‘Yeah I saw the report,’ he interrupted. ‘What about it?’
‘Why aren’t you doing anything about it?’
That caught him off guard. Hawkins made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a throat-clear, rubbing his hand across his stubbled chin. ‘I’m sure you know how it works, Pip. I won’t patronize you by explaining.’
‘He shouldn’t be filed as low risk,’ she said. ‘His family believe he’s in serious trouble.’
‘Well, family hunches aren’t one of the criteria we trust in serious police work.’
‘And what about my hunches?’ Pip said, refusing to let go of his eyes. ‘Do you trust those? I’ve known Jamie since I was nine. I saw him at Andie and Sal’s memorial before he disappeared, and something definitely felt off.’
‘I was there,’ Hawkins said. ‘It was very emotionally charged. I’m not surprised if people weren’t acting quite themselves.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’
‘Look, Pip,’ he sighed, dropping his leg and peeling away from the door. ‘Do you know how many missing persons reports we get every single day? Sometimes as many as twelve. We quite literally don’t have the time or resources to chase up every single one. Especially not with all these budget cuts. Most people return on their own within forty-eight hours. We have to prioritize.’
‘So prioritize Jamie,’ she said. ‘Trust me. Something’s wrong.’
‘I can’t do that.’ Hawkins shook his head. ‘Jamie is an adult and even his own mother admitted this isn’t out of character. Adults have a legal right to disappear if they want to. Jamie Reynolds isn’t missing; he’s just absent. He’ll be fine. And if he chooses to, he’ll be back in a few days.’
‘What if you’re wrong?’ she asked, knowing she was losing him. She couldn’t lose him. ‘What if you’re missing something, like with Sal? What if you’re wrong again?’
Hawkins winced. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wish I could help but I really have to go. We’ve got an actual high-risk case: an eight-year-old who’s been abducted from her back garden. There’s just nothing I can do for Jamie. It’s the way it is, unfortunately.’ He reached down for the door handle.
‘Please,’ Pip said, the desperation in her voice surprising them both. ‘Please, I’m begging you.’
His fingers stalled. ‘I’m –’
‘Please.’ Her throat clenched like it did before she cried, breaking her voice into a million little pieces. ‘Don’t make me do this again. Please. I can’t do this again.’
Hawkins wouldn’t look at her, tightening his grip around the handle. ‘I’m sorry, Pip. My hands are tied. There’s nothing I can do.’
Outside, she stopped in the middle of the car park and looked up into the sky, clouds hiding the stars from her, hoarding them for themselves. It had just started to rain, cold droplets that stung as they fell into her open eyes. She stood there a while, watching the endless nothing of the sky, trying to listen to what her gut was telling her. She closed her eyes to hear it better. What do I do? Tell me what to do.
She started to shiver and climbed into her car, wringing the rain from her hair. The sky had given her no answers. But there was someone who might; someone who knew her better than she knew herself. She pulled out her phone and dialled.
‘Ravi?’
‘Hello, trouble.’ The smile was obvious in his voice. ‘Have you been sleeping? You sound strange.’
She told him; told him everything. Asked for help because he was the only one she knew how to ask.
‘I can’t tell you what decision to make,’ he said.
‘But, could you?’
‘No, I can’t make that decision for you. Only you know, only you can know,’ he said. ‘But what I do know is that whatever you decide will be the right thing. That’s just how you are. And whatever you choose, you know I’ll be here, right behind you. Always. OK?’
‘OK.’
And as she said goodbye, she realized the decision was already made. Maybe it had always been made, maybe she’d never really had a choice, and she’d just been waiting for someone to tell her that that was OK.
It was OK.
She searched for Connor’s name and clicked the green button, her heart dragging its way to her throat.
He picked up on the second ring.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said.
Seven
The Reynoldses’ house on Cedar Way had always looked like a face. The white front door and the wide windows either side were the house’s toothy smile. The mark where the bricks were discoloured, that was its nose. And the two squared windows upstairs were its eyes, staring down at you, sleeping when the curtains were closed at night.
