Ready or Not

by Thomas, Rachel

  The man said nothing, just handed the phone back.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, putting it in her bag to avoid another opportunity of making a fool of herself. ‘So…what can I do for you?’

  ‘I take it you’re a police woman,’ he said.

  She nodded reluctantly.

  ‘I was hoping you could help me find my son.’

  God, Kate thought. Not another one.

  *

  Back inside the station, Kate took Neil Davies to the same grey, lifeless interview room where she had spoken with Caroline and Robert Jennings just an hour earlier.

  ‘I know, Mr Davies, your son is being fostered by Mr and Mrs Jennings. They left not long before you arrived,’ she told him. ‘They did tell me about you. They weren’t sure how to contact you and asked if I would let you know. I was in the process of finding your address.’

  Neil waved a hand carelessly. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘No one’s fault. I just want the same as everyone else. I want to find my son.’

  Kate sensed the interview would turn out to be a long and complex one, so she got them both a cup of tea – hers with no sugar; his, the same - and sat opposite Neil in the interview room.

  ‘How did you know he was missing?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Sophie,’ he said. ‘Ben’s sister.’

  Kate said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

  ‘Ben’s been with the Jennings for about a year now,’ he told her. ‘It’s not a permanent thing. His sister is with a foster family as well, but a different one. Again…not permanent.’

  ‘The Jennings seem good people, Mr Davies,’ Kate said, sensing an edge of resentment in the father’s voice. ‘They’re both very concerned about Ben’s well-being.’

  ‘I know that,’ he said quickly, his tone changing. ‘I’m sorry – you misunderstand me. I understand the reasons why the kids are there and I appreciate what the Jennings have done for Ben. Are doing,’ he added, correcting himself. He sat forward in his seat and put both hands on the table, squeezing his right fist with his left hand. He looked up to see Kate watching him and immediately relaxed his hands. ‘I just know that it won’t be forever, that’s all.’

  Kate watched Neil as he sipped his coffee. He held the cardboard cup in both hands, like a small child with a beaker. His eyes looked up at her while he drank; eyes that were incredibly bright – with unusually long lashes for a man – and there was an unexpected warmth within the icy blue that radiated when he looked up at her.

  ‘Their mother died three years ago,’ he explained, putting his drink back on the table. He looked away from her and at the far wall, distracted by the memory. ‘Car accident. We were all in the car, but Sarah didn’t have a seatbelt on. Her death…’ He paused and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Well…I didn’t cope very well after she was gone. I suppose I’d taken for granted just how much she did for the family. Without her…I don’t know, it was like we’d come unstuck. I didn’t do the best by my kids, I know that. But things are better now. Much better. It’s not forever.’

  Kate was unsure whether Neil Davies was trying to convince her or himself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued. He laughed and the sound had a bitter edge. ‘I keep saying that, don’t I? – It’s not forever. I used to say it to myself all the time as a kid. I don’t know - I must have been a miserable kid or something.’ He laughed again. This time the sadness was obvious. ‘Nothing is forever though, is it?’

  Kate looked away quickly when she realised she had been staring intently at Neil Davies as he spoke. Her eyes had been fixed on the contours of his mouth as it moved with his words; drawn to the creases that lined the skin beneath his cheekbones: the right side just slightly deeper than the left.

  She felt a connection with this stranger; a feeling that she could neither name nor justify. She felt an unmistakable pity for him; a strangely maternal sympathy that, in the most bizarre and awkward of moments, made Kate want to lift her hand and gently pat his cheek.

  She cleared her throat.

  ‘I’m sorry about your wife, Mr Davies,’ she said.

  ‘Please,’ he said, looking right into her. ‘Call me Neil.’ He passed a scrap of paper across the table. ‘Here’s my mobile number in case you need to get in touch with me.’

  *

  Kate’s first stop was at Ben’s best friend’s house. She had already spoken to the boy’s mother, but thought it would be best to see the boy in person. He may have known of Ben’s whereabouts, but children could be fiercely loyal and would cover for each other if asked to.

