What She Knew

Crimes against children, particularly cases involving abduction and homicide, continue to be problematic as both a social phenomenon and judicial responsibility. Such cases routinely receive intense community, media, and law enforcement attention, and can rapidly overwhelm local investigative resources.

Boudreaux M C, Lord W D, Dutra R L, ‘Child Abduction: Aged-based Analyses of Offender, Victim, and Offense Characteristics in 550 Cases of Alleged Child Disappearance’, J Forensic Sci, 44(3), 1999

Stay united in your fight to find your child. Don’t allow the stress of the investigation to drive a wedge into your family life. When emotions run wild, be careful that you do not lash out at or cast blame on others… Remember that everyone deals with crises and grief differently, so don’t judge others because they do not respond to the disappearance in the same way you do.

‘When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide’, Missing Kids USA Parental Guide, US Department of Justice, OJJDP Report

Email

To: Corinne Fraser ‹fraserc@aspol.uk›

Cc: James Clemo ‹clemoj@aspol.uk›; Giles Martyn ‹martyng@aspol.uk›

From: Janie Green ‹greenj@aspol.uk›

24 October 2012 at 06:58

OPERATION HUCKLEBERRY – PRESS REVIEW 24/10/12

Morning Corinne

Round up of this morning’s press coverage relating to Operation Huckleberry below. This is just the nationals and locals. Due to the vast quantity of material, we’ve yet to go through everything that’s online, so I’ll forward that later. As usual, ‘highlights’ below with link to scanned copies.

I’m copying this in to DS Martyn at his request. The material is concerning him and he’d like us all to get together later this morning to discuss tactics. He and I can do 10 or 11?

Janie Green

Press Officer, Avon and Somerset Constabulary

RACHEL

I slept only fitfully after looking online. The phrases I’d read repeated in my head over and over again. When I woke up for what felt like the hundredth time, the Stormtrooper clock beside the bed read 4.47 am. Ben’s bedding was twisted around me and I felt exhausted and cold. Nicky was sleeping in my room, with the door open. I didn’t want to wake her. I crept downstairs quietly and didn’t turn any lights on.

On the kitchen table I found her laptop. I opened it and the glow from the screen lit up my fingers, poised over the keyboard. It asked me for a password. I watched the cursor blinking as I tried to think what it might be. I knew it wouldn’t be the name of any of her daughters. She’d lectured me once on password security and the foolishness of using your children’s or pet’s names. I tried ‘Rosedown’, which was the name of the cottage we grew up in. ‘Incorrect password’ was the computer’s response. I tried ‘rhubarbcustard’ – a reference to Nicky’s blog. It didn’t work. I had one more shot at it, and no clue what to try. On a whim, because it was my password in spite of her advice, and because my exhausted brain couldn’t come up with anything else, I tried ‘Benedict’.

It worked. I leaned back in my chair in surprise, but then I felt a rush of affection towards Nicky: my bossy sister, a proud enough aunty to use Ben’s name as her password.

Now that I was in, I searched ‘Benedict Finch Missing’. News items from all different sources appeared on the screen. The story had exploded. Images of me from the press conference appeared alongside Ben’s photo: my bleeding head, my white pallor, my body language and my angry eyes. Many of the news headlines were blatantly aggressive towards me.

But I still couldn’t help myself.

Like a moth to a flame I clicked on the Facebook site.

There were hundreds of posts. The top one was from somebody called Cathy Franklin.

Cathy Franklin The mother has done something to him thats obvious

2 hours ago · Like

Stuart Weston Police wouldn’t have let her tlk at press conf if they suspected her

2 hours ago · Like

Cathy Franklin Stuart that’s not true has been seen before that people crying in press confs have been convicted.

about an hour ago · Like

Rich Jameson Some people hang themselves like that perhaps they’re trying to catch her out. U wouldn’t believe how many people have done this go to www.whereisbenedictfinch.wordpress.com u be amazed.

42 minutes ago · Like · 6

Write a comment…

I clicked on the link. My heart was pounding, my mouth bone dry.

The page appeared instantly:

WEB PAGE – www.whereisbenedictfinch.wordpress.com

WHERE IS BENEDICT FINCH? For the curious…

FACTS

Posted at 03.14 by LazyDonkey, on Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Benedict Finch went missing at 15.30 on Sunday, 21 October.

The last person to see him was his mother.

She let him out of her sight.

And she never saw him again.

Yesterday, she appeared at a press conference to appeal for help finding Ben.

This blog wants to draw your attention to some things that have happened in the past.

CASE HISTORIES

Ian Huntley

This man appeared on television shortly after the disappearance of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. He was later convicted of their murder. He was the last person to see them alive.

Shannon Matthews

Shannon’s mother appeared on television on numerous occasions after the disappearance of her daughter. She was later convicted of her kidnapping.

Tracie Andrews

This woman appeared at a televised press conference to appeal for help finding her fiancé’s killer. She blamed a road rage incident. She was later convicted of murdering him herself.

What do these things tell us?

They tell us that nothing is what it seems.

Comments

54 people are discussing this post with 94 comments

Cathy_07926

I’m very troubled by what I’m reading here. Why don’t we all stop persecuting the mother. Have any of you ever heard of ‘innocent until proven guilty’?

Jen loves cookies

Cathy, I agree with you. As a human being who lives and breathes I want to hold out my hand to Rachel and Ben and the father so they know there are people out there praying for them and their little boy. I was awake all night thinking of them. What that family must be going through.

SelinaY

OMG you only have to look at that mother to know she’s done something. She is guilty until innocent for me, get real everybody how else will we stop evil scum hurting our kids.

Mountain biker

Why did the mother let her kid run off like that? Asking for trouble. And what about the father?

JuliaPeachy

That dad is a doctor. Saved my baby girl’s life. Heart goes out to him at this time.

JohnDoe

A kid running alone in the woods? Seriously? Did she want something to happen to him? That’s out of a nightmare.

Joker_864

Trees can walk. Ivy wraps around your feet. Branches carry you up and away. Little finches are prey for bigger birds.

RichNix

I wouldn’t want her for my mum. Scared me.

Cloud99

She shouldn’t be allowed a kid. It’s disgusting what she did. U don’t realise how stupid people are till you read this stuff. A child is a gift. I wouldn’t let my kids run off doesn’t she know the risks.

HouseProud

I feel sorry for Benedict Finch with that mum I hope his dad can take him after this.

Forever twenty-one

As a mum of four I would want people to stop speculating and start praying for that little boy.

Rational_Dawn_to_Dusk

Speculation is a drug. It fuels our society.

Happyinmydressinggown

People need to stop being sat in front of their screens and get out there and help look for this little boy. Police should give us more information. Whatever the mother has done we must pray for god to protect this poor little boy wherever he is.

The kitchen light came on suddenly. Nicky was standing in the doorway. She looked crumpled and sleepy in her nightie.

‘What are you doing?’

I gestured to the laptop. ‘Who would write something like this? Do you know what they’re saying?’

She took a quick look, and pushed down the lid of the laptop.

‘Don’t look at it! You mustn’t. There’s no point. It’s sick people using Ben to get their moment. It’s grotesque. It’s a feeding frenzy. Promise me you won’t look again. Promise me!’

‘It’s not just people. It’s the newspapers too.’

‘Promise me you won’t look!’

I promised, but my hands shook for a long time afterwards.

JIM

I spoke to Emma before I left for work, a quick call because I’d missed her the night before.

She answered her phone quickly – ‘Hey how are you?’ – but I could hear the drag of fatigue in her voice and she yawned generously.

‘Good. You? Did you sleep well?’

‘What do you reckon?’

‘I reckon you were awake half the night like me.’

‘I was.’

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’ve survived on less.’

‘Everyone on the investigation’s going to be feeling it.’

‘I know.’

