The Moment She Left (11 page)

She’d turned away, shaking her head. It was Matt who’d raged, ‘No one believes it. We all know it was about revenge.’

Tyler Bennett was a tough, cocky kid from a highly dysfunctional family on a notorious estate, an unpleasant thug who, when at school which wasn’t often, had done his best to disrupt lessons, goad and humiliate teachers and ridicule those who wanted to learn. Everyone was nervous of him; there was never any knowing who he’d turn on next, no way of guessing what sort of punishment he was planning for a victim who had no idea they’d even committed an offence.

The last person anyone had expected him to turn on was Mr Leonard, the art teacher. Everyone liked Mr Leonard; his lessons were fun even for those who weren’t much into the subject. He had the ability to make trips around galleries and museums interesting, and if some of the girls had a crush on him, which invariably happened, he always pretended not to notice. The same went for the boys, though Blake couldn’t remember suspecting any of them of being gay, only of some misplaced hero-worship.

Though Tyler Bennett would never have admitted it, he was one of those boys. He didn’t tend to act up in Blake’s class in the aggressive way he did in others, although he was often loud and argumentative, or did his best to put down the more talented
students. But he was rarely difficult with Mr Leonard himself. It was only when Blake had one day shouted across the art room, ‘Tyler, leave it alone if you can’t get it to stand up,’ that the trouble had begun. In spite of the students knowing he’d been responding to Tyler’s noisy and fruitless efforts to erect an easel the entire class, with the exception of Tyler, had exploded into laughter.

Tyler Bennett can’t get it up
appeared scrawled on the art-room blackboard the next morning. By the end of the day it had made its way on to just about every black- or whiteboard in the school.

Two weeks or more went by and there was no sign of Tyler. Calls to his home from the secretary’s office elicited no reply, and none of his regular gang was forthcoming about where he might be. Then out of the blue he was back, not for assembly or classes, but for a visit to the art room where Blake was still clearing up after school. He said he was looking for one of his mates, and Blake half expected a posse of them to come piling in behind him to teach him their own kind of lesson. Instead, Bennett closed the door, stayed for ten minutes or so chatting about Man United’s game the previous Saturday, and then left.

In spite of finding the visit odd, Blake hadn’t thought much more about it until the Head called him into his office the following day. Tyler Bennett was waiting with his mother and uncle and Blake sensed right away that this wasn’t going to be good. Apparently the boy had made some very grave allegations, and though the Head told Blake privately afterwards that
he wasn’t inclined to believe them, he was sorry, he had no choice but to suspend Blake while the matter was investigated.

So the police and social services came to interview Blake, as well as questioning other teachers and students, Jenny, his neighbours, and parents of other students, some of whom were, like Tyler, from the notorious Ordsall Estate. Exactly what the authorities were told Blake never found out, he only knew that in spite of no charges being brought it was no longer possible to go on teaching at that school, or living where they were. Tyler’s gang had already targeted their house several times with paint bombs, packs of dog poo, fireworks, and the kind of threats that Blake couldn’t afford to ignore. He knew, because everyone did, that Tyler had been involved in the beating of a man whose only crime was to ask the boy to pick up the litter he’d tossed into his garden. The man’s injuries had been extensive, and might have been even more serious had a neighbour and his Rottweiler not come to the rescue.

Then came the shock of discovering that many of their friends and neighbours seemed to think there was no smoke without fire. Other rumours started that had no basis in fact, but that didn’t seem to matter. He could hardly believe that people he’d known for years, who’d socialised with him and Jenny, whose children had played with his, were prepared to doubt him.

So he’d turned his back on teaching altogether and on the town he, Jenny and the children had lived in all their lives, and moved them all south to Kesterly. Graeme had offered him a job on interviewing him,
and in spite of knowing his story Graeme’s family had taken him and his family to their hearts.

‘Is that you, Dad?’ Matt asked, pushing open the door to Jess’s room.

‘Yes, it’s me,’ Blake replied, knowing, feeling, Matt’s moment of blind hope that Jess had come back.

