Lullaby (32 page)

‘The mess,’ Leigh kept bemoaning now, as if that was what upset her most. ‘I was going to take your bedspread to the cleaners today,’ she said almost apologetically, lighting one fag from the other, neatly standing the last butt on the windowsill to fizzle out, ‘but Deb said I should leave everything alone.’

Leigh had screamed at the pair in horror, and then rung Gary who’d come screeching round, and Deb, who wasn’t far behind. By the time they’d both arrived, though, Robbie had disappeared and Maxine was unconscious on my bed. When they’d ascertained that she was actually still breathing, had just overdone the booze, they’d untied her and carried her to bed, deciding that Deb had better stay the night—just in case.

When Deb woke this morning, to her lasting embarrassment, there was no sign of Maxine in the house. On further inspection, most of Maxine’s clothes were gone, along with the stereo, and my car (later I realised my jewellery box and Mickey’s redundant Rolex were missing too). As Maxine had never been known to drive, the suggestion was that someone else had whisked them both away in my motor. That left—Robbie.

‘The worst thing about it,’ said Leigh very quietly, and she looked out into the garden as if she might find solace there, ‘the really worst thing was that I don’t think he even knew me, Jess.’ She turned to me and her fists were clenched. ‘Robbie didn’t even know who I was last night when I walked into that room. He was so fucked, so off his bloody stupid little head, he—he
just looked straight through me, like, it was weird-like we’d never even met.’

With some alarm, I saw her eyes flood with tears. Leigh
never
cried.

‘I can’t bear it, Jess. What the hell went wrong with him? He was such a gorgeous little boy.’ She sniffed hard, wiped her nose on the back of her hand, where the fake tan was beginning to streak worryingly ‘I mean, we didn’t turn out so bad, did we?’ She looked at me for some reassurance.

The problem was she’d never dealt with the true Robbie, not really, not once he reached his teens. He was so lost, but she’d always just shut him out, written him off, valiantly fought my mum’s battles for her, no matter how soft my mum had been on him. Leigh had fought
all
her battles, in fact; and she hadn’t made space in her head to accept the real Robbie like I had. And even when we three had dealt with the last crisis, the one we never spoke of now, the three of us facing my father’s final ignominy in death, squaring up to the police, trying to hide it from the neighbours, holding my mum together—just about together, even then-it didn’t bring my siblings any closer.

And eventually, inevitably for us all, there was no escape from Robbie’s truth; a truth that even I was only realising now. I could see how much it hurt Leigh as the sadness of his situation finally smacked her in the face.

I stood and put my arms around her tough little body. ‘No, Leigh. I’d say we’ve done all right. And you never know, Robbie might come through this okay.’

We looked across the overgrown garden, at the last blowsy white roses fading on the bushes. In silence we listened to the little clinks of domesticity that filtered through the dozy afternoon. Someone was watching cricket, applauding merrily. The smell of sausages lingered in the air; a child laughed nearby, ready for his dinner, and the joyful noise sliced me like some kind of paper-cut. Tiny, but painfully deep. I tried to find some comfort in the familiar household noises that told a hundred unknown stories. I stood there with my sister, outside my silent house, my house that had stopped clinking altogether. We both knew that my hope for Robbie was unlikely to come true.

My chest was really tight, and my bedroom still an utter tip as I hunted for an inhaler. I was running low; I must remember to refill my prescription soon. I was less bothered by the mess than Leigh; after that flat in Elephant and my night at General’s, nothing much would surprise me about Robbie any more. But I was confused. Robbie and Maxine together seemed very odd. I remembered the tattoo that read ‘Jimmy’ on his hand, remembered the pretty black boy and his voluptuous look.

Was someone else pulling Robbie’s strings? General’s nasty leer passed through my mind; at least he was still locked up—as far as I knew. Silver had said that if I pressed assault charges it would hopefully keep the bastard out of harm’s way, for now at least.

I was about to change my clothes when the phone rang downstairs. As usual, hope was as ever swiftly
followed by stomach-clenching fear. Wrapped in just a towel, I peered anxiously over the banisters. I could just see the top of Deb’s curly head.
Come on
, I willed silently—and then she looked up at me and smiled. A smile big enough to show she thought it was good news, though not big enough to mean Louis.

