‘Does she know?’ I asked.
‘No.’ His voice was quiet. ‘I’ve asked them to keep her away from the media.’
I knew it would be easy to keep Ruth away from the TV – she didn’t have a television in her room, and she was fiercely dismissive of the communal areas of the nursing home, keeping to her own room mostly. She loved to listen to Radio 3, though, and I wondered how they were managing that. She’d be desolate without it.
John was one step ahead of me. He said, ‘They’ve told her that her radio’s broken, and Katrina dropped off some CDs for her, and a player. It should keep her going for a while.’
‘You’ll have to go and see her,’ I said.
‘I can’t see her.’ This said so quietly that I could hardly hear him.
‘Well, one of us has to go. We don’t have to tell her.’
I wanted it to be him that went. I didn’t want to have to look into Ruth’s eyes and lie to her about Ben, but to tell her would break her heart.
‘No. Don’t ask me to,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’
‘John!’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he hung up. I stood there with the phone in my hand, incredulous.
‘How does he think I can deal with this any better than him?’ I said.
‘I’m not sure he’s coping,’ said Nicky.
‘Nobody’s coping,’ I said.
‘He’s really on the edge.’
‘We’re all on the edge.’
‘Don’t argue.’ Laura tried to be peacekeeper.
‘I just don’t see why everybody has to be so worried about John.’
‘We ought to be thinking of him,’ said Nicky. ‘It’s not just you who’s affected by this.’
‘Oh and it’s so hard for you with your perfect husband and perfect daughters safe in their perfect home?’
Nicky gasped. ‘That’s just not fair.’
She got up and left the room. I’d gone too far.
‘She didn’t deserve that,’ said Laura.
‘I know.’
‘She’s trying to help.’
I knew I should apologise to Nicky, but I couldn’t bring myself to. She came back down soon afterwards, eyes red, but face composed.
‘Rachel, I know this feels unbearable, but we’re all on your side, and there are even people out there who are on your side too. The stuff online, it’s not all bad. People are out there searching for Ben. People we don’t know.’
‘They’re organising themselves online,’ said Laura. ‘Using social media.’
‘And the police are going to meet with us,’ said Nicky. ‘Don’t forget what Zhang said earlier. We’ll be working with them to find Ben. It’ll give us the best chance.’
She held my hand and squeezed it gently, but all I could think of was those people out there who hid behind online nicknames, or anonymous blogs, or found safety in numbers on the payroll of newspapers. I thought about how they’d started hunting me from the moment I went off-message at the press conference and I felt preyed upon. Just like my son.
JIM
On the night of Wednesday, 24 October, after working all hours, basically until I was ready to drop, I dreamed of Emma and I dreamed of Benedict Finch too. I remember this because in the moment before waking properly, when the dream was most intense, I clutched her, pulled her to me, and expected her to understand why. She’d been in the dream with me after all.
Instead I scared her. She yelped and sat up, confused by being woken abruptly.
‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’
I realised my mistake then. Her voice, her actual real voice, chased the shadows of the dream away.
‘Sorry,’ I said.
She relaxed, fell back onto the pillows and looked at me with sleepy eyes. She said, ‘You look exhausted,’ and then, ‘What time is it?’
I’d forgotten for a moment that dreams are private.
The dream starts at Portishead lido, where I’m meeting Emma for a coffee in the café. I sit down opposite her. We’re the only customers. Across the room, amongst a host of empty tables, there’s one that has a ‘reserved’ sign on it. Outside, the water in the Bristol Channel looks grey and squally under clouds that are darkening, filthy and low. I feel as if we’re in the last place on earth. I crave a cigarette.
‘I like it here,’ says Emma.
‘Really?’ I say. ‘I feel as if I’m in an Edward Hopper painting.’
She laughs. ‘Nighthawks? I know what you mean.’
‘Something like that,’ I say. I don’t know what the painting is called, just that it shows a stark bar, only four people in it, muted colours, and a big dose of bleakness as its theme.
‘You don’t like it?’ says Emma.
‘No, it’s fine. It’s nice.’
Emma starts talking fast. She’s brimming with ideas that spill out of her and bounce off in different directions, as if you’d tipped out a basket of tennis balls and suddenly they’re bouncing everywhere at once, their individual trajectories too fast and too random to track.
Her dark eyes flash and dart, and her skin is a soft, dusky brown. Her lips are full. In repose, her face is symmetrical, perfectly proportioned. When she’s animated she looks intelligent, intense and engaging. When she smiles it’s surprisingly mischievous.
As she talks, Emma disentangles the string of her tea bag from the handle of her cup and dances the bag up and down. It releases dark curlicues of flavour that creep through the hot water and mesmerise me. I’m enjoying the moment, loving her company, but my cosy trance is broken abruptly by a silence that’s weighted with suspense, like a breath held, because Emma’s stopped talking, and she’s fixated on the table that’s on the other side of the café, the one that’s reserved.
‘Jim,’ she whispers. ‘He’s right under our noses. Look.’
I turn and I see him too. Benedict Finch is sitting a few feet away from us and I realise that the table was reserved for him. He’s wearing his school uniform, just like in the photo we put out of him. He’s a really beautiful child.
I get up, but my motion is retarded, and I can’t move towards him as quickly as I want to. The air around me is viscous and intolerably heavy. Where my bones should be I feel only weakness, a confusing absence of strength.
While I make only a few paces of progress, Benedict Finch stands up and peels off his school sweatshirt and top, and then his trousers, shoes and socks. He’s wearing swimming trunks. He smiles at me and says, ‘I’m going to take a dip,’ and still I can’t move any faster. I haven’t even covered half the ground between us.
Benedict Finch strolls towards the doors that separate the café from the pool outside, and disappears through the glass, ghost-like. I reach the doors just after him but I’m trapped behind them. I hear Emma say, ‘Jim, we’ve got to get him. I don’t think he can swim.’
Outside Benedict Finch is standing on top of a very high diving board. I don’t know how he got there because I can see that it’s been cordoned off, and the ladders removed. I bang on the doors, I shake the handles and I shout until I’m hoarse, but Benedict Finch, bold as brass, jumps, and it’s then that I realise the worst thing of all, which is that there’s no water in the pool. None at all.
And I can’t look. I pull Emma into my arms.
Of course then I wasn’t dreaming any longer. I was awake, and I’d woken Emma up and I had to say sorry and I told her it was three o’clock in the morning and she should go back to sleep.
She didn’t though. After a while, she said, ‘Jim? Are you awake?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m bothered by Rachel Jenner. There’s something about her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s unstable.’
‘I know.’
‘Even her sister seems to treat her like she’s made of china or something.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘I don’t trust her.’
‘Do you think she’s harmed Ben?’