Owning Jacob - SA (2 page)

He found one under a nest of thin gold chains.

It fitted the lock of the strongbox. There was a click and the lid sprang open against the sudden lack of resistance. Ben laid it back against its hinges.

Inside was a cluster of yel owed newspaper cuttings, folded and paper-dipped together. A larger piece of paper lay at the bottom. Jacob's birth certificate, he saw when he took it out.

Except for that the box was empty. He put the certificate down and unfolded the pieces of newspaper.

The headline of the top one was 'BABY STEVEN'S MOTHER IN TV APPEAL'. He looked to see what was on the other side, but there was only part of an advert.

He {Licked quickly through the rest. They weren't in any chronological order, but were al concerned with the same story, a baby abducted from a maternity hospital. Al seemed to be from the Daily Mail, which surprised him a little because the only papers he'd known Sarah to read were the Guardian or the Evening Standard.

The thought I'l ask her why she kept them was fol owed by the gut punch of remembering that he couldn't. He put them down, his curiosity suddenly soured. They were just another loose end that would now never be tidied up. He would have left them on the dressing table, ready to be thrown out, except for a nagging feeling that he had missed something.

He picked them up again. There were five of them, decreasing in size from the banner-headlined 'BABY STOLEN FROM MATERNITY UNIT' to a single-column fil er as the story sank without development beneath the weight of fresher news.

Only the one from the front page had a date on it, but as far as he could tel they spanned about a week, al from March, six years earlier. Something about that hovered, waiting to be recognised. He looked at Jacob's birth certificate, then at the date on the first cutting. March the third.

Jacob's birthday.

A sense of unease was building up in him like a trapped gas bubble. He read the reports again, paying more attention now.

They dealt with the search for a newborn baby that had been taken from its hospital cot in central London. Its parents were a John and Jeanette Kale. The names didn't ring any bel s.

Kale was a Royal Engineer corporal, serving in Northern Ireland and described as a 'veteran' of the Gulf War. It was their first child, a boy, and there was editorial indignation that someone should have abducted the son of a soldier who was 'serving his country'.

There were the predictable police appeals, both for witnesses and to whoever had taken the baby. One of the cuttings showed a photograph of the parents. It was a poor picture of the father, a youngish man with a cropped, military haircut, head half turned away as he emerged from the hospital. Next to him his wife looked older than her given age of twenty-three.

But who wouldn't, Ben supposed, feeling uncharitable as he took in the anguish the shot had frozen.

The unease was expanding. Al at once the touch of the desiccated scraps of paper repulsed him. He dropped them back on the dressing table, rubbing his hands on his jeans as he turned away. The sight of Sarah's heaped clothes on the bed struck him like a crack on the face. It shattered the last of his restraint. He rushed out of the bedroom, almost fal ing downstairs, and stood in the hal way at the bottom, gasping for breath. He felt himself beginning to hyperventilate and tried to fight the growing panic. Stop it.

He went into the kitchen and splashed cold water over his face, spil ing it down his throat and chest The shock was calming. He turned off the tap and braced his arms on the sink.

Water dripped from his nose and chin as he looked out through the window. On the other side of the glass the street appeared the same as always. The houses were hard-edged in the bright afternoon sun. Parked cars lined both sides of the road, paral el lines facing in opposite directions. A man walked a dog, pausing to let it urinate against a lamppost before continuing beyond the edge of the window frame.

Normal.

Ben let his head hang, feeling limp with reaction. What in Christ's name was he thinking of? He felt ashamed of the suspicions that even now he couldn't ful y acknowledge. Jacob was Sarah's son, for God's sake. He held on to that thought, building it up and strengthening it until the fear he'd felt in the bedroom seemed unreal and irrational.

Then he thought about the date on the newspaper cutting and a ghost of it returned.

Pushing himself away from both the sink and the fear, he dried his face and looked at his watch. It would soon be time for him to col ect Jacob from school. He didn't want to have Sarah's clothes lying about in piles when he got home.

He went back upstairs to finish packing them away.

