Last Seen

by Lucy Clarke

  I didn’t get to hold my son, to feel the weight of his beautifully lean ten-year-old body, or kiss the smooth curve of his forehead one final time.

  I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

  I stop remembering. Like I say, it doesn’t change anything. I’ve lived through every moment of that day a thousand times. More.

  I know every detail. Every element that led to the tipping point.

  At least, I thought I did.

  19. SARAH

  DAY FOUR, 8.15 A.M.

  The early sun holds little heat, its thin warmth blown clear by a northerly wind. Walking on the tideline, I stoop to pick up a limpet shell, turning it through my fingers and following the rough grain of its curve. With my fingertip, I dust the sand from the interior of the shell, admiring the pastel whirl of colour.

  When Jacob and Marley were young, I’d often take them beachcombing following a big summer storm. We made up a points system, scoring the sea treasures on rarity and beauty. Jacob would race up and down, gathering up driftwood, old rope, the backbones of cuttlefish, and glass bottles, stuffing them into his bucket. Marley never once had the heaviest haul, but could happily spend several minutes in one spot, sieving through the sand in search of a special shell. Then he’d bound to my side and unfurl his palm, as if he was holding a precious stone. ‘Look! A cockleshell! Beautiful, isn’t she?’

  When I glance up, I realize I’ve reached the rock-line at the end of the bay where Jacob was last seen with Caz. I try to picture exactly where they were arguing, which rock Jacob was sitting on when he’d said, I’m not a good person, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. God, how I wish I could go back in time, hold him to me and tell him, It will be okay.

  But that’s just a romantic idea. If I’d tried to hug Jacob, he’d have turned rigid in my arms, or extracted himself from my embrace. His withdrawal from me happened gradually, like the stealth with which summer pulls away, leaving you shivering into autumn. I should’ve tried harder to bridge that gap between us. I still can’t believe that Jacob had known about Caz’s pregnancy for weeks – yet didn’t confide in me. Where was my mother’s intuition? Why wasn’t I alert to something being wrong?

  What else have I missed?

  I shiver, wrapping my arms around myself. I have the strangest feeling that there is someone close by, hovering in the distance, watching me. I consciously slow my breathing, reminding myself that I’ve barely slept since Jacob’s disappearance and that exhaustion is taking its toll. But when I turn, I see Neil slumped on the rocks at the end of the bay. He meets my eye, and suddenly he is pushing himself to his feet, staggering towards me.

  ‘Sarah … I just wondered,’ he says, glancing over my shoulder towards the huts, ‘… is there any news on Jacob?’ His voice has an odd hush to it, as if he doesn’t want to be overheard.

  ‘Not yet,’ I say, forcing my tone to sound light.

  His frown deepens as he nods.

  I’m looking at the bloodshot corners of his eyes, the way he lightly weaves from foot to foot. Am I imagining it, or can I catch alcohol fumes on his breath? It’s barely past eight in the morning; he can’t have been drinking.

  He pushes his hands into his pockets. ‘The police must have some idea of what’s happened, no?’

  When I don’t answer, Neil asks, ‘Do you think Jacob’s run away? Perhaps he was upset about something.’

  ‘Upset about what?’ I snap, wondering what Diane’s been saying, and how much of mine and Jacob’s argument she overheard. She’s always made it her job to know everyone else’s business – but I didn’t realize Neil would be so quick to dig for information, too.

  ‘Nothing. I’m just … we’re all concerned. Everyone’s thinking of you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I manage, before turning from Neil and resettling my gaze on the rocks.

  Thankfully, he picks up the cue and leaves. I move slowly forward, trailing a fingertip across the rough surface of the rocks. At the corner of my vision, something dark catches my eye. I look down to see an object tucked between a gap in the rocks.

  A shoe. No, a pair of shoes. Trainers.

  I bend to reach them, scraping my wrist bone against the coarse rock. My fingers reach the tongue of one of the trainers and I pull it through the gap in the rocks, then dive my hand back down for the other.

  I stare at the trainers, heart skittering.

