Owning Jacob - SA (25 page)

He hoped he had some tissues.

[t was only because of a sleepless night that Ben found out Jut Kale was keeping Jacob from school.

Insomnia had never been something that had troubled him

>efore Sarah's death. Since then, though, and especial y in the ast few weeks, he was beginning to become familiar with its

:ompany. He'd fal en asleep when he went to bed but woken ust after three, suddenly wide awake, a feat he wished he could tchieve as painlessly at a more humane hour. There had been no

'eason for it, no noises or disturbance he could blame, but sleep was suddenly as far away as if he'd been up for ages. He'd lain vatching the luminous digits of the clock radio beside the bed

:ount off the night's passage with silent, infinitesimal y slow

>eats. Sleeplessness, he'd found, distorted time more than die icid he'd tried at university. He would wait for one minute to lick into another. The numerals were an electronic cage diat ime seemed wantonly to wind in and out of, cramming more ind more of itself into each sixty seconds until Ben became

:onvinced that the clock had stopped. Then the numbers would

:hange, and he would watch and wait again.

His mind began to run like an automated cinema projector, hrowing up images that the dark had kitted out with spikes ind poison. He reviewed his bravado in the pub and saw t as juvenile. It had been a ridiculous posture, a bluster to

hide the fact that he daren't do anything where it mattered, with Kale. He replayed their encounters and felt shamed. He had backed down at every one. In the daylight he could tel himself that Kale was a trained soldier, used to violence, that he was unbalanced and provoking him would be suicidal. But die darkness stripped those rationalisations away.

The uncushioned truth was diat he was scared of him.

He remembered a street fight he had seen when he was a student. A group of men had been arguing outside a pub, and as Ben had crossed to the odier side of the road to avoid them the argument had suddenly exploded. He saw one man drop to his knees and have his head kicked like a footbal .

The dul crack of his skul hitting the pavement had been audible even across the street, and as the fight spil ed into the road Ben had hurried away from the sight of someone jumping with both feet on the fal en man's head.

He never heard anything about the fight afterwards, but he'd felt sick, sure he'd watched a man being kil ed. He'd hated himself for not doing anything, just as he hated himself now.

You're a fucking coward. He visualised the scene again, only this time with Kale as die attacker, and himself the figure on the floor. As he stared at the bedroom ceiling he felt a four-o'-

dock-in-the-morning certainty that diere wasn't going to be any amicable ending between them. The soldier had slipped whatever restraints checked most people. If Ben kept on trying to see Jacob, sooner or later something would snap when there wasn't anyone around to intervene.

If that happened, Ben knew Kale wouldn't stop until he was dead.

At six o'clock he threw back the quilt and got up. It was stil dark outside. He turned on the lights and tried to shrug off the disjointed feeling that stil hung over him. He showered, treating himself to longer than usual, and under die hot needles he immediately began to feel tired. He was tempted to go back to bed, but he knew if he did he'd feel I worse than ever when it came to getting up again in an hour or two's time.

He went downstairs, switched on the radio and set some coffee percolating. Jacob used to like morning TV, but Ben couldn't bear to listen to it now. He ate a bowl of cereal standing by the kitchen window while he waited for the toast.

There was a faint paleness in the sky, but not enough to suggest that daylight was on its way. He put his dish in the bowl and spread sunflower margarine on the toast. Sarah had weaned him off butter and he stil felt guilty if he spread anything remotely cholesterol-friendly on his bread.

By the time he'd finished breakfast it was almost seven.

He had to be at the studio later that morning for the day's shoot, a fashion piece for a magazine. But he stil had time to kil . He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table. The salt and pepper mil lay exactly where he'd left them the night before. At the far end of the table was a ring from the coffee mug he'd almost knocked over the previous morning. He'd meant to wipe it up but forgotten. The stain would stay there until he did something about it. He looked around the kitchen. Everything in it would remain exactly as it was now, unless he made it otherwise. There was no one to scold him for not washing the dishes, no one to move a chair out of place, to disturb a single spoon except him.

It struck him with a painful clarity how alone he was.