  In the car she couldn’t stop thinking about Neil Davies. His story was haunting – the stuff of the kind of tragic romance novels she used to read when she was a girl, before real life killed her faith in fantasy and made her too cynical for such indulgences – and she wondered, not for the first time, how life could be so cruel and deal so many blows to so many people. If God was in his heaven he must be taking lots of days off.

  She remembered Neil Davies looking up at her over his tea, his intense eyes fixed on her as she spoke.

  She scorned herself for blushing, again.

  Ten

  DCI Chris Jones’ daughter, Holly, sat on the rug in the middle of the living room, an array of dolls her mother had sent with her scattered across the floor. She grappled with a blonde Barbie, tugging at the doll’s hair as she tried to prise its dress around its narrow shoulders. Everything that Holly played with now had been brought from her new house, on ‘loan’ for the day. The house was no longer child friendly and, besides the single bed with the Peppa Pig duvet in the back bedroom, there was little to show that a child lived there.

  A child didn’t live there, not anymore. It wasn’t just the toys that were on loan, Chris realised; Holly was with him on borrowed time. He had offered to move when he and Lydia had separated and expected it would be the natural turn of events, but she had been adamant on being the one to go, taking their daughter with her. She didn’t want to stay in a house that had so many memories, she said, but as far as Chris could recall those memories weren’t as bad as her desperation to flee the place suggested, and not the sort that someone might feel the need to run away from. They argued, but who didn’t? And now it was he who wanted to flee this building; he who wanted to escape the constant feeling of failure as a father that greeted him every time he arrived home from work.

  He was kidding himself and had been doing the same for years, he knew that now. He watched Holly finally manage to yank the dress from the doll and as she set about arranging a ski outfit for its brunette counterpart Chris wondered when his daughter had grown so tall. She seemed to look different somehow from when he had seen her just yesterday.

  When she had left, Lydia had taken all of Holly’s things with her, right down to the Disney stickers on her wardrobe and the personalised hold-backs on her bedroom curtains. It would be easier for Holly, she claimed, if all her things were at her new home; it would help avoid any confusion regarding where her ‘real home’ was. It would be easier for all of them, a clean break. Easier for Lydia, Chris suspected. A chance to prove that she was the one holding all the cards and she was ready to take him for everything he had, including his own child.

  It also meant that every time Lydia came around to drop Holly off she had a massive bloody bag of clothes and toys with her. Completely unnecessary, Chris thought. And typical bloody Lydia. Any amount of hassle only to demonstrate the hold she had over him; who was in charge.

  He had slipped back into the lifestyle of a single working man a little too easily and the family home had reverted to the stereotypical bachelor pad: dirty dishes piled in the sink, washing left to fester in the machine; milk well past its use by date left to grow fur in the fridge. It wasn’t because he was lazy; it was because he was busy. When they were together Lydia had complained repeatedly about the hours Chris worked; ironically, her leaving meant he worked even harder and longer. The less time he spent in this silent house that seemed to taunt
him the better.

  The doorbell rang and Chris glanced at his watch. She was early. Again. If he was to collect Holly and arrive at their new house too early Lydia would fuss about with bags and coats, feigning busyness in a futile and childish effort to show that his access to Holly was in her hands. If she was early it meant Chris lost out on his time with Holly. He grimaced and went to the front door, dodging the fallen Barbies on his way.

  ‘You’re early.’

  Lydia brushed past him without invitation. She was, as always, immaculately dressed; a three quarter length, pillar-box red winter coat and knee high boots and her dark hair - always perfectly styled - pulled away from her face in a loose knot. She looked great and she knew it. She gave Chris a glance to check he was looking at her and he noted the expression, storing it with the collection of others he had come to recognise.

