by Lucy Dawson
‘Oh!’ He looks taken aback. ‘Of course. I just felt I should apologise too. If only I’d arrived at my boat a bit earlier when Alex was still there. I could have brought them all back with me. I’m so sorry that I didn’t.’
Does he think it helps to hear how close I came to keeping hold of my son? ‘You couldn’t have known.’ I open the door wider. Please just go now. ‘But thank you.’
‘If only I could wave a magic wand and make this all OK again in a heartbeat…’
Enough! ‘Yes, wouldn’t that be good,’ I manage. ‘Thank you, but—’
‘No, don’t dismiss me,’ he says sharply. ‘You don’t understand. I’m here to tell you I can help. I’m going to give Alex back to you.’
The hallway seems to expand around me, or I shrink down. Everything becomes misshapen. ‘“Give Alex back” to me?’ I repeat. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Get,’ he says quickly. ‘I said get.’
‘No, you didn’t.’ I step forward. ‘You said give! Do you know where he is?’
‘Of course I don’t!’ He draws away from me, but I see real fear in his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have come here. I’ve upset you.’ He turns to go, but I fly round him and block his exit, spreading my hands over the door frame.
‘You know where he is! I can see you do!’
He tries to push past me, so I grab at him instead. ‘Where is he?’
‘I came to tell you I wanted to help, that’s all!’
‘No, you’re lying. Tell me! Where is Alex?’
Thirty-Nine
Nathan
This was a huge mistake. It was crazy. My mind is scrambling for an explanation of my catastrophic slip of the tongue, but she’s holding my arm and I am distracted by her touch. Turns out Hamish was right, just being a hero isn’t enough for her. I try to remember what he said I should do, in the garden at Fowles. Fowles… the ornate letters of the menu swim uselessly in my mind. Front. Orientation – think, Nate, think! You’re hitting a Wall…
‘Tell me where he is! Why have you taken him? Oh my God!’ She covers her mouth with her hands. ‘Is this because I reported you?’
‘No! I love you!’ I exclaim. This is all going badly, badly wrong… Fowles. He’s in FOWLES. He’s…
‘You love me?’ she repeats. ‘I don’t care! I want my son. Wait—’ she gives a sharp inhalation of shock. ‘You think “giving” Alex back to me is going to make me love you?’
I go very still – seen. Exposed. Fuck. Fuck, Fuck.
‘I am never going to love you!’
I can feel the hurt… the pain rising in me, and I have to close my eyes.
‘I am never going to be yours.’ She’s almost choking as she spits the words out.
I swallow and everything settles within me; a terrible, cold levelling of my blood.
‘Nothing you can do will ever change that. Give him back to me!’
I open my eyes and look right at her. ‘I’ve hidden him. It’s part of a plan. I’ve written six letters on the back of six breast implants in surgical pen – all of which are now inside the last six women I operated on. Collectively, they tell you where Alex is. So go to these women. Ask them if they’ll let you unpick their stitches and slice open their scars. I think you’ll find they say no because they like the way I have made them look.’
She recoils from me. She can’t believe what she just heard. ‘What did you say?’
The second the words are out of my mouth, I’m horrified too. I am not that man anymore! What part of me, what deep, awful part of me do these lies come from? I am not normal to have something like that on the tip of my tongue. What did my mouth just say to the person I love most?
‘You’ve put clues to Alex’s whereabouts inside six of your living patients?’ She repeats and it sounds… mad. She sounds mad. I can see Hamish puffing on his cigar approvingly; it’s your only way out now, old chap…
‘I’m sorry?’ I let my mouth fall open, pretending to look confused. ‘I didn’t say anything about patients or clues?’
The panic rips from her in a shriek. ‘Ewan!’
He appears in the doorway at the far end of the hall, Dominic behind him. Ewan rushes towards me as she falls back. He grabs at the front of my coat, pushing me up against the door. ‘What have you done to her?’
‘He says he’s got Alex!’ She babbles, incoherent with fear. I feel dirty and sordid as I watch her start to wind the rope I’ve handed her around her own neck. ‘He’s hidden clues inside his living patients! Letters – a code! Call the police! Quick, one of you!’
Ewan’s grip lessens, just a touch, as he turns to look at her. ‘What?’
