Split Second

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Louise

Terence had had a fall. Louise found him in the hall when she went to get him washed and dressed and breakfasted. She couldn’t see any obvious signs of injury, but he was very pale and confused. She rang for an ambulance, let the office know, and waited with him till they took him in. She cleared out the perishable food and turned off the heating.

He’d been born in the house and she knew he hoped to die there too, but she didn’t know if he’d come back this time. She’d miss their sparring: he was a dyed-in-the wool royalist who’d voted Tory all his life and liked a good argument. Sometimes it reminded her of the banter when her dad had still been around, arguing with her grandad. When Terence had discovered Louise held her own opposing views, he made a point of engaging her in debate: picking a topic from the Telegraph or the television news and throwing it before her like a gauntlet. ‘Look at that,’ he’d announce. ‘Nanny state gone mad. Kids banned from playing conkers because of health and safety.’

And she’d happily pitch in. ‘It’s not true, another of those urban myths. Very fond of them, the Telegraph.’

‘Never needed health and safety in the old days,’ he’d bluster.

‘That when people were losing limbs at work, chopping their fingers off?’

‘But you can’t deny…’ he’d say, and launch into why immigration was out of control, or they needed to bring back grammar schools or National Service, or how tax by stealth was crippling the nation.

‘Nothing to do with greedy bankers or the world economy taking a dive or the rich robbing us blind, then?’ was Louise’s answer to his economic position. The debate was good-humoured and lively and neither of them ever budged an inch. And when she drew it to a close each time, as she completed his notes so that the next carer could see what was what, he’d slap his hands, large liver-spotted paws, on to his knees and proclaim: ‘We’ll have to agree to disagree.’ She would miss him.

Her next call was a new client, a woman with Parkinson’s who’d had a spell in hospital after a knee replacement and had just been discharged by the rehab team. Louise tried to get to know her a bit while she made and served her lunch and emptied her commode, but the woman was monosyllabic.

Louise did Mrs Coulson’s lunch too, an hour later, and her shopping. Mrs Coulson complained that it was after two o’clock, and Louise reminded her that because there were a limited number of them trying to get round everyone at the same times of day, there was always someone had to be last.

It was a perennial complaint, that and not spending enough time with people. The client often didn’t realize that the office allocated their time slots, and that while Louise might be paid for a half-hour or an hour with a particular client, she wasn’t paid for the travelling time in between house calls.

With the care market carved up and divvied out to the cheapest private contractors, running costs were pared to the bone, wages pegged as low as possible. Looking after the frail and vulnerable was just another business, with people out to make profits.

Louise had a fag after Mrs Coulson. One of Carl’s duty-frees. She leant against her car, collar done up tight. There was a group of little kids on scooters and bikes playing together, Asian most of them, and a couple of white kids. They shouted to each other, excited voices and Mancunian accents ringing in the air. One of them, a little boy with glossy black hair wearing a loose tunic and trousers and an open anorak, suddenly threw down his scooter and started singing and dancing, his arms flashing like semaphore and then his hands on his waist, thrusting his hips like Michael Jackson. A little star. His mates cheered and crowed and Louise laughed.

She remembered Luke’s break-dance phase in the last years of primary school, spinning on his head and flipping back and forth like a contortionist. It was the move to high school when things had really started to sour. It was a tough school, a big comprehensive, and Luke loathed it. It was in his second year that he first got into serious trouble, for hitting another student. When Luke explained, his eyes burning, unable to sit still, that he’d exploded after weeks of low-level bullying – taunts and tricks and having his things ruined – Louise tried to get the school to drop the exclusion. They refused; it was a zero-tolerance offence, though they did give the other kids involved a week’s detention. Luke lost his faith then. Bitter at his treatment and bored senseless by many of the lessons.

One of the little kids yelled, ‘Last one to the corner’s a dumbo,’ and they all swarmed off, pedalling and scooting furiously.

It was Ruby’s audition soon; Louise must make time to watch her practise. Like Deanne said, they’d be mad not to take her, but then who knew how tough the competition was. And if there was any problem with the bursary, she simply wouldn’t be able to go. Louise wondered if she should raise the prospect of disappointment, to prepare Ruby just in case, or if that would undermine her confidence.

