The World Out There - 37. Thirty-Seven

Liam sat up on the edge of his bed in his little room in the B&B hotel. He hadn’t slept for a moment. He only lay there on that narrow bed staring at the stains on the ceiling. Avoiding negative things and hiding away from conflict may have worked when he was twelve, but he wasn’t twelve anymore. He was nineteen - he knew too much about himself now. He knew where he came from and… He couldn’t lay on his bed and hope everything would go away. When had that ever worked before?

But what could he do?

He stayed sitting on the edge of his bed. He wasn’t hungry - the food he’d eaten hours ago still sat on his stomach like a stone. Usually, he would read. Previously, he had hidden himself away in a book, but now he had no desire to read. His small collection of books had no interest for him. Shit, he was so pathetic!

He looked at his books. Had leaving Nurton Cross robbed him of his love of books or was it the loneliness of his new life? At least at Nurton Cross, there had always been other people around him. He did so well at Nurton Cross, but… But he felt guilty at how well he’d done. He wouldn’t have done so well if he hadn’t been sent to Nurton Cross, and he wouldn’t have been sent to Nurton Cross if he hadn’t… Shit … he was getting up in his own head again.

It was turning into dusk now. The light coming in through his window was losing its brightness, now having a pale washed-out tone. The light was failing - it would be dark soon. He’d have to turn on the light in his room soon, but not now. He could make do in this pale light for a little longer.

He looked along his window ledge. There was his radio. Noise in his room would be a distraction. He should avoid any talk radio stations. Shit there were enough of them! He could find a music station. He hadn’t turned his radio on before because he feared hearing discussion and speculation about himself. But if he found a music station, then there wouldn’t be anything about him. Music would fill his room and should stop him thinking or help stop his mind wandering.

He took the few steps to his radio on the window ledge, and turned it on. A moment later a woman’s voice broadcast out of it.

“And our next news bulletin will be at five o’clock. Now we go back to Harris Daly on Sunday,” the woman’s voice said.

Shit! It was a talk radio station!

“Welcome back,” a man’s voice now rushed from the radio. The man’s voice was a very polished and almost smooth North London accent. “We continue our discussion of the Liam Andrews controversy from the previous hour. Then we spoke to Leanne James and what she found out for her book, “The Boy Who Took a Knife to School”. Now we are going to speak to someone who has a different opinion on this. Gemma Clarke was the mother of Rhys Clarke.”

Something cold grabbed at his stomach, but something else within him wanted to hear this: What had happened? Had anything changed? He took the few steps back to his bed and slowly sat down on it again.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Clarke.”

“Call me Gemma, Harris,” her voice radiated out of the radio. It was the same sharp voice that had filled the courtroom when she’d given evidence at his trial. All the years since then hadn’t changed her voice, hadn’t changed or softened it to one degree.

“So, Gemma, you’ve heard that Liam Andrews has been released from prison,” Harris Daly said.

“Like everyone else, I only found out when the Sun told us all. I’m the victim’s mother and they didn’t even have the decency to tell me what they were doing. I should have been kept informed, but no, real people like me don’t count. They don’t care about me. They only care about their ideas of ‘rehabilitation’. And he wasn’t in prison. He was in a cosy mental health hospital - not a madhouse, but a place that was as soft as a holiday camp.”

Liam gripped his hands together in his lap. Her voice was hard and angry, still dripping with hate. She still hated him so much and… Could he ever change that?

“You don’t agree with Liam Andrews being released?” Harris Daly asked.

“I bloody don’t! He’s not safe to be around normal people. Put a knife in his hand and you’ll see what I mean.”

“That’s a very harsh view.”

“That little… little toerag took a nine-inch knife to school and hunted down my Rhys, who’d done nothing. When he found my boy, he stabbed him to death in front of the whole school. He didn’t care about anyone else. He just hated my Rhys. That Liam Andrews was a no one and he hated such a popular boy like my Rhys.”

“But your son was a bully at school. He was regularly punished for it. In the previous hour we heard from Leanne James, and she told us all about your son.”

“What does that bitch know!”

“Gemma, we asked you to monitor your language. This show is going out live,” a cold tone momentarily crept into Harris Daly’s voice.

“I’m a grieving mother. You don’t know what that is like.”

“You were going to say?” Harris Daly’s voice returned to his previous tone, serious but obviously listening to the other.

“That Leanne James don’t know nothing. I refused to speak to her because it was plain she was going to do a whitewash job because of her guilt at being such a crap teacher. If my Rhys had been a bully, do you think they’d have let him be the school’s football captain. He was his year’s football captain for two years.”

“He regularly received detentions for bullying.”

“That’s a… That’s a lie! He got them detentions for being cheeky to the teachers. Them teachers couldn’t deal with him because he was so clever. He knew more than they did. He’d answer them back and get himself detention because they didn’t like being contradicted. He was a good boy… and he was my boy. I’m sick of you media smartarses trying to blacken his name. I came on here to talk about how dangerous Liam Andrews still is and to talk about Rhys’s Law, which only two politicians have backed because they’re the only ones with backbones.”