She still sounded flat, and I didn’t like it, because it wasn’t like her to let things get to her. I wanted to buoy her up.

‘But it’s what we do it for, isn’t it? A case like this.’

‘Yes, you’re right. If we get a result that is.’

She stifled another yawn, apologised for it, and then she snapped back into something resembling her usual efficient tone, as if she’d suddenly realised how dispirited she sounded.

‘I was worried about you yesterday,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The press conference, Rachel Jenner out of control, and the whole country watching? Don’t be obtuse.’

I didn’t really want to answer that.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘If I say I’m sure then I’m sure.’

‘OK. Good. Sorry, I’m not fully awake yet I don’t think. I overslept. I didn’t mean to upset you. Can I give you a quick call back in a few minutes, when I’ve finished getting ready?’

‘I’m on my way in already, I’m literally about to step out the door, so I’ll see you at the briefing.’

‘OK – I’ll see you then. I’ll be more with it by then, I promise.’

We said our goodbyes, and they were affectionate enough, but I ended the call feeling a bit cheated, because the conversation hadn’t lifted my spirits the way I’d thought it would.

At work our priority for the morning was to go and talk to the member of the fantasy role-play group who’d already given some difficulties to the pair of DCs who went to interview him. First thing in the morning checks had thrown up some previous on him, indecent exposure no less, meaning that he’d just shot straight to the top spot on our interview list.

DCI Fraser stuck to her guns by insisting that she’d like to talk to him herself. ‘We’ll see this young chappie in his home I think, Jim,’ she said. ‘But let’s not book an appointment, eh? We’ll surprise him.’

It was a long time since I’d been accompanied to an interview by a senior officer, and I tried to fight off the thought that she wanted to keep an eye on me after the balls-up at the press conference. More likely, I hoped, she was living up to her reputation as somebody who liked to stay in touch with the roots of her investigations. She asked Woodley to come along too.

We took an unmarked pool car. I drove and Fraser studied the stereo, glasses halfway down her nose. Woodley sat in the back, but took the middle seat and leaned forward each time Fraser said anything.

Fraser asked, ‘Did you see the email from Press Office this morning?’

‘I did. Pretty brutal.’

‘Indeed. I’m meeting DS Martyn about it at eleven and he’s not going to be a happy bunny.’

DS Martyn was the officer ultimately overseeing this case, and Fraser’s senior officer. He was never a happy bunny. I waited for her to say more, but she turned on the radio.

‘What do you like to listen to, Jim?’ she asked.

‘Five Live usually, boss,’ I said. ‘Or Radio Bristol.’

‘Those are very pedestrian choices,’ she said. ‘How about a little culture? Have you ever heard of culture, DC Woodley?’

‘I played the recorder at school,’ he said.

I glanced in my rear-view mirror; he had a deadpan expression, hard to know if he was taking the piss. Fraser looked amused. She put on a classical music station, turned up the volume.

‘I would have had you down for a Radio Four listener, boss,’ I said.

‘No, no. There’s far too much danger of hearing one of our pals from Scotland Yard crucifying himself and the entire force on Radio Four. I like to avoid that if I possibly can.’

She leaned her head back on the headrest and when I glanced at her as we stopped at traffic lights, she had her eyes closed.

We turned up at the address at 09.00. Our man lived in a basement flat, in a shabby street in Cotham. From the looks of it, the street was mostly student flats, which had been carved out of a terrace of tall flat-fronted Victorian buildings. The Bath stone facades had probably been attractive once, but were now dirty and cracked in places. Not a single building looked well looked after. Wheelie bins littered the pavements or were crammed into the tiny areas that fronted the street. Most of them were disgorging overstuffed black bin liners. In front of our man’s property, a bin for food waste had tipped over and deposited its rank contents on the threshold.

‘Not a proud household then,’ said Fraser, stepping carefully around the muck in a pair of little heels.

We had to repeatedly press the buzzer to get an answer. Our man eventually buzzed us in through the communal door and we waited in the hallway for him to appear. Fraser flicked through the post that had been dumped on a communal table. Food delivery flyers littered the floor, and these, together with Fraser’s shoes and lipstick, were the only sources of colour in the drab space. The light was on a timer and clicked off just as he inched open the door to the basement.

‘Edward Fount?’ asked Fraser.

He nodded. Fraser introduced us. We produced our badges and he squinted at each one in turn. He was a slight man, with very pale skin and hair so black that it must have come out of a bottle. It fell in greasy tendrils around his face and made him look feminine.

He lived alone apparently. There were only three rooms: his bedroom, a corridor that was pretending to be a kitchen, and a room that must have been a bathroom if the smell coming from it was anything to go by.

‘They don’t like him,’ Fraser had told Woodley and me before we left. ‘The organisers of the fantasy meetings – the ones we’ve spoken to – are wary of this boy. He’s a new member, and they don’t know him well. And, on top of that, nobody saw him leave the woods on Sunday. Some of them say that he doesn’t play by the rules, which is a cardinal sin in role-play apparently. Some of them complained that he’s dirty too.’

He was dirty. His body odour was powerful even before we stepped into his squalid bedroom, which had only one small window through which you could see a small section of the back yard: all concrete and the winter carcasses of rampant self-seeded buddleia plants.

The bed was a single, with bedding on it that had probably never visited a launderette. A desk, roughly constructed from bits of MDF, was the centrepiece of the room. It had a PC on it, and a dusty iPod dock, which cradled his phone. Music was playing: Celtic sounding, the lyrics in German. It wasn’t mainstream. The walls were covered with posters and artworks depicting dark and bloody fantasy worlds.

Edward Fount sat down on the side of his bed and was unafraid to study us intently from behind his fringe. Fraser took the computer chair, adjusting it for wobble before she settled on it, crossing her legs. I saw Fount’s eyes run down her calves and linger on her shoes, which were a dark maroon patent leather. Woodley and I stood against the wall. There weren’t more than a few feet between us all.

‘Does that window open?’ said Fraser.

Fount shook his head. ‘It’s painted shut. Doesn’t matter, it’s always cold down here anyway.’

‘You need ventilation,’ she said, ‘or you’ll get sick.’

‘I take vitamins,’ he said. A feeble gesture indicated a tube of Vitamin C tablets on his desk, beside a warped black plastic tray with the remains of a microwaved meal in it.

‘Well that’s good,’ said Fraser. ‘It’s important to take care of yourself.’

Fount nodded.

‘Especially, I’d say,’ she continued, ‘when you are out doing battle every weekend. Would I be right?’

‘Not every weekend,’ he said. ‘Once a month. And it’s not always a battle. It’s a narrative, a storyline we enact.’

‘Narrative’s a very grown-up word Mr Fount and so is enact. I’m impressed. So tell me, what character do you play in these “narratives”? I understand you all develop roles for yourselves, would that be right?’

‘I’m an Assassin,’ he said. He knew she was toying with him now, there was nothing stupid behind those furtive eyes, but still he couldn’t disguise the pride in his words.

‘Uh-huh. And would Assassin be an important role in the game?’

‘Very. It’s very, very important. The Assassins lie in the shadows, they watch, they wait, they know secrets.’

‘Do they now?’

He nodded, his chin up, trying to assert confidence.

‘And would an Assassin have a lot of power?’ Her voice lingered mockingly on the sibilants.

‘Yes.’

‘Would an Assassin be a match for a big man like, say, DI Clemo here?’

‘Assassins have their methods. They’re afraid of nobody and everybody fears them.’

‘That’s very clever. Good for you. By the way, are you not curious to know why we’re here?’

‘Is it because of the boy who went missing?’

‘You’ve shown a remarkable lack of interest. Why is that?’

‘It’s nothing to do with me. I didn’t see anything.’

‘What happened to Benedict Finch wouldn’t be one of your secrets then?’

