3.01 pm, Monday, 7th March
Brookland Comprehensive School
When the Headmaster calls you into his office at three in the afternoon, it's never good news.
Alex frowned as Miss Bedfordshire knocked lightly on the classroom door before stepping in, heading straight for their English teacher. She was, admittedly, an attractive woman, but the worried, almost upset frown on her face put him on edge. After a few hushed words, she turned to face the class, her eyes immediately landing on Alex.
"Mr Rider, Headmaster Bray wishes to see you in his office".
The classroom went silent. Alex glanced at the clock. There were only fifteen minutes left of class - only fifteen minutes left of school, given that this was their last period today. Yet Bray couldn't wait that long to talk to him?
"Rider" his teacher prompted, "Miss Bedfordshire hasn't got all day".
She immediately gave the man a quelling look, which only set Alex's nerves further on edge. The secretary was acting… weird.
"Should I bring my bag?" he asked, finally standing up, conscious of twenty pairs of eyes watching his every move.
"Your- Uh, yes" Miss Bedfordshire replied, her eyes oddly bright, "Yes, you should- you should bring everything".
… Right.
He traded a look with Tom, who seemed equally confused, before shrugging and tossing his books into his backpack, grabbing his water bottle off the desk as he passed.
"I'll see you at the bike shed, yeah?" he murmured, and his best friend nodded.
"Follow me" Miss Bedfordshire said as he reached her as if he hadn't been going to this school for the past three and a half years, but he obediently trailed after her anyway as she stepped back out into the hall. As soon as the door shut behind them, he turned to her.
"Do you know why Mr Bray wants to see me?"
She rather obviously avoided his gaze, wringing her hands in front of her as she walked quickly and quietly towards reception, her high heels clacking on the polished tiles, echoing through the corridor.
"The Headmaster will explain when you get there".
There was something almost… pitying in her voice. Alex adjusted the strap of his bag and gave a somewhat nervous grin.
"I'm not being expelled, am I?"
"What? No! Goodness, no!" she exclaimed, "No, no, not at all! Don't worry about- about that, this is… this is about something else".
He didn't know if that made things better or worse.
Rounding the corner into the reception area of the school, she stopped outside the door to her own office and gave him a startling watery smile.
"Whatever- Whatever else happens, Alex, I just want you to know that- that I'll always be here for you if you ever want to- to talk or- or whatever. You're not alone, alright?"
"... Alright" he replied slowly, beyond bewildered, and with a brief squeeze of his arm, she disappeared into her office.
3.05 pm, Monday, 7th March
Brookland Comprehensive School
Frowning, Alex turned and walked the last few metres to the Headmaster's office. As he passed the main doors, he glanced out, checking to see what the weather was like for when he and Tom would cycle home later, and-
There was a police car parked outside.
The front yard of the school was built on a slope, meaning that Alex could see the black ID number on the roof and, when he turned to face the door of the Headmaster's office, the caps of the two men who were standing on the other side.
Alex already knew.
He knew from the way the police stood there, awkward and unhappy. But he also knew from the tone of their murmuring voices. Funeral voices - that was how he would describe them later. The sort of voices people use when they come to tell you that someone close to you has died.
He stepped closer to the door and paused just to the side of it, out of sight from the long glass panel. He could hear the two policemen talking inside, but only some of the words reached him.
"... a car accident ... called the ambulance ... intensive care ... nothing anyone could do ..."
The knot in Alex's stomach tightened with every word. A lump formed in his throat, and a wave of grief washed over him, so strong that he had to lean back against the wall to remain standing.
No. He mentally cursed at himself. There was no point in grieving just yet. He couldn't know that they were talking about Ian - not yet.
Steeling himself, he forced back the tears threatening to fall and straightened his shoulders, his uncle's voice echoing in his mind: Don't draw conclusions unless you have all the facts.
The murmurs of the policemen continued, punctuated by faint sighs and heavy pauses.
"... notify the family ... support ... difficult time ... his nephew ..."
The words echoed in Alex's ears, each syllable a sharp stab to the chest, until finally, he couldn't take it anymore, and with a trembling hand, he reached up and knocked once, twice, thrice on the door.
The voices immediately hushed, and he heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back before the Headmaster suddenly appeared in front of him. His face was drawn, tense, and his expression full of pity and regret.
Don't draw conclusions unless you have all the facts.
"Alex… Please, come in".
The Headmaster stepped aside and the boy followed him in. The officers turned their gaze toward him as he entered, their expressions filled with a mix of sympathy and sorrow.
"What's going on?" He felt proud when his voice didn't shake. "Is something wrong?"
Don't draw conclusions unless you have all the facts.
