The family tried to get some sleep and begged me to do the same but I knew I wouldn’t be able to. In the end, to stop everyone fussing, I decided to lie down on the floor with one hand on the phone. I didn’t close my eyes once because I knew, if I did, all I would see was James needing me and the only way to stop that was to keep them open. I wouldn’t even put a mattress down as comfort felt wrong – feeling warm and cosy was the last thing on my mind and, in a way, the worse I felt the better I felt, if that makes sense. I refused to even lie on the couch and would have much preferred to be sitting in the plastic chair at the police station, where I could at least see what was going on. I was lying on the floor facing my mum’s fireplace – it was white with engraving going down the front and there was a small wall light over the top. I was concentrating so hard on the pattern, trying to make out what it was, that I realised it had become an angel with wings. Suddenly I sat up with a fright, terrified that this was a sign James had died and this was his way of saying goodbye before he left this world. Perhaps that very moment was the moment he went? I remember saying to myself, Stop that, Denise. Don’t let yourself go there for God’s sake, just don’t. I sat bolt upright until dawn and then begged to be taken back to the police station.
The police wanted to hold another press conference to keep the media on board and informed – I was too distraught to do it this time so they all agreed that Ralph would read a statement that I prepared for him. I tried to keep it as calm and straightforward as possible:
Me and my wife want to say to the lads who were seen with him, whoever they are, if they could come forward and get themselves eliminated or bring my son back, as long as he is safe nothing will happen to them . . . just as long as he gets back. If they could drop him into the nearest police station or somewhere safe or phone or something, or anyone can give information, whatever, no matter how small it is, just get in contact.
There had been a really definite sighting of James at around 4:30pm on the Friday. He was with two boys and the female witness had looked closely at the pictures and was sure it was James, but the police wanted anyone else to come forward who might have seen anything, however small. Apparently the witness asked the two boys about James and they said they had just found him, a mile away from The Strand, heading towards Breeze Hill. The police were also keen to reassure the lads who had him that they would not be in trouble as long as James was returned home uninjured. I am not sure who was at the press conference as I was too upset to go, but I think that DCI MacDonald was running the conference and I hoped he would update Mandy as soon as there was any news so that she could tell me.
Despite the fact I was determined to be upbeat, I wasn’t stupid. James had been missing for nearly 45 hours and I could see the despair in the faces of the officers – I could also definitely feel it in the body language of Mandy. They weren’t expecting a happy ending, but I couldn’t let those thoughts in. That weekend, time stopped for me, and I existed in some kind of parallel universe. People often ask at what point I realised James being with two kids wasn’t going to end well and the answer is never. Even after the funeral and the thousands of letters, even during the court case when those two boys were standing trial for his murder, even then I thought he was coming home. That last day in court I still told myself I was only going to have to suffer life without James for a while but that he would be home as soon as that trial was done. It was after the trial that my world truly collapsed and the reality of never seeing my baby again hit me.
But that Sunday I needed to get out and do something, especially after Ralph and the family went back out to search a new area. I told Mandy that I felt hopeless, stuck in that family room waiting, doing nothing, I had to at least try and find my baby, so Mandy agreed to take me out in the car again at about 3pm. I can’t remember where we went but yet again I was quizzing Mandy on what she thought might happen. After all, she had more experience than I did when it came to missing kids. I was sitting in the passenger seat and I turned to her and said, ‘Do you think I am going to get him back?’
Until now she had been upbeat and encouraging, but this time she looked at me and said very gently, ‘What do you think?’
I refused to take the hint and remember just thinking, You’re the policewoman, that’s why I am asking you. My brain couldn’t cope with any kind of gentle preparation for the worst.
We were quiet after that and carried on driving around – we hadn’t been out very long, maybe 20 minutes or half an hour, when Mandy got a call on her police radio to come back to the station immediately.
I swivelled round in my seat, saying to her, ‘They’ve found him, haven’t they?’
Mandy just looked at me and said calmly, ‘I don’t know.’
I knew, though. I was convinced they had found him. What I didn’t hear when she took the call was the instruction: ‘Come back to the station immediately . . . and turn your radio off.’
We drove to the station in silence, got back to Marsh Lane in a flash, parked up and made our way into the station. One of my strongest memories of that day was being met by DS Albert Kirby, DCI Geoff MacDonald and DI Jim Fitzsimmons at the entrance. Just as we were going in, other police officers were running out and there were people everywhere. I studied their faces and it was hard to tell. I started shouting, ‘Have you got him?’ but I couldn’t get a straight answer out of anyone. I asked Mandy and she didn’t really answer either, so I became upset and was led back to the family room to wait for news. I don’t even know who took me back but I think I was there for 40 minutes or so. I had no idea that Albert Kirby had driven to Walton to be sure it was James before I was told the devastating news. I just knew that the waiting was driving me insane. But there was still a big part of me that expected them to come in carrying James and for everything to be fine. I kept asking Mandy over and over again if they had James and she just kept saying she didn’t know.