  When they had first met, Chris had been attracted to the obvious physical appeal of Lydia, quickly followed by her independence; a characteristic it seemed now she had worked hard to promote in those early days of their relationship. She had seemed level headed, grounded; all the things that Chris’ lifestyle and work pattern needed. She seemed to understand that his job was not a nine-to-five commitment and he wouldn’t always be around on weekends. She’d understood; at least, it seemed, until the ring was firmly on her finger and she was Mrs Jones. Then everything changed.

  Lydia was physically beautiful, but it had soon become apparent to Chris that she needed to be constantly told so. She wasn’t as independent and carefree as she had appeared early on; nor was she as beautiful. She had a public face - the face she had worn to the door - and a private face that she changed into as soon as the door was shut behind her. She was suspicious and controlling; the very things that Chris had learned to despise through his work.

  Ignoring his comment, Lydia headed straight for the living room and reached to retrieve the first fallen doll from the floor.

  ‘Come on, Holly,’ she said abruptly. ‘Time to go.’

  Chris watched from the doorway of the room as his estranged wife hurriedly stuffed dolls’ clothes into Holly’s rucksack. Their daughter remained sitting on the rug, pouting as her mother took the last doll from her hand. Should he tell his ex-wife that Holly frequently asked if she could come and live with him? It would be points for him, but that would be the most selfish and futile reason for doing so. Let her see if for herself, he thought. If she treated her daughter with the dismissive carelessness with which she’d treated him for years then it wouldn’t be long before Holly made her wishes loud and clear for all to hear.

  ‘Come on,’ Lydia repeated.

  ‘Lydia,’ Chris said, stepping into the living room. ‘This isn’t working.’

  She turned and looked up at him. ‘You’ve only now noticed?’ she remarked bluntly.

  ‘The dolls,’ Chris sighed. ‘The toys. The clothes. You can’t keep lugging this bag around.’

  Lydia dropped the bag to the floor and pushed it with her foot in Chris’ direction. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘You can do it. The boot’s open.’

  Chris shook his head and bit his tongue. An argument was just what she’d be hoping for and exactly what he wasn’t going to give her. Instead, he gave Holly a wink and smiled; if Lydia was hoping for evidence that she was winning, she wasn’t going to get it from him.

  ‘I’ll come back for the other one,’ he said, meeting Lydia’s eye and prolonging the smile. He caught the look of irritation in her eye and couldn’t help himself from smiling inwardly.

  He was out on the street when the house phone began ringing. Lydia crossed the room and stared at the caller ID.

  She knew it. She’d always known it. She picked the phone up on the fourth ring.

  ‘Hello?’

  Silence.

  ‘Hello?’ she repeated.

  The line went dead.

  Moments later Chris came back in for the second bag. ‘Did you answer the phone?’ he asked.

  Lydia smiled and took Holly by the hand. ‘Wrong number,’ she said.

  Eleven

  When Kate got back to the flat that evening, something didn’t feel right. The place was cold and she went straight to the kitchen to turn the heating on. As she walked through the poky living room and past the sofa on which she’d slept last night, she noticed the magazine she had idly flicked through early that morning abandoned on the floor by the coffee table. The magazine was face up; a model with too-perfect white teeth and a smile that was treacle thick and sickening gazed up at Kate from the floor. She picked it up and dropped it face down back onto the floor. Kate was sure that when she had left for work that morning that was how she’d left it.

  In the kitchen she flicked the switch on the kettle and searched in the fridge for something suitably unhealthy and comforting to eat. Kate very rarely cooked meals for herself and her diet generally consisted of frozen ready meals for one or late night, last minute calls to the local take away. Cooking for one had always seemed to her a sad and fruitless task: one that only served as a reminder of how incomplete and unsatisfactory her personal life was.

  Finding nothing sufficiently easy to prepare, Kate made herself a coffee and went back into the living room. She put her mug on the table and reached down to retrieve the abandoned reading material from the floor. She shoved it onto the shelf beneath the glass table top and sat on the sofa, shifting the cushions behind her. She reached for the remote control, which she always left on the arm of the sofa. Not there. She put a hand down the side of the sofa, between the arm rest and the edge of the cushion, and groped around.