He wondered why he didn't move to somewhere smal er.

The house was far too big for him, and the empty rooms only reminded him of what he'd lost. He felt no sentimental attachment to it. It was part of the life he'd had with Sarah, but that life had ended. It made more sense to sel it and buy a flat, big enough to have a darkroom, not so big that felt lost in it. Time to move on, cut his losses and get on with building a new life instead of living in the shadows of the old.

So why don't you? He couldn't answer that. Any more than

he could explain why he had held on to the old toys and clothes of Jacob's that the Kales hadn't wanted instead of getting rid of them as he had Sarah's belongings. He knew that die two issues were connected, but he wasn't ready yet to face up to them.

Not at seven o'clock in the morning.

Make diat five past, he thought, glancing at the clock.

Hours yet before he had to be at the studio. Fuck it.

He went upstairs to get dressed.

It had grudgingly lightened when he set off for Tunford, as though the day felt as unenthusiastic about starting as he did. He turned on the car heater ful to drive away the chil as he set off. With luck he'd miss the heaviest of the rush-hour traffic and shave something off the one-and-a-half-hour run.

He would have three-quarters of an hour there at best, and might just catch the Kales at breakfast. He knew there was no real point to the journey, but die town had become his magnetic north. He swung to it automatical y when there was no other draw on his attention.

The sleepless night had made him gritty-eyed and irritable.

He yawned as he moved into die motorway's inside lane for die Tunford exit There were flashing red lights up ahead. The slip road was wal ed off by a line of orange cones, clustered widi workmen and earth-shifting machinery.

'Fucking great' He could stil get to Tunford from die next junction but it would take longer, cutting into die time he could spend diere. His mood deteriorated with each mile, and dropped stil lower after he took the next turn-off and found diere were no road signs. He consulted die map. He would have to come in from the opposite direction to usual, joining the road diat linked Tunford and the next town at the halfway point. Tossing die map on to the seat in disgust, he set off again, sure now that Kale and Jacob would have left by die time he arrived.

Aldiough Sandra would stil be diere, perhaps stil in bed.

Ben had never seen her getting up.

It took him ten minutes to reach the connecting road. He pul ed up at a give-way sign, waiting for a gap in the traffic.

One of the cars approaching was a rusting Ford Escort. That's like Kale's, he thought, a moment before he recognised Kale himself behind the wheel.

Jacob was next to him.

The car shot by in a blat of exhaust. He briefly considered the possibility that Kale might be taking his son to school, but somehow he knew he wasn't. There was a fleeting regret that he wouldn't see Sandra getting up after al , then he flicked the indicator the other way and went after them.

He hung back, keeping other cars in between himself and the Escort as he fol owed. He was already certain where they were going even before the scrapyard's barbed-wire-topped wal came into sight He drove past after Kale's car had disappeared inside, then made a tight U-turn and parked a little further down the road.

From there he could see anything that came in or out of the tal gates. He felt a tight anger at himself for not realising sooner what Kale was doing. Al this time he'd never given a thought to the fact that when Kale was at work, Jacob wasn't around either. He remembered the smudges and oil stains he'd noticed on Jacob's clothes and wondered how he could have been so stupid. He should have known that Kale didn't want anything coming between him and his son.

Including school.

Stil watching the gates, Ben took out his mobile and found the number of Jacob's social worker from his address book. A woman told him that Carlisle hadn't arrived yet He rang off and tried ten minutes later, then ten minutes after that, ignoring the woman's growing irritation until final y Carlisle himself answered. The social worker sounded wary. So you fucking should.

The question boiled out of him. 'Jacob's been missing school, hasn't he?'

There was a hesitation. 'Who's told you that?'

'Never mind who's told me. It's true, isn't it?' Ben counted to three before the social worker answered.

'There has been some problem about attendance, but-'

'Some "problem"'! He isn't going, is he?'

'Mr Murray, I don't-'

'Is he?' Again there was a pause. 'The situation is being monitored.'

'What the fuck is that supposed to mean?'