I genuinely don’t know who else was in that room with me because I blocked it out – I think family started coming back from the search to see if there was any news and I just remember that suddenly the room felt very crowded and small. They were all still trying to be upbeat – they hadn’t seen Albert Kirby’s face; they hadn’t seen Mandy get that call. What felt like a lifetime passed and the door kept opening and closing – I didn’t take any notice of who came in and who went out, but suddenly I heard Geoff MacDonald’s voice; I heard him before I saw him. I just knew, in my bones I just knew. I refused to look up thinking perhaps if I didn’t look at him then it wouldn’t be true. I felt Geoff kneel down beside me and he put his hand on mine.
My mind was blank – I still had to think hard about why I was even there. Where is James? Why aren’t they bringing him to me? The room went silent and I heard the heartbreaking words, ‘I’m sorry.’
I looked up and said, ‘Sorry? What? Sorry? Why?’
Geoff looked at me and said, ‘We’ve found him and it’s not good news.’
And then I don’t remember a single thing until I woke up on the floor. Later one of the officers on duty at the station that day said, ‘I just heard an almighty screech, real bottom of the gut stuff, like an animal. I burst into tears because you just knew what that meant; you just knew her heart was broken.’
Chapter 8
Starting a Life Sentence
From the moment that Mandy picked me up from the floor and helped me onto a chair, all I remember is the air being filled with silence. It stayed that way for months.
As I came round, I looked up at the sea of concerned faces and I didn’t hear or feel a single thing. Mouths were moving and hands were reaching out to me – to steady me, to offer comfort, to tell me how sorry they were. One thing I realised very early on is that people touch you a lot when they don’t know what to say, it’s strange the things you think about when your world has stopped turning.
Ralph was still out looking for our precious boy with my brother Ray and some of the rest of the family. I remember thinking I sh
ould ask if he knew that James had been found and then my mind went black again. I was like a statue, rooted to the spot and I have no idea how long I sat on that chair in the tiny police interview room – it could have been days for all I know. I think an officer went to find Ralph and Ray and insisted they should come back. Not knowing what had happened, Ray says that he and Ralph were frustrated at being brought in – they wanted to keep looking for James and didn’t understand why the police weren’t keen for them to do so. Eventually they were driven to a car park so that Ray could collect his car and, while they were getting ready to leave and come back to the station, Ralph’s brother Jimmy pulled up. Apparently Mandy had told Jimmy about James at the police station and they all decided that it was better for a family member to find Ralph and break the news in person. So that’s how Ralph found out our baby had been murdered: sitting in a random car park on Valentine’s Day.
In truth, this is where a lot of the detail is lost for me – I either can’t remember because I have blanked it out or else the facts were kept from me for my own sake. They say that the brain filters out what we can’t cope with and that is certainly true in my case – it became immediately clear I could not process what I had been told. I remember saying over and over in my head, But where is James and when is he coming back? Why weren’t they bringing him to me now they’d found him? It didn’t sink in and I certainly hadn’t allowed my mind to compute the fact that, if James was dead, that meant the two boys in the CCTV footage had murdered him. I remember being offered a visit from the police doctor, which I declined, and I remember Ralph coming into the room and putting his arms around me. That’s pretty much all I can recall of the day I was told my beautiful baby, who loved anything to do with trains, had been found dead on a railway track in Walton.
A group of boys had found his body on the line, nearly three miles away from The Strand shopping centre where I had last held his hand. Ironically, even though hundreds of volunteers and police officers had been searching round the clock for James, his body ended up just 100 yards away from Walton Police Station. I wasn’t given any information about how they thought James had died, only that the way he had been found immediately ruled out accidental death. It is important to say here that I have never found out the exact nature of all that was done to James in his final hours and I never will – I know as much as my heart can take.
I don’t remember who drove me back to my mum’s. I didn’t even know if she had been told as I sat in the back of the car, hugging my knees and totally wound in on myself. All I do recall is walking straight into the kitchen and seeing my sister standing there, eyes full of tears. She grabbed hold of me and yanked me into her chest and we stayed there, completely still, neither one of us saying anything. I can’t remember if I cried, I do know that I was utterly numb.
Everyone meant well and people started coming round with food and cards and kind words, and I watched them like it was happening to someone else. I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep, I didn’t shower, I didn’t talk – it was like I was floating. I’d wander round the house and suddenly become aware I was in a room I couldn’t remember walking into. I was just shuffling aimlessly from room to room and there was no purpose or point to anything. Hours bled into each other, day and night were the same to me. 12th February 1993 was the day I stopped sleeping and I haven’t had a full night’s rest since. The nights were always the hardest time – they still are.
A few things stand out from the first days after James was found: I recall walking into my mum’s washing room the morning after and being aware of how cold it was. Even though it was the middle of winter, the window was open and there was an ice cream van outside – I remember thinking how strange it would be to eat ice cream all bundled up in winter coats, mittens and hats. The driver turned off his jingle alert, which meant I could hear his radio. The news was on and it was loud, lots of chatter about all that was happening in the world, and suddenly this chirpy newsreader announced that the two-year-old boy who had gone missing in The Strand shopping centre had been found dead. I was standing by the window looking out and I clearly remember thinking to myself, His poor mum, she must be in bits. Then I heard my brother storm outside and bang on the window of the van. He shouted, ‘Have some bloody respect – that two-year-old all over the news had a mum. She’s in that house right there and she can hear every damn word.’ They both turned to look at me and my brain finally caught up with the reality of what was happening: if I was that poor mum then that meant my baby was dead. I remember turning around and climbing back up the stairs to lie down and try to block it all out.
