Gilly MacMillan - What She Knew

JC: She said she was knackered. She wanted to go back to her place to get a proper night’s rest and I didn’t blame her for that. I was feeling that way myself. I could have slept on my desk.

FM: But I get the sense you were fired up too.

JC: I was, yes. We all were. Without a doubt. It felt like things were starting to happen.

The immediate aftermath was the first in a series of new body blows.

Nicky swept everything up from the table, all her hard work, gathered it hastily and tried to push it into her bag. Her movements were rough and clumsy.

‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘Please don’t.’

I felt as though she was falling apart right in front of my eyes. I wondered if that’s what it had been like when she first went to Esther’s, to live in the cottage, right after it happened, when I was a baby, when her grief must have been unbearable.

And I realised that in the future I would wonder about everything.

From now on it would be impossible to unpick every detail of my history, every assumption that had led to me building a sense of my own identity, and of Ben’s identity. My past had been crumpled up and thrown into the fire, and I would have to sort through the ashes, with only Nicky as my guide. Nicky, who had lied to me for a very long time; Nicky, who said that she’d lied to protect me; Nicky, who I needed.

‘I should leave,’ she said. ‘You’re better off without me. You know, I would never , ever hurt Ben. Can I just say that? I would never hurt Ben.’

Her distress pushed her voice to an acute pitch, and I went to comfort her.

‘I know you wouldn’t.’

She let her bag slide down her shoulder and onto the table, and the papers spilled back out of it. Her head fell onto my shoulder and her body shook.

Are you surprised at my reaction to her? At my willingness to accept what I’d heard and offer her comfort?

It wasn’t the end of it. Of course it wasn’t. If I think back to that day I can remember the stages I went through. I suppose it was like the stages of grief, although this was different. This was the processing of what felt like a betrayal, this was the seeping away of trust.

After the door had clicked shut behind an adrenalin-pumped Clemo and a Zhang who couldn’t meet my eye for the first time, that first interaction Nicky and I had was of course a reflex, an urge to keep Nicky by me, to deny that anything had changed. She’d been my rock, always, and I couldn’t contemplate any other existence. It wasn’t in my DNA. Or I’d thought it wasn’t.

After that exchange we separated. Nicky unpacking her bag robotically, calling on those massive reserves of strength to anchor her to my table, to keep her going as she delved deeper and deeper into whatever the web had to offer her.

I went to my safe place, to Ben’s room, and I immersed myself in him, as was my habit. It was the only place I felt secure. His bedroom had become my womb.

This was my second stage.

I sank onto the beanbag on the floor of his room and I felt as if I was cast adrift in a small wooden boat, shrouded by a watery grey mist. And suspended within each of the millions of fine droplets that made up the mist, was the news, the bombshell that I’d just heard. And in this stage it simply surrounded me, existing, but not yet understood. And within it I felt baseless, disorientated and lost.

The third state was the inevitable churning of my mind, the processing of what I’d learned, and of its implications, the moment the droplets of mist began to settle on my skin and permeate it. It was when the knowledge became part of me and it was irreversible. I had to face up to it.

It led swiftly to the fourth state.

That was the erosion of my trust, where the droplets on my skin turned to acid and began to burn, producing a feeling that was intense and painful, a pins and needles of the mind and the body, and it was so creepy and unsettling that I couldn’t remain still any longer.

I got out of Ben’s bed and looked out of the window, and I saw Nicky below in my garden with the dog, petting him, encouraging him to pee. They stood on the soggy, tatty lawn by the abandoned relic of Ben’s football goal, the net broken from the frame in places, the grass in front of it worn from where he’d played. I backed away from the window, not so that the press wouldn’t see me, but so that my sister wouldn’t.

And as dusk fell again, wrapping itself around the edges of the day, I ran back through events, until I thought about how I had started the day: the photographer in my garden, Nicky’s anger with him, her outburst on the street, her loyalty.

And then I thought about the previous day, and how it had started with an internet search, and with a laptop that belonged to Nicky, that needed a password, and how that password was the name of my son.

And each intake of breath felt sharp in my lungs and my mind roved further and I thought of Nicky’s discontent with her daughters, and what Clemo said about her wanting a son. And then I thought of her words: ‘It was as if he was Charlie, reborn.’

I began to cry hot, silent tears, and they had sharp edges just like my breath did, and they ran down my cheeks and soaked into Ben’s nunny which I held tightly to my face.

When I heard Nicky’s footsteps on the stairs I got into Ben’s bed, covered myself up, turned away from the door and tried to breathe slowly so she would think I was asleep.

When she put her head around the door of the room and asked if I wanted any food I didn’t answer her.

When she reappeared some minutes later with a tray of supper I still couldn’t look at her, couldn’t speak to her.

‘I just wanted to protect you,’ she said.

She shut the door quietly behind her, respecting my privacy, and all I could feel was a throbbing. It was the pulse of the time since Ben had been missing. And it felt as if it had begun to beat faster.

Email

From: Christopher Fellowes ‹cjfellowes@gmail.com›

To: James Clemo ‹clemoj@aspol.uk›

25 October 2012 at 21:37

Re: Nicola Forbes

Jim

Good to speak. Fascinating development!

I’ll send you a full report tomorrow but, as agreed, here is a précis:

Psychological markers for predisposition to sociopathic behaviour in Nicola Forbes might include any of the following: tendency to control; affective instability (which could include jealousy and identity diffusion); unnatural interest in Ben – you’ve already mentioned this as a possible, if father is to be believed. Other generalised signs might include obsessive-compulsive spectrum behaviour (OCSD) and/or delusional beliefs (though these can be well hidden).

She’s certainly been quick to be on the scene, which could indicate that she enjoys the attention that the case is bringing the family (just speculation, but maybe an unresolved desire from her earlier experience which was handled so discreetly by the aunt?).

There’s more – I’ll follow up asap with a full report. It’ll be with you end of tomorrow, latest.

Best, Chris

Dr Christopher J Fellowes

Senior Lecturer in Psychology

University of Cambridge

Fellow of Jesus College

Email

From: Corinne Fraser ‹fraserc@aspol.uk›

To: Alan Hayward ‹alan.hayward@haywardmorganlaw.co.uk›

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

25 October 2012 at 23:06

Blog Warfare

Alan

We’re in need of your services, as the weird and wonderful worldwide web is once again involving itself in our police work. Could you cast your keen legal eye over this blog please: www.whereisbenedictfinch.wordpress.com