This is just an idea that came to me a while ago that I've been meaning to edit and upload. It's the story of how Nikki's father disappeared, as told in Double Dare, with my own embelishments added to fill in the gaps. I'm not sure if there's anything like this on here already or if anyone's really interested, so if you are, please let me know! Anything you recognise belongs to the BBC, as sadly all I own of Silent Witness is a boxset of series 12 :( Oh well.
If I get enough positive feedback from this then I'm going to expand into a series of oneshots from Harry and Nikki's childhoods in addition to writing Sunset in SA, so please do review if you like :) And bonus points to anybody who notices the line used by Nikki on the show when talking about Harry which her mother says in this when talking about Victor...
Hope you enjoy,
Love Flossie xxx
PS. Title is Afrikaans for 'A tale of abandonment'.
'N verhaal van Verlating
March 1989
11 year old Nikki Alexander pushed the front door open cautiously, thoroughly confused. It was just after 2.30 in the afternoon and she was back from school, expecting to be coming home to an empty house as usual. But there was a car in the driveway- her mother's car- and she frowned, wondering what was going on. Her parents didn't normally arrive home until getting on for dark on weekdays, so why was her mother home so early? The only time she had ever known her mother to arrive home before she did was the day her grandma had died. No; something was definitely going on.
"Mum?" she called as she stepped through into the house, dropping her schoolbag to the floor. "Mum, are you home? What's going on?"
There was no answer. But as Nikki stood there, hovering in the doorway, she realized that the house was not as silent as she had first thought. No… she could hear something coming from the lounge, a soft, staccato sound coming from behind the closed door. There was no mistaking it now; someone was crying.
"Mum?" Nikki asked again, starting to worry now. She had hardly ever witnessed her mother crying, but on the few occasions which stuck out in her mind, the tears had been the aftereffect of a long, loud shouting match between her parents. Those nights, Nikki would shut herself away in her room, trying to block out the anger and the fighting and wishing she could be somewhere else. Her father was always the one who came out of the fiery arguments unscathed, while her mother could be upset for days at a time. But that couldn't be what had happened today; her father hadn't even been home, he was at some kind of meeting in Johannesburg. So what had caused her mother to become so upset?
Bracing herself, Nikki slowly pushed open the door, slightly nervous as to what she might find. She didn't even notice her mother at first; she was sat huddled up on the patio step, the doors wide open and the rays of the autumn midday sun highlighting her hair a deep gold. She looked up as she heard her daughter enter the room, swivelling on the floor to face her and sighing.
"Nikki," she said softly, looking up at her with a thoroughly confused expression on her face. "What are you doing here? You should be in school."
"It's 2.30, Mum," Nikki told her quietly, trying to stop her voice from shaking. "School finished half an hour ago. Mum, what's wrong?"
"Niks, come here," her mother sighed, holding out her arms and pulling her daughter close as she sat down next to her on the step. "Your dad… your dad…" her eyes were filling with fresh tears, and Nikki was filled with a fresh wave of fear. She hated seeing her mum cry; she was normally so strong and composed that seeing her upset made her want to cry too.
"What about Dad?" Nikki asked. "Have you and him had another argument?"
"No, no not that!" her mother said hurriedly. "No, he…" she took a deep breath. "Your dad didn't come home last night. Or the night before."
"I know. But he's in Johannesburg, remember?" Then Nikki caught the look in her mother's eyes; the look of guilt, and realized it wasn't that simple. "But you said…"
"I know, I know," Nikki's mother sighed. "I didn't want you to worry, darling. He's done this before, hasn't he, your dad? He's stayed out all night and not come home until the following evening, before, so I thought it was just going to be like that. But he's still not home. So I went over to his office, and his secretary says he hasn't been there for days-"at which point she broke down in tears again, clinging to her daughter as if afraid she was about to disappear too.
The next few hours were a bit of a blur. Nikki and her mother spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Cape Town in a frantic search, asking friends when they had last seen Victor Alexander, but that got them nowhere. No one else had seen him for days either; no one could think of any places he might have gone. So they came home. Nikki's mother phoned her gran in England and asked if she had heard anything from Victor, if he might have had any plans to come and visit her out of the blue, but she hadn't spoken to her son for several months. Whatever they tried, they seemed to hit a dead end.
It was dark by the time Nikki's mother had plucked up the courage to call the police. Neither of them had eaten and when Nikki looked at the clock she realized her bedtime had been 3 hours earlier, but her mother didn't seem to have noticed. She was still clinging to Nikki's hand, refusing her let her daughter out of her sight. She was surprisingly calm and collected as she filed the missing persons' report, but the moment she had placed the phone down, Celin Alexander let out an agonising scream and muttered something about knowing you were in South Africa when the police asked you if they had to follow up the disappearance you had just reported. Nikki wasn't entirely sure what to say to that. All she knew was that it sounded like the police thought they had better things to do than waste their time searching for her father. And the situation wasn't looking too hopeful.
