Little Bones Page 5

  As she watches our two sons play ‘spot the squirrel’, an uncomfortable silence falls between us. Unsure as to whether I should say something, I get out my phone and begin to text Leo that we’ll be back soon.

  ‘What do you think happened to that missing boy?’ she suddenly says, making my phone leap out of my hands and onto my lap.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I retrieve my phone and put it away before I drop and break it.

  ‘Oh, where are my manners, I’m Kristine. With a K not a C. Everyone gets that wrong. I don’t know how many Christmas and birthday cards I’ve returned because of rogue Cs.’

  ‘Cherrie,’ I reply. ‘With a C.’

  ‘What an odd name. Were your parents foreign?’

  Kristine sees my eyes widen but mistakes the look for surprise rather than anger. ‘Oh of course you’re not foreign. With that skin and hair, you’re another English rose. Our kind are few and far between now.’

  I glance over to Robin in the hope he is having as bad a time with Declan as I am with the mother, but they look so happy. I don’t want to drag him away so, trying not to encourage further xenophobia, I ask, ‘What have you heard about Thomas Doncaster?’

  ‘Poor boy. I blame the parents. Letting their child roam the streets at all hours, bound to attract the attentions of a wandering pervert.’

  ‘Excuse me? It’s not the parents’ fault their boy is missing. How dare you say something like that.’

  Kristine shifts in her seat. ‘Kids don’t disappear when someone is watching them properly.’

  I open my mouth to protest, but a saying rattles through my mind instead: even a broken clock is right twice a day. This woman may be horrible, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong. If left alone for any length of time, children can be abducted by strangers and bad things can happen to them; I know all this as fact. The thing is, you can’t watch your child twenty-four-seven.

  ‘And anyway, it’s not like it hasn’t happened before,’ she says with a smug smile. ‘There was that bloke, now what was his name? Mr something. Now what was it?’

  ‘You know, Kristine. It’s people like you who victim-blame and spread rumours that should be …’

  ‘Victim-blame! How dare you!’ Unbelievably, she clutches her bag to her chest, expressing her hurt.

  ‘I was just saying …’ But I don’t get to finish my sentence.

  Jumping off the bench, she yells, ‘Declan!’ at her son who instantly stops mid-chase of Robin. ‘We. Are. Leaving!’

  Without another word, Kristine with a K gets up and strides off. Her little boy waves goodbye at a disappointed Robin. The strangers then walk away from us, further into the park.

  ‘I liked Declan,’ Robin complains as we go to leave; fortunately in the opposite direction.

  ‘I know, sweetie, but his mum was simply awful,’ I say.

  Robin laughs, grabs my hand, and as we walk home he tells me how nice it is not to have an awful mummy.

  Home smells like roast lamb. Leo has started lunch. I find him hunched over the kitchen sink carefully peeling too many potatoes.

  ‘How was the park?’ he asks.

  ‘It was nice.’ I walk over and wrap my arms about his waist. ‘Oh, there was this horrible woman there though.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m not surprised, I hear the park attracts them.’ He grins at me.

  ‘Very funny.’

  ‘Robin have fun? He barely spoke to me when you came in.’

  ‘He was excited and wanted to tell Nostrom about his squirrel sighting.’

  Leo stops peeling and turns to face me. ‘You mean you left Nostrom here with me? Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve had his imaginary robot eyes on me all this time?’

  ‘Why does that bother you? Have you been up to no good?’ I joke.

  ‘You don’t know what I get up to when you’re not here.’

  ‘Paperwork and making roast potatoes, very naughty.’

  We both laugh. Leo puts down the peeling knife and hugs me. ‘Relax. I’ll finish lunch,’ he says. It’s the most romantic thing he’s done for me in ages.

  Curious to see if there is any news on Thomas Doncaster, I use my bonus time to turn on my laptop. Kristine has to be wrong about an abduction. Mariah is definitely wrong about a murder; he’s probably already been found and is home safe and sound.

  I sit at the dining room table and look for information on his disappearance. I type his name into the search engine. Several recent articles come up. He is still missing.

