Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [278]
Manette looked down at Tim— he’d begun to shiver— and she made her decision. She cleared her throat and said no, they hadn’t just stumbled upon the scene, although thank you, superintendent, for assuming they might have done. She and her husband— she forgot to refer to Freddie as former or erstwhile or anything other than what he’d once been to her when she’d had common sense— had broken into the place. They had taken the law into their own hands and would have to embrace the consequences. They hadn’t arrived soon enough to stop some piece of filth from raping a fourteen-year-old boy and filming it for the delectation of perverts around the globe, but she and Freddie would leave that part of it in the hands of the police, as well as what the police wished to do about the fact that they— she and her husband, as she referred to him again— had broken and entered, or whatever the police wished to call it.
“An accident, I think,” Superintendent Calva had said. “Perhaps malicious mischief by persons unknown? In either case, these wheelie bins need to have better braking devices on them, ones that lock, I daresay, so they can’t get out of hand and roll into the front doors of shops.” She’d looked round the place and directed her officers to begin the process of collecting evidence. She’d concluded with, “We’ll need a statement from the boy.”
“But not now,” Manette told her.
They’d taken him then. Tim had been handled tenderly by the emergency staff at the hospital in Keswick and ultimately released to his cousin Manette. She and Freddie had taken him home, provided him with a warm bath, heated soup for him, buttered soldiers to go along with it, sat with him as he ate it, and put him to bed. Then they had retired to their separate bedrooms. In hers Manette had spent a sleepless night.
In the early morning, with darkness still pressing against the windows, she made coffee. She sat at the kitchen table and gazed unseeing at her reflection in the glass, backed by night outside and the pond somewhere in that night and somewhere on the pond the swans tucked into the reeds together.
She considered what they had to do next, which was to phone Niamh. She’d already phoned Kaveh to tell him only that Tim was safe and inside her own home at this point and would he please let Gracie know so that she wouldn’t worry about her brother?
Now she had to do something about Niamh. As Tim’s mother, Niamh had a right to know what had occurred, but Manette wondered about Niamh’s need to know. If she were informed and Tim learned she had been informed and she did nothing after being informed, the boy would be further devastated, wouldn’t he? And wasn’t that one pill of pain he didn’t need to swallow? On the other hand, Niamh had to be told something at some point since she knew her son had gone missing.
Manette sat there at the kitchen table going back and forth and in and out, trying to make a decision. Betraying Tim seemed unthinkable to her. On the other hand, he was going to need help. Margaret Fox School could give it to him if he cooperated with them. But when had Tim been known to cooperate? And did what happened to him mean he might cooperate now? Why should he, for God’s sake? Whom could he trust?
God, it was such a mess, Manette thought. She didn’t know where to begin to help the boy.
She was still sitting at the table in the kitchen when Freddie came into the room. She realised she must have dozed in her chair, because it was fully light outside by then and Freddie was dressed and pouring himself a cup of coffee when she snapped to.
“Ah, she lives.” Freddie came to the table with his mug of coffee, took hers, and dumped its cold contents into the sink. He gave her a fresh cup and rested his hand on her shoulder briefly. “Buck up, old girl,” he said to her affably. “You’ll feel better after having a good run on that blasted treadmill of yours, I daresay.”
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