Little Boy Found: They Thought the Nightmare Was Over...It Was Only the Beginning.

by LK Fox

  I climbed down and tried to see inside, wondering if crashed cars really could blow up, like they did in movies. It looked like a scene from a film. I wondered if someone would call ‘Cut!’ and the driver would emerge unharmed, to be made ready for another take. The engine had stopped, and there was just a sigh of steam and the steady ticking of metal. The roof of the Volkswagen was folded completely flat, making it look like a soft-top. At first, I thought the driver had escaped . . . but then I saw that the body had been flung into the passenger seat.

  Kate Summerton was cooling inside the reconfigured struts of steel that constituted her coffin.

  Nick

  Ben looked exhausted and distant.

  He asked me if I was feeling any better and apologised for turning up unannounced but said he’d left a couple of messages for me. I’d left my phone on silent. I was amazed he’d come here at all. Since the split, stepping across the threshold had been treated as a territorial incursion available only after the granting of permission. Like Dracula entering Lucy Harker’s bedroom.

  Ben was still in his work suit. He settled himself on one of the kitchen swing stools – once, his favourite place in the flat – and for a moment it was just like old times. He explained that one of his bosses was still finding ways to make his life difficult by being subtly homophobic, promoting his drinking buddies and excluding him from a team event because ‘it’s an escape-from-the-wives kind of thing’. I let him describe the intricacies of his day for a while.

  He asked me how I felt now, and I told him that seeing Kaylie had been a good idea. I didn’t tell him I’d got into a street fight or tailed a car across London.

  ‘Are you going to start taking your medication again?’

  ‘No, those things make me nauseous and leave me feeling spaced out all the time.’

  ‘Yeah, but maybe you need to use them for a while. Just until you’re—’ I thought he was going to say, Normal again.

  The edge in his voice faded. ‘You have to look after yourself, Nick. I can’t do it for you. I’m tired, I’ve got a lot of problems at work and I’m just – tired.’ He looked back towards the hall. ‘I’ll go in a minute. There’s just something I need to get from one of the boxes.’

  I had left the red cap lying conspicuously on top of one of them, but he didn’t seem to notice it. ‘Is that yours?’ I asked. ‘Only I’ve never seen you wear it.’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff here that I don’t wear any more.’

  ‘Try it on. Let me see.’

  He pulled the brim down over his eyes. ‘It’s not very me. I was probably given it at a work thing.’ He took it off. ‘So you feel better now?’

  ‘Better,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘The job’s still working out okay? How’s Matthew?’

  ‘He’s got a new man – Polish, I think – so I haven’t seen much of him socially. I’ve been working hard, but I still have my lapses.’

  He knew that Matthew had put up with a lot in the last few months. ‘You can’t afford to mess this chance up, Nick. You have a great company with lots of potential for growth. And you’re giving something back – it must be a really nice work environment. But you have to keep things tight.’

  ‘I know that. I’ll get back on track. I’m just going through some stuff at the moment. I miss you.’ I knew I shouldn’t have said it. There was a moment of silence that made us both feel awkward.

  ‘Are you telling me everything?’ Ben always knew when I was holding something back.

  ‘Really, I’m okay. I don’t know what happened.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll come over and clear the rest of the stuff from your hall later in the week,’ he said, adding, ‘And Nick, I’d really, really appreciate it if you could stop ringing me up and telling me that my son is still alive.’

  It was the ‘my son’ part that hurt. For the duration of our relationship, I’d spent more time with Gabriel than Ben ever did.

  I could tell Ben still cared for me, but it was the old funny me he liked, the dreamer who would suddenly look up and see him as if for the first time, not the self-pitying mute I had become.

  I wondered, did Buckingham feel remorse for what he’d done? Was he trying to understand why he had done it? Was that why he’d gone to Long Lane Elementary on the anniversary of the abduction? What if there simply wasn’t a motive? People sometimes do things that are completely out of character. When I was a kid, we lived next door to Mr and Mrs Hill, a middle-aged couple who seemed completely happy. One day, the wife dragged all the furniture she could move into the garden and set fire to it. They took her away and we never saw her again. Her husband sat in our kitchen with his head in his hands, trying to work out why he hadn’t seen it coming.

