by Gayle Curtis
‘I’m going. I’ll leave now and promise I’ll never come back. Please don’t do this.’ Nathaniel was struggling with his emotions; everything was closing in around him and he knew he was running out of time. ‘I can stay at my father’s tonight and sort a place to live tomorrow.’
‘It might be an idea to take him back to his real, biological parents. I can give you their details.’
‘Don’t you dare . . . don’t you dare do this.’ Nathaniel leaned towards Elise, making her flinch and causing Buddy to start crying. Nathaniel was seeing her as if for the first time. All the realisations that should have been apparent months ago were hitting him with sharp clarity, but now it was all too late. Everything had been clouded as they were pulled together by what had happened to their daughter, and he hadn’t been able to see what his father had been telling him all along.
‘Buddy doesn’t belong to us!’ Elise screamed. ‘You want to fight? Fight for the child who’s living with the Patons!’
‘We’ve had all the fucking DNA tests. He’s our son.’ Nathaniel’s aggressiveness caused Buddy to launch into a scream.
‘Okay, this isn’t helping matters. We have a court order to remove the child and we have to follow it through.’ Jed stood up and moved towards Nathaniel, who in turn stepped back and reached for his phone.
‘Wait, please. Let me call my dad. I need him here.’ Nathaniel’s hand shook as he dialled, telling Nick to come over urgently. ‘Please just wait for my dad to get here. That’s all I ask.’
‘Nathaniel, we’ve had this conversation before. Your son is suffering. He’s not developing as he should for a child of his age. Cognitively, he’s below average and lacking in communication skills.’ Jed followed Nathaniel into the kitchen. ‘Trust me, this is for the best under the circumstances. It’s not forever and there’ll be visitation rights. We’ve found him a really nice family with lots of experience. He’ll be absolutely fine.’
‘But he’ll be frightened without me.’ Nathaniel’s voice broke, his emotions choking him as he looked at Buddy’s face, red cheeks and wet eyelashes where he’d been crying. ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’
Nathaniel knew they were right; he’d looked it up on the internet and seen the effects a post-partum depressive parent could have on a child. Admittedly, Elise had recovered from that, supposedly, but she’d been left with an addiction to prescription drugs of which she was in complete denial.
Buddy’s only word was ‘no’, an appropriate one for the negative situations that were forever in their lives. Even when he meant yes, he said no. He didn’t respond to anything other than raised voices, which he cried at. Nathaniel knew that, eventually, Buddy wouldn’t respond at all. Now Nathaniel was full of regrets at not having left Elise before – stupidly, naively in some ways, believing that if he just kept Buddy away from her, social services would back off.
‘How long do I have?’
Jed closed his file and placed it into his bag. ‘I’m afraid we need to get going soon.’
‘Today?’
‘There’s nothing more I can do, I’m sorry.’
‘Where are you going?’ Nathaniel turned to see Elise walking out of the sitting room, towards the stairs.
‘I’m taking a shower.’
‘Aren’t you going to say goodbye to our son?’
Elise stopped on the stairwell but didn’t turn around. ‘It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, Nathaniel, he will never be my son.’
No one spoke for a few moments, and the atmosphere was full of tangible thoughts. Jed looked at Lauren and Lauren looked at Nathaniel.
Jed broke the silence. ‘The best thing you can do now is work towards helping us with Buddy.’
Nathaniel rocked Buddy in his arms, kissed his soft head and wrapped his large fingers around one of his tiny hands.
‘Just give me a minute with him, please,’ Nathaniel almost roared at them both. He was so angry with himself – with Elise for dragging them into this mess. He walked over to the front window and watched his father pull up and get out of the car. Buddy pointed, recognising his granddad, oblivious to what was about to happen, his small hands banging on the glass.
Nick let himself in with the key Nathaniel had given him in case of emergencies. ‘What’s going on?’
