Please Protect Us, page 20
‘Yeah, I’ve met Leighton too,’ she told me. ‘Had no idea you were his brother when I saw you in the pub.’
I wondered how well she knew him.
‘I don’t really know him well, just when I was having a drink with Vicky one evening, he came in with Warren. That’s all.’ And another grin came in my direction.
Must say I was relieved by that titbit of information – had she been dating my brother that would have been far too weird.
I was tempted to stay longer, maybe even the whole night, but I had to get to the cafe in the morning. It did take some determination to sober up and pull myself together, but I was chilled enough to make a date to see her on the Sunday, my day off.
* * *
That night, I stayed at Leighton’s. He had given me a key some time ago. He didn’t say why he thought I needed one, he just accepted that there might be times when I needed a bolthole. ‘We all need our own space,’ he had said more than once. And once the company he was working for gave him his first decent promotion, he had managed to rent a small Victorian house.
The key had been handed over to me nearly at the same time as he was given his. Without asking questions or making comments, he accepted that the atmosphere at home had grown rather chilly. My parents disapproved of my way of life. As far as they were concerned, I was mixing with the wrong sort, coming in late and they guessed that I was drinking and smoking – ‘I can smell it on your clothes, bad enough that you come home smelling of food and deep-fat frying, but even that isn’t enough to hide the smell of beer and cigarettes,’ muttered Mum crossly as she insisted all my clothes went straight in the wash when I came home each night.
‘You’ll be lucky if you hold your job down,’ she told me more than once when I’d slept through my alarm and had to run to get my lift to work. ‘What would you do if your dad or I didn’t wake you?’
Phil, much to my surprise, decided around then to move in with a friend. As I was planning to spend so much time at Kate’s, I was pleased for him. He told me it was partly because he had no wish to be around when Clive and Maureen visited. Mum and Dad got annoyed if we made excuses when we knew he was coming. Not only that, my brother felt uncomfortable when Mum criticised me to him. He felt his anger boiling up inside him when she did. He was also aware of my growing resentment towards our parents. A resentment that I was unable to suppress, even though I did try. For I could not help myself for blaming Mum more than Dad for not noticing the effect Clive had on us. Weren’t there times when, even if Dad didn’t, Mum must have seen how troubled Phil and I were? And yet she had never asked the right questions. Why was I not concentrating at school, why had I no interest in my career and why, even if my bedwetting had ceased, did I still have intense nightmares, sometimes waking the whole household? Surely there would have been concerns, so then why was it that she had never asked me?
Phil and I managed, depending on my shifts, to meet up at least a couple of times a week. The closeness between us was still there but when we were together, I could see that he, like me, was drinking too much. When he was still taking his course, I did point out that it was important that he was fresh and bright each morning. Not that I was a good example.
‘Helps us sleep, Ryan, doesn’t it?’ he said more than once.
I was relieved for his sake that once he moved in with Trevor, a friend he had made at work, he cut down on his drinking. Perhaps he had moved out because he wanted to work on controlling his habit – he certainly managed that well before I did.
He was happy in his work, made new friends there and I expect it was mixing with them that also helped him cut back on his drinking, for none of them were serious drinkers. They accepted him and his limitations, but his speech was difficult to follow at the best of times so a slurring Phil would have lost friends and he so wanted to fit in.
He was over the moon when he finished his course and was offered the full-time job he had been promised. We went out together to celebrate, as we had when I picked up my first pay packet.
Although I had no idea what I wanted from a career, I had no intention of spending my days at the Jobcentre or sitting around at home watching daytime TV, and while I feigned disinterest, I had been getting worried that might just happen. When I got the job at the Little Chef, I was pretty relieved. It was not difficult work they had told me, wouldn’t take more than a day or two to learn everything I needed to know; in fact, it had only taken me a few hours. The money wasn’t bad either as we were paid extra for night shifts and almost double when we worked on a bank holiday. I also got on well with the people there for they were a pretty cheerful bunch and the customers were friendly as well. They just wanted a quick break with a coffee and something to eat, and then get on their way, so there were few complaints.
What no one had told me, though I should have been able to work it out for myself, was that frying bacon and eggs in the morning and hamburgers the rest of the day could not remain interesting for long. Occasionally a customer ordered something different, such as a salad, then we had to pull out an assortment of leaves from a plastic bag and get out some tuna from a tin, or a pre-cooked chicken breast. But it was OK. I had money for what I wanted the most – cigarettes and nights out in the pub – and I got on well with all my workmates. It was just that I was beginning to get an urge to do something a bit more creative. Like, actually cook something from scratch that was not just a boiled, fried or scrambled egg. This seed of ambition was taking shape and I brought it up when Kate and I were perched on a couple of bar stools, later that evening. She had chosen a small pub that she said the police never showed any interest in.
Hair gelled, a new leather jacket with its collar turned up, hands in pockets, I looked pretty cool. Or so I kept telling myself as, glancing in shop windows, I admired my reflection as I made my way to what was my first proper date. While I was quaffing down my beer and Kate was delicately sipping white wine, I brought up in conversation that I was becoming frustrated with my job. I was expecting her to joke a little or tell me I should have stayed at school longer if I wanted a more challenging career. Instead, she gave my arm a squeeze.