‘WHAT?’ I shout, in unison, pulling myself free. I make a show of putting my hands on my head in amazement. ‘Why would you even say something like that?’ I look directly at her. ‘OK, I won’t tell him!’ I move my hands into a surrender position. ‘You win, Julia! But you can’t make up shit like that! That’s evil! Of course I don’t know where Alex is! And putting clues in patients? What the hell? I won’t tell him, OK? I swear!’
Ewan reaches out and grabs me again. ‘You won’t tell me what?’ He almost lifts me off the floor, despite my being as tall as him. ‘Tell me what?’
Everything I’ve gleaned about you, Ewan, everything I know you’re terrified of hearing.
‘Please don’t hit me!’ I plead, genuinely hoping he won’t because he is really bloody strong. ‘Julia and I are involved! I’m so sorry. I had to come and see her tonight. I couldn’t let her go through Alex being missing without me. She needs my support!’
He shakes his head. ‘You’re lying.’
‘I’m not!’ I scrabble in my pocket for my phone. ‘See?’ I find the picture and hold it up for him. He has his back to Julia, but I witness the pain explode across his face. He drops me and I cut deeper.
‘We need to tell the truth here, Julia,’ I say. ‘It’s too important!’
‘No,’ Julia whispers, moving backwards down the hall away from us, in Dominic’s direction. I wish with all my heart that I wasn’t having to do this, and I want to shout to her that I’m so sorry. If only I could explain that I don’t have a choice.
‘It’s not true, Ewan. I told you about this photograph, remember? He’s set it all up,’ she says very carefully, before turning to me. ‘Nathan, are you on any medication at the moment?’
‘Me?’ I laugh. I have to hand it to her, she’s more than up to the challenge. We are meant to be together. ‘I tell you I love you and you try to destroy me, making up allegations about me filming patients and now putting clues inside them?’
‘You have been filming your patients. That’s a fact. We are not in a relationship and I’m deeply concerned that you seem to believe we are.’
‘You can’t pretend this didn’t happen, to protect him,’ I hold the phone aloft. ‘It’s not your fault Lise did this to Ewan too!’
Ewan shouts with rage, his hand flies back and I brace, but Dom suddenly rushes forward and shoves him so hard Ewan loses his footing and smashes into the sideboard before falling to the ground.
I manage to stay on my feet, staggering backwards, shoving my mobile back in my pocket. ‘Thanks, mate.’ I nod gratefully at Dominic. Best hundred quid I ever spent.
‘You’re welcome,’ Dom replies. ‘Hang on.’ He turns and hastens off to the kitchen as Ewan manages to get to his knees, pushing Julia away as she tries to help him.
Dom returns with a glass of whisky, which he holds out to me. ‘It takes guts to walk into another man’s house and admit you’re seeing his wife. Your nerves must be all over the place. She did the same thing to me, with him.’ He nods at Ewan.
‘What?’ Julia gasps, staring at her ex-husband as if she’s living in a parallel universe, or having one of those nightmares that are so vivid they feel real. I want to wrap my arms around her. I shouldn’t have come. I have messed all of this up because of my ego.
‘Dominic, what are you talking about?’ she whispers. ‘Y
ou know that’s not true!’
‘Here.’ Dom offers the glass to me again. I hesitate but reach out and take it. I could do with calming down.
‘Thank you.’
‘No problem,’ Dom slaps my shoulder, ‘but then maybe you should go, yeah?’
I nod. He’s right. I need to get the hell away from here. I knock it back and hand him the glass.
‘No! Stop!’ Julia steps forward. ‘We need to call the police! He’s just told me he’s abducted Alex!’
‘I’m going now as well.’ Dom ignores her. ‘You two,’ he motions between them, ‘need some time alone to talk things out, by the sound of it.’ He pulls his keys from his pocket, stepping to the front door to throw it open. ‘I’ll let you go first, Nathan. You’re blocking me in.’ He nods at my Porsche in the opening to the drive and steps out into the night, walking round to a small, red car.
‘Dominic, stop!’ Julia calls after him. ‘You have to believe what he’s just told me!’
