Хилари Боннер - The Cruellest Game

Bella had been throwing a ball for her own dog, a spaniel cross-breed called Flash, and at one point had accidentally thrown Flash’s tennis ball straight at Florrie. Florrie had gratefully accepted the gift, taken it in her mouth, lain down on the sand and done her best to chew it to pieces, while Flash ran around her in frantic circles.

Bella had tired eyes, but a smile that changed everything. On the beach that day she’d stood by laughing while I’d tried to extricate her dog’s ball from Florrie’s enthusiastic jaws. We’d walked along the sands together for a bit. Chatting. Just ordinary stuff. But I was someone who didn’t often find strangers, or indeed anyone outside my immediate small family circle, easy to talk to. Yet I was somehow comfortable with Bella from the start, even though, on the surface at least, our backgrounds, apart from us both being mothers, seemed so different. My life was really quite privileged, whereas Bella told me that she was a single mum living in Exeter, struggling to bring up two children alone since her husband had walked out on her some years previously.

Just to make conversation really, I’d told her how I’d taught at the Bodley School in Exeter before I was married, and she’d said that was a coincidence because Bodley was her kids’ school. Then we’d made those remarks you do about what a small world it was.

Before I knew it we’d exchanged names and phone numbers and arranged to meet again with our dogs. One way and another, it seemed Bella was now the nearest I had to a friend.

I called her on her mobile. The phone seemed to ring for ever and I was sure it was about to switch to voicemail when she finally answered.

After I’d told her what had happened, just like Robert she didn’t say anything for what seemed like an age. Well, what did you say, exactly, to the mother of a fifteen-year-old boy who has just killed himself?

Eventually she spoke, quietly and slowly.

‘This is unbelievable. Are you all right?’

Of course I wasn’t bloody all right. What a stupid question. For a moment I thought it had been a mistake to call her. Then she spoke again. Somehow cutting straight to the chase without my having to ask.

‘Look, who’s with you? Is your husband there?’

‘No. And he doesn’t think he can get back until tomorrow. The paramedics are still here, and the police, they’re checking everything. It’s awful. But they’re going soon, I think, and then...’

‘I’ll be right over,’ said Bella. ‘As soon as I’ve sorted something out for the kids.’

I hadn’t met her children, but she’d told me they were aged eleven and twelve, and I remembered then that Bella also had a part-time job, working on the till in a supermarket, I think it was. But I hadn’t given any of that a thought when I’d called her. I was, perhaps understandably, totally wrapped up in my own devastating situation. I suppose I just expected her to drop everything and come to my aid. Which she more or less did.

‘You’ll need me to stay the night,’ Bella went on.

‘Th-that would be wonderful,’ I stumbled.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘And I’ll be as quick as I can.’

I thanked her and pushed the end button. Curiously, I’d only just met the bloody woman and hardly knew her really, but I suddenly couldn’t wait for her to arrive.

DS Jarvis, a thin man with an incongruously fleshy face, came into the kitchen a minute or two later. He didn’t look comfortable and was fiddling with the cuffs of his anonymous grey suit.

‘I should tell you that the paramedics have formally pronounced your son dead, and the SOCOs have nearly done, Mrs Anderson—’ he began.

‘I’d like to see my son,’ I interrupted him. ‘I’d like to see him, before... before he’s taken from here.’

Jarvis nodded, not looking at me but at the cuff of one sleeve which he seemed to be finding particularly fascinating.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And you may want to take the opportunity of formally identifying your son for us. It has to be done sometime...’

Still not really taking anything much in, I agreed to do so.

The detective sergeant led the way up the stairs. I limped behind him. Just before we reached the top a thought occurred to me. I reached out and touched his arm. He stopped and glanced back at me over his shoulder.

‘Is... is Robbie still...’ I began.

He understood at once and shook his head. ‘No, he’s on a stretcher.’

Jarvis continued up the stairs and led the way into Robbie’s room. My son lay with his legs straight and arms by his side. Someone had closed his eyes. At first glance he looked quite peaceful until you noticed the discoloration and swelling of his face and neck.

It was a shock all over again seeing him like that. I reached out to touch him. He was stone cold. I knew, of course, that he would be. None the less, that was another shock. I had planned to kiss him goodbye. I couldn’t do so. Already this was no longer my son, no longer my beloved boy.

I burst into tears and ran from the room, hurrying down the stairs as quickly as my damaged feet would allow me, and into the kitchen. Janet Cox made more tea and more soothing noises while I struggled to regain control. I really didn’t want to weep in front of strangers. Gradually I calmed down, superficially at any rate.

DS Jarvis appeared in the kitchen again and looked relieved that at least I wasn’t still having hysterics. He handed me a form to sign confirming that I had formally identified Robbie’s body. Then he announced that he’d done all he could for the moment, adding, with not a lot of sensitivity, that he had another big job on and couldn’t stay any longer.

‘But we’ll be getting back to you, and any time you want to be in touch with us, any time at all, I’m your man, just call me,’ he said, handing me a business card.

‘There will have to be a post-mortem, of course,’ he told me. ‘Just routine, Mrs Anderson, routine you see, with a sudden death. Especially in the case of one so young.’

I nodded. I hadn’t thought of that. Of Robbie being examined after his death, of his pale flesh being sliced into on a mortuary slab. Would they use one of those circular saws I’d seen on TV to cut into his skull and expose his brain?

I was numb. I just nodded. Then something else occurred to me. Something so obvious I couldn’t believe it hadn’t struck me straight away.

‘Was there a note?’ I asked. ‘I didn’t think to look. Did Robbie leave a note? Did you find anything?’

DS Jarvis shook his head. ‘No note, I’m afraid,’ he said.

‘But isn’t that unusual? D-don’t...’ It was hard for me to say the word. ‘Don’t suicides always leave a note? Some sort of explanation?’

DS Jarvis shook his head again. ‘That’s a common misconception, Mrs Anderson,’ he said, as he headed for the front door. ‘The vast majority don’t. We’re taking your boy’s computer hard drive away just in case there’s anything on there, and to check it out generally. His mobile too. But I wouldn’t expect too much, if I were you.’

The paramedics left soon afterwards. Then the coroner’s undertakers arrived, and Robbie, his beautiful body zipped into an ugly black bag, was carried out to a waiting vehicle which would, I was told, take him to the mortuary at Barnstaple’s North Devon Infirmary.

I watched him go. Watched him leave our lovely home, where I had thought, maybe just assumed, he had been so happy, for the last time.

That was the worst bit. My God, that was the worst bit. The tears ran down my face, much as I tried to fight them back. They were the first I had shed since discovering him hanging there from the beam in his room. Funny that. I would have expected to have been fighting back tears ever since. But I hadn’t been. Not until I saw Robbie’s body leaving.