Silent Child(8)

Detective Carl Stevenson sat on a small bench in a tiny room on the right of the ward corridor. He rose to his feet—polystyrene cup in one hand—as I approached, and opened his mouth to speak. I didn’t let him.

“Where is he?” I blurted out. “Is it him?”

“Emma,” he said, doing away with formalities. “We need to talk. Take a moment and sit down. I want to explain everything to you first.”

I regarded his dark brown eyes and salt-and-pepper beard—more salt since the last time we’d met—and wondered how on earth he supposed I could sit down at a moment like this. There was a chance my son was back from the dead. God, just thinking about it was insane. This was all insane. And yet…

“Love, think of the baby,” Jake said. “He’s right. Sit down and listen to the detective.”

“I need to know,” I said. “I need to see him.”

What would a sixteen-year-old Aiden look like? Would he have bum-fluff on his chin like the kids at school? Would he be broad and lanky? Or short and stubby? Would he look like me or Rob? I shut my thoughts down. What if it wasn’t him at all? What if this was all some sort of mistake? It was the most logical explanation to everything.

“I know,” Stevenson said. “But you need to take a breath. Aiden… the young boy we found… has been through significant trauma and is very sensitive at the moment. The doctor will explain more in a moment but I wanted to talk to you first. I thought you might remember me from the investigation after the flood.”

“I do,” I said.

After we realised Aiden was missing, search and rescue scoured the surrounding area for him. The River Ouse was searched. The woods were searched. The village was searched. But there was no sign of him. There was no body, either. The experts explained to me that when someone drowns in a flood, they do not float downstream like many people believe. They actually sink underneath the turbulent water where it is calmer, and then they rise to the top very close to where they drowned. But there was no body. Aiden was never found. That was when Detective Stevenson had been assigned, because there was a slim chance that Aiden had not drowned at all.

I sat down on the bench as a group of three nurses walked down the corridor on our left. I thought they were staring at me, possibly wondering if I was here to ‘claim’ the missing boy. Like a leftover sock after a PE lesson. My hands formed into fists and I clutched at the cotton dress I was wearing. It was damp from the rain outside. I hadn’t even put on a coat.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“A teenage boy was found wandering along the back road between Bishoptown village and Rough Valley Forest. A couple were heading out of the village and came across him. He was wearing only a pair of jeans. No top or shoes. He was muddy all over. They stopped and asked the boy where he was going. They said he acknowledged their questions but didn’t speak. He stopped walking, looked at them, and maintained eye contact, but he did not reply. They managed to get him into their car and drove him to the nearest police station.”

I let out a long breath, only at that moment realising that I had been holding my breath at all. The baby adjusted her weight inside me, kicking me as she moved. I placed my palm on the bump, barely registering the movement.

“What happened next?” I asked.

“My colleagues at the station ran through a list of missing persons in the area but the boy didn’t match anyone in the system. Then they took a DNA sample.” Stevenson paused and ran his hands along his jeans. He’d been called in, I realised. He wasn’t in the smart suit I remembered from that horrible week when we searched for Aiden. “Do you remember that we put Aiden’s DNA on file after his disappearance?”

“Yes,” I replied. I had scraped up as much of his hair as I could, and sent in items of clothing with dried blood on them for the police to use. Aiden was always scraping his knees or picking at a scab, and I had never been particularly good at keeping on top of the washing.

“The boy was clearly distressed. He wouldn’t speak to any of my colleagues at the station, so they brought him to the hospital. A DNA test was run yesterday and the analysis came back a few hours ago. The teenage boy in that room is Aiden.”

I unclenched my fists, let out a shallow breath, then clenched my hands again. How could this be happening? How? A tingling sensation spread over my body, from my scalp to the bottom of my feet.

“Are you all right, Ms Price? Can I get you anything?”

I vaguely heard Jake’s reply. “It’s Mrs Price-Hewitt now. We’re married.”

“I apologise. Emma, can you hear me?”

“Yes,” I whispered. I closed my eyes and leaned against the wall behind me. My thoughts swam with Stevenson’s words. DNA. Teenage boy. Rough Valley Forest. Was it all real?

I realised Stevenson had been right to take me aside and explain all this to me. I needed to compose myself if I was going to step into that room and face Aiden for the first time in ten years. I declared you dead.

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m fine. This is all quite a shock, as you can imagine. Can I see him now? I need to see him.”

“I’ll check with the doctor.” Stevenson offered a taut smile and rose to his feet.

“It can’t be true,” Jake said after Stevenson had left the room. “It’s been ten years. Where has he been? I bet the police have bungled something. They’ll have got the DNA test wrong or something.”