Someone Else's Son (20 page)

The effort was too much. His body wouldn’t take sitting down peacefully any longer. Brody paced the room, wishing he had a clear-cut aim of a vase or ornament to smash against the wall – except that he didn’t possess any ornaments or vases.

‘This isn’t the time for us to fight. We need to find out what happened. Who did this to our son.’

‘She’s right.’ Leah’s voice prevented the response Brody was about to hurl back.

‘Have the police interviewed you?’ he said instead.

‘Yes. You?’

‘Briefly. Don’t think they have much to go on.’

‘There was a witness,’ Carrie continued. ‘Do you know who it is?’

‘No.’ Brody was thoughtful.

‘I want to speak to them. I
need
to.’

Brody could tell she was fighting back tears. ‘Don’t you think the police are taking care of that?’ He bumped into the wall. He’d lost his bearings for a moment.

Carrie didn’t reply immediately – collecting herself, Brody thought. She wouldn’t want to cry in front of him.

‘We can’t just sit back and wait for something to happen,’ she finally said.

Even though her voice was broken – he imagined her small, frail, red-eyed on his couch – Brody could still detect the power of Carrie Kent behind her words. He knew she had connections in the Met and, if he was honest, he didn’t think he could wait for news from the police either. If they still had one thing in common, it was that they each had a need for answers in their professional lives.

‘Max brought a girl here a few times.’ Brody doubted Carrie knew.

‘Who? When?’

‘It started last autumn. He didn’t say much.’

‘Do you know her name? She might know something.’

‘No.’ Brody hadn’t pried. It was only because he caught a foreign whiff in his bedroom once or twice – a smell not of perfume, but of hairspray, make-up, laundry detergent – that he even suspected a girl had been in his flat. He’d wanted Max to tell him when he was ready.

‘I must go back to the school,’ Carrie said.

Brody knew that she thrived on action. Doing nothing wasn’t an option for her. He imagined them together again, at their house, their beloved family home, with Max pedalling round the garden on his trike. If something went wrong in their lives, Carrie leapt in to fix it.
You make things right before they’ve even gone wrong
, Brody used to joke.

‘Will you come with me?’ she asked.

‘Carrie, is this wise today?’ Leah sounded doubtful.

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ he said without hesitating.

 

The Mercedes was still in one piece when they got back to it. Leah drove while Brody sat in the passenger seat. Carrie had shown him the door, pulled out the belt for him to secure. She was surprised at how easy it came, even though they’d only had to adapt their marriage to blindness for a short while.

‘Tell me which way to go,’ Leah said. Carrie leant forward and frowned. She had no idea where they were.

‘You need to head towards the station. Take a sharp right before you get there.’ Brody spoke clearly, as if he sensed exactly which direction they were pointing. Five minutes later, they were in the school car park.

‘I’m not sure I can stand to see . . . I was here earlier. It was awful.’ Carrie buried her face in her hands and allowed a moment of comfort from Leah.

On many occasions, she had accompanied victims’ families along with her film crew to the scene of the crime – usually where a loved one had died in a car accident, or been in a pub brawl that had ended in tragedy, or been mugged or raped. The cameraman knew what to do: a wide pan of the scene, the bunches of flowers, the notes, the teddy bears, followed by a close-up cut of their immediate reaction. It was essential to capture that first horror, the raw emotion, the distilled grief. But nothing, she believed, had been as dreadful as seeing her son’s blood spread over the ground. To get through it, she had forced herself to detach, to make-believe she was filming for yet another show, that really her son hadn’t died this morning at all.
This morning
. . .

‘I’m sorry, you can’t go any further.’ Two policemen stepped forward at the gate that funnelled visitors in from the car park. ‘There’s been an incident.’

‘It was my son,’ Carrie whispered. ‘The incident was my son.’ Brody was between them. Carrie could sense his reluctance at their guidance, but also that he needed their hands on his sleeve. ‘This is his father. We have to see the head teacher.’ Carrie swallowed it all back down.

The policemen glanced at each other and slowly realised who she was, as if the famous Carrie Kent was now only recognisable because of tragedy. They nodded. ‘Follow me.’ One of the officers turned and led them into the drab building.

