Killing a Stranger (6 page)

‘Those two boxes, his computer, mobile phone, that sort of thing.' She shrugged. ‘To be honest, I stopped watching after a while. I just couldn't bear it. They were hoping one of you would know the password to his email account, I think.'

‘I know what it
was
,' Charlie mused. ‘But he was always changing it. Usually to something stupid. I don't think he used it that much anyway, we all used to text or use
chat
online.'

‘He didn't mention anyone. Anyone else he might have been in contact with?'

‘Nothing.' Becky told her. ‘I wish he had.'

Patrick was thinking hard. ‘Rob wasn't secretive,' he said. ‘I mean, he could never keep anything to himself, could he. You'd tell him something and next minute he'd blurt it out, then get all defensive when he remembered he'd been meant to keep his mouth shut. Oh,' he added, seeing the sudden anxiety in Clara's eyes. ‘I don't mean big stuff, I mean …'

‘Like if someone fancied someone,' Becky explained. ‘You'd never tell Rob, not unless you wanted everyone to know. He just didn't think.'

Clara nodded, recognizing the trait. ‘But you think there was something. Something he'd been keeping back?'

Patrick nodded.

‘Yeah,' Charlie agreed reluctantly. ‘He seemed edgy, impatient, got into rows with Becky and that wasn't normal.

Rob didn't like rows, they were too much bother.'

‘But you don't know what?'

Charlie sighed. ‘He talked about his dad a time or two,' he said. ‘I mean, he'd talked about him before, about how he wondered who he was and sometimes … sometimes he got really annoyed that you wouldn't tell him anything.'

‘And he said something about a letter he'd found,' Becky added suddenly.

‘Found?'

Becky looked embarrassed. She looked to the others for support.

‘Becky,' Clara said patiently. ‘Do you honestly think anything you could tell me now would be worse than what I already know?'

Impulsively, Becky reached out and grasped Clara's hand. ‘No,' she admitted. ‘I don't suppose it would be. I just …' She laughed nervously, ‘God this'll sound stupid. I don't want anyone to think badly of him, you know?'

Clara patted her hand. ‘I know,' she said. ‘Have you told the police anything you've not told me?'

They shifted uncomfortably. ‘No,' Becky said. ‘We told them Rob had said something about a letter.'

‘I think that's what they came here looking for.'

‘But we don't know what letter. Rob didn't say where he'd got it, but he said …' She took a deep breath. ‘He said he'd got pissed off because you wouldn't talk to him about his dad, he said he had a right to know. We think, we think he went through your stuff one day when you were out.'

‘We only think that,' Charlie added. ‘We really didn't know.'

Clara nodded. She crossed to the cupboard and fridge and began to assemble the ingredients for sandwiches. They moved to help her, getting in one another's way but glad of something to do. That magic of having your hands working, Patrick thought.

‘Do you know what the letter was?' he asked shyly.

Clara paused, butter knife poised above bread. ‘No,' she said. ‘That's the thing. I shut all of that out of our lives, burned letters, threw out old photos. As far as I know, there was nothing there for Rob to have found.'

I
t was past midnight by the time Patrick arrived home and he knew he'd be in trouble. They had an agreement that on school nights Patrick would be home by eleven and, if he was likely to be late, he should call Harry and tell him. It was an agreement that cut both ways; Harry, Patrick's dad, would never dream of leaving Patrick to worry should he be running late or have to change his plans. Patrick had switched his mobile off when they'd gone to see Clara; he'd completely forgotten to either switch it on or tell his dad when he might be back.

Patrick and his dad shared a small terraced house about forty minutes walk from Rob's place. The front door opened straight into the living room. Harry sat, television turned down, newspaper spread out on his lap, though Patrick could tell that neither the television nor the paper had held his attention in quite some time.

Do you even know what's on? Patrick wanted to ask, Instead, he offered, ‘Sorry I'm late,' hoping that would do.

Harry didn't move. ‘I was worried about you,' he said. ‘Where did you go?'