On the second night I had an overwhelming need to go back to the flat and be around James’ things but none of my family thought that was a good idea. I hadn’t been left alone for a second (in fact, I didn’t spend a single night on my own until well after the trial was over), my family just wouldn’t allow it. Looking back I know they were terrified of what I might do and they had every reason to be scared for me: the days passed and I wished them all away. People talk about returning to normality after a death, but to me that meant going back to the way things were before – and that meant being at home with James. I was desperate to hold my baby and feel close to him and the only place I could achieve that was the flat where we had been together all the time. That was the place I fed him, cuddled him and snuggled into him as he watched cartoons on my lap. Every night I would bath him, read him stories and tuck him into bed. I would whisper ‘I love you’ as I turned the light out and I would sink into the sofa, exhausted, but content that my baby was all clean and safe in his bed. The flat was where I had protected him.
That night I waited until everyone had gone to bed and my sister had made her usual check on me before she turned in. Once the lights were out I got dressed. I knew it was unlikely that anyone would hear me leaving, we were all so wrung out and exhausted from living on our nerves that deep sleep came easily to the rest of the family, even if the misery had the opposite effect on me. I snuck out the back in order to avoid the photographers camped by the front door and set off for home.
It was a journey I had made thousands of times, that walk from my mum’s back to mine with James all safely strapped in his buggy. We would chat away about what he was having for tea, sing songs and recite his ABC as he pointed out things along the way – more special time for the two of us that was gone forever. I got to the flat and put my key in the door. I didn’t dare turn on the outside light in case that alerted the paparazzi, so it was dark as I went inside. I shut the front door, switching on a lamp, and it just hit me like a sledgehammer – so hard that it actually took my breath away. I hadn’t even gone right inside; I felt it immediately as I paused in the hall. The place was full of James at every turn and it was like I could physically feel my heart shattering inside my chest as my eyes took in each thing of his: his tiny trainers, his coat with string mittens dangling from the sleeves, his go-kart parked by the door and ready for a trip to the park – every glance was like a bullet to my chest. I wanted the feel of James back and this was where I felt closest to him, this was where I had been his mummy, but it was breaking me to see all the things he would never use again.
I looked at the TV he danced in front of, the special chair that he would never eat in again. I ran my hand over his pile of books and smiled at his bike in the middle of the room – right where he had left it as I chased him round that Friday morning trying to put his shoes on and get over to my mum’s. I had been in such a rush to get him out of the house, I wondered why now. Why didn’t I slow down so I could savour those last moments? I went into the bedroom – there were his clean jammies neatly folded on the end of his bed, all ready for the night he never came home. It was like being frozen in time. I sat down and I tried to soak in the feel and the smell of him – it was everywhere as I breathed in, as I touched the sofa and the walls.
The living room door was always wedged open because James would hurtle through it at a hundred miles an hour, I h
ad to keep it secure as I am sure he would have crashed right through it otherwise! I sat, eyes fixed on that door, waiting for him to come spinning round the corner, big smile, hair bouncing like mad. The crushing feeling of knowing I would never see him again almost suffocated me. As I went to close the door into the living room I saw his hand smear on the glass door, and right then I knew I would never be able to live here again. It was impossible. This flat had been a home for the three of us, now it felt like there was no one left. It was like we had all died with him.
I curled up on the sofa and stayed for a few hours, creeping back early in the morning – no one had even noticed I’d gone as they were asleep, and I felt like the loneliest person in the world. Ralph was with his mum and had no idea I had been missing, and the one person who would have immediately noticed my absence when he woke up in the morning was my baby. He would have climbed out of bed, his little feet scurrying across the carpet as he called my name, but now he was gone and it felt like I had no one at all.
It was as if I’d started a life sentence – a veil came down and I just retreated from everything and everyone around me. I was staying at my mum’s but we could barely find the words to say anything comforting to each other. She retreated to her bedroom for hours on end and I did the same in my sister’s bedroom, which she had given up for me. When we talk about it now, my brother Ray says that Mum and I were so similar in how we handled our grief – we both closed up and didn’t let anyone in. It was a house weighed down by anguish – my mum hadn’t long buried my dad and now she was faced with a daughter who had lost a child. But she had lost James, too, and they were so close, especially after Dad died – she saw him every day; he adored her. I didn’t know how to comfort her and she didn’t really know what to say to me. I think it broke her heart to see me catatonic with loss and aching for the one thing she couldn’t give me back. As a mother, no matter how old our children get, all we want to do is make it okay, and knowing you can’t do that for your child is the most devastating feeling in the world. Suddenly it felt like loss and despair were all we had in common.
I Let Him Go: The heartbreaking book from the mother of James Bulger Page 7