In the car, she reached to get the mints, catching sight of herself in the rear-view mirror: washed out, dark hollows beneath her eyes. Ten years older. More.

At the hospital, the nurse on reception recognized her and said that Dr Liu would like to see her before she left. A spurt of hope leapt in Louise’s chest. Her pulse began to race. ‘Has there been any change?’ Ready to run to see Luke, to talk to him, revel in his response, gaze into his eyes, see sense there, emotion, life.

‘No,’ the nurse said. ‘We’d always get in touch straight away if that was the case.’

‘Of course.’ The hope sputtered, guttered out, leaving an ache inside. ‘Is she free now?’ Louise asked.

‘On her break, but I can tell her you’re with Luke when she gets back.’

Louise greeted him as she always did: ‘Hello, Luke, it’s Mum.’ And kissed him, then held her palms against his cheeks. ‘Ruby’s not coming tonight, she’s making tea, well, sticking some pasties in the oven. I don’t know about you, love, but I’m knackered.’

She got herself settled in the chair by the bed but didn’t bother getting her patchwork out. Her eyes felt scratchy and dry and she preferred to take his hand, and close her eyes as she stroked his arm and talked. ‘I saw Angie last night,’ she said. ‘She’s doing all right. And Declan sends his love. And I know you’re probably lying there thinking, “What do I care and why’s she wittering on like this?” but if you don’t like it, you’ll have to wake up and tell me.’ She talked on, dipping into memories too, hoping that they might reach the parts the trivial gossip didn’t.

She was back in the present, passing on Deanne’s news, when she heard the shush of the door and Dr Liu came in.

‘Hello, Luke,’ said the doctor. She always made a point of speaking to him, and Louise liked that. ‘Shall we talk next door?’ she asked Louise.

In the little side room they sat down. Dr Liu had Luke’s notes, a huge folder of charts and reports and records that had accumulated in the three weeks since he’d been admitted.

‘How are you?’ Dr Liu asked.

‘Okay,’ said Louise.

‘I wanted to have a little chat with you. I’ve been reviewing Luke’s condition and assessing his treatment plan.’

Louise tensed; she could sense something coming, something bad.

‘We’ve talked before about the Glasgow Coma Scale and Luke’s score.’

Louise nodded; knew that it rated his responses or lack of them to a range of stimuli. Knew Luke’s score was low.

Unbidden, she remembered his baby book, how the midwives, then the health visitors, had marked his weight and height on the charts, ensuring that he was thriving. Recalled her anxiety, as a young mother, that they might find fault, that he’d fall below the desired percentile line.

‘We’ve repeated the tests today,’ the doctor said, ‘and got the same results. I must stress that every patient is different and that we still know very, very little about the working of the brain and its capacity for healing.’

But… Louise could hear the word looming large.

‘But,’ said Dr Liu, ‘we’ve not seen any alteration in Luke’s condition. And although there are no hard and fast rules, the likelihood that there will be any recovery reduces sharply after the first few days. It’s been three weeks now.’

Louise hardened herself, stony, impermeable, unwilling to absorb any of this. She sat still and stiff, neither nodding or smiling.

‘Luke is therefore facing the prospect of continuing in the same state for the foreseeable future.’ The doctor paused.

Louise remained unbending.

‘You understand?’

Louise gave the smallest of nods; she could feel the pulse in her temple, the beat and swish of blood in her head. An acidic taste in her mouth.

‘In the longer term, because he is unable to make decisions about his treatment, that will fall to you. I’m talking about very difficult decisions about his quality of life, about whether to maintain life support in the form of food and drink.’

Louise ground her teeth together. She could not think about that. How dare the woman sit here and say those things? She stared down at her hands, at the skin around her nails, red and angry, her nails dull and scratched.

‘But those are decisions for the future. In the shorter term, we need to consider where Luke can best be cared for. Given that there is no medical imperative to keep him in the hospital-’

‘You’re giving up on him.’ Her head was swimming. Everything crooked.

‘Not at all. But everything we are doing for Luke here can be done equally well in a residential care facility.’

Louise thought of some of the homes she’d worked in, those residents able to leave their rooms plonked in chairs in front of the television, the wanderers drugged up and befuddled, the smell of urine.

The doctor went on, ‘What we are proposing to do is to refer Luke on, with a view to moving him in the next couple of months.’

