I kept my mouth firmly closed as I opened Aiden’s door and took his hand. At least there didn’t seem to be a photographer there yet.
“What’s happened to him? Where did he go?”
“I think you should leave. This is private property.” I fumbled in my handbag for my keys, almost spilling the contents onto the ground.
Before I could get the key in the lock, the door was snatched open and Jake ushered us both into the house. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held him tight.
“Thank you.”
“I’ve got you,” he murmured into my hair. His voice always carried a hint of the south in his huskier moments. “I’ve got you now.”
He led me through to the kitchen and sat me down.
“Aiden, why don’t you pour your mum a glass of water.” Jake moved his head in the direction of the correct cupboard.
I noticed that even the kitchen curtains were closed, which we never usually bothered to do. The kitchen faced a private back garden almost completely secluded by a line of tall fir trees. Aiden moved quietly around the room, picking a glass out of the cupboard and pouring tap water into it. He placed it carefully on the table in front of me.
“Good lad. Now, why don’t you go upstairs for a little bit? I left you some books on your bedside table so you can read.” Jake smiled at Aiden as he gave him instructions. He was in teacher mode and something in Aiden was responding to it. Aiden followed his directions almost robotically. I watched him with interest as he stepped out of the room.
“What is it?” Jake asked.
“It’s probably nothing.”
Jake tilted his head to one side and gave me a questioning look.
“It’s just the way Aiden responds to your direction. There’s something weird about it.”
Jake let out a small laugh. “What are you talking about? He does the same for you.”
“No, it’s not the same. There’s something… different about the way he acts around you.” I shrugged and sipped my water. “Maybe it’s nothing. I’m being silly.”
“You’re not. You’re being a mother.” Jake stepped around the table and rubbed the small of my back. “Maybe it’s hard for you to see a man around Aiden after what’s happened to him. You’re just going into protective mode.”
But I wasn’t sure that was true. I never noticed a change in Aiden’s behaviour when he was around Rob.
“How’s Bump today?”
I pulled myself out of my thoughts to answer. “She’s fine.”
“You look tired out, Emma Hewitt. On the sofa with you. I think a foot rub is in order.”
“That does sound good. What about Aiden?”
“He needs some space, Em. Let him be.” Jake took my hand and led me through the kitchen into the living room. It didn’t even occur to me until long much later that he’d called me Em for the very first time.
*
We became our own little world in the days that followed. We turned off the television, we ignored the newspapers. We put our phones on silent. Only Jake was brave enough to leave the house, fetching us food from the suggestions Dr Schaffer gave me. But I added comfort food: chocolate, ice cream, white bread… I couldn’t help myself We shut the curtains and unplugged the landline from the wall. Our family liaison officers would come for meetings and ask us questions that didn’t seem relevant. Questions about our daily routine. After the questions stopped they tended to hover awkwardly around us during the daytime. For the most part they were useless, seeing as the police hadn’t found anything.
The only people I had telephone conversations with were Rob and a far too cheerful woman from a PR company who offered to help us write a statement to the press. I decided that the generic ‘please respect our privacy at this difficult time’ would be enough. And when it came to offers of appearing on television, I decided silence was the best option. I couldn’t stand the thought of an interview appearing on YouTube after doing its rounds on the news, free to be judged by the hordes of people following Aiden’s case. Instead, after speaking to DCI Stevenson, it was agreed that he would issue a statement appealing to any witnesses from the night Aiden was found wandering along the back road.
“We’re extending the search,” he said. “We’ve started looking into houses in the area with large basements as well as anyone who might have put in planning applications for unusual builds a decade ago. It’s going to take some time.”
This was the countryside. There were plenty of wealthy families with extensions, outbuildings, and cellars.
“How is Aiden?” he asked. There was an edge in his voice. We both knew it was there, but neither of us acknowledged it.