It was 5 days before they heard anything back from the police. Nikki's mother hadn't gone into work all week, and had kept her daughter at home, refusing to send her into school. They needed to keep the family together, she said. Nikki didn't bother to point out the contradiction in that, or the irony.
The moment the phone rang stood out clearly in Nikki's mind; a harsh, shrill wailing amidst a room of silent despair. Her mother had spent the best part of the last 5 days blaming herself, blaming herself for everything under the sun. She shouldn't have been so controlling, she said, she should have been home more, she should have been a better wife to him, she shouldn't have argued so much about everything. By now she had convinced herself that Victor had left to be with another woman, that he wanted nothing more to do with them. Nikki had given up trying to talk her out of it; she seemed to be fighting a losing battle. And so the two of them had resorted to silence, because it was easy, because each other's company was all they needed. After almost a week of speculation and fear and hurt and hopefulness all mixed in together at once, there was nothing left to say.
Nikki's mother sent her out of the room when she answered the phone, so she listened in at the door, straining to make out the words through a thick wooden barrier. Her mother didn't say much, just 'yes' and 'no' at various moments, but Nikki could tell from the very tone of her voice that something was badly wrong. But she sounded calm, hurt, but calm. So whatever had happened, it couldn't be that bad… could it? He couldn't be dead?
And suddenly Nikki's mother seemed to lose control. The cool collectiveness in her voice had faded away and now she was cursing in Afrikaans; so many bad words that Nikki barely recognised the language. Her voice seemed to raise in pitch and become more and more hysterical by the second, until Nikki was cuddled in the doorway, her knees pulled up to her chest and her hands over her ears, trying to block the sound out. But it didn't work; the screams were too loud. All Nikki could hear was the sound of her mother's hysterical fit, and it made her want to cry too.
It seemed like a lifetime later that Nikki's mother finally pulled open the door. Her daughter looked up at her, terrified and seeking reassurance, but all she saw was the hurt and anger in her mother's eyes. There wasn't any hope left to be had, not anymore.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," her mother whispered, sliding down the wall to sit beside Nikki. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have lost it like that. You must have been so scared," she sighed, pulling her daughter into a hug.
"What's happened to Dad?"
The question was innocent enough, but it reduced her mother to tears once more, loud, hysterical sobs which only made Nikki feel a thousand times worse. She wished she hadn't asked now. She didn't want to know the answer.
"He's gone, Niks." The response was barely audible. "He's gone and buggered off to England. He's left us."
And suddenly, in that moment, Nikki's whole world stopped turning.
"And you know the worst of it?" The anger in her mother's voice was evident now and Nikki cringed away slightly, fearing the explosion of emotion she knew was coming. "All this time I've been thinking it was something I did wrong, that he stopped loving me and ran off with some adoring 25 year old! But it wasn't like that! He was a coward, that's what he was! A coward, Nikki, a coward!"
She didn't know what to do. She wasn't used to this, trying to comfort her mother when she was in such a state. So she just sat there, holding her mother's hand tightly, hoping her mere presence would be enough to ease the pain. But it wasn't, of course. Nothing was enough.
"He's company's gone bankrupt," Nikki's mother explained a short time later, when she had calmed down a little. "Beyond repair bankrupt. And he was too cowardly to admit it to us, so he ran. He left the country almost a week ago, the day he didn't come home. He's run off to England, and he's…"she stopped, her eyes flooding with fresh tears. "he's only gone and sold the house. We've got until the end of the week to get out of here, Niks. The end of the week! When was he going to tell us? Was he going to tell us? Was he just going to let the realtor tell us when he turned up to look around the place, to sell it on? He's left us Niks, he doesn't care about us anymore! He's left us alone and homeless, and he doesn't give a damn!"
"So what are we going to do?" Nikki asked horror-stricken, unable to contain her panic any longer. "Where are we going to go?"
The fear in her daughter's voice seemed to finally spur Celin Alexander into action. She gathered her daughter into her arms, rocking her gently as the two of them cried, hot salty tears mixing on the glossy wooden floor until mother and daughter were bound forever in their grief by teardrops of sorrow.
"It's going to be OK, Niks," she promised, stroking her daughter's hair. "It's not going to be easy but we'll be OK. We don't need him anymore darling, you understand? We don't need him. Say it, Nikki. We don't need him."
"We don't need him," Nikki repeated quietly, staring up at a photograph hanging proudly from the wall above them. It was a holiday photo from a couple of years before; the 3 of them together, Nikki sat on her father's lap at the beach and her mother stretched out across a towel beside them, the 3 of them grinning at the camera without a care in the world. 'When did you stop loving us, Dad?' she whispered to herself, knowing it was a question which might never be answered. 'When did it all go so wrong?'