Random Acts of Unkindness

by Jacqueline Ward

We are rushed through to ops, armed guards on every door, and finally we meet with the rest of the team who have rigged up a huge TV screen. Naturally, there are already news crews around. They’ve been there since yesterday, since the first police car arrived at Old Mill, and would have followed to the Gables.

  No doubt they would be outside my house right now, and at key points on the estate, which in a way, we’re all glad of, because it gives us some idea of what’s going on. Jim’s telling ops that he won’t risk the lives of any more men. He’s telling everyone that we need to keep calm and wait until nightfall when it should all quieten down.

  Jim’s telling everyone that we’ve prepared for this and that we’ll have it under control within twenty-four hours. I tune back into Jim’s briefing.

  ‘So, as we can see, word’s got out about the Gables and the goings-on there. Connelly’s not the most popular bloke around here right now. But, like us, he’s got a plan B and him and the top tier of his organization are long gone. Even so, we’ve put an All Ports out and also notified other forces of his potential involvement. Our long-term goals are to find them and bring them to justice. He’ll still be surrounded by people he trusts, maybe abroad, but he’s obviously left a legacy here, part of it being to assassinate several members of this team. So, as a result, we’ve temporarily moved their families to Point C.’

  I’m sitting at the back of the room, holding my bag between my legs. I glance at the computer in front of me, which is alternating between the blacked-out CCTV cameras in the area, occasionally finding one that Connelly’s thugs have missed.

  Now and then there’s a glimpse of a road on the estate or a park, or a road junction. I watch the serial numbers of the individual cameras as they trip over, making a mental map of exactly where they are, and what Connelly’s escape route would be.

  I jot it down on some scrap paper for later, confirmation that he headed for the airport. Jim’s still talking about what will happen next, and I zone out and press ‘Escape’ on the computer. I reset it to a certain time and a certain route.

  There’s a camera outside Sal’s flat, and one just around the corner. There’s a great one at the traffic lights on the high street, then one on the roundabout. Then they turn onto the motorway, and there are cameras on every bridge until the turnoff for the airport. Naturally, the airport is full of cameras. So I plot the route and scan the first camera, frame by frame, for any sign of Aiden and Sal. I start at 3.30 and fast forward, scanning every frame.

  Nothing for a while, then at exactly four o’clock, two grainy figures emerge from Sal’s flat and walk toward a BMW that pulls up as the door opens. I slow the frames down, and I see Aiden’s face clearly for the first time in months. He looks the same. Except he’s smiling. He’s carrying the travel bag and he’s smiling at the driver, who high fives him.

  He and Sal nudge each other, like a father and son who are excited about going to a football match, not skipping the country like criminals. No. Not like criminals. They are criminals. They get in the back of the car, like celebrities, and I wonder what they are to Connelly. Like Jim said, Connelly’s top tier would be removed, sent far away to regroup.

  I track them to the traffic lights and freeze the frame as they pass, the camera on Aiden’s side. He’s smiling widely, looking out of the window. No one has captured him. No one is leading him away against his will. My sixteen-year-old son is going on a criminal adventure with a man who, it turns out, I hardly know.

  I follow the car through the various cameras as it speeds down the M60 and turns off at the airport. Then at the entrance to the airport, they get out of the car and take their travel bags. I watch their backs as they approach the double doors, and then Aiden turns around and looks back at Manchester.

  Is this the bit where he momentarily thinks about me, about his mother? About his room, and where he lived? About Ruby and the bedtime stories? He stands there for a while, then, as if to prove me wrong one last time, he spits on the ground and follows Sal.

  I persevere. Through the airport, over to departures, harder to track now. But eventually I find them at the American Airlines desk. Sal takes out his phone and hands it to Aiden, who takes a photo of him. I silently will Aiden to turn around, come back, come back to me. There’s not even an All Ports call on them because only I know they have gone.

  Even now I hold a hope that he won’t go through to the gate, that he won’t leave. But he does. As they check in and immediately go through to catch their flight, to Cuba, it seems, Sal puts a protective arm around Aiden’s shoulder. Then they’ve gone.

