Found

by Erin Kinsley

  In the farmhouse porch, he pulls off his boots. He was generous this morning with the coal when he banked up the range, and the kitchen is warm. If the boy walks up here from the village, he’ll be frozen with the cold.

  One week now. The cake Dora made for Evan is going stale, but it doesn’t feel right to eat it. He boils the kettle and makes a pot of tea. When he carries a cup up to Dora, he takes her a plate of biscuits, leaving Evan’s cake untouched in its tin.

  Claire wants to be sick.

  The fear of going out there is making her feel faint, but she thinks she can cope with that; she’s been living her life in a blurred light-headedness ever since Evan didn’t come home.

  But throwing up live on TV is something else. Maybe she should find the toilets and take care of it now.

  She’s left it too late. A girl wearing headphones comes through the door between them and the room where the press conference is scheduled to start. There’s a blast of conversation before the door closes, and a glimpse of rows of seated people.

  A lot of people. All waiting for them.

  ‘Hold my hand,’ murmurs Matt.

  She wraps her fingers around his and finds him squeezing, as hard as he did the day Evan was born, a tiny, angry Evan, wrinkled and clench-fisted, screaming his fury at being forced into the world. Claire remembers the first moments of holding him in her arms, how he lit a light of purpose inside her: the only thing that mattered was loving and caring for her son. Over the years, that light dimmed, shadowed by cravings for free time, me-time, a career and a life beyond being Evan’s mum. False grails, she sees now, and fool’s gold. In her life there’s only one true light, and if it goes out, what’s the point of carrying on?

  ‘Are you OK?’ asks Matt. His face has grown thin, and he’s aged in the depths of his eyes. The confident, I’ve-got-this Matt she knew has disappeared, and a man she barely knows stands alongside her, waiting to be told what to do.

  The policeman in charge – Chief Inspector Campbell – is relaxed as he walks towards them, wearing a smile intended to put them at ease. The pressure from Matt’s hand lessens, but he doesn’t let go.

  ‘Ready?’ asks Campbell, and – even though she isn’t and never will be – in the face of his authority, Claire nods yes.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ says Campbell. ‘I’ll take all the questions. All you have to do is read out your statement. If it gets too much for you, Matt, you take over. Just remember you’re doing this for Evan.’

  As the door opens, Campbell leads the way, and two PR people, a man and a woman, follow behind. Matt squeezes Claire’s hand again, and leads her through the door, into a dazzling starburst of camera flashes.

  The PR people usher Claire and Matt into chairs. Static LED lights blaze in their eyes, obscuring the room beyond. Campbell and the PR people take their seats. A screen behind them shows a photofit of the tattooed man drawn from Stewie’s description, alongside a blown-up artist’s impression of the snake tattoo on his hand.

  Claire moves her head, and finds beyond the lights she can see the crowd craning for a view of her, fascinated by her devastation and despair.

  Under the table, Matt’s hand grasps hers.

  Campbell begins to speak confidently and concisely, giving the known facts of Evan’s disappearance. As he’s talking, Claire notices a presenter who’s been a regular on her front lawn, a face she recognises as Dale Vardy from BBC South.

  And then the Chief Inspector says, ‘Claire?’

  Her stomach lurches. Matt lets go of her hand, as Claire feels a deep blush spread into her face.

  Her statement is on the table in front of her, printed in a large font, double spaced and easy to read as a kindergarten story. The room is silent, and as she picks up the sheet of paper, her microphone broadcasts its rustle around the room.

  She clears her throat. The sound of it seems everywhere.

  The PR woman leans across to her and touches her arm.

  ‘Take your time, Claire,’ she says.

  Claire stares out at the room.

  They’re here to help, she tells herself, and starts to read.

  ‘Our son Evan . . .’ Her voice sounds odd, unexpected, nothing like the voice she knows from her own head. Disconcerted, she stops.

  She begins again.

  ‘Our son Evan is a bright, kind, funny boy . . .’

  The truth of these words is a punch to the heart.