  Most of the articles say the same thing just in different tones, depending on its newspaper’s political leaning. Thomas disappeared while out with his older brother, who he left alone to visit the newsagent on the Rosemount Estate. No one has seen him since. Police checked the shop’s CCTV, but the camera was at an odd angle, so recorded no valuable footage.

  One article mentions a case from the early 1990s, the serial killer William Hendy. However, Hendy is now in prison. It asks, could a copycat killer be picking up little boys? My eye twitches at this wild statement. Thomas is missing, not dead. In the case of William Hendy, or Mr Bones as the media dubbed him, he killed boys, and for some sick reason known only to himself, he removed their flesh so he could use their bones to create macabre artwork. Innocent lives were nothing but grotesque art materials to him.

  There’s a link in the article highlighting the killer’s name so, without thinking, I click it and a new search reveals thousands of results about Mr Bones. I scan the first three articles and see something odd. There’s a link to a new podcast called The Flesh on the Bones. I click through to find it has aired two episodes already – the latest uploaded only yesterday afternoon. I read the podcast’s summary:

  Welcome to The Flesh on the Bones. This Northamptonshire-based podcast aims to flesh out the bones of the story behind one of the worst serial killer cases in the UK’s history: Mr Bones. How much did Mrs Bones know? Wendy Hendy, ten years the senior of her serial killer husband William ‘Billy’ Hendy, committed suicide two days before the trial of her toy-boy husband. No one knows if she was an accomplice in the deaths of eleven boys, or whether she simply ignored her husband’s bloodthirsty nature. In light of Thomas Doncaster going missing, we have to ask, is his case connected to Mr Bones? And if so, is the connection surface, or bone-deep? You decide.

  I scurry off and grab my headphones. I shouldn’t. No good can come of it, but I have to listen.

  Chapter 5

  ‘Welcome one and all to the very first episode of The Flesh on the Bones. I’m your host Jai Patel and it’s my job, nay duty, to seek out the truth, no matter where it is hidden. To dig up the facts, no matter how dirty. To put the flesh on the bones of this story. Here in Northamptonshire we have had our fair share of weird and crazy, and just when you think you’ve heard it all, someone comes along and snatches the new normal right out of your grasp. Today’s podcast will look at the current case, the disappearance of Thomas Doncaster, and will also cover the 1990 child murders committed by the infamous artist Mr Bones.

  ‘Now, why would I pick such a gruesome case as Mr Bones for my first ever podcast? Well, I grew up with it in Northamptonshire with the legend of a bogey man that was real enough to stand trial and be convicted. I know people who lived through those dark years when Billy Hendy freely stole boys, then boiled them up for their bones. I even saw a photo of one of the alleged pieces of art he created. Stark white, and jagged edges where he had broken limbs to match his sick artistic vision. You would never think that such a picturesque place as Northants would breed such a monster, but it did.

  ‘I remember when I was young. My friends and I would hang about the streets, joking, having fun and enjoying the small taste of freedom it allowed. But this was after Mr Bones was caught. Like there could only ever be one monster, and when he was behind bars, we were all free to enjoy ourselves again. Well, as poor Thomas Doncaster just found out the hard way, there are many more monsters out there. Monsters who lie in wait for boys walking home alone withou
t their older brothers. I’m sure if I looked back over the missing children’s records for this region, I’d find others too. How many, who knows. Well, one person would know, the killer who has been taking them.’

  Jai Patel both writes and narrates The Flesh on the Bones. As I listen on, I find the first episode is a regurgitation of the rumours in the press at the time of Mr Bones’ trial. He loosely links historical facts of the case to Thomas Doncaster, then backtracks, then vomits up another theory.

  As host, Jai has a soft unassuming voice that masks the salacious undertones of his commentary. I’m stunned he can get away with openly claiming Thomas is dead. There is no evidence of this and surely if the Doncasters were to hear this they would be mortified. His assumptions remind me of Mariah. Perhaps in a future episode he’ll claim to be psychic too. I’m so angry that I almost stop listening – almost.

  Leo appears in my line of sight. He motions for me to take off my headphones.

