Chapter Text
After Ben had had his go at Stacey, Paul at least managed to get him out of the pub. The problem was, with the pair of them distracted, they didn’t stop on the pavement but stumbled on towards the curb.
With a judder, then, they were standing in the road, and Ben was free from Paul’s guiding arm once more.
“I can’t do this,” he said abruptly, like the words were exploding out of him. He was glaring off into the distance over Paul’s head, and his jaw was set in anger. “I can’t do any of this.”
“Can’t do what?” Paul asked, not sure what to do with his hands.
It had been a horrible afternoon, and he was still mostly trying to work out how to engage with it. Ben, it seemed, had the same problem. For a few moments, he was silent, before his head turned and he was looking Paul in the eye. “This – stuff,” he said, like he didn’t know how to explain. "I mean,” he continued, gesturing into the air, “Gran’s just died.” The plan, of course, had been that they weren’t going to talk about that today, but clearly that had gone out of the window. “My dad’s in bits and now Bobby…”
Again, Ben looked away, so it was up to Paul to reach out and squeeze his elbow. “Bobby what?” he asked, because it was a hell of a thing to say – but nothing would be right until one of them said it.
And yet, of course, Ben was pulling his arm away and shaking his head, retreating. “I can’t get you involved,” he said, crossing his arms as a car trundled out of one of the side streets, heading to the other side of the square.
If he were completely honest, Paul didn’t want to be involved either. He’d felt like a coward earlier, staying in the pub after Ben had sprinted off with the Beales – but they’d been gone so quickly. All of it had happened more quickly than Paul could react, and after the moment had passed it hadn’t seemed right to intrude.
It was true enough – or at least his nan had implied it – that Paul hadn’t really thought about what getting involved with Phil Mitchell’s family might mean, but Paul didn’t think he really had a problem with their past. Yeah, they were a complete mess, but somehow he couldn’t help but think they had their hearts in the right place. It was something else about the Beales. They seemed so – organised – that the idea they were also…
“I just can’t go back inside…” Ben interrupted Paul’s thoughts, the words coming out of him with a sigh. He covered his face and wearily rubbed his fingers into his forehead.
For a moment, watching him, Paul thought he was talking about the pub.
Oh.
Without warning, Ben dropped his hands and confessed, “It feels like it’s been too long, you know? I’ve been out too long and now bad things are happening.”
Oh, Ben… “You’re getting yourself worked up,” Paul told him, taking a hand in his. The gravel was crunchy underneath his feet. “You ain’t gonna go back to prison,” he tried to be convincing. “You ain’t going anywhere.”
“I ain’t even done nothing,” Ben agreed with him, as though they were arguing with someone else.
“No,” Paul confirmed. “I mean,” he pointed out, “you said you’d book the cinema last week and all.”
It was a stupid thing to say, but – after the second or so it took for the message to get through – it still made his boyfriend laugh.
For a moment, the spark came back to his eyes and he was almost grinning. Then, far too quickly, the clouds swept back in: he smiled sadly, squeezing their joined hands. “If I can give you anything,” he said seriously, before he let go, “it’s freedom from all of this.”
Then he was walking away. Just like before, Paul wasn’t quite sure he had it in him to follow.
And yet, because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, there was one thing he had to ask. “Did you know before today?”
Ben paused in the road, turning back like he didn’t really want to keep walking. He didn’t have to ask what Paul was talking about, of course. Really, given the look of hopeless uncertainty on his face, he didn’t need to answer either. He covered his mouth with his hand, like he couldn’t bear to speak the evil he was thinking, but eventually, with a look like he was begging for mercy, he explained. “Nah,” he said. And then too many more words escaped him: “But it looks like the rest of them did. Look –“ he cut into himself. “I’ll see you later, yeah? I gotta go… I gotta go think.”
And then he was pulling himself away to who knew where, leaving Paul to watch after him.
It probably would have been appropriately tragic, then, for Paul to do nothing but watch helplessly – but instead he pulled out his phone, his hand working automatically. Scrolling through his contacts, it was only when he found the name he wanted that he realised what he was looking for.
Jay.
‘Hey,’ Paul texted, even as Ben disappeared. ‘Something Mitchell is happening. Ben needs to chat, but he won’t talk. Can you help?’