The face usually looked happy. But as she stared at it now, it felt incomplete, like the house itself knew something inside was wrong.
Pip knocked, her heavy rucksack digging into one shoulder.
‘You’re here already?’ Connor said when he opened the door, moving aside to let her in.
‘Yep, stopped by home to pick up my equipment and came straight here. Every second counts with something like this.’
Pip paused to slip her shoes off, almost over-balancing when her bag shifted. ‘Oh, and if my mum asks, you fed me dinner, OK?’
Pip hadn’t told her parents yet. She knew she’d have to, later. Their families were close, ever since Connor first asked Pip round to play in year four. And her mum had seen a lot of Jamie recently; he’d been working at her estate agency the last couple of months. But even so, Pip knew it would be a battle. Her mum would remind her how dangerously obsessed she got last time – as if she needed reminding – and tell her she should be studying instead. There just wasn’t time for that argument now. The first seventy-two hours were crucial when someone went missing, and they’d already lost twenty-three of those.
‘Pip?’ Connor’s mum, Joanna, had appeared in the hallway. Her fair hair was piled on top of her head and she looked somehow older in just one day.
‘Hi, Joanna.’ That was the rule, always had been: Joanna, never Mrs Reynolds.
‘Pip, thank you for . . . for . . .’ she said, trying on a smile that didn’t quite fit. ‘Connor and I had no idea what to do and we just knew you were the person to go to. Connor says you had no luck trying again with the police?’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Pip said, following Joanna into the kitchen. ‘I tried, but they won’t budge.’
‘They don’t believe us,’ Joanna said, opening one of the top cupboards. It wasn’t a question. ‘Tea?’ But that was.
‘No, thank you.’ Pip dropped her bag on to the kitchen table. She rarely drank it any more, not since fireworks night last year when Becca Bell slipped Andie’s remaining Rohypnol pills into her tea. ‘Shall we get started in here?’ she said, hovering beside a chair.
‘Yes,’ Joanna said, losing her hands in the folds of her oversized jumper. ‘Best do it in here.’
Pip settled into a chair, Connor taking the one beside her as she unzipped her bag and pulled out her computer, the two USB microphones and pop filters, the folder, a pen, and her bulky headphones. Joanna finally sat down, though she couldn’t seem to sit still, shifting every few seconds and changing the positions of her arms.
‘Is your dad here? Your sister?’ Pip directed the questions at Connor, but Joanna was the one who answered.
‘Zoe’s at university. I called her, told her Jamie’s missing, but she’s staying there. She seems to have come down on her father’s side of things.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Arthur is . . .’ Joanna exchanged a quick look with Connor. ‘Arthur doesn’t think Jamie’s missing, thinks he’s just run off again and will be back soon. He seems very angry with the whole thing – with Jamie.’ She shifted again, scratching a point just under her eye. ‘He thinks Connor and I are being ridiculous with all this –’ She gestured to Pip’s equipment. ‘He’s gone to the supermarket but he’ll probably be back soon.’
‘OK,’ Pip said, making a ment
al note, trying to betray nothing with her face. ‘Do you think he’ll talk to me?’
‘No,’ Connor said firmly. ‘No point even asking.’
The atmosphere in the room was tight and uncomfortable, and Pip’s armpits prickled with sweat. ‘OK, before we do anything, I need to speak honestly with you both, give you . . . I guess, a kind of disclaimer.’
They nodded at her, eyes wholly focused now.
‘If you’re asking me to investigate, to help find Jamie, we have to agree upfront where this could potentially take us and you need to be happy to accept that or I can’t do it.’ Pip cleared her throat. ‘It might lead us to potentially unsavoury things about Jamie, things that might be embarrassing or harmful, for you and him. Secrets he might have kept from you and wouldn’t want exposed. I agree that releasing the investigation for my podcast is the fastest way to get media attention for Jamie’s disappearance, bring in witnesses who might know something. It might even get Jamie’s attention if he really has just left, and bring him back. But with that, you have to accept that your private lives will be laid bare. Nothing will be off-the-record, and that can be hard to deal with.’ Pip knew this better than most. The anonymous death and rape threats still came in weekly, comments and tweets calling her an ugly, hateful bitch. ‘Jamie isn’t here to agree to this, so you need to accept, for him and yourselves, that you’re opening up your lives to be scrutinized and when I start digging, it’s possible you’ll learn things you never would have wanted to know. That’s what happened last time, so I . . . I just want to check you’re ready for that.’ Pip trailed into silence, her throat dry, wishing she’d asked for another drink instead.
