by GB Williams
‘I do.’ Yet, he still managed to sound accusatory. ‘It’s just—’ He looked away, colour rising in his cheeks.
‘Just what, Enzo? I don’t snog inmates.’
‘You don’t snog staff, either,’ he grumbled, ‘however much any of us asks you out. And you’ve been divorced for four years. Why won’t you at least come out on one date with me?’
Now she looked away. ‘You know why.’
‘No. Oh, I know all the useless excuses you can come up with, but you’ve never given me one good reason for not actually dating me.’
‘You’re too good a friend. You’re like the brother I’m missing. I don’t want to screw that up.’
He groaned.
‘All right,’ she sighed, pushing her hair back with one hand. ‘Okay, let’s say we do go out, we have a nice time, like we have hundreds of times over the years, as friends. Then at the end of the evening, what if we don’t go all the way? Would you accept that? What if it didn’t go well, what if we had an awful time? Would we still be friends enough to work together?’
‘I can take it slow.’
The sincerity in his eyes, the want, was all so very tempting. What if it went well? she wondered. What if we have a great time, end up in bed and having fun? Would that be so terrible? ‘Kiss me.’
He reared. ‘What?’
As shocked as he was by the request, so was she. ‘I said kiss me. Properly. Let’s see if there is any point in starting this.’
Put on the spot, there wasn’t a lot else he could do. Sanchez checked there was no one around them. His right hand came up to her face, his palm warming her skin, as he tipped her head towards him. His left hand snaked around her waist. She closed her eyes, as he leaned in, joining their lips, and pulling her against him. Teddington let her hands wander up to his shoulders. She kissed him back. When she felt his tongue probe into her mouth, she opened up. He was a good kisser, great technique, but something was missing. He was the one who finally withdrew, eased his hold, and, for a moment, he looked terribly sad.
‘You just didn’t feel that, did you?’
She swallowed and shook her head. ‘Sorry.’
His hands fell away from her.
‘It’s not you,’ she said, stopping him when he moved away. ‘And, no, that’s not a sop. It really isn’t you. It’s me. It’s what happened … it’s what could’ve happened yesterday. You’re a good friend, but you and me dating, that’s a bad idea. Me dating anyone’s a pretty awful idea. I’m just not worth it.’
It was an empty truth which echoed through her hollow insides.
Teddington lay back in her bed and wondered what the hell was wrong with her. Enzo Sanchez was a good man. Maybe that was the problem. She wasn’t worthy of a good man. Was that what kept pulling her back to Charlie? He wasn’t a good man. She closed her eyes and hated herself for that thought. Yes, he had killed, but he wasn’t evil. She knew that. Instinctively, she knew he wasn’t, at heart, a bad man. She didn’t know what had made him kill. She still hadn’t looked up the file to know the details of what he’d done, but she was sure whatever it was – he’d been driven to it.
She sighed, and hated herself. Maybe she was just romanticising him because he’d kept her safe. Something she still hadn’t thanked him for. No, if she was going to be honest – and she should be with herself, even if she couldn’t be with anyone else – she was making him something he wasn’t in her mind, because when he’d pressed those all too fleeting kisses on her, something inside she’d thought was dead woke up, and started howling with need.
10
Feeling sick to her stomach, Teddington pulled her car to the edge of the curb and parked a couple of houses down from the one she was interested in. It had taken all morning, and some activities she shouldn’t know how to do, but she couldn’t risk one call or a PNC search. There couldn’t be a paper trail back to her – nor even an electronic one.
Looking around, the street wasn’t as affluent as she’d expected, given the name Briar Avenue, but it wasn’t a hole, either. The semi-detached houses were built in the 1980s, to fulfil some yuppie need for property ownership, but they were small, barely a metre between each coupling, and the front and back gardens were little more than pocket handkerchief size.
