‘Having a bath. He was sick over everything so I’ve had to start a laundry.’
‘Well done, Brandon. That was very thoughtful,’ his father said.
‘That’s OK. He’s a nice little chap.’
‘I’ll just go and check on him,’ his mother murmured. A few minutes later, he heard her scream.
She ran into the lounge with the dripping child in her arms.
‘Graham, can you do mouth-to-mouth whilst I phone an ambulance?’
He watched as his father took the naked boy from his mother, set him on the settee and began to breathe into his mouth. Running Adam’s script through his head, he remembered to ask if the child was OK.
‘Does he look OK? He must have slipped down in the water,’ his mother said as she dialled.
‘He was splashing about so happily. I only left to start the washing machine and then I heard you come in . . .’
He listened as his mother gave their details to the operator, looked at his father then said, ‘No, he’s still not breathing. Yes, we’ll continue CPR until the paramedics arrive.’
She walked over to Brandon and embraced him, said, ‘It’s not your fault, son.’ He forced himself to hug her back. She smelt of old perfume and stale perspiration. He watched the back of his father’s head as it bobbed up and down, hands moving in a slower rhythm.
Within moments there were stretcher-bearers at the door and, later, police. He repeated his story.
‘These things happen,’ one of the policemen said, patting his arm. There were more words and forms and mention of a future meeting, but by mid evening he was back playing online chess.
‘Are you alright, son?’ his mother asked at nine p.m., popping her tightly-permed head around his door.
‘I’m trying to come to terms with what happened, Mother.’
He wasn’t really. He felt fine about being a killer. It felt right – well, more than right, it felt good. He’d always known that he was set apart from society, was brighter, impressively different. Further proof of that lay in his ability to take a life. He felt powerful, in charge of his own fate, a work in progress. Yet hadn’t he read somewhere that many murderers committed suicide, unable to live with their guilt?
‘If you need to see Adam sooner than next week . . .’
Hell, no.
‘I need some time to myself, Mother.’
‘Brandon, I understand.’
Fuck off, then. The silence lengthened and he moved another chess piece on the virtual board.
‘How about a nice herbal tea?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Water?’
‘No . . . no, thank you.’
‘We’ll be having toast at ten.’
Good for you.
‘Right.’
‘I could make you some – Adam said that it was OK for you to have yours in your room.’
At least the shrink recognized that he was happiest away from the oldsters, though he didn’t approve of him having a purely carbohydrate snack.
‘I’d like that,’ he said, beginning to crave the buttery slices.
If they could send his meals up on a dumb waiter, he’d like that even more.
‘And perhaps a little peanut butter for the protein, Adam thought.’
‘A little peanut butter would be perfect.’
Christ, he sounded like his grandmother, but would say whatever it took to get his parents off his back.
‘Your aunt wants you to know that she doesn’t blame you.’
He almost said ‘for what?’ then realized that she meant for the death of her son.
‘I blame myself for going to greet you.’
He cringed inside as she hugged him. She was becoming horribly tactile, despite the fact that she knew he’d always hated being touched.
‘It’s our fault for telling you to be polite to us. You were only doing what you thought was best.’
‘I miss the little chap already,’ he said and wondered if he’d been reading too much Evelyn Waugh. He’d been checking out the classics in order to figure out how polite society worked, what made it tick. If he could play the system, as Adam suggested, he could win his ticket to freedom, to a far away university.
‘Oh, you’re playing chess,’ his mother said.
‘To take my mind off things, yes. My opponent’s in Russia.’
‘That far away. Fancy.’
‘We’re evenly matched.’
‘Toast and peanut butter at ten, then?’
That was a mere sixty minutes away and if he had to speak to her again that soon he might well not be responsible for his actions.
‘The game will be at a critical stage by then. Perhaps you could leave it outside the door?’
His mother’s smile faltered then she seemed to find strength from somewhere and said, ‘Consider it done.’
At the appointed hour (they always incinerated the Hovis just before News at Ten), he ate, drank and was his own version of merry, with the added bonus that his mother had taken his duvet cover from the washing machine, dried and ironed it, so he had a nice clean quilt with all traces of Ethan rinsed away. It had been a good day, he decided as he finally powered down his PC at three a.m. – goodnight porn sites – and prepared to wank himself to sleep.
TWENTY-ONE
Beth seemed to be attracted to him – and the feeling was definitely mutual. Adam hummed to himself as he finished talking to her on his mobile, having phoned to discuss a mutual client. Matthew sounded slightly dull and not quite bright enough to hold her attention so he, Adam, might get his chance in a few months. He wouldn’t have to drug this one, just seduce her. She wanted – or currently thought she wanted – a forever boyfriend so he’d play that particular line.
Letting himself into the bungalow, he scooped up a solitary letter from the porch and opened it to find that one of his premium bonds had won him five hundred pounds. His dad had bought him the bonds for his twenty-first birthday but this was the biggest win that he’d ever had. He wouldn’t mention it to the old man as he’d probably want him to spend it on Mum’s eventual funeral. Though doped up to the eyes with morphine, she was still hanging on.