  After Ben left, I thought about how he’d been. It seemed to me that he was more cynical and ambitious than ever. It’s easy to start seeing the bad in people, and I didn’t want to do that. Outsiders have no idea what it was like for us. The strain we were all under. We did things we came to regret. And I didn’t understand Ben’s remoteness, either. The way he just closed down whenever the subject of Gabriel came up. Part of me still wanted him to confront Gabriel’s death. To open up and help me, to somehow salvage what we had.

  But he did nothing. He never did a damned thing because he was hiding some secret of his own, something he hadn’t told me.

  Ella

  I was back in my usual place at the Summertons’ house. I had promised I wouldn’t come back, but everything had changed now.

  I watched and waited, crouching in my hidden corner by the horrible blue rhododendrons. I saw the funeral cortège roll respectfully into Wellington Close, the vehicles glinting in the frozen sunlight. Mr Summerton (I could hardly call him Sausage any more) briefly clasped each member of his wife’s family in what I took to be a token display of duty. He had lost a lot of weight, and wore a plain black suit with a white shirt and black tie. She had been a bad mother, but I felt sorry for him.

  One thing bothered me. How had I managed to step in front of Mrs Summerton’s car when, over half an hour earlier, I’d seen her set off for work? What had she been doing barrelling down the road back into town at such a dangerous speed?

  Mr Summerton’s eyes were dark and lost in dreams, his hands fidgeting awkwardly, like a stage performer who has been given no directions. The guests queued in the hall to pay tribute to the widower, a wedding in reverse.

  It seemed to me that I had passed so much time waiting and was always destined to be an outside observer in my own life. I’d started focussing on Gabriel and had somehow become involved with this bickering couple. My original plan, whatever that was, had been lost from sight. I could accept the role of observer only in the knowledge that things would change. Well, I had certainly changed them, but not in the way I had intended.

  The wake was catered; a white van from a fancy Ashton patisserie called Delancey’s was parked outside. Mr Summerton wasn’t much of a cook, but I couldn’t help wondering who he was trying to impress. I watched the receiving line shuffle slowly forward, and recognised Mrs Summerton’s old boss among the mourners. That must have been awkward.

  I figured that Gabriel would have to be left with a nanny while his father went back to work. Mrs Summerton had wanted to get the hell out of this dead-end commuter town and back to her friends in the city, where she used to have fun. From the moment I saw her I could tell she was a bolter. She would probably have left her husband if she hadn’t died. Perhaps she was given to sudden nervous fits – was that why she’d turned back and driven so fast down an ice-covered lane?

  ‘You’re going to make a wonderful mother. It’s just what you need right now.’

  I still couldn’t believe what had happened. This was the real world, where there were awful unforeseen consequences to your actions. I stood on tiptoe, peering over the top of the frostbitten hedge, but I couldn’t see Gabriel anywhere. I figured he was in the crowded kitchen, the centre of attention. The
last of the mourners had gone in, but the front door still stood invitingly wide open; the caterers were bringing trays from the van and returning empty boxes to its shelves.

  The temptation was enormous, and finally became too much. I had done it before, I could do it again.

  I walked to the gate and up the garden path, slipping into the hallway. I was wearing grey jeans with a long-sleeved grey shirt that made me look like a member of the catering staff anyway. I knew I was scruffier than any of them but I hoped they wouldn’t notice.

  I had studied the house from the outside for so long that I knew how all the rooms were laid out. A haggard woman in an elegant black trouser suit sat in the corner of the lounge surrounded by solicitous sons – presumably, that was Mr Summerton’s mother. A few other family members, the kind who were only invited to weddings, christenings and funerals, stood disconsolately munching sandwiches, looking into the middle distance. In the garden, some children had commandeered Gabriel’s swing-set and were playing, oblivious to grief.

