Silent Child

by Sarah A. Denzil

  “Thank you for having me, though I wish it was under less tragic circumstances.” She beamed at the camera, revealing her white teeth. It was at that moment I realised she’d had work done. She’d had her teeth bleached before this interview.

  “You’ve known Emma Price-Hewitt for many years, haven’t you?”

  “I have. We actually went to school together.”

  “And you were friendly?”

  “We were, mostly,” Amy said, glancing slightly at the camera. “Emma was a lot more popular than I was. We hung out in some of the same circles. Bishoptown-on-Ouse is a very small village, so everyone knows everyone.”

  “We know that Emma fell pregnant when she was eighteen. That must have been very difficult for her.”

  “Oh, it was,” said Amy, as if she had any insight into what I was thinking and feeling at the time. “She would come to school with red eyes and smudged make-up. She was having a really tough time, I think.”

  “Do you think the stress of having a child so young impacted on Aiden as a baby?”

  “I would say so,” Amy replied, nodding along to the questions. “Aiden was a fussy baby. He would cry a lot whenever she walked him around the village.”

  Lying cow.

  “And you were actually Aiden’s schoolteacher, weren’t you?” asked the presenter.

  “That’s right. I taught Aiden at ages five and six.”

  “Was he a well-behaved little boy?”

  Amy paused. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I would say he had a few behavioural problems. He was a very… energetic little boy with a great curiosity for life.”

  “In the article you wrote for The Mail, you mentioned that Aiden was quite a reckless little boy and that you didn’t think he had been taught to stay safe.”

  “Yes, I believe strongly that he hadn’t been taught how to protect himself. It’s sad, really. I mean, I love Emma like a sister, and I would never accuse her of negligence, but you have to wonder… If she hadn’t allowed Aiden to get so feral, maybe he wouldn’t have wandered off that day, and maybe he wouldn’t have gone with a stranger.”

  I stood up and walked around the room, squeezing my fists closed and unclosed. My pulse was racing and Amy’s smug face had a huge target on her forehead. I wanted to smash that television screen, but I didn’t. I needed to see what else she had to say.

  “So our phone-in today is on the subject of making sure our children are safe. That’s why we have child behavioural expert Raj Patel with us on the sofa. Please call on…”

  I was dialling. I couldn’t help it. I was dialling in to the show. I spoke to some runner for the show first. They told me to turn off the television before I went live on-air. I didn’t tell them who I was. I lied and said I was Emily from Yorkshire. I waited for a few moments as my blood pumped so hard and fast I felt the pulse in my fingertips. Before I knew it, the presenter was introducing me.

  “Emily from Yorkshire, what is your question?”

  “My question is for Amy. Who do you think you are? Where do you get off blaming Emma Price when you’re the one who was supposed to be watching Aiden when he was taken? He walked away on your watch, Amy, not his mother’s. When children go to school, parents expect them to be taken care of—”

  “—But teachers aren’t parents. Children need to be taught—” she started.

  “Shut up, Amy. You lying cow. You sat there and you gave me that doll and you pretended to be my friend—”

  “Um, who is this?”

  “—Do you remember turning up to my house two months after Aiden was taken? Do you remember getting on your knees and begging my forgiveness? I wrapped my arms around you and I told you it was all forgiven, when I should have been driving a knife through your back like the one you’ve driven through mine.”

  34

  Maeve Graham-Lennox had talked to me about how normal men and women can wear a mask. Beneath that mask is the potential for any one of us to become a monster. I’d seen Amy’s mask slip, and I knew she was as much a monster as anyone else. I hated her then. I hated her freshly dry-cleaned silk blouse and her newly whitened teeth. I hated her TV hair and proper pose. And I was absolutely convinced that she was the one who took Aiden.

  I called Denise and DCI Stevenson, and I begged them to look at her again, but they told me she had been dismissed from the investigation. She had been accounted for during the storm. There was only a five-minute period while she was on her own, and it wasn’t enough time to take Aiden to wherever his enclosure was. But still, I couldn’t let it go. That woman had transformed into another person before my eyes. How long had that other person existed? How long had she been planning to go to the press with her story?

  Jake thought I was crazy. “No one who took a boy and kept him locked up for ten years,” he lowered his voice, “and did all that stuff to him, would ever go on TV and draw attention to themselves.” Even Rob agreed, and he was generally suspicious of everything.

  In the midst of all that angst, I still took Aiden to his therapy session with Dr Foster on Wednesday.

  “How’s Aiden getting on?” she asked.

  “He’s the same, really. No change.”

  “And you?” she asked.

  “It’s my due date in a week,” I said. “So I have a lot to think about.”

  “But you’re so small!” she noted. “When I was nine months pregnant I looked more like a cow or a beached whale. You’re…” she trailed off and smiled—to cover up her mistake?

  “Lucky?” I finished. “In some ways, I suppose.”

  “So. Are you all set?” she asked, changing the subject.

  I frowned. “We’ve just got to put the crib together and then we’ll be done.”

  “How has Aiden been handling the changes going on around the house?”