The pair of them sometimes complained about the shortfall in their pension funds after all these years of work, but he didn’t know why they were so obsessed with money; after all, Nicholas was always taking them out for meals, daytrips and even a couple of foreign holidays. That said, his sibling would have to spend his wages on paying for a solicitor once the police found that kiddie porn. Adam felt a small glow of pleasure, knowing that legal representation was prohibitively expensive and could go on and on. Nicholas wouldn’t get in touch for financial or emotional aid, but he figured that his dad might phone him asking for help.
Fortunately, despite his brother’s betrayal, the cops had never been able to pin Helen’s death on him and now everything was going really well, he thought as he fished out his pay-in book and wrote up the five hundred cheque. Everything was . . .
The doorbell pealed through the house and he walked to the front door and opened it, his face assuming its familiar welcoming smile.
Two policemen stood there. Christ. For a moment he simply stared at them, convinced that they’d come to arrest him for Hannah’s murder.
‘Mr Neave?’ the oldest one murmured.
His voice sounded stronger than he expected. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘Can we come in?’
He did a quick mental inventory of the house to reassure himself that there were no illicit drugs lying about. He mustn’t dwell on the fact that Kylie’s body was frozen in the garage. I mean, it wasn’t like they were here for a freezer-to-microwave meal or anything.
‘Of course.’
He walked to his study and they followed him in. He always took officials there rather than into the lounge or the kitchen/dining area. Surrounded by his certificates and books, he felt grounded, as if he’d gained the upper hand. A genuine professional was calm and intelligent, didn’t show fear.<
br />
‘We understand that you’ve been treating a teenager called Brandon Petrie. Can you tell us a little about him please?’
He felt his gut relax. Thank God – it was the kid that they were interested in.
‘He’s highly intelligent with a vocabulary way beyond his years, an exceptional child.’
‘We know that he has attention defic–’ The man stumbled over his notes.
‘Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.’ The term rolled off Adam’s tongue. ‘ADHD.’
‘We understand from his mother that it makes it hard for him to concentrate.’
‘It does, though he’s come on leaps and bounds since he started taking the medication.’
‘And you supply this, Dr Neave?’
He wasn’t a doctor but their misconception suited him. The working classes – which clearly included both of these DCs – were in awe of medics. Harold Shipman had literally gotten away with murder for years.
‘No, his GP supplies his prescription. I’ve been modifying his behaviour, encouraging him to think about the world in a different way.’
‘Has he ever been violent?’
What on earth had the boy done? Murdered his mother?
‘No, quite the reverse. He’s very gentle. He loves to read books, write computer programmes, play chess.’
‘So why were you modifying him, doc?’
‘He’s so caught up in his own world that he forgets to hold open doors or say please and thank you. People think that he’s deliberately rude and antisocial but he’s really just lacking in concentration. The dopamine receptors are abnormal in children with ADHD so their thoughts flit around all the time and they have appalling short-term memory.’
‘So he forgets what he’s doing, maybe moves on to another task?’
‘Exactly. I’ve been showing his mother how to only give one instruction to him at a time and it seems to be working. If he’s given too much information, he can’t retain it for more than a moment and he becomes upset.’
‘Makes sense,’ one of the officers said, looking at his partner.
Adam cleared his throat and strove to sound casual. ‘Can I ask what this is all about?’
The older man, clearly the senior officer, nodded. ‘Brandon was babysitting for his four-year-old cousin when the child drowned.’
‘In the garden pond?’ Kids were always jumping or falling into pools of water.
‘In the bath. Apparently he’d vomited and Brandon decided to clean him up before his parents got home.’
‘He must be devastated – he doted on that little boy,’ Adam said, determined that his patient should look good, sound like a model pupil.
‘He was very quiet when we spoke to him and didn’t show any emotion, but his mother said that he was deeply shocked.’
‘He would be. He might not express himself as readily as you and I, officer, but he feels things very deeply. He was just telling me the other day how much he appreciated being given responsibility for the child. He felt that his parents were beginning to respect him and he was determined to make them proud.’
‘Makes sense,’ the officer repeated. ‘He probably thought his parents would be upset if the child was covered in vomit so he tried to do the right thing.’
‘It’s so easy for a small child to drown,’ Adam clarified. ‘I once counselled a young mother who had left her toddler in the bath for a moment whilst she answered the door. He was only sitting in a few inches of water but must have tried to follow her, slipped and banged his head. He fell down face first and was dead by the time that she got back.’
He’d made the story up but both men looked suitably sombre.
‘There’s no malice in young Brandon then?’ the youngest one asked.
‘None at all. I’d trust him with Tim, my own three-year-old nephew.’
He would, too, didn’t care what happened to the wailing little brat.
‘We’ve spoken to his GP, his former paediatrician and his teachers. Is there anyone else . . .?’
Adam shook his head, determined to keep that negative doctor who kept phoning him out of the picture. The last thing he needed was someone questioning his methods, casting blame.
