what she would do if Lyndall were to die, never mind in such a terrible way.
‘Mrs Mason, you’re back, and with provisions for us all.’ Ruben’s mother’s face was blotched by tears, but her voice was strong and she even managed a smile. ‘Here, let me unburden you.’ She took the bulging carrier bags from Cathy and passed them to another woman. ‘There are plates in the kitchen,’ and to Cathy: ‘We were looking at the albums. Come, join us.’
The room was crowded – relatives, friends and neighbours rallying as word of what had happened spread. There were many, including the Reverend Pius and Marcus, she knew well, but there were also many with whom she had only a nodding acquaintance and some she had never met. They were united by what had happened, and as the crowd parted to let the two women through, Cathy was greeted by a smile here and an embrace there.
Such a warm inclusivity in this most terrible of times. Yet in the midst of it, Ruben’s father, who was standing at the other end of the room, looked very much alone.
‘The police didn’t bother to tell us he was gone.’ He had been saying this when Cathy had first arrived early that morning, and he was still saying it. ‘Our friends had to bear that strain. Nobody else cares. His death didn’t merit more than a small mention, and only in one newspaper.’
Reverend Pius shifted to one side to make room for Cathy on the black settee that was jammed against a heater. Just as in Cathy’s flat, the heater was on and the room was boiling. No one seemed to notice, or if they did they didn’t seem to care.
‘When we went to the police station to ask them what had happened, they didn’t even offer to seat us,’ Ruben’s father continued. ‘We can’t say nothing, they told us, except that someone phoned them to complain about Ruben’s behaviour. We told them: that cannot be. Everybody knew Ruben. Nobody would have rung the police, not without first asking us. All the man reply is: you have to speak to the IPCC. He wouldn’t come out from behind his bulletproof glass and look us in the eye and speak to us, human being to human being. We are the ones who have suffered such great loss, but he was the one to feel unsafe.’
‘Come now, Bernard.’ Ruben’s mother patted the place beside her. ‘Come, look.’
Her husband came to the settee, but as she turned the page of the album, he wasn’t really looking. She stopped and reached up to take his hand and squeeze it. He squeezed hers back. A beat as they looked at each other, and then she dropped her hand and turned another page.
‘He was such a happy child.’ She pointed at a photograph of the young Ruben, circa five years old. He was kneeling on a patch of grass, holding a football and smiling up into the lens. ‘Always wanting to know everything. Full of love.’ She blinked back tears and carried on scrolling through a detailed record of the growing boy.
It was hard not to be drawn into the pleasure that she took in each of the images of her son, her fingers occasionally dropping to the page to stroke his face. It was even harder not to see her agony and the adjustment demanded of her to come to terms with what had happened. Her tenses continually had to be fast-forwarded into a present in which she could not yet bring herself to believe. ‘This friend,’ she pointed to a photo of Ruben with another boy, ‘is a favourite who he sees . . .’ a pause, ‘saw almost every week. He is here now.’ She pointed to a youngish man who was sitting, solitary, on a hard chair. Noticing her pointing finger, he dropped his head and covered his eyes with a hand. ‘He’s a good boy,’ she said, before going back to the album. She sped up, pages turning almost carelessly, creating a flickering blur out of Ruben’s childhood until at last she stopped.
It was a photo of an adolescent Ruben. Facing the camera. No smile or other welcome. A blank and uncompromising stare.
Ruben’s mother’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘He lost his bearings,’ she said. ‘All of a sudden he went somewhere in his head and we found we could not follow where.’ She turned another page. ‘We were visitors only on occasion.’ And there was the adult Ruben, the one Cathy had known and the one above the mantelpiece, and he was smiling. ‘Sometimes, with the medication, then he would come back to us.’
‘To us, perhaps, but not to himself.’ This from Ruben’s father. ‘He said what the doctor gave him put him in the grave,’ that last word reverberating in a room that fell silent.
‘Come, Bernard.’ She patted the space beside her. ‘Come sit.’
He was a vigorous man, in his sixties, muscled from many years labouring in a packing house. But now, as he lowered himself onto the settee, he looked much older and also much more frail. ‘My son was never violent,’ he said. ‘He never raised a serious hand. Neither against his mother or me. Or any other human being.’
‘He did get frightened.’ This from his wife. ‘If you touched him wrong.’
‘He was a good boy.’ His voice once more filled the room. ‘And he was a good man. He was my light.’
1.15 p.m.
‘Home Secretary?’ Peter’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, who had slid into the office noiselessly as he always did, gave one of his self-deprecatory little coughs.
‘Yes?’ He still had much to do, and Frances, who hated to be kept waiting, was imminently due. ‘What is it?’
‘Commissioner Yares phoned.’
‘He did, did he?’ He nodded to Patricia to make sure she was paying attention. ‘And what did he want?’
‘To tell you that there has been a death in Rockham.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’ But why – is what he didn’t say – am I being interrupted by this news? ‘Another knifing?’
‘No, an accident. The police were involved.’
‘I see.’
‘I would have kept this for my end-of-day summary rather than bother you with it now, but Mr Parsons, the Member, as I’m sure you are aware, whose constituency includes Rockham, has advised us he has asked the Speaker’s permission to raise a question abut the incident.’
‘Has he indeed?’ And Joshua Yares had thought to warn him. Perhaps he was trying, harder than Peter had anticipated, to be cooperative.
‘The Commissioner will be briefing the press. He wanted you to know that as well.’
Perhaps not so much cooperative as dotting the i’s and crossing his t’s, something for which he was a stickler, especially when it came to covering his own back.
‘Oh, and your wife is waiting in the lobby.’
‘Good God, man, why didn’t you say so?’ He was already on his feet and slinging on his jacket, saying to Patricia, ‘We’ll have to go on with this when I get back.’
Another little cough. ‘You have an appointment with the Taiwanese ambassador, Home Secretary, on your return from lunch.’
So he did. Nothing to be done save for: ‘Let’s finish up in the lift,’ and then to his PPS: ‘You’ll look into the Rockham business?’
‘Yes, Home Secretary. There’ll be a report in your box tonight.’
1.16 p.m.