  I remained in the shadows of the hall; I could see almost every part of the ground floor from here. Gabriel was in an armchair, pulling at a bright yellow rubber dinosaur, chuckling when it emitted squawks. A mother of one of the older children was keeping an eye on him. Mr Summerton was in the kitchen pouring a drink for his wife’s old boss, who seemed intent on over-explaining his relationship to Mrs Summerton. His nervous smile kept threatening to erupt into a fantastically inappropriate laugh.

  I took a step towards the armchair. I wondered, what if I just stooped down and picked up Gabriel right now, then turned and walked to the front door? Would anyone even notice me? They were all intent on other things. Everything would be decided in that moment. I still had the power to change the future.

  While I was still weighing up what I should do, I became aware that Mr Summerton was walking towards me with a question on his face.

  ‘I know you, don’t I?’ he asked, his tone friendly but expecting a proper answer. ‘Don’t you live around here?’

  ‘Yes, just a few streets away,’ I said, not daring to look at his eyes.

  ‘So you’re with Delancey’s?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘The caterers.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. I just help out some days, sort of freelance.’ I paused. Something needed to be said. ‘I was very sorry to hear about your loss.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mr Summerton seemed both brisk and absent. ‘A car accident.’

  ‘The roads are in a terrible state around here,’ said an old man who was wandering past with an enormous piece of cake on his plate. ‘Most of the potholes completely freeze over.’

  ‘There have been a lot of crashes in the past,’ I told him. ‘The council should do something. I, um, wrote to them to complain once.’ Now that I could see that Mr Summerton was not about to throw me out, the lies came more smoothly.

  He looked out of the window. ‘My wife was never what you’d call a skilled driver.’ I wondered why he had decided to confide in me when the house was full of relatives. Perhaps that was why. I wasn’t a concerned party.

  ‘She should have been at work,’ he added. ‘You wonder what would have happened if . . .’ The thought trailed off.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Both the old man and I were looking at him. ‘This morning, I had to leave my son for a minute,’ he said, more to himself than to either of us. ‘When I came back, I found the back door open and muddy boot-marks all over the floor, so I called Kate. I told her not to do anything, but she turned around and drove home as fast as she could. It was probably nothing . . .’ He looked up at me, suddenly remembering where he was and who he was talking to. ‘I’m sorry, I mustn’t keep you—’

  ‘Mr Summerton?’

  He turned and looked into my eyes. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Sometimes I help out as a nanny, just locally. Now that Mrs Summerton isn’t here, if you ever need someone to look after your boy—’

  ‘That’s very kind of you. If you have a card or something—’

  ‘Not on me, but I can drop one in, along with my references. I’d be only too happy to help.’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful.’ He looked at me strangely, then looked back at Gabriel. ‘Well, I must—’

  ‘Of course.’

  Images fast-forwarded through my head: moving in as the nanny to my own child, like a character from a Victorian novel, falling in love with his adoptive father, forming a new family, having a wonderful life together.

  Except that I saw it for what it was: a grotesque fantasy based on lies and deceptions. If I hadn’t let myself back into the house on that fateful morning, Kate Summerton would still be alive.

  I wasn’t a pathetic schoolgirl any more. I was a murderer.

  I headed out along the hall, out of the front door, down the drive and out of Wellington Close, stealing one last glance at my son and knowing that, this time, I would never, ever be able to come back.

  Nick

  Buckingham had unwittingly given me something: a reason to go on.

  A way to survive the loss of my boy. I would find him somehow, and make him tell me what he had done, and why. I wasn’t going to do it for Gabriel’s sake any more, or Ben’s; I would do it for myself.

  On the plasma screen above the bar of the Coach & Horses, a Sky News reporter was standing at the scene of another American high-school massacre while a red tape ran across the base of the scene: DEAD SCHOOLGIRL WAS FOUR MONTHS PREGNANT. This was followed by: TEENS IN RACIST ATTACK JAILED FOR SIX YEARS. It seemed as if every advance we made in this country produced an equal step back. But I was about to take a step forward and make it count.

  I glanced at the barman and flicked a finger at my glass, ordering another soda water. It was hardly surprising that Gabriel had been forgotten. Every day brought fresh horrors; who had the time to stay interested in old ones?

