Cath Staincliffe - Split Second

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

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

‘But someone’s disclosed it.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Louise?’

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

Andrew

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Val, you don’t know-’

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

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

‘You’re defending him!’

He shook his head.

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

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

‘Oh, Val.’

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

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

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

‘No.’ He wouldn’t have it.

‘So you think this scum deserved saving?’

‘Val, please calm down.’

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

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

She flinched.

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

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

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