He'd met Sarah through Colin. It was part of the folklore of their relationship that they might have been in the same room on several occasions before they final y spoke, but if they had neither of them could remember it. They didn't become aware of each other until they were thrown together, at a party to celebrate the signing of one of Colin's fledgling bands. Colin had negotiated the contract with a major record label and seemed to regard the deal as a personal coup. At times Ben thought he was more like a frustrated manager than a solicitor, and, like a convert to a new religion, he seemed to regard it as his duty to involve Ben in the heady world of the music industry.

'You've got to come, it'l be great!' he'd enthused. 'The record company's real y pushing the boat out on this one.

Should be a good night.' Ben wasn't convinced. He'd been to signing parties before and not enjoyed them. Most of the bands he never heard of again, and he found their habitual mixture of naivete and arrogance irritating. The whole idea bored him. But there had been nothing boring that night. Not after he broke his camera on the lead singer's head.

He'd been in a bad mood to begin with. He had recently split up with a girl he'd been seeing for the past six months, ii a model he had met on an advertising agency shoot. He was stil smarting over the acrimonious end, which was probably why Colin had asked him along. And why, perhaps, he had accepted.

He had regretted it as soon as he walked into the club and felt the hammering music hit him. He had seen it al before, from the bottles of free champagne, tequila, imported beers and Jack Daniels, to the burning car suspended on chains from the ceiling. He would have turned around and left if Colin hadn't seen him and waved him over.

In his dark lawyer's suit his friend stood out from the clubbers like a crow among budgerigars. They'd shared a flat at university. The posing first-year fine art undergraduate and the ironed-jeaned third-year law student had regarded each other suspiciously to begin with, both convinced of a mistake by the accommodation department, but a mutual love of footbal and beer had soon overcome the less-important differences. After university they had kept in touch, despite Colin marrying Maggie against Ben's advice when she became pregnant, and the differences between them becoming more apparent. Ben's hair grew longer and Colin's suits more expensive. Maggie had once referred to them as the Odd Couple. Ben thought that was probably the closest to a joke she had ever come.

He sometimes wondered if Colin's decision to go into entertainment law, dealing with musicians and actors, was a reaction against the confines of his home life. He'd never risked their friendship by asking, though. He made himself smile as he reached Colin's table and was introduced to solicitors and sharkish executives from the record company.

They acknowledged Ben with polite lack of interest, which mirrored the way he felt about them. He excused himself as soon as he could and wandered off" to get a beer.

That was his first mistake. With no one to talk to, he drank more quickly than he should have done. The camera dragged around his neck. Against his better judgment he had taken it with him, at Colin's insistence.

'If you get some good shots of the night, you know, just snapping people, you might be able to get more work from the label,' Colin had said, despite the fact that Ben had repeatedly told him that he had no interest in working with bands. He liked working with either professional models or people who weren't aware they were being photographed, not four or five usual y unphotogenic individuals, one of whom could always be guaranteed to blink as the shutter came down. Photographing live gigs was even worse. Ben had tried it for a while when he was scrabbling to find his feet after graduating, but soon gave up. When it came down to it, he wasn't interested enough in music for it to be worth the grind.

He was on his fourth or fifth beer when Colin materialised at his elbow. 'Come on, I'l introduce you to the band,' he shouted, leaning closer to be heard above the thumping beat.

Doing his best to look enthusiastic, Ben fol owed him through the crush of people. Empty glasses and bottles were spil ed over a pair of tables pushed together in a booth, where twice as many people as it could comfortably hold were clustered around the four budding celebrities at one end.

Colin greeted them familiarly. If he was aware of the condescending looks he received he gave no sign. He was stil a few months shy of thirty, but his suit and neatly cut, already thinning sandy hair made him seem middle-aged even in comparison to Ben, who was only two years his junior.

He reeled off their names, which Ben made no attempt to remember. 'They're going to be massive,' he enthused, aiming the comment at the band.

There were self-congratulatory smirks. 'Yeah, that's right,' one of the band said. 'Massive.' Colin seemed not to notice the parody, or the sniggers it provoked. He clapped Ben on the shoulder. 'Ben's a photographer. He's here to take a few pictures.'

