The Game

by Amanda Prowse

  ‘I tell you this, Jacks, I’m not taking away from what she’s achieved tonight, but I’ll be having words with Gemma when she gets home. I won’t have her worrying her mother like this, it isn’t fair.’ Neil’s words cracked open the silence and sent her mind whirring again.

  She pictured her daughter on the floor of Victoria’s bedroom. They were probably still chatting about the play and goodness knows what else. Neil dozed by her side, but she lay awake for a while. It felt strange that there were only three people under their roof that night and not her proper little family all safe and accounted for. Jackie didn’t like it. She didn’t like it one bit.

  Have You Lost Her?

  Jackie woke with a start, proving that she must have dropped off at some point, but she didn’t remember when. For a split second when her eyes first opened, she forgot why there was a twist of anxiety in her gut, a headache pawing behind her eyes and a lump in her throat. She quickly remembered. It wasn’t much past six, but Jackie climbed out of bed, wanting to get the day started. She knew that until she had heard Gemma’s voice, until she had done that, she wouldn’t breathe again normally, her heart and lungs would be unable to find their natural rhythm, not until then.

  She filled the kettle and pressed the little button to make it boil. As was her habit, while waiting for the click she took the J-cloth from the little gap at the side of the washing-up bowl, squeezed out the excess water and wiped down the draining board, then ran the cloth along the front of the cooker where the knobs were. She tried not to, but eventually she glanced at the digital time display on the cooker. Ten past six: was it too early to phone? She put two tea bags into two mugs and drummed her small, manicured fingers on the work surface. Sod it. If she woke up the Roberts household it would just be too bad. After all, it was a work and school day, they would have to be up soon enough.

  She held the phone close to her mouth, awkward at having to call at this early hour.

  ‘Angela?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Jackie Peters.’

  ‘Oh hello, Jackie, how are you?’ Angela’s manner was that of someone trying to be polite while at the same time wondering what the reason was for the early morning call from someone that she hardly spoke to. It had always been obvious to Jackie that the woman didn’t like her, no matter how hard she tried to disguise it by shouting very loudly that, ‘We must get together for coffee…’ Their girls had been friends for nearly six years now and Angela still hadn’t got past the shouting about it stage. Jackie used to wonder what Angela would have done if she had said, ‘Yes, lovely, let’s do it now! What a great idea, Angela. Right now, let’s get together for coffee!’ She never would of course and Angela knew it.

  She and Neil always joked that the Roberts thought that they were in a different league, what with them having gone on two cruises, one Mediterranean and one Caribbean, and the fact that their three-bed semi was built in the 1930s, on a private development, whereas theirs was clearly ex-local authority, which, while they were exactly the same dimensions, meant a difference of about a hundred and forty thousand pounds.

  ‘Yes, fine. Well, sort of. I’m sorry to phone so early—’

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ Angela interrupted, her clipped tone suggesting otherwise.

  ‘I just wanted to have a word with Gemma.’

  Jackie knew she sounded apologetic.

  ‘Gemma?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Erm, did you think she was here?’

  Jackie could hear her heart beating loud and fast in her ears; her breath came in shallow pants and her response was at least a second slower than was normal.

  ‘Is she not with you, Angela?’ She spoke slowly; strangely, her voice was little more than a whisper, as though she didn’t want her question to be heard because she didn’t want to hear the answer.

  ‘I don’t think so, unless she came in with Vicks and they went straight upstairs. Would you like me to go and check?’

  Would I like you to go and check? She had to refrain from shouting, ‘Yes! Go and check now! Please, please hurry! Move your skinny, teaching assistant’s arse up those stairs and then come back quickly!’ Instead, she nodded into the receiver and her voice was once again small.

  ‘Yes, please, Angela. If it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘Hang on a mo.’

  Jackie would hang on a mo; she would hang on, standing on the lino on the kitchen floor but feeling as if she was sinking into it. Her nylon nightie clung to her bottom, her hair was flat from sleep, and indentations from the folds on the pillowcase were still visible on her plump, rosy cheek. She repeated a phrase in her head: please be there, Gemma. Be there, Gemma. Be there safe and sound on Victoria’s bedroom floor, wrapped in a sleeping bag on the blow-up bed. Please be there, Gemma.