Mr Bray gestured for him to sit down as he returned to his own chair behind the desk. Alex's trembling hand reached up to adjust the strap of his backpack, his fingers brushing against the worn fabric, seeking a sense of grounding amidst- whatever the hell this was.
"Alex, I'm afraid there's been an accident. It's your uncle… He was involved in a car crash, and I'm so sorry to inform you that he didn't survive".
Don't draw conclusions-
He had all the facts.
The world around him started to spin and he blinked furiously as his vision suddenly blurred.
"No. No! That's- That- That can't be- I- I saw him this morning, he- Ian c-can't-"
His voice cracked and he cut himself off.
One of the police officers, the taller of the pair, stepped forward.
"I'm truly sorry for your loss, Alex. We're here to support you, and we'll assist you through this difficult time".
Difficult time.
As if- As if he was failing science or had sprained his wrist instead of-
Instead of his only remaining family member being ripped away from him like everyone else.
"How... How did it happen?" he asked, when he was sure his voice wouldn't betray him again, "You said- You said something about a car-?"
"From what we understand, Ian Rider was driving home from somewhere in Hackney" the other police officer explained, "CCTV places him just past Victoria Park mere minutes before the accident. The silver BMW was hit by a lorry at Old Street roundabout, and… well. He wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so he was killed instantly".
Alex's head spun as he tried to make sense of what had happened.
His uncle - Ian Rider - was dead. He thought of the man who had been his only relation for as long as he could remember. He had never known his own parents. They had died in an accident, that one a plane crash, a few weeks after he had been born.
And now, it would seem, he was an orphan once more.
"We'd like for you to come down to the station" the tall police officer spoke again, "Make a formal ID".
"What?" Mr Bray exclaimed, "A formal ID?! The boy is barely fourteen years old, for goodness sake! You can't ask him to do that!"
"I understand your concerns, sir" the shorter man soothed, "But we'd like to wrap this up as soon as possible".
"Then get someone else to do it! You cannot ask a child to identify his guardian's body-"
Images of Ian's smiling face flashed through Alex's mind - the warmth in his brown eyes - so like his own - and the reassuring smile that always melted away his worries with every new hobby they tried. Each memory stung, intensifying the ache in his heart and amplifying the realisation that he would never get to experience those moments again.
"I'll do it" Alex suddenly interrupted, "I'll ID his… whatever. I want to do it".
The Headmaster still looked appalled, but the policemen nodded and gestured at the door.
"Alex-"
"I want to do it, sir" he repeated, mentally wondering if this would be his last ever chance to see his uncle's face again, "I'm fine… I promise".
Ian always told him that promises were a sacred thing - that breaking a promise was one of the worst things he could ever do, but it wasn't as if the man was here to ground him for it anymore, now was he?
Mr Bray looked torn.
"Alex… Alright, fine! If you want to go, then I can't stop you, but at least let me come with you. Or another teacher, if you prefer, or- or even Miss Bedfordshire, although I'm not quite sure how she'd take it".
He almost smiled at the thought of the young, pretty, bohemian secretary stepping inside a morgue.
Almost.
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, sir" the short police officer interrupted, "Only relatives and guardians are allowed to positively identify the remains".
The remains.
As if Ian Rider was a leftover bowl of soup rather than a human being who had been living and breathing mere hours before.
Alex found himself disliking the officers more and more every time they spoke.
"Why, that's preposterous! I've never heard of such a rule!" Mr Bray protested, stumbling to his feet, and the boy sighed, wanting to get the entire thing over and done with as soon as possible because-
Because what if the body wasn't Ian's? What if it was someone else's car? Or someone had stolen his car? Or his ID? What if his uncle, his guardian - the man who had raised him - was still out there, perfectly healthy and wonderfully intact? What if this was all some sort of sick twisted joke that he could laugh about in years to come after he'd latched onto Ian and screamed and cried and refused to let go for a few hours? What if-
The Headmaster was still speaking.
"-insist you let me accompany the boy, or at the very least, let-"
"Sir" Alex cut him off yet again and distantly wondered just how many more times he could do so before he got a detention, "Sir, it's alright. Really. I just… I just want to get this over with".
Mr Bray stared back at him before slowly nodding and even more slowly lowering himself back down into his chair.
"Alright… Alright, Alex. But don't hesitate to call the school if you need anything, you hear me?"
"I won't". He forced a smile and wondered if it looked as broken as he felt. "Thank you, sir".
"This way, kid" the taller officer said quietly, holding open the door, and with one last glance at the Headmaster, they were gone.
3.16 pm, Monday, 7th March
Brookland Comprehensive School
The first of the classes had started to trickle out, teachers letting students off early, eager to put a tough Monday behind them. Alex walked in between the officers, his steps as heavy as his heart. He kept his head down, not wanting the rest of the school to see the tear tracks on his face, but he could still sense their gazes on him, unsure of what had happened but realising that something had.
