Ben (36 page)

My support officers, Jane Morley and Ian Marshall, had been waiting at the port when we arrived. Jane and Ian have lived through a lot of the ups and downs of recent years with me. They were exactly the cool heads I needed at that moment. Another cold-case officer, Ian Harding, was with them and, as soon as he could get away for the night, Matt joined us as well. If his logistical attention to detail had been impressive already, it was about to reach another level. As well as pulling the strings behind the eighty-man search team and numerous vans of equipment, he was also managing to keep the world’s media in some sort of order. Matt had agreed to hold a press briefing every morning at ten thirty at the site. During that meeting, he promised to outline the day’s goals. Then the press all had to leave
until four o’clock, when he would reveal any findings. His plan was to be upfront with everyone from the start: that way there would be no speculation. On a site like the one being searched, there were bound to be dozens if not hundreds of animal bones buried. The last thing he wanted me or anyone to suffer was the product of a long-range camera lens and a headline screaming ‘Is This Ben?’

Everything Matt had arranged seemed so perfect that when he asked if I’d make a speech at the press conference the following day, I naturally agreed. Only when he’d gone did the enormity of the request hit me. Jane and Ian helped me draft a few words thanking the police and media and the dozens of local volunteers who had given up paid work to help the officers clear the search site of trees and foliage. For years, I’d only heard my name whispered conspiratorially in Kos. But here were thirty farmers, schoolteachers, businessmen – people of all backgrounds – proving that not everyone on the island should be judged in the same light. Some of these people even worked nights, then came and helped us after just a couple of hours’ sleep.

On Monday 22 October, at his morning briefing, Matt announced that I would be appearing at lunchtime outside the police station. At that very moment, I was doubting I’d be able to say a word. Every time I tried to say the speech, I got as far as talking about Ben and then I crumbled. Every single time. Normally with publicity requirements I manage to hold myself together just long enough to get through it. Then, as soon as the Dictaphone is turned off or the TV studio’s recording light dims, that’s when my defences tumble. If anything, I’ve been criticised on occasion for seeming too in control of my emotions.

That wasn’t the problem on Monday morning. Even as we drove to Kos Town, I still couldn’t see how I was going to get through it.

‘Just do the best you can,’ Jane said. ‘As soon as it gets too much, hand it over to me and I’ll finish.’

She even offered to read out the whole thing.

‘Thanks, Jane, but I need to do this.’

I didn’t want to attract too much unnecessary attention from holidaying beach-goers, so we set up the conference just to the side of the police station – as far away from the tourist-friendly dramatic arched main entrance as possible. Ian handed around copies of my speech to local reporters – it had been translated into Greek by a Greek officer who lived in England, and was yet more proof of Matt thinking of everything. Then Matt called for quiet, said my name, and beckoned me to the stage.

I could barely make out the words on my sheet of A4 because my hand was flapping so violently. It must have looked like I was doing semaphore. Even if I could decipher my scrawl, I was clutching the script so hard there was a danger I would rip it in two before reaching the end.

I didn’t cry, but by the end it wasn’t just my hands that were shaking. My legs felt like they didn’t belong to me. I was seconds away from falling over when Jane’s arm grabbed mine from one side and Matt took the other. Between them, they virtually carried me away from the press pack’s prying eyes.

The next thing I remember is sitting in the little bar next door where Dad and I used to while away hour after hour waiting for news from Bafounis’s men. Jane was telling me how proud she was of me. Mum was hugging me for all she was worth. In front of me was a shot of Bailey’s liqueur. It took about ten minutes
before I could hold it steadily enough to taste it. A second later, I was demanding another.

I needed it, because my next stop that day would take my stress levels to a whole new level.

Even in the luxury of a modern police car, the trip to Iraklis turned my stomach. As we turned off the road and headed up the lane to the site of the farmhouse, I realised that the whole area had been transformed. The land was swarming with men in hi-viz jackets, police uniforms and hard hats; there were even sniffer dogs waiting for their turn in the hunt. These creatures, specially trained to detect humans trapped in earthquake wreckage, had been driven out from England by van. For some reason, the idea of dogs enduring that sort of journey just for me was almost too much to bear.

I felt a hush descend on the place the moment I stepped out of the car. Hundreds of eyes suddenly swung my way. Machinery fell silent. The last thing I wanted to do was get in the way, but everyone seemed to want me to know they cared. I will never forget that moment. I took a deep breath, grateful I was cried-out for the day.

I was led around the area by an English police officer, who explained what every person was doing, what every piece of equipment was for. They had sonar devices, again normally used following earthquakes, as well as heavy plant machinery for clearing the foliage that had grown up over two decades. And I was confused by the presence of what looked like the expensive metal detectors that I’d seen growing up on the beaches at Chapel St Leonards. After all, we were looking for a child, not a bicycle.

‘According to your mother’s testimony under the regression, Ben was playing with a couple of Dinky cars the afternoon he
went missing,’ Matt explained. ‘They’ve never been found. If the metal detectors pick up the cars, then the chances are good that Ben wouldn’t be far away.’

Ben also had metal buckles on his shoes. I prayed they would not find either.

To each person at the site, I said the same thing. That I was grateful to them for giving up their time to take part in the search. Even those Sheffield police officers who were being paid to do their work had given up two weeks with their families. I hated being responsible for that.

Two Greek ladies – volunteers – cried when they saw me, which of course set me off again. The Greek-speaking British officer translated. The women were paramedics in their day-to-day lives, and they wanted to help me end the nightmare one way or the other. ‘It’s gone on too long,’ one said. ‘We wish your pain would end.’

