The Secrets She Keeps, page 24
“Yes, of course.”
Nicky begins talking about how he drove past our old house in Highgate. “I think they’ve done an attic conversion,” he says. “We always talked about doing that . . . when we had children.” He looks at me apologetically, wishing he could take the statement back. “Do you ever wonder what would have happened if our Chloe had lived? She would have been four this year.”
I don’t answer.
“I wonder all the time,” he says. “I see a little girl in the street, or the park, and I imagine that she might be our Chloe—alive and well, being raised by someone else.”
“If I thought that, I’d go crazy.”
“You’re right. We both went a little dippy, didn’t we? I remember you talking about stealing a baby. You were kidding, I know, but you said we should find a couple who already had children and take a baby from them.”
“I was grieving.”
“Of course.”
I manage to hold Nicky’s gaze when all I want to do is look away. The creature inside me uncoils.
He knows! He knows!
“So where did you have your baby?” Nicky asks.
“In London.”
“Oh, Sara said it was in Leeds.”
“What I mean is, I gave birth in Leeds but came straight back to London. Hayden had just flown in from Cape Town. He’s been fighting pirates in the Indian Ocean.”
Nicky tilts his head. “I was in Leeds a few weeks ago. I knocked on your mother’s door. The place looked closed up. A neighbor said she’d gone to Spain for the winter.”
“She came back for the birth.”
“And then went back to Spain?”
“Yes.”
He knows! He knows!
I look at my watch. I’m not wearing one. I glance at my phone. “I really have to go. Rory has to be fed.”
“Sure. Absolutely.” Nicky gets up and holds out my coat while I slip my arms into the sleeves.
“It was lovely seeing you again, Aggy. Look after that baby.”
“I will.”
We separate on the pavement outside. I walk two dozen steps and look back. Nicky is still watching me.
He knows! He knows!
He returns my wave before crossing the road, heading for the nearest Underground station. When he’s far enough ahead of me, I turn and follow, keeping my head down and weaving between pedestrians. Nicky is tall enough to spot in a crowd.
He knows! He knows!
He won’t say anything.
He’ll tell the police.
He has no proof.
It doesn’t matter.
South Kensington station is always busy. There are multiple walkways and passages leading to different platforms. Keeping Nicky in view, I pull up the hood of my coat, shielding my face from the cameras. At one point Nicky pauses to give money to a busker playing the violin. I stop suddenly and turn, walking against the flow. After a few seconds, I spin back and follow him again.
He has reached the eastbound platform of the District and Circle lines, which is crowded with sightseers leaving the museums. Murmuring apologies, I brush past shoulders and weave between bodies, following Nicky to the far end of the platform.
I glance at the information board. The next train is a minute away. Nicky is looking at his phone.
He’s calling the police.
He could be reading emails.
Or sending a message.
It’s nothing.
He’s jealous because you couldn’t give him a child.
Nicky loves me.
He knows! He knows!
The train is approaching, beating out a rhythm on the rails. Images flash against my closed lids. I see the police arriving at the flat. I see them taking my baby away. I’m fighting at their arms, begging them to give him back . . . to let me hold him.
Nicky has shuffled forward, standing close to the edge. I’m right behind him, close enough to see the fine downy hair on the nape of his neck and the dandruff on his shoulders. People are pressed around us.
He knows! He knows!
What can he do?
He can tell the police.
No.
The wind lifts the hair from Nicky’s forehead as the train appears, rushing towards us. The front carriage is forty feet away, thirty feet, twenty feet . . . I glimpse the driver behind the windshield. A man. Looking bored.
He knows! He knows!
What can I do?
Stop him!
How?
My hands touch the middle of Nicky’s back. His head begins to turn, but I push harder, feeling his weight. Giddy for a moment, I muffle a laugh as he pitches forward, fighting for balance, waving his arms in tiny circles. For a moment he seems to defy gravity, but then he falls, disappearing beneath the train with a soft whump—a sound repeated with every passing wheel.
A woman screams. Then another. I join them. People are shouting as carriages flash past us, slowing to a halt. Passengers are standing inside, waiting to get off, unaware of what’s happened beneath them. A young pudgy girl of five or six is staring at me. She’s holding a doll in the crook of her arm and tugging at her mother’s sleeve.
Her mother covers her eyes, telling her not to look.
“What happened to the man?” asks the girl.
“Shhhhh.”
“Where did he go?”
The girl pulls her mother’s hand from her face and stares at me accusingly. I cannot meet her gaze. I turn away and move through the crowd. People are pressing forward, hoping for a closer look. Others want to escape. I push past them, weaving between the forest of shoulders, keeping my head down, listening to their conversations.
“Someone jumped?”
“He collapsed.”
“Shit! Are we going to be late?”
It seems to take an age to reach the exit, the stairs. My hands are shaking. My mind numb. I must think clearly. If I leave the station it will look suspicious. I should catch a train. Choose a different platform. Get away. Cover my tracks.
The creature inside me has gone quiet, but I know what he’s thinking.
He knew! He knew! He knew!
