Neville Long asked him to describe the three attackers and he did as best as he could: their clothing, height and build, colouring, features, but what he could recall seemed pitifully little.
After that he was taken through to a small office to work with the technician on the e-fit. The man navigated through the software, constantly asking Andrew to choose between different options, everything from the arc of the eyebrows to the cast of the complexion, the width of the chin to the shape of the nostrils.
Each time the technician would drag items on to the face in the centre of the screen: ‘Like this?’ he’d ask. ‘Or better like this?’ and click and drag an alternative. It reminded Andrew of the eye test at the optician’s, and like that, he often found it hard to judge which was the best version.
‘I didn’t get a very clear look,’ he kept saying, or ‘It was just a glimpse’ and ‘I honestly can’t remember.’ His head ached with the effort of concentration and there was a sickening pulse of pain in his temples and behind his eyes.
When they had finished, he was unsure whether the three pictures were a true likeness of any of the youths. The boys felt like caricatures: the round eyes of the one who’d been by the gate too bulbous, the peaky, feral face of the one he’d seen Jason shove just a lazy shorthand for his impression of the scrappy-looking lad (poor and wild), and the girl, he could barely remember anything of her beyond the coat, he didn’t even know what colour her hair was. She looked like any of a million teenage girls and the e-fit of her was as bland as a Barbie doll.
He hoped Val could remember more.
Would their parents recognize them, their friends? With dismay or disbelief or fury? He tried to imagine what that might feel like: to have a child gone so wrong, a child you were appalled by, ashamed of. All the hopes you had for them strangled, their actions violent and ugly and now made public.
Violence breeds violence. He knew that and understood that kids who ended up in serious trouble invariably had very dysfunctional backgrounds. There had been a baby in the neonatal ICU when Jason was born, in the next ventilator. No one seemed to visit the little girl, and Val heard the staff talking and pieced together the story. The father had beaten his wife so badly that she’d gone into premature labour. The baby, should she survive, was also deemed to be at risk. The abusive relationship had lasted many years; another child was already in care. The mother was being given support, but unless she agreed to leave the father, the baby would be taken into care with a view to adoption.
Val and Andrew had taken Jason home, one precious day after eight long, long weeks, and never known the baby’s fate. Such cases made the news. And now we are the news, he thought.
He looked at the e-fits. You killed my son, he accused them. And a swell of rage beat inside him, running over an ocean of sadness.
CHAPTER FOUR
Emma
Emma couldn’t believe what had happened. The man in the parka, who was a student, had tried to help and they’d stabbed him. Killed him! Just think if she had said something… And the other one, Luke, he might not make it. The police wanted people to give information, but all she saw was what happened on the bus and a bit after, and they had CCTV on the buses so they’d know all that. And they could talk to the driver, couldn’t they?
She worried about it all Saturday night and finally rang the number on the Sunday morning. She had to repeat herself three times before she was transferred to a second person. She walked about as she waited, to the window and back, the window and back. Alongside the station, trees feathered the sky, stark as woodcuts. She watched the frost steam in the pale sunshine.
She had to give her name and address and date of birth.
‘And you’re ringing in connection with the Jason Barnes inquiry?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I saw him on the bus.’
‘Can you speak up?’ said the man.
‘Sorry.’ She tried to talk more loudly, her hand gripping the phone hard, still walking to and fro. ‘He was on the bus when I was coming home, on Friday.’
‘Jason Barnes was?’
‘Yes. And these boys, and this girl, they were causing trouble… erm. Ganging up on this other boy, and Jason told them to stop.’
‘How many of them were there?’
‘Two boys and a girl.’ She remembered the girl, how pretty she was, and the big one’s round blue eyes. ‘Then they all got off.’
There was a pause; Emma wondered what to say. She felt a bit dizzy.
‘Did you see anything after that?’
‘Just them running after the other boy and Jason following them.’
He asked her how old they were and what they looked like and what they were wearing. She guessed they were seventeen or eighteen, a few years younger than her, and did her best to describe them.
‘Thanks. Can you hold for a minute?’
There was no on-hold music like they had at work when staff had to check records or refer to the handbook or get a supervisor for help. At work they played some classical instrumental music, quite perky. The sort of stuff that people dance to in costume dramas. Emma thought it would drive you bonkers while you were fretting about the flood damage or the boiler repair or your mother’s jade and gold necklace that had gone in the robbery and hearing this prancy music skip on and on.
All she could hear now while she waited were bits of conversation and a phone ringing and someone with a shocking cough. Then the man came back on.
‘Emma, thanks for calling. We’d like to arrange to come and get a full statement from you; we can do that at your house.’
‘I’m going away the day after tomorrow,’ Emma explained, ‘for Christmas.’
‘How about tomorrow?’
‘Yes, erm… it’d have to be after work.’
‘Fine, what time will you get home?’
‘About six.’
‘Shall we say six thirty?’
‘Yes.’
He thanked her again and she said goodbye and rang off. He hadn’t asked her the questions she’d been waiting for: the ones that kept buzzing in her head like fat bluebottles. Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you do anything? Why did you just sit there and let it all happen?
‘That’s near you, isn’t it? Kingsway.’ Laura at work raised the tabloid so Emma could see the headline: Samaritan Student Slain. Coma Boy Fights On.
Emma picked her coffee up, nodded. Felt something tighten inside. Tried to swallow. Laura looked at her. ‘What?’
Emma felt wobbly. The Jelly, that’s what they’d called her at school, the whole of Year 9. Smelly Jelly. She tried to ignore it because people said if you reacted it would get worse, but she couldn’t help it when she blushed or was unable to talk because the girls who kept slagging her off were all staring at her. Luke had tried to ignore them; he’d looked away out of the window, but they wouldn’t let him be.
Both the Kims were in the staff lounge on break, too, and they waded in. ‘There was a girl with them, joining in. That is really sick,’ said Little Kim.
‘Girls are the worst,’ Laura said. ‘They egg them on.’
‘What was it about?’ Blonde Kim asked.
‘Doesn’t say.’ Laura was studying the paper.
‘Probably a mugging,’ said Blonde Kim.
‘I was mugged,’ said Little Kim. ‘Walking home one night when I worked at the bar. Scared the life out of me. He had a knife.’
Blonde Kim gazed at her, biscuit poised. Laura looked up.
‘He said “Give us yer phone and yer money.”’
‘Was he a druggie?’ Laura asked her.
‘Dunno,’ said Little Kim. ‘I just gave him it and he ran off. I was crying, I could hardly walk, I was shaking that bad. It was horrible.’