‘Just a tragic accident,’ the other detective murmured, putting away his notebook and standing up.
‘If I can be of any more help, don’t hesitate to contact me,’ Adam said as he preceded them down the hall to the front door.
‘We’ll be in touch if we’ve any further enquiries, sir.’
He got the distinct impression that they were closing the file, that he wouldn’t be hearing from them again.
For a few moments after they left, he sat in his study, sipping a Southern Comfort and mulling over the information that they’d given him. Then he phoned Brandon’s house.
‘Mrs Petrie? It’s Adam Neave. The police just told me about the accident. I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s so kind of you to phone.’
You should have rung and warned me, you stupid bat.
‘Is Brandon coping?’ He might get some extra hours of work out of this or even a live-in patient. He could move John into the attic, charge the teen’s parents residential fees.
‘He seems to be. He’s been spending even more time in his room than usual but his father says to leave him there, that he has to sort things out on his own.’
‘That’s just his way,’ Adam said reassuringly. ‘He’s never going to be gregarious or tactile.’
‘He let me hug him the night of the accident,’ Mrs Petrie said. ‘I was amazed.’
‘He’ll be traumatized in his own way. I know how much he enjoyed caring for his little cousin.’
‘You did? He said so? He never gives much away to his father and I . . .’
‘Yes, he mentioned the child several times, said that he felt like a big brother figure. He was so proud that you trusted him.’
‘That’s the ironic thing.’ He heard the woman choke back a sob. ‘He bathed Ethan to please us and came to the door to greet us because he’s being so polite these days. In those few minutes, the poor mite drowned.’
‘A tragic accident,’ Adam murmured, echoing the police.
‘Would you be willing to see him before next Tuesday?’
‘I’d be happy to,’ he replied, meaning it. He’d just lost several hundred pounds on spread betting so his premium bond win was already spent.
The next day, he greeted the Petries as if they were his best friends, told Brandon to go on through to his office whilst he spoke to his mother in the hall.
‘It might be best if he stays here this week – you know, in case he has nightmares.’
‘Oh, he never has, Mr Neave. Not even as a child.’
‘But he’s never been faced with this level of trauma until now.’
‘He’s still sleeping well – ever since you got the doctor to change his medication.’
Fuck it – he was hoist by his own petard.
‘Perhaps he’s brooding during the day?’
‘Well, he’s got all these online friends who seem to keep him busy.’
‘It’s no substitute for professional help.’
He watched as her frown deepened. ‘It’s just that he likes his home comforts, his own bed.’
In other words, she didn’t want to deal with empty nest syndrome, however briefly. What would she do all day with no one to fret about?
He gave in gracefully. ‘I understand.’
‘If he becomes distressed, I’ll give you a call.’
‘You know that you can phone me anytime, that I’m always here for your family.’ He waved enthusiastically as she drove away.
‘You OK, Brandon?’ he asked as he joined the boy in his office. ‘I heard about what happened.’
‘I only left him for a moment.’
‘Don’t blame yourself. There are thousands of women worldwide have done the exact same thing.’
‘Yeah?’ The kid sat up straighter on the couch, put his bo
ok aside.
‘Yep. We’re all used to multitasking and occasionally something goes wrong.’
‘I was trying to clean him up to impress the oldsters.’
‘I know. They’re aware that your intent was good.’
‘The police questioned me at length.’
‘I think they also recognize that it was an accident. Just learn from it and move on.’
‘Fortunately I don’t have any other cousins,’ the sixteen-year-old said with a wry grin.
‘And the neighbours won’t be queuing up to have you babysit.’
As he’d hoped, the youth laughed at his black humour. Adam smiled back.
‘What now?’ Brandon asked.
‘Just tell me whatever comes into your head. They call it free association.’
‘And it’ll help people to like me?’
‘I’m sure that they already like you,’ Adam replied.
‘I get picked on at school . . .’
‘We’ll find ways for you to stand up for yourself.’
‘And Dad would like a son to play cricket with.’
‘Then we’ll have to make sure that he impregnates your mum!’
Adam laughed at his own joke and, after a moment’s contemplation, the teenager joined in. According to his notes, the boy had never been told that he was adopted so presumably the Petries were withholding the information until he turned eighteen.
‘Maybe I could create the perfect son for him in the laboratory,’ the boy continued, looking thoughtful.
‘Could take a while, though I understand that they can now use stem cell research to grow teeth. I guess you could assemble the perfect smile and add the rest of your sibling’s body later.’ He contemplated the image for a moment, realizing that it was almost cartoon-like, then looked at his notes. ‘Anyway, let’s get started on the free association and have some fun.’
Free association my arse. Brandon kept a smile on his face but inwardly he felt yet another rush of derision. These sessions were costing his parents a fortune but the therapist didn’t have a clue. He seemed to have decided that he, Brandon, was a simpleton who would switch from morose to happy if he could just become polite and easy-going and connect with the moronic aspects of the world. Did Adam really think that he was so uncomplicated? Didn’t he know that people hid the darker aspects of themselves?
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