‘I never tell my secrets.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘Because they’re secret.’ He laughed, a quick, high-pitched sound, a fish gulping air.

‘Or is it perhaps because you’re ashamed of them? You have a previous conviction for exposing yourself, don’t you? I can understand why you’d like to keep something like that under your hat, or should I say under your Assassin’s cape? Probably wise.’

‘I never did it.’

‘That’s not what two little girls who were trying to play a nice game of tennis said. How old do you think they were? I’ll tell you. They were eleven years old, and their nice game was interrupted by you sticking your wee tadger through the netting around the court, was it not?’

‘It’s not how it was. I promise.’

Fraser leaned forward, fixing her gaze on Fount. ‘Did you see Benedict Finch in the woods on Sunday afternoon?’

Fount shuffled his backside across the bed until he was sitting with his back against the wall. He had a sharp Adam’s apple and angry ingrown hairs along his jawline. He said nothing, but there was defiance in his expression.

‘So did you?’ asked Fraser. ‘See Benedict Finch in the woods on Sunday afternoon?’ She hadn’t looked away from him.

Fount crossed his arms. ‘I only answer to the authorities of my kingdom,’ he said.

Fraser snorted. ‘You’ve got three authorities in the room with you now, how much more authority do you want?’

‘I only answer to the authorities of my kingdom.’

‘How about: how did you get home from the woods on Sunday? Nobody saw you after three o’clock.’

‘You don’t understand. I inhabit the Kingdom of Isthcar. I recognise the Isthcarian authorities only. Assassins answer only to the Knights of Isthcar, the Holders of the Hammer of Hisuth.’

‘What? What nonsense is that? You’ll answer to us. Let me tell you something, you’d better grow up, young man, and you’d better do it quickly. We’re investigating the disappearance of a child here. There are two facts we can’t ignore: you were there, and you’ve got previous.’

She stared at him until his eyes dropped. He picked at a frayed hole on the knee of his jeans.

‘Can you tell us anything about what you saw?’ I asked, inserting my words carefully into the stalemate that was brewing, although I felt like wringing his scrawny neck. ‘It would be very helpful.’

Fount closed down his face. He wasn’t going to talk.

‘If I find out later that you know something that could help in the investigation, and you’re not telling us, then you’ll pay for that,’ said Fraser. She got to her feet. ‘Have no doubt about that. Right, we’re finished here for now, but we’re certainly not finished with you.’

‘You can see yourselves out,’ said Fount, to Fraser’s back. There was a hint of a smirk on his face. We paused at the bottom of the stairs when we realised Woodley wasn’t behind us. He’d waited in the doorway of the room.

‘Isthcar,’ he said to Fount. ‘Isn’t that an ancient tribe? From Nordic mythology?’

‘The finest tribe,’ said Fount. ‘The most noble.’

‘It sounds fascinating. Is the game very complex?’ Woodley sounded impressed.

‘To play properly, there’s a lot you have to understand.’

‘Awesome,’ said Woodley. He said it simply, his voice light. ‘See you again maybe.’ He nodded at Fount, a man-to-man gesture.

‘Bye,’ Fount said to him.

‘What a prick,’ said Fraser. ‘It’s meeting pricks like that that makes me actually look forward to getting back to my desk.’

I knew that wasn’t true. However high she’d climbed, at heart she was a street cop through and through.

We were in the car. Woodley and I had pulled on our seat belts, we were ready to leave; Fraser was taking a few moments to rage. ‘I bet he wishes he was still sucking at his mammy’s breast. What do you reckon?’

‘I think we need to be careful. He’s almost too much of a cliché, he looks so good for it on paper. Young, single male, all of that. But I think we need to be careful not to make assumptions about him.’

She ignored me. ‘You know as well as I do that if there’s a cliché there’s usually a good reason for it. Christ! That little prick’s given me a headache with his skanky flat and his self-obsessed, smug little bucket and spade ideology. He needs to get out of the sandpit and get into the real world. Knights of Isthcar, what’s that about when it’s at home?’

She sighed. She looked tired. She was putting in the hours this week, just like everyone else.

‘I suppose it makes a change from asking for a lawyer. I feel like I’ve got something in my eye, have I got something in my eye?’ Fraser pulled down the mirror and pulled down an eyelid.

‘I don’t think he did it,’ I said.

She flicked the mirror back up brusquely.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I agree that he looks good for it on paper, but he couldn’t take his eyes off your legs in there, and your…⁠’ I felt shy suddenly.

‘My what, DI Clemo?’

‘Your shoes, your red shoes.’

‘Oh right. Well, for a moment there I thought you were going to say something else.’

Woodley snorted from the back seat and then tried to turn it into a cough.

‘So what’s your point, Jim?’

‘My point is that somebody interested in children is not usually interested in women, especially not in a fetishistic way. He couldn’t take his eyes off the red shoes. I was watching him.’

‘I still want him brought into the station. We can’t possibly rule him out because he looked at my shoes. You know that as well as I do. Woodley, I saw what you did at the end there. Very smart. When we bring him in, I want you to interview him and get to the bottom of his dirty little mind whichever way it bends.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ I could hear the sound of a grin in Woodley’s voice.

‘I’m not your “ma’am”,’ she said. ‘“Boss” will do. Right, come on, Jim, what are we waiting for?’

RACHEL

Halfway through the morning Nicky announced, ‘I’ve spoken to John. He wants us to go round to his house so we can agree together on a design for a “Missing” flyer, and print some there. He’s got a laser printer.’

I’d never been to John and Katrina’s new house. Not past the front door anyway. I’d spent plenty of time standing on the gravel outside when I’d dropped Ben off for the weekend.

‘Will Katrina be there?’

‘I expect so, yes, but at this point I think you need to think of her as another pair of hands. She wants to help and we need all the help we can get.’

I thought of the blog and the comments I’d read this morning.

‘Any port in a storm?’ I said.

‘Exactly!’ she said, and she smiled just a little.

It pleased Nicky when I said that because it’s what our Aunt Esther used to say. ‘You’d been through a storm,’ she would say if we ever discussed the circumstances that had led us to live with her. ‘A terrible storm, and I was your port.’

‘A safe haven,’ Nicky would say and Esther would agree.

Esther had taken us in after our parents’ death. She was our mother’s much older sister. She brought us to her house immediately after the accident that killed our parents and we never left after that. She sheltered us from gossip, which sometimes hung around us like a cloud of biting midges. She gave us the chance to have a childhood, or her version of one.

It wasn’t a usual upbringing, because Esther was a spinster, who’d always lived alone. She taught English Literature A level to the children of the local wealthy at a small private school and could quote a huge amount of poetry by heart. She also played bridge and had a passion for growing roses. She wore knee-length skirts and flat shoes, with simple cardigans, and had bobbed flyaway white hair that she clipped back with kirby grips. She kept gold-topped milk in the fridge, which the birds had invariably pecked at before she brought it in in the morning, so each lid had neat puncture marks in it when it arrived on the breakfast table.

I don’t think Esther was a naturally maternal figure. She was unaccustomed to young children apart from a regular annual visit she’d made to our family before our parents died, so when Nicky and I arrived suddenly in her life she treated us as miniature adults, and shared her passions with us. She surrounded us with art and music and books, she pointed out the possibility of beauty in life. Nicky drank this up as if it were nectar, and fell into Esther’s arms gratefully.

I was different. When I was growing up I always felt like the baby that I’d been when we arrived there, a bit of an addendum to their lives, too little to understand things properly, always in bed when the proper conversations took place. It was ironic, as I’d never known our mother or father, that I was the one who found it most difficult to accept Esther in her role in loco parentis, while Nicky, nine years old when we arrived, wouldn’t leave her side.

