Someone Else's Son (50 page)

‘I had the knife in my hand,’ Dayna blurted out to Carrie. There were gasps all around the studio.

‘What? How?’ Carrie asked incredulously.

It should have ended fine, it should have ended with Warren and his mates swaggering off to cause trouble elsewhere. It should have ended with Max’s hand placed on her belly, his face pressed to her neck telling her his plans, how much he loved her. That was what she’d hoped as she lay on that hospital bed, the anaesthetist hovering over her, making jokes, trying to make her feel at ease before the operation. The lights above dazzled her. The nurses were chattering. They lifted her wrist and said she would feel something cold in her arm and that she should count to a hundred.

‘I didn’t have the abortion. I couldn’t go through with it,’ Dayna said, suddenly standing up. She needed to move about. She went down the couple of steps from the studio platform they were sitting on. Her body was rigid with fear. ‘But I never got to tell Max.’ She spun round to face Carrie who was now also standing. ‘He died thinking I killed our baby.’ Dayna threw back her head and sobbed.

Carrie’s eyes were wide and filled with something that Dayna should have been terrified of. Was she angry, happy, going to hit her, hug her?

‘So you’re still pregnant?’ This news outweighed everything else. Carrie approached – cautiously, as if the truth itself was a weapon. ‘And what do you mean, you had the knife in your hand?’

Dayna screwed up her eyes and covered her face with her hands. She let out stifled sobs.

It was a long knife, a kitchen knife. The sharpest she’d ever seen. It was the same one that Max had threatened those kids with at the park. It had sent them scarpering, all right. Max felt safe with it, in control. It was there when he needed it. Cold, infallible, certain.

Then another tussle, this time so fast she didn’t know what was happening.

‘Max, no! What the hell are you doing?’ Dayna screamed. She’d thought it was all over, but he’d lunged at her, caught her off guard, made it all end wrong.

Dayna took a deep breath.

She didn’t care about the cameras or the audience or the lights.

She was sweating.

‘I killed Max,’ she said coldly.

Everything was silent. Inside her head. Outside of it. There was nothing.

Everything gone as if it never even existed.

Carrie’s face froze. Then her forehead and eyes drew together in a disbelieving contortion. She was reaching out, trying to grab someone, something. She didn’t know what she was doing. She was staggering.

Then the tidal wave of shock from the audience.

No
...

The single word was a bullet. Carrie slowly followed its path towards Dayna.

‘I killed Max,’ Dayna repeated flatly. ‘And now I’m sorry.’ She heard the words but it wasn’t her saying them. ‘So very, very sorry.’

Carrie crept towards Dayna. ‘There is no
sorry
.’ Flustered, sweating, red-faced, glassy-eyed, Carrie searched around her for help. She glanced to the wings. Leah was there, talking into her radio. Dennis was there too, whispering to that woman detective. Two bouncers came on stage and each stuck an arm under Dayna’s armpit. They hauled her back to the chair and forced her to sit. They stood either side of her. She was shaking. So freezing cold.

‘I killed Max,’ she said again to make sure they all knew. She placed both hands on her belly as if to protect her baby from whatever she was now going to get.

Carrie stood in the middle of the stage, her arms dangling by her side, her neck barely able to hold up her head. She couldn’t speak or cry.

Dayna swallowed and stared straight ahead. Any minute now that cop man would arrest her. She would tell them how she’d stabbed Max when he’d lunged at her for the knife, that it was self-defence, that she’d been covering up and lying all along. Her prints were on the knife. She had a motive – they’d been fighting about the abortion. There was no way out for her now.

She was ready to take her punishment. Max had believed that she’d gone through with the abortion. It was all her fault.

Before she knew what was happening, he’d swiped the knife from her hand. She lost her grip on the cold handle.

‘Max, stop!’

He danced backwards. His face was contorted by the demons inside him.

The youths began jeering again, tormenting him, telling him he was a loser and should just piss off home.

Dayna circled him, her hands outstretched. She had to get the knife back.

Half crouching, half stalking, his legs apart, his back bent, Max growled and screamed. He yelled out stuff she didn’t understand – didn’t
want
to understand – and then he turned his face to the sky and begged for help. He was crying.