  ‘Kind and funny,’ she says again, though they’re not repeated in the script. ‘Wherever he is, we know he just wants to come home.’ The last word is unclear, hampered by the misery swelling her throat, so she says it again, more forcefully.

  ‘Home.’

  She looks out at the BBC presenter, but he’s staring at his knees. Few of her audience are actually looking at her.

  ‘Somebody, somewhere, knows where Evan is. If that’s you, please, please let him go.’

  There are only two more lines, but Claire abandons them to finish in her own words.

  ‘We’re begging you, just tell us where he is. Evan, my darling, we love you so much. Just hang in there. We love you.’

  She stops.

  There are whole seconds of silence before Campbell picks up the baton, turning to the photofit of the tattooed man.

  ‘The man behind me is a person of interest in this investigation, and we’re asking members of the public who may know him to come forward. His tattoo is very distinctive, and the message we want to get out there is if anyone’s seen it, please don’t hesitate, do the right thing and pick up the phone. We’ll be staging a full reconstruction of Evan’s abduction at five p.m. this afternoon and we’ll hope to see all of you there. Any questions?’

  Hands go up around the room, but Dale Vardy speaks up without waiting for Campbell to make his choice.

  ‘Are you still treating this as a missing persons case, Chief Inspector? Realistically, what are the chances now of finding Evan alive?’

  With Matt and Claire in the room, the insensitivity of his question evokes a collective intake of breath. Claire feels Matt flinch. The PR woman scowls, and her colleague looks to see who’s spoken and makes a note of his name.

  ‘We have no reason whatever at this stage to believe Evan is not very much alive and that is how we shall continue to investigate his abduction,’ says Campbell. ‘We fully anticipate that this afternoon’s reconstruction will bring in new information, and I have a team standing by to act on any verifiable leads to ensure he’s reunited with his family in the shortest possible timeframe.’

  As Campbell’s speaking, Claire looks over at Vardy, and when she sees he isn’t pleased, the dawning realisation hurts. These people are not Claire’s allies and their interests do not align with hers and Matt’s. For them, it will be a better outcome if Evan’s dead; there is, after all, far more media mileage in a lonely woodland burial than a joyous welcome home. A murdered boy is a drama that can run and run: manhunt, arrest, court case, with countless cash-ins – books, biographies, documentaries – in the years to come.

  What matters to these people is the story.

  Campbell is summing up.

  ‘Thank you all for coming. There are handouts by the door. Any further questions, you’ll find contact details on there.’

  Campbell and the PR people lead them out. Claire’s legs are unsteady, and she leans on Matt for support.

  ‘I think that went well,’ says Campbell, smiling at Claire.

  As the door closes behind them, the LED lights go out.

  For the reconstruction, they’ve brought in a boy from another school. His name is Nick, and from certain angles he looks disturbingly like Evan. Stewie’s finding the whole thing very strange, like a weird instance of déjà vu, but déjà vu’s what it’s all about. Nick’s there to prod people into remembering.

  They’re ready to start, but
they’re not starting from the beginning, not what Stewie thinks of as the beginning. Stewie thinks they should start with the lost boot, because that’s what made Evan miss the bus. But they say, What’s the point? There’s no one to remember that, except you two. We’ll take it from the moment you left the changing rooms.

  So Stewie and Nick start at the changing-room door, and head down the corridor, past the trophy cabinets and the photographs of boys who are old men now. Nick’s talking about Man U, and Stewie decides he quite likes him. Then he feels guilty because it should be Evan he’s with, and he sends a mental apology for being disloyal.

  They reach the main entrance and go outside, passing Mr Prentice with his keys. Exactly like you did seven days ago, they keep saying, but it’s not at all the same. That day the car park was almost empty; today there are TV cameramen, people with microphones, photographers, police. Stewie sees his mum and dad, and Evan’s dad, and the headmaster Mr Mullis, and he feels self-conscious and embarrassed, and knows his face is red.

  They walk down the road to the newsagent’s, and from somewhere they’ve conjured a man who looks uncannily like the man who was buying milk, with a mocked-up tattoo just as Stewie described it. Someone hands Nick a can of Fanta and Stewie’s given a packet of crisps he really doesn’t feel like eating. For Evan’s sake, he eats them regardless.

