I also had to talk about the breakup of my marriage, how I never saw it coming, how Ben and I had coped since then. I didn’t want to relate these things to strangers, but I had no choice. I steeled myself, tried to trust in the process.
The pace of Clemo’s questions slowed as we got nearer to the present day. He asked in detail about Ben’s experiences at school. I told him they were happy ones; that Ben loved school, and loved his teacher. She’d been very supportive when John and I had been going through the separation and divorce.
Clemo wanted to know how often Ben had visited his dad lately, or any other friends or family. He wanted to know what our custody arrangements were. He wanted details of all the activities that Ben did in and out of school. I had to describe everything we’d done the previous week and then we were talking about Saturday, and then Sunday morning, and what we’d done in the hours we spent together before we went to the woods.
“Did you have lunch before you went out to the woods?” Clemo asked. There was a sort of apology in his voice.
“Is this in case you find his body?”
“It doesn’t mean that I think we’re going to find a body. It’s a question I have to ask.”
“Ben ate a ham sandwich, banana, yogurt, and two Bourbon biscuits in the car on the way to the woods.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you need to know what I ate?”
“No. That won’t be necessary.”
Zhang handed me a box of tissues.
We also compiled a list of the people whom I’d seen in the woods: the crowd in the parking lot, including Peter and Finn and the other young soccer players and their families, the group of fantasy reenactors, the cyclist, and the old lady who’d helped me when I first lost Ben. I also remembered a man whom Ben and I had passed early on in our walk. He was carrying a dog lead, though we didn’t see his dog. It was frustratingly hard to recall what he was wearing, or even what he looked like, and I became upset with myself.
I promised that if I thought of anything or anybody else I would let the police know. They asked permission to look through my phone records, to search my home, and especially Ben’s bedroom. I said yes to it all. I would have agreed to anything if I’d thought it would help.
“Do you have a photograph of Ben? One that we can release to the public and press?”
I gave him the picture that I kept in my wallet. It was a recent school photograph, not even dog-eared yet, as I’d only got it the week before. I looked at my son’s face: serious, and sweet, beautiful and vulnerable. His father’s eyes and dark sandy hair, his perfect skin, scattered lightly with freckles across the nose. I could hardly bear to hand it over.
Clemo took the photograph from me gently. “Thank you,” he said, and then, “Ms. Jenner, I will find Ben. I will do everything in my power to find him.”
I looked at him. I searched those eyes for signs of his commitment, for confirmation that he understood what was at stake, wanting him to mean what he said, wanting him to be on my side, wanting to believe that he could find Ben.
“Do you promise?” I said. I reached for his hand, gripped it, startling both of us.
“I promise,” he said. He extricated his fingers from mine carefully, as if he didn’t want to hurt me. I believed him.
When he’d gone DC Zhang said, “You’re in good hands. DI Clemo is a great detective. He’s one of our best. He’s like a dog with a bone. Once he gets stuck into a case he won’t give up.”
She was trying to reassure me but I was thinking of only one thing.
“I let him run ahead of me,” I said. “This is my fault. If somebody hurts him, it’s because of me.”
JIM
I was quite pleased with how the interview with Rachel Jenner had gone, but it did shake me up a bit when she took my hand, grabbed it like she was never going to let go. You don’t want that. When you’re working a case you’re always well aware that the victims of crime are real people, but it’s important to keep your distance from them to an extent. If you live every emotion with them, you can’t do your job. For a moment or two, for me, Rachel Jenner had jeopardized that rule.
I took a close look at the photo she’d given me. It was one of those school pictures that everybody has, taken in front of a dappled background. Ben looked like a sweet kid: blue eyes, very clear and bright. Fine-boned. He had tufty light brown hair and a half-smile. He was looking straight into the camera. Ben Finch was a very appealing-looking child, there was no doubt, and I was pleased because I knew that would help.
I handed the photo over to the team.
“How’s the mother?” Fraser asked.
Rachel Jenner had been a ball of nerves, understandably, her eyes darting, flinching at shadows, talking quickly, clearly intelligent, but awash with shock.