Louise stared at her.

‘I want to assure you that if there was anything else I could suggest in terms of other treatment options for Luke I’d explore it, but we may have to accept that the trauma was so severe that recovery, even on the most basic level, is not a realistic prognosis. I am sorry. Is there anything you’d like to ask, anything you don’t understand?’

Why Luke? Why? Shrieking inside her mind. A lament. Louise shook her head once, biting her cheek. She did not speak. She went back to sit with her son.

Andrew

They drove to Durham on the Saturday to collect Jason’s things. Term hadn’t started. Andrew borrowed Colin’s estate car, which had more space in the back than theirs.

The drive up took longer than they’d expected. Heavy rain had caused flooding on some sections of the M1, then they got caught up in a tailback where a lorry had shed its load of pallets. He suggested they leave the motorway at the next exit, but Val argued it would take even longer using the back roads.

He loved the look of Durham as they approached, the Norman cathedral and the castle dominating the skyline, the whole place compact and dripping with history. At street level there was a malevolent one-way system and an acute shortage of parking places in the narrow lanes. The place had been built for people and horses, not vehicles.

They found their way to the halls of residence and parked there. Val shivered as they got out of the car, and he suggested they go get a bite of something to eat and a cuppa before making a start. It was partly consideration for her, but also a desire to delay the chore that faced them.

The café they found was a traditional place, steamed-up windows and the scent of frying bacon and wet clothes. Andrew had an all-day breakfast, suddenly ravenous, and Val chose egg on toast but didn’t clear her plate. He should talk to her about it, he thought; he would talk to her about it, but not now, not yet. He didn’t want to put any more pressure on her.

He still hadn’t told her about Garrington, about knowing the identity of one of the thugs, and the more time passed, the less he wanted to confide in her. It would mean explaining about Louise Murray and how he had visited Luke, and that would feel disloyal. And if he felt it was disloyal, then it surely would read like that to Val. Keeping it from her thus far would be seen as something worse than it was, as a betrayal at a time when she was vulnerable.

They had Jason’s key and made themselves known to the manager of the halls, who they’d spoken to on the phone. She greeted them warmly. Andrew liked the lilt of her accent. ‘We’re just up here,’ she said. He was glad of the guidance; although he had been here before, helping Jason move in, he would never have remembered the way.

‘If there’s anything you need, just give us a call.’ She left them outside the room.

Andrew opened the door. The space was small and cluttered and shouted Jason from every angle: his guitar, his rugby shirt, his photos. Andrew took a sharp breath and moved towards the desk at the back wall where books and CDs and files were strewn about. Val took a step after him and stopped in the middle of the room between the bed and the chest of drawers.

Andrew scanned the desk. What had Jason been reading, working on, listening to? Hungry for more knowledge about his son. When he turned back to Val, she moved to him. They embraced. All the nevers, thought Andrew. He will never come in that door, play that song, read another word. He eased himself away from her.

‘I’ll fetch the boxes,’ he said. ‘I’ll do the books, if you can empty the drawers.’

She nodded, and they set to work.

Louise

‘Oh, Louise.’ Omar looked crestfallen, shaking his head at her when she went in the shop for milk. ‘It shouldn’t be allowed.’ He waved his hand at the bundles of newspapers he was undoing for the shelves.

Her eyes flew from one headline to the next. COMA BOY’S REIGN OF TERROR – DEATH IN VAIN? STUDENT GAVE LIFE FOR TEENAGE THUG. COMA VICTIM’S LIFE OF CRIME. Luke’s face and Jason’s staring out at her in black and white.

Louise felt her heart clench, gasped at the savagery of the words.

‘Don’t read them,’ Omar said.

She was dizzy, frightened. ‘How can I not read them?’

‘It’s all lies,’ he said.

‘I need to know what they’re saying.’ She got out her purse.

‘Keep your money,’ he said. ‘If I could, I’d burn the lot.’

She forgot the milk. Ran home and spread the papers out. Ten minutes until she had to wake Ruby.

It was lies, most of it. The facts twisted beyond all recognition. Supposition and exaggeration and righteous indignation stuffed between barbed comments. Luke had been out of control, uncontrollable, feckless, reckless, known to the police, excluded from school, a thug, prone to antisocial behaviour, a budding criminal, an arsonist, a vandal, a drug-user, disturbed. He’d been raised in a broken home, by a single parent who had children by two different men. Neither of the children saw their fathers. There was no mention of Eddie’s sudden death. Luke had caused explosions in an arson attack, defaced public property. Neighbours reported living in fear. A source close to the family did not want to be named.