  This was my moment to tell Dr Foster about the incident with the crib. But my maternal instinct held back. While I actually liked Dr Foster, I did not completely trust her. I certainly didn’t want her to recommend that my son be taken away from me.

  “He’s doing okay. He’s been in the nursery and he knows what’s happening, but he still isn’t talking so there’s not much to report.”

  “And his drawings?”

  Violent, I thought. So much more violent than before. He drew blood on steel, blood on leaves, blood in the crib… He had worn his red colouring pencil right down and his tube of red paint was down to the last drop.

  “Same as usual.” I glanced nervously across to where Aiden sat colouring on his own. Away from us. That was who Aiden was now—he was an outsider looking in.

  “I have been thinking about Aiden, and I believe it’s now time to look at some other options.”

  I sat up straighter. I hadn’t been told about any other options.

  Dr Foster lifted her hands in a calming gesture. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing too taxing, but it is important. I want Aiden to start seeing a speech therapist to help him. Now that he’s settled into his environment, I think it’s time for us to actively help him speak.”

  “Okay.”

  “It’s been over two weeks and this level of mutism is unheard of. DCI Stevenson and I thought it was best that we push Aiden a little harder. Now, I don’t want to push too hard, which is why I’ve suggested a speech therapist.”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Good. I’ll get my diary and give you some recommendations.”

  I scratched the rash on my hand and pondered over what Dr Foster hadn’t said during our conversation. It was time for Aiden to talk, because otherwise we would never find out who took him ten years ago.

  *

  Bump was active that day. When your baby is kicking, the last thing you want to be doing is driving. I couldn’t wait to get us home. When we arrived, Aiden disappeared into the garage and I sloped into the kitchen for a glass of water and a biscuit.

  My phone buzzed. When I checked the screen I saw Rob’s number. “Hello?”

  “Emma, they�
��ve taken Dad in for questioning.”

  “What?”

  He spoke quickly, in a breathless, panicked voice. I heard movement in the background of the call and imagined Rob pacing up and down, unsure what to do with his anxious energy. “The police asked him to go down to the station for questioning. They say they’ve been reviewing CCTV footage from the day Aiden was taken and they’ve seen him walking near the bridge ten minutes before the abduction.”

  “Are they serious?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe they think he saw something, but it seemed… formal, like he was a suspect. Mum’s going mad. It’s so stupid, he only went down there to take some pictures of the flood. And how the hell would he keep Aiden locked away for ten years without any of us knowing?”

  “Rob, try to stay calm.”

  “I’m so fucking angry, Emma.”

  “I know, but that isn’t going to help anything.”

  “I need to go. Mum needs me.”

  I slumped into the chair at the kitchen table. Of all the possible suspects, I’d never thought to distrust Aiden’s grandfather. The man was a walking bore. But… he was a birdwatcher and a carpenter. He spent quite a lot of his time outdoors in silly sheds staring at birds. If he could build a shed, what else could he build? A cage? I shook the thoughts out of my head. No. I knew Peter. He wasn’t… But then I thought about how I’d known Amy. I’d seen how her mask had slipped, and now I knew her true face. What if the same were true for Peter?

  I sipped the cool water and wished for something stronger. The baby moved, reminding me that it wouldn’t be a good idea to open the bottle of brandy we had stashed somewhere. Another unwanted Christmas present we hadn’t got round to throwing out.

  Instead, I put my head in my hands, and tried to work it all out in my mind. I knew that Aiden had gone missing between 1:15 and 1:20pm. That was when Amy said she got distracted by the flood and left the classroom for five minutes. Only one of Aiden’s classmates said they saw him leave, and that was Jamie, a little boy whose father worked in the GP surgery with my late mother. Apparently Jamie had asked Aiden where he was going, and Aiden hadn’t answered.

  At that time, Amy had been placing buckets under streams of water leaking through the roof along the school corridor. The head-teacher and the janitor were walking around the school building assessing each classroom. Jake was with Simon from IT looking for dry classrooms to relocate their students. According to those statements, none of them had time to take a child and hide him somewhere. I highly doubted they would have had time to take him deep into Rough Valley Forest either—though I didn’t know for certain that was where Aiden had been kept captive.

  If Peter had been alone for the longest amount of time out of all of them, maybe I couldn’t trust my son’s grandfather after all. I felt sick. I’d felt sick all throughout this process, but especially now. I ran my finger along the rim of the glass and tried to piece everything together. After a few minutes I called Rob, but there was no answer; then I tried Jake but was sent straight to his answering machine.

  I got up from the chair and paced around the kitchen. My hands were red-raw from where I’d continued to rub them; hand lotion was doing nothing for me now.

  This was all going on far too long. There’s only so much pressure the human mind can take. I was reaching breaking point. I had been ever since that woman keyed my car. I’d been walking along a razor-sharp edge, barely keeping my balance. I just needed to hold on for Aiden. It was strength he needed, not weakness.

  I decided to make something. Perhaps using my hands would help. So I went to the kitchen cupboards to take out a loaf of bread and make us both some sandwiches. I highly doubted either of us were hungry, but at least I’d be doing something. That was when I noticed the stack of letters on the end of the kitchen work surface.

