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I wasn’t in the heart of London, but somewhere in between the suburban towns and the congested West End. My geography was limited to the underground network. But I wasn’t worried by the thought of living here because I would be on the road, photographing before and after shots for marketing purposes, or working with surveyors on new projects. Best of all, if there was a lull in my workload, I was permitted to carry out freelance projects. I could continue my own quests.
One of the interviewers probed me about the castles, why I had picked them. I referred sparingly to my commission, and touched on, a little red-faced, my aspirations. Or what I thought they had been.
‘Don’t give up on it,’ she had said. ‘I think it’s a remarkable idea – a distinctive collection of photographs based on a personal journey, and it shows dedication and perseverance. We like that here.’ And then they offered me the job of architectural photographer.
There was no chance to celebrate; I wasn’t catching the train home yet as I had one other personal mission to complete before returning to Coalville. But it could wait until the next day. Mentally exhausted by both travelling and interviews, I happily checked into the Travelodge, collapsed onto the bed, and fell into a deep sleep. Only when I woke in the morning, aware of the traffic outside, did a renewed sense of trepidation force me to face the day’s task.
I hadn’t found Joseph. As Yvette anticipated, Joseph Smiths were common. I had checked art galleries for listings of painters, some schools, but nobody was going to reveal confidential information on staff, and I also tried to locate Camilla Brooke, and her more unusual name. However, if she was in London, she wasn’t advertising her services. No agency had her listed, at least those that gave out names. I was left with one course of action, the one I had scrupulously avoided.
Back at home, and between preparing for my interview and this fruitless project, I had slept little, eaten in small quantities, and dreamt of voids and stone walls, the kind that stood in your path and refused to yield. A kinetic ball of nervous energy had kept me bouncing about the house, annoying my melancholy mother and rousing my perplexed father into asking personal questions a father might reluctantly ask his daughter – had I met somebody?
Out of necessity, I had told them about how I met Joseph, but without referencing Medici’s scheming. I maintained our coming together was a remarkable coincidence. As for the night in the tent, I had glossed over it with awkward phrases, inferring things that Dad grunted at and made Mum blush. They understood, though, that I was keen to find him, and because of that need, I had to tell them why he was hard to find. For like Yvette, I had trawled the web, and discovered old newspaper articles, digitalised ones because the event predated the internet. Yvette had been right – the newspapers had perpetuated the story for a long time, when now and again the ugly details were dredged up and compared to other crimes. The most recent reconstruction was two years ago. That article, one that at least wasn’t sensational with the forensic details, referred to the location, the tower block where Joseph had lived as a boy. It was to this address that I headed, armed with my A-to-Z of street names and an umbrella.
The summer ended on the day I left Conisbrough Castle and drove home. The dark clouds that chased me down the road followed me. Storms erupted volcanically across the country, bringing down withered trees. Rainwater poured into the maze of cracks and swollen rivers, flooding the fractured lines of dusty fields. The service at the crematorium had been lit up by hair-raising lightning, and while other mourners considered the storm an unfortunate addition to the “beautiful” eulogy, I thought of how Beryl had interfered with Isabel’s life and considered the angry thunder appropriate.
My expose of Joseph’s past had troubled Dad. He found it hard to believe that Joseph wasn’t the delinquent the papers had once described.
‘A leopard doesn’t change his spots,’ he had said gruffly.
In rebuttal, I pointed out, heatedly, that Joseph never had the wrong spots; it was his brothers who had caused the accident. Mum winced at the word accident. I had no defence to the argument that what had happened was manslaughter, or as the gutter press called it, a callous killing. However, my parents had mellowed over the last few days, and accepted that I wasn’t giving up hope of finding him, and even though he hadn’t waited for me in Yorkshire, I needed proper closure, and a valid reason to let him go.
?
On Saturday, I checked out of the Travelodge, lugged the overnight bag and portfolio case to the station and squeezed them into a locker. With the key safely in my coat pocket, I set out to find a tower block in a sprawling estate located south of the river.
It was ugly as hell, an example of the brutal architecture of the seventies. It should have been demolished, but the council had patched it up, replaced the windows and added a few decorated murals. Lowering my umbrella, allowing spits and spots to peck at my face, I stood beneath it and craned my neck. It was higher than I had imagined, and terribly grim with its grey concrete and rows of identical balconies. A few residents had tried to improve the aesthetics by adding hanging containers of plants. I counted up to the seventh floor, where Joseph had lived with his brothers and father.
I pictured Joseph leaning over the side, the horror on his young face as he saw what lay beneath – the pram on its side, the mother screaming, the crowd gathering, raging with anger and pointing up to where Joseph stood. Then, he would have heard the stamping of feet as the police ran along the passageways hunting down the two boys. The pleading of a father, begging people not to hurt his sons, and the baying crowd, held back by yellow tape.
What had Joseph said? How had it started? They had made water bombs out of paper. Joseph had helped fold the paper. He was the oldest, eleven, nearly twelve, while the twins were nine, and already out of control. Ever since their mother had abandoned them, the family had struggled to cope. Their hardworking father had gone out shopping and left them to their own devices; it wasn’t ideal; he was a proud father who hated asking for help. Sometimes he came home and found the twins making trouble in the streets or at a neighbour’s flat. Occasionally the police rounded them up and sent them home. Joseph had tried to keep tabs on his brothers. But he wasn’t responsible for their behaviour. Nobody was, it seemed.
The twins had thrown the water bombs off the balcony. Joseph had warned them to be careful. They had giggled. Joseph told me their high-pitched squeals still infiltrated his nightmares, which I guessed were frequent enough to trouble him. God, I could just imagine the racket they made. I closed my eyes briefly, and I was sure I could hear it above the sounds of nearby traffic.
The neighbours had heard it, too, but hadn’t bothered to look out of their windows. Their excuse was the usual one, it was just those awful twins, and they washed their hands of any responsibility.
There, I heard it again, this time clearer: childish laughter.
I glanced over my shoulder, but nobody was there. The rain pattered on my umbrella, mingling with the shrill sounds of children at play.
This couldn’t be happening, not now, not after I had resigned myself to stopping. I had thought that I had it under control, and now, suddenly, I was slipping back, losing myself to a past event that was part of history as much as any other. I blinked hard, remembering what Joseph had said to me weeks ago in the tent.
Jake had been the naughty one, inconsequential and careless, while the sly Ben liked to egg him on. Joseph had watched by the balcony door, which had been propped open with a brick.
A reddish lump of dried clay.
I swayed, my vision flickering. One moment I was looking up to the balcony, the next I was looking down over the edge, battling nauseating dizziness. I had found Joseph. He was in my mind, where he had been ever since I had started to follow his trail, and he had led me to this place.
?
He backs away from the edge. ‘If you get caught—’
Another water bomb explodes. Ben smirks. ‘Gonna snitch, Joey?’
Little sod.
There are cardboard boxes of rubbish on the balcony. Joseph sits on one and waits for them to get bored. It doesn’t usually take long. He hates the pokey flat. It’s cramped and smelly. There is no space to breathe, to do things. He hangs out on the balcony because he can see far away to the park and trees. He likes going there, but the twins wreck things. The last time, somebody had reported them.
Ben kicks the brick aside and uses another box in its place. Jake picks the brick up, a red one that their dad had found on a building site. He’d carried it home and put in on the balcony, just to use as a door stop, nothing else, he’d said.