Dayna looked up, too, as if the heavens held the answer to everything they’d been searching for. Because it was a quest they’d been on, their pursuits converging for a few short months as they shared the agonies and the delights of being teenagers, of being alive, of being different when really, when it came down to it, they were just like everyone else.

Who is it, she wondered in those few short moments staring at the steel-coloured clouds, that decides our fate?

She lowered her eyes again, slowly, deliberately. Nothing was real any more.

Then everything changed when Max plunged the knife into his stomach.

His eyes bulged, swimming with tears.

He held Dayna’s stare as he contemplated the pain.

A single wave engulfing him. All the misery of his life tied up in one deep wound.

‘Oh God,
no
!’

Max pulled out the blade. Blood poured hot and angry from his belly.

Dayna screamed.

Max stabbed himself again and again and again and again. He was doubled up, both hands gripping the blade and plunging it upwards into his abdomen. His hands, his face, his clothes, his feet, the ground – within seconds, everything was covered in blood.

‘Shit!’ someone yelled.

‘Fucking twist,’Warren Lane called out to his mates.

Dayna looked at him in a daze, wondering what that meant, hoping they were going to get help, make everything all right.

They didn’t. They ran, their shiny trainers flashing through the murk. There was no one else about.

In slow motion, Max fell to his knees. Dayna screamed again but nothing came out. She watched, mesmerised, as beautiful, skinny, clever, hopeless Max folded to the ground. He hit his head.

Dayna rushed up to him. ‘Don’t die,’ she begged.
Oh God, oh God, oh God
. . .

She heard pounding feet running away. She pressed her hands over Max’s belly but she couldn’t stop the blood. He gasped for breath and something inside him bubbled up then wheezed down.

‘Help!’ Dayna screamed out. She leapt to her feet. The school grounds were more desolate than she’d ever known. The gang had legged it. She fumbled for her mobile phone and called for an ambulance.

‘I can’t live without you,’ she cried, trying to stop the blood pumping from him. Max was deflating. ‘I
won’t
live without you.’

It was all her fault. If she hadn’t led him on, made him believe she’d gone through with the abortion to punish him, then he wouldn’t have flipped out like this.

‘Stop,’ someone said. That woman Leah strode on to the stage.

Dayna looked up and her eyes widened. She bit her lip.

‘Carrie, it’s OK. It’s OK,’ she said. ‘We’re off air. We haven’t been live since the film clip. I decided to go to a re-run when things got sticky.’ She pulled Carrie into her arms. From over her shoulder, she glared at Dayna. ‘The phones have been going mad. You did a good job.’

‘I . . . don’t understand,’ Carrie said. Her voice was weak.

‘You don’t need to.’ Dennis Masters was suddenly beside Dayna. She could smell sweat and coffee on him. ‘Silly little girl,’ he muttered. ‘See to her, detective,’ he said to Jess.

Dayna frowned. What were they on about?

‘I killed Max. It’s my fault he’s dead,’ Dayna said again. The words stung her lips. She saw Carrie flinch as she was guided off stage by Leah. Her face was a map of grief and despair.

‘Nice try,’ Dennis said to her. ‘But you’re too late. Warren Lane’s already given himself up. He phoned in shortly after the show went to air. A car’s on its way to pick him up.’

Dayna scowled. She didn’t understand. What was he on about?

‘Between you and me, love,’ Dennis crouched down – Jess had stepped aside to take a call, ‘I
know
.’

Dayna wanted to hit him and kick and punch him until he believed her. But all she could do was sit there, her shoulders rising up to her ears, her face dropping beneath the collar of her jacket.

‘Those little squealers Samms and Driscoll decided that to save their mate Lane from getting into strife, they ought to fess up what really went on. They told me exactly what happened. It fits with the new forensics and autopsy reports.’

‘I killed Max. It’s my fault he’s dead.’ Dayna was robotic.

‘No, love. No, you didn’t.’ Dennis sighed. He placed a hand on her arm. ‘But Lane’s confession is going to pave the way directly to the prison cell he’s always dreamt of.’