Why, oh
why
had Max left boarding school for this?

Jack Rushen, head of Milton Park, was deep in conversation with two other staff members. For a school that would normally be closed and empty at this hour, it was humming with low talk and crisis management. They looked stunned when they saw Carrie shaking in front of them. It was clear they didn’t know what to say.

‘We’re Max’s parents. We need to talk.’

‘I was going to contact you, of course, Mrs Kent, but I thought you’d have enough on your plate today.’ Rushen was insipid. He stood up, offered a useless handshake and mumbled his name. He didn’t know what to do with them.

Carrie already hated him. Wasn’t it his fault, after all, that her son was dead? She knew it had to be someone’s. ‘What, I want to know, happened this morning?’ The words came out automatically. Her body was in overdrive.

‘The police are working on it, Mrs Kent. It’s a tragic situation, but believe me—’

‘I don’t see one good reason why I should believe anything you tell me. My son attended your school in good faith and now he’s . . . now he’s . . . dead.’ A sob forced its way out.

‘Carrie, stop.’ Brody’s words were oddly soothing. That was how it used to be, wasn’t it, when they were a team? ‘We’d like to know who his close friends were. So we can request they come to the funeral.’

Silence as Brody’s words sank in.
Max’s funeral
.

Carrie looked at Brody. How he’d been able to think of this so quickly, she had no idea. Of course the head wasn’t going to give out details of witnesses, if he even knew. The police wouldn’t be likely to divulge that information either at this early stage, and Rushen knew it was more than his job – if he had one any more – was worth to give out confidential details.

One of the other men spoke. Carrie had no idea who he was, but he seemed more in control than Rushen, more able to appease them, more able – by one tiny ounce – to add a glimmer of warmth to their frozen, aching hearts. ‘Max was a popular boy. I’m so sorry.’

No one said anything. Popular, Carrie thought. Was he? He never brought friends home. At least she didn’t think he did. And when they’d spoken, it was never about a Tom or Jack or Sarah or Mike. No gossip about who was dating who, or who made the football team, or who’d got detention.

‘Popular?’ she heard herself repeat.

‘So who should we contact?’ Leah asked. She’d taken a pad and pen from her bag.

The same man shrugged. ‘I think many of the pupils will come to the service. We’ll do an announcement when the time is right. When school reopens.’

‘His closest friend, then?’ Brody said. ‘One name.’

The staff glanced at each other. ‘It’s a big school. To name names would be hard.’

In other words, they didn’t know. ‘What about a teacher? Did he have a favourite?’ Carrie felt that swell of grief again, the one that wouldn’t allow her to stand upright. She fell against Brody’s arm, latching on to his sleeve. He tensed, supporting her.

‘Tim Lockhart. English,’ the third man said quickly as if he shouldn’t, as if he actually cared. ‘He’s a mate of mine. Lives locally. Twenty-four Denby Terrace.’

The head glared at his colleague. ‘I’d advise waiting for information from the police before contacting staff.’

‘Of course,’ Leah said, putting away her pad. ‘Let’s go,’ she said to Carrie and Brody.

They left the office. Carrie felt utterly exhausted and just wanted to go home to sleep, even though she knew that would be impossible. But she couldn’t do any more today. As they trudged down the long corridors, she felt like a schoolgirl leaving the head’s office after she’d just had a good telling-off. What, she wondered in time with the stabbing pain in her heart, was she supposed to have done wrong?

 

They’d come in kicking and screaming of course. Each had a mother, smoking outside the station door, spitting curses at the desk sergeant, threatening legal action – all the usual crap. They couldn’t be bothered to sit with their sons who were in the interview room alone, looking an awful lot younger than their teenage years betrayed. One of them rubbed his eyes.

‘How old are you boys?’ Dennis asked.

‘Thirteen,’ they said in unison, both pronouncing it
firt-een
.

‘So that makes me twenty-one, right?’ They knew the law.

They shrugged. One picked a spot on his forehead. His hair was greasy.

‘Are we arrested?’

‘You know you’re not arrested. I’ve already told you that.’ Dennis glanced across at Jess. He thought she looked good for someone who’d been at work eighteen hours straight. ‘I want you to answer some questions that might help us and then you can go.’