  It isn’t until they reach the bus shelter that Stewie discovers the biggest discrepancy in the reconstruction is his own state of mind. When Stewie said goodbye to Evan a week ago, his mood was light, his conscience untroubled, but as he leaves Nick to wait alone for whatever comes next, he feels like the worst kind of traitor. Remembering his instructions, he follows the trail of his own walk home, leaden-hearted with the weight of his remorse.

  SIX

  24 October

  ‘What’s the news, Brad?’ asks Naylor. The morning after the Crimewatch broadcast, Hagen looks weary, with a pallor induced by too much coffee and junk food and no fresh air. ‘Isn’t there a bed somewhere calling your name?’

  ‘It’s calling louder than you can possibly imagine,’ says Hagen, ‘but there’s too much to do here. Just pour coffee into me and I’ll keep going like the Duracell bunny.’

  ‘Anything of interest?’

  ‘Rose is correlating the data from the phone calls, so she can give you a detailed run-down, but by and large, I’d say a very good response. The big question is, will any of it produce anything useful?’

  ‘We’re back in the headlines, anyway,’ says Naylor, dropping copies of the Sun and the Daily Mail on the desk. ‘That never hurts, does it?’

  Hagen picks up the Mail, where a photo of a shell-shocked Matt and a tearful Claire covers a third of the front page.

  ‘Hey, Rachel!’ Dallabrida’s breezing into the office, fresh and cheerful, though Naylor knows he was manning phones last night and won’t have been in bed before the small hours. ‘Message from the front desk. There’s a visitor wants to talk about the Ferrers case, and I think you’ll want to see him. Give me a minute to get my caffeine fix, and I’ll come and keep you company.’

  When she enters the interview room, Naylor has to resist punching the air. She chooses the chair by the wall, and Dallabrida sits alongside her, taking his time to make himself comfortable, opening his notebook and finding a pen, all giving Naylor a few moments to study the man sitting opposite.

  If he stood up he’d be tall, and he’s powerfully built, stretching the seams on his leather jacket. His head is shaved smooth, and his look should be threatening, but he’s relaxed and smiling at Naylor as if this situation amuses him. His right hand is on the table in front of him, and a snake tattoo is winding round his wrist.

  Naylor returns his smile.

  ‘Thanks for coming in, Mr . . .’ She glances across at Dallabrida’s notes, where the name is underlined. ‘. . . Bryant.’

  ‘That’s me, Lee Bryant. I gave my address and all that at the front desk. I’ve heard you’ve been looking for me so I thought I’d better come and make myself known, straighten things out. Seems like I’ve become a national celebrity in my absence.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say a celebrity,’ says Naylor. ‘Do you know why we want to talk to you?’

  ‘It’s about that boy who went missing, isn’t it? What do they call him, Ewan?’

  ‘Evan.’

  ‘Evan, that’s it. I was very sorry to hear about that. Is there any news?’

  Naylor sidesteps the question.

  ‘We’ve been looking for you for some days now, Mr Bryant. Can you explain why you haven’t come forward before?’

  ‘Dead simple, I haven’t been here. I drive a truck, long distance, Europe mostly, Spain, Germany, places like that. I go all over. This past week I’ve been to Poland.’

  ‘Poland?’ asks Dallabrida. ‘What did you take to Poland?’

  ‘A delivery for Tesco,’ says Bryant. ‘Tesco’s huge in Poland. Not many people know that.’

  ‘Don’t you have a partner?’ asks Naylor. ‘No phone calls home, no one to tell you we wanted to speak to you?’

  ‘Not really, no,’ says Bryant. ‘When I go to interesting places, my missus goes with me. Our kids have all left home, so there’s no reason for her to sit at home twiddling her thumbs. We go everywhere together, her and me.’

  ‘You understand you were one of the last people to see Evan before he went missing?’ asks Naylor.

