Silent Child Page 4

  As Aiden continued to watch the television, I felt as though I were in a dream. Was I really talking to my son? Was this pasty young man the boy I’d thought had drowned all those years ago? My head was light but my heart was heavy with the implications of everything that had happened. I found myself unable to think of anything else to say.

  Luckily, Dr Schaffer noticed my distress and came to my rescue. “Perhaps we could all go for a quick cup of tea while Aiden has a little rest. Then we can talk about what happens next. We would love to draw a little blood from you, Emma, and then we can establish a DNA match to corroborate the DNA test from yesterday. We also need to talk about what happens next. Someone from social services will need to speak to you.”

  “I will be able to take him home, won’t I?” I asked. A fist of ice gripped my heart.

  “It might just take a bit of time,” DCI Stevenson added. “With Aiden not talking we’ve no idea where he’s been for the last ten years and who he’s been with.”

  Who. That word hit me like a truck. Who. Who had he been with? What did they want from him? Nausea rose to my throat, threatening to spill out onto the hospital floor. My fingers wrapped around the armrest of the chair as I attempted to compose myself.

  “Where do you suspect he’s been?” I asked, saying the words slowly and carefully.

  Both the doctor and the detective glanced across at Aiden and then back to me.

  “I think it’s best we talk about that in private,” said DCI Stevenson.

  6

  Of course, after Aiden’s apparent drowning, I suffered from recurring nightmares. There were two images that haunted me as I tossed and twisted myself into the sheets at night. The first was the sight of Aiden’s red coat being pulled from the river. It was the image that the press ate up and regurgitated on the front page of every newspaper. Innocence lost. The contrast of a tiny red coat against a murky dark background, mould and dirt on the sleeves. It was a perfect image for selling newspapers. It hinted at a parent’s worst fear without being so gratuitous that they couldn’t print it.

  Does anything sell newspapers better than death? Maybe sex can sell more, given the right story, but the death of a child is the very apex of morbid curiosity. In a tower of sex scandals, prostitutes, and celebrities, infanticide rules. Tragic, accidental infant death is just underneath the glory of a child’s murder. Aiden was reduced to that one image and it almost erased every preceding memory I had of him. I couldn’t think of his cute, tongue-poking-out look of concentration when reading a book without seeing the red anorak dirtied by river mud. I couldn’t picture him shimmying up the tree in our garden wearing a superman cape without the newspaper headlines revolving through my mind.

  The second image was pure imagination, but it was one that I could not shake away. It was Aiden, small and pale, floating in the water. Deep under the surface of the river was my child, half-eaten by fish, bloated and rotting. I dreamed of the flow of the Ouse as it met the Humber. Rushing and gushing and pouring over rocks, between built-up grassy banks, beneath stone bridges, behind houses, chasing and churning to the sea. I saw him washed away from me. Washed away from the world.

  During the investigation we’d had search and rescue experts talk about the currents and the places he could have washed up. It was irregular for a body not to resurface from a river. Out at sea, you would expect a body to disappear, but in a river, they tended to be found. That was why DCI Stevenson was assigned the case. It was only when they found Aiden’s coat that a kidnapping had been almost completely ruled out. There had been a flood and during that flood Aiden had wandered off, presumably towards the river. Not long after his disappearance they found his coat in the water. End of story. The thread of logic is all there, isn’t it?

  Except this time the thread of logic was obviously wrong, because that was my child sitting in a hospital bed wearing the same expression you see on children pulled out of a wrecked building after an earthquake, or rescued from a war-torn country. Which was why I knew my nightmares were likely to come back, and what they would be about.

  With Jake by my side, I followed Dr Schaffer and DCI Stevenson into a small office. Dr Schaffer sat at a desk, I was offered a chair, and DCI Stevenson shut the door behind us. That disinfectant smell of the hospital had even seeped into this room, and the tiny window behind the desk was shut, trapping us in a heady miasma of sickness. Part of me almost opened my mouth to Dr Schaffer to open the window and let in some fresh air but I decided not to bother. It would only mean more faffing about and I was impatient to get on with things.