“Your Rhys’s Law has been described as a vigilante charter.”

“My Rhys was butchered by that little toerag just because my Rhys was popular. And what punishment does he get? A few years in a holiday camp and then released with all the benefits my Rhys never got. That Liam Andrews murdered my Rhys. He should have received an adult’s punishment. He should be rotting in prison. If we still had hanging then we wouldn’t be talking about all this. He’d have got the punishment he deserved!”

“You’re saying a twelve-year-old boy should have been hung?” The shock and surprise were plain in Harris Daly’s voice.

“My beautiful Rhys is dead and that toerag is alive and free again! That Liam Andrews was always a dangerous toerag. Even his own mother, Emma Duffield, has told everyone that he regularly threatened her with knifes and threw them into his bedroom door. She was terrified of him.”

“It’s been repeatedly shown that Emma Duffield has lied about her son. Her ex-boyfriend said she actually wanted Liam Andrews sent to prison so she could make more money selling her story.”

“What do you know? Emma Duffield and I are mothers, and we know the truth.”

“You have been a vocal campaigner for capital punishment for years now.”

“Worse thing this country did was get rid of hanging!”

“But who’s funding you? It can’t be cheap doing all that travel and speaking you do. Who’s bankrolling you?”

“I came on here to speak about my beautiful dead son Rhys but you bleeding-heart liberals only care about the toerag who killed him. Fuck off!” Momentarily the sound of a phone’s dial tone shouted out of his radio before it was silenced.

“I am very sorry about Gemma Clarke’s language. We warned her against swearing on live radio. We’ll take a commercial break and when we come back, we’ll have a surprise guest who called us during my interview with Gemma Clarke. He has a unique view of this story. Don’t go away.”

As the bright, fast and brief adverts rushed out of his radio, Liam sat still on his bed. There hadn’t been any surprise to hear Gemma Clarke’s words, the only slight surprise was that the woman had not changed one degree in all those years. He recognised her words from all those newspaper articles Britney had forced on him: he recognised her anger from all those people who had banged on the side of the prison van every day as he was taken to the court, screaming for his blood. He hadn’t been expecting Harris Daly’s reaction though. Harris Daly had challenged and questioned Gemma Clarke: he hadn’t agreed with Gemma Clarke; he hadn’t accepted what she said was right; he hadn’t encouraged her anger and hate. Had things really changed? Were people seeing things differently now? What did Leanne James’s book really say? He hadn’t read it. Aiden had discouraged him and he had always listened to Aiden, Aiden was always looking out for him. Shit, he missed that. He had also never seen a copy of the book.

Harris Daly’s voice snatched at his attention again as it came out of the radio.

“Welcome back. And now we have a surprise guest. He called into the show while we had Gemma Clarke on and we knew we had to speak to him. Here’s Boris Flint.”

“Hello, Harris,” Boris Flint’s voice said. His voice was flat and heavy with a North London accent. If Harris Daly hadn’t introduced him, Liam wouldn’t have recognised him.

Boris Flint. Something cold caught at the back of his throat. What was going to happen?

“Boris, why are we talking to you?” Harris Daly asked.

“At school, I was one of the mates of Rhys Clarke. I was there when he died.”

“You knew Rhys Clarke well?”

“As well as anyone, I guess.”

“What was he like?”

“He was… Well, sorry about this but he was a bastard.”

Liam drew in air through his mouth. Boris Flint had said it, actually said it! Boris Flint was telling the truth.

“In what way?” Harris Daly asked.

“He was a bully. He made other kids’ lives a living hell only because he could. He really liked hurting other kids. He liked to hurt them physically. He also liked to upset them. He’d try and get under their skin and find their buttons to press. He liked to make other kids cry by hitting them. He also liked to upset them or make them angry. If they got angry then he’d hit them anyway.”

“Why where you friends with him?”

“It’s better to be a bully’s friend than his victim. I know it was dead selfish, but I had to look after myself. Our school was wild, uncontrolled. There were far too many kids for the teachers to keep control of. There were thirty-five or forty kids in each class.”

“What happened with Liam Andrews?” Harris Daly asked.

Liam ran his tongue over his lips. Was Boris Flint going to be really truthful? He was so far.

“Rhys really hated Liam. I don’t know why. Liam wasn’t anything special. He was just this little, quiet kid. A bit of a runt. He had this slutty mother, but she was just this big joke. I mean, if she turned up at school, which wasn’t often, she’d be wearing a mini skirt and a low-cut top and trying to flirt with all the male teachers and older lads. It was really sad because she was dead old. Well, she was in her forties, but I was only twelve, so she seemed dead old. She wasn’t much to look at though. She was a joke, but Liam was dead quiet. You could easily miss him in a full classroom. But Rhys really hated him - I don’t know why - and made his life hell.”

“What happened?”

“Rhys wanted to really fu… Really make Liam’s life hell. He’d bully Liam all the time. He made us hunt him down at every breaktime and hurt him. If any of us passed him in a school corridor we had to hit him. We couldn’t just pass him by. Rhys would even have a go at him in classes, but the teachers were too busy to notice, or didn’t care. Some teachers were like that. Rhys also made us follow Liam home and beat him up as soon as we could. Rhys said we could really hurt Liam outside of school and school couldn’t do nothing. Liam was like this dead scared little animal all the time.”

