Little Boy Blue - страница 15

Mike sniffed loudly, while his wife fiddled with the buttons on her cardigan.

‘It wasn’t a club he visited regularly, just somewhere he used now and then.’

‘I bet he did.’

Now it was Helen’s turn to be silent. Four words – four simple words – but they were said with such bitterness that for a moment Helen was speechless. She had encountered many emotions in the relatives’ room – despair, denial, fury – but she had seldom seen such distaste. She felt anger flare in her but, aware that the eyes of the Family Liaison Officer were on her, swallowed it down.

‘Can I ask you what you mean by that, Mike?’ she said.

‘I’m sure by now you know what my son was’ was the curt reply.

‘Obviously we’re aware that Jake worked as a professional dominator. That’s one of our main lines of enquiry, to see if he might have been attacked by someone he knew through his work.’

‘His work,’ Mike repeated, shaking his head ruefully, before casting a sardonic smile at his wife.

‘Can you tell me how much you knew about Jake’s professional life?’ Helen continued.

‘Too bloody much, but nothing that would help you.’

Helen was beginning to see why Jake had never got on with his parents, but resumed her questioning as patiently as she could.

‘His life in Southampton, then? Did you ever visit his flat? Meet up with him?’

‘This is our first visit to Southampton.’

Finally, Moira had spoken.

‘He moved away from Somerset when he was a young man. He threatened to come back and visit us, but… but he never made it.’

Was the use of the word ‘threatened’ deliberate? Helen was so bewildered by this interview that she couldn’t tell.

‘And you weren’t tempted to visit him here?’

‘It’s a long way to come and we can’t leave the animals,’ Moira replied quickly, trotting out her excuse with practised ease.

‘I see.’

‘Do you?’ Mike Elder now said, suddenly turning to look directly at Helen. ‘I can tell from your tone what you’re thinking, but you’ve got no right to look down your nose at us.’

Helen stared back, refusing to break eye contact. He was right, however – Helen was allowing her feelings to affect her judgement and was behaving in a manner that was unprofessional and unkind.

‘I’ve nothing but sympathy for you and your wife, believe me,’ she said quickly.

‘That may be, but it doesn’t change things. You might feel our son’s “lifestyle” was acceptable, but we didn’t. I don’t blame the boy entirely – we should have been tougher on him when he was small,’ he resumed, his wife flinching slightly as that barb landed. ‘But he made his choices and had to live by them. He was never interested in my opinion, but, for the avoidance of doubt, I’ll give it to you anyway. I thought what he did… was perverted. For the life of me, I could never understand why he wanted to surround himself with degenerates and freaks – he could never explain it himself, just said it was “who he was”. He thought we should accept him, but why should we accept something like that? He chose his path, we chose ours and, believe you me, they never met.’

It was said with something approaching pride and for a moment Helen thought she might actually slap him. She had never heard someone damn their own flesh and blood in such blunt terms.

‘We haven’t seen him in nearly ten years and we’re not going to be much help now, so let’s just get this over with, shall we? I don’t want to be here any more than you do.’

He rose abruptly, clearly keen to get the formal identification of his son over and done with. Moira followed suit, hurrying after her departing husband.

As she left, she glanced briefly back at Helen. After her husband’s harsh words, Helen had expected to see some embarrassment there, perhaps even contrition. But not a bit of it.

The look Moira now gave Helen was one of pure scorn.

Her fist slammed into the metal, rebounding off it violently. Without hesitating, she raised her arm again, ploughing her clenched fist into the unyielding surface. This time her impact was true and the metal buckled under the assault. Wincing, Helen withdrew her hand and stepped back to survey the damage. To her shame, she saw that she had left a large dent on the unfortunate locker door – a complement to the bloody knuckles on her right hand.