  The truth was, however, that Jackie knew what Angela was going to say before she said it. She tried to enjoy the calm of the waiting moments, knowing that after this there would be no calm. Call it a mother’s instinct or something else, but she knew and already her mind was trying to process the information, trying to think what came next.

  How long she stood clutching the receiver between hopeful palms she couldn’t say. Maybe two minutes, maybe less, more, who knows? These details would only become important later.

  ‘Jackie, hi. Sorry to keep you.’

  ‘That’s okay.’ Why she said that she didn’t know, it was all far, far from okay.

  ‘Had a word with Vicks, apparently she left Gemma at school after the play. Hope everything is okay. Not a problem is there?’

  ‘I… I… don’t know really. I need Neil.’ She placed the phone back in its cradle and stared at the two mugs awaiting hot water. Her legs felt like lead.

  Jackie eventually managed to rouse herself and go upstairs. She pushed on the bathroom door, which was unlocked. Neil was in his trousers, naked from the waist up, a slight bulge of fat sitting like a cushion above the tight black belt of his trousers. He was shaving, pulling his chin with his left hand into a taut and unnatural angle while scraping at the whiskers with the razor in his right hand. She had always liked watching him shave, finding it very intimate. He spoke to his wife’s reflection as it hovered over his right shoulder.

  ‘Did you speak to her?’ His tone was almost jolly and she felt a surge of something that she couldn’t readily identify, but it was close to anger.

  ‘No. She’s not there, Neil.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I spoke to Victoria’s mum and Gemma’s not there.’ She had to repeat it, as though he hadn’t been concentrating or simply couldn’t process what she was telling him.

  ‘Not there?’ Again it was as if he had misheard or doubted the information that he was being given.

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  There was a second of silence before he spoke.

  ‘Well where the bloody hell is she then?’ He turned to face her as though she had the answer and he needed her to give it to him.

  She stared at him. ‘I’ll phone around.’

  Her adrenalin had started to pump as her heart pounded; her vision and hearing felt sharp. Neil looked vacantly at his wife. She could see that mentally he was where she had been five minutes before.

  She called Luke’s mother, knowing the two of them were close, but it was pointless, the woman could barely recall Gemma, let alone help with locating her. Next it was Alice’s mum and she had the same conversation, as earlier. Was she with them? Had they seen her?

  Jackie noted that Alice’s mum sounded really upbeat and it annoyed her.

  ‘She isn’t here, but let me go and grab Alice for you. Have you lost her?’ The woman, whose name escaped her, sounded as though she were trying to be funny, making a little joke. The question, however, reverberated in Jackie’s skull. Have I lost her? Have I lost her?

  ‘Hello, Mrs Peters.’ Alice sounded coy, wary, as if she might be in trouble.

  It was strangely comforting to be speaking to a fr
iend of Gemma’s, a connection of sorts.

  ‘Hello, Alice love, do you know where Gemma is? Did you go with her for hot chocolate?’

  ‘Mmmmno, we left her at school, she said she was being picked up.’

  ‘She said she was being picked up?’

  Jackie’s stomach muscles contracted and she shook her head. Was it her that had got the plan wrong? Should she have picked her up? Is that what they had agreed? But if Gemma had been waiting, she would have called; she could have walked home by now.

  ‘If you hear anything, Alice, give me a ring will you, love?’

  ‘Yeah, course. Is Gemma all right?’

  ‘Yes, yes, she’s fine, love, don’t you worry.’ Her lie was swift and unconvincing to both of them.

  Jackie became aware that Neil was standing by her side in their little kitchen; she didn’t know how long he’d been there. He stared at her as she replaced the phone. The two were silent for a second or two. Who was going to say it?

  ‘Shall I call the police?’

  Jackie said it. She had said it out loud, the phrase and the act that they had both been pondering, dreading, delaying.