As a teenager I’d meanly thought that Esther was fusty, tweedy and better suited to another era, more like other people’s grandparents than their parents. I’d rejected her gentle offerings of culture and knowledge because they hadn’t immediately bolstered me, or given me an obvious direction or purpose. That came later in life, when I took up photography, when I sat beside John in St George’s concert hall and fell in love with him and with classical music, and then I regretted that I’d never thanked her for what she did for us before she died.

It was because things hadn’t always been easy when we were growing up that it pleased Nicky whenever I said a kind word about Esther. It pleased her immensely.

I agreed to go to John’s house. Laura came round to housesit because I still couldn’t stand to leave it empty. Just in case. Nicky and I had to fight through the journalists to get to Nicky’s car. They jostled us, shouted questions at us. We ignored them, but the questions hurt. They were aggressive, and accusatory. Some of the photographers ran alongside the car as we pulled away, lenses at the windows, snapping away at our white, scared faces.

John and Katrina’s house was only ten minutes’ drive away, on a quiet suburban street where everybody had driveways and two cars parked on them at the weekend. The house was semi-detached, art deco in style, painted white, and had long, linear windows along the front of it, which would normally give a view into both their sitting room and office. When we arrived the curtains were drawn in both rooms, and there were journalists lounging on their low front wall like teenagers at a bus stop. They leaped to their feet at the sight of us.

John opened the door and ushered us in quickly. He looked dishevelled, and he was unshaven.

‘In the kitchen,’ he said.

‘John,’ I said, before we stepped out of the hallway. ‘I’m so sorry about the press conference, so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to…⁠’

‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘At least you didn’t just cry like a baby.’

It hadn’t occurred to me that John might be berating himself for his own behaviour. I’d thought mine so much worse.

‘Don’t be ashamed,’ I said, but he was already on his way into the kitchen.

Before I joined him I couldn’t help noticing the parquet floor in the hallway, and remembered what Ben had said about it: ‘There’s a shiny floor, but I’m not allowed to skid on it.’

Katrina stood in the kitchen beside a small round table. Like John, she appeared haggard and undone somehow. She was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, a cardigan over it. She looked very young. She glanced at John as if expecting him to play host and when he didn’t she asked, ‘Can I get anything for you? Would you like a cup of coffee? Or water? Or tea?’

It was awkward being in their house, I can’t deny it, but together we made a flyer, and in some ways it was a relief to have something constructive to concentrate on.

Ben’s photo was prominent in our design, as was the phone number to contact. The word ‘MISSING’ ran along the top of the page. The plan was to print out one hundred copies there and then and Katrina said she would get more done at a local print shop. She and Nicky discussed how and where we should distribute them.

When we were done, Nicky said, ‘John, Katrina, do you mind if I ask, can either of you think of anybody who might have done this? Anybody at all?’

John’s reply was curt. ‘I’ve told the police everything I can think of.’

‘Are you sure you can’t think of anything odd at all, people behaving strangely around him, anything like that?’

Katrina said, ‘We’ve gone round and round in circles talking about this, haven’t we, John?’

He had his elbows on the table, his hands flat on its surface. It was almost a position of surrender. He nodded at her. ‘We have,’ he said. ‘And I can’t think of anything.’ His eyes were so bloodshot they looked painful.

‘It’s the teaching assistant I wonder about,’ said Katrina.

‘He only started this term,’ I said. ‘I don’t know anything about him.’

‘Exactly,’ said Katrina. ‘That’s what bugs me. We don’t know who he is. He’s an unknown quantity.’

‘Have you spoken to him?’ I asked John.

‘No. You?’

‘Not once, he’s never out in the playground.’

John shrugged. ‘The police will be talking to everybody,’ he said. ‘They’ve assured me of that. I don’t see what we can do.’

‘Anybody else you’ve thought of?’ Nicky asked.

John had had enough. ‘Don’t you think I haven’t spent every second of every day going through this in my mind? I can’t think of anything else that would help. God knows I wish I could!’

He slammed the flat of his hand down on the table and it juddered.

‘Of course,’ Nicky said. ‘I’m sorry.’

In the silence that followed, Katrina stood up and began tidying up mugs. My eyes roved round, taking in John’s new home. Their kitchen was white and shiny, the granite surfaces immaculate. The only sign of disorder in the room was a large pin board, covered with stuff. I stood up and went to look at it, lured over there by one image in particular. It was a drawing, made by Ben.

The drawing was of three adults and a child. Each person was named underneath: Mummy, John, Katrina and Ben. We all stood equidistant from each other. Ben stood between John and me. ‘My family’ he’d written above it and on each of our faces was a smile.

And in that moment I realised that Ben had managed to do what I hadn’t done, couldn’t do: he’d moved on. I began to cry.

I felt an arm around my shoulders. It was Katrina, and what she said next made me realise for the first time that she had a heart, and feelings of her own.

‘Would you like to see his room?’ she asked me.

‘Yes.’

She took me upstairs. On the landing, the first door we came to had three colourful wooden letters on it that spelled out: ‘BEN’. She opened it and I stepped inside. ‘Take as long as you like,’ she said. She went back downstairs.

The room had been beautifully decorated. It was light, and fresh, with pale walls and striped bedlinen. The bed was made up with care. The duvet had been smoothed and tucked in and somebody had carefully arranged three or four soft toys against the pillows, which were plumped up and welcoming.

The walls were hung with two framed pictures of Tintin book covers, Ben’s favourite ones, and a Minecraft poster. There was a child’s desk in the corner, and on it a stack of scrap paper, a container full of colouring pens and pencils and a lamp, bright red, in the shape of an elephant. A half-finished drawing lay waiting to be completed beside the iPad that John had given me the day before he left us, but which had ended up belonging to Ben. It had felt impossible for me to deny him that, in the absence of his father, and he often left it at John and Katrina’s house so that he didn’t have to negotiate with them over computer use, because there was only one in the house.

A large rug covered the floor and there was an electric railway set assembled on it, a train with carriages attached, ready to depart. A light shade, patterned like the moon, hung in the centre of the room, and from it, carefully suspended on a thread, one above the other, hung three home-made paper aeroplanes.

I sat on the bed for a long time, until John appeared in the doorway.

‘This room is lovely.’ I wanted him to know that.

‘Katrina planned everything with Ben and she painted it herself.’

There was no reproach in his voice, which he might have been entitled to, just a dreadful sadness.

I could see that an extraordinary amount of care and attention had gone into the creation of the room. It was painful to me to hear that Katrina had done the work, but not nearly as painful as the fact that Ben had never once described it to me.

‘It’s beautiful,’ I said and I saw suddenly how I’d taken everything Ben told me about his life at his dad’s and twisted it into a sordid, unhappy shape.

No skidding on the floor had meant that Ben wasn’t allowed to play, and that wasn’t the end of it. Every time Ben had come here I’d festered at home, and questioned him afterwards, mining him for information that I could use to paint their marriage, and especially Katrina, in a negative light. I’d never allowed for the fact that Ben might have been happy here, that John and Katrina might have made an effort to make things nice for him, that she had, in fact, welcomed him with open arms.

Everything my son had told me, I’d taken and made into something unpleasant or sad, until he’d simply stopped telling me things. He was a sensitive child. He knew what upset me.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to John, and he said, ‘I am too.’

I heard in his voice the self-blame that was my companion too.

‘I keep thinking about how scared he must be, without us,’ I said.

‘He misses you even when he’s here, so God knows how he’s feeling.’

‘Do you think he knows we’re looking for him?’

‘I’m sure he does.’

They were words of reassurance, but John’s eyes told a different story. I read in them a quality and depth of despair that matched my own, and that frightened me even more.

When we got home, Nicky and I decided to park the car a few streets away and see if we could approach the house via the alleyway that ran along the back, avoiding the press pack. It was a narrow passage, not wide enough for a car, and occupied mostly by rubbish bins and foxes. It separated the ends of our gardens from the allotments behind. From it, you could directly access my garden studio, where I did my photography. Once in the studio, it was only a few metres across the garden into the house. Our garden wasn’t big. There was just enough room for a small football net and a Swingball set.

