Little Boy Blue

19

The silence in the room was suffocating. Helen had given Moira and Mike Elder the basic facts of their son’s death, avoiding the more distressing details. She’d shouldered this unpleasant duty many times before and knew that if you hit people with too much too soon, you lose them. Assaulted by the shock, bowing under their grief, the bereaved just implode. It wasn’t fair to treat them like that and, besides, it served nobody’s purpose – she needed facts, not tears.

But, to Helen’s surprise, Jake’s parents had barely reacted at all to her carefully chosen words. Moira had shot a brief look at her husband, then joined him in staring at the floor. Their gaze remained doggedly turned in that direction and, though Helen provided a few gentle prompts, the couple stayed resolutely silent.

‘We have a full team working on this. As I said, your son was discovered at a nightclub in Banister Park and, once you’ve formally identified him, we can make arrangements for you to visit it, if you feel that would be helpful. Relatives sometimes find that it’s important to see the place where -’

‘What sort of club was it?’

Mike Elder’s voice was cracked and harsh. For a moment Helen wondered if it was a trick question – the news was already out there in radio bulletins and on the internet – then pushed that thought aside. They had probably driven all the way from Taunton in silence, their minds trying to grapple with their unexpected tragedy. It was no surprise that they were still processing the details.

‘It was an S &M club,’ Helen replied gently. There was no point dressing it up – they’d find out soon enough anyway.

Mike sniffed loudly, while his wife fiddled with the buttons on her cardigan.

‘It wasn’t a club he visited regularly, just somewhere he used now and then.’

‘I bet he did.’

Now it was Helen’s turn to be silent. Four words – four simple words – but they were said with such bitterness that for a moment Helen was speechless. She had encountered many emotions in the relatives’ room – despair, denial, fury – but she had seldom seen such distaste. She felt anger flare in her but, aware that the eyes of the Family Liaison Officer were on her, swallowed it down.

‘Can I ask you what you mean by that, Mike?’ she said.

‘I’m sure by now you know what my son was’ was the curt reply.

‘Obviously we’re aware that Jake worked as a professional dominator. That’s one of our main lines of enquiry, to see if he might have been attacked by someone he knew through his work.’

‘His work,’ Mike repeated, shaking his head ruefully, before casting a sardonic smile at his wife.

‘Can you tell me how much you knew about Jake’s professional life?’ Helen continued.

‘Too bloody much, but nothing that would help you.’

Helen was beginning to see why Jake had never got on with his parents, but resumed her questioning as patiently as she could.

‘His life in Southampton, then? Did you ever visit his flat? Meet up with him?’

‘This is our first visit to Southampton.’

Finally, Moira had spoken.

‘He moved away from Somerset when he was a young man. He threatened to come back and visit us, but… but he never made it.’

Was the use of the word ‘threatened’ deliberate? Helen was so bewildered by this interview that she couldn’t tell.

‘And you weren’t tempted to visit him here?’

‘It’s a long way to come and we can’t leave the animals,’ Moira replied quickly, trotting out her excuse with practised ease.

‘I see.’

‘Do you?’ Mike Elder now said, suddenly turning to look directly at Helen. ‘I can tell from your tone what you’re thinking, but you’ve got no right to look down your nose at us.’

Helen stared back, refusing to break eye contact. He was right, however – Helen was allowing her feelings to affect her judgement and was behaving in a manner that was unprofessional and unkind.

‘I’ve nothing but sympathy for you and your wife, believe me,’ she said quickly.

‘That may be, but it doesn’t change things. You might feel our son’s “lifestyle” was acceptable, but we didn’t. I don’t blame the boy entirely – we should have been tougher on him when he was small,’ he resumed, his wife flinching slightly as that barb landed. ‘But he made his choices and had to live by them. He was never interested in my opinion, but, for the avoidance of doubt, I’ll give it to you anyway. I thought what he did… was perverted. For the life of me, I could never understand why he wanted to surround himself with degenerates and freaks – he could never explain it himself, just said it was “who he was”. He thought we should accept him, but why should we accept something like that? He chose his path, we chose ours and, believe you me, they never met.’

It was said with something approaching pride and for a moment Helen thought she might actually slap him. She had never heard someone damn their own flesh and blood in such blunt terms.

‘We haven’t seen him in nearly ten years and we’re not going to be much help now, so let’s just get this over with, shall we? I don’t want to be here any more than you do.’

He rose abruptly, clearly keen to get the formal identification of his son over and done with. Moira followed suit, hurrying after her departing husband.

As she left, she glanced briefly back at Helen. After her husband’s harsh words, Helen had expected to see some embarrassment there, perhaps even contrition. But not a bit of it.

The look Moira now gave Helen was one of pure scorn.