  ‘Or maybe not.’ She shook her head. Was it a stupid idea? ‘It’ll be embarrassing if we get them involved, I don’t want to waste their time. Plus I don’t like the idea of it, it’s like we’ve done something wrong: how could we not know where our little girl is? I don’t want to get into trouble.’

  Neil squeezed her arm. ‘You won’t, Jacks. I think it’s a good idea. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Neil—’

  She heard the kitchen door open and jerked her head up to see her daughter standing in front of her. Jackie only hoped that her youngest didn’t sense the wave of disappointment that enveloped her.

  ‘Jesus, who were you expecting?’ Stacey folded her arms across her chest.

  Jackie didn’t tell her off for blaspheming, which she would normally have done, but equally she couldn’t answer her daughter. It wasn’t so much who she had been expecting as who she had been hoping for, and it hadn’t been Stacey.

  Day One

  Jackie and Neil Peters sat perched on the edge of their sofa. Shock rendered them pretty useless; they were fuelled by hope and nervous energy. They leant forward, almost sliding off the sofa, trying to pay attention, to hear every syllable and catch every nuance. Poised, like shaking leverets caught in the headlights, ready to bolt, to make tea or coffee, to answer the phone or the door should the bell ring. There were police in their house and the Peters were unused to dealing with the police, unsure whether they were clients or suspects. On this last point they were correct.

  Neil exhaled loudly as though he had taken a deep breath. His wife sat silently by his side, wringing her hands and fidgeting with invisible bits of thread on her skirt. She stared at the cuckoo clock, preoccupied with the maths of the hours since she had last seen her daughter, as if mentally trying to resolve a problem on an exam sheet.

  If Gemma leaves school at 9 p.m. and walks at an average of three miles an hour, where could she have got to by ten o’clock the next morning? Thirty-nine miles, thirty-nine miles… What, or more importantly where is thirty-nine miles away from here? Somewhere like Colchester? How far is that? And what if she wasn’t on foot, what if she was being driven. Driven where? By whom?

  Block it out, block it out, don’t think about that, don’t think about it, Jackie, it will all be okay. Her self-soothing mantra did not help.

  Stacey was at school; everyone figured it was best to keep things as normal as possible for her.

  Detective Sergeant Gavin Edwards sat in the chair to the side of the fireplace. He was pumped up, newly promoted and without any of the cynicism that someone with more years under their belt might display. His colleague, Melanie Vincent, hovered by the door, allowing her eyes to appraise the house, the decor, looking for clues, anything at all. The introductions had been brief and curt; everyone was eager to get on with the job in hand. A list of all Gemma’s friends and their parents and telephone numbers had been given to one of DS Edwards’ team who at that very moment was double-checking for any information and confirming Gemma wasn’t with any one of them. The school had been given a quick sweep and statements had been taken from those that had seen her leave the previous evening, for people had indeed seen her leave.

  As far as DS Edwards and the team were concerned, the case of Gemma Peters was genuine and worrying, warranting the level of manpower and time that they were throwing at it. Her situation didn’t fit either of the usual scenarios. She wasn’t from one of the rougher estates or not so nice postcodes where children played truant, might sleep at the homes of any number of distant ‘relatives’ and were more often than not misplaced rather than missing. Neither had the report been filed by an estranged partner whose access and visiting rights were sketchy and who felt the agreed rules were not being adhered to. This was no malicious call from a disgruntled parent. Usually and thankfully, such children turned up safe and sound before the ink had dried on the first page of the report.

  Gemma Peters was different. She hadn’t gone missing before and appeared to be from a caring, stable family with a comfortable home environment; she was smart, doing well at school and popular, and this was entirely out of character. The fact that the last confirmed sighting of Gemma had been at 9 p.m. the previous evening was cause for great concern. The first few hours of a disappearance were crucial and the more time that elapsed, the less hope there was of finding that child alive. This was a cruel fact, but a fact nonetheless.

  ‘So you noticed she was missing at three o’clock this morning?’

  Gemma’s parents nodded in unison.

  ‘And you called us at a quarter to seven?’

