He bends briefly to rub the grinning dog behind the ears. ‘It’s good here,’ he says, looking up at me again. And I can’t think of any three words that could say more. Not just about the past, but about the future too.
‘Three penalties?’ I continue. ‘That’s not bad. Keep it up and you’ll be as good as that player you like – what’s his name – he takes penalties, doesn’t he?’
He smiles then and I realize, with a ghost of self-reproach, that it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him do it.
‘Hazard,’ he says.
* * *
—
When I get back into the car, I sit there for a moment, thinking. About Gary, who’s been given a second chance, and Daisy, who wasn’t. And about the second chance I never got, and I’d trade everything I’ve ever owned to receive.
* * *
—
Tomorrow it will be exactly a year. To the day. That day.
It had been raining for what seemed like weeks – the clouds never lifted. I got home early, because we wanted to talk to Jake and I didn’t want to rush it. I didn’t want him going to bed with it on his mind. We had an appointment with the child psychologist the following day. Alex had been dead against it, insisting our GP knew what she was doing, and Jake hadn’t hurt himself for weeks. That our son wasn’t a ‘case’ I could solve with my brain, and escalating things now might only make it worse. But I forced it.
I forced it.
I remember I brought the bins in, cursing the dustmen for leaving them strewn across the drive. I remember chucking my keys on the kitchen table and picking up the post, asking where Jake was.
‘Upstairs,’ Alex said, stacking the dishwasher. ‘Playing music. Tell him supper in half an hour.’
‘And then we’ll talk to him?’
‘And then we’ll talk to him.’
On bad nights, I crawl those steps on my hands and knees, aware there is some terrible catastrophe only speed can save me from, but unable to move faster than leadweight in water. The door, standing half open. The darkening sky. The glow of the computer screen. The empty chair. Those terrible, exquisite seconds when I stand there, not knowing. For the last time, not knowing. And then turning, assuming he must be in the loo, in my study –
Hanging
There
The dressing-gown cord half buried in his flesh –
The red wheals on his skin –
Those eyes –
* * *
—
And I can’t save him. Can’t get him down. Can’t get the air into his lungs. Can’t get to him five minutes before. Because that’s all it was. Five minutes. That’s what they said.
Those bloody bins.
My boy.
My precious, precious lost boy.
Epilogue
17 August 2016, 10.12 a.m.
29 days after the disappearance
The ferry sounds its horn as it picks up speed and heads out of Liverpool docks into the Irish Sea. The gulls dip and lift about the boat, calling and circling. Despite the sunshine, there’s a sharp breeze up on the observation deck, where Kate Madigan is standing at the railings, looking at the clouds, at the other boats, at the people on the quay, getting smaller and smaller as the ship pulls away. Some of them are waving. Not at her, she knows that – people always wave at boats – but it adds, all the same, to the sense of an ending. To the feeling that an entire existence is receding with the water, yard by glittering yard.
Because there can be no going back now. Not ever. She takes a deep breath of exhilarated relief and feels the bright air fill her lungs like a cleansing of the soul. She still can’t believe they got away with it. After all those weeks of lies, and concealment, and lying in bed at night, heart pounding, waiting for the hammering on the door. And even today, her hands were shaking as they drove up to the ferry terminal, expecting to see the police waiting, finally, to meet them. Barring the way to escape, denying them their precious new life. But there was nothing. Not that solid chirpy little DC; not that woman with the dull hair and the alert, clever eyes, and the questions that came a little too close to home. Nothing. Just a jovial P&O man to check their tickets and wave them smiling through.
And they are through. The risks she took; the planning, the care, the anticipation of all those deadly treacherous details, it’s all worth it now. And yes, other people have paid the price, but as far as she’s concerned they got no more than they deserved. A mother who withheld love and a father who perverted it. Who can say which had caused the greater harm? Which deserved the greater punishment? Her grandmother always used to say that God makes sure your sins will find you out, and perhaps in this case it was true. The videos on his phone, the blood on the cardigan; neither could have been foreseen, but both were devastating. So whether by divine intervention, or her own, justice had indeed been done. The father caught in a mire of his own making and the mother in a snare that trapped her just as surely as it set her daughter free. And that was all that mattered, in the end: not who was convicted, but the fact of the killing – the belief in it. Because with that, all searching would cease. And as for the boy, well, she checked. Discreetly, so as not to draw attention. But then again, in her position, as his sister’s teacher, it was natural she’d want to know. And she did want to know – she wanted to be sure. And they told her he’s fine. More than fine, in fact. Everyone agrees it’s the best thing that could ever have happened. Because now he’s getting what he deserves too: a second chance. The same miraculous, odds-against, life-overturning second chance that she now has.
‘Mummy, Mummy!’
She turns to see a little girl running towards her, her face lit up with joy. Kate crouches down and holds out her arms, rocking the child tenderly and feeling her warm breath on her cheek.
‘Do you love me, Mummy?’ whispers the child, and Kate draws back and looks at her.
‘Of course I do, darling. So much. So very, very much.’
‘As much as your other little girl?’ There’s a little wobble of anxiety in her voice.
‘Yes, darling,’ says Kate softly. ‘I love you both just the same. My heart was broken for a while, when she died, because she was so ill and I couldn’t save her. Whatever I did, however hard I tried. But I can save you. No one will ever hurt you again,’ she says, reaching to caress the child’s soft red curls that are now so like her own. ‘Because I’m your mummy now.’
‘Nobody else would’ve believed me,’ whispers the little girl. ‘No one except you.’
Kate’s eyes fill with tears. ‘I know, darling. It makes me so sad you had no one else you could talk to – no one to love you like you deserve. But that’s all over now. You’ve been so brave, and so clever. Taking those gloves, saving the tooth you lost – I would never have thought of any of that.’
She takes the child in her arms again and holds her, tighter now. ‘I promise you they will never find you. I will never let you go. You won’t forget that, will you?’
She feels the little girl shake her head. ‘So,’ she says, wiping her eyes and taking the little girl’s hand, ‘shall we say a last goodbye to England?’
They go to stand by the railing, in the sunshine. The little girl is round-eyed with excitement now, pointing, laughing, waving to the ferry that chugs past them going the other way.
A few feet along the deck, an elderly lady is sitting in her wheelchair, blankets tucked round her knees. She looks kindly at the little girl. ‘You’re having a nice time, so you are.’
The child looks across at her and nods vigorously, and Kate smiles. ‘We’re on our way to Galway,’ she says gaily. ‘I’ve got a new job there. Sabrina has been looking forward to this ferry trip for months.’
‘Sabrina?’ says the woman. ‘Now that’s a pretty name, so it is. It has a nice meanin’ too. I always say it’s good to have a name that means somethin’. Did your mammy tell you what it means?’
The little girl nods again. ‘I love it. It’s like a secret. I like secrets.’