‘Now stop crying, young lady, and calm yourself down. You need to tell me and my husband who you are and what’s going on.’
Ryan’s mum had a loud, stern voice and a face like thunder. As she spoke, the folds of fat beneath her tight red blouse wobbled, and foam formed at the corners of her mouth.
Chloe was terrified. The woman towered above her, big brown eyes blazing with anger.
‘So tell me your name and why you’re here,’ she said. ‘We want to know where Ryan is. And Wesley. Why aren’t they answering their phones?’
But Chloe was too upset to respond, so just stood in the middle of the living room, shaking and sobbing and wishing that this was another nightmare that she would wake up from.
She hadn’t uttered a word since opening the front door to the couple, which could only have been a minute or so ago. The shock had rendered her speechless, and when she’d failed to tell them who she was, they had pushed past her and entered the flat, slamming the front door behind them.
Having discovered that Chloe was alone, Ryan’s mum had grabbed her by the arm and ushered her roughly into the living room. Her husband, who was taller and thinner than she was, now hovered behind her with a deep frown on his forehead.
‘Please just answer the questions,’ the woman was saying in a softer, gentler voice. ‘We want to know that our son is all right. And we don’t understand why you’re here and he isn’t.’
Chloe’s chest continued to heave with every sob, and she was struggling to gulp air into her lungs.
The woman reached out suddenly and placed a hand on her shoulder, which made her flinch.
‘Look, we’re not going to hurt you. We’ve got no reason to. But surely you can see how worried we are. It’s obvious to us that something has happened and we want to know what it is.’
Chloe closed her eyes, swallowed hard, started to fight back against the tears. The woman’s words gave her a crumb of comfort and made her feel less threatened, less scared.
Even so it took a while for her to stop crying, and when she did, the woman leaned forward and dabbed at her cheeks with a pink hanky from her pocket.
‘That’s better,’ she said, and managed a weak smile. ‘Now come and sit down and tell us what’s going on.’
Chloe allowed herself to be led to the sofa where the woman sat next to her while her husband stayed where he was, his back to the balcony window.
‘So let’s start with your name and how old you are.’
Chloe drew in a breath and told her.
‘You’re younger than I thought you were,’ the woman said. ‘And that makes me even more curious to know what you’re doing in our son’s flat.’
Chloe was still trying to decide what to tell her when a sound came from out in the hall. They both turned towards it.
A moment later Wesley appeared in the open doorway, and his mouth fell open when he saw Ryan’s parents. He was still wearing the clothes he’d had on last night and it looked to Chloe as though he’d been crying again.
‘Oh fuck, I didn’t expect you to be here,’ he said. ‘I was gonna come and see you later.’
‘Well we’ve saved you the trouble, haven’t we?’ Ryan’s dad said, speaking for the first time. ‘So now tell us where our son is and what this slip of a girl is doing here.’
*
Chloe watched Wesley’s face crease up as he told the couple that their son was dead.
Ryan’s mother let out a cry of pain and then burst into tears. His father started moving towards Wesley, and Chloe thought for a moment that he was going to hit him. But the man stopped just in front of Wesley, and said, ‘When? Where did it happen? Why didn’t you tell us?’
Wesley struggled to get the words out, and the more he said, the more distressed Ryan’s parents became. He told them that he and Ryan had taken part in the riots, and how they had ended up in the gift shop.
‘It was Ryan’s idea,’ he said, pointing at Chloe. ‘He wanted to save the girl because she reminded him of Phoebe. We planned to leave her in the shop where we thought it’d be safe. But just as we were about to leave a petrol bomb was thrown through the window.’
Wesley choked up as he described what had happened to his pal and how he had then led Chloe to safety.
‘But how can you be so sure that our son didn’t manage to get out of the shop as well?’ Ryan’s father said.
Wesley’s eyes flitted nervously between the two parents, and then he glanced briefly at Chloe before responding.
‘When I woke up earlier, I saw from the balcony that the fire brigade had finally put the blaze out,’ he said. ‘So I went down there to tell them about Ryan. But they already knew because they’d found a body at the back of the gift shop.’
Now it was the father’s turn to break down, but through his tears he was still able to ask Wesley if his son’s body had been moved.
‘They were still waiting to do that when I left there about ten minutes ago,’ Wesley said.
‘Then take me to him,’ the father said. To his wife, he added, ‘I think you should stay here, my love.’
The woman nodded without speaking. But when the two men stepped out of the room she turned to Chloe, and said, ‘As soon as these riots kicked off, I phoned my son and told him not to join in because I suspected he’d be tempted. But deep down I also knew he’d ignore me. That’s why I panicked when I couldn’t get in touch with him.’
‘I’m so sorry he died because of me,’ Chloe said tearfully.
The woman put a hand on Chloe’s knee. ‘Don’t be silly, young lady. Ryan was no saint, and he did a lot of awful things in his short life that brought shame on his family. So I’m glad that the last thing he did before he died was to help save someone’s life. That makes me so proud of him.’
She pulled Chloe into her arms and for the next few minutes they cried into each other’s shoulders.