  Blue Converse, size eleven, laces tucked beneath the soles, leather tongues pulled up, the back of the heel trodden down, scuffs on the toes.

  They are Jacob’s.

  The trainers are damp with salt, and a fine layer of sand dusts the inner sole. Stuffed into the toe of each shoe is a balled-up sock. I pull them out and a shred of dried seaweed clings to the wool.

  I look up, as if he must be nearby and has taken them off to go for a swim—

  No! He couldn’t have—

  ‘Nick!’ I start to say, twisting away from the rocks, breaking into a run. I race towards our hut, holding the trainers awkwardly to my chest, sand flicking against the backs of my calves.

  Someone is watching me; I feel it, like a cool hand brushing the back of my neck. I swing round, stumbling to my knees in the deep sand, Jacob’s trainers flying from my grip. I scrabble to retrieve them, gathering them to me.

  I right myself, standing. But when I look around, there’s no one there.

  I hurry back to the hut. ‘Nick!’

  He steps out on to the deck with a piece of toast in his hand, concern widening his eyes. ‘What is it?’

  I hold out the trainers. ‘They’re Jacob’s! They were by the rocks!’

  He stares at them, perplexed, then looks across the beach towards the rocks, his brows drawing together.

  ‘He must have taken them off. To swim,’ I say.

  I see the moment Nick registers my meaning. His forehead tightens, lips opening slightly as he blinks blindly into the hazy light.

  Nick takes the trainers from me. ‘They’re definitely his?’

  I remember buying them with Jacob in the spring. I’d stood back in the skate shop, pretending to be interested in a display of heavy-soled boots. I knew well enough that the invite to go shopping with my son was for my financial input rather than my style input. An attractive young girl served Jacob; she had a silver bolt through her ear, the hole in the lobe stretched until it was large enough to push a fingertip through. Jacob talked easily with her and I’d admired his self-confidence.

  He wore those trainers almost every day, scuffing up the nose when he practised ollying on his skateboard. I reach out and trace a finger along the scuff-marks now. ‘I bought them with him. They’re his.’

  ‘Where were they?’

  ‘In a gap between the rocks, near where he and Caz had been arguing.’ I pause, heart racing. ‘He took them off to go swimming, didn’t he?’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ Nick says. His voice is studiously level. ‘He might not have been wearing them that night. He could’ve taken them off earlier in the day.’

  I’m trying to think back to that evening. The police had asked me what he’d been wearing, and I remembered the bright-red T-shirt, which was stamped with the image of a globe on the front. He wore it with his favourite pair of beige shorts that had an oil stain on the front pocket from his bike chain. But what about his feet? Over summer he alternated between flip-flops and trainers. Which had he been wearing that night?

  I’m suddenly remembering our argument, and how I’d jumped when he’d kicked the drawer in frustration. Then there was the storming of feet across the deck as he’d left, the beach hut trembling as the door slammed shut. Trainers. ‘He was wearing them. I remember.’

  I picture my son, drunk and angry, hurt and confused, standing on the shoreline alone at night. Did the sea look like the answer – dark and peaceful? Did he want to sink below its surface, stay there? My voice catches as I say to Nick, ‘Are the police right? Do you think Jacob—’

  ‘No!’ he barks so loudly that I
jump.

  Nick runs his hands through his hair, his eyes darting across my face. ‘Listen, finding these trainers doesn’t necessarily mean anything. We can’t assume he swam out there, Sarah. We just can’t. I mean … he could’ve taken them off to pad about in the shallows, or just to walk on the beach.’

  I nod, wanting to believe that’s possible.

  ‘Was there anything else there?’

  ‘Just his socks balled up in the trainers.’

  ‘No phone? No T-shirt? Because if he went in the water, he’d have taken his phone out of his pocket, and taken his T-shirt off.’

  Nick is right, I think, my heart lifting a fraction. He would have done. His phone wasn’t in his rucksack, so we’ve been assuming he had it on him.

  But then a whisper of doubt breathes into my ear: unless Jacob was in such a dark place that he no longer cared about what would happen to his phone, his clothes.