Our gamble paid off because the journalists hadn’t bothered to camp out there. As we squelched along, avoiding puddles, we saw it at the same time. On the fence panel facing my studio door somebody had been busy with a can of spray paint. In scorching orange letters, neon bright against the dull grey slats of wood, dripping in places because it was so fresh, two words had been sprayed: ‘BAD MOTHER’.

When I sank on to the sodden, stony ground in front of the panel of defaced fencing, grit digging into my hands and my knees, Nicky knelt down beside me and coaxed me up. She took me indoors and phoned Zhang.

‘Who would do such a thing?’ I asked Nicky, but she just shook her head, and lifted her hands in a gesture of Who knows?

It boiled over: the fear, and the anger, the frustration and the terrible impotence I felt too. I was being persecuted. It was personal, and that was terrifying. And it wasn’t just in cyberspace; it had come to visit me at home.

Some of my anger was directed at myself, because of Katrina, because I’d got it so wrong about her and John, because I’d been so bitter and so stupid that I’d forced Ben to lie to me. At eight years old, he’d felt he had to protect me from the fact that they had a nice life together, that they cared for him.

But my anger was mostly directed at whoever painted those words, because it made me feel very, very afraid.

In my kitchen, in front of Nicky, I threw a plate across the room and it shattered into pieces against the wall. Another followed it, and then a mug, some cutlery. I threw everything as hard as I could and then I looked for more things to throw.

‘Don’t!’ shouted Nicky. ‘Don’t do this. Please!’

She manhandled me. She took hold of me, gripping my upper arms. She sat me down on one of the kitchen chairs and she knelt on the floor in front of me.

‘Where is he?’ I asked her. ‘What’s happening to him?’

‘Don’t,’ said Nicky again, her voice quieter this time, and her face close to mine. ‘Please don’t.’

I stopped resisting her, and I sobbed until my throat was sore and my eyes were swollen almost shut.

JIM

Fraser and I had a pre-meet before the whole team got together for the evening briefing. She was looking at her computer screen as I took a seat.

‘Woodley’s bringing in our friend Edward Fount of fantasy world fame in the morning,’ she said. ‘And Christopher Fellowes, the forensic chappie, has sent me a profile that we can use when we’re considering the non-family abduction option. You’ll not be surprised to hear that it’s an almost perfect description of Mr Fount.’

‘I still think he’s not our man.’

She took off her reading glasses to study me. ‘I know that, I take your point, but I can’t dismiss him on a hunch. This isn’t an episode of Columbo.’

In spite of everything, that made me smile. Columbo had been a favourite childhood show.

Fraser went on. ‘Can we run through who else we’re looking at? Rachel Jenner?’

‘Chris emailed me his thoughts on her.’

‘He’s been a busy boy today, which is good, because he’s expensive enough. He should have copied me in on that. Can I see it?’

I got the email up on my laptop, winced a little in anticipation of her reading the first paragraph.

Email

From: Christopher Fellowes ‹cjfellowes@gmail.com›

To: James Clemo ‹clemoj@aspol.co.uk›

24 October 2012 at 15:13

Re: Rachel Jenner

Jim

Thanks for your mail – good to hear from you.

I’ve had a chance to watch the footage from the press conference. Would it be terribly wrong of me to say WHAT A COLOSSAL BALLS-UP? I hope it’s not your neck that’s on the line for that one, but somebody’s ought to be. We’d worked up a good script for her. What a waste.

You wanted me to pull together some thoughts about Rachel Jenner as a potential suspect. Seeing as we don’t yet know whether this is an abduction, or a murder, I think the way forward for now is to keep in mind that these are very different crimes which throw up differing motives and therefore profiles. I’ve detailed these for you:

Family abduction

In my view this is only a small possibility in this case, because in the vast majority of family abductions a mother taking a child would keep the child with her, and both would travel somewhere where they felt the father would not be able to reach them or harm them. However, it is worth looking into whether other family members might have helped her to conceal the child, in order to keep him away from his father. Family abduction by a parent almost always takes place after a divorce where custody arrangements are disputed.

NB I am not excluding the possibility that another family member (i.e. somebody who is not a parent) could have taken Benedict, for motives of his or her own that don’t relate to the ones I’ve outlined above. That would be a separate scenario entirely.

Filicide

Much more complicated, this. Generally there are a few different motives, not all of which are relevant to this case. The two most likely to be relevant to Benedict Finch’s disappearance, in my view, are as follows:

Accidental filicide/battering – usually an impulsive act characterised by a loss of temper; often occurs in context of psychosocial stress and lack of support. Did she lose her temper with him in the woods? Or perhaps before they left home and hid his body somewhere en route?

Mentally ill filicide – complex this one. Filicide often seems like a rational act to these women; older children more likely to be victims. A large percentage of these women are already known to social services or mental health services and have pre-existing diagnoses that could include melancholia, manic depression, schizophrenia or assorted character disorders.

Munchausen’s Syndrome also worth considering here, in which case the family would certainly already be known to medical services, though probably unlikely if Dad is a medic.

Worth mentioning also two other categories:

Mercy killing – a murder committed out of love, usually to spare a child suffering, which could be caused by disease or perhaps the potential loss of a mother if the mother herself is contemplating suicide. It’s not unusual for a parent or parents to take their own life simultaneously in this scenario.

Spouse revenge filicide – the killing of a child in ‘revenge’ for something, often infidelity. The aim is to ‘get back’ at the spouse.

Please bear in mind that these are first thoughts only but they should give you something to go on. I’d be on the lookout for custody disputes, previously existing psychological or psychiatric issues; previous involvement with social services; mother’s predisposition to suicide; revenge impulses pertaining to her husband (did he cheat on her?); and check out her support network. No doubt you’ve done many of those things already.

I would need to come and meet Rachel Jenner if you want to progress these any further in terms of getting a detailed psychological picture of her. On the basis of what I saw in the press conference, she certainly possesses the capacity for uncontrolled outbursts of anger and a potential impulse for revenge (i.e. her threats to Ben’s abductor).

Of course none of this rules out the possibility that the perpetrator of this crime (whether it be abduction or murder) is a non-family member – which DI Fraser and I have spoken about. I’m currently formally writing up my thoughts on that and will send directly to DI Fraser and cc you in on.

Please give me a call if you’d like to discuss.

Best, Chris

Dr Christopher J Fellowes

Senior Lecturer in Psychology

University of Cambridge

Fellow of Jesus College

‘Forward it to me please, Jim,’ she said once she’d read it. ‘There’s some good stuff in there. I’ll edit and pass on to the rest of the team. We should also take note of his point about the wider family.’

‘The sister interests me, but that’s all the wider family there seems to be. There’s also a friend, Laura Saville, who Emma’s met at the house.’

‘Has she been interviewed?’

‘Not yet, but she’s a priority. And on top of that the school have sent over a very long list of people that Ben could have had contact with.’

‘Anybody stand out?’

‘I met with the head teacher and Ben’s class teacher. They were very obviously stressed out, but trying to be helpful. The Head’s a little defensive I’d say, it’s obviously a nightmare for him, especially because he’s only been in the job since the beginning of this school year. They raised one or two concerns about Rachel Jenner that you already know about.’

‘You mean the broken limb that the child had?’

‘Yes, but I can’t see any evidence of wrongdoing there. I do think she’s been depressed though, that’s pretty clear, and it might be the most significant thing from our point of view.’

‘Teacher?’

‘Late twenties I’d say, eager to assist, perhaps not the sharpest tool in the box, but seems perfectly nice. They’re behaving like people struggling to cope in a difficult situation.’