When Teddington felt her lip curl at the distinct lack of curb appeal, she forced it back down, and told herself not to be such a snob. She’d been lucky with her home, family, and upbringing; not everyone could say the same. Halfway down the length of the road, there was a gap between the houses where the developers had had an unusual moment of altruism, and installed a playground. Paint peeled from the climbing frame; only one of the three swings was still in use, even the chains from the other two were missing. There was a barren area that might once have had a roundabout, but that was long gone. The very air seemed to slump in sadness.
Teddington chewed her bottom lip. The longer this took, the greater the danger of discovery. She checked the address she’d scrawled. 17 Briar Avenue. Looking across the street, she saw the right house. It wasn’t great. The lawn, where it still clung to life, was mostly moss and weed, the windows needed cleaning, and the white uPVC of the door needed a good wipe down, but it wasn’t the worst-kept property in the street. The gutters were still in place, and there were no missing or obviously patched tiles on the roof. Something about the house looked lifeless, though, like it was shut up.
All she wanted was to see Oscar safe and well cared for. She owed Charlie a little reassurance, at least. Actually, as she sat with her hands on the steering wheel, she told herself she didn’t owe the damn man anything. He was a convict, who’d lost touch with his son because he’d killed a man. She didn’t owe him anything. She reached for the ignition, but didn’t press it. As a mother, she knew the pain of being separated from your child; whatever she might think of Charlie as an inmate, he was a human being. He deserved to know his son was healthy.
Stymied by her own vacillations, Teddington sat for another half an hour, watching number seventeen. There was no movement in or around the house. A woman walked by, a pushchair directed by one hand, a small boy grasping the other. The boy was still very young, with a head of full blond curls. Teddington couldn’t help the small smile that tipped her lips as he turned to his mother. What a little cherub. He looked so cute in the bright blue jumper of his school uniform. Teddington checked her watch – 3:09. Maybe that was why there was no one in number seventeen – Cathy might still be picking up Oscar from school.
The mother and the two children had walked past number seventeen, and were heading for the playground.
Teddington frowned. They couldn’t be, could they? No.
But …
The boy was about the right age, blond like Charlie. Charlie hadn’t had any contact with Cathy since going inside, and that was three years ago. She had no idea what Cathy looked like, no idea what kind of woman Charlie would find attractive – she discounted herself; that was situational only. So, it was altogether possible this small family was the one Teddington wanted to see. She smiled and hoped so as the smiling little boy rushed to the swing.
The mother had turned the pushchair now, and Teddington could see another little bundle, apparently asleep in the chair. From the appalling frills on the bonnet and fuchsia pink of the baby blanket, she assumed it was a girl. Her guts knotted, and her heart twisted. She watched them and hoped. Then, she looked to number seventeen.
As much as she wanted to just drive away and tell Charlie his son was well, she had to be sure. Lip between her teeth, she stepped from the car, taking care to lock it before heading to the playground.
The woman looked up, offered Teddington a frown. It took Teddington a moment to realise that as a woman without a child entering a playground, she was to be considered a risk. Teddington knew this was a standard over-reaction to stranger danger, the ridiculous perception any childless adult caught looking at a child must be a paedophile, media headlines and propaganda over taking the truth.
Still, even perceptual un-reality had to be dealt with.
Sticking her hands deep into her jacket pockets, Teddington walked into the fenced area and sat on the bench to the right of the gate, as far from the family as possible. Swallowing hard, she thought of all the things that should be, and weren’t. In the end, she couldn’t bring herself to look at the boy anymore, staring instead at the odd spongy-form surface of the playground.
‘Hey.’ The voice made Teddington jump, and she looked up at the woman who was now frowning at her. ‘You alright?’
‘Fine.’ Teddington nodded.
‘Why you crying, then?’
Fighting around the lump in her throat, Teddington put her hands to her face, surprised to find out she was indeed crying.
‘You sure you’re okay?’ the other woman asked, bring the pram over with her, sitting next to Teddington, though on the far end of the bench.