  I roll back the footage until they’re there again. This will probably the last time I ever see my son. I save the whole of the footage into one file, then open the desk drawer and rustle around for a blank disk. It draws Jim’s attention, but I’m ready for him.

  ‘Everything OK, Jan? This is really important, so I hope you’re taking it in.’

  All eyes on me.

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, I was just trying to find out what route that bastard used to escape. Tracking the CCTV to find where he was off to. Predictably, all the blacked-out cameras lead to the airport.’

  There’s a reverent silence. Then Jim points at me.

  ‘Thanks. Can you save that as evidence?’ He points around the room. ‘Are you lot taking this in? Lateral thinking. She’s practically solved this case single-handed, using her head. Thinking outside the box. Now I’m not saying you should use any unorthodox methods, but you can learn from her. Don’t go into buildings on your own, always get backup, but do follow up leads. You’re detectives, for God’s sake.’ He rubs his head, then says what I expect everyone in the room has been thinking since the Gables was busted. ‘How the fuck have we managed to miss this one? It’s been going on for forty years, to one extent or another. But we’ve managed to let it slip through our fingers.’

  Obviously, I can’t resist. I breathe in and as I breathe out, the words escape.

  ‘You could have listened to me. About Aiden. And wondered why all these teenage boys were going missing.’

  He shakes his head and perpetuates exactly what he has been doing wrong.

  ‘But teenage boys run away all the time. We can’t possibly investigate all of them, can we? You must see that.’

  I nod.

  ‘Yes. I do see that. But the first thing I want you to do when this is all over is to compare all the missing boys files with those poor lads up at the Gables and see exactly how many have actually run away. And how many kids have been murdered.’

  His eyes betray him. They say that I should think myself lucky that Aiden wasn’t up there. But he doesn’t say that.

  ‘Anyway. Good work, Jan. We now need to focus on containing the aftermath.’

  I stare at the screen, one last look, then I close down the CCTV program and take the disk, slipping it into my bag. I press ‘Delete’ and wipe any trace of Aiden and Sal from the machine.

  Even now, I don’t want anyone rushing to the airport and arresting Aiden. Guilty, maybe by association, but I can’t do it. I can’t. It’s a catch-22. If I get Aiden back, he’s implicated and I’ll lose him all over again. At least this way he’ll have his freedom, of a sort. No one knows I know, and it’s going to stay that way. The downside is that I can’t send them after Sal, but it’s becoming clear he’s involved and it’s only a matter of time until they go after him.

  Mike and I are led through to the back of the station, into the yard. Jim appears and smiles at us.

  ‘I’ve got you two to thank for saving my life back there. I won’t forget it. Mike, you’ll go onward to Point C until this is over. Jan, we’ve secured a property in Saddleworth, out on the Huddersfield Road, where you can stay. I’ll need to talk to you about your sources. There’s also some unanswered question on the case of that woman, you know, the one you found in that house in Ney Street. Something wrong on the forensics. If you’ve got anything to say about it, tell me now. Jack’s calling for an investigation into why yo
u were in there, but in the light of what’s happened since, I doubt it’ll go anywhere. But I want the full story. So . . . ?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Not sure what you mean? What’s wrong with the forensics?’

  He smiles.

  ‘If I told you that I’d have to kill you.’

  I get into the car. Jim thinks he’s so clever, his cryptic little threats are supposed to keep me in line, yet he was so fully taken in by Sal. His head’s tilted to one side and I can see that he still thinks I’m slightly unhinged. Sal would have told him that I’d always been like that. A bit unpredictable. Quirky. Any inference he could muster that I was a little bit mad, without actually saying it.

  The man driving the car is someone I have met before, someone familiar to me, and I relax. My guard is a special ops guy, Piers, I know from training, and they take the scenic route across the city, avoiding Northlands, and upward to the crossroads.