‘I accept,’ Joanna said, her voice growing with each syllable. ‘Anything. Anything to get him home.’
Connor nodded. ‘I agree. We have to find him.’
‘OK, good,’ Pip said, though she couldn’t help but wonder if the Reynoldses had just given her permission to blow up their family, like she had with the Wards and the Bells. They’d come to her, invited her in, but they didn’t really understand the destruction that came in with her, hand-in-hand through that front door which looked like a grinning smile.
It was just then that the front door opened, heavy footsteps on the carpet, the rustling of a plastic bag.
Joanna jumped up, her chair screeching against the tiles.
‘Jamie?’ she shouted, running towards the hallway. ‘Jamie?’
‘Just me,’ said a male voice. Not Jamie. Joanna immediately deflated, like she’d just halved in size, holding on to the wall to keep the rest of her from disappearing too.
Arthur Reynolds walked into the kitchen, curly red hair with wisps of grey around the ears, a thick moustache that peppered out into well-trimmed stubble. His pale blue eyes seemed almost colourless in the bright LED lights.
‘Got more bread and –’ Arthur broke off, his shoulders slumping as soon as he spotted Pip, and the laptop and microphones in front of her. ‘For goodness sake, Joanna,’ he said. ‘This is ridiculous.’ He dropped the shopping bag on the floor, a tin of plum tomatoes rolling out under the table. ‘I’m going to watch TV,’ he said, marching out of the kitchen and towards the living room. The door slammed behind him, ricocheting through Pip’s bones. Of all her friends’ dads, she would have said Connor’s was the scariest; or maybe Ant’s. But Cara’s dad would have been the least and look how that turned out.
‘I’m sorry, Pip.’ Joanna came back to the table, picking up the lonely tin on her way. ‘I’m sure he’ll come round. Eventually.’
‘Should I . . .’ Pip began. ‘Should I be here?’
‘Yes,’ Joanna said firmly. ‘Finding Jamie is more important than my husband’s anger.’
‘Are you –’
‘I’m sure,’ she said.
‘All right.’ Pip unclipped the green folder and pulled out two sheets. ‘I need you to sign release forms before we begin.’
She handed Connor her pen, while Joanna fetched one from the counter. As they read through the forms, Pip awakened her laptop, opened up Audacity and plugged in the USB microphones, readjusting the pop filters over them.
Connor signed his name, and the microphones came alive, picking up the scratching of his pen, the blue soundwave spiking from the centre line.
‘Joanna, I’ll interview you first, if that’s OK?’
‘Sure.’ Joanna handed her the signed form.
Pip shot Connor a quick, close-lipped smile. He blinked vacantly back at her, not understanding the signal.
‘Connor,’ she said gently. ‘You have to leave. Witnesses must be interviewed separately, so they aren’t influenced by anyone else’s account.’
‘Right. Got it,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll go upstairs, keep trying Jamie’s number.’
He closed the kitchen door behind him, and Pip adjusted the microphones, placing one in front of Joanna.
‘I’m going to ask you questions about yesterday,’ said Pip, ‘try to create a timeline of Jamie’s day. But I’ll also ask about Jamie in recent weeks, in case anything is relevant. Just answer as truthfully as you can.’
‘OK.’
‘Are you ready?’
Joanna breathed out, nodded. Pip slipped on her headphones, securing them around her ears, and guided the on-screen arrow towards the red record button.
The mouse lingered over it.
Pip wondered.