MEGHAN
* * *
Lucy and Lachlan race each other through the front gate and down the path, hurling themselves into my outstretched arms. Flash guns are firing and TV cameras capture the moment. Our private family reunion has become public fodder, to be shown and reshown on every news channel. We are the stars of our own reality TV show: Meet the Shaughnessys.
Jack follows them down the path, carrying their twin suitcases. The photographers are yelling instructions, wanting us to pose for more shots, but I shoo the children inside and we shut the door.
I hug the children again, properly this time. Lucy talks a mile a minute, trying to tell me all her news before Lachlan has time to construct a sentence.
“I think I have nits. My head is all itchy. Grandma gave me a special shampoo, but it hurt my eyes and I had to wear conditioner on my head for ages. I cried when she combed it out, but she didn’t find any nits. So how come my head is so itchy?”
“I’m hungry,” says Lachlan.
“I’m making a snack now,” I say.
Lucy crawls up onto Jack’s lap. Lachlan comes to me.
“Did you have the baby?” Lucy asks.
“Yes—a little boy.”
Lucy frowns. “I was hoping for a girl.”
“But you knew we were having a boy.”
“Yeah, but I thought maybe you made a mistake or changed your mind—like that time we ordered that lamp from IKEA and picked up the wrong one and we decided that the wrong one looked better than the right one so we didn’t take it back.”
“Babies aren’t like lamps from IKEA,” I say.
“So where is he?” ask Lachlan. “Can we see him?”
“Not just yet.”
“Why?”
I look at Jack. We’ve already discussed how to handle this.
“Ben has gone missing,” I say.
“I knew it,” says Lucy triumphantly. “I heard Granddad and Grandma talking. They said someone stole him.”
“That’s right,” says Jack. “But we’re going to get him back.”
Lachlan frowns. “Why did they steal him?”
“They must have wanted a baby,” replies Lucy, making it sound so logical.
“But you can’t just steal one,” says Lachlan. He looks at me for corroboration.
“The police are looking for him,” I say. “That’s why all those people are outside the house. They’re reporters.”
Lachlan’s eyes have gone wide. His hand goes to his mouth. “What if the Child Catcher got him?”
“It’s not the Child Catcher,” Jack says. Ever since Lachlan watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang he’s been terrified of the Child Catcher—a villain who lures children into a cage by offering them lollipops and sweets.
There are lots more questions about the police and the reporters outside.
I can see that Lachlan is struggling the most. “Does that mean he’s gone forever?”
“No.”
“So where is he?”
“He’s staying with some other family.”
“Like a sleepover,” says Lucy.
“No, not quite.” My heart wants to break. “Ben has a new home and he’s being looked after by someone else.”
“But why?” asks Lachlan.
I don’t know how to answer him.
“Won’t he miss us?” Lucy asks.
Jack comes to my rescue. “The person who took Ben is sad. She is so sad that she thought a baby might make her happy—even if it is someone else’s baby.”
“Why can’t she have her own baby?” Lachlan asks.
“We don’t know,” says Jack, “but we’re going to get Ben back.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Maybe not tomorrow.”
“Snack time!” I announce, clapping my hands. “Who wants oven chips?”
“Yeah,” they chorus.
Jack carries Lucy to the kitchen, which he doesn’t do much anymore because she’s grown so big. I carry Lachlan, sniffing his hair, drawing his smell deep into my lungs, wanting to remind myself that these two are safe and belong to me.
* * *
It’s strange having Jack at home during the day. His boss has given him indefinite leave from work, but Jack doesn’t know what to do with himself. I can manage to fill each hour with chores—cooking, cleaning, and sewing buttons—while Jack wanders through the house, looking out the window, checking his email, looking out the window again.
Normally he’d play tennis or go for a run, but everything we do is being monitored, recorded, and broadcast. The reporters outside are knocking on our neighbors’ doors, asking to use their bathrooms or looking for quotes. At the same time, photographers and cameramen have set up stepladders so they can shoot over our box hedge at the bay window and front door. Our house is the backdrop for hourly updates, delivered breathlessly by journalists, while the bright lights blast through our front curtains, casting shadows on the walls.
We’re trapped in here. We’re like rats in a cage, or goldfish in a bowl. Last night Jack and I lay in bed like strangers, staring at the ceiling. At one point his knee touched my thigh and I slid another few inches away from him. He uttered a gentle snore and I resented him even more.
Eventually I slept. Ben appeared in my dreams. I heard him crying and my milk came in and I wondered how my heart could keep beating of its own accord when it felt so broken and mangled. Every four hours I have been expressing and putting the milk in the freezer, adding to my growing supply, hoping it will be necessary.
I woke to the sound of reporters laughing outside. Making jokes. I know from Jack how journalists find humor in the darkest stories because it inoculates them against tragedy or overcomes the boredom. They make jokes about Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump. Nothing is off limits or “too soon.”