  ‘Your lunch is getting cold. What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m listening to this thing about Thomas Doncaster,’ I say.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The little boy who’s missing,’

  ‘Oh, the one from Rosemount. Have they found him yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Poor little guy. You want me to bring your lunch out here so you can keep listening? I can eat in front of the TV.’

  ‘That would be lovely, thank you.’

  Leo scoots off into the kitchen and comes out holding a plate with a slab of roast lamb, mint sauce, all the trimmings, and a cup of tea. I’m half expecting this good deed to be cold when it lands on the table in front of me, yet it isn’t. I smile up at him, and he bends down to kiss the top of my head.

  ‘Robin is eating with Nostrom upstairs. Apparently robots love lamb.’ Leo strolls across to the sofa. I watch him pick up the remote and flick through various channels. The flashing screen lights up his face as he finds something to watch while balancing his lunch on his lap.

  I put my headphones back on and continue listening.

  Jai likes to travel around town while he records his podcast. It gives his soundtrack a distinct feel of urban reality as if he’s in the middle of the story; there as it happens. I eat my lunch and half-heartedly listen to him condemn Thomas, berate the Hendys, and sensationalise the needless deaths of eleven boys in the 1990s.

  I’m too busy eating roast potatoes to realise the first episode has bled into the second. I simultaneously don’t want to hear it, yet feel like I should.

  It’s not until I hear Jai say Leigh-Ann Hendy, that I stop eating.

  I hold a mulch of minted peas in my mouth as still as I can, so I can hear what he says next.

  ‘The only daughter of the Hendys, Leigh-Ann, was eight years old when her father was arrested. Mr Bones used Leigh-Ann to lure young boys into his car. Any child seeing another would assume their safety. Leigh-Ann, who the papers dubbed Little Bones, is now thirty-five years old and lives in the Oak Cross Estate under the new name of Cherrie Forrester.’

  I yank off the headphones. My hand shoots to my chest to check my heart is still beating.

  How does he know my name? What gives him the right to broadcast it! It’s not his secret to tell. My new family has no idea about my time as Leigh-Ann Hendy; no one currently in my life does. Everyone knows me as Cherrie Forrester, and to be fair, I’ve now lived longer as her than I did as Leigh-Ann. I changed my name when I was seventeen years old. I wanted a new beginning as someone else, someone who wasn’t nicknamed Little Bones by the media.

  Tentatively, I put the headphones back on.

  ‘She got a new life, a fresh start; which is more than can be said for the young boys her father butchered. Leigh-Ann has a family and works at a local independent retailer in the town centre. How much does she remember …?’

  I check how many people have listened to the podcast. This episode only came out on Saturday afternoon and it already has over two hundred subscriber downloads. Subscribers who could be anywhere: UK, international, local …

  Slipping off my headphones, I stumble back from the table, knocking over my chair behind me.

  ‘Cherrie, are you okay?’ Leo asks from the sofa.

  I push down the top of the laptop, stagger towards the sofa, and throw myself into my boyfriend’s arms.

  ‘What’s up? Tell me: what’s wrong?’

  Should I tell him now and get all my dirty laundry out? Let him realise who the mother of his child is? Tell him my dad would wait until after sunset, then drive the county’s streets luring young boys with lies. All the while, I would sit in the back seat, my innocent smile giving all his victims a promise of safety. A promise never kept.

  Could there be another killer out there? Was the Doncaster boy offered a lift by a kind man with his little daughter in the back of his nondescript grey Ford? Is he now suffering the same fate as all those my dad snatched off the streets? Knowing my family’s skeletons, Leo could believe I had something to do with Thomas Doncaster’s disappearance.

  Growing up in foster families all around the UK, this was their train of thought. A train that would repetitively follow the same tracks back and forth. All of them were certain Little Bones was Mr Bones’ apprentice. I was evil by association. Leo could think it too; could believe I could hurt a child. That I could harm Robin.

  ‘Cherrie?’ Leo says, still staring at me.

  ‘It’s fine. This whole Thomas Doncaster thing just has me rattled,’ I say. It’s not an out-and-out lie, but the words still make me shudder enough to wriggle from Leo’s arms. He wasn’t holding me tightly anyhow.