'It means exactly that And I don't think there's any cal for being abusive.' Ben took a deep breath. 'I apologise.' He waited until the desire to scream at the man faded. 'How long's this been going on?'

'That's something I real y can't discuss.'

'Look, if you don't tel me I'l ask the school myself!'

'I'm afraid I'm not-'

'Has he been at al since he's been living with Kale? He hasn't, has he?' He could hear Carlisle's reluctance. 'Er … wel , actual y no, I don't believe he has.' Ben didn't trust himself to speak.

'There's been some confusion over whether or not Jacob's been wel enough to attend,' Carlisle said, defensive now.

'Mr and Mrs Kale - wel , Mrs Kale, real y - claims that he has a virus. We've warned them that we need to see a doctor's certificate, and that it's il egal to keep Jacob off school without one.' And I bet that made a lot of difference. Ben stared across the road at the scrapyard. 'Kale's been taking him to work with him.

That's why he isn't at school, not because he's got a 'Virus".'

'How do you know?' The officiousness had crept back into the social worker's voice. He sounded more annoyed than anything.

zio

'Because I'm outside the yard now. They're stil in there, if you want to check yourself.'

'You've actual y seen them?'

"That's right.' He could sense Carlisle trying to juggle this information into an acceptable package. "Perhaps there's no one to look after him at home.' Ben's patience ran out. 'Oh, for God's sake. If he's wel enough to go to a scrapyard, he's wel enough to go to school! There's nothing wrong with him! Kale just doesn't want him to go!'

'I'm sorry, Mr Murray, but I can't see how you can be such an expert on Mr Kale's motives. And even if he has taken Jacob to work today-'

'He has.'

'-even if he has we can't jump to conclusions on the asis of an isolated occurrence.'

'Of course it isn't isolated! His wife's been feeding you this "virus" crap to keep you off his back, and you're letting him get away with it!' We're not letting him get away with anything, Mr Murray-'

'Then why don't you do something?'

'If it's felt there's a need then we wil , but a heavy-handed pproach isn't going to help, and we don't feel it's currently died for. It's an extremely sensitive case, and we don't want 3 be seen to be-'

'Don't want to be seen? That's the bottom line, isn't it? rou're frightened of getting bad press!' Carlisle's voice had a quaver of suppressed anger. 'I don't need tel ing how to do my job, thank you, Mr Murray. And if you don't mind I'd like to get on with it now.'

'Are you going to do anything about Kale?'

'We'l look into it. Goodbye.'

'Hang on-!' Ben began, but Carlisle had already hung up. 'Bastard!' There was a crack of plastic as Ben struck die phone against the dashboard. He subsided, then smashed it down twice more, each time harder, and flung it on to the passenger seat He stared through the windscreen, incensed.

He visualised walking into Carlisle's office, kicking his desk over, banging the man's head against the wal until it was bloodied and crushed.

Then he thought about Kale, and considered walking into the scrapyard to face him. He imagined knocking him down, incapacitating him with a kick to his crippled knee, towering victoriously over his beaten figure, but even his anger wasn't enough to make that seem credible. With a cold breath of realism his temper was snuffed out and left him back in the car, impotent and bleak.

Brooding, he glared at the gates.

It was the rumble of his stomach that roused him. He stirred, stiff and uncomfortable. The rumble came again. It occurred to him that he was hungry, and with that realisation he suddenly remembered what he should be doing.

Oh Christ, he thought, the shoot.

He looked at his watch, swore, and reached for his mobile.

The sight of it lying smashed on the seat next to him was like a smug chastisement. He tried it anyway. Dead. He threw it down and scrambled to start the ignition. Tuck, fuck, fuckl'

There was an irate blare of horn as he shot out into the road. He ignored it and tore back the way he'd come, praying for a phone box. But there was nothing except fields and fences.

He reached the junction where he'd seen Kale's car, decided to go into Tunford to find a phone and changed his mind at the last moment, raking the corner in a squeal of rubber. The car vibrated as he hammered down the outside lane. He was making good time until he neared London, where the traffic thickened to the consistency of sludge. When he reached the studio there were no parking spaces, and he had to meander further and further away before he found one.