Ben (13 page)

In the shadows, Kos police station looked like a fort. It had battlements and turrets and an imposing doorway two storeys high. You expect knights on horses to come out on a drawbridge. Only the sound of the sea lapping in the harbour across the road reminded me where we were.

We went in at the less ostentatious reception entrance and the officers from earlier came in. I handed over the documents and waited while they were copied. Then there was silence. We waited for them to talk. They looked like they were waiting for us. For the first time, I realised they didn’t have a clue what to do next. I thought about the last two hours. We’d reported a missing child on an isolated roadside. What had they done? Sent two police officers. Two officers for a child who had been missing for
four hours in 110 degree heat. I know it’s years later, but when twelve-year-old Tia Sharpe was reported missing in London in 2012, there were eighty officers involved in looking for her from day one. Where was our backup? Where were the sniffer dogs? And where were the torches? It had been dusk when they left the station. Most of Kos is without streetlights. What were they thinking?

I was only nineteen, but I knew there was more that they could have been doing.

Finally Dad said, ‘What now?’

One of the policemen shrugged. It made it look like he didn’t care, but I knew that was a typical Greek mannerism. ‘We will check the ports.’

He explained that there was one ferry to Athens a day – or night – and there was still time to catch it.

His colleague nodded. ‘Yes, you meet us at half past two at the port. The ferry leaves at three. We will check the vehicles together for the baby.’

Dad agreed to join them and we left. But I was dazed. Why were they even thinking of the ports? Ben wouldn’t be there. He’d wandered off somewhere, he’d fallen. He was sleeping now and in the morning someone would hand him in. He wasn’t in a car. He wasn’t leaving the island. He was asleep, safe in a Good Samaritan’s house. I knew they existed. I’d met two at Athens airport.

We drove back to the farmhouse in silence, the cacophony of Kos’s nightlife growing fainter in the distance. As I stepped back out onto the now familiar gravel, the only sounds I could hear was a distant dog barking and occasional bursts of cicadas in the far-off forest trees.

I hated the police for suggesting that Ben might have been snatched. I was desperate to prove them wrong. I stared out into the darkness and imagined the people asleep in the houses further down the lane.

Ben must be there.

I decided to do what the police should already have done. With Stephen, I walked back down the lane to the row of nine or ten houses at the bottom. They weren’t visible from the farmhouse but if Ben wasn’t up there, he would have to have passed this way. Anyone seeing a toddler in the searing afternoon heat would naturally have taken him inside. The police said it was an invasion of privacy to disturb the locals. I didn’t see it that way. There was a child missing, for God’s sake. My child.

It was half-past one in the morning when I knocked on the first door. When there was no reply I knocked again. I didn’t care about the time. I didn’t care about anything except finding my boy. Finally a light went on and a middle-aged man emerged blinking behind the half-opened door.

Getting his attention was the easy part. Getting him to understand was harder – and it was nothing to do with him being still half-asleep.

I hadn’t prepared anything. I just said, ‘Have you seen a little boy?’

The guy did the shrug and hid further behind his door. He was looking at two teenagers dressed for midday, not midnight, and he didn’t understand a word we were saying.

I started to mime ‘toddler’ and pointed up the hill. Then I remembered the policemen called him a ‘baby’, so I said what I hoped was the Greek word I’d heard them say – ‘Meecro’ – and gestured to my
eyes. Looking back, it was a surreal nocturnal game of Charades but somehow it got through. The man repeated, ‘Micro?’

I nodded, eager to hear.

‘No
micro
.’

And he closed the door.

It was the same story for the whole row. Some of the residents understood a few words of English, but mainly we had to act out our message. Whether they followed or not, everyone closed their doors with a shake of the head. ‘No baby.’