The pair smirked at each other.

‘Just confirm your names for me. Blake Samms and Owen Driscoll. Say yes, please.’

‘Yeah,’ they both said.

‘Do you know anyone called Max Quinell?’ Dennis and Jess were both taking notes. The tape recorder whirred on the table. Neither of them expected to get much out of the boys.

‘Dunno,’ Driscoll said. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ He grinned. His teeth were yellow.

‘He was stabbed earlier today.’ Masters glanced at his watch to make sure it was still today. ‘To death.’

‘Yeah,’ Samms said. He wasn’t quite as bright.

‘So you do know Max Quinell?’

‘Mebbe.’

‘Do you know who did it?’

‘Nah,’ they both said together.

‘Was Max in a gang?’

At this, Driscoll laughed. ‘No way, man.’

‘Oh?’ However he phrased the questions, however on their level or on their side or friendly cop he tried to be, Dennis knew they’d happily kick his head in. ‘How come?’

‘Dunno,’ Driscoll said. ‘Just a guess.’

‘Right.’ Dennis had had enough of this. It could go on for ever. ‘Owen, you come with me. Blake, stay here with DI Britton.’ Dennis led the boy to another interview room. He’d hoped that they’d fuel each other. Not so. It had gone the opposite way and, for the most important question, he wanted them apart.

He sat the boy down but remained standing himself. ‘Where were you between ten and eleven this morning?’

Driscoll shrugged. He frowned and his eyes flicked to the ceiling. ‘School, man,’ he said.

‘What lesson?’

He pulled a face. ‘I can’t fucking remember. Science.’

‘But you were definitely in school.’

‘Yeah. Course. I’m a good boy.’ He smirked. ‘Ask Warren Lane. He’s me mate.’

Dennis nodded and left him with the attending officer. He went back to Samms and asked the same question. Jess stood wearily beside him.

Samms bowed his head. ‘Me and Owen bunked off school, man.’

‘You and Owen Driscoll skipped school this morning?’ Dennis asked. ‘What about this Warren character?’

‘Yeah. We went to do some . . . to do some shoppin’, right?’

‘All morning?’

‘Yeah,’ Samms replied.

‘Stick them in a cell for an hour,’ Dennis said privately to Jess. He gripped her arm before she could protest that they really shouldn’t be doing that.

He wasn’t sure how long they’d been lying on the bed. An hour, two, four, ten? Or maybe just a minute or so, but it was still long enough for his entire childhood to rush through his mind in this timeless, beautiful moment with Dayna. He thought he might be falling in love.

Max stared at the nicotine-stained ceiling of his father’s room and went back to that place he could barely remember. He held on to the precious memories as though they were crafted from the thinnest crystal glass or spun from pure silk.

Surely he’d had different parents back then, right? His father – younger not just in age but in the way he swept Max up from the floor with hands so strong they could hold steady the entire planet. He’d liked it best when they’d come down on his ribs, tickling him hard before lifting him up over his shoulder and carrying him out to the garden for a kick-about with a football.

Those same hands now, well, they mostly guided the cigarette between his lips or felt his way along the wall to the bathroom or the kitchen. Sometimes they were dusty with chalk from the many lectures he gave to his students and Max had been impressed at the speed with which they typed on his specially adapted computer. Other times Max saw them gesture wildly to Fiona or his associates on the days he’d been allowed into his dad’s work. It broke his heart to think about those hands now, that all they held, really, was despair.

‘You OK?’ He thought Dayna might have drifted off. She was making little contented noises.

‘Yeah. Just thinking.’

‘Me too,’ Max said. It was harder to remember his mother from back then – perhaps because out of the two of them, she’d changed the most, even though it was his father who had gone blind.

He’d never thought of her hands as safe or fun or, even, frightening. She wasn’t one for smacking, but then neither did she dish out hugs or play or . . . well, anything, apart from the prescribed meals and clothing and bathing. His mother delivered what was necessary in such a way that no one could ever say she neglected her son. Their house was clean and welcoming, and his mother was pleasant and cheerful; always in control.