hair.
‘I dropped the bottle top.’ I trembled as I gave Tommy the metal lid. ‘I was just bending down to get it.’
He checked the carpet, suspicious. I tensed, not sure how far under the cabinet I’d managed to get the phone. Closing my eyes, I braced myself. If Tommy saw even so much as a corner of it peeking out, I was done for. But I must have wedged the phone further in than I’d thought, because the next thing I knew he was guiding me back to the sofa.
This time, as he retook his seat I noticed he made sure not to slouch.
Curious as to the source of all the commotion, the boy turned away from the TV and looked in our direction. I tried to give him a reassuring smile but as I widened my lips I realised my teeth were chattering. I didn’t want him or Tommy to see my fear and so I squeezed my jaws together. My mobile phone lost somewhere underneath the cabinet, I decided to abandon any hope of outside help or rescue. The only person who was going to get the two of us out of here was me.
‘Unsurprisingly,’ he said, returning to his story, ‘that call changed things. Keith didn’t want to do anything that might put Jenny’s reunion with Kim and Jake in jeopardy. They needed a plan that would allow them to give the child back without implicating Jenny.’
He sighed and I realised he was retreating into himself again. Not wanting to waste any more time, I tried releasing my jaw a little and was relieved to find that the chattering had subsided.
‘What did he decide?’ I coaxed, getting him to focus.
He lit a cigarette and took a drag.
‘He had some notion of leaving him in the street with a name tag or outside a police station, somewhere he’d be found safely and quickly.’ He scratched at his beard. ‘Meanwhile, Jenny was becoming more and more attached to the child.’
Tommy cleared his throat, readying himself for the next part of his story.
‘Keith is all set to go through with it. It’s getting harder and harder to keep the child a secret.’ Tommy’s voice had changed. It was becoming more confident. He seemed to be coming to the part of the story he was the most comfortable with. ‘That morning he goes round to Jenny’s house. She’s watching something on TV, some drama, and one of the parents smacks the kid. Mikey turns to Jenny and says, “My Daddy does that to me. He makes me cry.” ’
‘What?’ I was incredulous.
Tommy shrugged, not caring to get into it.
‘Mikey made it sound like a regular thing. After that Jenny was adamant. She would not give him back. She made all kinds of threats.’
‘Threats?’
‘She told Keith that if he tried to return the child anonymously she’d report him. She said that now he was involved and she’d make sure everyone knew it.’
‘And he agreed?’
He nodded at Barney. ‘What do you think?’
I thought of Kimberley, behind the counter in the caff.
‘Jenny kept him even after she got her kids back?’
‘She told Kimberley and Jake that while they were gone she’d had another baby. They still don’t know any different.’
He smiled at the boy.
‘I remember the first time I met him. He was such a funny little thing. He kept whistling the tune to this advert he liked, except he couldn’t really whistle properly. It made me laugh.’
I followed his gaze. Wearing trainers with flashing red lights in the soles and totally absorbed in watching his cartoon, the child was oblivious to us and the things we talked about. Things that had decided the course of his life so far. In his features I could see the curve of Vicky’s lips and the line of Jason’s nose. I tried to imagine what it would be like to have him in front of the TV in our living room at home. His toys scattered all over the floor, a third place at the dinner table. Would Jason and Vicky share custody or would they have to see him together for a period of time, until he could readjust?
Tommy had emptied his glass and so he got up for another. While he helped himself to the last of the whisky, I took the opportunity to scan the length of the room from right to left. The boy was sitting watching TV by the window, the farthest spot from the exit door. Not only that, but I