He was the devil incarnate, her spawn.

Something broke inside her. This was her boy, her lovely boy, lying sick in a coma, his skull broken, and they could write all this about him. The cruelty of it sang through her, circulated like acid in her blood. And a great swell of doubt came crashing after it. Was it her fault? Could she have done more? Done better? Was this a broken home? She had filled it with love and encouraged laughter, tried to keep it warm, kept the fridge stocked, their clothes clean. Revelled in them, even when she was ragged with fatigue. She’d have done anything to prevent Eddie’s death; she had not chosen to be left on her own raising a family. And in her heart she did not equate lone parents with broken homes. Weren’t they simply victims of unsuccessful relationships? While a broken home was a dysfunctional one, surely, one without love or care or comfort.

She recalled the visits to school, her attempts to broker some sort of peace between Luke and his teachers, Luke and the attendance officer. She had done her level best to listen, to try and find out how she could help him, why he was so unhappy and restless.

The possibility that she had fallen short, that there were mistakes, inadequacies in what she had done, made her sick with guilt. Shame clawed through her.

But when she returned to the papers and read them anew, the anger returned. This was not Luke, this was not fair.

Shivering with rage, she rang DC Illingworth, never mind how early it was. ‘Have you seen the papers?’ she demanded, a tremor in her voice.

‘No,’ the woman replied. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s bloody character assassination,’ she said, close to tears, ‘that’s what it is. My boy’s a victim here and they’re making him out to be a right villain.’

‘Louise-’

‘Please,’ she blurted out, ‘read them!’ She ended the call.

‘Mum?’ Ruby was there in her school uniform. ‘What’s going on?’

Louise only hesitated for a moment – there was no way she could keep it from Ruby; she was bound to hear about it. ‘The papers, they’re saying things about Luke, things that aren’t true.’

‘What sort of things?’

‘That he was a criminal, that he was terrorizing the place.’

‘Oh, Mum.’ Ruby’s eyes filled.

‘I know it’s not true and you know it’s not true, but it’s there in black and white and some people will take it as gospel.’

‘Can’t we sue them, then?’

Oh, Ruby. ‘I doubt it.’ She tried to focus, to concentrate on what was important. ‘Listen, you might get some bother at school. Do you want me to talk to Miss Morley?’

‘No, it’ll be all right.’

‘But you would let me know if…’ A spike of panic in her guts; was she neglecting Ruby too? Should she keep her off, cocoon her here?

‘Course.’ Ruby poured cereal, drained the last of the milk, pulled one of the papers closer.

‘How do they know all this?’ Louise wondered aloud. ‘The stuff with the police, the cautions, that’s not public knowledge. He was only fifteen, it’s meant to be confidential. So either the police have leaked stuff, or someone who knows Luke told them. But why? Why would anyone do that?’

‘It makes him sound horrible,’ Ruby exclaimed. ‘There’s our house.’ She pointed at an inside page. The picture made the place look smaller, meaner than it really was. Barren. Taken so that the great tree, with Luke’s lights in, was not in view.

The only reference to Luke’s attackers was right at the end of the piece, which repeated that the police had issued e-fit pictures of two men and a young woman wanted for questioning in the assault that led to the death of Good Samaritan Jason Barnes.

‘Why would they write all this?’ asked Ruby.

‘Because it sells papers. They can stir it up, get people talking. You know what spin is; this is spin. Your great-grandad called them the gutter press, this lot. Best used for wiping yer arse on.’

‘Mum!’

‘His words, not mine.’ She drew a breath; her chest ached. ‘Just remember, if anyone says anything at school, you know Luke, and what sort of person he is. And this isn’t him.’

DC Illingworth rang back before they left. ‘I’m so sorry, Louise.’

‘Can’t you do anything? Make them take it back? What if it affects how people see things when we get to court? Isn’t that illegal if there might be a trial?’

‘They’ve been very careful; there are no details about the incident itself in what they’ve written.’

‘Aren’t your press office meant to stop them printing stuff like this?’