  We walk back down the beach together, the trainers still in my grip. I’m distantly aware of someone waving, calling out a greeting, but neither of us looks round. Nick strides out a little in front of me, and I realize how much I want him to take control of the situation, to tell me everything is going to be okay. I don’t want to think about the way his expression clammed up with worry – he can’t falter. He has to believe. I need him to believe.

  We return to the spot I found the trainers, and crouch down, searching. I’m not sure whether I want to find something further, or not. I put down the trainers, placing my palm on the rock, looking in its shadow on the sand. I rake my fingers through the sand, and find nothing but the charcoal remains from a barbecue, and the broken husk of a crab’s shell.

  I move further up the beach, searching, Nick looking at the other side of the rocks. I find a tangle of fishing line, the hook long gone, and a piece of driftwood wedged in the sand.

  ‘Can’t see anything else,’ Nick says as he clambers across the rocks and comes to my side.

  ‘Nothing here, either.’ I press my fingertips against my temples, trying to think. Why were Jacob’s trainers there?

  I’m surprised when Nick answers me; I must have spoken aloud. ‘It’s possible that he left his T-shirt on the rocks and his phone – and that someone came across them, took them.’

  Is that possible? I suppose it is.

  I’ve no idea what to think.

  I look at Nick, wanting to find him calm, unruffled.

  He returns my gaze as he says, ‘We need to let the police know.’

  I watch as PC Roam places Jacob’s trainers within an evidence bag, and seals it. She takes a biro from her pocket and writes something on an exhibit label, which I cannot read. I imagine his name, the case number. The area where the trainers were found has now been photographed and searched by the police.

  I stand back with my arms hugged to my chest – if I hold myself tightly enough, I can stop myself from falling apart.

  Nick places a hand on my elbow, turning me towards him, into him. I press my face against his chest and close my eyes. But everything is still there. Jacob’s trainers. The police. The days he’s been missing stacking together like a wall that’s getting harder to scale.

  ‘Let’s go back to the hut,’ Nick says.

  We walk like an elderly couple, leaning into one another.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Diane calls from the deck of her hut.

  Fuck off! Just fuck off and leave us be!

  Nick lifts a hand in response. Even he has no words for Diane.

  The beach hut smells vaguely of disinfectant from yesterday’s floor-scrubbing frenzy. Nick steers me on to the sofa and I sit with my feet pressed together, hands on my knees. I hear the pump of the water tank as he fills the kettle, then the whoosh of gas as he lights the hob. He pulls out mugs, the jar of tea bags, a pint of milk. I stare blankly at the cream wood-panelled walls of the hut, the navy cushions with their roped trim, the brass porthole mirror that reflects the view of the sea. None of it feels like mine. I am sitting in a stage set. This is a place for family holidays, a place for bare, sandy feet, not the slamming of doors, the trudge of police boots.

  I catch sight of my face in the porthole mirror. My skin is pale with dark shadows lingering beneath my eyes. There’s a permanent groove between my brows and fine worry lines running across my forehead. I have a sudden urge to launch across the hut and slam my fist into the mirror, to see the glass splinter around me, feel the warmth of blood trickling over my knuckles. My hands tremble on my knees with the desire. Before I can move, Nick has stepped towards me holding out a mug of tea.

  As I take it, I begin to laugh. Nick looks at me with alarm as my tea sloshes over the rim of the mug, spilling on to the floor.

  ‘Sarah?’

  Even our mugs tone in with the colours of the beach hut. I remember standing at the checkout of the homeware shop, delighted with the purchase. Now I want to shake that smug version of myself, and yell, What does it matter? Because all that is important now – all that will ever matter in my life – is that Jacob is found, alive. I need him to walk through these doors and slouch on to the sofa beside me. I’d throw my arms around him, press my face into his neck, squeeze him so tight that I’d feel his heart beat against mine. I wouldn’t care that I’d embarrass him, or he’d try and shrug me off; I’d hold on tighter.

  ‘Sarah, are you okay?’

