Playing Nice

WE BOTH GO TO pick him up from the Lamberts’. When Jill opens the front door he’s standing next to her, ready in his coat and shoes, his overnight bag beside him.

“Ouff!” he says when Pete sweeps him into a bear hug, lifting him off the ground and swinging him around and around. “Stop doing that!”

He has no idea, of course. No idea why we’re both laughing and crying and squeezing him like crazy people.

“Come on, Theo,” I say at last, disentangling myself. “I feel an ice cream about to happen.”

We walk down the steps. At the bottom Theo looks back, then waves. “Bye Moles! See you tomorrow!”

We look around. Miles is standing at the open door, watching us. There’s no expression on his face, none at all. “We’ll talk about that in the car, Theo,” I say firmly, taking his hand.

Pete says suddenly, “I’m going to say something. After all, we’ve got to give them access. Like the judge said, we should try to put things back on a friendly footing.”

“Pete, don’t,” I say, but he’s already gone.

Seeing him approach, Miles comes forward. Pete puts out his hand and speaks—I’m too far away to catch all the words, but I think it’s, “You’ve got David and we’ve got Theo. It’s an honorable draw, yes? So let’s put this behind us. For their sake.” I see Miles take Pete’s hand and lean in close, that odd way he has of speaking to someone’s ear rather than their face. He keeps a tight hold of Pete’s hand and I can tell he’s crushing it, squeezing it with all his force. But I’m pretty sure it’s what he’s saying, not the pressure of his hand, that’s causing Pete’s face to turn white.

“What did he say?” I ask when Pete returns. He doesn’t meet my gaze.

“He said congratulations.” Pete gives a quick, tight smile. “He said the best man and woman won.”

101

Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 53: Email from Harvey Taylor to Peter Riley, retrieved from Peter Riley’s iPhone.

Dear Pete,

Thank you for your email, and the link to the sad news about Judge Wakefield. As it happens, my bike is off the road for repairs, but I will in any case take note of your advice.

Many congratulations on winning your case. If I can be of any help in the future, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Kind regards, Harvey Taylor DForenPsy, MBPsS

Registered Psychologist https://www.lawgazette.com/?obituary/?tributes-pour-in-for-family-judge-Marion-Wakefield

102

PETE

AS THE DAYS AND weeks went by with no word from Miles, we slowly allowed ourselves to relax. Which isn’t to say we weren’t vigilant. I didn’t use my bike, for one thing. Cycling in London was dangerous enough already, without worrying that someone might drive up behind me and nudge my back wheel with their bumper.

Theo was still on the waiting list for the other nursery, but we managed to get him a temporary place with a childminder a few streets away. It wasn’t a long-term solution—the childminder, Rosie, couldn’t give him any one-to-one help for his CU—but at least it was away from the Lamberts.

But somehow it all felt like the lull before the storm. What Miles had said to me when we’d collected Theo after the hearing—the things he’d hissed into my ear about Maddie—had been childish and pathetic, but it also suggested he wasn’t going to accept the court’s judgment and move on. Not that I believed a word of what he’d said, of course. I remembered how, the very first time he’d come to our house, he’d let me think Theo was the result of an affair between him and Maddie. That had been entirely deliberate, I later realized—his first attempt at playing with me, seeing how I’d react. It had been Don Maguire who’d coughed and explained what had really happened. Miles just couldn’t resist seeing what made people squirm.

Once, I thought I saw him in his car as I was taking Theo to Rosie’s. Since her house was quite close, Theo was on his scooter—although I always made sure he stopped and waited for me before crossing any roads. On this occasion he’d gotten a little bit ahead, but he was safely on the pavement and there were no cars around, so I wasn’t too worried. An old lady was pushing a shopping basket on wheels, very slowly. Without stopping, Theo veered around her, wobbling off the pavement and onto the road. Just at that moment, a black BMW four-wheel-drive pulled out from a parking space and sped up the street toward us. “Theo!” I screamed. “Get back on the pavement!” Theo stopped dead, and instead of doing as I told him, looked over his shoulder, perplexed by the terror in my voice. He was wearing his helmet, but against the bulk of the BMW it would be useless. Then the BMW accelerated past us, and as the driver adjusted her mirror I saw it was a dark-haired woman wearing sunglasses, just another entitled north London mother driving her SUV too fast after dropping off her kids, in a hurry to get to the gym.