‘We do our best, but we have a free press. Publishing material like this doesn’t help anybody, but as I say, there’s nothing there that might materially affect our ability to press charges or mount a prosecution. You could try for a right of reply or an apology, but we really wouldn’t advise it. It could make things even worse.’

Louise felt boxed in, nowhere to turn. ‘How did they find all this out, the stuff about the cautions? I was told at the time that none of it would be disclosed.’

‘That’s right, it’s common practice with young offenders.’

‘But someone’s disclosed it.’

‘This hasn’t come from us, Louise, if that’s what you’re implying, I can assure you of that.’ There was a tart edge to her tone.

‘So I just let it go, do I? See him slandered like this?’ Tears of frustration started in her eyes.

‘I know, it’s hard. But it’s like feeding the machine: anything you give them can come back and bite you. You speak to them and they’ll want more. Our press officer is already in touch, so there shouldn’t be anything else. And even if we make arrests and charge people, the trial wouldn’t be for several months.’

Louise glanced at the clock, signalled to Ruby that she should set off. ‘Why hasn’t anything happened yet?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got the name. What are you waiting for?’

‘Let me check with the team and get back to you.’

‘So you don’t actually know?’ Louise felt she was being fobbed off.

‘I want to make sure I’m completely up to date. I’ll speak to you later today,’ the detective said neutrally.

Hadn’t she done her best? Should she have been harder on Luke? Tough love? She had lived all her life in the belief that people were basically good, that with children you set boundaries and you loved them, you praised them, and they would come good. So where had it gone so wrong? She felt wretched. She had not been able to protect him when it came to it. They had ridden him down and savaged him. And now she could not even protect his reputation. She could not defend him and set the record straight. Tell the world that the reckless arson was just a firework in a wheelie bin; that he was cheeky, never malicious. That he had never been violent, never a thug, terrorized no one.

All day she wrestled with it, a net of worry, of impotent rage. A web of doubts and questions. Deanne called her mid-morning, then Fee and even Carl. All of them outraged, spitting tacks at the injustice of it. She was grateful to them; it helped to know she had them rooting for Luke. But the dribble of unease, the seasick lurches of guilt, wouldn’t go away. Louise felt dirty, tarnished, the smears undermining her self-belief. Yet she had to squash this, bury it deep, in order to be a rock for Luke, for Ruby.

Mrs Coulson regularly took one of the tabloids. It always sat on the tray table at the side of her chair, but today when Louise visited it was absent. Louise didn’t say anything and neither did the old woman. The kindness disarmed Louise and she felt a lump in her throat as she said goodbye.

She’d just put the key away in the key safe by the back door and was walking to her car when Andrew Barnes rang her. There was a bitter wind, a northeasterly, thrashing the trees, making her eyes water and pinching her cheeks. Clouds dense and low swung overhead, making her giddy. She turned her back to the wind, hunched over the phone. Litter skirled down the street, bags and a plastic bottle, fast-food cartons, smacking against walls and skittering around parked cars.

‘I’ve seen the papers,’ he said. No commiserations or anything.

Guilt leapt inside her. DEATH IN VAIN. She stiffened. ‘Right.’

‘It can’t all be… well, it’s not all true, is it? What they said.’

The fact that he had to ask the question saddened her. How little trust he had, in her, in Luke. She had shared something of Luke with him – had he not heard her? Did he now not believe her? He’d come looking for her at the hospital, came there twice, and then they’d met in the pub, and each time she couldn’t quite figure him out. It was like he thought they had some common cause, but it didn’t really feel that way to her. He must hate her, surely. His son was dead, hers still alive. His only child gone, while she had a second child to comfort her. DEATH IN VAIN. There they were, the perfect middle-class family, Jason the golden hero, whilst Luke, Luke was now the undeserving cause of Jason’s death and Louise the inadequate, feckless single parent.

‘Louise?’

Wordless, confused, she was unable to deal with him on top of everything else. She hung up.

Andrew

Andrew was cooking, making spicy chicken and basmati rice, rinsing the rice under cold running water prior to boiling it when Val got back.

She came straight through, her arms full of newspapers. ‘Have you actually read them?’ Her eyes blazing, her face flushed. She slapped them down one after the other.