‘Understandably.’

‘The only one who rang a few alarm bells was the teaching assistant.’

‘He’s got an alibi, doesn’t he?’

‘He does, the Head does and the teacher does, and they all check out.’

‘So what rings bells for you?’

‘He was just a bit shifty. Woodley thought so too.’

‘Who interviewed him formally?’

‘I can’t remember off the top of my head.’

‘Did they raise concerns, do you know?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want to interview him yourself?’

‘No. It’s only a feeling, and I don’t want to spook the school unless we’ve got a very good reason to. The headmaster sent over the full list of people Ben might have had contact with yesterday evening, and I think we should wait and see what that might throw up. There are at least twenty people on it so it’ll take time to check them out and interview them, but let’s leave the teaching assistant alone until we see what comes of that.’

‘Agreed. We don’t want another witch hunt on our hands. It’s bad enough already. By the way, have you seen the blog?’

‘Blog?’

But she was looking at her watch. ‘We should go. People need briefing. I’ll talk about it in the meeting.’

We walked into a packed briefing room and took our seats. Prominent at the head of the table was DS Martyn.

‘Don’t mind if I join you, do you, DCI Fraser?’ he asked. He had an unusually low voice.

His presence at the meeting was a sign of how high profile the case was. He wore full uniform. His hair was curly but thinning so it looked like spun sugar. He had slab cheeks and a drinker’s nose. He reminded me of some of my dad’s friends. He was on his way to a function at the Marriott Hotel, he told us, so he couldn’t stay long.

His presence was a downer, it gave the meeting a formal edge, took away the conspiratorial atmosphere that Fraser usually managed to foster. She kicked things off. First bit of news was that there’d continued to be a high rate of calls to the tip-line, so she was pleased about that.

Fraser talked people through progress and shared our thoughts with the room, told them about the stuff Chris Fellowes had sent over. She divvied out the workload and allocated actions. Priority was given to trawling through the list that the school had provided.

‘Speak to as many people as you can,’ she said. ‘We need to form as clear a picture as possible of the networks around this child.’

Fraser asked for updates and a sharp-faced DC called Kelly Dixon started us off. She told us that she’d located the paedophile. He’d been at a comic convention in Glasgow on Sunday afternoon, manning a stall. He hadn’t been anywhere near Benedict Finch. He had, however, crossed paths with an incalculable number of under-sixteens during the course of the afternoon, a clear breach of the terms of his release, and as a result he was cooling his heels back in the cells.

‘Jesus,’ said Fraser. ‘That’s a result of sorts anyway.’

The next item was the blog. If things had been bad for Rachel Jenner up to now, then it turned out that they were about to get worse.

‘It won’t have escaped anybody’s attention,’ said Fraser, ‘that our victim’s mother behaved in an unconventional manner at the press conference yesterday.’

‘Understatement,’ boomed DS Martyn.

Fraser tried to contain her irritation. ‘That behaviour seems to have triggered somebody to write a very vindictive blog, which aggressively targets Rachel Jenner, implying that she is responsible for Ben’s abduction, or worse. Woodley, would you like to explain?’

Woodley cleared his throat. His mouth was dry when he spoke. Nerves. ‘Normally we wouldn’t expect a blog like this to attract very much attention,’ he said, ‘but the author has placed several links to it on Facebook which has inevitably led to it being shared and mentioned on Twitter and re-tweeted over and over again. It’s had thousands of hits.’

He looked at Fraser who said, ‘In English, please, for the older generation.’

‘It’s gone viral,’ he said.

‘Still none the wiser,’ she said. I saw Emma smile discreetly. We all knew Fraser was more IT-savvy than she let on, but there were others in the room who might need this spelled out.

‘Everybody’s looking at it. Thousands of people already, with the potential for it to spread to tens of thousands.’

Fraser continued. ‘Right. Which means it’s a possible problem for us because it could stoke people up, and the last thing we want is trial by internet. We must remember: in spite of her performance in front of the press we have no evidence to suspect that Rachel Jenner’s done anything at this stage, although if she’s charged in the future, this is a potential contempt of court issue.’

‘Can we find out who the author is?’ asked DS Martyn.

‘Not easily,’ said Woodley. ‘It’s somebody calling themselves LazyDonkey, but we’ve got no way of knowing who they are.’

‘We’re monitoring closely for now, hoping things will calm down,’ said Fraser. ‘I’ll get legal eyes on it if it’s still a problem in twenty-four hours. Right! Anyone got anything to add?’ She looked around the room.

‘Excuse me, boss,’ Emma said. Her phone was vibrating. ‘It’s Rachel Jenner’s home number.’

‘Speak of the devil,’ said DS Martyn. His fingers were working at a red lump on his neck.

‘Can I take it?’ Emma asked Fraser.

Fraser gave her the nod.

RACHEL

Nicky phoned the police and then she and Laura scrubbed the fence. They wouldn’t let me help them in case there were photographers, and I was in no state to anyway.

While I sat on the sofa, cocooned in a blanket to try to stop my body shaking, they worked together in the cold to erase the evidence that somebody out there wanted everybody to think that I’d hurt my son.

It was pointless though, a Sisyphean task, because while they scrubbed, fingers frozen and arms aching, we all knew that other people were at work elsewhere, spreading the message far more effectively, and without getting their hands dirty.

It has a very destructive effect, being publicly vilified, or being aggressively targeted by others, however much you rationalise it and tell yourself that only the worst kinds of people do that sort of thing.

I felt hemmed in by hatred, and I felt physically afraid. If somebody was brazen and motivated enough to graffiti that close to my property, what would stop them going further? Would they break in? Would they hurt me?

Fear for Ben had inhabited every cell in my body since Sunday, and governed my every thought and every action, but now it was to be joined by something else: fear for myself.

JIM

While Emma stepped out to take the call from Rachel Jenner, the rest of the team murmured quietly. The biscuit tin had been emptied. Energy drinks were scattered around the table and people were rubbing gritty eyes. Bennett tried to cover up a monstrously large yawn with his case papers. We were all battling our ebbing energy levels and trying not to be disheartened by lack of progress.

Fraser summarised: ‘There’s two trains of thought here, a twin-track approach: family or non-family. Bear that in mind, please, everybody, as we go forward. The MOs are significantly different for each.’

She was interrupted by Emma returning. ‘That was the sister,’ Emma said. ‘They’re frightened. There’s been some abusive graffiti on the wall behind the house.’

Fraser swallowed an expletive. ‘That is not what we need,’ she said once she’d got her vocabulary under control. ‘How’s the mother?’

‘She’s very upset apparently,’ said Emma. ‘As you would be. And frightened.’

Fraser sighed. ‘We should respond to that. The only problem is that if we station somebody at the house, we’ll need one out front and one out back.’

DS Martyn shook his head. ‘We can’t commit budget to that at this stage. Once you’ve got protection there, how do you take it away? What if this lad isn’t found? We’d need the threat to escalate to justify it.’

Fraser made a note. ‘I’ll ask uniform if they can drive by throughout the night, and check out the back alleyway too, when they’re there. It’ll help if we’re seen to take some action at least. The family need to know we’re supporting them.’

‘Have they asked for protection?’ Martyn again.

‘No,’ said Fraser. ‘But I think it pays to pre-empt these things. If we take it seriously now we might head off a situation where they panic.’

Martyn nodded, approving. Fraser’s solution was neat and free. I wondered if he actually kept the department budget spreadsheets constantly running across the front of his eyeballs.

‘Did they say what the graffiti said?’ Fraser asked.

‘It says “bad mother”,’ said Emma.

‘Christ,’ said Fraser.

‘I’m not surprised,’ said Emma.

Fraser’s head snapped up. ‘And what exactly do you mean by that?’

