Last Seen

by Lucy Clarke

  I sometimes wonder what would happen if Nick looked through this box. How would I explain it? Nick, sometimes I steal things.

  That’s what it is: stealing. I’ve devoted hours and hours to justifying why I do it, telling myself I’m only borrowing the items and that I’ll give them back. Only I never do. I don’t plan to take the things I do, it’s just that sometimes, this feeling sort of builds inside me, as if my blood vessels are starting to hum, to vibrate. The sensation spreads, travelling down my arms until I can feel my fingertips almost twitching with the need to take something.

  If I was interested in seeing a therapist, I imagine I’d be paying someone to tell me that the theft is about seizing power over that person. Shifting it into my favour. The items I keep become trophies. A therapist would probably want to explore the steps I can take to stop.

  But I’m not interested in therapy, or stopping.

  I steal because I can, because it gives me a hit. It makes me smile privately because to the outside world I’m a mother who cooks wholesome meals and keeps an immaculate home, but I like to remind myself that there are other shades to me. Ones that no one else sees.

  ‘It doesn’t seem like anything is missing,’ Nick says, looking up from the final case. ‘Although it’s hard to know what was here to begin with.’

  I move to his shoulder and look into the case, too. It’s scruffily packed – clothes bundled in haphazardly. I have a vague memory of sticking my head around Jacob’s door, yelling, ‘We need everything packed by the end of the day!’ He’d glanced up with that easy smile, and said, ‘Mum, it’ll take me, like, half an hour.’

  He was right – it clearly had done. Maybe I should pack like Jacob. All the folding and organizing and sorting I do is probably taking years off my life.

  ‘It’s a good thing,’ Nick says. ‘It means Jacob can’t have intended to be away for a long time.’

  We’re both silent for some time. I can hear the scuffle of mice in the eaves overhead.

  ‘When I was sixteen,’ Nick says all of a sudden, ‘I ran away.’

  I turn and look at my husband. He is running a fingertip along the edge of a metal shelf, a strange expression on his face.

  ‘I went to London – picked up work in a casino, cleaning the toilets.’

  I blink, surprised. ‘Did your parents know where you were?’

  ‘I called them after four days. Came home after a fortnight.’

  Four days. That’s longer than Jacob’s been missing for.

  I cannot believe Nick has never told me this. I know he tells me this story to make me think perhaps Jacob has just run away too, but instead it makes me feel anxious. Like I don’t know my husband or son. ‘Why? Why did you leave?’

  Nick looks at the garage shelf, his hands carefully adjusting the stack of plant pots and trowels, realigning them at angles that appeal to him. His gaze doesn’t leave the shelf as he says, ‘I came home from school early one afternoon. I had tonsillitis. My mother was in bed with another man.’

  The confession is so incredibly surprising that I gasp. Stella is the head of their family, the planet around which her sons and husband orbit. ‘What did she say?’

  Nick gives the lightest shrug. ‘My mother and I never talked about it. When my father asked why I ran away, I told him it was because of a girl. I think he was secretly pleased.’

  I am staggered. I can’t help wondering whether his mother was in love with that man. Whether she continued to have an affair with him – or whether she ended it in order to live the family life she had so carefully constructed.

  I also can’t believe that she and Nick have never once talked about it.

  Or can I?

  I look at my husband – the familiar curve of his neck, the line of his jaw, the stretch of his fingers – and I think of what I’ve been prepared to hide to protect my family.

  13. ISLA

  Summer 2005

  I stood with a hip against the kitchen counter, talking to Sarah as she ladled hot stock into the risotto pan, stirring slowly.

  I glanced over my shoulder checking on the boys; they were digging a huge hole on the beach ready to bury one or other of themselves in, sand flying everywhere. Suddenly the digging stopped, and their heads snapped up, like two little meerkats, followed by shouts of ‘Daddy!’ and ‘Uncle Nick!’

  Nick strode across the sand in his leather shoes, his white shirt unbuttoned. The boys launched themselves at him, attempting to drag him into their sand trap. I smiled, turning back to Sarah. She was watching too, something wistful caught in her expression.