  Neil caught the look that the policeman threw at his colleague. Had they failed already? Why hadn’t they called earlier? It hadn’t seemed real, it hadn’t seemed urgent, they were tired and it had been late. This reasoning sounded pathetic and inadequate in the face of what was happening now.

  ‘We thought she was at her friend’s.’ Jackie was aware of her apologetic tone.

  ‘Why? Because she told you she was staying at a friend’s?’ Gavin asked.

  ‘No. No, she said she would walk home, but if she ever stays over anywhere then it’s at her friend Victoria’s and so when she wasn’t home, we just assumed that that was where she would be.’

  ‘So she had done this before, stayed at Victoria’s without letting you know first?’

  ‘No, never. She’s not like that, she’s a good girl.’

  ‘So this had not been discussed and was grossly out of character?’

  Jackie nodded, feeling every inch a suspect and not the parent desperate for answers.

  ‘And this was at 3 a.m.?’

  Jackie nodded again.

  ‘And you called us at just before 7 a.m.?’

  ‘It didn’t feel like that long.’ Her voice quavered.

  ‘What did you do in the four hours between three and seven?’

  ‘We were in bed, asleep in bed.’

  ‘So, just like a regular night?’

  Jackie nodded. The way he said it made it sound like they hadn’t cared, hadn’t noticed. She felt sick.

  ‘Does Gemma have a boyfriend?’

  Neil coughed. ‘Well, no, not really a boyfriend, but a boy friend, if you get my meaning. Luke, he’s in her class and I think they might be a bit sweet on each other, but not boyfriend and girlfriend in the sense you mean it. She’s not a very worldly girl, only goes out with her mates at the weekends and is more interested in revising. She’s going to Oxford.’

  Gavin nodded. ‘Does she ever stay at Luke’s house?’

  ‘Good God no!’ Neil raised his voice. ‘She’s not that kind of a girl. What sort of parents would let a fifteen-year-old stay at a boy’s house?’

  ‘You’d be surprised. I understand how invasive this must seem, Mr Peters—’

  ‘Neil, please.’

  ‘Thanks. Neil,
the reason I ask is to help build up a picture of Gemma, her friends, her lifestyle. It will help us fill in all the gaps and the sooner we can do that and locate her, the better.’

  Neil nodded but continued to stare at his hands, which were locked in a pyramid resting on his knees.

  ‘Could you describe Gemma for me, Mrs Peters?’

  ‘Do you mean what she looks like?’ Jackie was wary of getting the answer wrong.

  ‘Not so much; we already have the photos you’ve given us and her physical details, but I’d like to hear how you would describe her as a person. Take your time.’ He smiled at her.

  Jackie pictured her daughter standing on the stage. She spoke quietly and looked at the carpet; it made it easier somehow.

  ‘She’s a very clever girl, top in everything, but she’s not big-headed at all, she’s quite shy actually. She’s a kind girl, brings down her plates and cups from her room and her dirty laundry, I never have to ask her twice. She’s very popular and beautiful, but I suppose you can see that in her pictures. Gemma’s never been in trouble, never done anything, but make us so proud. She is nice to her little sister and spends time chatting to her nan when she comes over. Oh no!’

  Everyone watched as Jackie’s hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘What’s the matter, love?’ Neil coaxed.

  ‘Her coat’s in her wardrobe, she didn’t take it in because of the play! I’ve only just remembered. She’ll be cold.’ Jackie’s hot tears fell hard and fast, clogging her nose and throat as she slumped against her husband’s chest. ‘I want her home, Neil, I want her back!’

  Eight Weeks

  ‘It’s bedtime, Stacey.’ Jackie’s voice was no more than a cracked whisper.

  The girl nodded and stood, bending to kiss her mum on the forehead before wordlessly treading the stairs. Her deep sigh was as much an expression of relief at being able to escape the insufferable silence of her parents’ pokey lounge as it was recognition of the tiredness that dogged her waking hours. When your sleep tumbled on a sea of nightmares and imaginings, it made functioning normally almost impossible.