It was a few hours before he got a reply. He’d headed back in to the wedding; tried to smooth things over with Stacey and got a very clear brush off for his trouble, but Louise and Kyle had been happy enough to have him back at the table. It seemed Louise was in a spat with her friend Bex, which was something of a distraction.
The wedding reception, which had shown a surprising will to live on after everything, was finally winding down when Paul’s phone beeped and there was a message from Mr Brown.
Meet you at the park, he’d written. Now?
Looking around at a party of people who didn’t especially want him there – and his Nan and Granddad, who were stewing about something on the other side of the room – Paul decided that now seemed like as good a time as any. ’10 mins,’ he wrote, before he began making his excuses.
When he arrived at the park, Jay was sitting alone at one of the picnic tables. He looked worn out, but had something of his old cockiness about him – like he was the only sensible bloke in a room full of idiots. Paul could admire it in him, if only because most of the time it was true. He liked to think he could project the same thing himself if the situation called for it.
“First things first,” Jay said as Paul wandered over. “Don’t ever write a message saying something ‘Mitchell’ is going down.” He sounded annoyed, but Paul had a feeling it was all perfunctory. “All I can see is you sitting down the station, being told that you wrote it and getting asked what it means. There ain’t no Mitchell reputation, all right? Not as far as your phone’s concerned.”
“Got it,” Paul replied, nodding and wondering if this was going to be the first blunder of many. There were probably more serious ones, weren’t there?
What the hell was he getting himself into?
Apparently some of his concern showed on his face, because Jay took pity on him, sitting down at the picnic bench like it was a show of goodwill. “What is this all about, anyway?” he asked, and it was almost like he was being friendly. “I’ve had my own Mitchell thing this afternoon, you know.”
Something else? Shaking his head, Paul joined Jay at the table and decided he didn’t want to know. What he had was hard enough to explain. “Yeah,” he began, wondering what he was going to say. He put his hands in his lap and crossed one leg over the other – not at all defensively… “So, Bobby Beale was in the Vic earlier.”
“Bobby…?” Jay did a double take, squinting in the sun. “All right,” he eventually accepted. “And?”
“He interrupted Martin and Stacey’s wedding reception. Ian was doing a speech.” The sun was shining, the Vic was far away, and it all seemed a little surreal now. If there was a way of building up to what had happened, Paul really didn’t know what it was. “He had this hockey stick, right?” he continued, swinging his free foot. Jay was clearly getting impatient, but it took a moment to find the words. “And he told Ian – well, announced it to the pub, really – that he’d, er…” Paul scratched his head. “Well, what he said was that he’d killed his mum.”
Jay just stared at him, his mouth as round as his eyes. “What?” he asked, like hadn’t heard. “You didn’t just say –”
“Yeah…” Paul interrupted, because he really needed to finish the story. “He, er, he said he’d killed her just like he’d killed Lucy.”
Whatever certainty Jay had managed to gather immediately vanished. All around them, the park was filled with chatter and the early evening birdsong, but at their table there was silence. Jay slumped over his elbows, leaning on the table and holding on to his temples. “Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “You ain’t…”
Spontaneously, then, in a way that made Paul jump, Jay leaned back and was scrabbling through his pockets to bring out his phone. One of his knees was jiggling, making the whole bench shake slightly as he scrolled between menus. For a moment, Paul wondered if he was trying to find some sort of update about all of this; if he was wondering whether it had hit the news. Then he was typing something and Paul had a feeling it was to Ben – before he seemed to remember what traitors phones could be and threw the thing down on the table.
“What the hell is going on?” Jay demanded after this was all over, his voice thick. “You know… You know he could’ve gone down for Lucy, Ben?” Who this rant was aimed at, Paul didn’t know, but he certainly didn’t know how to respond. “They were all over him,” Jay insisted. “Phil and that lot, they was thinking he’d done it. And Jane!” He changed topics seamlessly. “Is she even alive or what?”
“Yeah – yeah,” Paul replied without thinking, though he wasn’t actually certain. “They went to the hospital. What’re you talking about with Ben?” he switched the topic back. Suddenly the prison talk made a little more sense.
Jay tutted, waving his hand at him. He was clearly thinking this through a lot quicker than Paul was. “Wasn’t you and him carrying on back then,” he accused, like this was old history Paul was supposed to know. “Don’t you remember him getting nicked? It was only last summer.”
