69236538256563

RACHEL
Laura and Nicky wouldn’t let me go online. They said I shouldn’t read the stuff people were saying,
that it would upset me. They were united in this. I was still in denial, still sure that people wouldn’t
actually, really accuse me. Even then, in those first hours after the press conference, I was naïve
enough to retain a delicate mesh of middle-class confidence around me. I’m a good citizen, I thought.
People will know that. I used to be married to a doctor.
I should have had more sense though, because outside the house the journalists were gathering in
greater numbers than before, drawn there since the press conference.
Inside, we’d had to take the phone off the hook, and seal the letter flap with masking tape. I stayed
in the back of the house, as far away from them as possible.
Nicky went out for supplies and bustled back into the house within minutes, holding bags from the
local corner shop. ‘I couldn’t get any further,’ she said. ‘They followed me. And they’ve dropped
rubbish everywhere.’
She found a black bin liner under my sink and took it back out to the front of the house, where, in
tones strident enough for me to hear, she ordered the journalists to clear up what they’d dropped in the
street and in my postage-stamp sized front garden.
Back inside, still bristling, she started to unpack a selection of canned food. ‘They’re lovely in the
shop,’ she said, ‘aren’t they? They locked the door so I could shop without the journalists and then
they gave me this to give to you.’
It was an envelope. On the front was handwritten ‘To Benedict and his Mother’.
‘They said they can order in anything you want,’ Nicky went on, shoving the cans into cupboards.
‘Or if we can’t get to the supermarket they said they can get stuff for us that we can pick up, which
might be nice because we can’t live off this.’ She held up a loaf of white sliced bread.
I opened the envelope. Inside was a small card. An elegant pair of hands was drawn on the front,
with tapered fingers and palms together, in prayer. Beaded bracelets hung around the wrists.
‘What religion are they?’ Nicky asked, looking over my shoulder.
‘Hindu,’ I said. ‘I think.’
Inside the card was a handwritten message, in careful, formal lettering. ‘We have shed tears for you
and we wish you and Benedict every strength and we pray that he will be home soon. Ravi and Aasha
and family.’
‘I barely even know them,’ I said. I thought of my frequent visits to the shop, the small talk with the
owners, a lovely couple, but strangers really, and I felt deeply moved by the card.
‘You’ve had other messages,’ Nicky said. ‘I just wasn’t sure you were up to them.’
‘Show me.’
Nicky had commandeered my mobile phone, in order to field calls and messages from friends, and
other families that we knew well and not so well.
They were mostly texts from people I knew, an outpouring of reaction to the story appearing on the
news. The texts ranged from the predictable:
Devastated to hear about Ben please let us know if there’s anything we can do. Clarke Family xxx
Can’t imagine what you’re going through. We’re thinking of you and Ben. Sacha x