  They take a right, up past the moor and farther on, out of the country and on to a remote cottage at the end of a long track. Piers checks it all out, then we go inside. Someone’s been here and the heating’s been on. There’s a TV and I flick it on and watch Sky News as the car pulls away. Piers goes upstairs and comes back down minutes later.

  ‘All seems OK. I’m going to be staying here with you. I checked it all out earlier, and there are three bedrooms, I’ve left the en suite for you.’

  Could be worse, I suppose.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘I don’t know how long we’ll be here. Until it’s safe, I suppose. But there are some great walks. I’ll have to come with you, of course, but we’ll need to get some exercise.’

  ‘OK. I’m just watching what’s happening. Kind of makes me wish I was still involved. Is there a computer?’

  He smiles.

  ‘No. No broadband up here. Not even sure that there’s a phone signal. Which is good. No one can find you. Why? Were you hoping to work from here?

  I nod.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve got some loose ends to tie up.’

  ‘You’ve done enough. You’re a legend in your own lifetime. How did you do it?’

  ‘Good old detective work. Looking everywhere, and eventually something comes up. You follow the lead, and sometimes it leads to nothing. Mostly. But you have to persevere. You have to carry on. Never give up.’

  He nods.

  ‘Never give up. Yeah.’

  I sigh and look out of the window into the dusk. There are no telegraph poles here, or trees near to the house. Yet starlings have grouped together on the high wooden fence around the back of the cottage. Nearer and nearer.

  At one point today I thought I was going to die. I felt my heart thumping when I heard the gravel footsteps. But it’s not my time yet. I’ve got more to face. I remember now what Jim said about Bessy and the forensics, and wonder how I’m going to explain it. Particularly as someone has appeared now to state that she was loaded and there may have been money in the house.

  I guess I have a lot to explain really. All about Sal, Aiden, how I knew about the Gables. So inevitably, I will have to tell about Bessy. Still, at what seems like a conclusion to all this for me, Aiden gone, Connelly gone, Sal gone, I still feel like there’s more. I think about the money and the notebook and what I need to do. Maybe Bessy has something to say about it. Maybe the notebook is, in the end, a living will?

  I go up to my room and fall into the warm, clean bed. I have the notebook, where I left Bessy unconscious on the moor, and I open it again, prepared to lose someone who has become an informant and more than a friend.

  Forty Birthday Cards

  I woke up in hospital the next day with a banging headache. It turned out I’d passed out and nearly died of exposure. My knee was bandaged up and I felt my legs, just to make sure they were still there. After dinner the doctor came round to see me.

  ‘Mrs Swain, I’m Dr Hussein. I’ve come to ask you about last night. Is that OK?’

  Dr Hussein was a tiny girl wearing a white coat.

  ‘Are you qualified? I don’t mean to be rude, but you don’t look old enough.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Yes, I am. And I’d just like to chat about last night. I’m the hospital geriatric specialist and I’d just like to assess you.’

  ‘Geriatric. Bloody hell, I’m only seventy-nine. There’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘So why were you on Saddleworth Moor digging in the middle of the night?’

  I suddenly realised that I hadn’t been to the doctor’s for years and I hadn’t been in hospital since Thomas was born. Thomas. I’d been awake more than five minutes and I hadn’t thought about him.

  ‘I was looking for my son. He’s been missing for over forty years. A psychic told me to dig there.’

  She’d sighed.

  ‘What psychic? And I still have your husband as next of kin. Is that right?’

  ‘No. He’s dead. And Thomas is missing. So there’s just me.’ She looked at me and tilted her head sideways and it reminded me of Sarah.

  ‘So there’s no one to look after you? Have you been managing on your own?’

  ‘Yes. For forty odd years. On my own.’

  ‘You can get help, you know. A cleaner, or meals on wheels.’

  ‘I don’t need a cleaner. I can do it myself. Thank you. Sarah Edwards. That’s the psychic. She was lying, wasn’t she?’

  Dr Hussein sighed.

  ‘I’ll get the police to come and see you. I think they have your car. Is it a blue Micra? You can tell them all about Sarah Edwards. Did you pay her much?’