“Shocked,” I said. “And a bit guarded.”
“Guarded?” Fraser looked at me over the top of her glasses.
“Just a feeling,” I said.
“OK. Worth watching. Talk to Emma, see what her impressions are. I’m going to go and introduce myself shortly, and we’ve called the press in at midday to film an appeal. Are you happy to talk to Dad now?”
I nodded.
“On your way then.”
I met Emma in the corridor. It was the first chance we’d had to talk.
“Good interview,” she said.
“Thanks.”
We moved to the side of the corridor to let somebody pass. Emma’s hand grazed mine discreetly, lingered there.
“Did you tell Fraser to take me on as FLO?” she asked.
“I might have.”
“Thank you.” She gave my hand a little squeeze, then let it go, and stepped away to leave a more respectable distance between us.
“What did you think of the mother?” I asked. “I just said to Fraser I thought she was a bit guarded.”
“I agree, but I think it’s understandable. I felt as though it was hard for her to talk about her private life, but I didn’t think she was being obstructive.”
“No, I didn’t think that either.”
“She’s grief-stricken. And she feels guilty too because she let him run ahead of her.”
“That’s not a crime.”
“Of course it’s not, but she’s going to beat herself up about that forever, isn’t she?”
“Unless we find him quickly.”
“Even if we find him quickly, I’d say.”
“Do you think she’s guilty of anything more?”
Emma considered that, but shook her head. “Gut instinct: no. But I wouldn’t swear on that one hundred percent.”
“You need to keep a very close eye on her. Detailed reports of what you observe, please.”
“Of course.”
“I’ve got to go. I’m interviewing Dad now.”
“Good luck.” She turned to go.
“Emma!”
“What?”
“You will do the best job you can, won’t you? This is a big one. We have to be extremely sensitive.”
“Of course I will.”
She didn’t look openly hurt, that wasn’t her style, but something in her expression made me regret what I’d said immediately. She was one of the most emotionally intelligent people I knew, perfect for the role, and it was wrong of me to display even the tiniest bit of doubt about her abilities. I was too psyched up myself to be measured in what I said to her; I could have kicked myself.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. That was out of order. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I’m just… this is such a big one.”
“It’s fine, and I’m absolutely on it, don’t worry about that.”
She cracked a big smile, making it OK, and her fingers made contact with mine again briefly. “Good luck with the dad,” she added, and I watched her walk briskly away down the corridor before I went to find Benedict Finch’s father.
John Finch was pacing around the small interview room that we’d placed him in. He looked gaunt, and shocked like the mother, but there was also a sense of innate authority. I guessed that in his normal life he was a man more used to being in charge of a room than being a victim.
“DI Jim Clemo,” I said. “I’m so sorry about Ben.”
“John Finch.” His handshake was a quick firm clench with bony fingers.
There was a small table in the room, two chairs on either side of it. DC Woodley and I sat on one side, Finch on the other.
I went through the same process as with Ben’s mother, starting him at the beginning with date of birth, childhood, etc. What people don’t realize is that one of the first things we have to do is prove that they are who they say they are, and that the crime they’ve reported really has happened. We’d look pretty stupid if we investigated and it turned out that the people involved didn’t actually exist, that they’d spun us a lie from the outset. And God knows the press and public can’t wait to make a meal out of any instances of police stupidity.
Finch answered my questions in a muted, economical way.
“I’m afraid we have to spend time on what might feel like irrelevant detail,” I said to him.
I felt the need to apologize, to try to make the situation slightly easier for this man who was so obviously sensitive and so obviously trying to hide it.
“But please be assured that it’s essential for us to build up a picture not just of Ben but of his family too.”
“I know the importance of a personal history,” he said. “We rely on it heavily in medicine.”