Nathaniel kissed Buddy and handed him to his father. ‘I need to go and pack some of his things.’
Upstairs, Nathaniel sorted through Buddy’s clothes and favourite toys, his heart feeling like it would drop from his chest and on to the floor. In the drawer, he found the blanket they’d wrapped Buddy in when they’d brought him home from the hospital. He picked it up and smelt it but all he could remember was the time he’d come home from work, when Ida and Miles had been at school and he’d found Elise, heavily pregnant with Buddy, standing on the ledge of their roof terrace, leaning over the edge, arms spread-eagled, the waist-high glass the only barrier holding her back. Fear had gripped him and he’d run across the terrace and grabbed her forcefully by the arm, pulling her on to the floor.
‘I just wanted to see what it would feel like,’ was all Elise had calmly said.
Nathaniel had countless nightmares after that – dreams of Buddy falling from Elise’s belly, like oil in a lava lamp. He was well aware their problems had started way before anything had happened to Ida, and yet it was all so obvious when he thought about it.
All the times she’d stood on the edge of that terrace and now he was beginning to wish he’d taken the opportunity to push her over the edge. After all, he knew the simplest way to murder someone was to make it look like suicide.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
You think you’re different to all those participants invited to play my game, don’t you? Protecting yourself from tragedies by thinking the old adage: that it won’t ever happen to me. I even hear people say it when they win the lottery. Why do you think you’re exempt from change, that you have complete control over your lives? You’re so contradictory! You moan that you have to put up with whatever you’re dealt with, when it’s obvious the way life is to be lived is a choice. And then you complain when things change for you. Madness! You’ve mistakenly thought all these tragedies happen to other people. Do you think a bomber cares who you are when he blows up a bus – how many children you have, how successful you are, how old you are, what you are yet to achieve, who will be devastated by your death, how many people rely on you? No, because they don’t care. In fact, the more you have to lose, the better.
Embrace the unexpected – it’s always there, you just can’t see it. Something or someone is always watching you: the mugger, the killer, the stalker, the friend . . . ready to step in and change your life at any moment. It could be you; it can always be you.
There are a lot of people who have studied my case who have been reported to say I have made mistakes and that’s how the authorities became suspicious about the deaths. None of this is true. When there appears to be an inordinate amount of suicides, similar to one another and situated in one area of the country, it’s bound to raise suspicion. I wanted people to wonder if there was someone else involved. Otherwise, what’s the point of it all?
There’s no suicide note, that’s the first clue. Most people leave letters to their loved ones before they take their own lives. Instead, mine leave an obituary that I have asked them to write during the time I was building a relationship with them. You might ask yourself why anyone would do this, but if you tell someone it’s therapeutic, that it helps them view and make changes to their lives in an objective manner, they’ll do it. I am new, refreshing; they want to be my friend, to please me. The most obvious evidence of all, which was probably never public knowledge, is that a pathologist would be able to see the direction of the bullet, the way the gun fell from their hand and see, quite clearly, they didn’t pull the trigger themselves. This wasn’t noticed until much later; a change in attitudes and an advance in science, I suppose. None of this is important.
Magda, on
e of the first survivors of my game, understood me, and I had a feeling when I went to her home that she would work it out. And, at that time, I wanted someone to. No one had come even close and I was beginning to lose interest. I began searching for a different type of participant. I wanted someone who was going to volunteer, be fully present and choose to live by winning the game.
There is nothing but a splintered silence when the gun goes off, as though you’ve blasted through some palpable atmosphere. No feeling of Death’s presence, as I’d been hoping and expecting. On one occasion, I saw a dark shadow cross over someone’s face; that was strange, and I couldn’t explain it. They wept, most of them, disappointing me further, as I realised they weren’t who they’d portrayed themselves to be.
Magda didn’t cry; she didn’t even flinch and showed no signs of fear. Instead, she looked me straight in the eyes as she pulled the trigger. There was a slight look of surprise on her face when she became aware that the gun was empty. I think she suspected that, but couldn’t be absolutely sure until she’d pulled the trigger.