‘Doesn’t surprise me that you’d like to do more,’ was her response. ‘Look, maybe you’re really cut out to be a chef – a proper one in a full-on restaurant, I mean. Have you thought of that?’
‘Well, no,’ I said but suddenly the idea really appealed to me. ‘Wouldn’t I need to go to college?’
‘Not necessarily, there are places that will take on people and train them as they go along. Mind you, they spend a lot of their time in the kitchen, peeling potatoes and chopping vegetables into tiny little squares. Tell you what, why not hang on where you are for a bit so you get a good reference? That’s the most important thing when you start having a look around.’
I tucked this suggestion away in my head. It sounded promising and I was going to have a real think about it later. But looking at Kate, dressed in her snug-fitting trousers and an off-the-shoulder top, I had other things on my mind just then. It felt so natural to be sitting with her and chatting away. Apart from thinking she was attractive, I really liked her. Hard to believe that I’d only known her for a matter of hours and already felt so relaxed in her company. She too appeared to feel the same, but wouldn’t that all change if she knew everything about me?
Better keep that very quiet, I decided. Which I might have succeeded in doing if we hadn’t gone back to her place and watched that film. It was after a couple more drinks and a conversation about films we liked that the suggestion came up. We had both agreed that love stories were not for us, but good mystery ones were.
‘There’s one on tonight that sounds great. You know what, why don’t we get some fish and chips to take back and drop into the off licence round the corner from me and get a few beers? Then in case it’s too scary, we can always snuggle up together, can’t we?’
I wasn’t sure exactly what she had in mind, snogging perhaps or maybe even a bit more. The thought of a bit more made my skin tingle and I felt my face flushing.
That was until she dropped a bombshell.
‘Hope you like kids,’ she said. ‘Got to get back and let my little girl’s sitter go.’
Those pictures in my head of just what we might get up to were blown straight out. I managed to ask her a couple of questions, like how old her daughter was and her name. It turned out Suzy was three. And before I could ask, no, there was no husband, never had been, just a boyfriend who had disappeared.
‘I was in my last year at school,’ she explained, ‘so like you, I didn’t exactly stay on to do all my exams. But I’ve done a few evening courses. You could also do that, Ryan, study part-time? Sorry, I should have told you about Suzy,’ she said when I went a bit silent.
I could hardly comment, could I? Having a 3-year-old was nothing compared to what I was covering up.
‘Oh, don’t worry, she’ll be asleep when we get back. Well, she’d better be,’ she added.
‘So, where was she the other night?’
‘At Mum’s. I can’t afford to send her to nursery school and I’ve got a part-time job. Do some admin and secretarial work for a small recruitment firm, sort out their accounts and stuff like that. When we met, I was out with the sales team having a quick drink after a good month. Mum always has her on the days I work.’
Oh God, I thought, imagine if she knew about me. She might think I was the wrong person to be around children, mightn’t she?
It was Clive who shouldn’t be around children, not you, my inner voice told me. Nothing like an inner argument to make me feel nervous.
‘So, what’s the matter? You look a bit glum,’ she said, perhaps thinking I was put off after learning about her daughter. Hoping to salvage the moment, I quickly wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
‘Nothing, just thinking of having to work early tomorrow,’ I said, drowning the last of my pint. ‘So, let’s go and get those fish and chips, shall we?’
Part Three
Survival
43
Ryan
It was the film that did it, or rather it was the ending that just about finished me. As soon as the babysitter had left and Kate had checked on her daughter, we propped ourselves up on her floor cushions, opened a couple of beers and tucked into our fish supper. On went the TV and as the ads finished, the film title flashed up.
The opening was attention-grabbing, alright. The main character, a senior policewoman, who, with thick blonde hair, a well-fitted uniform and feet tucked into high heels was a lot more glamorous than the one we’d seen on the drugs raid, was looking at a trio of dead bodies. It was clear that the man standing near them was a pathologist and they were in the morgue. The film then moved to where the police officer called her team in. She announced that there was a connection between the murders of those three young women and explained that they were now on a search for a serial killer, one who enjoys strangling young women and one who would do it again unless he was caught.
The first two women were prostitutes, but then, as the film showed a little later, protection for girls on the streets only seems to come from rather nasty pimps. Which appeared to be the reason the police hadn’t considered it being the same man. Even worse, they hadn’t thought that other young women could be at risk. Whereas the first two murders hadn’t woken the press up too much, the third one, of a nice middle-class student, would.
Not only that, the inspector informed her team, her father was a well-known businessman in the area and his daughter was his only child. So, she told her team, the pressure was on and the killer had to be found before there was another body in the morgue. The police investigation questioned all known sex offenders and the film showed interviews with girls working on the streets. None of them had seen anyone acting suspiciously although someone had seen one of the girls getting into a car. Not unusual, but she remembered it and was able to describe both the vehicle and the man inside it. The police kept pinning their hopes on one suspect after the other only to have their hopes dashed.