  DCI Stevenson moved towards the desk and hovered there. Jake sat on a chair to my left, his fingers drumming against the grey wool of his trousers. I felt small beside them all, despite my distended stomach. Here I was, one pregnant woman amidst a cluster of men. A shock of femininity thrown into a testosterone-filled room. Despite the situation, I found myself straining to stay composed, self-conscious of breaking down in front of them. I was almost positive that there would be no judgement on their part even if I did, but it would only waste more time. I needed to know everything they knew about my son.

  Dr Schaffer pushed a file across his desk and then pulled it back before clearing his throat. His head was bent down, looking at the file rather than at me. He seemed tall even sat there in the desk chair. With his head bent like that I could see the way his hair was thinning. I saw the pink of his scalp, slightly shining, beneath the soft greying hairs.

  “This is a very difficult case,” Dr Schaffer said. “Without Aiden talking to us it’s difficult to make an assessment.”

  “Just tell me everything you know, and what you think it means,” I said. I turned to DCI Stevenson. “And I mean everything.”

  Finally, the doctor lifted his head and I saw that he had composed himself as a professional. He rested his hands on top of the file and linked his fingers together. “Aiden is small for his age, which leads us to think that he has been malnourished. When he was found on the road, he was walking very slowly, with a limp, and was short of breath. His posture is a little crouched when he walks, perhaps to overcompensate for the limp. During our examination we found that he has underdeveloped calf and thigh muscles, and there is an indication of ankle injuries in the past, though we will need to perform more tests to discover the extent of those injuries. They are healed now.

  “Aiden’s teeth are quite crooked and though I’m no expert in that area, I believe that they have not been cared for particularly well, though he may have had a toothbrush. His skin is very pale, and his eyes were particularly sensitive to bright light.”

  It was at this point that the rushing of my blood, and the thudding of my heart, became far louder than the doctor, and I was afraid that I was about to swoon forward in the chair. I took a deep breath, stroked my stomach, and willed myself to stay conscious. The problem was, I’d already guessed what he was about to say and I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to stand up on my shaky feet and my swollen ankles, and run as fast as I could while eight months pregnant. I wanted to get out of that place—to even get away from Aiden, as sick as that sounds—and never think of any of this again. But I couldn’t. Aiden had been born. He had existed. He was still here. And he had a story deep down inside that deserved to be heard and processed by his mother.

  “Emma,” Jake said quietly. He squeezed my hand. “Are you all right, love?”

  “Do you need a break?” DCI Stevenson asked.

  I shook my head. “Go on. I’m fine. Tell me everything you know.”

  Dr Schaffer smiled then, and it reminded me of the smile proud parents give their nervous children at sports events. But then he glanced down at his file and let out a long, deep sigh. The worst was to come. “There is evidence of damage to Aiden’s gums, and there are lacerations on his body that are consistent with sexual abuse.”

  I leaned forward and vomited a small amount of clear liquid onto the floor of the doctor’s office. Jake stroked my hair away from my forehead
and helped me straighten up in the chair. DCI Stevenson quickly mopped up the sick with his handkerchief and dropped it into the waste paper bin.

  “Not to worry,” Dr Schaffer said. “I needed a new bin anyway.” He forced a smile.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “It’s quite all right.”

  “I’ll take this to one of the nurses,” said DCI Stevenson. “And I’m getting us all some water. I think we need it.”

  I smiled thinly, grateful to him for pretending that we all needed water. Pretending that I wasn’t the only one in the room who had lost control of her bodily functions.