Clocking his father’s distress Matt hung his head and Blake went to embrace him. They stood together, silently, painfully, asking themselves the same questions over and over – was she still alive? What more could they do? Who was holding her, if she was being held? Where was her body if someone had killed her?

‘Any news from Andee Lawrence?’ Matt asked as they started down the stairs together.

‘When I spoke to her earlier,’ Blake replied, ‘she was still waiting for some information she’s asked for from the Met.’

‘Have you told her you thought you saw Tyler Bennett?’

‘Yes, I have.’ Blake was checking a text on his mobile. It was from Graeme about a card-table delivery they were expecting tomorrow.

‘I don’t get it, if it is Tyler Bennett,’ Matt said, going into the kitchen. ‘It’s not his MO to stalk. He intimidates, bullies, beats people up, threatens them with knives, he doesn’t lurk about like a closet psycho on turf he doesn’t know, because there’s nothing closet about that tosser, apart from his gayness.’

Whether Bennett really was a closet gay, Blake had no idea, nor did he care. All he knew was that, like Matt, he was having a hard time working out why
Bennett might have gone to the bother of tracking him to Kesterly.

It wasn’t that Rowzee had been expecting anything different. Ever since she’d first gone to the doctor, several months ago, she’d had a feeling the outcome wasn’t going to be good. Because of how often the headaches were recurring, especially in the mornings, and the odd little blackouts – absence attacks she now knew they were called – she’d been sent off to see a specialist at the Kesterly Infirmary. In turn he’d recommended she see a colleague of his at St Mary’s in London. So, off she’d popped for a biopsy, telling her family she was meeting some old friends to catch a couple of shows and do a spot of shopping. She hadn’t enjoyed the procedure much, but who would enjoy having a drill buzzing through their skull?

Anyway, there had been so many comings and goings over it all that she’d lost track now of how many tests, inconclusive results and call-backs she’d been through. Throughout it all a horrible sixth sense had kept on warning her that the outcome wasn’t going to be good, so as though to wrong-foot it, or to show it who was in charge, she’d started looking into a one-way trip to a Swiss clinic.

That was all very well when the threat was still fiction; now the worst had been confirmed she was in a state of total shock, fear and disbelief.

‘I’m really sorry, Mrs C,’ her doctor Jilly had said yesterday evening, ‘but this tumour in your brain is a secondary cancer.’

‘Secondary?’ Rowzee had echoed, stunned. ‘So where’s the primary?’

‘We don’t know that yet, but it’s showing as a melanoma and obviously we’ll be trying to find the source. What’s important for now is that the tumour we know about is treated.’

Rowzee stiffened. ‘But it’s a secondary, so that means there’s no cure?’

Jilly didn’t deny it, but she did go on to say quite a lot of things Rowzee hadn’t fully taken in. Something about checking for moles to find the primary, further tests, different treatments . . .

Having no idea how she’d got through the night without alerting Pamela’s suspicions, or without going to pieces, Rowzee had started today by summoning every last acting skill she possessed to help her go forward. She still wasn’t sure what her plan was – Dignitas would obviously have to play a part at some point, though she hadn’t gone back to their website yet. In truth she could hardly even think about them without wanting to sob like a child and beg God to turn it all into a horrible dream she could wake up from.

For no particular reason she’d brought herself to the Seafront Café this afternoon, where she now sat drinking a cup of tea while gazing absently out at the glorious summer day. She was reflecting on what bad luck it was that her cancer had started out life as a melanoma when her sun-worshipping days were decades behind her. Was it possible it had flared into early action during those crazy times when she’d coated herself in olive oil to catch as many rays as the hot sun
could provide? It was scary indeed to think that the slow burn might have been going on all these years without any bleeding or unsightly moles to give itself away. Of course, she could be wrong, it might have started much later, but even so, it had managed to secrete itself away somewhere around her body and they still didn’t know where it was – apart from in her brain, of course.

Apparently she was lucky not to have suffered more severe symptoms by now such as seizures (the absence attacks were a mild form of seizure), loss of balance and cognitive confusion . . . She couldn’t remember what else, but not to worry, she had it all to look forward to, and Jilly would no doubt provide reminders if she asked. She remembered Jilly telling her that the neurosurgeon’s team were working on a treatment plan for her, even though it had already been decided that the tumour was inoperable. So what she was most likely facing was a dose of radiotherapy and maybe chemo further down the line, by which time there was every chance she’d be gaga.

