Time passed. It dragged by – minutes, hours, days. Horror upon horror hit the Stone household. The police came back, asked more questions. People in white plastic suits examined the nursery again. Then one of the plainclothes policemen told them grimly that there would be an autopsy.
‘This is a three thousand to one shot, cot death,’ he told them.
They were going to cut Jake open, abuse his innocent little body. Tormented by the images that were crowding into his brain, Charlie shouted at the copper to get the fuck out of his house. But the autopsy found nothing suspicious.
Days lost all meaning. Now there were things to organize. A funeral. Nula broached the subject to Charlie and was roared at. He was still pinwheeling around the house, snarling, smashing things. He was unshaven and almost unhinged, mad at the world that had robbed him of his son.
Finally it was Terry, coming over because Nula had tearfully phoned the gatehouse and asked him to, who told Charlie that he had to get a grip. Charlie grabbed hold of his oldest, dearest friend, his brother-in-arms, and smashed him back against the living room wall.
‘Get a grip?’ Charlie screamed in Terry’s face, spittle flying. ‘You tosser, I’ll grip you! I’ll grip you by your throat, then you’ll be fucking sorry!’
Terry offered no resistance. ‘All right. Go on then. Do it. Or smack me one, right on the chops, if it makes you feel better.’
Charlie drew back his fist. He stood there, quivering, sweating with stress, his eyes filling with tears. Then as suddenly as he’d raised it, he let his arm fall to his side and he shoved himself away from Terry and dragged his hands through his thinning hair, over and over, bending almost double, moaning: ‘Oh Christ, oh Christ, why’d this have to happen?’
Terry didn’t know what to do. He’d never seen Charlie in such a state. The loss of the baby was affecting Charlie in a way that Terry was sure nothing else ever had. He thought of his own kid. Lovely little Belle. Thought of losing her. It was a pain like no other, losing a child. One he hoped never to experience.
Terry stepped forward and caught hold of Charlie. For a moment Charlie resisted, trying to push free of Terry’s grip, but suddenly, as if all the strength was gone from him, all the rage, all the useless, pointless aggression, Charlie was still, held in his friend’s arms, unresisting at last. And then he cried.
Quietly Nula came and stood in the open doorway, watching the pair of them. Over Charlie’s head, Terry’s eyes met hers. Ever since he knocked her back, she’d been trying to avoid being close to Terry. The memory of it still scalded her like a burn. She was Nula Stone. She was important. She was. But Terry had refused her and she found herself hating him for that now, hating him and his perfect little life with the lovely Jill and their gorgeous girl Belle. Now she’d lost one of her children, the best of her children, and what did she have left?
Milly.
And Harlan. Cold, detached little Harlan, who wasn’t really their child at all.
Nula drew back, away from the door, and left the two men alone. She knew that Terry could help Charlie with this, and she couldn’t. Didn’t want to.
Let the arsehole suffer.