Page 66 of The Perfect Son

“It’s late, I should go.” I hang up quick before Ian can say anything more.

—

I drop my phone onto the covers and pick up your life insurance policy instead. It would be so easy to dial the 0800 number at the top of the yellow folder, cash in the policy, pay off the mortgage. Even move house. Get something smaller with a fenced-off garden and windows that don’t rattle at the slightest breeze.

But there’d be no tree house for Jamie. There would be no feeling of you in every room, and I’m not sure either of us is ready to give that up.

I pull the notebook toward me and start to write.

CHAPTER 38

Transcript BETWEEN ELLIOT SADLER (ES) AND TERESA CLARKE (TC) (INPATIENT AT OAKLANDS HOSPITAL, HARTFIELD WARD), WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11. SESSION 2 (Cont.)

ES: Hi again, Tess. Would you like a glass of water before we start?

TC: No thank you.

ES: How is the pain?

TC: OK. Have you got any news? Do you know where Jamie is?

ES: We’re trying. You said earlier that someone had been in your house and taken things. Is that when you called the police the first time?

TC: No.

ES: What did you do then?

TC:(Pause) I changed the locks. It was Shelley’s idea not to call the police. She made me think that no one would believe me, that it was all in my head. But it wasn’t.

ES: You must’ve been scared to be in your home?

TC: Not all the time. Not at that point anyway.

ES: But later you were scared?

TC: Yes.

CHAPTER 39

Saturday, March 24

15 DAYS TO JAMIE’S BIRTHDAY

Today I woke up angry. Furious, in fact. Angry with you for dying. Angry with that vile, evil man who called me Tessie. Angry for being scared. Angry because there is something going on, something not right, something you didn’t tell me.

The locksmith came back yesterday and changed the locks in the front door and the side door. He handed over two sets of shiny new keys, but still I found my feet padding across the kitchen tiles, checking every hour or so that the door was locked.

So I woke up angry and shitty today, and Jamie was quiet. He stayed in his room playing with his Legos all morning. I made sandwiches for lunch that neither of us touched, and when Jamie left the table he forgot to take his plate to the sink. He’s seven, and seven-year-olds forget, and normally I don’t care and do it for him, but I was grumpy so I said: “Jamie, come back and put your plate by the sink, please.”

He already had his coat on and one welly boot. He stopped andstood up very straight before he spoke. “I’m going to my tree house. You can do it.”

The anger boiled over, the words flying from my mouth loud and fierce without a moment of thought. “Jamie, you will get back here right now, andyouwill put your plate by the sink.”

Jamie’s tongue stuck out, pushing the tooth at the front that still hasn’t fallen out, swinging it back and forth as he narrowed his eyes and glared at me. I was just about to snap at him again when he moved, stomping through the kitchen in his one welly boot, trailing dried mud across the tiles.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, my teeth clenched together as Jamie lifted his plate from the table.

Except he didn’t take it to the sink, he gripped it in one hand and threw it like a Frisbee. He was halfway out the side door before the plate had even smashed.