  ‘The kid will probably come home tomorrow. Don’t worry about it. You know what little boys are like.’

  I do know what little boys are like. I watched so many of them accept a lift from my father. Worse, just take his hand on the street and walk towards their death without hesitation.

  ‘What are you doing for the rest of today?’ Leo asks me.

  ‘I want a PJ couch day. How about you?’

  ‘I need to get a bit of work done on the extension. I’ll join you and Robin on the couch after. We can watch the new film with Dwayne Johnson in. Robin loves that guy.’

  ‘Yeah, sounds great.’ Then, for some unknown reason, I add, ‘Thanks.’

  Leo smiles at me before getting up and jogging upstairs. He’s been working on our extension for about two years. It’s a proper room now, with a ceiling and four walls; still, Leo wants it to be perfect for his grand opening, so neither Robin nor I can set foot in it until the official red ribbon cutting. He’s working hard. I hear him in there at all times, even in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep. It should be ready in the summer; perhaps we can have a barbecue; on the other hand, would anyone turn up if they all find out who my father is, and that he is not dead like I told them, but alive and serving multiple life sentences in prison? Will I even be here for the extension’s grand opening? Leo could throw me out of my own home; take Robin from me – no judge in his or her right mind would award Little Bones custody of a young boy.

  I need to stay ahead of this. I go back to my laptop and set up a Google Alert for Cherrie Forrester. If anyone else mentions me online, I’ll see it.

  Upstairs in my bedroom, I find Leo changing into some old jeans and a cream jumper. I grab my PJs and go to change in the bathroom.

  ‘I’ve seen you naked many times, Cherrie.’

  Blushing, I look over at him. There’s paint splattered all over the back of his jumper.

  ‘I can get the paint off for you. Just put it on top of the hamper when you’re done.’

  Leo looks up at me and smirks. ‘I’ll just chuck it out. You’ll never get dark blue paint off a cream jumper.’

  Chapter 6

  Right now, two hundred strangers know who I am. They hold the dark secret I’ve been hiding. These random people now know me better than the people I love.

  I’m not sure why I take so long to think about
it – I need to report Jai Patel to the police. As I pick up my phone, I realise my police contact will have retired by now. I can’t even recall his name. I do remember he looked an awful lot like Magnum P.I. When I was little, I kept imagining him in a loud Hawaiian shirt on an even louder speedboat – the wind whipping through his moustache as he barrelled towards criminals. Without Magnum P.I., there’s probably no one left who remembers Leigh-Ann Hendy. Well, there’s one person who will remember me, but I haven’t seen my dad since I was eight years old.

  After Robin goes to bed, I open the laptop and check The Flesh on the Bones subscribers. Twenty more strangers now know who I am … I’m being an idiot again. No one close to me listens to podcasts. I have to weather this new-media storm until it passes. As soon as he realises that he’s not in trouble, Thomas Doncaster will come strolling home. After that, Jai Patel and his Flesh on the Bones’ wild predictions will curl up and die; wither into digital dust. Jai will have to move on to a new crime and conceive different twisted lies to cash in on online with morbid rubberneckers.

  Leo is working on the extension, so I absent-mindedly watch TV. I’m about to change channels when there’s a knock on the door.

  Four panes of thick mottled glass make up my front door; through it, I see two shadows lingering on my doorstep. I open the door, leaving the chain off. Which I instantly regret. Standing before me are Mariah and Jon.

  ‘Um, hi. Did I leave something at your house last night?’ I ask.

  ‘No,’ Jon says, smiling at me.

  Mariah is wearing the same black dress as yesterday, only now over the top of it is a chunky black jumper.

  ‘Okay, so why are you here at my house?’

  ‘Can we come in?’ Jon asks, but doesn’t wait for my answer. Gently, he pushes the door open so Mariah can walk inside my home.

  Letting go of the door, I step backwards. ‘I guess so; quickly, though,’ I say. Leo still has no idea where I was last night. If he comes out now and sees my impromptu visitors, I’ll have to confess, and I already have enough on my plate.