So did I …

I stayed at the site with Mum and Dad for about thirty minutes. I wanted to remain longer but I could feel myself losing focus on what was being said. Being there, up on that hill, seeing the farmhouse and knowing what those dedicated men and women were doing there was eating into my soul. I told Matt I looked forward to his update later, then Jane and Ian whisked me back to the hotel, to my bed, to my tears.

We’d been through a lot over the last twenty-one years but I have to say that week in Kos in October 2012 was the most harrowing experience since Ben had gone missing. I’d got what I’d been clamouring for – a proper police investigation – and the whole world media knew it. So much time and money was being spent on my son’s case and there I was, wishing it would fail.
People were working so hard on my behalf, I almost felt guilty for wanting Ben’s body not to be found.

For all the luxury of the Kipriotis Panorama, it felt like being in a prison waiting for news each evening. On Monday night, it was Jane who brought the update: ‘Nothing – don’t worry. They’re moving on to a different area tomorrow.’ The following night I feared the worse when I was summoned to meet Matt at the police’s hotel base. The second he saw me, he put out his hands in a calming gesture and said, ‘Don’t worry – nothing’s been found.’ He just wanted to explain that while they had discovered many bones that day, the expert they’d flown over from Britain confirmed each one as coming from an animal. ‘I didn’t want you to hear whispers and get the wrong impression.’ Thorough, and considerate, to the last.

It was on the Wednesday that I heard the report I’d been dreading. The metal detectors had picked up something. A cursory dig had revealed pieces of two metal toys. Dinky cars, the very things Ben had been playing with, had been found.

Jane prepared me as best she could but it was Mum that Matt needed to see. She was the one who had been with Ben on 24 July 1991. She saw the toys he was playing with. It was her recollection that they needed.

The cars were in pieces. Bits of wheels and doors and body shell were packaged in separate evidence bags. The room went silent as Mum picked the first one up, examined it as best she could while blinking back her tears, then put it down. By the second bag she was uncontrollable. Everyone watching wondered the same thing: was she holding Ben’s toys?

Collecting herself as best she could, Mum looked at Matt.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s so painful remembering him playing that day. But,’ she took a deep intake of air, ‘these aren’t Ben’s.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘One hundred per cent.’

There was no reason why the cars had to have belonged to Ben. The search also revealed CDs, beer cans and various other detritus dropped by walkers, visitors to the new house and who-knew-who-else over the last twenty-odd years. For those few minutes while Mum was identifying them, however, I confess my heart was in my mouth.

On Thursday night Matt saw me personally. The dig had one more session to run but he would be leaving for England the following morning.

‘We’re just dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s now,’ he said. ‘I’m as certain as I can be that Ben is not buried anywhere on that hillside.’

I could have hugged him. Not just for the good news, but for the way he obviously cared about my feelings. Despite an unsuccessful mission in Kos which meant he and his team would now have a lot more work to do, he was genuinely pleased for my sake not to have found Ben.

‘I apologise for the pain it’s caused you, but it’s an exercise we had to go through, and it’s one we can now draw a line under,’ he said. ‘Our investigation can now look elsewhere, confident that this option has been dismissed.’

I couldn’t wait to tell Mum and Dad, and pack my bags. We left that same night, hearts full of hope for the first time in years. It was official. We weren’t looking for a body. We were looking for a missing person.

After twenty-one years of rumour and doubt, that was the best early Christmas present I could imagine.

It’s 2013, approaching twenty-two years since my son Ben disappeared. The investigation by the British police is proceeding slowly but methodically, helmed by officers who care about the result. One by one they are picking over the bones of the case left ignored for so many years, following each lead and answering every unresolved question we ever had. They will get to the truth; of that, I am absolutely sure.

For our own part, my family’s hunt continues. A new website,
HelpFindBen.co.uk
, has been set up, and Ben also has his own Facebook page and Twitter account. Led by the indefatigable Scott Morrison – a wonderful man who just volunteered out of the blue one day to run our online side of things – we have begun several annual awareness events. On Valentine’s Day 2012, Scott organised ‘Tweet 4 Ben’, in which hundreds of thousands of people all over the globe posted Ben’s details for their followers to see and share. Among the many, many people who took the time to join in was Tom Cruise.

For the first time, I don’t feel like my family is alone in fighting for justice for Ben. Each day without him is as horrible as ever, but there’s no longer the sense of desperation caused by shouting
unheard into the wind. We
are
being listened to. Ben’s case
is
active. He
will
be found.

With Matt and his team on the case, we as a family have finally been able to take a step back for the first time, confident that we no longer have to carry the burden of searching alone. For Dad it couldn’t have come a moment too soon. A few years ago, he suffered a heart attack caused, the doctors say, by the stress of twenty years of trying to keep his family afloat at the same time as helping me lead a worldwide manhunt. I don’t think Dad’s any easier to live with – he’ll still bend anyone’s ear on the subject of Ben, even if that person is Mum and she’s heard it all a hundred times before. But at least he doesn’t feel he has to be physically chasing every half-lead and whisper.

Mum has always been more introspective than Dad – and less hyperactive – but you can see the relief in her eyes that South Yorkshire Police has taken so much pressure off us. Of the pair of them, I think Mum most regrets coming back to live in England. But Dad’s healthcare is here, so that’s where she needs to be. Who’s to say how long it will be before the wanderlust returns?

Like Dad, the toll on Stephen’s health has been huge. I would say that he is the one who still suffers most from the events of July 1991. He still goes through the same things he did in the 1990s: the nightmares, the flashbacks and the guilt. Always the guilt for something he didn’t do. I wish there was more we could do for him, but he knows we’re there.