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‘If you are the person who is with Ben then please make contact. You don’t need to ring the police
directly, you can talk to a solicitor, or someone you trust, and they will help you get him home safely.
This is an unusual situation for all of us…⁠’
I dried up again. I’d reached the bit of the speech I hated. Clemo’s words ran round in my head:
‘Remember we want to humanise the situation,’ he’d said, ‘that’s why we’re offering the abductor a
chance for forgiveness, so that they aren’t afraid to get in contact.’
I tried to gather myself. Clemo whispered something in my ear, but I couldn’t hear what he said,
because it was then that I heard John sob. He was hunched over the table, his head in his hands, his
face red and distorted. He began to cry noisily, his shoulders heaving, his grief physical and terrible.
I gave up trying to read. I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t say the words on the script and, most
powerfully of all, I couldn’t fight the idea that had crept into my head with a certainty and clarity that
almost took my breath away.
I carefully folded up the script, placed it in front of me.
You see, the thought that I had was this: that Ben and his abductor were watching. They were
watching John break down and watching me speak words that weren’t mine: submissive, tame words.
I was sure of it, and I couldn’t stand it any longer.
I stood up, and all the camera lenses in the room rose too, trained on my face. I moved my gaze
along them and, in my mind, through each one I met the eye of Ben’s abductor.
‘Give him back,’ I said. ‘Give. Him. Back. Or I will hunt you down myself. I will find you, if it
takes me my whole life. I will find you and I will make you pay.’
Then, as Clemo was saying ‘Ms Jenner!’ and standing beside me, not knowing how to stop me, I
spoke to my son. I looked deep down those lenses, willing Ben to hear my words, and I said: ‘I love
you, Ben. If you are watching, I love you and I’m going to find you. Love, I’m coming to get you. I
promise.’
I smiled at him. I was entranced by the fact that I might have just managed the first communication
with my son since he disappeared, imagining him hearing my words in a strange place somewhere
and feeling less alone, less confused, perhaps even feeling hope.
The reporters began to call to me then, but I felt triumphant. If Ben was watching then I had just
made contact with him. He hadn’t witnessed his parents simply looking broken, his mother speaking
in words that weren’t hers. Instead I’d told him that I was going to find him. Now I felt euphoric, as if
I’d done something that was really and truly right and honest, something pure, even, amidst the horror
of it all, and in my naivety I felt sure that that rightness and honesty should have some power to lead
us to Ben.
I glanced at DI Clemo, wanting a show of support from him, but he looked as though he’d just been
slapped, hard, across his hollowed-out cheeks. The cameras were still all trained on me, and the
journalists were scribbling in their pads or typing, with fingers flying. The flashguns fired like strobe
lights. The noise levels were rising.
DI Clemo, on his feet beside me, begged for calm. He put his hand on my arm and guided me firmly
back down into my seat. Patches of sweat had appeared under his armpits, staining his shirt.
‘I’m sorry that Ms Jenner hasn’t been able to finish reading the statement,’ he said. ‘As you can
understand, this is a very distressing time for her. I’ll read the rest of it myself, if you’ll bear with
me.’
Frustration crackled in his voice. DCI Fraser stood up and whispered something to him. DI Clemo
looked down at the script before continuing, and when he spoke again he sounded calmer, though still
tense and tightly controlled. Sitting beside him, I still felt powerful, pleased that I’d said my piece.