He climbs into his car and starts the engine, waiting for me to do the same. I turn to Ewan, now sitting on the hall floor, with one hand clutched around his middle. ‘If you start coughing up blood or have shortness of breath that gets worse, go to A&E,’ I tell him. ‘It might mean a broken rib is doing more damage to you.’
‘Don’t you dare do the caring doctor bit!’ Julia’s voice is shaking, but a tiny movement at the top of the stairs catches my eye and I look up. Cassia is watching us silently through the bannisters, crouched down in her nightie, terrified. ‘Ewan, I think your daughter needs you.’ I nod up at her. ‘I’m very sorry that she saw all of that. It wasn’t my intention.’
Ewan drags himself to his feet, gasping as he clutches his ribs and starts to climb the stairs.
Julia turns to me. ‘What have you done?’
‘I didn’t do or say anything. I told you I wanted to get Alex back for you. That’s all. You’re under immense strain at the moment. Of course you are. You’ve barely slept. I didn’t say anything about knowing where Alex is, or “clues” in patients. I just love you. That’s all.’ I look at her face searchingly. She is so beautiful.
‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘I will not be manipulated by you. I know exactly what you said.’
Chastened, I turn and leave. Starting the car up, I begin to pull away slowly. I was a fool to have come here. One slip of the tongue and– shit! I lurch forward violently in my seat and have to slam on my brakes. It takes me a second or two to process that Dominic has just driven his car right into the back of me.
Forty
Julia
Dom throws his door open – his mobile aloft – and starts taking pictures of Nathan climbing out of his Porsche.
‘What the hell?’ Nathan exclaims at the sight of the mangled metal that moments ago was his pristine back bumper. ‘What are you doing? You just rear-ended me!’
‘No mate, you’re mistaken. You slammed your car right back into mine! You been drinking or something?’ Dom has already started dialling. ‘Police, please! Someone’s just reversed into my vehicle.’
‘No, I didn’t!’ Nathan starts to raise his voice. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Yeah, that’s him shouting now. Can you blue-light it, please? He’s drunk, aggressive and at the home of my ex-wife. We’re the parents of the missing boy, Alex Blythe. This man has just turned up and said he’s abducted our son. His name is Nathan Sloan. Quick as you can, please. I don’t want to get done for having to defend myself against him.’
Dom slips his phone into his back pocket, walks straight up to Nathan and punches him hard in the stomach. Just as Ewan did, seconds earlier, Nathan doubles over with surprised pain and drops to his knees – a genuine reaction this time.
Dom bends down and gets right up in Nathan’s face. ‘Who you trying to be, hey boy?’ He speaks softly. ‘I’ve known Julia the best part of my life. For a long time she was the best part of my life. You couldn’t even begin to understand what’s made her who she is, so you shut your mouth with your dirty lies about her cheating, you hear?’
He gets closer still, grabbing Nathan round the back of the neck and pushes his forehead so hard into his cheek that Nathan exclaims aloud. ‘You can never be the richest, most powerful person in the room, but you can be the kindest, and she’s it. She’s a good person and you want to hear the truth?’ He straightens up, staring down at Nathan. ‘She wouldn’t look twice at someone like you because, these days, she can spot a fuck-up at five paces. And you, my friend, are one of those, all right. Now I know what the cash was about.’
Dom turns to me. ‘That afternoon when I was wrecked outside the school, Mr Sloan here paid me a hundred quid to go home. I should have told you before but I wasn’t exactly proud of it, you know what I mean?’
‘You paid Dom a hundred quid?’ I’m completely bewildered. ‘But I’d only just met you? Why would you do that?’
Nathan says nothing, just rolls onto his side, lying on the ground, clutching his stomach, gasping.
‘Oh, behave yourself!’ Dom says. ‘It doesn’t hurt that much. When the police get here, I’m going to show them my pictures of you behind the wheel, and you’ll have to do a breath test. You’re going to be that man, because you’re pissed, I can tell… Where’s my son?’
Nathan continues to lie there and closes his eyes.
‘You’re going to hear them coming soon,’ Dom says. ‘You’re running out of time. You think you can do this – I can see you do – but trust me, you can’t. You’re going to fuck everything up. You’ve got kids yourself. Don’t do this to them. Just tell me and Jules where Alex is, we’ll go and get him, nice and quietly. We won’t tell anyone you told us. We’ll say he ran away and came home on his own. We’ll say it was me that drove into the back of you. All of this can go away.’