My heart pounding, I caught up with Theo. “Don’t ever go off the pavement again,” I snapped. “Or I’m confiscating your scooter.”

Theo only sagged his shoulders comically, as if to say I was overreacting. Which, from his perspective, of course I was.

I’d read how some parents react to traumatic events by catastrophizing—becoming hyper-fearful and protective, seeing imaginary disasters around every corner. Over time, their children soak up those fears, becoming insecure and timid. I couldn’t do that to Theo, whose sunny confidence was one of his most endearing characteristics. I mustn’t.

I resolved that, whatever terrors still lurked in my own mind, I wasn’t going to let Theo be aware of them. We were going to live a normal life.

103

PETE

SO WHEN I LOST him in Sainsbury’s, at first I tried not to overreact.

We got most of the big shopping delivered, but once a week Theo and I sat down, planned our meals for the next seven days, then went to the supermarket to buy what we’d need. He loved it, as did I. It was free entertainment that got him out of the house and taught him the rudiments of healthy eating at the same time. I even tried to build in some educational games, such as seeing how quickly he could find, say, a tin of baked beans and bring it back to the trolley, even though I’d probably have to go and swap the tin he’d just grabbed with the correct reduced-sugar-and-salt version while he was doing his next errand.

“Thanks, Theo,” I said as he proudly handed me a carton of milk. “Next is melon. We need one of the small yellow ones, okay?”

He nodded and sped off. I used the breathing space to load some frozen stuff into the trolley. Fish fingers, made with pollack not cod. Peas, no added sugar. Prawns, sustainably sourced. Or were they? That’s what it said in big letters on the front of the packet, but that could mean anything. When I checked on the back, there was no MSC certification.

I suddenly realized I’d been able to read the whole of the back of a packet of prawns undisturbed. Theo never took that long finding something. I looked over at the fruit section, concerned but not alarmed. Perhaps he’d gotten distracted. Or started talking to one of the staff.

The store was a sensibly sized one, not one of those vast behemoths that stock everything from saucepans to tracksuits. The fruit section was literally seconds away, in full view of where I was standing with the trolley.

And Theo wasn’t there.

I stared at the space where he should be, uncomprehending. That time I’d lost him before on a shopping trip flashed into my mind—the horror of not knowing where your child is, even for a minute.

Beyond the fruit section were the doors to the car park. Automatic doors, that might temptingly open and close if you played grandmother’s footsteps with them. But if Theo was doing that, I’d see him.

Wouldn’t I? I had a sudden vision of him dropping a melon onto the floor. The melon rolling toward the door. Theo following it…

And then what? Going into the car park? Why on earth would he do that? But cars drove around the car park stupidly fast sometimes, and a little boy focusing on a rolling melon might not see one coming—

Stay calm, I told myself. He’d probably just decided to come back to the trolley the long way around, past the checkouts, hoping to grab something interesting from the shelves on the way. It was still less than twenty seconds since I’d realized he was missing, and no more than a minute since I’d last seen him. But I could feel the panic starting to build in my chest. I pushed the trolley rapidly along the row of checkouts, peering down each aisle. Not there, either. But could he now be behind me, given that I’d moved the trolley from where he was expecting it to be? I turned and headed back the other way. Someone blocked me in as they stopped to reach for a packet of cereal. Cursing, I abandoned my trolley so I could move more quickly.

“Theo!” I called at the top of my lungs, all British reserve abandoned. “Theo!”