  A few moments later, Nick clambered on to the deck, a boy wrestled beneath each arm, his shirt straining. He had that look of relief: it was the weekend.

  ‘Here are the extra ingredients,’ he said, glancing down at the children. ‘Think they’ll fit in your pot?’

  ‘We’ll just need to trim them down to size,’ Sarah said, using her hand as a chopping knife, making the boys squeal even more.

  When Nick released the boys, they circled his legs, imploring him to help with the digging, to take them crabbing, to see if they could find fossils in the rocks.

  ‘Give him a minute,’ Sarah told them both, shooing them out of the hut. She passed Nick a beer from the fridge, kissing him.

  Nick kept his head bent towards hers as he said quietly, ‘You okay?’

  She smiled. ‘Better.’

  I traced the base of my wine glass as he kissed her again.

  ‘Good week, Isla?’ Nick asked me.

  ‘Blissful, thanks. It’s this time of year that I remember why I do my job.’ Since Marley started primary school, I’d been working as a teaching assistant. The pay was atrocious, but it was the only job I could find that meant I could be there before and after school for Marley. Plus, now that it was the start of the summer holidays, I was wonderfully free again.

  ‘Joining us for dinner?’

  ‘Sure am,’ I said, then wondered whether Nick might prefer to celebrate the end of the week with his wife and son.

  ‘Excellent.’ His smile seemed genuine and I relaxed again.

  Once Nick had wandered on to the beach with his beer, I turned to Sarah. ‘Are you okay?’

  She kept her back to me, stirring the risotto. ‘Yes, fine.’

  ‘I just … sensed there’s something going on.’

  Her shoulders lifted as she drew in a deep breath. ‘We’ve just … we’ve decided we’re stopping trying.’

  For the past three and half years, Sarah and Nick had been trying for another baby. They’d changed their diet, stopped drinking midweek, started taking vitamin supplements, and using an ovulation kit.

  ‘But, why?’

  Sarah sighed. ‘I’m just over it. The disappointment each month. It’s exhausting. We have a healthy, beautiful son. Why are we obsessing over it?’

  On the one hand, Sarah was right to be grateful for what they had, to enjoy Jacob rather than fixating on the next item on her life plan. Yet, on the other hand, Sarah had always said she wanted a big family. ‘There’s still the IVF route …’

  ‘I’m not putting us through it. I’ve seen what it does to couples. The raised hopes, the crushing disappointments – it’s too much.’

  ‘A lot of people have success—’

  ‘We had Jacob. Maybe he was our gift. I think there’s a reason. It’s time to just get on with enjoying our lives.’

  ‘What does Nick say?’

  ‘Oh, you know Nick. He says whatever he thinks I want to hear. He’s probably secretly relieved. Now Jacob’s at such an easy age, I’m not sure he’s ready to go back to the night feeds and nappies.’ Then she wiped her hands on her apron, brightened her voice and asked, ‘More wine?’

  I didn’t see it then, the lie hidden in our exchange.

  But it was right there all along, jagged and painful – like broken glass waiting in the sand.

  14. SARAH

  DAY THREE, 10.40 A.M.

  My eyes burn with
concentration as I read an article on my phone about missing persons’ cases. More than a quarter of a million people go missing every year in this country – and two thirds of them are under eighteen. I press my thumb knuckle against my bottom lip, picturing Jacob within a sea of blank-faced teenagers. Gradually his shape begins to waver and fade, his features sliding away until he disappears into the crowd.

  If Jacob is one of so many, how on earth are the police going to find him?

  Stop reading! I tell myself. Just stop!

  But I can’t.

  I read that in missing persons’ cases, the police try to establish the risk of each individual. If the person’s disappearance is out of character, it would immediately raise the risk. I visualize a seesaw, Jacob’s name in the centre. On the high end of the seesaw, I picture the words ‘out of character’. But then, on the low end, the words ‘male’ and ‘seventeen’ are stamped. I wonder which way the seesaw is balanced – is his case medium risk? Would it be higher if he were a girl? If he were younger?

