Burnt Paper Sky

by Gilly MacMillan

  She left him there, dressed only in his underwear and with a black bin bag to shield him from the rain. In doing so, she humiliated and frightened him and the exposure almost killed him.

  We know that once she’d returned home after that she booked a flight for late the following morning, and packed a suitcase, and placed her passport in a travel wallet, which she put in her bag.

  We also know that Lucas Grantham was her downfall, because the police phoned very early that morning to ask her in for an interview about him. She took a gamble, and went to Kenneth Steele House, not wanting to arouse suspicion, knowing she could still make her plane.

  Though she wasn’t to know that we would end up in a car together, and that she would make a little verbal slip, which would lead me to steal her keys.

  I imagine her standing on that broad pavement outside her home as DI Bennett and I drove away, rifling through her handbag for the keys to the flat, not finding them, and then replaying the moment in the car when her belongings fell to the floor, and most likely putting two and two together, or at least deciding that she couldn’t afford the time to retrieve them, or to track down a spare set. As far as the police could tell, she made absolutely no attempt to enter the flat and gather her stuff before I got there, probably because she had her passport in her bag already. We know that she was in a cab to the airport only twenty minutes after DI Bennett and I dropped her off, so she didn’t dither. I like to think it was the moment when the hunter became hunted, when her breath quickened, and she began to look over her shoulder.

  And that is the sum of all I know for sure.

  Here’s what I don’t know:

  Why she took him, or how she treated him.

  Why don’t I know that?

  Because Ben won’t speak of it.

  Why not?

  We don’t know. I guess that aside from the things he’s willing to say, there must be other things he can’t remember, things he’s confused about, or things he might be frightened of talking about.

  I think he doesn’t like the way the eyes and attention of everybody around him sharpen when he so much as mentions that room or Miss May. I think that makes him feel uncomfortable, and ashamed. He doesn’t want to be the centre of attention, he would rather it all went away.

  So we have to be careful, because we don’t want to make things worse, damage him further, or send him into a shell where he doesn’t communicate at all. That can happen to children in his situation. I’ve read about it.

  And though I hate to say it, I do sometimes wonder if he’s trying to protect her with his silence. They did, after all, have a close bond before this happened.

  And why can’t we get the rest of what we need to know from Joanna May?

  Because she and Ben have something in common, beyond the seven days he spent in her home. What they have in common is that she refuses to speak about it as well. She has done ever since her arrest. Her guilty plea has been her only word on the matter.

  Just when we need her to talk, she has decided to remain silent. As is her right.

  And so we speculate. We have built a story that seems to fit the scant evidence. And the story goes like this:

  In return for Ben’s trust, for the way he slipped his hand in hers so easily, Joanna May led him to a place where she incarcerated him against his will.

  I think she did it because she either loved Ben, or she wanted to very much. It was a distorted, selfish love that was the product of a damaged mind, but I think it existed.

  I think that she formed a bond with him during the first year she taught him, and she began to want him for herself. Her diagnosis of infertility, which has emerged in the public domain now, was simultaneous with my divorce, with me asking her to help us support Ben, and I think that at this very vulnerable time in her life, when her urge to be a mother was strongest, she might have mistaken him for a child who wasn’t loved enough, or cared for enough, and thought that taking him could solve both her longing for a child and Ben’s sadness.

  That thought must have grown stronger for months until it was fully fledged, and formed into a careful plan, which she executed flawlessly one year ago on Sunday, 21 October.

  Once she’d incarcerated him, I think she began a process of trying to make him believe that his family was bad for him and she was the right person to care for him.

  We don’t know what her long-term plans were, but Ben has hinted to us that she might have been planning a trip for them and I suspect she was going to take him away. I don’t know where, or how.

  The bedroom she made for him is testament to her desire to make his environment nice, to look after him well, and I actually think she meant to, even though it was in reality no more than a carefully decorated cell.

  But I think it went wrong, the reality of having him. I don’t think she anticipated how much he would miss home, or miss me, and his father and his stepmother, or his dog. I don’t think she expected him to be so desperately unhappy without us. She didn’t realise that he was already deeply loved, and that he loved so much in return.

  Those are the motives we attribute to her, the timeline we fabricate to explain things. And we continue to try to fill in more gaps.

  We speculate that Joanna May underestimated the tech savvy of a young boy. Why else would she have let him have access to a laptop? Was she tired of trying to entertain him down there, had she exhausted all other ideas? Did she think it was safe because it would be impossible for him to log on? How enraged was she when Ben found a WiFi signal down in that basement that didn’t need a password?

  Enraged enough to put his life in danger, and I think that was because it made her feel that she’d lost control, that she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Her solution? To take him back to the woods and abandon him there, then to come home and organise her exit.

  Is it because she really did love him that she didn’t take that final step and murder him at that point, to silence him for ever? I think so, although the thought makes me recoil.

