What She Knew (37 page)

It sickened me. I closed the window on the computer, stabbing the mouse with sweaty, shaking fingers. I was ready to shut the machine down, unplug it, retreat from it, but behind the window I was looking at was another, left there by Ben.

It was the login page for Furry Football, the online game that Ben and his friends loved to play. It was like Club Penguin, or Moshi Monsters, a child-friendly online forum where you could play games and interact with other people’s avatars. The difference was that it was football themed and if you won points you could buy players for a Furry Football team. Ben loved it. All his friends did.

I clicked on it. The page refreshed and invited me to log in. Ben was the manager of two separate virtual teams and I had a choice of which one to log in as: “Owl Goal” or “Turtle Rangers.” I chose “Owl Goal” and I typed in Ben’s password. A message appeared: “YOU ARE ALREADY LOGGED IN.”

I tried again. Same message.

I leaned back in my chair, confused. Somebody was logged in as Ben. I remembered him saying that he couldn’t log in if he’d already done so on another machine, but his iPad was at his dad’s house, and I had no other computer.

I clicked on “Turtle Rangers” instead, entered his password again, and this time it worked. I was in. I was Turtle0751, the captain of the Turtle Rangers, and my avatar appeared on screen: a plump turtle in football boots holding a clipboard.

“WHICH SERVER WOULD YOU LIKE TO JOIN?” the computer asked me, and then my stomach roiled as an idea took hold. What if Ben was logged in somewhere else, playing the game as his owl avatar?

I selected the server that I knew Ben always chose to play on: “Savannah League.”

A cartoonlike scene popped up—the African savannah. A meerkat invited me to choose a game I’d like to play. I selected “Baobab Bonus,” Ben’s favorite game.

On screen a glade of cartoon baobab trees appeared. About twenty avatars cruised among them, little speech bubbles coming from their heads now and then. It didn’t take me long to see Ben’s other team captain: Owlie689.

“It’s you,” I said. “It’s you.”

My fingers gripped the mouse so hard that its edges dug into them and I stared at the screen as Owlie689 moved around it.

I navigated my avatar so that it stood by Ben’s. I was clumsy with the mouse. I wanted to talk to him. It was hard to work out how to make a speech bubble. I wasn’t practiced at this like Ben; I’d never paid attention to the detail of the game.

After numerous failed attempts, I finally clicked on the right tab. A list of possible phrases appeared, but it was safe chat. Of course it was. I hadn’t allowed Ben to do anything other than communicate with phrases that were provided by the game. For his safety.

I scrolled down the list of phrases available, desperate to say something meaningful, but they were entirely bland, designed to stop children from upsetting or offending each other.

I clicked on “Hello.” After a few seconds Ben’s avatar said, “Hello.”

“How was your day?” my avatar asked.

Owlie689 displayed an emoticon. It was a frowning face. I scrolled down the list of phrases I could use.

“Sorry,” my avatar said.

Owlie689 began to move. I followed. It stopped underneath a baobab tree.

“Want to visit my team?” it said to me.

“Yes,” my avatar replied and the screen dissolved and reformed and we were in a training area. The positions of players were laid out around the edges of the screen and above four of them were animals that Ben had earned enough points to buy.

“Cool,” my avatar said.

“New player,” said Ben’s avatar. He moved toward his center forward. It was a giraffe. He hadn’t had it last Sunday because he’d talked about it, about wanting to get a giraffe because they were good at doing headers. In fact he’d gone on and on about it in the car on the way to the woods until I made him change the subject.

“It’s you,” I said. “It’s definitely you.”

I searched the list of phrases for something else to say, something that would tell Ben who I was, that it was me communicating with him. He must suspect it, I thought, because who else would use his other avatar? He had to know it was me.

But I was too slow. Before I selected a phrase Owlie689 had gone, just disappeared. My avatar was alone on screen.

I reached for my phone.

JIM

Fraser and I were huddled in the meeting room we used for briefings. Lists and interview notes littered the table between us. We were planning.

Woodley put his head around the door. “Rachel Jenner’s just phoned, she says she’s seen Ben playing an online game.”