The TV is a constant soundtrack as I follow every bulletin, listening to the endless parade of child-care experts, doctors, hostage negotiators, and bereaved parents who are asked to comment on the investigation and how Jack and I might be feeling. Our friends are also asked to comment, ambushed as they step out of their cars or front doors. Startled by the cameras, they mouth sympathetic platitudes, adding nothing, filling airtime.
There have been dozens of unconfirmed sightings up and down the country. New mothers are complaining about being stopped by strangers in the street who peer into their prams and quiz them suspiciously.
Occasionally something new emerges. A hospital blanket was discovered in a toilet cubicle at King’s Cross station. The tartan shopping trolley turned up on a train that arrived in Edinburgh. A cleaner took it home, thinking it was abandoned, but saw the trolley mentioned on the news and handed it over to police.
“So Ben is in Scotland,” I said to Annie.
“We don’t know that.”
“But the trolley?”
“It might have been left on the train. There are seven stops between King’s Cross and Edinburgh.”
“So he could be anywhere?”
“We’re checking the CCTV footage and ticket purchases from those stations.”
I am trying to stay positive, modulating my voice to sound low and reasonable whenever I talk to the police, but inside I’m yelling, Just find him, for God’s sake!
In the meantime, the cards and letters keep arriving. The postman came twice today, delivering three sacks each time. Annie has suggested she read everything first in case one of the messages is from the kidnapper, but I think she’s trying to protect us from the trolls. Already there are conspiracy theories appearing on the Internet. Someone has suggested the kidnapping is a hoax to raise Jack’s profile. Others say that an organized crime syndicate was behind the abduction, trafficking white children to slave traders in the Middle East. I shouldn’t read the crazies. My imagination has enough material.
Annie suggests we go stay with my parents.
“You said the kidnapper might try to make contact?”
“We could put a transfer on your numbers.”
“What if they try to bring Ben home?”
Annie doesn’t answer, but I know she thinks I’m clutching at straws. I don’t care. I’m allowed to be irrational or insanely optimistic. What I refuse to do is lose hope.
Lucy has gone to school today, but Lachlan is staying home because I need the distraction. Neither of them has mentioned Baby Ben since yesterday. I don’t think they’re unmoved, or uncaring. That’s the difference between children and adults—children don’t put as much energy into being sad.
I have my laptop open on the kitchen bench and have been searching the Internet for other stories of missing children. When Madeleine McCann disappeared, the circus ran for months and then years. Jack gets angry when I mention facts like this. “It’s not the same,” he says. “We’re going to find Ben.”
Right now he’s upstairs, sitting in an airless study, watching football or playing computer solitaire. Or maybe he’s also searching the Internet, looking for solace or reassurance or a clue.
“Dr. Haven wants to come over,” says Annie, cupping her mobile phone in her hands. “He’s finished the psychological profile.”
“When?”
“He can be here in fifteen minutes.”
“OK,” I say, desperate for any news. It’s not boredom I feel so much as ineffectiveness. I want to be doing something useful or positive that might make a difference.
Annie is brushing her hair and applying lip gloss in the hallway mirror. I wonder if it has anything to do with Cyrus Haven.
“How well do you know him?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Dr. Haven.”
“Not very well.”
“Oh. I thought you might be friends.”
Annie colors slightly and I know that I’m on the right track. Either she carries a torch for Cyrus or there has been a past relationship.
“How did you meet him?” I ask.
“He interviews officers who are involved in shootings or who are injured in the line of duty.”
“Did that happen to you?”
She nods. “I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
Her reluctance makes me even more curious. “He’s a very interesting man, Dr. Haven. A good listener. I guess he has to be. But he also strikes me as being very sad.”
“That’s understandable,” says Annie.
“Why?”
“After what he went through.”
“What happened to him?”
“It’s not really my place.”
I open my laptop and call up Google, typing in the name Cyrus Haven.
“You won’t find anything,” says Annie.
“Why not?”
She chews the inside of her cheek. “You didn’t hear this from me, OK?”
I nod.
“Look up the name Elias Haven-Sykes.”
Dozens of links appear on-screen with dramatic shout-lines:
Family Hacked to Death
Youngest Son Discovers Family Massacre
Haven-Sykes Committed to Mental Hospital
Opening some of the links, I read them in silence.
Elias Haven-Sykes, aged eighteen, used a machete to murder his parents and two younger sisters in Manchester in 1995. One member of the family survived—Cyrus Haven-Sykes, aged thirteen, who came home from football practice and discovered his brother watching TV while resting his feet on their father’s body. Their mother lay dead on the kitchen floor. His sisters had tried to barricade themselves in a bedroom, but were dragged from beneath their beds and hacked to death.
Annie has been watching me read.
“Why?” I whisper.
“Elias was a diagnosed schizophrenic. He’d been in and out of psychiatric hospitals since he was sixteen.”
“Where is he now?”
“Rampton, as far as I know. Maximum security.”
“Does Cyrus ever talk about him?”
“No.”
I close the computer, not wanting to read any more. I remember the case now, but not the names of those involved. One image in particular flashes into my mind—the photograph of a teenage boy dressed in a black suit, standing alone amid the coffins of his family. The caption called him “the loneliest boy in the world.”