Magda is the only one I revealed my identity to, but she won’t ever tell anyone who I am because she confided a secret that she would not want anyone to know. A year before I met her, she killed her brother and made it look like an accident.
We exchange letters on a regular basis. She is eternally grateful for being able to confess such a burden, and my response to it is something she will never forget. Her guilt no longer carries the heavy weight it once did, and as far as I’m aware, she now lives life as she was supposed to. Some people deserve to die, and that’s the truth of it.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THEN
DC Alex Chilvers was listening to what Nathaniel was saying but she wasn’t taking any notes, and he wasn’t sure if family liaison officers were supposed to do that or were trained to retain information to keep everything informal.
‘Do I need to speak to someone else about this?’ he asked her.
‘Not unless you want to. Nathaniel, we’re following all leads, questioning everyone who’s ever been involved with Ida, and we have an extensive, highly experienced team dealing with it all. I promise I’ll look into what you told me.’
‘What did I just tell you?’ Nathaniel wanted to know exactly how much she’d listened to.
‘When you visited Magda King’s house, you found an item addressed to Ida. It’s odd but not unusual for teenagers to do this sort of thing. As Mrs King told you, Ida occasionally had things delivered to their address because she was worried you’d disapprove of what she was spending her allowance on. It was just a piece of doll’s furniture.’
‘Have you seen those bloody doll’s house projects?’ Nathaniel was tired and unsure if he was overreacting, but everything looked out of place and magnified now that someone had attempted to murder his daughter. He had thought the project was strange when Ida and Miles had started it. They’d found a book in Ray’s library – Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death or some such nonsense. It was filled with models of real-life crime scenes, made using small dolls and furniture – not dissimilar to the one they’d found in Ida’s bedroom the day she’d gone missing. That’s how it had all started. When they’d seen this book, the children had wanted to build one of their own and Ray had indulged them by putting a doll’s house in the summer house at the bottom of the garden. Nathaniel hadn’t liked it – there was something about the whole idea that had given him the creeps – but Elise had laughed and told him he was being ridiculous. They’d ended up having a furious row about it and Nathaniel had been left feeling like he was overreacting.
‘Nathaniel, if Ida was aware of your disapproval, it might explain why she was having things delivered to her best friend’s house.’
‘If that was the case, why didn’t she just have them posted to Ray’s? There’s something off about it. You will look into it and not just take Magda’s word? She was hiding something, I could tell.’
‘Of course.’ DC Chilvers stood up. ‘Nathaniel, why don’t you give Buddy to me and go and get some sleep. I can look after him for a while.’
‘No.’ Nathaniel pulled a sleeping Buddy closer to him. ‘Thank you, but I need to keep busy. Sonny should be back with Miles soon.’ Nathaniel looked at his watch; they should have returned by now. Ray had a flight booked to Norway, something he couldn’t rearrange, and Sonny had offered to drive him to the airport. Miles had wanted to go with his uncle and grandfather, not wanting to stay in the large old house knowing Ida wasn’t there. Nathaniel couldn’t blame him, he already couldn’t stand it. It seemed macabre, sinister to him, that they were staying in the house where Ida was brutally attacked, but Elise had insisted they go back there because for some bizarre reason, she felt safer at Ray’s. She had been hysterical there, though – the news of Alistair confessing and then the police releasing him too much for her to take in. She’d had a desperate need to keep Miles with her, suffocating and frightening the boy with her devastation. Nathaniel had no choice but to call their GP, who had prescribed Elise more sleeping tablets. When she’d awoken from her drug-induced sleep she’d been angry about Alistair’s quick release and gone straight back to the hospital to be with Ida.
