Falling Off Air (26 page)

“I knew I had to protect the children at all costs. I used all the moves I've worked on,” Erica said. “It was very satisfying
to put them to use. Usually I just fight the instructor, and he yields, so he never gets hurt, but this man was soon very
scared of me, and he fell down the stairs when I used the ko uchi gari on him. That's a sort of tripping throw where I use
my foot to hook his out from under him. I think he hurt his arm when he fell, because he was holding his wrist when he left.
He shouted that he would come back, and I was scared because I thought he might bring more people, and I could not fight them
all. So I tried calling Robin's mobile, but it must have been switched off. Then I called the police, and they came very quickly.
They looked for the man in the street, but he was already gone.”

Ballantyne turned up just a few minutes later, still unaware how close her children had come to being abducted by a madman.
“She looked stunned,” said Erica, “but she didn't really thank me for what I'd done, which I find a bit hurtful, because if
it wasn't for me, what would have become of her children? And I have a bruise on my leg where the man kicked me.”

Erica came to London from Sweden last year to work as a nanny and to work with Britain's best judo instructors. She is the
eldest of a large family and loves children, but her dream is to pursue her love of martial arts.

“The teaching here is excellent,” she raves, “and when I'm fully qualified to teach judo, I'm going to give up being a nanny
and do that instead.”

Her judo instructor, Chaz Johns, a former national champion, describes her as “a natural.” Erica's got “guts by the bucketload,”
he told us. “I'm not at all surprised she beat an attacker into submission.”

The police confirmed that there was an incident at the Ballantyne household last night, but refused to give details, saying
they were still investigating. Erica describes the would-be kidnapper as white, middle-aged, with blond hair, but very strong
and tall. No one has yet been detained in connection with the incident. Robin Ballantyne could not be reached for comment.

“Robin is out a lot of the time with her social life, so I look after the children all the day and they really miss their
mother,” Erica told us. “They cry quite a lot. She's been difficult about money, employers often are. The house is cheap and
many things are old [see pictures, right, of the children in their home, taken by Erica Schlim]. One day last week there was
nothing to eat in the house, and she didn't give me any money for food. I just do the job for the children. Whatever she's
like, the children deserve love and attention.”

Robin Ballantyne has been suspended from work at the Corporation pending the outcome of the inquiry into her former lover's
death. The attempted kidnapping is only the latest in a series of dramatic events to hit the Ballantyne household. Just two
weeks ago, Paula Carmichael jumped from a window in a house opposite and died on the ground outside Miss Ballantyne's flat,
where the former television producer found her body. In the past week, Ballantyne has been questioned repeatedly by police
in connection with the murder of her former lover, Adam Wills. Ballantyne's car is believed to be the vehicle that killed
Mr. Wills when he was crossing a street close to her home.

W
HEN the rage at Erica's betrayal faded, it was my own guilt that remained with me. The responsibility for my children's safety
resided only in me. Knowing that a threat existed, I had left them guarded only by the hired help. I had failed them.

I slept, but only to be tortured by nightmares. I dreamed that Adam and I made love, we slept in each other's arms, and then
I awoke to find him lying dead and cold in a pool of blood next to me. I fled to the children's room, where I found more blood
and tiny lifeless bodies, eyes staring open, rosebud mouths silenced and still. I seized their limp bodies and tried to thump
life back into them, knowing I was too late, howling my despair … That was when I woke for real, heart pounding, terror searing
through me. I switched on the light and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, trying to shake the nightmare. But I had to
get up and go to the children. They were there, of course, under their blankets, very solid, fast asleep, limbs flung wide,
chests rising and falling, not a care in the world, not a pool of blood in sight. Still, I was badly shaken. I sat cross-legged
on the floor in their room for a long time, leaning my back against the cool wall, just listening to them breathe. Gradually
my own breathing slowed, my heartbeat returned to normal, but the fear didn't go. They were the best thing I had ever done.
Now I had dreamed how it would feel to lose them, and even the presentiment was more than I could bear.

In the daylight, I reasoned with myself. The lives of my children had been precarious in my very womb. Twins are smaller,
more likely to be premature, the weaker vulnerable to the needs of the stronger twin. Their birth, early but alive, was their
first defiance of death, but death would dog them as it dogs us all: roads crossed in haste, planes boarded in bad weather,
cigarettes smoked, chemicals inhaled or absorbed through their skin, disease, and sheer bad luck. After birth I could not,
even with my constant physical presence, protect them against all that life threatened.

Erica's presence in our house was a sham. She had come back to work for us, I was now quite sure, simply to sell her story
to the tabloids. She had brought a camera and she had photographed the children's tiny room, my unmade bed, our almost—but
not entirely—empty food cupboards, my children while they were tired and crying. The newspaper had made a pinboard display
of the lot of them. The attempted kidnapping, if such it had been, had been her opportunity. It was all so quick. I suspected
that she had contacted the journalist, Bill Tanning, even before yesterday and negotiated a deal. She must have given him
her story the moment she had finished giving her statement to the police, or it would not have made its way into the morning
edition. She had not turned up the next morning and I had not even tried to contact her. I was too frightened of what I would
do to her.

But the failings were mine. I had failed to understand her message about the threatening phone call and I had failed as a
mother. I had seen it in everyone's eyes that night: Finney, my mother, D.C. Mann, the patrol officers who had turned up in
answer to Erica's call. I had messed up.

“You know who it was, of course.” Finney was sitting on my sofa. Against my better judgment, against every thread of logic
in my head, I was pleased to see him. At first, when he turned up unannounced, I didn't know why he had come to see me or
why he had greeted me with more civility than had become the norm between us. Then I saw that there was diplomacy at hand.