“What game?” Fraser asked.

“Furry Football. She says he’s logged on as one of his avatars.”

“What in God’s name does that mean?”

“You have characters that you become when you play the game. Ben has two. She logged on as one of them and met the other in the game. She thinks that means that Ben was logged on.”

“And does it? You’re the IT expert.”

“It could, obviously, if he has access to the Internet, which would seem unlikely. Equally, anybody who had access to his login details could have done it.”

“How likely do you think that is?”

“It’s impossible to say, but people often know their friends’ passwords etc., it could be one of his mates or anybody who knew him.”

“Does Rachel Jenner have a view on that?”

“She doesn’t know. It’s hard to get sense out of her, to be honest, boss. She’s pretty hysterical.”

“We need to find out who might have known. Can you contact that man who was in the woods, the father of Ben’s best friend? Ask him if he knows about this stuff, and ask him if we can interview his boy in the morning. He might know.”

“Will do.”

Once he’d gone, Fraser turned back to me. “What’s your feeling, Jim?”

“Could be something, could be nothing. Just like the schoolbook.”

“I’ll get the IT folks onto it. Now, Lucas Grantham versus Nicola Forbes. I want a plan of action tonight, so that we don’t waste a minute tomorrow morning. Not one second. What’s your feeling about resource allocation?”

I took my time before answering. We had a very strong suspect in custody, and I knew he looked good for it, but there was something about Nicky Forbes that I just couldn’t let go.

“In my view, Nicky Forbes is very intelligent and potentially very manipulative,” I said to Fraser. “Chris was certainly very clear that the sort of trauma Nicky’s suffered could cause all kinds of psychosis or delusions. If her own husband is coming in to warn us about her, I think we need to take it very seriously.”

“You favor her for it?”

“If I have to stick my neck out, I do.”

And, as I said it out loud, I felt my conviction build. I said, “I think there’s a danger that Lucas Grantham might be another Edward Fount. Looks good for it because he’s a lying little idiot who lives with his mother, but he could be telling the truth about why he went to the woods.”

“Telling the truth about his lie?”

“Yes.”

“If that’s the case I’m going to have him on wasting police time.”

“Agreed.”

Fraser sighed, massaged her forehead. She looked old suddenly. “But I’m not sure it is, and part of me wants you here to run the investigation into Grantham. Clock’s ticking.”

I knew that. I kept quiet, let her think, and watched her massage her forehead as she did so. I knew there was no point pushing her. She came to a decision quickly.

“Right. I’m going to let you go and interview her, Jim, tomorrow morning, not tonight. It’s far too late.”

I felt a surge of adrenaline, as if I’d had a shot of it into my arm.

“Thank you, boss.” I stood up. “I’m going to get familiar with everything in her file.”

I wanted to know every detail by heart; I wanted to pull off the interview of my life. Nicky Forbes had got to me right from the start.

“Now listen to me, Jim. You do no such thing. You go home and you sleep. You look like shit.” She paused, let me absorb the insult, and then she asked, “How are you feeling about Emma?”

That blindsided me. Totally. It took me a moment to pull together a reply.

“Disappointed, of course. But I’m focused on moving forward, boss.”

“Don’t fuck about with me; you know what I’m asking. I’m not blind.”

“Honest truth, boss, I am focused on moving forward, but I’m gutted too. Of course I am.”

“I’m only going to ask you this once: do you think it’s affecting your judgment?”

“Not at all. Not one bit.”

She leaned back in her chair, her mind working it through, before she replied. “OK. So you go first thing to interview Nicky Forbes, because I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. Get back here as quickly as you can afterward. We couldn’t be more stretched for resources so I shouldn’t really be letting my deputy go.”

“Boss—”

“I’m indulging you here, Jim, so don’t push it. I’ve got a list of interviews as long as my arm that relate to Lucas Grantham.”

“I just wanted to know if I would go alone or not.”

“I can’t send anybody else. I need every body I can get.”

