Ben (19 page)

I think it was good for me to get out on my own, but there were a lot of mixed emotions. The final straw came when I heard whispers from locals that I shouldn’t have gone back to work. Greeks say they have a family culture, but they nearly tore mine apart. People I didn’t know were judging me for how I was handling my grief, saying I was betraying my son. In Greece you never stop mourning. I think some people wouldn’t believe I was hurting until I dressed head-to-toe in black and began wailing in the streets. The gossip was mean, none more hurtful than the growing accusations that I’d abandoned Ben to be looked after by my mother. Greek mothers married their child’s father. They stayed at home, they didn’t work. It never occurred to some people – including the police – that there was another way. I couldn’t cope. I lasted eight days at the hotel and then I said goodbye for good.

Dad didn’t even make a week.

He came home the first day with his hand bandaged up. The second day a roof beam fell close to his head. Another foot closer and he could have been killed. Michaelis couldn’t be angry at Dad, but he was concerned.

‘Eddie, I don’t think this is safe for you. Your mind is elsewhere. Please, just rest.’

But there was more to Dad’s injury proneness than lack of concentration. I don’t know how long it had been going on, but he had turned to secretive drinking as his way of coping. We were all so busy existing in our own little worlds – even when we were in the same room – he could have grown an extra head and we might not have noticed.

Mum’s problem was easier to spot but even that seemed to have crept up on us. She was cooking for everyone else but not
touching a crumb, except under duress, and was wasting away to nothing. In one month she’d lost three and a half stone.

We all knew that we were dying inside. That’s how it felt. Day by day we were getting weaker and weaker and weaker, physically and mentally. I remember climbing into bed one night and thinking,
This is the end. I won’t wake up in the morning.
I genuinely thought my body and mind couldn’t take any more.

I think the only thing that got me through the night was the realisation that if I didn’t wake up the following morning, I would miss Ben coming home. For weeks I thought every night would be my last. Then the next morning I was given another chance.

How many chances would I get, though? One by one we were slipping away from reality. The writing was on the wall. We were all going to die out there, penniless, broken and alone on foreign soil. No one else knew what we were going through. No one could help us. People tried. Mum’s sister, Jean, sent money but it just covered basics – it wouldn’t pay for the medical aid we were all crying out for – the European Health Insurance Card wasn’t in place back then. If we wanted the NHS aid that was due us after so many years of Mum and Dad’s contributions, then there was only one place to be.

A week into September, six weeks after Ben had gone missing, Dad took control once again. He looked at Stephen hiding for longer and longer each day in his chicken shed; at Danny, overlooked by all of us when he was just a kid himself; at Mum, emaciated and shattered; at me, broken and destroyed. And he looked at himself, down to his last few drachmas and fighting a dependency on the bottle.

‘It’s time,’ he said. ‘We have to go home.’

Even at night, the September air felt like a warm jumper on my skin as I stood on the beach and watched the white horses gallop onto the sand. The waves were hypnotic, entrancing, but I managed to look beyond them, into the darkness of the Aegean Sea. I hadn’t wanted to admit it to myself or anyone else before. But now I could. Now I needed to, for my own sanity’s sake.

‘Ben’s not here.’

He wasn’t on the island. I had to come to terms with that fact. I probably had done already; I’d just never articulated it in case it looked like I was giving up. I had to face facts. The police didn’t have a clue where Ben was. Maybe he’d flown out when the cigarette vendor claimed to have spotted him at the airport. Or he’d been on the ferry that night – when the police hadn’t bothered turning up to check. Or he’d been smuggled onto another ship under the tarpaulin on the back of a gypsy’s flat-bed truck. It didn’t matter. What did matter was admitting he was no longer on the island – and accepting I had no real reason to stay.

From the moment Dad made the decision to take his family home to get the medical help we needed, it was as though a
switch in him had clicked. He knocked the vodka and the beer on the head and threw himself into planning our journey. He was dynamic, just like he used to be. I hadn’t seen that sort of energy from any of us for a long time.

As it stood, there was no way we could afford tickets back, so Dad once again tried his luck with the British Embassy. This time they were fully aware of the case of Ben Needham. This time they were polite and sympathetic. This time they still said no.

They said they might be in a position to help once they’d means-tested our relatives back home. But it was a process that could take weeks. It was also disrespectful to my grandparents and aunts and uncles. They didn’t deserve the embassy poking through their affairs. So Dad, in time-honoured tradition, told them where they could stick their so-called assistance.

A few weeks earlier that would have floored him. Not any more. Dad was a man on a mission. He went back to the caravan and put everything for sale. Finances were tight so unless we could wear it, we couldn’t keep it. The caravan, the Land Rover, our television, the boys’ mountain bikes, Stephen’s motorbike, Danny’s little computer game, his records, Mum’s gold earrings and even their wedding rings. Everything. They were giving up everything just to get their family home.

I would trade every penny in the world for the return of my son – any parent would. Even so, I wish we could have afforded to return in our own time, not just because our finances dictated it. We had so many other things to worry about, fretting on money was a negative use of our energies. If Ben went missing today, I’m sure the British media would fund at least part of our stay in exchange for a story. Unfortunately, we were completely naïve in
the ways of the press back then. We’d given away our whole life story for nothing.

While the great sell-off was going through and with just the Land Rover to get rid of, plans were hatched. Dad said I was to take Stephen to Athens airport then he, Mum, Danny and Ben the dog would follow as soon as the vehicle transaction was completed. The next few days passed, like so many before them, in a blur of packing and tying up loose ends. I still wasn’t sure we were doing the right thing but at least we were doing
something
.