  I’d known it was coming. Of course I had. Little boys aren’t taken away for no reason. Not long after the flood, after search and rescue had failed to find Aiden’s body, I’d gone through every possible reason for a child’s disappearance, from getting lost down a well to being sold into the sex trade. I went over it all. I saw men with moustaches holding my little boy’s hand and leading him into murky rooms. I saw money changing hands and lascivious smiles on the faces of obese predatory men. I pictured the worst, the very worst, and I felt grimy and disgusting for even thinking it. No shower could take those images away.

  And now my worst fear had been confirmed. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.

  “Try to stay calm, sweetheart,” cooed Jake. “Think of the baby. You need to keep your stress levels down.”

  But I was thinking of the baby, the one sat in that hospital room all on his own watching cartoons. My body ached with helplessness. Whatever I did now, I could never take it away. I could never go back and stop him going to school that day. Never. I could barely breathe.

  “Here we are,” said DCI Stevenson as he passed a water bottle to each of us. I noticed that he gave me mine with the cap unscrewed. I realised why when my hand extended to take the bottle, only to shake so badly that I spilled some of it onto my clothes. I wrapped both of my hands around the plastic bottle and lifted it tentatively to my lips. I had to admit that the cool liquid felt good as it trickled down my throat. DCI Stevenson opened the window behind the desk and a breeze hit the sweat on my forehead.

  “Thank you,” I said. I tried my best to settle into my chair, preparing myself for the rest of the information to come from Dr Schaffer.

  But it was Jake who broke the silence first. “Are you sure?” Hearing his voice was a surprise. Apart from asking me if I was all right, he’d remained fairly quiet since arriving at the hospital. “I mean… what you’re saying is…”

  “We won’t be sure until Aiden is able to tell us himself, but that is what our examination suggests.” Dr Schaffer’s fingers tightened above the paper file until I saw his knuckles whiten. He released his hands and his shoulders relaxed slightly.

  I closed my eyes, trying not to think about what the examination had involved. I should have been there holding his hand as the doctors poked and prodded him.

  “Has he been in any distress?” I asked. “Has he been crying, screaming, scared?”

  “No,” Dr Stevenson said. “He has been very calm. He shows some discomfort when touched, but he allowed us to examine him, and to wash and clothe him, too. We were very gentle and we talked through every single procedure and why we were doing it.”

  “You should have waited for me.” My hands clenched around the bottle. “I should’ve been there with him.”

  “I understand why you feel that way,” said DCI Stevenson in the same calm voice I remembered from all those years ago. “We asked the doctors to look for evidence on Aiden’s body. If we’d waited, some of that evidence would have been destroyed.”

  “And what evidence did you find?” I snapped.

  DCI Stevenson pulled at the collar on his shirt. “It was a rainy night. It seems that if there was any trace of Aiden’s kidnapper left on him, it was washed away. There was no trace in his saliva either.”

  I didn’t know what to make of that. But then my mind was swimming with so much information, I didn’t know what to make of any of this. I took a long drink of water.

  It was DCI Stevenson’s turn to talk. He met my eyes with the patient, steady gaze of a teacher explaining a problem to a child. “The medical examination of Aiden’s condition and the way he was found all suggest that Aiden has been confined somewhere for the last ten years. We think it was a small area with limited light. Dr Schaffer feels that the marks on Aiden’s ankles suggest he was chained for some time.”

  The urge to be sick rose again, but this time I swallowed it down. Chained. Confined. Kept like an animal in a cage. I’d studied psychology at school; I knew what that did to a child. I knew about the wolf children and the girl raised in a chicken coop. They were feral and traumatised, virtually unable to function, and certainly unable to integrate into society.

  “But that’s… that’s…” Jake rubbed his eyes as if in disbelief. “That’s evil. Who would do that to a child?”

  “That’s what we hope to find out,” said DCI Stevenson. “Because whoever the monster is, he belongs in jail.”