Emma flushed deeply. ‘Sorry, I only meant that I’m not surprised because there’s been such a backlash against her. That’s all, boss. I didn’t mean to insinuate anything.’

‘OK then,’ said Fraser. ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

She shot an assessing look at Emma before moving on, and I saw Bennett’s fat lips form into a sneaky smirk, which I could have throttled him for.

‘Which brings me to the next thing, because I think it would be wise to inform the family of this in person too.’

The next thing was a big disappointment to everybody. Forensics had reported that they’d found nothing of interest on the items of Ben’s clothing that were discovered in the woods. Fraser felt it would be a good idea to send somebody to break the news to the family in person. With a glance at her watch, she sent Emma back out to Rachel Jenner’s house.

‘Better go now before it gets too late. It won’t do their nerves any good if we go banging on their door in the middle of the night. You can take a look at the graffiti too, while you’re there. Jim can update you on anything else we cover tonight.’

I nodded, kept my eyes on my own notepad.

‘And, Emma,’ Fraser added.

‘Yes, boss.’

‘Keep up the good work. Your role is to observe, but also to support the family, so remember to be careful what you say.’

‘Got it, boss. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to-’

‘I understand,’ Fraser cut her off. ‘Go on, get out of here now.’

As she left I noticed that Emma’s cheeks were still flushed.

There wasn’t much else. We discussed re-interviewing the parents but decided to hold on that for a day. In spite of everything, Fraser was still working up a head of steam about Edward Fount. She wanted further background checks on him, and she ordered actions galore: our team of DCs was tasked with talking to anyone that they could dig up who was associated with him.

When all was done, Martyn reared up out of his seat and gave us a short speech about teamwork and dedication and how important this case was and how the eyes of the nation were on us, and then put on his cap and left to attend the event for the great and the good at the Marriott.

One by one the team left the room, packing up papers wearily, some just moving a few yards to their desks, planning to burn the midnight oil. We were at that stage in a case where it’s taken over: it’s exhausting, it’s addictive, and you can’t get enough of it. Your nerves are frayed and you’re running on adrenalin and caffeine. It’s hard to do anything normal because the case is always in your thoughts. It’s like a drug.

Fraser and I were the last to leave. She looked tired, and thoughtful.

‘You OK, boss?’ I said.

‘I’m OK,’ she said. ‘Go home, Jim. Get some sleep.’

RACHEL

Zhang arrived after Nicky and Laura had come back in, knuckles red and swollen from scrubbing.

She was there to break it to us gently that the forensic tests on Ben’s clothing hadn’t turned up anything. It meant that they couldn’t get any specific leads from the clothing, she said, but they were still pursuing lots of ‘interesting avenues’.

‘What are those?’ asked Laura.

‘I can’t tell you any more than that I’m afraid,’ Zhang said. She took my hand. ‘But know that we’re doing everything we possibly can. Don’t lose heart.’

She turned her attention to Laura. ‘I heard today that you’re a journalist.’

‘I am.’ Laura wasn’t afraid to look directly at her, but she twisted a bracelet on her wrist, a black silk band with a small jade rose on it. ‘Why do you mention it?’

‘I wondered if that puts you in a difficult position professionally. Being at the heart of things here.’

‘I write gossip,’ said Laura. ‘Who turned out to the launch of a new lipstick at Harvey Nichols, that kind of thing. It’s a different world.’

‘Oh,’ said Zhang. She paused before asking, ‘Do you get lots of freebies?’

The tension in the room dissolved just a bit and Laura softened. ‘It’s a perk – definitely. Though I sometimes wonder what I’m going to do with six jars of black nail polish.’

‘Donate it to my daughters,’ said Nicky. ‘They seem to enjoy anything that’s in incredibly bad taste.’

After that the silence was a bit awkward. Zhang started to excuse herself, she wanted to check the alley, but Nicky insisted that she have a cup of tea. Nicky was desperate to share the plans she was hatching.

‘I think we need a vigil,’ she said, ‘if he’s not found by next week. It’s what they do in America. It keeps public awareness up.’

Desperate not to leave any stone unturned, Nicky had been in email contact with somebody who worked for the Missing Kids website in the States, taking advice on what we could do.

Zhang took a sip of her tea. Her mug was one that Ben had decorated in one of those pottery places when he was very little. Covered in splotches of blue, in different hues, it was apparently supposed to be a sea scene. He’d been very proud of it when he made it, although now that he was a bit older he was embarrassed by it. ‘It’s babyish,’ he’d said, the last time I used it.

‘I’m not putting it away, Ben,’ I’d replied. ‘I love it.’

‘You can obviously do what you want, but I’d be very careful about a vigil,’ said Zhang. ‘The press can be a law unto themselves. You don’t know how they’ll react, and we mustn’t compromise the investigation.’

‘What would be very useful then,’ said Nicky, ‘is if we could arrange a proper meeting with the police, with yourselves, to discuss some of these things together, agree on a proper course of action. We don’t want to do anything that would affect the investigation, but there must be something we could do to help.’

‘I’ll ask,’ said Zhang. ‘I promise I’ll ask. But be warned, everybody’s already working all hours on the investigation, so manage your expectations and for now it’s best to keep channelling your questions through me.’

Before she left, she went out the back to see where the graffiti had been. She stood in the glare of my neighbour’s security light and looked at the newly scrubbed fence, where the words had gone but an orange wash remained. It struck me what a neat person she was. Alongside her warmth, she had a reserve about her and a sort of economy of both speech and dress that both impressed me and slightly intimidated me.

‘I’m going to check out the rest of the alley before I go,’ she said. ‘We’ll speak tomorrow.’

In both directions the alley stretched out into darkness. We could hear scuffling behind the fence as something took cover. Further away the wind was making somebody’s back gate creak and bang.

‘Go back inside,’ she said to me. ‘Stay safe.’

JIM

I did go home, but the flat felt hollow and cold, and I was unsettled. I called Emma.

‘Where are you?’ I said when she answered.

‘I’m in the alleyway behind Rachel Jenner’s house.’

‘And?’

‘Well, they’ve washed most of the paint off, but you can see where the words were written in massive letters.’

‘How are the family?’

‘Rachel’s not good, she’s really fearful. Looks ill actually. Nicky’s holding the fort, she’s tough that one, proactive, I like her, and they’ve got Rachel’s friend Laura with them.’

‘Are you going back in with them?’

‘I don’t think I need to. They’re coping for now. I’m cold, Jim, I need to get going.’

‘Are you coming round?’

‘I’ve got to go and see John Finch, tell him about the forensics.’

‘Afterwards?’

‘I’m so tired. I might just go to mine.’

‘Please, Em. I missed you last night.’

She didn’t answer right away. The line went bad as the wind whistled into her handset and it was hard to hear her when she said, ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea, now I’m working for you?’

‘With me, not for me, and it doesn’t have to make a difference, of course it doesn’t. Please, come round tonight.’

‘I’ll come round after I’ve seen John Finch but I’m warning you I won’t be good for much.’

‘Are you OK?’

‘I hope I’m the right person for this job.’

‘Of course you are. Of course! Don’t start getting wound up because of what you said at the meeting. Fraser knows you didn’t mean it.’

‘The way she looked at me…⁠’

‘Honestly, don’t worry about it. Don’t. She’ll have forgotten about it by now. I promise you. You are the right person for this job. You’re tired tonight, that’s why it all feels bad. Just remember why you’re doing it: it’s for the boy. Emma? Are you there?’

‘Yeah. I heard you. It’s for the boy.’

‘Are you coming round?’

‘I’ll see you in about an hour. Don’t wait up.’

After we spoke I turned on all the lights in the flat and put the heating up. Then I went to the shop round the corner and got supplies for breakfast, and a Mars Bar, because Emma liked chocolate. I made a coffee and waited for her to arrive. I couldn’t wait to see her, but I wanted her to be her normal self. I wanted her to tease me, take me out of myself, and make me forget work for a while. I wanted to hold her.