Boris Flint was being truthful, almost brutally so. Liam drew in another deep breath through his mouth.

“And you didn’t stop this?” Harris Daly asked.

“As I said, it’s better to be a bully’s friend than their victim. Liam’s life was hell, but it meant mine wasn’t. I know, I know. I hate myself for letting it all happen.”

“What happened the day Rhys died?”

“It was just an ordinary day. At the morning break, Rhys wanted to go and find Liam. Liam had started to hide from us. I guess he was scared sh… I mean, scared out of his mind. We found him sitting in the corner of the playground. Rhys starts having a go at him as he always did. You could see that Liam was scared but he pulls out a kitchen knife from his school bag.”

“You could see it was a kitchen knife?”

“Yeah, my mum had the same one in our kitchen. Anyway, he just threatens Rhys with it. You could see he wanted to scare off Rhys, but his face was all scared too. You could see too that this really annoyed Rhys. He starts calling Liam a sissy, like he did, and throws his arms wide open. He shouts at Liam that he’s too scared and too big a sissy to do anything with his knife. Rhys really had a go at him, shouting at Liam, telling Liam to stab him. Liam finally loses it and stabs him and then… Things got really crazy. Liam just kept stabbing at Rhys, I guess he really hated Rhys. Rhys did treat him like… Well, like dog dirt.”

“What happened next?”

“There was blood everywhere and loads of people were shouting and screaming and then someone is pulling Liam off Rhys and… It was all crazy. I just stood and stared at Rhys until one of the teachers moved us inside the school. Then the police and the ambulance and everyone arrived.”

“What happened to you after that?”

“They sent us home, just sent us home.”

“How did you manage after Rhys’s death?”

“Not good. I had nightmares almost every night. I kept seeing Rhys being stabbed and I just stood there and watched it.”

“What did your parents do about it?”

“Nothing. I didn’t tell anyone about the nightmares. I couldn’t because it was like being weak. Everyone at school was talking about it and everything. They were all saying Rhys was weak for letting Liam kill him. It was screwed up, but we were just kids.”

“How did you get over it all?”

“It was Leanne James, my old Miss James. I didn’t see her after Rhys’s death. She didn’t come into school the next day. She just disappeared. Anyway, it was like a year later and she got my parents to agree to let me talk to her. I don’t think my parents thought it would be so bad because I’d never said anything to them about it, so I think they thought I wouldn’t say anything to her. Thing is, she was really nice to me and wanted to listen to me. Everyone else just changed the subject around me, so I didn’t say anything to them. But she, Miss James, really listened to me. At the end of it, I told her about the nightmares. She asked if she could tell my parents and I said yes. So, she did. With her encouragement, they took me to see a counsellor and things really got better from there, slowly but better.”

“Have you read Leanne’s book?”

“Yeah, she got everything dead right, it was… Well, she got everything right.”

“Liam’s own mother has said that Liam used to play with knives, at home, and she was afraid of him.”

“Everyone knows that Liam’s mum is a liar. My mum says that if Liam’s mum said the sky is blue, my mum would check before she’d agree with her. Anyway, she doesn’t have anything to do with the likes of us now she’s got herself on the telly, well cable news, and turned herself into one of them who’ll say anything hateful if the money’s right.”

So that was what his mother was doing now. She had somehow managed to build a career after Celebrity Love on the Beach. That wasn’t surprising, not with her. But he knew so little about her now. She was a stranger to him. Liam didn’t miss her. It had been her choice and… Had she ever loved him? He’d been more afraid of her than anything else.

“How are you doing?” Harris Daly asked.

“I’m good, Harris. My counsellor was brilliant and helped me get my head together. I’m doing an apprenticeship to be an electronic engineer.”

“How do you feel about Liam being released from the secure hospital he was sent to.”

“Good for him for getting himself released, but should he have been sent there? Rhys drove Liam to kill him. Rhys was making his life hell. Rhys was a real… Well, Rhys was nearly a psycho. Liam was just a quiet, little kid who was pushed well too far.”

“Boris, thanks for talking with us.”

“No problem, Harris.”

“Right listeners. We’ll go to a commercial break, but we’ll be right back,” Harris Daly’s voice said.

Liam stayed sitting on the edge of his bed, as again the bright and fast commercials rushed out of his radio. That was Boris Flint talking. Boris Flint who was Rhys Clarke’s best mate. Boris Flint who stood next to Rhys Clarke every time they attacked him. Boris Flint had said all that. It was the opposite of everything Gemma Clarke had ranted about. Boris Flint had seen what had really happened and now he was talking about it. If Boris Flint could see the truth, could other people see the truth too? Could things change? Had things changed?

Liam quickly stood up from his bed. He needed music to fill his room, not more words. There were too many thoughts in his head already. He turned the tuning dial on his radio until he found a station that was pumping out pop music and stopped on it.

He stepped back from his radio. Shit! So much had happened.