“He was who he said he was, Adam's father.” It was obvious. Tall, white-haired rather than blond; elderly rather than middle-aged,
and somewhat frail; former army, his fighting days long gone, rather overweight. But then if Erica had said that, her high
kicks might have seemed a little overzealous. I thought Harold Wills could probably have been stopped with little more than
a steady glare and a poke on the shoulder.

“It's Adam's funeral tomorrow,” Finney said softly. “A man's allowed to go a little mad before he buries his son.”

“Well he can't steal mine.” My voice was thin with anger and I got to my feet and stood, looming over Finney where he sat.
“And I expect you to charge him with attempted kidnapping.”

“Maybe he just wanted to see them,” he said, cajoling. “Try to put yourself in his shoes. He's never seen his grandchildren.
His wife brings back tales of neglect and abuse. Tomorrow's his son's funeral.”

“He lied his way into my home. You arrest him or I'll sue the police for harassment.” My voice rose again.

Finney ran his tongue over his lips.

“Do you hear me?” I was shouting at him now.

“Of course I can hear you. Half the street can hear you.”

I slumped back into the armchair, pushing my hair back from my face, irritated by its touch against my skin. Did I really
want a grieving old man thrown into jail? What was happening to me? I sipped at a cup of cold coffee, but my hand was trembling.
Finney was talking again and I tried to concentrate. I fixed my eyes on his.

“We've talked to Erica. She wanted to know whether you were angry with her. I said you were. Anyway, Erica didn't understand
that phone call was threatening either, until she went into the
Chronicle
and sat down with Tanning, and he asked her to go through the day and tell him everything that happened. He's a worm but
he's not stupid, so when he forced her to repeat exactly what had been said, or at least what she remembered, he realized
the well-wisher was quite the opposite.”

“You don't think Tanning was just being creative?”

“I've gone over it again with Erica and I think his interpretation was right, even if it wasn't word for word.”

“I think a lot of the article was in Tanning's words,” I said wearily. “Erica doesn't speak like that.”

Finney nodded, then went on, “The thing is, I don't think Harold Wills made that phone call. He says he didn't, and it just
doesn't make sense that he would. Adam's parents just want the children, why would they threaten you?”

“Of course he didn't make the phone call, it never occurred to me that he had,” I snapped, then a thought struck me and I
spoke slowly, “Unless they think threatening phone calls will convince a judge to remove the children to somewhere safer.”

Finney shook his head.

“They're not up to plotting anything. The other son is here with them …”

“David.”

“David. He's trying to hold things together, but they're both in a terrible state.”

David. Adam's sweet little brother. All the talent, none of the confidence, constantly put down by his father. He'd escaped
to a job that he loved and now he was recalled for death duty. I wondered how he was coping with this grief for the better-loved
brother.

“You could have made the call yourself, of course.” Finney was speaking quietly, and I almost missed it because my mind was
on David.

“What?” I almost laughed, it was so absurd.

“You were out. You knew Erica would take a message. Threats to you make you look innocent.”

I regarded him curiously, incapable of further anger.

“You don't really believe that, do you?”

His face was unreadable. He shrugged.

“Why would I kill him?” I asked dully.

“Why wouldn't you? He abandoned you with two small kids.”

“So what? So I wasn't able to cope? It's a mess,” I waved my hand around the sitting room. There were toys littered about,
and a pile of laundry had found its way onto the coffee table. “But it wouldn't be any less of a mess with Adam here. You
think he'd be tidying up?”

“You'd be less tired.”

“I doubt it.”

“He might at least give you financial support.”

“I'm not an imbecile. I can work. We'd have got by anyway, whatever happens about Adam's will. I'm not pretending it wouldn't
be great to be able to move somewhere else, but …” My voice trailed off.

“So you killed him because you're doing fine without him, and suddenly he's trying to elbow his way back into your lives.”
Finney's voice lacked all conviction, and I felt that we were playing no more than a game, a weary dutiful game.

“Make up your mind, Finney …” I looked across at him, and he shrugged as if to say, At least give me a comeback. “I didn't
like the idea of him seeing the twins, but I was getting used to it. Anyway,” I warmed to the subject, “you know what I really
think? I think he wouldn't have stuck with it. We'd have seen him once a year, if that.”

“That's fine with the benefit of hindsight,” Finney said.

“For God's sake.” I was exasperated now and I sat forward, pinning his eyes with mine, speaking fast and hard. “Tell me why
I would kill the father of my children. They don't know the first thing about it now, but they will. They'll grow older, and
they'll ask questions, and they'll hear what people say. Someone hated Adam enough to drive a car at him. What do you think
that's going to do to his children? Well, I'm going to find out. I'm going to be dealing with this, and with my damaged children,
for the rest of my life. Do you really think I'd have done that to my children? Would you do that to yours?”

Finney made a motion of surrender with his hands and hung his head. He'd puffed out his cheeks and didn't seem about to say
anything.

“If you think I'm guilty, arrest me.”

He raised a palm. “Don't start shouting again, I have a headache.”

“If you think I'm guilty, arrest me.” I came over and knelt in front of him. My eyes locked on his. I spoke as softly as I
had ever spoken, but I couldn't take the intensity out of my words. “You can't because you don't have the evidence. Or you
have evidence that points to someone else. I don't know which. But you know I didn't do it and I need you to say it publicly.
You're just hanging me out to dry. Get me my job back. Tell Adam's parents they must stay away. For God's sake, concentrate
on finding who killed Adam, so my children don't have to spend all their lives wondering whether it was their mother.”