RACHEL

When I got back inside Nicky held the phone out to me. ‘It’s John.’

‘The nursing home rang,’ he said. ‘My mother’s distressed because you didn’t bring Ben to visit her today.’

‘Oh God.’

I’d forgotten about Ruth. Ben and I made a regular weekly visit to see her in her nursing home. Spending time with her grandson was one of the only things she looked forward to.

‘Does she know?’ I asked.

‘No.’ His voice was quiet. ‘I’ve asked them to keep her away from the media.’

I knew it would be easy to keep Ruth away from the TV – she didn’t have a television in her room, and she was fiercely dismissive of the communal areas of the nursing home, keeping to her own room mostly. She loved to listen to Radio 3, though, and I wondered how they were managing that. She’d be desolate without it.

John was one step ahead of me. He said, ‘They’ve told her that her radio’s broken, and Katrina dropped off some CDs for her, and a player. It should keep her going for a while.’

‘You’ll have to go and see her,’ I said.

‘I can’t see her.’ This said so quietly that I could hardly hear him.

‘Well, one of us has to go. We don’t have to tell her.’

I wanted it to be him that went. I didn’t want to have to look into Ruth’s eyes and lie to her about Ben, but to tell her would break her heart.

‘No. Don’t ask me to,’ he said. ‘I can’t.’

‘John!’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he hung up. I stood there with the phone in my hand, incredulous.

‘How does he think I can deal with this any better than him?’ I said.

‘I’m not sure he’s coping,’ said Nicky.

‘Nobody’s coping,’ I said.

‘He’s really on the edge.’

‘We’re all on the edge.’

‘Don’t argue.’ Laura tried to be peacekeeper.

‘I just don’t see why everybody has to be so worried about John.’

‘We ought to be thinking of him,’ said Nicky. ‘It’s not just you who’s affected by this.’

‘Oh and it’s so hard for you with your perfect husband and perfect daughters safe in their perfect home?’

Nicky gasped. ‘That’s just not fair.’

She got up and left the room. I’d gone too far.

‘She didn’t deserve that,’ said Laura.

‘I know.’

‘She’s trying to help.’

I knew I should apologise to Nicky, but I couldn’t bring myself to. She came back down soon afterwards, eyes red, but face composed.

‘Rachel, I know this feels unbearable, but we’re all on your side, and there are even people out there who are on your side too. The stuff online, it’s not all bad. People are out there searching for Ben. People we don’t know.’

‘They’re organising themselves online,’ said Laura. ‘Using social media.’

‘And the police are going to meet with us,’ said Nicky. ‘Don’t forget what Zhang said earlier. We’ll be working with them to find Ben. It’ll give us the best chance.’

She held my hand and squeezed it gently, but all I could think of was those people out there who hid behind online nicknames, or anonymous blogs, or found safety in numbers on the payroll of newspapers. I thought about how they’d started hunting me from the moment I went off-message at the press conference and I felt preyed upon. Just like my son.

JIM

On the night of Wednesday, 24 October, after working all hours, basically until I was ready to drop, I dreamed of Emma and I dreamed of Benedict Finch too. I remember this because in the moment before waking properly, when the dream was most intense, I clutched her, pulled her to me, and expected her to understand why. She’d been in the dream with me after all.

Instead I scared her. She yelped and sat up, confused by being woken abruptly.

‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’

I realised my mistake then. Her voice, her actual real voice, chased the shadows of the dream away.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

She relaxed, fell back onto the pillows and looked at me with sleepy eyes. She said, ‘You look exhausted,’ and then, ‘What time is it?’

I’d forgotten for a moment that dreams are private.

The dream starts at Portishead lido, where I’m meeting Emma for a coffee in the café. I sit down opposite her. We’re the only customers. Across the room, amongst a host of empty tables, there’s one that has a ‘reserved’ sign on it. Outside, the water in the Bristol Channel looks grey and squally under clouds that are darkening, filthy and low. I feel as if we’re in the last place on earth. I crave a cigarette.

‘I like it here,’ says Emma.

‘Really?’ I say. ‘I feel as if I’m in an Edward Hopper painting.’

She laughs. ‘Nighthawks? I know what you mean.’

‘Something like that,’ I say. I don’t know what the painting is called, just that it shows a stark bar, only four people in it, muted colours, and a big dose of bleakness as its theme.

‘You don’t like it?’ says Emma.

‘No, it’s fine. It’s nice.’

Emma starts talking fast. She’s brimming with ideas that spill out of her and bounce off in different directions, as if you’d tipped out a basket of tennis balls and suddenly they’re bouncing everywhere at once, their individual trajectories too fast and too random to track.

Her dark eyes flash and dart, and her skin is a soft, dusky brown. Her lips are full. In repose, her face is symmetrical, perfectly proportioned. When she’s animated she looks intelligent, intense and engaging. When she smiles it’s surprisingly mischievous.

As she talks, Emma disentangles the string of her tea bag from the handle of her cup and dances the bag up and down. It releases dark curlicues of flavour that creep through the hot water and mesmerise me. I’m enjoying the moment, loving her company, but my cosy trance is broken abruptly by a silence that’s weighted with suspense, like a breath held, because Emma’s stopped talking, and she’s fixated on the table that’s on the other side of the café, the one that’s reserved.

‘Jim,’ she whispers. ‘He’s right under our noses. Look.’

I turn and I see him too. Benedict Finch is sitting a few feet away from us and I realise that the table was reserved for him. He’s wearing his school uniform, just like in the photo we put out of him. He’s a really beautiful child.

I get up, but my motion is retarded, and I can’t move towards him as quickly as I want to. The air around me is viscous and intolerably heavy. Where my bones should be I feel only weakness, a confusing absence of strength.

While I make only a few paces of progress, Benedict Finch stands up and peels off his school sweatshirt and top, and then his trousers, shoes and socks. He’s wearing swimming trunks. He smiles at me and says, ‘I’m going to take a dip,’ and still I can’t move any faster. I haven’t even covered half the ground between us.

Benedict Finch strolls towards the doors that separate the café from the pool outside, and disappears through the glass, ghost-like. I reach the doors just after him but I’m trapped behind them. I hear Emma say, ‘Jim, we’ve got to get him. I don’t think he can swim.’

Outside Benedict Finch is standing on top of a very high diving board. I don’t know how he got there because I can see that it’s been cordoned off, and the ladders removed. I bang on the doors, I shake the handles and I shout until I’m hoarse, but Benedict Finch, bold as brass, jumps, and it’s then that I realise the worst thing of all, which is that there’s no water in the pool. None at all.

And I can’t look. I pull Emma into my arms.

Of course then I wasn’t dreaming any longer. I was awake, and I’d woken Emma up and I had to say sorry and I told her it was three o’clock in the morning and she should go back to sleep.

She didn’t though. After a while, she said, ‘Jim? Are you awake?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m bothered by Rachel Jenner. There’s something about her.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She’s unstable.’

‘I know.’

‘Even her sister seems to treat her like she’s made of china or something.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘I don’t trust her.’

‘Do you think she’s harmed Ben?’

‘I don’t know. It’s just a feeling right now. But I think she could have done.’

‘Trust your instincts. Talk to Fraser about it, and keep your eyes peeled when you’re with the family. If Rachel Jenner’s done something she might well let it slip.’

‘I am already. I will.’

I reached over and ran my hand up and down her arm, then let it rest on her skin, which was always perfectly soft. I felt myself getting drowsy, but after a while Emma got up. ‘Where are you going?’ I asked, and she said, ‘I can’t sleep. I’m going to read for a bit next door. I’m fine. Go back to sleep.’

After she left, I was asleep again in moments, my hand resting on the warm spot on the bed where she’d been.