It really was taking Paul longer to catch up than it should have done. “Nah,” he explained blankly. “Back then we weren’t…” Although, hang on; now that he thought about it…
“Phil grassed him up,” Jay went back to ranting. “Round seventeen of him…” He shook his head. “You tell me,” he demanded, “did he know?”
“Who?” Paul asked, trying to fit together whatever jigsaw it was Jay was making.
Jay, after all, looked more than impatient about how slow he was being. “Phil,” he spat.
“I…” Paul struggled to find the words. “I dunno,” he said shaking his head. “So you think it’s true, then?”
“What?” Jay was fuming, back to scrolling through his phone.
“Lucy,” Paul said.
Of course, Jay didn’t even bother to answer that, just shook his head. “They knew about it,” he insisted, cynically, dropping the phone one more to glare across the table. “One of them knew about it. A kid does something like that and it stays quiet…” He rubbed a hand across his face – one of Ben’s mannerisms that Paul hadn’t realised until that moment they shared. “Someone knew about it and it would not surprise me…” The end of the sentence hung in the air, but Jay snorted rather than complete it. “I mean,” he added damningly, “it ain’t like he ain’t done it before…”
At that moment, before Paul could have any thoughts at all, Jay’s phone pinged with one received message.
Both of them stared at it.
It took a few moments for calm to return, but then, at the same time it seemed that thoughts returned to Paul’s head, Jay was picking up the device from the table.
Really, Paul didn’t know what to make of all of this. It was all water under the bridge, wasn’t it, even if Phil had known about Bobby? Probably not for Ben, of course – nor for Jay either, it seemed like. Yeah, it would be proof of a betrayal, even before everything had got bad and Phil had discovered…
But then, maybe it wasn’t water under the bridge. This was serious, wasn’t it? Paul had no idea what prison was like – not really – but from the look on Ben and Jay’s faces when they talked about it, it was like sending your own family to die.
How could anyone do that on purpose?
Speak of the devil, though, the text Jay had received turned out to absolutely be from Ben: instead of replying, Jay was looking around, then beckoning over to the food hut. Paul turned to look over his shoulder and there was one surly looking Mitchell, ambling reluctantly over to them with his hands in his pockets.
“We’re leaving Paul out of this,” was what Ben said as he arrived, abrupt and sounding miserable as anything.
He was standing on Paul’s side of the bench when he said it, like he intended to offer his message and then be off.
Whatever was happening, in the end, Paul didn’t think that was particularly on. “Well, hello to you too,” he declared, trying to lighten the mood as he dragged on his boyfriend’s arm. “Come on, Ben; sit down.”
“I ain’t told him nothing,” Jay offered his own reply, holding up his hands like this argument had already been started. “He’s the one telling me…” He demanded, “Is it true?”
Ben looked at Paul, a frown across his forehead, then back at Jay before slowly, finally, he nodded.
That made them all serious again. The silence filled the air between them.
“Did Phil know?” Jay ultimately asked, more calmly than he had before. It was as though he could only relax now he knew he was actually going to get some answers.
There was a cold breeze signalling the night, just moving in, and Paul took that as an excuse to rub Ben’s upper arm. He was still silent, shaking his head, but he shuffled on the bench to move a little closer. “No,” he said eventually, his voice dull. “At least not… It was more recent or something.”
“But?” Jay asked, and it was as though they were both thinking on the same lines – lines Paul was only just getting to grips with.
Again, Ben looked at Paul before he answered, as though this was the last thing he wanted to say. All the same, it was there in his face, how much this was the moment when Ben needed him. And what was Paul if not a sucker for that look?
“Well,” Ben explained to Jay, his voice even nonetheless, “he had to find out from somewhere, didn’t he? And it’s not like Dad and Bobby spend their Fridays sharing little chats down the pub.” He snorted. “Jane and Ian always said they were gonna get rid of Lucy’s things, didn’t they? But…”
“I told you, didn’t I?” Jay shot back at him, without much real heat. “I told you it was a stupid idea… They could’ve dropped you right in it, any time. The pair of us.”
“Well, that’s just it, Jay!” Ben declared, his voice breaking a little. “They must’ve done. How else did Dad get them to hand in to Marsden?”