  To confirm our various hypotheses, we’ve all tried to coax more information out of Ben: therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, us. But for the most part he’s chosen silence, perhaps as a way of feeling in control. And we must accept his silence. We must content ourselves with our guesswork.

  I wish now that I’d valued more the words that tumbled freely out of him before he was taken. I wish I’d collected them up and kept them safely in packages that I wrapped up carefully, secured with a ribbon, and stored in a safe place for the future. I wish I hadn’t been too distracted to listen to every word he said. I wish I hadn’t let him run ahead of me. There is so much that I wish, and all of it is pointless now. Beyond pointless.

  Ben is not the child he used to be. Trust is difficult for him, because he doesn’t understand why John and I didn’t find him earlier, or why the teacher he adored turned out to be somebody bad.

  He has pretty good attendance at school, considering, though it’s not uncommon for John or me to get a phone call to say that he’s unable to cope, again, that he’s gripped by a migraine so severe that he can’t open his eyes, again, and then we come to get him.

  Emotionally, his daily existence is volatile and unpredictable. He can be fine for days at a time, and then something sets him off balance. Then he can be desperately clingy, or angry, depending on the form his sadness takes. His emotions are powerful and visceral. Very, very occasionally he fights us, kicking and hitting. More often, he cannot last the night without waking and screaming in terror.

  When that happens, I run to him and lift him from his bed, and I bring him into bed with me, where we lie, eyes wide, bodies together, and I hold him to me and wait for his teeth to stop chattering, and watch carefully for the sheen of sweat on his brow that signals the fever that sometimes rises after these nightmares.

  I bring Skittle to sleep on the bed with us too, because the dog is the object of Ben’s most uncomplicated affections. I get pleasure from watching them play together
, Ben’s gentleness with Skittle, and the dog’s adoration of him. When Ben goes to John’s house now, the dog goes with him. Her claws have made scratches all over the parquet floor, but nobody minds.

  And even when Ben and I lie together during those long nights, even though our hearts pump fast and in unison, I wonder if sometimes we remain a hundred miles apart, because his mind still crouches in the woods on his own, cold to the core, or perhaps in that basement, flinching as a laptop shatters against a wall, pieces falling around him, sensing the advance of a person who wants to drag him away, even though he’s covered his face with his hands, even though he cowers.

  These are my imaginings, for, as I said, Ben won’t speak of it.

  His silence torments me, because I want to make him better, but it’s her silence that I truly loathe, for Ben can’t help it, but she is an adult and she knowingly withholds information that could help us to understand better what happened, and therefore to heal him more quickly, and that I cannot forgive her for.

  JIM

  Addendum to DI James Clemo’s report for Dr Francesca Manelli.

  Transcript recorded by Dr Francesca Manelli.

  DI James Clemo and Dr Francesca Manelli in attendance.

  Notes to indicate observations on DI Clemo’s state of mind or behaviour, where his remarks alone do not convey this, are in italics.

  FM: I’ve read your account of what happened on the last day of the Benedict Finch investigation.

  He nods curtly.

  FM: I’m sorry that things went wrong for you that day.

  JC: That’s putting it mildly.

  FM: How have you been feeling lately?

  He’s moving a lot, he can’t settle. His gaze is shifting around the room. He’s expressing avoidance with every movement he makes. He doesn’t answer.

  FM: Can I be frank with you?

  JC: Please.

  FM: We have almost used up your allocation of sessions that CID are prepared to fund. You arrived late to the last but one session we had, and you didn’t turn up at all last week. I am concerned about your commitment to this process.

  JC: There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel much better, in my head I mean.

  FM: That’s not good enough, DI Clemo. That judgement has to come from me.

  JC: I just said: I feel better.

  FM: Do you want to know what I think?

  I catch him off guard with this, and his reply is a little petulant.

  JC: Isn’t this supposed to be about what I think?

  FM: My professional assessment of the situation is that you avoided our last session because it’s getting painful for you to talk. Which means that this is exactly the point where you need to attend.

  He worries at his hairline with his fingertips. The signs of profound fatigue are written all over his face, and obvious to see in his body language too. You would not have to be a professional to spot these.

  FM: When did you last get a night’s sleep?

  JC: I can’t remember.

  FM: Is there any improvement in your insomnia since we began these sessions?

  Clemo shakes his head slowly, resignedly.

  FM: Do you know why that is?

  I don’t wait for a response.

  FM: It’s because you aren’t engaging with this process. And if you don’t engage then we cannot work towards treating you, and improving your quality of life, and that includes the insomnia, and the panic attacks, all of it. To date, across all of our sessions, I would say that your responses to my questions are mostly about avoidance. That must be exhausting for you. Isn’t it? It must exhaust you dodging my questions, working out ways to preserve that facade of toughness. My question to you is why you are so willing to expend so much energy avoiding this process when it would be so much easier if you would open yourself up to it? I’m not a quack, DI Clemo, I’ve worked with many people in similar situations to yours, and helped them.

  JC: And what would you say my situation is, Dr Manelli?