Hands on hips, I stood outside the final villa and looked down towards the main road. Compared to the lane up to the farmhouse, it was as smooth as a billiard table but by England’s standards it was still little more than a narrow, winding country road. I’d only been along it in darkness but I couldn’t remember any houselights for a couple of miles. There wasn’t anything until you reached the village and Sissy’s shop. I imagined Ben picking his way past the roadside thistles and weeds and stopping to look at every lizard, every bug and every bird that crossed his path. I hadn’t heard more than two vehicles in the hours I’d been there. I wasn’t worried about an accident. Not like I would have been in Sheffield. In fact, traffic was my only hope of finding Ben. Any driver who’d passed him that afternoon would have stopped – the second you saw a toddler on his own on that uninviting stretch you’d investigate. You’d find out who he was with. And if it was no one, you’d take matters into your own hands. That’s the natural thing to do. I knew Greeks loved children. I knew I could trust them to have done the right thing.

Back at the farmhouse, Dad was just getting ready to leave for the port. I didn’t see the point, but he was determined. He
was going early in case the police started without him. Mum was sitting by the building, rocking and crying, as Dad pulled away. It broke my heart to hear her sobbing, ‘It’s my fault. It’s my fault.’ We all tried to comfort her but nothing was working. Only when Danny sat next to her did she calm down. Danny needed her. She would be strong for him.

I honestly don’t know what we did for the next three or four hours. We’d been over every inch of the farmland several times. Peter and Martin returned home with my blessing. They’d done so much, been so thoughtful. They left the torches and supplies and promised to check up on us the next day.

‘And don’t even think of coming into work. We’ll tell Manos.’

Work? I hadn’t given it a thought.

The passing of time in darkness is almost impossible to chart. Only when the first cockerels started crowing and the birds in the trees began their chorus did we have a clue that dawn was approaching. The sun was peeping over the horizon when we heard the familiar sound of the Land Rover rasping over the loose-chipped lane.

I knew Ben wouldn’t have been at the port. Even so, when Dad emerged alone from the car my heart sank. If possible, it sank even further when he revealed what had happened.

‘The police didn’t show up.’

Stephen kicked the Land Rover’s tyre. ‘But it was their idea!’

This time it was Dad’s turn to shrug. ‘I know. I was there at half-two. The ferry started loading at three. No one came.’

On his own, Dad didn’t have the authority to board the boat or ask anyone to open their boots or trailers. So he’d run around the queue of cars making their way to the mainland, staring in
at the windows, focusing on any kids in the back seats. It had been impossible. The light was against him. Even with a torch the glare off the glass stopped him seeing much, and parents weren’t happy with a desperate stranger beaming light in their kids’ faces. So after two miserable hours he’d come back, beaten and feeling betrayed by a police force that didn’t seem to care.

‘Let’s go home,’ he said. ‘We’ll start again tomorrow.’

I’ve let my family down enough times and they’ve always stood by me. That’s how it is with us. When one member is down, the others rally round. So, as distraught as we all were by Ben’s disappearance, watching Mum’s heartbreaking deterioration before our eyes couldn’t be ignored. She needed us as well. I couldn’t imagine – I still can’t – the guilt she felt.

Mum didn’t say a word on the way back to the caravan. We virtually had to walk her to bed. She wouldn’t eat, drink or talk. Her face was completely blank. It was like having a zombie in the room. I was worried.

No one felt like eating or sleeping but we’d been up almost twenty-four hours. Getting ill wouldn’t help Ben so I made toast and coffee for everyone. Dad downed about a dozen cups. It was killing him being so impotent. It wasn’t just my son who was missing. It was a grandson and a nephew.

No one could relax at the caravan. At seven o’clock, we all set off for the police station. If we were going to get answers from anywhere, it would be here.
Or so we thought.
On the way we dropped Danny off with Mum’s friend, Monica. She had a son, George, the same age. It was Monica who had given Ben the paddling pool and buckets and spades. We agreed Danny should be protected as much as possible.

At night, the police building had towered sinisterly over the small harbour where daytrips and the hydrofoil jetted to and fro. By day it was no less imposing. It was six storeys high in places, with a clock tower, crenellations and, just behind it, the famous Tree of Hippocrates – where the ‘father of medicine’ is said to have taught his pupils. Tourists with cameras were already wandering around there as we pulled up. The whole world, it seemed, was oblivious to our pain.

Including the police.