Teddington nodded again, sighing out the hurt. ‘Yeah. I’m fine. Sorry. Didn’t want to upset anyone.’
‘S’alright.’ The woman looked over to her son, who was now busy exploring the pipe work on the climbing frames.
‘He’s a cute kid,’ Teddington observed. ‘This his first year in school?’
‘Yeah.’ The mother smiled, as she looked over at him.
‘He enjoying it?’
‘Oh yeah, Cruz loves it.’
‘Cruz?’ Teddington queried.
‘Well, if it’s good enough for the Beckhams.’
‘Yeah, no, great name,’ Teddington apologised. ‘Sorry, it just surprised me. I didn’t mean to imply there’s anything wrong with the name.’ So, this wasn’t Cathy, and that wasn’t Oscar. ‘Cruz is five, right?’
The other woman nodded, as she checked the blanket over the little girl was tucked in well enough.
‘Does he, do you, know Oscar, then? Oscar Hamilton? They’d be about the same age.’
‘Oscar?’ the woman frowned up at her. ‘You mean Cathy’s kid?’
Teddington nodded, noting just how clouded the woman’s face had become.
‘You from the Social?’
Teddington frowned as she shook her head. ‘No. Why would I be?’
‘You’re not a friend of Cathy’s?’
Teddington was overly aware of the thin ice she was on. There were a number of ways she could go with this conversation, and they all had their hazards. She had to make a call on who this woman was, what her relationship with Cathy would be, and a guess which route was the most likely to get her the information she needed. All that ran through her mind in a nanosecond. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I know Oscar’s father.’
Something darkened on the woman’s face.
‘His biological father.’
That news was surprisingly easy on the other woman.
‘I just want to know that Oscar’s okay. Don’t want to interfere, or get involved or anything. I just want to be able to tell his dad the boy’s doing okay.’
She watched, the other woman was frowning, kept glancing nervously toward the houses.
‘Is he doing okay?’ The swell of bile in her gut told Teddington the answer wasn’t going to be “yes.”
The woman swallowed and turned haunted eyes to Teddington. ‘I haven’t seen Oscar in a year. He didn’t start school in September.’
Teddington frowned. ‘Did they move on?’
This time, the woman shook her head slowly and licked her lips. ‘We just haven’t seen him. A few months ago, Cathy was obviously pregnant, and now, she’s not, but none of us have seen the baby, either.’
Frozen dread washed through Teddington. She twisted to the house. Fear stretched every nerve. She couldn’t sit by and do nothing. The draw of that house was too much. She absently thanked the woman, as she stood and walked to the front door of number seventeen.
Teddington saw the doorbell, but got the distinct impression it wouldn’t work. Instead, she rapped hard on the door and waited. For a second, she thought she heard something, but if there was a sound, it didn’t repeat. Dismissing it as her own imagination, she knocked again, harder and longer.
No response.
Again, harder, longer.
This close, she could smell something sour emanating from inside the house. She stepped back, looked around. All the windows were secure. Turning, she saw the woman from the playground had her son in hand, and was pushing the pram back along the street. For a second, their eyes met, but the woman turned away quickly, hurrying into a house up the road.
Returning her attention to number seventeen, Teddington moved down the side. There was no barrier to the back garden, so she went that way. The windows and door were all locked. She knocked again. She went to the windows and looked in. God, what a mess! Little wonder that woman asked if I was from the Social.
Moving back to the front of house, Teddington took her mobile from her bag, hesitating. If she did this, she couldn’t hope for anonymity anymore. Some things were more important. She rang 999. Though her heart and stomach were churning turmoil, she was sure this was the right thing to do. When the answer came, she asked for the police and gave them all the details she could, including her own. Hanging up, she was left pacing the length of the street, terrified to hang around the house, as she waited the thirteen minutes for a patrol car to appear.
Too worried about what was happening inside number seventeen, she didn’t consciously register the two police officers, only they were there, and appeared to move in slow motion. Didn’t they understand a child’s life was in danger?