  I turn towards the open doors. The police are standing near the rocks; PC Roam has her radio pressed to her mouth, and I wonder who she is speaking to, what she is saying. They think Jacob’s disappearance is a suicide – and, in their minds, his trainers are evidence. What do they picture? My son swimming out on a dark night, desperate, alone, drunk. Swimming and swimming into oblivion.

  Beyond the police, a young girl and her father are flying a kite, a trail of ribbons dancing on the breeze. The girl’s hair is a golden colour and it twists in the wind as she bounces on the spot, looking up at the sky. Everything feels too bright, too vivid.

  I put down my tea and press my fists into the sockets of my eyes, making a low guttural sound.

  ‘They’ll find him,’ Nick says, but his voice lacks the certainty I need.

  ‘How? How will they find him?’

  ‘They’re going to do more interviews.’

  ‘They’ve spoken to everyone.’

  ‘They’re bringing more officers in to search the sandbank.’ He pauses. ‘And the coastguard has been told, too.’

  I pull my hands from my face. ‘Don’t! He’s not in the water, Nick. He can’t be.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he says gently.

  ‘It’s what the police think though, isn’t it?’

  He doesn’t speak but I can see the answer in his expression.

  I shake my head. ‘This can’t be happening.’

  This can’t be happening.

  There’s a rhythm to those words that I recognize. A chill shivers down the length of my spine as I remember who said them.

  20. ISLA

  I wish I’d taken a thousand photographs of Marley, and then a thousand more.

  I wish I’d recorded videos of him, so I could remember the exact way he ran, and how his hair had the tendency to flop in front of his eyes.

  I wish I’d kept the bright-yellow tub I used to bath him in at the beach hut as a toddler, watching him splash and paddle, until his legs were too long to sit in it.

  I wish I’d written journals, or made one of those baby books, like Sarah did for Jacob, charting all the tiny details of your child’s early life, the date of their first steps, their first word. I’d teased her for it, saying she’d probably buy a special keepsake pot to store Jacob’s first milk tooth in, too.

  I was the sort of mother who had the naïve confidence to think my child would always be there, that I wouldn’t need to hoard memories. We’ll make new ones each and every day! We’ll live in the moment. I let Marley roam wild on the beach and come back with scabby knees and sun-kissed shoulders. Who had time for annotating every d
etail of our days together when we were too busy living them?

  But now, now I wish I’d recorded everything – because my memories feel dangerously loose, unpinned, like autumn leaves scattering in a cold wind.

  Summer 2010

  ‘I’ve made you a cottage pie,’ Sarah said, standing on my doorstep proffering a basket filled with pre-portioned dishes of food. No big ceramic pie dishes for me any more, not in my new life. I stood back in the doorway as she bustled in, stepping over the pile of post I hadn’t bothered to gather.

  ‘What’s that?’ Sarah asked, moving into the lounge where a leather-bound journal was open on the floor.

  ‘A memory book,’ I answered, tightening the cord of my dressing gown, as I knew Sarah would make a comment about how thin I’d become. I’d headed the first page: Marley Berry, 2000–2010, and had begun to write down memories of Marley, or glue in old photos and special sheets from his school workbooks. I stuck in homemade birthday cards and scraps of his favourite clothes. Gradually I felt the satisfying way the pages began to thicken, the spine cracking. I had no gravestone to visit, nor a special place to mourn: there was only his memory book.

  ‘That’s a lovely idea.’

  Was it? I didn’t want to be collecting memories. I wanted to be making them. This wasn’t supposed to be my life. Mine was filled with crab nets and wellingtons and kites. There were treasure maps and wetsuits and flasks of hot chocolate. There were bedtime stories and warm hugs and plasters on knees. My life was supposed to be crammed with noise and laughter and love.

  Marley had been missing for fifty-three days. Missing: how much longer could I keep on calling it that? In the space where I should have buried my son’s body, instead I planted seeds of hope. For weeks I’d grown and tended wild theories about what’d happened to him, nurturing possible explanations as to how he could still be alive. I lived in a desperate hinterland, unable to let him go, unable to move forward.

  Drowned, he drowned. That’s what everyone was saying. That’s what I must say, must believe.