I hear the distant wail of sirens.
Dom stiffens. ‘Here we go… that’s for you. Next thing, it’s blue lights up in your face. They’ll be here and it’s going to get real quickly. Just tell us. This is the moment you’re going to look back on, where you wish you took the lifeline I’m offering you now. Don’t be a dick – don’t let your ego get in the way. Come on – this is your chance…’
The sirens are getting closer.
‘Come on, COME ON!’ Dom urges him. ‘Just tell us! Do the right thing!’
But now they are here, and Dominic exclaims in disgust at Nathan’s continued silence, leaning forward and whispering: ‘if you’ve hurt my son, there won’t be a surgeon in the world able to put the bits of you back together.’
After Nathan is arrested for angrily refusing to perform a breath test, and taken off in one of the two squad cars, the other attending officers move his Porsche to the opposite side of the road. Ewan is then able to take Dom back into town, so that he doesn’t have to drive Sorcha’s battered car and leave it unattended in the hotel car park. Once they’ve left, I go to check on Cass. She’s still awake, eyes wide open in the dark.
‘You all right, sweetheart?’ I sit down on the carpet beside her.
‘I didn’t like seeing Dad and Ben’s dad fighting.’
‘Of course you didn’t. It’s horrible seeing adults behave like that.’
‘Dad was protecting you.’
‘Yes, he was.’ I try to smile.
‘He loves you.’ A small hand reaches out from under the duvet. ‘We both do.’
I catch my breath. She has been holding my heart in that hand of hers for such a long time now. I reach out tentatively. ‘I love you too, Cass.’ I stroke her gently. ‘You, Alex and Dad mean everything to me.’
‘I want Al to come back.’
‘Me too.’ There is nothing more I can say, so instead I start to sing her the songs I have sung Alex since he was a baby and then to both of them when she and Ewan first came to live with us. She doesn’t tell me it’s OK, I can stop. She listens quietly to rhymes of silver nutmegs and golden pears, boats laden with treasure, lavender blue and green, twinkling stars�
�� and her eyes begin to close. I wait until her body relaxes and I’m sure she’s asleep.
Slipping away from Cass into Al’s empty room across the hall, I close the door gently behind me. His stuff: school books; the twist of his unplugged phone charger; dirty clothes; Fortnite magazine; scattered Nerf gun bullets; Lego constructions everywhere; the bag containing the Hollister top I bought him for Christmas that needs to go back because it’s too small. I pick my way over to his bed and lie down, closing my eyes and concentrating on what it feels like to hug and hold him: the uncontrollable limbs; bashing cheekbones; floppy hair and slipping glasses. There is no protesting, busy, wriggly boy small enough to scoop onto my lap anymore. The warm baby sleeping on my chest – his downy hair covering the delicate, pulsing crown of his head that I would softly whisper-kiss – has gone too. But I am in no doubt that Nathan knows where Alex is. I saw it in his eyes. My son is out there and he needs me. There are letters within patients that will tell us where to find him and I am a surgeon. There must be something I can do.
‘Happy?’ I ask the anaesthetist and she nods. ‘All OK to begin.’
‘Right. Here we go.’ I raise my voice to address the audience behind me. ‘I chose my incision site earlier, as denoted by these marks on the skin under the crease of each breast, so it won’t leave a visible scar. I’m now going to carefully make the three-centimetre incision using a scalpel.’ I lean over and begin. ‘I’m slicing through the skin surface in one clean line, and as it parts, returning with smaller strokes to divide the tissue beneath. We’ll briefly swab at this point, and you can see I’m being assisted while I use this thing like a pencil with a wire attached to it’ – I hold it aloft briefly in my right hand – ‘which is a cautery device to control the bleeding, but that can also cut the tissue.’
The students behind me crane in their seats to see.
‘Luckily, this patient has a thin pocket of scar tissue so we don’t need to remove it,’ I continue. ‘I’ve cut through the pocket now, we’ve put a retractor in and I’m going to remove the implant itself by grabbing the corner of it with what look like these long, blunted blade scissors, and simply pulling it away cleanly through the incision.’