  I scroll down and a fresh fact snaps across the screen. I read it aloud to Nick, who is standing in the beach hut doorway, his back to me, a bowl of cereal in his hand. ‘Vital clues are most often found in the first few hours.’ I look towards Nick, who still has his back to me. ‘What clues do we have?’ I ask, my voice rising. ‘The police haven’t found anything!’

  He doesn’t answer me. He continues to stare out over the water.

  My throat begins to close as I read that the majority of missing people are located within the first forty-eight hours. It’s Wednesday morning and Jacob was last seen on Sunday evening. Already we’ve moved outside of that vital timeframe, sliding into the minority.

  There are quotes from parents whose children have disappeared, and my voice is a whisper as I read them: ‘Elaine Chewsbury’s son, Jack, was eighteen when he went missing in Derby twenty years ago. His case remains open. “It’s the absence of knowing that is so impossible to deal with. When I wake each morning, the questions hit me afresh. Is he still alive? What happened to him? Will today be the day he walks through the door?” Elaine Chewsbury says.’

  The phone slides out of my grip and I place both palms on the kitchen counter. ‘That cannot be us,’ I beg. ‘Please, do not let that be us.’

  From the other end of the beach hut, I hear Nick turn. There’s the clink of a spoon against the rim of the china bowl as he sets it down, then I feel his hands sliding around my body, turning me towards him. The anxiety and tension I’m carrying makes my body rigid, as if it has hardened around my heart to protect the hole that has torn through it.

  As his palms run in smooth, familiar strokes up and down my back, I press my face against his shoulder, threading my arms around him. It’s the most tactile we’ve been in weeks, maybe months, and I realize how much I’ve missed it. Right now we need each other more than ever.

  We stand together in the beach hut, the distant sound of waves rolling around us, as Nick’s lips move against my hair. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

  ‘This is the way I see things,’ Nick says, pulling apart to face me. ‘There are only two possibilities.’

  His pragmatic, calm tone is reassuring, and I listen hard.

  It’s part of the story of why I fell in love with him – for his unstinting optimism, for his complete refusal of unhappiness in his life. I don’t know whether his positivity is a product of a solid family upbringing, or whether it’s because he’s never had to deal with anything crushing before – but I love him for it. He radiates happiness and confidence, and it reaches me.

  ‘The first possibility is that Jacob has chosen to go missing. We think he had a bust-up with Caz. We need to find out what the fight was about. What if she’d been unfaithful with one of his friends? Or vice versa. That’d explain his hurry to disappear. We should go and see her again, find out exactly what they were talking about.’

  I nod.

  ‘Or maybe it wasn’t only the argument with Caz, but rather a combination of things: you guys had that little spat, then he argued with Caz. He could have fallen out with a friend, too, or maybe he was just struggling with the anniversary—’

  ‘Any of those things are possible, but I just don’t believe that Jacob wouldn’t get in touch. He knows how worried we’d be – that we’d get the police involved. He wouldn’t do it.’

  ‘I know,’ Nick says slowly, thoughtfully. ‘That’s what keeps snagging with me.’

  ‘And the second possibility?’ I ask, even though I know exactly what it is.

  Nick takes a breath. ‘Jacob hasn’t chosen to go missing: something’s happened to him. There could’ve been an accident. Or someone’s hurt him.’

  A hundred scenarios have already played through my head, each more unbearable than the last: he was walking across the headland at night and slipped into one of the ravines. He got so drunk that he passed out on the tideline. He took something at the party – had a bad reaction to it. I look at Nick. ‘What do you think’s happened?’

  Nick has never been one for assumptions or speculations. He is a man who likes concrete evidence, facts.

  I wait, looking into his face. His skin is grey, the corners of his eyes bloodshot with tiredness. Despite everything he’s said so far, he looks like a man who is terrified.

  Before Nick can answer, there’s a knock at the door.

  Luke moves inside, carrying a rucksack by one hand. He looks uncomfortable, awkward. I look at him closely, trying to work out what it is.