Jilly hadn’t actually said that, of course, but Rowzee wasn’t stupid, she knew what ‘a certain degree of mental incapacitation’ meant, most of her year nine students would know that, some even had it. Even if she wasn’t completely doolally, she was likely to have speech difficulties, hearing and sight impairment, and her motor skills were also going to suffer. Once again Jilly hadn’t gone into that sort of detail, Rowzee had found it all online last night before Pamela had come home from one of her mysterious dates.

So she was going to die. (She had to say it to herself like that, because beating around the bush wasn’t going to get her anywhere.) Anyway, everyone was going to die, sooner or later. However, for her it was definitely going to be sooner – in fact much sooner than the medical team knew. This was because, once she’d summoned the courage, she was fully intending to contact Dignitas and take matters into her own hands. After all, what was the point of dragging this out, getting her head fried and zapped and whatever else they were planning, making her family miserable and scared, putting them to the trouble of ferrying her about for treatments she didn’t want to have when they had their own lives to be getting on with? And she didn’t even want to think about the kind of a nurse Pamela would make, giving injections and changing pooey pads. She’d do it, of course, and with a great deal of love, because Rowzee didn’t doubt for a minute that Pamela loved her, but fear of losing Rowzee would be certain to turn Pamela into a jabbering monster.

Besides, she didn’t want to get in the way of Pamela’s Internet dating. (Rowzee didn’t actually know for certain it was happening yet, but given the evidence so far she’d stake what was the rest of her life on it.) It would be a great weight off her mind if Pamela were to meet a lovely man of around sixty, with a lively sense of humour and very thick skin, to enjoy her twilight years with.

Bill Simmonds was just that man, if only Pamela could see it.

Pulling her notebook and cup of tea closer, Rowzee began jotting down reminders – forgetfulness was one of her symptoms, so she’d just bought this rather smart leather-bound book as her aide-memoire. After writing ‘Open Pamela’s eyes to Bill’ she turned her thoughts to Graeme.

Of course, he was a very capable man with a successful business, a healthy outlook on the world and, at forty-eight, plenty of years left in his allotted span. He certainly wouldn’t want her worrying about him. In fact, it would probably make him quite cross, but for her own sake, if not for his, she’d like to see him settled with a lovely, deserving woman before she, Rowzee, turned up her toes. Andee Lawrence would fit the bill perfectly if she weren’t married to someone else. Such a pity that, because when Rowzee had first heard about Graeme’s relationship with the detective, as Andee had been back then, she’d had very high hopes of it. After all, he was a bit of a detective himself, searching out antiques for clients and putting together the history of the piece or pieces. So they had that in common; they also spoke the same language, which wasn’t to be sneezed at, they lived in the same town and their children were around the same age. Added to that Rowzee couldn’t imagine Andee, or indeed any woman, not loving the idea of spending time in Italy over the coming years with someone as splendid as Graeme. He’d promised to take Rowzee and Pamela to stay at his villa when it was fully renovated – they’d seen the ramshackle place it was now when he’d flown them over for a viewing, followed
by a fortnight’s holiday in a lovely hotel. It saddened Rowzee immensely to think that she probably wasn’t going to see the finished version, but she tried bolstering herself with the reminder that in the grand scheme of things it was hardly important.

What was very important was how she moved forward from here, and since the Dignitas brochure was already saved (unread) in a secret file on her computer, she should probably start giving some thought to her will. It should all be very straightforward – the house to Pamela, who would of course make sure it was passed on to Katie and Lucie when she fell off her perch (so many euphemisms for dying, and she expected she was going to learn a lot more before she bought the farm, ha ha). Victor’s desk to Graeme, according to Victor’s wishes, and all royalties from Victor’s books to Katie and Lucie, again Victor’s wishes. Rowzee’s investments, jewellery and cash in the bank would also go to the girls, and various other bits and pieces to dear friends such as Gina Stamfield, Charles’s wife.