‘The hospital,’ she covered the receiver, ‘pick up the phone.’ And there was Sister Kwame’s gentle lilt saying what she thought I longed to hear—that my husband would soon be ready to come home. Mickey was finally on the mend again. With a sort of weary relief, I slumped on a chair by the phone.

I felt more than a little odd, shivering despite the heat and sort of flushed with panic, which I pushed down resolutely. I shunted the thought of Silver to a corner of my mind. I smiled with Deb; I tried, I really did. I mean, I
was
glad that the aloneness would soon come to an end; that together Mickey and I could hunt for Louis. I was incredibly relieved that my husband was finally okay.

We could get back on track now. I tried to forget the way my stomach had plunged initially at the thought of his brooding presence back home again. And then I thought, feeling like some kind of traitor, I thought that if I had to choose between Mickey or Louis coming home—well, there would be no choice to make. The crisis hadn’t brought us closer in any way; if anything, it was driving me away. We had bridges to build when Mickey came home. We needed to start straight away.

The next day, everything around me started to speed up, until I felt like I was on a merry-go-round of hope and horror. The fact that Robbie and Maxine had done a bunk was seen as some admission of guilt; descriptions were put out along with an all-ports call, and my car numberplate. Leigh was convinced that our brother had taken Louis; she hardened up again. My mum called from Spain, crying pitifully, waiting to be consoled. I dug deep and found some soothing words. But, deep down, I wasn’t so sure about my brother; I didn’t know what to think. Much as I prayed for the riddle to be solved, why would Robbie have taken my son? There’d still been no ransom demand—what was his motive if it wasn’t money? And oddly it was Maxine I felt more betrayed by. I’d taken her in; I’d been nice to her, at times against my better judgement—and look how she’d repaid me.

Mickey was conscious and recovering fast, but frustratingly he still had little memory of the day that Louis went. I wanted to talk to Annalise about my doubts, about my fears that my marriage was under too much
strain to bear, but I was frightened to admit it, to say these things out loud, so I took a pill instead. Then I despised myself. I pored over photos of Louis, but still every time I walked past his bedroom I had to avert my eyes. The door had been shut tight since the night he went, the door with the little wooden letters, the multicoloured leopards and oranges and sunshines that spelt my son’s name out. Silver stayed away. He was busy, I supposed.

I paced the house, thinking, thinking, always thinking what I could do. Should do. Eventually I got my bike out. I had been a champion cyclist in the old days. It had gone unused for so long that cobwebs hung across its burial place, out in the garage. It took me some time to retrieve it because it was so tightly wedged behind the heavy old lawnmower and some posh deckchairs we never used. The front tyre was a little flat; I pumped it up and then I rode the bike out onto the heath, cycling round and round in ever growing circles. It made me breathless; it made me want to fly from here, wind streaming through my hair, like I used to before I met Mickey. But I daren’t go too far. You never knew, Louis might be back at any minute now. I thought about cycling down the hills to Silver and asking what he was doing next to find my son.

And then Robbie rang. He called my mobile, and his voice was tremulous and distant. He sounded really strange.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Jess,’ he started, and I shook my head in sorrow. I sat astride my bike, and I sighed quite hard.

‘Do you, Rob?’

‘Yeah, and I haven’t. I swear I haven’t got him.’

‘D’you know what?’ I said slowly. ‘I think I believe you, Robbie, deep down I do. Only it doesn’t look good to all these coppers, know what I mean? Doing a bunk. It really doesn’t, mate. And they’ll find you, Rob, even if you don’t tell me where you are.’

He laughed unsteadily. ‘Yeah, well, that makes sense. But I wouldn’t—you have to believe me, I wouldn’t take him.’

I strained my ears, detective-like, for background noise, for a clue, but there was nothing discernible. ‘Where are you, Robbie? Are you with that—that girl?’ I couldn’t bring myself to say her name.

He laughed again, without feeling. ‘Yeah, I am, and that’s why we went. Cos of her old man.’

‘What? Her dad? I thought he was in France?’

‘Her boyfriend. Gorek. He’s nasty.’

It was my turn to laugh. ‘Oh, come on! You’re mixing with those tossers up in Soho, and you’re frightened of her bloke? Pull the other one.’

I thought I heard a mewing in the background. ‘What’s that noise, Robbie?’ I demanded. ‘Have you bought Maxine a love-kitten?’

He ignored me. ‘It’s true, Jess. It’s him the pigs wanna check out. He’s got a nasty temper. You should see her bruises.’

