Ben (23 page)

Bearing in mind how much I wanted to sleep, that suicide attempt acted as a wake-up call, loud and persistent. I couldn’t let myself be affected by the poison coming from Kos via the newspaper
articles. I needed to find the strength to take control of my life again. It was no good hiding any more. I needed to be the one following the leads about Ben.

As my head cleared and I began a personal audit on my life, the same answer repeatedly came up. I needed independence and for that I needed money. In the space of a year, South Yorkshire Police had received more than two hundred sightings. We’d been able to personally follow up the smallest fraction of those. The majority we were forced to wait for disinterested strangers in Kos to respond to them. For the most important ones, we were reliant on the expense accounts of journalists. What would happen if their editors decided Ben’s story wasn’t shifting enough copies? How would we get to Greece then?

There wasn’t much any of us could do for work. We were all on sickness benefits with good reason. It was killing Dad not being able to support his family but he’d been diagnosed with serious arthritis induced by stress. Financial worries just exacerbated the condition. What’s more, no one could hold down a full-time job with the doses of diazepam we were on, so Dad started helping out at a friend’s scrap-metal yard. The incapacity benefit meant he wasn’t allowed to take payment. Instead, his friend let Dad have first call on any of the items discarded, which Dad then took to a boot sale with Mum. It wasn’t much at first, but Dad soon developed an eye for possible winners. Not only was he keeping busy now, he was helping a friend and putting a little money aside to fund the search for his grandson.

I needed to do something as well. The volume of letters and well-wishes we received from complete strangers suggested there was enormous support for what our family was going through,
so I decided to act on that. With Mum and Danny I made dozens of copies of Ben’s wanted poster and a large banner saying ‘Help Find Ben Needham’. We packed those, a couple of buckets and a paste-table into Mum’s Capri, then at five o’clock in the morning of 16 August, all three of us drove to Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire and set up a little stand. Genesis were playing a concert there that day to an audience of 90,000 people. Even if a fraction of them walked past us, I was convinced we’d make some money. We did. A fortnight later, we set off to Roundhay Park in Leeds and discovered Michael Jackson fans were equally generous, so much so that when we discovered he was playing at Wembley Stadium four days later, we knew we had to be there as well.

Driving down to London was a different proposition to going to Leeds. I’d never been to the capital before. The idea of spending three nights there was a bit intimidating, especially as we’d be sleeping in the car. We went down the night before in order to secure a prime position for the following morning. Ninety per cent of the fans would have to cross the ‘Wembley Way’ Bridge to reach the stadium, so that’s where we needed to be. When a security guard shone his light through the window, I thought we were in trouble. In fact, Mum explained what we were up to and the guy wished us luck and said he’d tell his overnight colleagues to keep an eye on us. When he returned a while later, I assumed it was because he’d been given new orders. He had …

‘I’ve just spoken to my wife,’ the guard explained, ‘and she says there is no way you’re sleeping in that car tonight. You’re coming back to ours for tea and a proper bed. I finish in ten minutes, then you can follow me home.’

So that’s what we did. It was a phenomenal gesture from a complete stranger. The next morning he escorted us back to the stadium to claim our pitch in good time and again over the following two days. It just goes to prove there are Good Samaritans everywhere.

They weren’t the only amazing people we encountered. At one point, a stranger handed over a couple of tickets to that night’s gig and said, ‘They’re yours if you want them, or there are touts here who will take them off your hands.’ Then he just disappeared. We’d have loved to have seen the King of Pop in his pomp, but that wasn’t why we were there. So I found a tout and a few minutes of haggling later, I had another £100 for the kitty.

Of course, not everyone can be so generous of spirit. As I’d learnt from the anniversary coverage, there are some very mean people out there – and some of them were Michael Jackson fans. One group of lads ignored me when I stood waving my collection bucket at them, which was fair enough. Not everyone can afford to give to charity. Then they saw the posters of Ben, looked at me, and started shouting, ‘Ben’s dead! Ben’s dead!’

They were drunk. They were idiots. And they were quickly told to shut the hell up by the people around them. But Danny saw it all and just started shaking. That’s what’s most unforgivable. You don’t pick on a kid.

