Killing a Stranger

by Jane A. Adams

  Do you even know what’s on? Patrick wanted to ask, Instead, he offered, ‘Sorry I’m late,’ hoping that would do.

  Harry didn’t move. ‘I was worried about you,’ he said. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Out. Just out.’

  ‘It’s past twelve. You can’t have been “just out” all this time.’

  Patrick could both hear and feel the degree of control Harry was exercising just to keep his voice steady. Remorse and irritation – what right had his dad to make him feel guilty? He’d done nothing wrong – fought it out in Patrick’s head. ‘I was with Charlie,’ Patrick said. ‘And Becky.’

  ‘I called Charlie’s parents. They didn’t know where you were either.’

  ‘You did what?’ Irritation won. ‘You checking up on me?’

  ‘You didn’t call, your phone was off. I told you, I was worried.’

  ‘I don’t need you checking up on me.’

  Harry got out of his chair and faced his son. ‘And I don’t need to be sitting here, worried sick. Anything could have happened. Anything.’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ Patrick stared sullenly at his feet. Guilt had been tagged by conscience and had now entered the ring. ‘I was just out, that’s all.’

  Harry took a deep breath. ‘Where did you go to? Am I at least allowed to know that?’

  Patrick shrugged. He wondered how Becky and Charlie’s parents were reacting now. Charlie, being a nominal adult, had parents who were pretty flexible about his comings and goings, but he could imagine Becky’s mum and step-dad would be less than pleased to know where their daughter had been. Harry rarely lost his temper. Sometimes, Patrick almost wished he would, then he could shout back, feel justified in being angry.

  ‘Patrick?’ Harry prompted.

  Patrick sighed. ‘Becky got a phone call,’ he said. ‘Charlie and me, we went with her.’

  ‘Went where? A phone call from …?’

  Wearily, Patrick threw himself into his father’s recently vacated chair. Harry hesitated for a moment and then settled on the sofa opposite and Patrick knew that he was partly off the hook. Harry wasn’t about to yell at him or get mad or interrogate or any of the things Patrick half wished he’d do. Harry was preparing to listen and in a strange sort of way, Patrick found that even harder. It meant he had to talk, to explain, to …

  ‘We went to see Rob’s mum,’ he said. ‘She called Becky, wanted to talk to her, and to Charlie, I suppose. Becky said she wished she hadn’t rung at home, knowing how Becky’s mam and step-dad felt about Rob, but they were out and I guess she didn’t want to go alone, so I suppose she just asked Charlie and me to go along and …’

  He was rambling, making no sense what so ever. He wanted his bed. He wanted his dad to ask him the right questions so he didn’t have to go through the whole thing again like they had with Clara. He wanted to be left alone.

  He lifted his gaze and stared at his dad, not sure which of those things he desired most and hoping that Harry would make the choice for him. Then all he’d have to do was respond. Though, Patrick wasn’t even sure he could do that very well right now.

  Harry met his gaze and held it. He, being Harry, didn’t do any of the things Patrick had anticipated. Instead, he said quietly, ‘When my sister disappeared, my mother … she wanted to talk to anyone and everyone who might have seen or talked to her or known anything. Even the most stupid little thing. She would hang around outside the school gates, waiting. I suppose for Helen, I don’t know. I think she hoped … half believed my sister would come out of the school with the other children and the nightmare would be over.’

  Patrick was distracted. ‘Nan did that?’

  Harry nodded. ‘The other parents, they tried to understand. To be patient with her, but she did it, day after day, standing there as the children came out, demanding to know if they’d seen her child, if they knew anything. The parents complained to the head teacher and to the police. She was, they said, frightening their children, but you know, I think really, she was frightening them.’

  ‘Them? How?’

  Harry smiled sadly, recalling just how distraught and desperate his mother, Mari, had been. ‘I think, you know, that she was quite unhinged for a while.’

  ‘Nan?’ Mari was one of the sanest, most sensible and ordered people Patrick could think of.