‘Yes,’ he said. He’d passed the hospital shop on the way to his department and they were there, startling, making his heart stop. The ground shifted underfoot. He’d even bought them himself. Scoured them feeling like a voyeur, his pulse too quick and heat in his face. His first reaction was a dreadful sense that there was some truth in the damning reports and that Jason’s honest response had been a terrible mistake. That prospect plunged him into an icy lake of despair, of senseless, meaningless loss. It couldn’t be true. It mustn’t be true. Then he had torn at them, cursing, shredded them and stuffed them in his bin, ink smeared on his hands. Val had rung him at work and he’d cut her short, ‘Yes, it’s outrageous. Completely. But look, I’ve a patient due, we’ll talk later.’

And in the middle of the afternoon, unable to quell the unease, he had rung Louise, anxious to settle the questions he had, hoping to reassure himself that Luke wasn’t the villain he’d been painted. She’d been too upset to talk.

Now he said, ‘You can’t trust what they-’

‘This is what Jason died for?’ Val shouted. ‘A thug, a yob who should have been locked up already.’

‘Val, you don’t know-’

‘He’d been in trouble with the police. He was too disruptive to stay in school, he was setting fire to things, terrifying people.’

‘It’s exaggerated, the tabloids, for Chrissakes, you know how it works.’ Why couldn’t he just agree with her? He’d shared the same sense of dismay, harboured the same doubts.

‘You’re defending him!’

He shook his head.

‘I wish he’d died,’ she said. ‘I wish Jason had done nothing and that Luke Murray had died instead.’

Silence split the air. She stared at him, jaw up, defiant.

‘Oh, Val.’

‘It’s true.’ Her mouth trembled. She shook her head quickly.

‘I know.’ He thought of Luke lying silent in his hospital bed. Of Louise, in the pub, talking about her son. ‘It’s easy to hate him. To blame him. Reading all that crap. To wish Jason had been a million miles away. It’s so easy. A scapegoat. But it’s wrong, Val. Half of it’ll be exaggerated, sensationalized. That’s not the answer.’

‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘This is our child we’re talking about, not some abstract, hypothetical case. This is ours, ours!’ She hit the table. ‘He died for nothing.’

‘No.’ He wouldn’t have it.

‘So you think this scum deserved saving?’

‘Val, please calm down.’

‘No, I won’t calm down. I’m so angry. I have every right to be angry. You should be angry,’ she yelled.

‘I am!’ he said. ‘What is this? A competition? Who’s angriest, most heartbroken? Who’s most traumatized? Who misses him most?’

She flinched.

‘I am angry, but I’m angry with the ones that hit him. Luke Murray wasn’t holding the knife. And I will not accept that what Jason did was worthless. I’m proud of him.’

‘Proud!’ She groaned, tugged at her hair. ‘He was stupid.’

‘No! He had the guts, he had the humanity to help someone in trouble.’ Andrew’s voice trembled; he tried not to shout. ‘He didn’t stop and judge them first: ask if they’d got a drug habit or messed up at school. He just went to help. I love him for that.’ He swallowed. ‘I love him so much for that. He didn’t look away or sit silent like the rest of them. Imagine if everyone did what Jason did, what a world we’d have.’

Tears stood in her eyes. ‘You are so wrong,’ she said. ‘And he was wrong,’ she went on. ‘He misjudged-’

‘Don’t!’ He tried to silence her. She was tearing it down. Making his death meaningless, pointless, pathetic. ‘You were the one said he was brave, remember? Would you rather he had been a coward?’

‘He’d still be here,’ she said.

He felt the space between them, a chasm, steep-sided, too wide to bridge. Jagged rocks like knives far below.

‘But he wouldn’t be our Jason,’ he said.

She gathered together the newspapers; she was still wearing her coat. ‘I’m going to Sheena’s.’

‘I’ve made some food.’

‘I’m not hungry.’

She couldn’t go like this. Leaving everything so tangled. ‘Val, can we talk?’

‘There’s nothing to say.’ Resignation blunt in her voice.

‘Please?’ He wanted to tell her he loved her, but the words wouldn’t come. He watched her walk away and heard the front door close quietly behind her.

He moved to turn the gas ring off and caught a glimpse of Jason out in the garden, sitting on the bench, bent over his guitar, then glancing up, hair falling away from his face and smiling at Andrew.