John Finch’s backstory was quite straightforward. He was born in 1976 in Birmingham, an only child. Dad was a local boy, a GP, and mum was a violinist. Her parents had escaped Nazi-occupied Vienna while her mother was pregnant with her, and then settled in Birmingham. Finch was close to his parents as well as his grandparents throughout his childhood. He was a scholarship boy at the grammar school. He did well and won a place at Bristol University Medical School. He’d arrived in Bristol to start his degree twenty years ago, in 1992, and never left after that. He’d worked his way up and done well. Proof of that was his current position as consultant at the Children’s Hospital. He’d become a general pediatric surgeon. I knew just enough about the world of medicine to know that that must be a coveted position in a competitive world.
Finch’s composure first faltered when I wanted to talk in more detail about Ben’s mother, and the reason their marriage ended.
“My marriage ended because Rachel and I were no longer suited to each other.”
A perceptible stiffening of his body, words a tad sticky as his mouth became drier.
“It’s my understanding that this came as a surprise to Rachel.”
“Possibly.”
“And that there was another party involved?”
“I have remarried, yes.”
“Could you give me an idea of why you and Rachel were no longer suited to each other?”
A single bead of sweat had appeared by his hairline.
“These things don’t always last, Inspector. There can be a host of small reasons that accumulate to make a marriage unsustainable.”
“Including a younger girlfriend?”
“Please don’t reduce me to a cliché.”
I didn’t reply. Instead I waited to see if more information would seep from him, just as the perspiration had. It’s surprising how often that works. People have an almost compulsive need to justify themselves. I made a show of looking through notes, and just when I thought he wouldn’t spill, he did.
“My marriage wasn’t an emotionally fulfilling one. We didn’t…” He was choosing his words carefully. “We didn’t communicate.”
“It happens,” I said.
“I was lonely.”
His eyes flicked away from mine and I saw a frisson of emotion in them when our gazes reconnected, though it was hard to say exactly what. John Finch was definitely a proud man, and unaccustomed to sharing the personal details of his life.
“Is Rachel a good mother to Ben?” I asked him. I wanted to catch him when his guard was down. His reply came immediately, he didn’t need to think about it: “She’s an excellent mother. She loves Ben very much.”
I took the interview back to practicalities. I asked him what he and his wife were doing on Sunday afternoon between 13:00 and 17:30 hours. He said that they were at home together. He was working and she was reading and then she started to prepare their evening meal. He got a call from WPC Banks at 17:30 to inform him that Ben was missing and he’d driven directly to the woods.
“Did you make any calls, or send any emails during that time?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I was catching up on paperwork.”
“I’ve asked Ms. Jenner whether she’d be willing for us to look through her phone records, and she’s agreed. Would you be willing for us to do the same?”
“Yes,” he said. “Whatever it takes.”
“One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Have you had any incidents at work where patients or their families have been unhappy with you? Could somebody be bearing a grudge against you?”
He didn’t reply to my question immediately; it took him a moment or two to consider it.
“There are always unhappy outcomes, inevitably, and some families don’t take it well. I have been the subject of legal action once or twice, but that’s normal in my line of work. The hospital will be able to supply you with details.”
“You can’t remember them?”
“I remember the names of the children, but not their parents. I try not to get too involved. You learn not to dwell on the failures, Inspector. The death of a child is a terrible thing to bear, even if the responsibility isn’t ultimately yours, because you did everything you could.”
Even through his fatigue, the look he gave me was sharp, and I felt as though there might be a warning in his words somewhere.
I drove out to the woods after the interview. I wanted to see the scene for myself. I took a pool car. The drive gave me a chance to get out of the city for a bit, and think about the interviews, get my thoughts straight. My impressions were that the parents were both private people, though John Finch was possibly more complicated than Rachel, and certainly more proud. They were both intelligent, and articulate, a classic middle-class profile. It didn’t mean that they were whiter than white, though. We had to remember that.
In forensic terms the scenes at the woods were carnage. The combination of shocking weather and multiple people, animals, and vehicles had churned up the paths and especially the parking area. I took a walk to the rope swing where Ben was alleged to have gone missing and regretted forgetting to bring Wellington boots. It was a damp site, with trees crowded around it. It gave me a creepy, sinister feeling like you get in fairy tales, and in some way that was more unsettling than some of the rankest urban crime scenes I’ve visited.