  ‘But the other parents, they were … afraid, I think. It was as though they feared … contamination. Tragedy, especially a tragedy that involves a child, it brings home to you just how precious and fragile your loves and lives can be and, however sympathetic people are, however much they care and give their support, they are still afraid. They think, it’s happened once; might it not happen again?’

  ‘And do you feel like that?’ Patrick wanted to feel aggrieved if Harry did, but at the same time, he felt awed by the revelation, as though suddenly privy to some shameful secret of the adult world.

  Harry nodded. ‘I’m ashamed to say that a little part of me does feel that way,’ he said. ‘A little part of me wants to know what it was that went wrong in your friend’s life that made him do what he did. To kill yourself; to take your own life … frankly, Patrick, I find it hard to comprehend. Helen, my little sister, her life was taken from her. She didn’t have any say in the matter or any power to change things. Oh,’ he added, looking at the turmoil written on his son’s face, ‘I’m not judging your friend. For someone so young to be in such despair is a thing that should never happen. Never, in a million years.’

  He paused, left the silence as an invitation to his child, but Patrick shook his head, unable to fill it. What could he say? Rob killed himself because he’d killed another person? How could Harry be expected to react to that? Patrick just couldn’t bring himself to speak the words out loud.

  ‘I’m tired out, Dad,’ he said at last. ‘I need to go to bed.’

  Mutely, Harry nodded. ‘His mother must be …’

  ‘Yeah,’ Patrick told him, ‘yeah, she is.’ He left the room, the tightness in his throat preventing him from saying more. Harry’s following gaze seemed to be drilling a hole right into his stiffened back.

  Across town a girl lay wakeful in her bed. Jennifer was seventeen. She was also pregnant, though not enough yet that it showed; not unless you really looked hard.

  Creased in her hand was the front page of the local paper. She had gazed at the image so long and so hard that if she closed her eyes, it seemed imprinted on the inside of the lids. And, as she stared up at the ceiling, the shadow of it danced before her eyes like a projection in the dark.

  The picture was of Robert Beresford. Now deceased, believed to have fallen from a bridge into the canal and died among the weeds and dumped shopping trolleys and filthy, muddy water. The picture had been taken at the school prize giving the year before and Rob, clutching a book, smiled out self-consciously.

  Jenny liked his smile. She had always liked his smile.

  She turned over on her side, trying to block the images that swam before her eyes, images that seemed magnified by the unshed tears.

  Eight

  As predicted there had been a fair amount of media interest in and around the school, though Eileen Mathers, the head teacher, had done everything in her power to keep them off school premises, threatening legal action should anyone trespass.

  She had been particularly concerned for those of Rob’s friends who were at the school and might be identified. The suicide of a promising student made good copy. She had issued a statement on behalf of the school. The usual phrases of ‘tragic loss, a life cut short too soon, a bright, popular and happy boy’. Naomi had heard it on the lunchtime news. She had heard too in the voice of this head teacher, a woman used to dealing with the squalls and storms of adolescent angst, that she was deeply and personally shocked by this particular death and that the words, however clichéd, were sincerely meant.

  Naomi was sincerely relieved that the connection between Rob’s death and that of Adam Hensel had not been publicized. She had n
o doubt that the media would make the connection, but hoped that there would be bigger, more certain news to fill their pages and that Rob and his family and her friends would be left in peace.

  It was with relief also that only one paper made the connection between Patrick and the siege and Rob, and then it was to make only some bland comment about tragedy in young lives and the stresses our modern teenagers were under. Naomi didn’t quite see the connection between being held hostage and the strains of teenage years, but if that was all they had to say, she was willing to let it lie.

  ‘How are you getting on with it?’ Patrick asked. She was still playing with the voice activated software he’d persuaded her to buy. In theory, it meant that she could use her computer unaided. So far, it had proved to be more trouble than it was worth. She had spent the required amount of time training it – she began to think it had taken less time to train Napoleon – and had duly repeated the lessons when it still failed to comply with her voice commands. Patrick had suggested it might need more RAM and gave her an extended lecture on how temporary files were created every time she did anything and information was constantly being swapped … or something.