  7

  When I was a child I had very different nightmares to the ones that plagued me as an adult. They were filled with narrow, labyrinth-like tunnels. As I walked, I’d follow a small dot of light leading the way. I really wanted to play with that dot of light because it looked appealing, all glowing and orange and sparkling. But as I walked on, the tunnel walls closed in. The bright glowing light started to dim. I’d become frantic, running for my life, no longer chasing the light, but being chased by some unknown thing. On and on I went, turning one corner and then the next, as the corridor became narrower and the ceiling lower. It squeezed closer until the walls touched my skin. Narrower and narrower it went until I was on my knees crawling through the dark.

  I always woke just before I got stuck.

  Being confined has been one of my greatest fears for as long as I could remember. It’s why I opened the cage for the school guinea pig to escape. It’s why I made Dad return the gift of a rabbit in a hutch. It’s why I leave the door open a crack when I have to wee in a public toilet.

  The thought of Aiden stuck in some tiny room, chained like an animal… It awoke some savage maternal wildness inside me. I wanted to find whoever had done this to him and rip him apart tooth and claw, like the lioness I knew I could be.

  The quote goes on about a woman scorned. Scorned. As if the jealousy of a lover could ever compete with the ferocity of a mother. I raked my fingers through my hair in that vomit-scented room and soaked up the rage that I would feed on to get me through the next few weeks.

  “What are you doing to find this man?” I asked.

  “We’re searching the area Aiden was found, and we’re canvassing for eyewitnesses. But… this is delicate, Emma, and you know why. We can’t do much without the press finding out. We only have to call in an eyewitness from that day and they will know something is going on. You’re going to need to prepare yourself for what’s coming.”

  I let my head sink into my hands. Had I even felt joy yet? Had I allowed myself to be happy that Aiden was alive? Could I feel happy at this moment? Should I?

  “Bastards,” Jake grumbled. “As if they didn’t do enough after the flood. Practically sent Emma’s parents into an early grave.”

  “I need to ring Sonya and Peter,” I said. “They’re Aiden’s grandparents. They’ll need to see him, especially if this is going to turn into a shitshow of a media circus.”

  Stevenson nodded. “I think that’s a good call. Aiden needs loving parents and grandparents around him now.”

  Though the detective didn’t explicitly say it, I knew he was thinking it. He was hoping that Aiden would snap out of his fugue and talk to us. Solving this case would be a priority for the police right now, especially once the media started reporting on it. Beneath my growing baby, my empty stomach cramped.

  “Can I see him again?” I asked.

  “Of course.” Dr Schaffer smiled. “But first we should talk about what
we need to do to help Aiden get better. This is a highly unusual case for which there is no real precedent. Aiden has been kept away from society for ten years and will need help integrating.”

  “I understand,” I said, balling my dress up in my left fist.

  “We feel it would be best to keep Aiden in hospital for a few days for observation. When he was first admitted, we were not aware of the situation, otherwise we would have kept Aiden in quarantine to prevent him picking up a bug he might not have developed an immunity to. But he has been seen by several nurses and a few visitors and appears to be fine. Still, we will need to discuss what vaccines he was given before his abduction and whether we need to give him any more before he can go home.”

  I squeezed my dress, hating that my son needed this special treatment at all. “Of course.”

  “Social services were contacted immediately and you’ll need to have a meeting with them, but I believe Aiden will need therapy… perhaps speech therapy to help him begin speaking again, and some physiotherapy for his leg. He’ll need to see a dentist too. Perhaps a nutritionist—”

  “That’s a lot of people fussing over my son,” I said. “Look, I know all of this needs to be done. I want him to get better and I want him to be able to live a normal life, but all this will be too much for him. Don’t you think?”

  Dr Schaffer sighed. “I do. I believe this is going to be a slow adjustment and a slow process. Not everything will happen at once. For one, I believe Aiden will need to see a specialist at York hospital physiotherapy unit, though we will need an x-ray first.” He paused. “There’s going to be a waiting list anyway. And maybe I can help you will his diet to begin with, and we can check on him in a few weeks. And another thing… Aiden has been declared dead. He has no identification, no passport.”