Dayna’s face reddened and paled and crumpled from shock. ‘No . . . no . . . you don’t understand—’

‘But, you see, I have a bit of a problem.’ Dennis shifted further round so his back was facing the crew. He got closer to Dayna. ‘My officers are on their way to arrest Warren. The CPS will charge him and, after a quick spin in court, off he goes to the nick. It bangs up the little sod for a long time and gets him off my patch. It also appeases the powers that be as our violent crime statistics suddenly look a whole lot better. The only trouble is Samms, Driscoll and . . . and, of course, you.’

Dayna gasped. What was he saying? She couldn’t take it all in.

‘My advice to you, sweetheart, is, unless you want to get charged with wasting police time and obstructing justice, then you’ll keep quiet. Why not just concentrate on being a good little girl at school and doing the best for your baby when it’s born?’ Dennis smiled – an attempt to conceal his fear in case she kicked up a fuss, Dayna deduced – and then he stood up, stretching out his back with a groan and a crack.

No . . .
no
. . . it wasn’t meant to happen like this. If Dayna went to prison on Max’s behalf, that was one thing. It was her personal hell; a fitting punishment. Going there because this cop had screwed her over was another matter entirely.

She thought hard. It would certainly be sweet justice for Max and her if the likes of Warren Lane went down. He and his gang had given them hell over the years.

‘What about the other two . . . Driscoll and his mate?’ Dayna asked. ‘No one else saw what happened. The rest of the gang had already left.’

‘Told them the same as you. They can get done for withholding evidence or shut up and bugger off. Guess which they chose?’ Dennis laughed. Dayna had never thought he was a mean man.

‘What about Max’s mum?’ Dayna asked. ‘Does she know?’

Dennis was about to walk away but he stopped and turned back. He stared hard at her. ‘What do you think?’

Dayna suddenly felt about twenty years older. She didn’t like it. She just needed to be a kid again. Her head hurt and she wanted out of the weird place that she’d been in for the last week.

She’d just wanted to protect Max and now all this had happened. How could she let him be remembered as the kid who flipped out and killed himself? She couldn’t bear it that she was a part of the ugly mix that had driven him to it. During the last week, she’d certainly considered joining him, wherever he was, but knew she’d never have the guts; not now someone else was relying on her.

She screwed up her eyes but everything was still there, full colour, burnt in her head. It would never go away.

In a blind panic before the ambulance and cops had arrived, Dayna had slid the knife from beneath Max’s leg. She shoved it under her cardigan. Then, suddenly, everyone was there. Paramedics, cops, teachers and kids – the mess and noise of it all. Mr Denton grabbed her arm, yelled questions at her, called the headmaster, and then she’d escaped unnoticed. She ran and ran, not knowing where she was going. She ended up down at the stream, panting, panicking, sobbing hysterically. She plucked a plastic bag from the water. She wrapped up the knife and dropped it down a drain. No one would find it there.

With hindsight, she knew it was Denton who’d told the cops that she’d been the one to discover Max. The only reason she hadn’t stuck to her original spur-of-the-moment story was because one of the youths was bound to blab. But she’d been wrong. They hadn’t. She should have realised that’s what they did, the way they were. They stuck together, their kind. Clam up, say nothing to the pigs, or face the consequences. Simple gang law. Apart from Warren Lane, of course, who’d now decided he wanted back in the slammer. A part of Dayna totally understood.

The studio was buzzing with people, with talk, with rumour and speculation. Dayna didn’t see Carrie again that day. It was Jess who drove her home.

The engine ticked over as they sat outside her house. ‘Will you be OK?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ Dayna said, meaning the opposite. Her house looked cold, dark, uninviting. ‘I’ll be all right.’ She wondered if her mum was home yet. Apparently, she’d been escorted from the studios by security during the show.

Dayna stood on the pavement and watched the police car drive off. She placed both hands on her belly. She wanted to tell her baby all about its daddy.

 

From the moment he pressed the button on the remote control, he knew he couldn’t spend another night in the place. The television fell silent. He heard kids roaring outside.

‘I have to get to the studio,’ he said quietly. He needed to be with Carrie. Hearing her on the show, listening to her question the girl about the death of their son, imagining the film clip, gasping at the statistics, wondering about the unscheduled re-run when the producer had decided enough was enough was even more painful than seeing it with his own eyes. He called Fiona.