He wondered if they thought he was being arrested for something. There were no cuffs on him, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. Drugs were recently starting to become a problem at Brookland - ever since a bunch of dumb seventeen-year-olds had started buying tiny white pills off of a guy known as Skoda. He always somehow managed to vanish before a passing police car or overly inquisitive teacher appeared - but maybe the other students thought his luck had run out, and that now, Alex was somehow related to Skoda and he was being brought in for questioning.
The policemen led him straight to their car, the shorter one fumbling with the keys while the taller one pulled open the backdoor of the cruiser with a smirk.
"Hey, look on the bright side, kid! You'll get to tell all your mates you were in the back of a cop car!"
Alex paused at the car door and gave the man a disgusted look.
"I'd rather have my uncle back, thanks".
The man's grin immediately morphed into a scowl, and something ugly flickered in his eyes before it was gone just as fast. Alex ducked into the backseat and did his best not to flinch as the door was slammed shut behind him.
Feeling a faint vibration against his leg, he reached into his bag and pulled out his phone as the shorter police officer started the car.
*Hey what did Bray want?* 3:18 p.m.
He stared at the innocent message from Tom and suddenly got the strongest urge to cry.
*Alex?* 3:18 p.m.
Ian was dead. His uncle was dead.
*Hellloooooo?* 3:19 p.m.
A tear splattered on the screen, turning the edges iridescent as the police car pulled out of the car park and onto the main road. Ian was dead. Killed in a car accident because he hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.
*Ok, dude, seriously, I no u read these* 3:20 p.m.
But Ian always wore a seatbelt - he wouldn't even drive Alex around the corner without making him put his on. When he was younger, Alex had thought he was just overreacting, but that was before one of his mates' brothers got killed after crashing into a tree and going headfirst through the windscreen. And Ian had never been one to give lectures anyway; he'd always said that Alex should make up his own mind about things. But he'd had this thing about seatbelts.
*Al, come on, talk to me here* 3:21 p.m.
Ian always wore his seatbelt. He was careful like that - careful about a lot of things. And what had he been doing out near Hackney anyway?
*R u ignoring me for some reason?* 3:21 p.m.
He didn't have a job, and the local Sainsbury's was where he did most of their shopping. It couldn't have been for a present or a surprise or anything like that either because Alex had just had his birthday and Ian's wasn't until the very end of March. But he must have been there. Why would the police have lied?
*Guess we're not meeting at the bike shed then* 3:22 p.m.
Then again, who said that these guys actually were the police? Alex hadn't seen their badges, after all. Only the paranoid survive, as Ian always said. And - in fact, now that he thought about it, they hadn't even introduced themselves to him either and he had no idea what their names were.
*Dude, ur bike's still here* 3:23 p.m.
The more Alex thought about it, the less he believed it. A collision in the middle of the city, a missing seatbelt, and two suspicious men claiming to be police officers. His doubts were only further confirmed as the car turned left at the next intersection when Alex knew for a fact that the local police station was to their right.
*Wait, shit, did something happen? Like… something bad?* 3:23 p.m.
Alex switched off the sound on his phone and slowly, silently, slid it into his trouser pocket.
Maybe there really had been an accident and he was just overreacting. He'd read somewhere once that the first stage of grief was denial. Maybe he was connecting dots that were nowhere near each other because that was easier to handle than the truth.
Maybe Ian Rider really was dead.
Only the paranoid survive.
Or maybe, just maybe, things weren't as they seemed.
3.24 pm, Monday, 7th March
Chelsea, London
"Hey, uh, sorry, but which station did you say you were from?"
The taller man met his gaze in the rearview mirror and smirked.
"We didn't. We're Chelsea Riverside".
Alex nodded, a flicker of doubt crossing his face.
"Oh. Right". He slowly nodded, remembering the officer who had given a talk at school not that long ago, all about if you see something, say something or some such rot. "... I thought Old Street was Bunhill's jurisdiction, though? Or Hoxton's?"
The man's tone turned defensive.
"We're working together on this case" he explained, "Your uncle was from Chelsea, so the Chelsea police got involved. All crimes like this have a joint task force".
Alex swallowed thickly, the gnawing in his stomach getting stronger by the second.
"Crimes? You said it was an accident".
"And it was!" The man was clearly starting to get frustrated. "I just meant that because the- the victim wasn't from Bunhill, the police officers there allowed us to join in. And what's with all the questions, kid? We already told you what happened!"
Defensiveness was one of the first signs of lying, and something told him that a real police officer wouldn't act so callously to a kid who'd just lost his entire family.