‘From what I hear, Robbie, from all that mess, it’s you who she—’

‘Jess,’ he intercepted brutally, ‘I’m sorry, yeah? I—’

‘What?’

‘I’m just—I’m really, really sorry.’ There was a tiny pause—I thought he’d hung up. ‘And look, Jess, if I do find out anything, I swear I’ll let you know, yeah?’

‘Robbie—’

It took me a second to realise that he’d gone. Wearily, I cycled home. As I rounded the corner past the bay-windowed pub, I saw Silver’s car outside my house. My heart pumped extra hard, my stomach rolled uneasily.

Silver looked fresh. He’d recovered himself now, was as shaved and fragrant as he’d ever been. He even smiled, though I wasn’t sure it reached those steady, hooded eyes. I told him what Robbie said; he raised an eyebrow as he leant against the kitchen worktop.

‘He could be telling the truth, I suppose. Gorek didn’t strike me as a particularly nice lad. But there is no reason for us to suspect him, no hard evidence at all. We’ll put a trace on Robbie’s call now.’

I brushed past Silver as I reached up to the cupboard to get a glass. My skin almost hurt where it had just touched his. ‘Did Deb offer you a drink?’ I asked courteously, like we were at a party.

‘Forget that.’ He turned me round, and I flinched from his hands. ‘Look at this.’ He shoved a brown envelope in front of me. A Polaroid of Louis’s smiling face; another one of him sitting propped in some baby seat, his double chin creased beautifully as he looked intently down at something he held, a dewdrop of dribble caught for all time, tumbling from his bottom lip.

‘Oh God.’ I staggered slightly as I gripped the photos. I felt like I was falling headfirst into Alice’s burrow, like Silver was the White Rabbit who led me through
this insanity, always hurling me towards more madness. The shock was too much; tears flooded my eyes, and silently I wept. But I knew Louis was still alive, I really did. Whoever took these pictures had bought him things. He was dressed in clothes I’d never seen; he was playing with toys I didn’t choose. Whoever took these pictures loved my son. They’d brushed his silky hair so carefully; they’d taken time to make him smile.

Silver stepped towards me, and I stepped back.

‘Where—’ I sniffed hard. ‘Where did you get them?’

‘Bloody courier again. Picked up from a doorstep of a Knightsbridge shop this morning at dawn. Dropped at one courier firm, delivered to me by another.’ He looked at me and grinned that lopsided grin. ‘We’re closing in, Jess, I promise you. It won’t be long now.’ He rattled his keys in his trouser pocket, fishing out his mobile phone and tapping in a number.

‘We’ve managed to keep David Ross in a little longer—General, you know him as—again, in the light of Robbie’s disappearance. I have to say, though,’ he broke off as someone answered his call, then came back to me, hand over the receiver, ‘my gut feeling is the bastard’s not involved.’

Into the phone: ‘Kelly I want to speak to Gorek Patuk again. Find him.’

With a sinking feeling, I realised they were just going round and round in circles—like me up on the heath just now. It was down to me. I’d had enough. I was going to have to find my son myself.

*

In the early hours I woke, and it was so close in my room that I couldn’t get back to sleep. Eventually I slipped out of bed and went downstairs. I checked Louis’s website, and added the date:
DAY TWELVE
—it looked so stark in black and white. There was nothing new apart from a few postings from a weirdo or two, and a woman who posted every day now, whose husband had taken her children to Pakistan, rambling on and on about parental abduction. Nothing that would help me. I unlocked the kitchen door and breathed in deep, felt the stillness almost solid around me. Nothing in the garden moved, no breeze stirred, not a leaf. I felt stifled by the lack of air, by my longing, by the eternal wait. I leant against the door and closed my eyes. I felt that Louis was closer now; my son was near, I sensed it.

In the morning I sat by Mickey’s hospital bed. He wanted to know where my bruises had come from and I mumbled vaguely about General; I didn’t want to worry him unduly. I distracted him with copies of the pictures of Louis. Mickey smiled with huge relief, and stared at them.

‘I miss him terribly,’ he said quietly, tracing Louis’s face, and I loved him then for understanding what I felt. I felt our bond strengthen now; invisible but there. I told him about Maxine and Robbie, whom he’d never met. I muttered that I couldn’t believe my brother was involved, and Mickey squeezed my hand.