  I thought about odd little things: Buckingham’s girlfriend’s clothes left at the disgusting flat near the Phoenix hotel, the note in his glove box: JUDEAN DATE. It probably had nothing to do with anything, but now I tried to remember important Judean dates, just for the hell of it. I could recall a handful from my schooldays: 63BC, the conquest of Judea by Pompey; 37–34BC, the period of Herod the King; 31BC, the Battle of Actium. That was about it. I knew that Judean dates were approximate at best so, if it corresponded to a date in the modern calendar, it wouldn’t necessarily be accurate . . . I wondered if the words were code for something else. I hadn’t used my brain in a while. I found myself a quiet table, pulled out a pen and notepaper. I had been taught never to consider a piece of information in isolation, but so far I had uncovered very little, just a few random facts. I drew a number of boxes on my pad, and in each one I placed a sliver of information.

  Buckingham, happily married, but renting a room in a run-down neighbourhood.

  Gabriel’s abduction.

  The return to the crime scene on the anniversary.

  A position in a company specializing in the development of charities connected with children.

  A day in the Judeo-Christian calendar.

  The boxes couldn’t have looked any more random if I’d thrown in a map of the Pentagon and a drawing of the Ark of the Covenant.

  I ran the online check again. The charity’s headquarters were located in Judd Street, but there was also a subsidiary office at St Mary’s Dock – so that was the rather mundane end of one little mystery. Buckingham wasn’t listed on the staff of the Foundling Charity. I googled the company and found that it had its own Wikipedia entry. The charity had links in many European, South-east Asian and Middle Eastern companies. Each of the overseas offices was accompanied by a symbol.

  Israel’s symbol was the Judean Date.

  Date with a capital ‘D’. Not a calendar mark but the oldest plant in the world. I should have known that, except that we mainly planted geraniums and daisies, nothing too rare and hard to grow. According to an online article in the Daily Telegraph, a seed from the
tree, which had been extinct for over 1,800 years, had been germinated in Southern Israel in 2005, restored to life from a memory held in a seed. A number of charities were working together around the world to ensure the survival of the plant.

  Another piece of the puzzle dropped into place. It was just a project Buckingham was working on. But if that was the case, why did he need to write down those simple words? It seemed hardly likely that he would forget them. Unless he had another reason for making the note. I thought to myself, This is a mess, I don’t know what I’m doing any more.

  I left the pub and headed back to the Peugeot. I drove to Buckingham’s house, parked where I could keep an eye on it and settled down behind the wheel to wait. Some neighbourhood kids came and watched me for a while, whispering to each other and laughing; now I really did look like a stalker. I made a show of checking my watch, then pretended to sleep until they got bored and left.

  At some point in the early afternoon I realised I hadn’t eaten anything for ages, and slipped away to a Pret A Manger. I brought a chicken sandwich back, ate it in the car and fell asleep again, some time around 4 p.m.

  I had murky, flickering dreams. A faceless boy running, seen through rainy glass, glimpsed lying face down in a flooded pool, waves of wet brown rats. A man in a peaked Nike cap following close behind. Ben holding his finger to his lips, refusing to impart a secret, his eyes in shadow. The woman outside the school gates, studying me intently, her body retreating into darkness.

  When I awoke, I found that it was dark. Buckingham’s beaten-up BMW was parked in its usual place outside the house. I had slept for almost four hours. The Peugeot’s interior had misted over. I was frozen. I pumped up the heater to clear the windscreen and rubbed at my hands to bring back the circulation. I didn’t know what to do. The lights were on in the lounge. I guessed he was in for the night.

  Except he wasn’t. As I watched, the front door opened and Buckingham came out in a hooded grey top (the matching half to his wife’s bottoms?) and snapped back at the woman in the doorway, walking away fast, head down in a gesture of anger. His black cap was pulled down and he was wearing the Doc Martens I had seen in his flat near the Phoenix. Mrs Buckingham waited for a moment on the doorstep, looking annoyed, while her husband headed for his car.