  The remote was on the other end of the sofa; the end that she rarely sat at. Like everyone, Kate had her habits; one of which was to always sit at the left hand end of the sofa, directly in front of the TV and right next to the phone. She only sat at the other end of the sofa if she had visitors and that, these days, was a rare occurrence. The only other person who would sit at the right end of the sofa was Stuart.

  Kate leaned across the sofa and grabbed the remote. This morning while getting ready for work she’d had the BBC news channel on in the background, as she did every morning. She liked to know what was going on in the world, even though it was invariably depressing and did little to help her already poor opinion of mankind as a species.

  She turned on the television and was unsurprised when she was greeted by an over enthusiastic middle aged man discussing the complexities of the universe. Pressing the select button on the Sky remote, she was even less surprised to find that she was watching National Geographic and that Stuart – despite Kate’s earlier wishes that he would clear the rest of his things from her flat whilst she was out at work – had been around and let himself into her home without her knowledge or consent.

  Kate went into the bedroom. The pile of records that had been sitting in the corner of her room for months were gone; in their place, a patch of clean carpet, lighter than the rest, reminded Kate that the flat was well overdue a spring clean and that she would find whatever excuse she could to get out of having to do it.

  She wished she’d smashed the records whilst she had the chance.

  National Geographic, she thought angrily as she padded back into the living room. Stuart wasn’t even interested in science or nature; he watched those bloody documentaries because he thought it made him seem more intellectual than he actually was. Kate used to find herself cringing when he quoted some ‘interesting’ fact or statistic when they were amongst friends or family; usually inappropriately timed and often in the wrong context. Stupid bastard.

  She was beyond annoyed. Despite yesterday’s wishes that he’d just go to the flat and clear out the remainder of his belongings, now that he’d actually done so she was infuriated by the cheek of it. This was her flat, not his. He’d used her keys. He’d invaded her privacy.

  She went back into the kitchen and opened the cupboard next to the fridge. Predictably, one of the two beers that had been left there since Stuart had moved
out months earlier was gone. Kate slammed the cupboard door and went to get her mobile from her handbag. She knew that he would call her irrational, but the fact that Stuart had watched TV and helped himself to the contents of her kitchen during his visit to retrieve his records made her furious.

  Stuart’s mobile went straight to the answer phone service. Kate drummed the kitchen work top impatiently as a mechanical female voice at the end of the line told her that the person she had called was unavailable.

  ‘Stuart,’ Kate snapped after the beep, ‘it’s Kate. You remember – the woman you lived with and scrounged off for two years. You seem to have been here quite a while this afternoon, I don’t know why you didn’t just have done with and moved back in. Next time you feel like popping in, do something useful and run the hoover round, will you? I want the key back in the post within the week.’

  She ended the call and launched the phone at the sofa. She had hoped the call would make her feel better, but it hadn’t. If anything, it made her feel worse. She dropped onto the sofa and allowed herself a moment to feel sorry for herself. It was something she tried not to indulge in, but now felt as good a time as any to let self pity rule. She wondered if having Stuart still there might have been better than coming home to an empty flat, and whether the sound of continual bickering would have been preferable to the unbearable silence that now enveloped the space around her.

  Of course not, she told herself. She felt a sudden twinge of guilt for what she had done behind Stuart’s back all those months ago, when her father had died. Should she really be sitting here cursing him? She wasn’t much better, was she? Or had karma served her penance for her crime by dishing out Stuart’s affair? What she’d done was wrong, but at least it had been a one-off. He had cheated on her for months.

  Her anger fully focused on Stuart again, she retrieved her mobile and scrolled through the phone book for Chris’ house number. A calm voice might cool her mood and maybe he’d be available for a drink or two to make up for the ones they’d missed on yesterday evening. Kate couldn’t think of anything worse than having to spend another night alone in the flat, staring at the TV screen and hoping for something exciting or even vaguely interesting to happen.