The grand two-storey entrance was reserved for the judges, public prosecutors and court personnel who shared the same building. We went in once again via the more understated door to the left. Dad spoke for us at the reception kiosk and was told, ‘Please wait.’ A few minutes later, a man in a nondescript, grey suit introduced himself as Christos Bafounis. ‘I’m chief of security police.’ He gestured towards a door. ‘Come.’

Bafounis had very curly black hair, almost afro-like. He was in his forties, average height, average weight, with very dark eyes. The overall impression as I traipsed behind him down a gloomy corridor was that he seemed very stern-looking. He certainly suited his surroundings. He led us through a door and suddenly we were back in daylight. Like all ancient castles, the police station had a large quadrangle at its centre, surrounded by four walls.

If the design was mediaeval, the morality behind its use was just as out of date. The whole ground floor looking out onto the square was jail cells. Some were empty, some were inhabited. It was intimidating walking past, seeing the prisoners watching us. I didn’t know what any of them had done, but it didn’t seem right that their cells were exposed to the elements. They didn’t have
glass or plastic screens; there were just metal bars, floor to ceiling, just like you’d see in a Wild West film or cartoon. Even with my mind full of my worries, I couldn’t help finding the scene barbaric, backwards even. I hoped the chief of security police would be more enlightened.

I was disappointed. Bafounis was of a generation and a culture where men spoke to men and women knew their place. Even when he stopped outside an office on the first floor, pointed and said, ‘In,’ it was addressed to Dad.

The room had a couple of desks, bookcases and wooden benches on one wall. Doors led through to other offices. There was an open-plan feel to the place. People wandered through all the time.

Bafounis pointed again. ‘Sit.’ We all took a place on the bench and waited for him to speak. He didn’t, at least not to us. He barked into a phone and a few long, silent minutes later an officer in uniform appeared. He was one of the ones who’d come out to the farmhouse, although he made no attempt to acknowledge us. Maybe he was intimidated by his boss. They spoke in Greek for what seemed like ages. Then the copper disappeared and Bafounis started on his paperwork. Not once did he look at us.

About ten minutes later, another uniformed officer came in. He spoke to Bafounis then offered us refreshments. It was such a relief to have someone acknowledge us, especially in English, that we took the opportunity to vent our frustrations on him.

‘What’s going on?’

He spoke in his native language to Bafounis, waited for the reply, then said, ‘Your baby has not been handed in.’

‘Have you checked the hospitals?’ Dad asked. My blood froze at the thought of Ben being a patient anywhere. But he had to be somewhere.

Another conversation with the boss. ‘We are doing that now.’ Apparently the officer who’d been in earlier had been dispatched to the Kos hospital. Why he couldn’t phone I didn’t know. But, we were assured, he’d return soon.

Tea, coffee and water came. Bafounis still didn’t look up. Ten, twenty, fifty minutes passed. A couple of times he left the room then returned to his desk, without acknowledging us. It was excruciating. I assumed he had a team of officers combing the island. I couldn’t begrudge that taking his attention.

Suddenly there was a noise from the main door behind us. A woman and teenage girl were being led into the adjoining office. The girl looked about seventeen, eighteen. She was crying, absolutely distraught. Her mother was just about holding them both together. As they were shown to seats, I noticed that the girl’s clothes were torn and hanging off her in places. The officer dealing with them was as brusque as Bafounis. He dealt in gestures and shrugs. Even when he glanced over at us, it didn’t occur to him to close the door. Privacy, it seemed, was not something his clients warranted.

I wish he had closed that door. Then we wouldn’t have had to listen to that poor girl’s account of being raped in the early hours by three local men. The women were Scandinavian. The only language other than their own that they spoke was English and so we followed every agonising word – and every inadequate response from the Greek policemen. For the first time in twelve hours I put my own problems aside. It was torturous watching this poor lass pouring out her heart to a man who just shrugged and made occasional notes. As far as we were concerned, he couldn’t have appeared more uninterested if he’d tried. If I’d learned the accused were his own brothers, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
From the basic English responses he gave, he didn’t believe for one minute that Kos boys could do what the girl claimed. She must be lying.