  ‘Better today. Your idea has made a difference. Look, I wrote a letter and listened through read back. It almost makes sense.’

  Patrick came and peered over her shoulder. ‘Cool. Most of it is actual words.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘Yeah, but you watch this.’

  She switched on the microphone and spoke into it, ‘Internet.’

  The screen changed and the machine logged on.

  ‘Browse.’ She turned away from the microphone. ‘See. Soon I’ll be able to shop online.’

  ‘Brilliant. You tried it yet?’

  ‘Well, no, actually, that’s as far as I got, but it’s better than nothing. I have hit a problem though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going to have to memorize a whole heap of web addresses.’

  ‘Maybe you should persevere with the Braille. I expect there are directories.’

  ‘Braille smail. Patrick, I’ll never get that. There’s got to be another way. You did better than I can.’

  ‘Yeah, but I have less years to unlearn.’ He dodged out of the way before she realized she’d been insulted. ‘Guess what. No reporters outside the school today.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good. Obviously something more interesting going on. I heard there was a big fire, warehouse or something up by the docks. Maybe they’ve gone up there. How’s things generally, anyway?’

  ‘Oh, you know. It still doesn’t make sense. I nearly got into a row with Dad last night.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  He hesitated, sat down on the floor near her computer table and leaned back against the wall. Napoleon huffed down on top of him. ‘We went to see Clara. Rob’s mum. She asked us to.’

  ‘Did Harry object to that?’

  ‘No. I got back late and I didn’t phone. Naomi, has Alec talked to you about stuff? About Rob, I mean.’

  She nodded. ‘Patrick, where is this leading?’

  ‘Clara told us something, but I didn’t tell Harry, I didn’t know how and he was worried enough last night and, well, it didn’t seem to be the right time. But then, I got to thinking today and I don’t think there’ll ever be a right time, so I think I’ve got to tell him tonight. Naomi, I don’t know how.’

  ‘Clara told you about Adam Hensel.’

  ‘Yeah. She did.’ He waited and then he asked what he really wanted to know. ‘Do you think he did? Kill this man, I mean.’

  Naomi sighed. ‘You want me to talk to your dad?’ she asked him.

  ‘That sure,’ Patrick said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because all of the evidence points that way. Adam’s blood on Rob. Rob’s prints on the knife. No evidence, at least yet, of anyone else on the scene. That’s why.’

  He said nothing and Naomi wondered if she should be the one to break the silence. Finally, it was Patrick who spoke out. ‘Can you tell my dad,’ he asked her. She could tell from his voice that he was trying not to cry.

  Nine

  The inquest into Rob’s death had been opened and adjourned, though it had been agreed that his body could be released for burial and it was tacitly understood that a verdict of suicide was likely to be the eventual one. Toxicology reports revealed both narcotics and alcohol in his bloodstream. The miracle was that he’d made it to the bridge at all.

  It was a factor Clara had problems in squaring with her memory of her son on that night. He’d been distressed, certainly, despairing. But drunk? No. High? She didn’t think so.

  Nothing had been found in the search carried out at her home and Charlie had been adamant that Rob, though he might get drunk occasionally, didn’t do drugs. Patrick backed him up with similar vehemence.

  It was only Becky that cast doubt. ‘The past week or so,’ she said ‘he’d got himself involved in other stuff.’ She either really didn’t know or didn’t want to say what. ‘It was one of the things we’d rowed about the night of Charlie’s party. Mum and him were already down on Rob. If he’d turned up at my place the way … the way he was when we met up the night before Charlie’s party …’

  ‘One of the things you argued about?’ Patrick asked her but Becky must have felt she’d betrayed Rob’s memory enough already. She shrugged her shoulders and looked away. Patrick knew he’d get nothing more from her.