Over the course of those concerts we raised about £2,000. I still felt like hiding in bed some days, but knowing the public was behind us gave me strength that I hadn’t had before. I felt ready for anything.

The first test of my renewed resolve was just around the corner. A couple of months earlier and I swear it would have killed me.

It began with Bert Norburn asking Mum if she could arrange for everyone to meet at hers. Like all good policemen, Bert was a master of managing expectations. He never wanted to give unnecessary hope because he’d seen the effects of disappointment. This time, Mum said, he was almost excited.

With Dad away following up a lead, the rest of us watched nervously as Bert pulled out a familiar-looking folder. First of all he showed us a selection of photographs that kind tourists had submitted. One or two were pretty close; others stood out immediately to us as cases of mistaken identity. Then he went through other sightings that didn’t have supporting photographs, before finally getting to the reason he’d come.

‘We’ve had several reports of Ben in Corfu,’ he explained.

‘Is there a photograph?’ I asked.

‘No, unfortunately not.’

‘Then what makes this sighting so important?’

‘Because it’s been reported by seventeen different people!’

According to the many sources, a young blond boy fitting Ben’s description had been seen at a taverna in a Corfu resort called Kassiopi every day, as recently as forty-eight hours before. What alerted the vigilant passers-by was the fact the couple he called ‘Mum and Dad’ were quite old and obviously Greek with dark hair, olive skin and the full repertoire of hand gestures. I could understand why people were suspicious. If you had to pick a family who looked like they’d adopted a child, this sounded like it.

Any sightings without a picture that came via Bert were usually followed up in the same bureaucratically hellish manner. The police certainly didn’t have the budgets of large news organisations to ferry us around Europe. Bert was normally a stickler
for procedure, but this time he didn’t want us to wait for five months while the enquiry took its course.

‘I could follow the normal channels,’ he said, ‘but I think you should get straight over there as quickly as you can. If there’s anyone in the press who could help, then make that call. I’d go myself if I had a passport.’

Although there was actually enough money in our Search For Ben Needham account, we all decided that this was exactly the sort of opportunity a news agency would be interested in. It made sense to use our own funds as sparingly as possible.

We’d already enjoyed the generosity of the
Sun
and
TV Quick
, so I made a call to another reporter we’d been interviewed by in Kos. Like Martyn Sharpe, the
Daily Mirror
’s Jim Oldfield was one of the good guys. You can never trust a journalist 100 per cent, of course, because at the end of the day they have a job to do. But when he listened to us in Kos you could see his pain was heartfelt. He wasn’t just punching the clock and waiting to get home.

So I contacted Jim and said, ‘We don’t want to go round the houses – is there any chance the
Mirror
can finance this?’

Seventeen separate sightings and the chance to run the headline, ‘
Mirror
Finds Toddler Ben’? It was a no-brainer.

I was desperate to go on this trip. Whatever had been pulling me down in April had released its hold. Five months later, I was genuinely excited to be travelling with Mum, Jim and photographer Andy Stenning. We were like school kids on the way over, babbling with excitement. I had such a good feeling. We all did. As I kept repeating, ‘Seventeen people can’t be wrong.’

Even with all the money in the world, covering 2,000 miles is still a laborious exercise. If you’re not waiting somewhere you’re
about to wait. Airport to runway to take-off to airport to passport control and baggage checks. The closer we got, the longer everything seemed to take and the more on edge I became. I just wanted someone to click their fingers and we’d be there.

We had the address of Yani’s, the taverna in Kassiopi where the sightings had taken place, and Jim and Andy got us there in a taxi. As we stood outside, the butterflies in my stomach went into flutter overdrive. I had to take a couple of breaths before I could even think about walking in. As Mum put her arm around me, I said, ‘This could be it.’

There was a large outdoor area but as it was midday and the sun was at its most unforgiving, it didn’t look suspicious that we decided to sit inside. All the reports said the little boy usually appeared from a door behind the bar, where the taverna linked to the accommodation upstairs, so that is where we needed to be positioned.