‘Out. Just out.'

‘It's past twelve. You can't have been “just out” all this time.'

Patrick could both hear and feel the degree of control Harry was exercising just to keep his voice steady. Remorse and irritation – what right had his dad to make him feel guilty? He'd done nothing wrong – fought it out in Patrick's head. ‘I was with Charlie,' Patrick said. ‘And Becky.'

‘I called Charlie's parents. They didn't know where you were either.'

‘You did what?' Irritation won. ‘You checking up on me?'

‘You didn't call, your phone was off. I told you, I was worried.'

‘I don't need you checking up on me.'

Harry got out of his chair and faced his son. ‘And I don't need to be sitting here, worried sick. Anything could have happened. Anything.'

‘Nothing happened,' Patrick stared sullenly at his feet. Guilt had been tagged by conscience and had now entered the ring. ‘I was just out, that's all.'

Harry took a deep breath. ‘Where did you go to? Am I at least allowed to know that?'

Patrick shrugged. He wondered how Becky and Charlie's parents were reacting now. Charlie, being a nominal adult, had parents who were pretty flexible about his comings and goings, but he could imagine Becky's mum and step-dad would be less than pleased to know where their daughter had been. Harry rarely lost his temper. Sometimes, Patrick almost wished he would, then he could shout back, feel justified in being angry.

‘Patrick?' Harry prompted.

Patrick sighed. ‘Becky got a phone call,' he said. ‘Charlie and me, we went with her.'

‘Went where? A phone call from …?'

Wearily, Patrick threw himself into his father's recently vacated chair. Harry hesitated for a moment and then settled on the sofa opposite and Patrick knew that he was partly off the hook. Harry wasn't about to yell at him or get mad or interrogate or any of the things Patrick half wished he'd do. Harry was preparing to listen and in a strange sort of way, Patrick found that even harder. It meant he had to talk, to explain, to …

‘We went to see Rob's mum,' he said. ‘She called Becky, wanted to talk to her, and to Charlie, I suppose. Becky said she wished she hadn't rung at home, knowing how Becky's mam and step-dad felt about Rob, but they were out and I guess she didn't want to go alone, so I suppose she just asked Charlie and me to go along and …'

He was rambling, making no sense what so ever. He wanted his bed. He wanted his dad to ask him the right questions so he didn't have to go through the whole thing again like they had with Clara. He wanted to be left alone.

He lifted his gaze and stared at his dad, not sure which of those things he desired most and hoping that Harry would make the choice for him. Then all he'd have to do was respond. Though, Patrick wasn't even sure he could do that very well right now.

Harry met his gaze and held it. He, being Harry, didn't do any of the things Patrick had anticipated. Instead, he said quietly, ‘When my sister disappeared, my mother … she wanted to talk to anyone and everyone who might have seen or talked to her or known anything. Even the most stupid little thing. She would hang around outside the school gates, waiting. I suppose for Helen, I don't know. I think she hoped … half believed my sister would come out of the school with the other children and the nightmare would be over.'

Patrick was distracted. ‘Nan did that?'

Harry nodded. ‘The other parents, they tried to understand. To be patient with her, but she did it, day after day, standing there as the children came out, demanding to know if they'd seen her child, if they knew anything. The parents complained to the head teacher and to the police. She was, they said, frightening their children, but you know, I think really, she was frightening them.'

‘Them? How?'

Harry smiled sadly, recalling just how distraught and desperate his mother, Mari, had been. ‘I think, you know, that she was quite unhinged for a while.'

‘Nan?' Mari was one of the sanest, most sensible and ordered people Patrick could think of.

‘But the other parents, they were … afraid, I think. It was as though they feared … contamination. Tragedy, especially a tragedy that involves a child, it brings home to you just how precious and fragile your loves and lives can be and, however sympathetic people are, however much they care and give their support, they are still afraid. They think, it's happened once; might it not happen again?'