Wondered whether the moment of no return had already been and gone, or whether this was it, here, right now, hovering above that red button. Either way, going back didn’t exist any more, not for her. There was only forward. Only onwards. She straightened up and pressed record.
Pip:
OK, before we get into the questions, Joanna, could you introduce yourself and Jamie a little?
Joanna:
OF COURSE, MY NAME IS –
Pip:
Sorry, Joanna, you don’t need to speak directly into the microphone. It picks you up just fine if you sit normally.
Joanna:
Sorry. My name is Joanna Reynolds, I’m Jamie’s mum. I have three children, Jamie is the oldest, my first. He just turned twenty-four, his birthday was last week. We celebrated here, had Chinese take-away and a Colin the Caterpillar birthday cake. Connor just managed to fit twenty-four candles on it. Oh, sorry, my other children: my daughter Zoe, she’s twenty-one, at university. And Connor, he’s my baby, eighteen and in his last year of school. Sorry, that was terrible, should I try it again?
Pip:
No, that’s OK, it was perfect. This is just a raw interview; I’ll edit all of this with sections of me talking and explaining in between so you don’t need to worry about consistency or sounding polished or anything.
Joanna:
OK.
Pip:
And some things, I obviously already know the answer to, but I have to ask so we can present all the information in the episode. Like for example, I’m going to ask you: Does Jamie still live at home with you?
Joanna:
I understand. OK. Yes, Jamie still lives at home with me and my husband, Arthur, and my youngest son, Connor.
Pip:
And does he have a job currently?
Joanna:
Yes, you know he works with your mum, Pip.
Pip:
I know, I just need you to say –
Joanna:
Oh, sorry, I forgot. Let me try again. Yes, Jamie is currently working part-time as a receptionist at a local estate agency, Proctor and Radcliffe Homes. He’s been there for almost three months now. It was very kind of your mum to give him the job, Pip, I’m very grateful. Since dropping out of uni in first year, Jamie’s been struggling to find a job, or stay in the ones he does get. He’s been a bit lost the last couple of years, can’t decide what he wants to do or what he’s good at. We’ve tried helping him but, with Jamie, the more you push him towards something, the more he pulls away from it. That’s why Arthur gets so frustrated with him. But I’m glad Jamie
seems to be enjoying his job, at least for now.
Pip:
And would you say Jamie struggles to commit to things? Is that why he dropped out of university?
Joanna:
Yes, I think that’s part of the problem. He tried, he really did, but he found the pressure too much and just shut down, had a panic attack during one of his exams. I think some people just aren’t made for that sort of academic environment. Jamie . . . he’s a very sensitive boy . . . man. I mean, you know him, Pip. Arthur worries that he’s over-sensitive, but he’s been like this since he was a child. A very sweet little boy, all the other mothers used to say so.
Pip:
Yeah, he’s only ever been nice to me, was never Connor’s scary older brother or anything. And everyone else seems to like him. Speaking of, who are Jamie’s closest friends? Any in Little Kilton?
Joanna:
He still occasionally talks to one guy from university and I think he might have some internet friends too, he’s always on that computer. Jamie’s never been too good at friends; he makes fierce one-on-one friendships and falls in deep, so he’s always devastated when they don’t work out. I’d say his closest friend, at the moment, is Nat da Silva.
Pip:
I know Nat.
Joanna:
Yes, of course. There’s not many from their school year still living here in Kilton, apart from Naomi Ward and M-Max Hastings. Sorry, shouldn’t bring him up. But Nat and Jamie seem to have a lot in common. She also had issues at university and left early, and she’s struggling to find a job she really wants because she’s got a criminal record. I think they both feel left behind in this town, and it’s nicer to be left behind with someone else. Everything that happened last year sort of brought them together too. Nat had been friendly with Sal Singh, and Jamie was friends with Andie Bell; he spent a lot of time with Andie during rehearsals for school plays. Jamie and Nat were on the periphery of everything that happened, and I think they bonded over it. They’ve become really close since last year, talk all the time. She’s probably his only real friend at the moment. Though, truth be told, I think Jamie sees her in a different way than she sees him.
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