Alistair had withdrawn his confession after telling the police, in great detail, he had hit Ida with a rolling pin he’d found in the kitchen and then washed afterwards. This long-winded account didn’t match the forensic evidence, which showed that she had been attacked with some type of heavy sharp object. The blood spatter on him had come from a fight Alistair had been involved in with another boy earlier that day, when he’d punched him in the face. The blood didn’t belong to Ida.
Eventually, Alistair had broken down and confessed he’d wanted to punish himself for upsetting Ida, for arguing with her, because he loved her so much. Nathaniel hadn’t been entirely convinced, but the police seemed to be quite sure about it; there was no forensic evidence linking him to the attack. They were back at the beginning, searching for a new suspect, leaving them feeling that crucial time had been lost.
Nathaniel didn’t want to go to the hospital with Elise and keep vigil over Ida. As harsh as it sounded, he saw no point, and he didn’t need a constant reminder of what had occurred. He wanted to accept what had happened, not convince himself there was any hope.
Now the house was too quiet, leaving room for Nathaniel to imagine sounds he didn’t want to think about – the cracking of his daughter’s skull, her body hitting the floor, Ida’s traumatic moments there.
DC Chilvers followed Nathaniel into the kitchen and took over as he tried to make coffee one-handed, with Buddy sound asleep, his head resting heavily on his father’s chest.
‘The cold case team are reopening the suicide cases again. I’m not sure if anyone told you?’
‘What’s that got to do with my daughter?’
‘Well, nothing at the moment, but you and your wife both lost family members in the same way. We need to find out why your daughter was attacked, what the motive might have been. Maybe there’s a connection.’
‘It’s a pointless exercise.’ Nathaniel walked past DC Chilvers and closed the double doors leading through to the orangery, blocking it all out.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘How can you prove who killed themselves and who didn’t? I’ve given it a lot of thought and I know I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot myself, no matter what. I think the people who are genuine victims of the Suicide Watcher must have been drugged or tied up.’
Nathaniel’s mind drifted to a time that he’d forgotten about until recently – a time when his mother had been in a bad way.
The irony that the group meetings Nathaniel attended should be where he’d find another woman just like his mother wasn’t lost on him. He’d clung to Elise, quite desperately, because she was alive and his mother was dead. As time moved on, though, Elise had become stuck within the walls of her past and the details of her mother’s death – lost in a pool of self-pity he su
spected hadn’t been as prominent until she began attending this group, unless she’d hidden it quite well. She wanted to analyse it, work out the whys and wherefores. Every occurrence, everything she experienced, every little foible she noticed was to do with what had happened to her mother. This was a subject they disagreed on. It was difficult discussing or reasoning with any addict rationally, because their view of the world was like a camera lens smudged with Vaseline. Had Nathaniel found out about Elise’s addiction and neuroses when they had just been friends, he would never have embarked on anything more serious, but he had fallen in love by that time.
‘No one knows what anyone would do in that situation.’ DC Chilvers’s voice came back into focus. ‘Murder is murder and needs to be proven one way or another. Someone else may have pulled the trigger, and if so, we need to find out who. Which cases were suicide and which were murder.’
‘Have you interviewed James Caddy yet? Are you any closer to making an arrest?’ Nathaniel’s tiredness was making him agitated and impatient. Nothing seemed to be happening. After all the time-wasting with Alistair, Nathaniel had been sure everything would speed up, but other people were still being questioned, making him think the police weren’t entirely sure of what they were doing.
‘I know it’s frustrating, but we tend not to make arrests until we’ve gathered plenty of evidence, especially with someone like James Caddy, who has a history of mental health problems. Once you nick someone, the clock starts ticking. And they invariably cock up after a murder – are seen somewhere they can’t explain or dispose of items they shouldn’t have.’ DC Chilvers handed Nathaniel a cup of coffee.
‘So, you do have someone other than James Caddy in mind?’
‘There are a couple of people we’re interested in, yes.’
‘Is Sonny one of them?’
‘No more than anyone else. Why do you ask?’