  We had a letter organiser, but with everything going on, the mail had ended up piling on the edge. Denise and Marcus hadn’t been around as much, so Aiden’s fan mail was going neglected. There were letters from all over the world telling me how sorry they were for what had happened to Aiden—though I also got letters from all over the world telling me I was a terrible mother and that I deserved to go to hell.

  What caught my eye was the card from the post office. It was one of those cards that informed you that the incorrect postage had been placed on the letter. I would have ignored it—I didn’t particularly want to pay for postage for another letter of abuse—but the card had the postcode of the sender written on the card. It was local. I put the post code into Google and it came up with the York College of Lifelong Learning. That was where Jake taught art history every Tuesday and Thursday. It was also where I’d requested a prospectus from, to check that Jake actually worked there. The woman on the phone hadn’t known the instructor’s name, only that he’d taken some leave, and the website had only listed the courses, not the names of the tutors.

  I’d forgotten all about requesting the brochure, and now it seemed the incompetent woman on reception had underpaid the postage when sending it to me. I snatched up my bag and car keys and hurried through to the next room.

  “Get your coat on, Aiden. We’re going to the post office.”

  35

  Though there were dark clouds hovering above, the temperature remained unseasonably warm for October. As I drove through the narrow streets of Bishoptown village, I sweated in the thick jumper I’d worn over elasticated jeans. Aiden sat quietly next to me with his hands on his lap. Between us, 90s pop blasted out of the radio. I didn’t ramble to Aiden like I used to. There was a pile of letters addressed to him in the drawer of the desk in the bedroom, but as far as us chatting went… it didn’t.

  When I think about this part of the ordeal, this moment in the crazy weeks that led up to my second child’s birth, I wonder whether I’d lost hope. I think about it like that in a way to challenge myself and who I believe I am. Did I give up on Aiden? Perhaps I did, however briefly. Sometimes I think that giving up on a victim is unforgivable. Other times I consider the term ‘lost cause’ with more weight than I used to.

  Since Aiden’s reappearance, I’d avoided the post office. It was run, as all post offices seem to be, by middle-aged women and men so camp they’d fill the stereotype quota on a sitcom. In Bishoptown, though, I knew the names of all the post office workers. There was Sandra, with a son at Cambridge University. Everyone in the whole village knew Sandra’s son was at Cambridge, bless her proud mother’s heart. And Sam—a young guy in his twenties—who once gave me a recommendation for a good beautician to sort my eyebrows out. I hadn’t experienced that level of passive-aggressive criticism since my mother was alive, but I took the damn number anyway. The two of them called themselves collectively ‘San-Sam’ as though they were two celebrities who had married and thus merged their personas into one behemoth of infamy.

  Though San-Sam were kind at heart and generally pleasant, up until this point I had always sent Denise to the post office to sort out the mail, partly because the police were worried about any unpleasant hate mail, and partly because I knew they’d fuss over me and I wasn’t sure if I could cope with that. However, I soon realised that I couldn’t have been more wrong. When I stepped into the post office with Aiden next to me, the place went deathly silent.

  I joined the back of the queue and tried to pretend that I hadn’t noticed how the usual chatter of the shop had ceased as soon as I’d walked in. The stuffiness of the small shop made me sweat even more, and I felt a trickle run down my temple. I wiped it away with the sleeve of my jumper and hoped I wouldn’t have to wait too long. San-Sam were both at the counter, serving a customer each. I was third in the queue behind two OAPs I didn’t recognise. If there was ever a group of people who were forgotten about in Bishoptown, it was the elderly. They rarely left the house, but when they did, it was as a pack. Strength in numbers. Unfortunately for them, we tended not to really see them unless they were in the way, like they were today. It was sad, and it was some
thing I was aware of, but I had too much on my plate to worry about it any further at that time.

  It was Sandra who was free first. I flashed her a wan smile, and led Aiden over to the counter. I couldn’t bring myself to leave him in the car alone.

  “I… umm… need to pay this postage.” As I passed the card through the gap underneath the glass screen, I felt like everyone in the post office was watching me. I wiped my forehead again.

  “Sure.” Sandra took the card, glancing at Aiden as she scanned a barcode on the front of the card. “One pound eighty, please.”

  I had the change ready. I slid it through the gap.

  “I’ll just get the letter.”

  As Sandra walked away, Sam glanced over and gave a small half-smile. He opened his mouth to speak but then stopped. His gaze dropped to his hands and he drummed on the counter like he was trying to fill the silence. I was the only customer left in the shop, and awkwardness reached a new height. Luckily, Sandra bustled back to the front of the post office.

  “Here you are.”

  “Thanks.”

  The envelope was thick, A4-sized, and slightly battered at the corners. I rammed it into my bag and began to leave with Aiden.

  “Emma.”

  I turned back to face Sandra. Her mouth was flapping open and shut and I averted my eyes so as not to make the moment even more awkward.

  “I’m really sorry about Aiden,” she said.

  “Me too,” Sam joined in.