Ben was uncomfortably aware of becoming the focus of attention. He felt his anger rise as the patronising looks were switched to him. You arrogant little pricks, he thought, staring back with his own fuck-you smile. Then Colin said, Til see you in a bit, Ben,' and with an encouraging squeeze on his arm left him standing there.

Ben silently cursed him. And himself, for not guessing that Colin would think he was doing him a favour. He would have left as wel , but before he could one of the band spoke.

'So you want to take our pictures, then?' It was the same one who had ridiculed Colin. He had been introduced as the singer. Even slouched back in his seat he was obviously tal , good-looking in a gangly sort of way, with a tight black T-shirt and mop of thick, dark hair. Despite the club's dim lighting his pupils were shrunk to pinpricks, a sign that he had been celebrating with more than alcohol.

'Not real y,' Ben answered.

The singer pointed at the camera hanging on its strap.

'So why the fuck have you got that round your neck? Is it a necklace, or what?' There were laughs from around the table. Teah, that's right,' Ben said, turning to go.

'Hey, come on, man, you're here to take some photos, aren't you? How about this?' The singer sprawled back in an exaggerated model's pose, pursing his lips.

Ordinarily Ben would have grinned and walked away. But the beers he had drunk had added to his already bad temper.

And he had drunk them on an empty stomach.

'Get fucked,' he said.

The mood around the table instantly changed. The singer sat up, no longer smiling. 'Don't tel me to get fucked, arsehole.

Who the fuck invited you, anyway? You just come here to scrounge free drinks, or what?' Ben careful y placed his beer on the table. 'Fuck you, and fuck your drinks,' he said, which would have been a fine exit H line if the singer hadn't picked up a glass and thrown its contents in his face before he could move.

The table erupted with laughter, but his first concern was for his camera. It wasn't in a case, and liquid was dripping from it. Whatever had been in the glass smel ed of blackcurrant, and if there was one thing worse than getting a camera wet, it was getting it wet with something sweet and sticky.

'You stupid bastard!' he snapped, taking it from around his neck, and as he did the singer snatched it from him. The strap snagged on Ben's head, only briefly, but enough to jerk the camera from the singer's grip. Ben tried to catch it but missed.

It struck the edge of the table and dien bounced to the floor with a terminal crash.

'Oops,' the singer said as Ben bent to pick it up. The lens came away in his hand, sprinkling glass. There were one or two giggles, but most people seemed to realise that what had happened wasn't funny. The singer wasn't one of them.

'You weren't going to use it anyway,' he jeered, and the last of Ben's restraint disappeared. He flung the broken camera across at him, more of a reflexive gesture than anything else.

He expected the singer to block it, but he had taken that moment to turn and laugh with the girl sitting next to him. He was stil grinning when the camera struck him in the face.

The singer cried out and fel back as blood spurted from a gash on his forehead. Ben had time to realise that things had got a little out of hand before another member of the band sprang up and swung at him. He ducked and felt the punch land on the top of his skul . His vision burst into popping lights and he flailed out himself as he stumbled and fel . The next seconds were a vague impression of bodies, shrieks and breaking glass. He felt himself hit several more times and covered his head, then he was being hauled to his feet by a burly pair of arms. He looked out through the eye that didn't hurt to see Colin's anxious face as he tried to calm everyone down, including the door staff, who seemed inclined to join in themselves. Beyond him, the singer's face was slick with blood as he pressed both hands to the cut on his forehead, while the musician who had thrown the first punch was cradling one of his hands to his chest and moaning.

'Okay, it's cool, it's cool,' Colin was assuring everyone, his anxious expression belying the words. He shot Ben a look that was part concern, part anger, then spoke to someone at Ben's side. 'Take him outside. I'l be along when I've sorted out this mess.' Ben thought he was talking to the bouncer who had helped him up, but it was a young woman whom he had seen at Colin's table earlier. 'Come on,' she said. 'Can you walk?' They made their way through the dub to the exit.