  ‘Oh yeah, I get that. I do remember them. One of them was looking at Sammy here.’ He holds up his right hand, and moves his thumb and forefinger to make the snake’s jaw move. ‘I get a lot of comments about old Sammy. My youngest called him that. I was thinking Satan or Terminator, something really badass, but she made her choice and that was that. He looks scary but he’s harmless, a bit like me. I’m happy to give a statement or whatever, though I don’t know if it’ll help. I just saw them in the shop, that’s all.’

  ‘We’d appreciate a statement, thank you,’ says Naylor. ‘If you’ve got time, DC Dallabrida can take it now.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ says Bryant. ‘I watched the reconstruction thing on telly last night, by the way. Gave me a funny feeling to see someone who looked so much like me. But I got to tell you, you missed something out. Well, I say you missed it out. Maybe you did it on purpose. You know what you’re doing, don’t you? Maybe you didn’t think it was important.’

  Naylor and Dallabrida stare at him.

  ‘You didn’t show the van outside the shop, the one making the delivery round the back.’

  When Hagen makes his return visit to the newsagent’s, Dallabrida goes along for the ride.

  After the morning rush and not yet lunchtime, the shop is quiet. Mr Jadoon is behind the counter, reading a copy of the Mail. When he sees Hagen he folds up the newspaper, but doesn’t manage a welcoming smile.

  ‘Did you see yourself on TV?’ asks Hagen. ‘They did a good job, don’t you think?’

  ‘My wife and I watched it, yes,’ says Jadoon. ‘I wasn’t featured, only the shop.’

  ‘Might be good for business,’ says Dallabrida. He picks up a Boost bar, puts it down again and pats his stomach. ‘Better not, eh? I have to watch my figure. Got to keep the ladies happy.’

  ‘Can I help you with something?’ asks Jadoon. ‘I gave my statement as you asked. I don’t have anything else to say.’

  ‘It’s about your statement we’re here,’ says Hagen.

  ‘What about it?’

  An elderly man pushes through the shop door, and begins to read the front pages on the newsstand.

  ‘We can do this in private, if you’d like,’ says Hagen.

  The elderly man picks up a copy of the Guardian and crosses to the counter to pay. He asks for twenty Sterling Superkings, and Jadoon slides open the shutter hiding his stock of cigarettes. He hands over the silver and red packet, takes payment and gives change.

/>   ‘Thanks, mate,’ he says, as the old man leaves.

  ‘The thing is,’ says Hagen, ‘when you gave your statement, we think there may have been an omission.’

  ‘It’s an offence to make a false statement,’ says Dallabrida. ‘Do you want to have a quick think about anything you might have forgotten? Let us give you a clue. It’s got something to do with a van.’

  ‘A van?’

  ‘A van that was outside your shop when Evan Ferrers and Stewart Wareham walked in.’

  Jadoon drops his head.

  ‘OK,’ he says, ‘OK. This way.’ He leads them to the back of the shop and takes a bottle of white wine from the chiller. ‘I told my wife it was a terrible idea. She has a cousin in the cash-and-carry trade. I don’t know where they get it from, just that it’s very cheap. It says from France on the bottle but I don’t believe it comes from there.’

  Hagen studies the label. It looks genuine, but many fake wines do.

  ‘How much did you pay for this stuff?’

  ‘One fifty a bottle. You see, it retails at seven, maybe eight ninety-nine.’

  ‘And who was driving the van?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Jadoon. ‘I didn’t know him and I didn’t ask. Why would I?’

  Dallabrida looks at Hagen and shakes his head.

  ‘Do you want to tell your wife you’re going out, Mr Jadoon?’ asks Hagen. ‘If you’re going to revise your statement, there’s no time like the here and now.’

  SEVEN

  29 November

  Matt comes into the bedroom quietly, his bare feet padding on the cream carpet, navigating around the bed by the light bleeding around the edge of the door. Since that first night, the landing light’s been left on, at first because there were always people in the house: investigators, liaison officers, uniformed officers to keep the press at bay, all well-meaning, all for Claire and Matt’s benefit, but all strangers who invaded the sanctity and privacy of their home and left only this bedroom as a refuge from the invasion.