  ‘Three hundred pounds. She said she had Colin and Thomas there with her.’

  I thought back to only yesterday and wondered what I had really expected to get out of it. It wasn’t as if she had tricked me, really. I knew she was a psychic and she knew I had a missing son. If you add it all up, she was obviously doing to tell me she was in touch with them. Otherwise, why would I go?

  In the brilliant light of the hospital ward, it sounded ridiculous. Dr Hussein probably thought I was cracked, all this about a bloody psychic and them digging up the moor. She told me a man walking his dog had found me.

  ‘Was it an Alsatian?’

  She frowned.

  ‘I’ve no idea. Why?’

  ‘Well, I go up there every day. Every day for a walk and to have a look round. It’s a beautiful place. I know it’s not very nice, with the bodies and all that, but it’s very picturesque.’

  ‘So you’re seventy-nine, you’re still driving and you’re up on Saddleworth Moor every day? What’s your secret, Mrs Swain?’

  I laughed.

  ‘A stress-free life, I reckon. No, I like to keep busy.’

  She talked to the nurses and came back.

  ‘You can go home later if you like. I’ll see you again in a month and we’ll do a test for dementia. Age-related of course, just to be on the safe side.’

  I sunk into my pillows and sighed.

  ‘I don’t think you understand, Dr Hussein. I haven’t got dementia, or Alzheimer’s. I’m dying of a broken heart. You see, nobody ever cared about me. I’ve been wondering what’s happening to my son for more than forty years. I haven’t known if he is alive or dead. I think that would send anyone a little bit crazy at times. I was just looking for my baby.’

  I could see her glancing at her watch as I was speaking. Probably late to pick her own kiddies up, or thinking about what to make for tea. Just like everybody else, it was nothing to do with her.

  ‘There are special people you can talk to about that, Mrs Swain. Would you like to make an appointment with one of our counsellors?’

  I scratched my head and a piece of heather fell out of my hair.

  ‘Why do we need special people? Why don’t people care?’

  Dr Hussein was writing something in her notes and she didn’t answer me. I suppose I already knew the answer. These days especially, with all the missing people and the child abuse.

  It’s
always in the papers, how there are lots of people murdered all the time, and kiddies going through all sorts. I’m sure it didn’t used to be like that. Only for me and my son. Oh, and the poor children who were murdered. You hardly ever heard of it.

  Now it’s happening all the time. I wondered if people were getting more evil, or if it was just because we hear about it more through being online and all that? I expect there were always bad people, but where were all the good ones? The ones who claimed to be looking after us, like Dr Hussein.

  I looked at her, she had a little smile and she was humming as she wrote. Probably thinking about her own life, trying to pin my madness on some medical cause, Alzheimer’s, dementia, or my age. Not giving a bugger about what I’ve told her, just offloading me into some bloody cause of a disease that she can fit me nicely into.

  ‘As I said, I’ll make an appointment for you. You will come, won’t you?’

  I nodded, but I never went back. I went home and the police called round, asked me if I wanted to make a complaint against Sarah. But what was the point? By now I’d worked out that she just wanted to help me. How was she to know I would go up on the moor in the middle of the night?

  She probably just thought I’d pin the map on the wall and look at it, or show the police and they’d do nothing. Of course, I asked them if they would take a soil sample from the place I’d been digging, and they agreed.

  They told me it would take a month to analyse and, after three months, I received a letter saying that the sample did not contain human remains. I put the letter into a suitcase packed with forty years’ worth of letters just like that one.

  Life settled back into normal and years went by in a flash. Nothing changed, no news of Thomas or him. A couple of books had come out and I’d read them from cover to cover, looking for details I might have missed. And I’d found out about the Internet. I was online. I was part of a group online that looked for missing people.

  You could post up a picture, and they would meet up and run marathons and raise money. They were a bit like modern day John Connelly events, with bunting and crying mothers. I got in touch with them and taught myself how to send an e-mail, soon I was sending them all over the place.