond that, the silence grows longer.

  Claire’s thinking about going to rescue him, standing up to stand beside him, when Evan finally speaks in a voice that’s clear and strong.

  ‘My grandpa was a man who loved the land. He loved the fells in summer and the frosty fields in winter. He loved to watch the fish swim in the beck and hear the skylarks sing. He loved his sheep and he loved Millie, his dog. He loved my dad and mum and he loved his friends and everybody here. He loved my grandma very much indeed.’

  Chin trembling, he falters, unable to read any more of what he has written until he has wiped away tears with the back of his hand. Claire can hardly bear to look at him and see the misery of his grief. Matt’s head is bowed.

  But Evan carries on, and says his final words.

  ‘My grandpa loved me, and I loved him. I miss you, Grandpa.’

  FORTY-EIGHT

  31 May

  Crown Court Trial, Day 1

  ‘We have to stop meeting like this,’ says Ron. ‘People will talk.’

  The Lamb and Lion is quiet, in its usual Monday lunchtime dip. Naylor is already sitting at a window table, though there’s no view to the outside through the thick glass in the leaded panes, only half-hearted, watered-down daylight which doesn’t reflect the brightness of the warm day outside.

  ‘Let them talk,’ she says. ‘It never bothered us before. Nice tan, by the way. Don’t tell me you’ve got the sun-bed habit?’

  ‘Not in the way you mean,’ says Ron, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the back of a chair. ‘We’ve had a couple of weeks away. Malaga, very nice. Didn’t want to come home.’