“The police can be economical with the information they share when it suits them,” Emma says. “That’s why I wrote the article.”
She knows she’s just put a stiletto in Jim’s back, but she feels she exercised a bit of restraint. She could have pushed it in much harder.
“What did the witness say?” Fiona asks.
“She said that there might have been foul play, with the emphasis on might. But where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“Oh my god,” Fiona says. “Noah was so vulnerable.”
Emma can’t help flicking her eyes across to her phone, and is reassured by the sight of the timer counting the seconds as it records. She senses that Fiona’s restraint might be about to crack, and she doesn’t want to miss a word of it, but neither does she want to remind Fiona that she’s recording their conversation by picking up the device to check it.
“He was so desperate for a friend,” Fiona says. “He clung to that boy.”
“What’s the name of his friend?” Emma asks.
She makes good use of her police training to make sure her manner is appropriate and nonthreatening. She softens her voice, is sure not to interrupt.
“Abdi Mahad. He’s a Somali boy. At school on a scholarship.”
“Which school?”
“Medes College.”
Emma’s pulse quickens again, though she’s careful not to show it. She hadn’t got around to finding out where the boys were studying, and that’s one of Bristol’s top private schools. This has all the elements of a big story, and if they can get hold of some more photographs . . .
Fiona Sadler feels as if she’s been released from all of the social niceties that bound her to speak carefully about Noah, and brought her here to hold this journalist to account.
The dam has burst, the shackles are off, the filters removed. It’s been just thirty-six hours since her son died, her mind is addled with grief, and the fact that she’s been lied to by the police feels like a low blow. She no longer cares about being reasonable or fair—as Ed would encourage her to be—because she’s not as confident as him, and never has been. She doesn’t share his certainties and his assumptions that people are good. She doesn’t admit this to him, and it makes her feel inadequate, but now she’s ready to say what she thinks, because in a world where her son gets cancer, and the disease eats away at him relentlessly, and the police are lying to her for political reasons, what place is there for reasonable?
She puts her mug down and talks and talks, and when she next picks it up the drink is cold and a skin has formed on top of it. She realizes she’s shivering and the journalist is looking at her with concern.
Fiona looks properly at Emma Zhang for the first time. She doesn’t look Chinese, she thinks. Or maybe a bit around the eyes. She must have a white mother.
Fiona doesn’t have a problem with Chinese immigrants. She feels they’ve generally been in the UK long enough to have integrated. They’re part of the furniture now. It’s the new arrivals that make her feel uncomfortable, and she puts Abdi Mahad and his family in that category.
“I’m not racist,” she says to Emma. “It’s just that you can’t deny that these people have had experiences that make them different. My husband’s work reveals that time and time again. They’re traumatized, and do we want people with PTSD roaming through our society?”
Even though Emma has her own strong suspicions about Abdi Mahad and his motives, she recoils internally at this comment and has to muster her professionalism. Only her desire to tell this story stops her from lecturing Fiona Sadler on how anybody suffering from PTSD must have lived through hell and deserves support, whoever they are. She thinks of her own father’s military experiences, how damaged they left him.
She wonders if a change of subject might be in order, so she doesn’t let her feelings show, and risk alienating this woman.
“Two things,” she says. “Firstly, there may be an opportunity to go on local TV news and tell Noah’s story. I’m talking with them about a slot at the moment, so I’ll keep you posted. It would be wonderful if we could go on together. Secondly, what I’m thinking is that this story would be so much more powerful if we could publish it with a series of photographs that show Noah growing up, and if you have one of the boys together, that could be our headline photograph. We can blank out faces.”
“I can look through our pictures,” Fiona replies.
“Your husband said he’d done a series,” Emma tells her. “When he provided the hospital photograph, he told me it was the latest in a series of shots. Perhaps we could use those? Only if you’re comfortable with that, of course?”
Fiona stands up slowly. The blanket that was on her knees falls to the floor. She watches a red car cross the suspension bridge, shrunk to the size of a toy.
It makes her think of a bead of blood, bright red on her son’s white skin. The product of the first needle they stuck in him. The first blood test.
She feels as if she’s been talking to the journalist in a dream and now reality has bitten its way back in.
“Ed gave you that photo?” she asks.
“I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t know.”
She walks away, her footsteps increasing in pace. She pushes her way through the door that leads into the hotel, crosses the lobby, and continues out onto the street. She ignores the calls of Emma Zhang behind her and the tug of the journalist’s hand on her sleeve.
When she arrives home, she finds Ed in the kitchen.
“How could you?” She slaps his face as hard as she can.
What about a reconstruction?” I suggest to Fraser. “Of the route the boys took through town. It might jog memories.”
We’ve learned a lot today, but I want to focus on the events of Monday night and try to work out what the boys did minute by minute as they went through town. I’m still struggling to connect all the dots. A reconstruction could throw up something new.
She sits down at her desk and pulls off a pair of heels. “God help women, Jim,” she says, massaging a bunion through her tights. “We suffer for our beauty.”
Keeping a straight face is one of the biggest tests I’ve faced today. Sometimes I love this woman, no matter how much of a short leash she has me on.
I look down at my hands while she pulls on a pair of battered trainers and sighs with relief. When her feet are tucked out of sight behind her desk, it’s straight back to business.
“If we stage a reconstruction it’ll attract attention to Noah Sadler and people will ask questions about him. If he was still alive, maybe I’d do it, but I’d like to see what we can discover without it for now. Footfall, Jim. Get back out there yourself if you need to, revisit every detail until something clicks. But top tip from me: Don’t do it in high heels!”
I allow myself to laugh this time.