  The funeral was a quiet, empty affair. Naomi and Harry attended with Patrick. Harry, to support his son and Naomi because she felt drawn in by her association and because she knew just how much Harry hated funerals. They reminded him too much of the memorial they had for his sister, Helen, and, later, much, much later, Helen’s funeral. They, apart from Clara and the odd neighbour, were the only adults present.

  Why, Naomi wondered, did they so often sing ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ at funerals? They had, she recalled, sung the hymn at Helen’s and at her father’s. She mumbled the words, remembering them well enough from long ago school assemblies. Beside her, Harry intoned with more emotion than accuracy and Patrick was silent, his arm pressed close against hers. She could feel him shaking. Napoleon nuzzled at her hand, sensing that his people were upset and ill at ease. She felt Patrick’s hand brush hers as he reached down to fondle the dog’s silky ears.

  A little distance away, a woman wept, her sobs a constant backdrop to the singing and then to the eulogy which spoke of lost opportunity and a life cut short too soon. As if we needed telling that, Naomi thought.

  There was to be no wake.

  Charlie and Becky joined them outside, and Patrick stepped away from his father and Naomi to speak to them, their voices hushed as though overcome by the solemnity of the moment.

  ‘I should be going,’ Harry said uneasily. ‘I can stay,’ he added, addressing his comment to his son.

  ‘No, Dad, you’d better go. You’ve got that meeting and stuff. Look,’ he added, ‘thanks for coming. I’m glad you did.’

  ‘I’m glad too,’ Harry told him. ‘You sure you’ll be OK? How are the three of you getting back to … wherever?’ It was a school day, but Harry wasn’t so naïve he thought that’s where they’d go.

  ‘We’ll be OK, thanks,’ Charlie answered for them. ‘We’ll walk back home, I think. We can go back along the towpath.’

  ‘The towpath?’

  Naomi could feel Harry force back the protest. The canal was where Rob had died, where … other bad things had happened. ‘OK, then,’ he managed, his voice just fractionally unsteady. ‘Nomi? You want for me to call a taxi? Or I could give you a lift?’

  ‘I can do that,’ a woman’s voice. ‘I’m Rob’s mother,’ she added. ‘Clara Beresford. I just wanted to thank you. For coming along. All of you.’

  Not many had, Naomi thought. The echoing emptiness of the crematorium and the few voices raised to praise the ‘Bright and Beautiful’ had told her that. She wondered if Clara had invited others or chosen not to. Clara’s voice was t
hickened by the tears she had shed.

  ‘You must be Naomi,’ Clara said quietly. ‘And Harry, Patrick’s father.’

  Harry confirmed his identity and repeated his excuses. He kissed Naomi on the cheek and checked again that she would be alright to get home.

  Naomi found herself walking down the path from the crematorium, Patrick and his friends behind and Clara at her side.

  ‘I really am so sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine what you must be going through.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s worse,’ Clara told her candidly, ‘losing my son or knowing he killed someone else’s. It’s all right,’ she added, ‘Patrick told me you knew. It’s a relief, actually, feeling I can say something. Everyone has been so nice, so sympathetic, and I feel almost like a fraud. If they suspected … My God, if they knew.’

  ‘We don’t know what happened,’ Naomi reminded her. ‘Not yet. There could have been some kind of accident.’

  ‘It could have been,’ Clara agreed. ‘But, frankly, it doesn’t seem like it, does it, and everyone’s going to draw their own conclusion sooner or later, aren’t they? I mean, the papers have reported the police know who killed Adam Hensel and that the killer is believed to have committed suicide. You won’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure it out even if they aren’t allowed to print Rob’s name.’

  ‘Are you scared of reprisals?’ Naomi asked her. ‘The police can give you protection if you feel threatened; you know that, don’t you.’

  Clara laughed harshly. ‘No policeman can protect me from my own thoughts,’ she said. ‘No one can take the bad dreams away. You know, my family, what’s left of them, they didn’t even bother to come today. Didn’t want to be involved. Not that they’ve ever been involved in Rob’s life anyway. Too bloody ashamed of me for that.’