"I just want to know how my uncle died" Alex replied, not having to fake the way his voice trembled, "He was my only remaining relative so- so what happens now? What happens to me?"
"I don't know!" he burst out, "You can ask your questions when we get back to the station, alright? We're almost there".
That was most definitely a lie - the man had told him they were part of the Chelsea Riverside jurisdiction, but the nearest station, Kensington, was precisely in the opposite direction of where they were going. They could be planning on bringing him to Lavender Hill, but that was a bit of a stretch - and if the cops at Bunhill were as involved as these guys said they were, then it was definitely too much of a stretch.
It was a rather elaborate kidnapping plan, Alex mused, firmly clamping down on his rising panic, and he had to hand it to them; they really had him going there for a while. But any relief he felt about Ian still being alive was slowly yet surely being eroded by the fear of his current situation, because whoever the hell these guys were, they clearly weren't playing around.
"Why do you need me to ID the- the body?" he asked, stumbling over the word because even if Ian wasn't dead - and he desperately, desperately hoped that that was the case, even if it did mean he was currently being kidnapped - he still didn't like to think of his uncle and death in the same sentence.
"We need a positive identification for the coroner".
This time it was the shorter man who answered. He seemed more level-headed than his partner, and Alex wondered if he'd be able to get his facade of a police officer to crack.
"But you already know it's him" he pressed, "You must have gotten fingerprints or- or dental records or something since you knew enough to track me down. So why do I need to be there to confirm it?"
"It's protocol, kid, so just shut up, and deal with it!" the taller man snapped, spinning around in his seat to glare at him through the bars.
Alex felt his hand instinctively move towards the door handle, only to realise a second later that there was none - courtesy of being in a police car. The man smiled nastily at him as he realised he was trapped, before turning back around to gaze out the front window.
Biting back the new burst of panic, Alex subtly glanced down for the window button, only to find out that that didn't exist either.
All of his instincts were screaming at him to get out, to get away, to get as much distance as possible between him and these men, and he racked his brains frantically to try and come up with a plan as to how.
3.33 pm, Monday, 7th March
Chelsea, London
"Can you pull over?" Alex asked abruptly, "I think I'm gonna be sick".
The shorter man glanced up at him in the rearview mirror and Alex quickly winced, feigning discomfort and he clutched his stomach.
"I really don't feel so good".
In the reflection, the man smirked.
"Nice try, but I'm not falling for it. You're not going anywhere".
And, really, Alex's acting skills weren't that bad - although it was nice that they were no longer upholding the charade of being police officers.
He mustered up a look of desperation, his eyes pleading.
"No, really! I feel like I'm about to puke. Please, you have to let me out!"
The shorter man remained unmoved, while the taller man went so far as to reach forward and switch on the radio.
"Save your tricks for someone who cares, kid. You're not getting out of this car until we say so".
Alex gritted his teeth, frustration mingling with his fear. He knew he needed to come up with another plan because he'd watched enough Law & Order to know that if the kidnappers got him to a secondary location, his chances of being found alive plummeted dramatically.
But what else could he do?
If the man refused to stop the car, then his options were seriously limited. He couldn't lunge at them, couldn't attack them, because of the grill separating the front from the back, and he couldn't jump out of the car while it was moving either because of the lack of door handles and window controls. If he banged on the glass and tried to get someone else's attention, they'd only see a teenager being hauled off to some police station for questioning and wouldn't pay him any attention. He needed to talk to someone or gesture to them or message them or-
There was a silent vibration against his leg and Alex wanted to kick himself.
His phone!
Making sure that both men's eyes were on the road, he slowly inched his hand towards his pocket, praying to whatever deity that was out there that he could press speed dial one without the men seeing - and that Ian was actually still alive enough to pick up.
Sliding the phone out of his pocket, he tried to move it towards his lap as subtly as possible, but as the car suddenly went over a speed bump, it was jostled out of his grip and he automatically cursed.
Loudly.
The taller man immediately spun around to face him, and they locked eyes for one second, two, three before his gaze dropped to the phone lying on the opposite seat of the car and his face contorted in anger.
Alex lunged for it, the stupid bloody seatbelt seizing up at his sudden movement, just as the man yelled something at his partner and fumbled with his own seatbelt.
Angrily unclicking the damn thing, Alex threw himself across the car, just about grasping the phone as the kidnapper raised his hand and-
And he was holding a gun.
Alex felt time slow as he raised the phone to his chest as if to protect himself.
"No…"
The man fired.
There was no explosion. The gun spat at Alex and he felt something slam into his heart. His hand opened and the phone tumbled to the floor of the car. Then his arms buckled, his surroundings twisted, and he fell back into nothing.