‘Miss?’
‘Hi, you have to break in, there are kids in there. They’re in trouble.’
‘Your kids?’
‘No!’ Teddington was too worried to care about the insult. She took a deep breath and tried again. ‘This is the residence of Cathy Hamilton. She has a son Oscar, five, but no one’s seen him in a year. There may also be a young baby in there. Go up to the front door, and you’ll smell how bad the place stinks. Go to the back door and you’ll see what a mess the place is. It’s a health hazard. Those kids are in danger.’
She watched the man look past her and at the house. He didn’t appear any more impressed than she had been. ‘What makes you certain there’s a kid in there?’
‘I heard something,’ she said. The more she had thought about it, the more certain she was. She also figured this was not the time for sheepishness. ‘I’m pretty sure it was a child’s cry.’
She knew procedure; she knew what she’d told them was sufficient grounds for them to break into the house. The two exchanged a glance and walked up to the front door. They knocked, got no response. The taller one, the one she’d spoken to, tried the handle. Nothing. They disappeared around the back. Soon enough, they returned. The shorter stockier one raised his foot and kicked at the door.
The whole frame gave way and collapsed into the hallway of the house.
Three different exclamations of disgust harmonised. The smell assaulted the senses. A number of flying things escaped the rancid prison. Teddington watched as the two officers each covered their noses and mouths with one hand. All three stared into the interior. It was dark, dank. There were piles of papers and magazines in the hall. Black mould crept up the wall like a deranged finger painting, a dirty protest.
The two officers exchanged a look; one pulled a torch from his belt and switched it on, checking the balance of the door before he stepped up and into the house. The second officer followed him. Teddington watched, as they passed the stair well and looked into the other rooms.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ the shorter one asked when she followed them over the door.
‘Bedrooms.’ She pointed upward. ‘If there are kids here, they’re probably upstairs.’
‘Hey, you can’t go up there!’
But, he couldn’t stop her, and Teddington couldn’t stop herself despite her disgust.
She picked her way between the trash and the clothes on the stairs. She didn’t dare touch the banister; t
he thought made her skin crawl. There were things growing on the rubbish at her feet, creatures scuttling at the intrusion of humanity. She could smell sour sweat, stale beer, stagnant cigarette smoke. Illegal cigarette smoke.
She covered her nose and mouth with both hands, desperately trying not to gag as she reached the tiny landing. Unflushed toilets. Filthy nappies. Rotting food. At least she hoped it was rotting food. Anything could have died in this.
‘You shouldn’t be in here.’
But, the police officer at her shoulder managed to sound like he was glad she had gone up first. For a second, they gaped in shock into the open door of a messy front bedroom. Puts Tracey Emin to shame. The bed was buried under a heap of clothes, rubbish and drug taking paraphernalia. In the silence of their shock, they heard something from the closed door to their right.
‘Could be a rat,’ the man said.
Teddington doubted it. The hope she heard in the man’s tone might echo her own wishes, but she was too realistic to see hope here. Hardly able to breathe, Teddington felt like she was just an observer, watching a horror movie play out, knowing what was about to happen, and screaming at the screen not to go in there. Every fibre of her being wanted to pull back, yet it was her hand that grasped the handle. She pushed the door open. For a suspended moment, she couldn’t move, as the horrific scene etched itself into her memory.
The smell was overwhelming. The officer beside her retched, throwing up on the landing. Thin curtains hid the scene from the sun’s sight, but she could see the piles of detritus around the room. Full nappies lay open on the floor, crawling with flies, their drone the only sound. The blue packaging of a nappy pack was the only colourful thing in the room, its colourful image of a bright smiling baby at such odds with what Teddington was seeing, and struggling to comprehend.
In the big, once white cot, was a baby, flies and maggots crawled over its many-days dead body, and right beside it, Teddington was staring into the white wide eyes of an emaciated five-year-old, his stomach bloated painfully.