  FM: You suffer from severe, debilitating depression leading to insomnia and panic attacks, all of which have affected your ability to do your job. Based on our discussions, I would say that they have their roots in a combination of factors, which arose at the time of the Benedict Finch case.

  JC: And what were those factors?

  FM: You tell me. What do you think they were?

  He is stony-faced.

  JC: I thought that was your job.

  FM: My job is to help you. Let me. Talk to me.

  Clemo sits absolutely still for a moment, then puts his head in his hands. He sobs, and the sound is awful and strangulated, but it’s what I’ve been waiting for. I take my chance.

  FM: Play a game with me.

  JC: What?

  FM: I’m going to say a word, and I want you to tell me how you feel about it. No! Don’t argue about it, just do it. Will you?

  He holds his fingers over his eyes now, trying to stem the tears.

  FM: Emma.

  He gets control of himself, and then the silence in the room seems endless, capacious, but just when I think I’ve lost him, he speaks.

  JC: I loved her.

  FM: I know you did.

  JC: So much.

  FM: Do you still love her?

  JC: Yes.

  FM: Have you seen her since the case?

  JC: No.

  FM: Do you miss her?

  He looks at me, and his eyes are burning with something.

  JC: I miss her every day. I miss the months we haven’t had together and I miss the future I thought we were going to have, because without her it feels pointless, it feels, just, totally flat. Fuck!

  This is the kind of candid answer I’ve been waiting for. I hold my breath and I wait because he needs to pull himself together again before we continue. Then I proceed very carefully.

  FM: OK. I’m going to give you another name.

  He just looks at me, bruised and weary eyes have a note of defeat in them now. He is playing my game. He feels as if he’s being beaten, but he’s not.

  FM: Joanna May.

  JC: I should have seen it when I interviewed her. I’ll never forgive myself for that. Never.

  FM: You’re not responsible for what Joanna May did to that child.

  JC: If I could have ended it earlier that would have made a difference, at least spared Ben Finch that night in the woods.

  FM: You’re not responsible.

  JC: But I’m responsible for making the wrong decision, for going after Nicky Forbes. That was my call.

  FM: As I understand it that was a joint decision with DCI Fraser.

  JC: It was me who had the hunger for it. I thought it was her, so I went after her. It was the wrong call. I humiliated myself.

  FM: I’m going to give you one more name. You’re doing well.

  He flinches as if he knows what I’m going to say.

  FM: Benedict Finch.

  JC: I should have been there for him. In the woods. At the end. It should have been me.

  FM: Why does that matter so much to you?

  JC: Because all along it was all about him. It was about his suffering, because we all knew he was. And I missed my chance to prevent that and I missed my chance to be there for him at the end.

  FM: Do you think it might have helped, if you were there?

  JC: I wanted to be with him, to comfort him.

  I am very touched by his words. They are humble, and moving. I have to make an effort not to let this show.

  FM: Is that what most keeps you awake at night, DI Clemo?

  JC: All of it keeps me awake at night. It obsesses me. It replays over and over again. It won’t let me rest. I made mistakes. I broke that family apart and I let the light go out in that boy’s eyes.

  FM: Are you in contact with the family?

  JC: I saw them once.

  FM: What happened?

  He cries again now, but this time it’s just a few tears that slip down his cheeks and dampen the fabric of
his shirt when they fall. He doesn’t speak.

  FM: Will you believe me if I tell you it is possible to move forward from this? Not to forget, but to move onwards, and make it a manageable part of your life.

  JC: I don’t deserve it.

  FM: You do deserve it. This doesn’t have to be the end of your career, DI Clemo. This case, and everything that happened around it, represents a very significant time in your life, of course it does, but it doesn’t have to define you, or break you. Don’t do that to yourself. Instead, you can think of it as something you can learn to live with, to get past and even to build on. Benedict and his family will be doing that too. Think for a moment of your life as a path that you’re moving forward on, not a place you’re stuck in. You can deal with this appropriately, and respectfully, and if you do that it will be possible to put it behind you. If you’ll trust me, I can guide you through that process.

  Quite honestly, at that moment, I’m not sure if DI Jim Clemo wants to be fixed at all.

  FM: Will you, Jim? Trust me?

  Time hovers then, waiting, with me, for his response. This is a good man. I want him to heal. Eventually, he exhales slowly and deliberately, but even when he opens his mouth to speak I’m still not sure if this is going to be the beginning or the end of his attempt at recovery.

  JC: I’ll try.

  RACHEL

  We might never have closure, but we do have a future to consider. We must consider it.

  As a family, we now spend a lot of time together, trying to provide a network of security around Ben. We want to comfort him, to sustain him. Katrina is a rock, and so is Nicola. She went back to her family after Ben was found and they welcomed her with open arms, as do I. We have slowly begun to relearn each other, to reconfigure our relationship now that there are no lies, now that we both know who we are. It’s made us more forgiving of each other, and that’s a relief.