“Ian and – Jane?” Paul couldn’t help but interrupt, not able to believe it. It was one thing to cover for your son killing your daughter – Although, really… – but it was another thing entirely to frame someone else to get out of it.
Ben said nothing, just slumping towards Paul like he was sick of sitting up on his own.
In the end, Paul didn’t know what to think, but it seemed that Jay had got the perfect measure of the situation. “So after all of this, it’s, what? Your job to cover for their psycho kid?”
“He’s not a –” Ben seemed to reply automatically, squeezing his eyes shut. “He’s a child. They do stupid things. React in stupid ways. Getting sent down…” Ben continued, like he was certain. “It ain’t gonna help him.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know that,” Jay replied before Paul could, bouldering on even as it seemed like Ben was going to object. “You don’t know what’s going on inside that kid’s head. You and me and –” He glanced at Paul, and for a moment Paul was sure that he was glad to have only appeared on the scene a year ago. “All of us, we know what you’re about. Phil could figure it out as well if he tried. But some of those kids out there,” Jay insisted, waving off into the distance, “they are psychos. Think of all them psychos you meet; they gotta come from somewhere.”
“No,” Ben refused to accept it, shaking his head as he sat up straighter. “He’s my nephew and it’s not like Ian…” He exhaled one short breath. “He can’t have known what he was doing.”
“And Jane would agree with that, would she?” was Jay’s patient reply. “When she gets back from wherever she is? From the hospital? What was it he did to her, anyway, with that hockey stick?”
Leaning his elbows on the picnic table, then, Ben looked nothing but drawn and hard and empty. For a moment he said nothing, as though he couldn’t believe Jay was asking this. Then, just for a moment, he put his face in his hands, hunching his shoulders.
Paul looked at Jay, not sure what to do. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had happened to Jane, but he kept thinking… With a quirk of his eyebrows, Jay was telling him to stay quiet, so Paul kept schtum. He drew his jacket more tightly around him.
Eventually, Ben raised his head, his face pale, and with a glance at Paul he spoke calmly. That was what was actually horrific. “There was this pool of blood,” he told Jay, like he could still see it in front of him. “It was coming from the back of her head and it smelled…”
He took a moment, looking up to the darkening sky. No one said anything.
“And the paramedic,” Ben finally continued, his voice even. “He said she had spinal injuries. Spinal injuries. And that weren’t from how she fell. None of it was from how she fell.” For some reason, this seemed important. “When he went for her – it must’ve been from behind. And he didn’t just hit her once, you know? He must’ve hit her again, and again… He didn’t stop, bruv,” he added, as though Jay would understand exactly why this made no sense. “Why didn’t he stop?”
"Is someone with her, Jane?” Paul asked immediately, before the images could settle in his head. It was a stupid question – of course someone would be with her; she was at the hospital – but for some reason, while he couldn’t imagine the pain, all he could imagine was the loneliness of realising that someone you loved had done that to you. Your own child…
Jay was shaking his head, looking off as though he wished he could run away from all of this, out into the grass where some keen beans were still playing Frisbee.
“And that’s not even all of it,” Ben continued, sounding like his thoughts were running away with him. “There’s Max to think about, and how he went down – and Dad –” He cut himself off then, turning to Paul with a look in his eyes like he wanted to apologise. But then he was just shaking his head and frowning back at Jay.
“What you on about; Max?” Jay said, sounding as confused as Paul felt. “He’ll get out, won’t he? It’ll be the only good thing to come out of this.” He added as an afterthought, “He always said he didn’t do it...”
“You don’t understand.” Ben was still serious.
They were almost getting somewhere, it seemed like to Paul – down past the horror of the afternoon to the crux of the reason Ben was feeling so conflicted about it. This was the moment to make everything clear –
But naturally that wasn’t what happened. Instead, as the quiet returned, Jay suddenly shifted on his bench to look up over the back of Paul and Ben’s heads, clenching his hand on the table slats.
When Paul looked around, there was a woman who looked distinctly out of place coming around the side of the food hut. She had curly blondish hair and was dressed in a dumpy grey trouser suit. Ben stiffened at the sight of her, distance slipping between him and Paul.
“Ben Mitchell,” she called over, smiling without any feeling as she approached them on the picnic bench. “I want a word with you.”
.