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It led swiftly to the fourth state.
That was the erosion of my trust, where the droplets on my skin turned to acid and began to burn,
producing a feeling that was intense and painful, a pins and needles of the mind and the body, and it
was so creepy and unsettling that I couldn’t remain still any longer.
I got out of Ben’s bed and looked out of the window, and I saw Nicky below in my garden with the
dog, petting him, encouraging him to pee. They stood on the soggy, tatty lawn by the abandoned relic
of Ben’s football goal, the net broken from the frame in places, the grass in front of it worn from
where he’d played. I backed away from the window, not so that the press wouldn’t see me, but so that
my sister wouldn’t.
And as dusk fell again, wrapping itself around the edges of the day, I ran back through events, until
I thought about how I had started the day: the photographer in my garden, Nicky’s anger with him, her
outburst on the street, her loyalty.
And then I thought about the previous day, and how it had started with an internet search, and with a
laptop that belonged to Nicky, that needed a password, and how that password was the name of my
son.
And each intake of breath felt sharp in my lungs and my mind roved further and I thought of Nicky’s
discontent with her daughters, and what Clemo said about her wanting a son. And then I thought of her
words: ‘It was as if he was Charlie, reborn.’
I began to cry hot, silent tears, and they had sharp edges just like my breath did, and they ran down
my cheeks and soaked into Ben’s nunny which I held tightly to my face.
When I heard Nicky’s footsteps on the stairs I got into Ben’s bed, covered myself up, turned away
from the door and tried to breathe slowly so she would think I was asleep.
When she put her head around the door of the room and asked if I wanted any food I didn’t answer
her.
When she reappeared some minutes later with a tray of supper I still couldn’t look at her, couldn’t
speak to her.
‘I just wanted to protect you,’ she said.
She shut the door quietly behind her, respecting my privacy, and all I could feel was a throbbing. It
was the pulse of the time since Ben had been missing. And it felt as if it had begun to beat faster.