  ‘Is there any news yet? Has Jacob been in touch?’ he asks, glancing between us.

  ‘Not yet,’ I say with a shake of my head. ‘Have the police been to see you?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon. They wanted to hear about the party. Find out who was there, what happened, when he left – that sort of thing.’

  ‘You told them everything you remembered?’

  Luke nods, then glances at the rucksack in his hand.

  I suddenly realize what’s wrong – why Luke looks so awkward. ‘My God … that’s Jacob’s bag, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think so. Yeah. I had a look inside. Looks like his stuff.’

  ‘Where did you find it?’ I ask, heart racing.

  ‘In my hut. Just now. He must’ve left it behind after the party. It was pushed to the back of one of the bunks. I didn’t know it was there. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Just now? You only thought to look through your hut now?’ I step forward, snatching the bag from him. ‘Don’t you realize how important this could be?’

  ‘Sarah,’ Nick warns.

  My hands feel damp, greedy, as I grip the sides of the rucksack, inspecting it. I know without doubt it is Jacob’s: the zip pull on the front pocket snapped earlier this summer, so he’d fashioned a new one using a key ring. I open it and begin pulling out items, crouching down to lay them on the floor.

  Jacob’s dark-blue hoodie – the one I’d thought was missing.

  A single bottle of beer, still housed in the cardboard six-pack.

  A head torch.

  An almost empty tube of sunscreen.

  An old skateboarding magazine, the corners curling.

  Jacob’s wallet.

  My skin prickles, as if it’s itching just below the surface where I cannot reach. Jacob has been gone for three days, yet he doesn’t have any of his belongings with him – not even his wallet. I let out a strange sort of wail, squeezing my eyes shut.

  ‘This doesn’t mean anything,’ Nick says.

  ‘Jacob had nothing with him. Nothing! Not even his wallet!’ I swing around to Luke. ‘He told you he was coming back to the party, didn’t he?’

  Luke nods quickly.

  ‘See! That’s what he intended! He left his bag there. He didn’t run away, Nick!’

  Nick goes to say something in response, but stops himself.

  I can hear Luke shifting behind me. ‘Sorry, you know, for not finding it sooner. I didn’t realize it was in the hut, really.’

  I kneel
down, pulling Jacob’s hoodie to my face, breathing in his boyish smell – deodorant, sweat and something sweet, too. Tears arrive hot and sudden, sliding from my face into the fabric of the jumper.

  ‘Sarah, we’re not doing this,’ Nick says gently, trying to peel the jumper from my hands, but I dig my fingers into the material, gripping harder. He crouches down beside me. ‘We’re going to find him. There will be a simple explanation, I promise you. We just need to think.’

  He picks up Jacob’s wallet and I watch his fingers search through old receipts, a five-pound note, a bulging pocket of loose change, two screws. Tucked at the back, Nick pulls out a small photo, faded and creased at the edges. I am expecting to see a picture of Caz, perhaps – but as the image comes into focus, I realize I’m looking at an old photo of Jacob and Marley. They must be about six or seven, and are sitting on the edge of Isla’s deck in their pyjamas, brushing their teeth in the last of the evening sun. Marley is looking towards the camera, minty froth bracketing his smile, and Jacob is holding out his toothbrush to whoever is behind the camera. At least, I know it’s Jacob – others wouldn’t because his face has been scratched out using a coin or fingernail, a scribble of white lines zig-zagging his features.

  ‘What is this about?’ Nick asks.

  I shake my head. I take the picture from him and rest it on my palm, deeply unsettled.

  ‘Why would Jacob erase himself from the photo?’ Nick asks, his brows drawing together.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘There’s something else here,’ Nick says, pulling a folded piece of paper from the wallet.

  As he smooths it out, I can see it’s filled with Jacob’s writing. A rogue thought snatches my breath: Jacob’s left a suicide note. I read over Nick’s shoulder, my heart in my mouth.

  It’s easier on paper. Maybe.

  It’s love. You said it wasn’t, but I want you to know it is.