On 13 September, Dad and I went to see Bafounis and his team for the last time. They hadn’t got anywhere with the gypsy angle or with locating the drivers of the mysterious white car. They saw no reason for us to remain. We promised to contact them with an address as soon as we were settled back in Blighty. In case of emergency, they were told to contact South Yorkshire Police.

‘Yes, yes,’ Bafounis surprised us by saying. ‘We are already in contact with them. They checked Simon Ward’s flight record for us.’

So they
had
checked Simon and he was innocent. Why didn’t they tell us? If not for my sake, then at least to clear an innocent man’s name.

I’d been in two minds about leaving. No sooner had we left the police station than my decision was made. I wanted to get off that island as quickly as humanly possible. Five months ago, I thought I’d arrived in paradise. It had quickly turned into hell. Now I was itching to escape.

Stephen and I weren’t the only ones leaving Kos that day. The ferry to the mainland was packed, with no seats inside or out, so Stephen and I stood on the deck and leant on the rail. As the ship
pulled away, I scanned the quayside and found Mum and Dad and Danny waving. I raised my arm to signal back but I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t right.

What am I doing?

‘Stephen, I’ve got to get off.’ I was making a mistake. I couldn’t leave now. Ben might come back. He’d need me.

I pulled at the collar of my top, trying to get air onto my skin. Out of nowhere, the sweat was pouring down my face. I had to get off. We’d only just left the dock.
I could swim that far.
I looked down at the water churning from the ship’s massive propeller, and wondered if I’d survive the jump.

‘Don’t be silly, Kerry. It’s too late.’

Stephen’s arms wrapped tightly around me. He sensed what was going through my mind. He was my younger brother, but he was being strong for both of us.

‘But he’s out there, Stephen. Ben’s out there somewhere. I can’t leave him.’

‘There’s nothing we can do here any more, Kerry. Ben’s not on Kos. You know that. Whoever’s taken him has left the island.’

I felt like the worst parent in the world. Like I was abandoning my son, giving up on any chance of finding him. I knew it was the right decision for our family’s sanity. But seeing the shore disappear behind us was too much. I made a desperate attempt to lurch out of Stephen’s grip before it was too late. He responded by hugging me tighter. He was crying as hard as I was.

Eventually I felt Stephen relax his hold and he turned his back to the railing and slid down onto his haunches. I stared until the island faded to a dot in the distance, petrified to even blink in case I missed the chance of spotting Ben. Then I hunkered down next
to my brother and we held each other until our tears carried us to sleep.

The twelve-hour crossing passed in the same timeless way as the last seven weeks. I don’t remember moving, speaking or doing anything. Before I knew it, the unmistakeable sound of horns and shouting from Greek drivers rose above the throbbing of the ferry’s giant engines. I was aware of the top deck being suddenly filled by people taking in the night-time view.

Without once looking back at the ocean, I stepped off the ship onto the Greek mainland and felt the Kos lifestyle slip off me like a badly fitting coat. I’d lived there, built a life there. Now I was just another tourist heading home.

Dad, with help from Dino and Athena, had done his research. He gave us an itinerary to follow, starting with directions from the port in Piraeus to a hostel in Athens’s Syntagma Square, near the Acropolis. The hostel was basic and cheap, with fifteen beds to a room. I was beyond caring. The next morning, we had to go to Athens airport to buy flights. Dad had no credit card so we hadn’t been able to book tickets from Kos. The instruction was, ‘Get the first available plane to the UK. Don’t wait for us. Don’t worry about where it’s heading. Just get yourselves home.’ Whether we landed in Birmingham, London or Manchester, Dad said that Uncle Derek would pick us up.

Stephen knew about the hassle I’d had on the way out in April. He was as paranoid as me about watching the pennies until we had our tickets in our hands. The odds of there being another generous traveller or policeman to help us out were slim. So we skipped breakfast and hoped the bus to Ellinikon International Airport wouldn’t eat too much into our tiny budget.

When I’d landed in Athens earlier in the year, I’d had everything to look forward to. It was a trial, but I had the strength to get through anything knowing my family were the prize for completing the ordeal. Five months later, and being informed there were no spaces on any UK-bound flights that day – or for days later – I didn’t have that strength. Being told to try again the next day for cancellations was about as much as I could bear. Somehow Stephen managed to lead us the four miles back to the hostel. As well as our one case, he was almost carrying me.

The next morning we repeated the same process – with the same result. What’s more, the prices were higher than we’d expected. With another night at the hostel and bus journeys there and back, we’d be lucky to be able to afford to fly and eat in the interim.

‘We’ll have to stay here,’ Stephen said. ‘However long it takes.’

The airport had a tree in the departures lounge so we put our case down next to it and made camp there. The day passed slowly, the night slower still. I was hungry, tired, in an emotional drought. I just sat there, stared into the mid-distance and let time wash over me.

I was so drained I barely recognised my own mother when she was standing over me. The plan had always been to meet at the airport if we were still in Greece. I hadn’t expected it to work.

With the proceeds of the Land Rover in his pocket, Dad said we deserved a proper meal and a night back at the hostel. Then the following morning we decamped en masse to Ellinikon and had our first stroke of luck. There was a flight bound for Manchester that had five available tickets for us, and one for Ben the dog. Even though it included a scheduled stopover in Yugoslavia and we knew that war had just broken out there,
with various states claiming independence, what choice did we have? I couldn’t wait to get going. The memory of those Good Samaritans who’d helped me at the domestic airport a few short months ago was long gone. Every moment we were in the country now just increased the pain.