I saw all this in vivid little bursts: pushchairs, mothers laden like packhorses, snacks being distributed, tales of injustice or triumph. Children sent back into the building to get forgotten things. A teacher with a cup of tea in hand; the headmaster wearing a novelty tie on a rare outing from his office, a few parents flocking around him. Cut-out figures strung like bunting in the windows of the classroom behind them.
‘Are you having second thoughts?’ asked Zhang.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I want to do this.’
I made myself focus, take a deep breath. In front of me the playground was empty, except for a green plastic hoop, which had been discarded in the middle of the tarmac, and the remnants of colourful chalk marks on the ground, only partially washed away by the rain. I got out of the car.
‘Be warned that the school’s hired security,’ Zhang said as we crossed the playground to the entrance, ‘because of the press. They caught a journalist snooping in the school office.’
As we walked, my legs felt as though they weren’t working properly, there was faintness in my head and my chest. Everything seemed to take on a cartoon-like quality. I visualised the press as an invasive plant, its roots and tendrils growing implacably into every area of my life and Ben’s, looking for action or information to feed off. I felt distinctly unwell, and I wondered if I should go back to the car and let Zhang go in without me, but we’d arrived at the door by then and to articulate how I felt was impossible.
We were admitted to the building by a burly man, who I’d never seen before. He had a shaved head, an earpiece and a strikingly large beer belly. He checked Zhang’s ID and then let us in.
I led the way to Ben’s classroom. All I wanted was to get Ben’s PE kit from his peg, and anything else he might have left behind. That’s what I would normally have done at half-term. I would have washed his kit, and checked he had everything he needed for the next few weeks in the run-up to Christmas. Not to do that would have felt wrong.
It wasn’t to be that simple though. As we neared the door to Ben’s classroom, I saw a big display of artwork, and in the middle of that display was a picture that I recognised, because Ben had made it. My knees buckled.
After that I have only snatches of memory and sensation: confusion, when I came round, because I was on the floor of the corridor and Zhang was propping me up; eyes refocusing again on the display of artwork, seeing painted leaves and branches in all the shades of brown and orange and green and black that wrapped themselves around Ben and swallowed him up when we were in the woods; seeing Ben’s picture amongst the others and feeling sure that I could see the imprint of his fingers in the smears of paint; feeling an impulse to stand, and put my fingers where his had been, and then an inability to do that.
When they’d got me upright and they were sure I wasn’t going to faint again, they moved me into the classroom and sat me in the teacher’s chair.
Miss May was there, and also the teaching assistant. I heard Zhang’s voice, saying, ‘She wants his things, that’s all, that’s why we’re here.’
I watched Miss May go over to a row of pegs that ran along one wall of the classroom, and take down the only PE bag that remained there, and behind it there was a label. It was a photograph of a dog, black and white like Skittle, and the name ‘Ben F’.
Then Miss May said, ‘Lucas, can you please get…’ and I watched the teaching assistant go into the corridor and carefully take down Ben’s painting from the autumn display and put it into a plastic folder. Noticing his receding chin and very red hair. Noticing the sweat under his arms.
Then Miss May was offering to help me to the car, but I found my voice and said no, because I didn’t want the fuss of it, and Zhang said we could manage just fine.
Outside in the corridor, with her arm linked firmly around mine, we walked past the new headmaster. He said, ‘I’m so sorry,’ but the way he looked at me made me feel like an exhibit so I didn’t reply. I just wanted to be at home.
Miss May ran down the corridor behind us, her shoes tapping fast, and just as we reached the door she caught up with us. She had an armful of Ben’s books, which she passed to me, and she said ‘I thought you might like these, since you didn’t make it to parents’ evening this week. I thought you might like to look through them.’
So I took them and as Zhang helped me into the car I held them to myself as carefully as if they were an actual baby.
JIM
Addendum to DI James Clemo’s report for Dr Francesca Manelli.
Transcript recorded by Dr Francesca Manelli.
DI James Clemo and Dr Francesca Manelli in attendance.
Notes to indicate observations on DI Clemo’s state of mind or behaviour, where his remarks alone do not convey this, are in italics.
FM: So the letter?
JC: We threw everything into it. Obviously.
FM: Was that your call?
JC: It was Fraser’s, actually it was both of ours, and it was the right one.
FM: Was the investigation team excited?
JC: You’re always excited when you’ve got a lead, but you have to be cautious too. You don’t want mistakes. But it was a development and that was good because by then it had been five days and that was getting to people. They were tired; the media were going insane around us. We had the blog to worry about.
FM: What was happening with that?
JC: Behind the scenes Fraser was putting everything she could into finding out who might be behind it. Amongst others we were looking at Laura Saville and Nicola Forbes as possibles for the leak. We knew that both of them were involved in online journalism in some way already, and they were obviously close to the heart of things. She had to be discreet internally though, partly because we didn’t want to put the wind up anybody if they were up to something, and also because everybody working the investigation was feeling the pressure, and that kind of thing is very bad for morale, putting it mildly.
FM: Including you? Were you feeling the pressure?
JC: Of course. There was a kid’s life at stake.
FM: And did you have any strategies to cope with that?
He speaks to me as though I am an imbecile.
JC: A little boy, eight years old, was still missing after five days. We didn’t have time for ‘coping strategies’.
FM: OK. I understand that it must have been a stressful period for everyone involved in the investigation. My question is-
He interrupts me; his temper has risen.
JC: Don’t patronise me.
FM: I’m not intending to. That’s a very defensive reading of what I said. I’m simply acknowledging the fact that you felt under pressure and looking at ways that we might explore what that meant for you, and for the investigation.
JC: You have no idea what it’s like to be in the middle of something like that.
FM: So would it be fair to say that by this point in the case you’d moved on from the attitude that you felt when you took on the case? The ‘bring it on’ attitude?
JC: It would, yes, because have you ever thought about what five days of being removed from your family and living in fear could do to a child? That’s 120 hours and counting. That was on my mind every single second. Why do you think I threw a hand grenade into the middle of that family? Because that’s what it was, making Nicky Forbes confess that stuff to her sister, don’t think I don’t understand that. But I did that for Benedict. Because we had to find him, and if there was collateral damage, then so be it. The letter was no different.
I end our session here, because I fear I’ll push him away entirely if I press him further today. I do wonder whether, if this man doesn’t successfully go through this process, and get back to work in CID, I might fear for his long-term stability.