At Jim’s suggestion, I was wearing a cap and sunglasses, even inside. If it was Ben, we didn’t want to risk anyone recognising me and squirreling him away. It was all a bit cloak and dagger for my taste but if it helped, I’d do anything.

I couldn’t mask my disappointment as we first stepped in. No boy and no older Greek parents, just a woman and two men in their twenties manning the place. Had we even got the right taverna? Jim confirmed it was the correct address and Mum reminded me that the old couple, according to the reports, owned the place but didn’t work there all day.

The first hour passed and gradually our conversation grew more relaxed as we settled into our roles. By the time the second hour ticked by, I’d probably had ten Cokes and about five sandwiches.
I barely had the appetite for anything, but for appearance’s sake I tucked in. The hardest thing was not staring at the bar. Mum would tap the table if my gaze wandered over for too long.

We were probably worrying unduly. To all the world we just looked like four tourists. What could be more natural than two men and two women in shorts and sun vests having a bite to eat out of the sun?

Then there must have been a change of shift because, suddenly, an old Greek appeared behind the bar, then another, this time a woman. It was them. They were exactly as Bert Norburn’s sources had described: fifties, married and undeniably local. We were close, I could feel it.

Just a matter of time.

I have no idea what anyone said from that point on or how many times Mum tapped the table. There was no way I was taking my eyes off that door.

Then I saw him.

In my memory now it’s like watching an action thriller where the big finale takes place in slow motion. I can see every blond hair on that little boy’s head and picture the giggling face as he runs into view, past our table and out onto the terrace with the old lady shuffling behind him. In real time he was like a whippet. Out in the kitchen one minute, blasting past us the next. It’s the trauma that makes it so slow in my recollection. The trauma of taking one look at him and saying to no one in particular, ‘That’s not Ben.’

I don’t know how many chairs I knocked over as I scrambled to my feet and tore out of that taverna. A minute earlier, the bar had been full of hope. Now it felt claustrophobic, like its walls were closing in. I had no breath. I had to escape.

The Greeks in Kos had been waiting for me to go wailing out on the street. Well, today was their lucky day. I was hysterical, absolutely wrecked. I didn’t hear the car horns as traffic swerved around me, or Mum as she ran to my side, desperate to pull me to safety. She did her best to calm me down but the tears in her eyes told their own story. We’d invested so much more than money into this. We’d invested hope. I’d allowed my spirits to raise, my guard to fall. And I was paying the price.

I don’t know how long I was out there, sobbing. Mum eventually persuaded me to return inside. Jim and Andy were already doing their best to explain why a young woman would sit quietly in a restaurant for two hours then without warning go hurtling into the street. From the looks on the old couple’s faces and the way the woman was hugging the boy to her chest so tightly, the message had got through. She was clearly worried I wanted to take her boy.

I apologised to them all while Jim supplied the details. About Ben, about the seventeen tip-offs, about the hell we’d been through. I wouldn’t have blamed the bar owners for throwing us out but they were wonderful. They had the look in their eyes of people who knew suffering. Maybe they saw it in mine. Then the woman put her son on the floor and encouraged him to say hello.

‘This is Panos,’ she said proudly. ‘My son.’

They told their story. They didn’t have to but they wanted no doubts in our minds. I had none. The boy was two and a half years old, beautiful and with the most twinkling eyes and wonderful smile. But he wasn’t Ben.

He was English, however. A Brit had been living in Corfu for many years, enjoying a high-paid job. When she discovered she
was pregnant she began to fall apart. The taverna couple said that they would take her baby and raise him as their own. Whether they paid for the privilege or were paid I don’t know. But they were true to their word and the little boy calls them Mum and Dad in Greek, the only language he knows. They were all clearly happy but even now the whole arrangement still seems extraordinary to me. Only later on would I realise just how widespread and easily organised such situations were.

As I stared into Panos’s questioning eyes I said quietly, ‘Why couldn’t you be my Ben?’ Then I gave him a hug as Andy began to photograph the scene. He was a big, burly man who had captured the worst of society on film over the years, but that didn’t stop the tears streaming down his face as he got us all to pose for the story of the century that never was.