It was not far from the end when armed police rammed a door down and brought in the most unlikely suspect the police had questioned earlier. He had never been caught kerb crawling, never been caught committing a crime, not even a speeding ticket. He was also highly thought of in the firm of accountants he worked for. Amazing how the police had worked out that he was the one! Even more amazing was how once, when interviewed by the police, with his solicitor by his side, he admitted everything.
Oh, not in a cowardly way, more in a cold, detached one. He even told the police where there were more bodies.
It was those few minutes before the credits came up that cut through my relaxed mood. In the court case, it turned out that the man might have been a killer, but he was also a victim. He’d been in one of those children’s homes, where he had been abused from the day he was placed there. His lawyer argued that it was the abuse that had turned the poor little boy he had once been into a murdering psychopath.
‘Great film, wasn’t it?’ said Kate when the credits rolled.
Maybe if I hadn’t been slightly stoned I might have held it together. Right up until the last few minutes of the film, nothing had disturbed my feeling of dope-induced calmness. I told myself that the pictures of the crime scenes were not real and the bodies in the morgue were actors playing dead bodies. But the words of the lawyer in the summing-up at the trial cut through my haze of contentment, leaving me shaking. I could hear Kate asking what was the matter, felt her hand on the back of my head, but all I could hear were the words ‘repeated systematic abuse’.
‘What was it about the film that upset you so much? Come on, Ryan, you can tell me.’
‘You won’t want to see me again if I do. Especially when you have a kid.’
‘Why? Are you a serial killer too?’ she asked, prodding me in the side as she tried to make me laugh along with her. ‘Come on, just tell me.’
I could hardly find the words to say how I felt about an actor telling the film’s audience that today’s victims are tomorrow’s monsters. It might have been said in a film, but what about all the people watching it? Weren’t they going to believe that it goes without saying, if you are abused then you become a danger to others?
I could almost hear Kate’s mind ticking away.
‘I think we’d better have another drink,’ she said and getting up, she went to the kitchen and came back with two cold bottles of beer.
‘So, who was it, Ryan?’ she asked in a matter-of-fact way.
I might not have uttered a word, but my silence had spoken for me.
44
Ryan
It was as though a dam of pent-up pain had burst, releasing a torrent of words that I just couldn’t put a halt to, even if I had wanted. Kate held my hand and encouraged me to stop and take a deep breath every few minutes – ‘Slow down a little, Ryan. Come on now, just stop and take a few deep breaths, it will calm you and help you get it all out.’
‘I’m sorry, Kate,’ I kept saying.
After all, this was hardly turning into the romantic evening she must have envisaged.
‘Don’t worry about me, you need to get it all out,’ she told me soothingly as her fingers entwined with mine.
When finally, I had little left inside me to say, it was as if the flood of words had taken all my strength. Completely drained, I could feel the dampness on my cheeks and Kate’s fingers brushing my tears away with great gentleness.
‘Just relax here for a moment,’ she told me as she went into the kitchen. When less than a minute later she came back in, instead of the ice-cold beer I was expecting, she handed me a warm mug.
‘It’s a herbal tea,’ she told me when she saw me staring at it. ‘It’s made from chamomile leaves; it will help you relax. Drink that and I’ll roll us a joint. A little dope will help as well but best we leave the beers alone for now.’
She made sure I was drinking the tea before she asked me the question that must have been running through her mind while she boiled the kettle.
‘Am I really the only person you’ve told about this?’
‘Yes, I tried to tell Mum when I was little, but she didn’t seem to hear me.’
‘Maybe you were too young to explain what was happening then?’
‘Maybe. Anyway, I know now he was grooming us, so apart from touching us a lot, there wasn’t that much happening then. Nothing compared to what happened to us later.’
‘You mean you and your twin have kept this inside you for all these years? You didn’t even talk to your other brothers?’
‘No.’
‘Was that because your uncle made threats and also worked on making you both feel a deep sense of shame?’
‘Yes, Kate, it was.’
She wrapped her arms around me then and I felt something I had not felt for a very long time – comforted.
‘Ryan, you’ve got to start believing that you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You were just an innocent little kid. I know it was that bit in the film at the end that really upset you, but it was all fiction, not fact. Just forget that part of it where they said the villain of the piece had been molested as a child. Like that’s a good excuse for going around killing people? Have a look at the real killers who have hit the headlines. Do you remember reading that any one of them had been abused? And you more than most would have picked it up if that had been on the news.’
‘Well, no.’
‘Thought so.’
‘Look at those two bastards, the Moors Murderers. Can’t get much more evil than that! So, what was their defence?’
‘Don’t think they had one.’
‘Exactly.’
‘And what about the Yorkshire Ripper? Thirteen women killed and if he hadn’t been caught, there would have been more. And his defence? Apart from him being nuts, that is, was that his mother had once been unfaithful to his father! I mean, come on, who’s going to believe that one? You know what, though? I’m going to write to that director. Tell them they shouldn’t put stuff like that in their films. Don’t they ever think of the harm that can cause? Pisses me off, it really does. Anyhow, you’ve got to get rid of these dark thoughts, Ryan,’ she told me as she rolled a joint for us to share.