‘And do you feel like that?' Patrick wanted to feel aggrieved if Harry did, but at the same time, he felt awed by the revelation, as though suddenly privy to some shameful secret of the adult world.

Harry nodded. ‘I'm ashamed to say that a little part of me does feel that way,' he said. ‘A little part of me wants to know what it was that went wrong in your friend's life that made him do what he did. To kill yourself; to take your own life … frankly, Patrick, I find it hard to comprehend. Helen, my little sister, her life was taken from her. She didn't have any say in the matter or any power to change things. Oh,' he added, looking at the turmoil written on his son's face, ‘I'm not judging your friend. For someone so young to be in such despair is a thing that should never happen. Never, in a million years.'

He paused, left the silence as an invitation to his child, but Patrick shook his head, unable to fill it. What could he say? Rob killed himself because he'd killed another person? How could Harry be expected to react to that? Patrick just couldn't bring himself to speak the words out loud.

‘I'm tired out, Dad,' he said at last. ‘I need to go to bed.'

Mutely, Harry nodded. ‘His mother must be …'

‘Yeah,' Patrick told him, ‘yeah, she is.' He left the room, the tightness in his throat preventing him from saying more. Harry's following gaze seemed to be drilling a hole right into his stiffened back.

Across town a girl lay wakeful in her bed. Jennifer was seventeen. She was also pregnant, though not enough yet that it showed; not unless you really looked hard.

Creased in her hand was the front page of the local paper. She had gazed at the image so long and so hard that if she closed her eyes, it seemed imprinted on the inside of the lids. And, as she stared up at the ceiling, the shadow of it danced before her eyes like a projection in the dark.

The picture was of Robert Beresford. Now deceased, believed to have fallen from a bridge into the canal and died among the weeds and dumped shopping trolleys and filthy, muddy water. The picture had been taken at the school prize giving the year before and Rob, clutching a book, smiled out self-consciously.

Jenny liked his smile. She had always liked his smile.

She turned over on her side, trying to block the images that swam before her eyes, images that seemed magnified by the unshed tears.

A
s predicted there had been a fair amount of media interest in and around the school, though Eileen Mathers, the head teacher, had done everything in her power to keep them off school premises, threatening legal action should anyone trespass.

She had been particularly concerned for those of Rob's friends who were at the school and might be identified. The suicide of a promising student made good copy. She had issued a statement on behalf of the school. The usual phrases of ‘tragic loss, a life cut short too soon, a bright, popular and happy boy'. Naomi had heard it on the lunchtime news. She had heard too in the voice of this head teacher, a woman used to dealing with the squalls and storms of adolescent angst, that she was deeply and personally shocked by this particular death and that the words, however clichéd, were sincerely meant.

Naomi was sincerely relieved that the connection between Rob's death and that of Adam Hensel had not been publicized. She had no doubt that the media would make the connection, but hoped that there would be bigger, more certain news to fill their pages and that Rob and his family and her friends would be left in peace.

It was with relief also that only one paper made the connection between Patrick and the siege and Rob, and then it was to make only some bland comment about tragedy in young lives and the stresses our modern teenagers were under. Naomi didn't quite see the connection between being held hostage and the strains of teenage years, but if that was all they had to say, she was willing to let it lie.

‘How are you getting on with it?' Patrick asked. She was still playing with the voice activated software he'd persuaded her to buy. In theory, it meant that she could use her computer unaided. So far, it had proved to be more trouble than it was worth. She had spent the required amount of time training it – she began to think it had taken less time to train Napoleon – and had duly repeated the lessons when it still failed to comply with her voice commands. Patrick had suggested it might need more RAM and gave her an extended lecture on how temporary files were created every time she did anything and information was constantly being swapped … or something.

‘Better today. Your idea has made a difference. Look, I wrote a letter and listened through read back. It almost makes sense.'

Patrick came and peered over her shoulder. ‘Cool. Most of it is actual words.'

Naomi laughed. ‘Yeah, but you watch this.'

She switched on the microphone and spoke into it, ‘Internet.'