She took off her glasses, which made her look suddenly vulnerable, and she rubbed her eyes, which were reddened around the rims. As it was late, and her guard seemed to be down just a little, I asked her something: “Boss, do you think he’s still alive?”

“You know the statistics as well as I do. We just have to do what we can.”

Back at my flat, I looked through the case files, poring over every detail, memorizing the events that took place when Nicky Forbes was a girl, rereading all the notes I took after Simon Forbes came in.

It was a jubilant phone call to Fraser that I made at midnight.

“I found a hole in Nicola Forbes’s alibi. Last Sunday she said she was attending a food festival. She was definitely there in the morning, but nobody can confirm that they saw her between 13:30 and 22:00 when her husband maintains that she Skyped him from the cottage.”

“I thought we’d confirmed her alibi?”

“People said they thought they’d seen her, but it’s a really big event. Tons of stalls selling produce, cookery demonstrations, that kind of thing, hundreds of folks attending and although she’s quite well known, nobody can actually guarantee that they saw her during the afternoon. They all say she was definitely there that day, and a friend says that they had lunch together, but after 13:30 none of it’s reliable.”

“Good work, Jim,” she said. “Take Woodley with you in the morning.”

“I thought you couldn’t spare anybody.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

I didn’t have the energy to go to my bed. I lay on my sofa, the window cracked open even though it was freezing outside, and I smoked and tried to fight away the memories of Emma that could upset the perfect balance I felt: the poised moment when a case is about to come together one way or another, and when you’re right in it.

I checked my phone. Woodley and I had been texting and emailing, finalizing directions and details for the morning.

What I didn’t expect to find in my inbox was an email from Emma. Its title: “Sorry.”

Email

To: Jim Clemo

From: Emma Zhang

October 28, 2012 at 23:39

SORRY

Dear Jim

I hope you read this because I owe you an explanation. If you are reading it: thank you.

I should never have done what I did. It was unforgivable. I should never have contributed to the blog and I should never have expected you to help me. It was a terrible position to put you in.

When I walked past you in the incident room this morning it was the hardest moment of my life because all I wanted to do was rewind the clock, and not do what I did, so we could still be together. When I was with you I felt happy, and protected, and I threw all that away for the worst and most stupid of reasons.

I owe you an explanation for why I did it, and here it is. It’s not an excuse:

When I was six years old my dad went outside to mow the lawn and asked me to look after my little sister. She was two. Her name was Celia. We were playing in my bedroom. I left her for just a few minutes to go to the loo. When I came back I couldn’t find her. I called my dad. He found her wedged down the side of my bed. She’d got stuck, and suffocated. She died before we got her out.

My dad blamed me for her death, but I was just a child too. What he did wasn’t
responsible
because he was the adult in charge, he shouldn’t have left her in my care. I didn’t know you could die like that.

But he was tough like that, always, you’ve no idea how tough he was. He never let me be a child. I miss Celia every day.

When I heard what Rachel Jenner did to Ben, how she let him run ahead, I wanted to punish her, because you shouldn’t leave kids unsupervised. They can come to harm. I thought it meant that she was a person who didn’t deserve to have a child, that she didn’t love him properly. I thought she was like my dad. I realized I was wrong when I saw the photographs she’d taken of him. They were so beautiful, I felt as though they would break my heart there and then.

I didn’t mean to do what I did. The blog sucked me in. It was a kind of compulsion, so hard to resist.

I don’t know if that’s because the FLO role was too much for me. Perhaps I’m not good at bearing other people’s problems. It freaks me out. I should have been stronger, more professional, and I should have pulled out of the investigation, but I didn’t, and then it got so hard to fight the urge to contribute to the blog because I felt so angry. I try hard to quell it, but I carry a lot of rage with me about what happened to Celia and to me, and I confused my history, and my anger at my dad, with Rachel’s present, and I wanted to punish her for his sins.

I try not to let it show, because I’m usually very good at pleasing people, and making everything right, but I’m not always a well person, and even when I work hard to keep it under control, my past messes with my mind sometimes.

I behaved in an arrogant and disgusting way, and that’s something I’ll have to live with, just like I’ll have to live with losing my career, and I deserve that.