by Fiona Perrin
‘Yes, do that,’ I said.
Ralph rang off and I paced the kitchen. Should I go and drive around too? Better that I waited until I heard the click of the door and his return.
I tried calling him again.
*
How long was it appropriate to wait before you phoned the police? Surely it had to be more than two hours? Especially for a fourteen-year-old boy who would just be at one of his friends’ houses. But I’d sent Ralph on a tour of those over the last half an hour – or all the ones I could think of – and there was no sign of Wilf’s bike outside. I’d also stalked his FB page – absolutely nothing posted for the last twelve months and, before that, just a picture of him and Lois and Lorca; FB was no longer cool for kids. His Twitter account had 326 followers but was set to private. His Instagram posts were about his band and music. He had 943 followers there. I had no idea how you accessed his Snapchat.
He could easily have gone to find one of his sisters? Perhaps he’d gone to find Lily at Aiden’s – he knew Aiden well and Lily was his comfort blanket.
I hated worrying her, but there was no other option. She picked up on the first ring, her instinct of imminent doom as keen as ever. ‘What is it?’
‘Do you know where Wilf is?’
‘No – isn’t he with Ralph?’ Her voice was fighting sleep.
I could hear Aiden from beside her: ‘What is it?’
‘He came home and there was a bit of a scene and he ran off. I was hoping he’d come to find you.’ I tried to keep my tone as light as I could.
‘Oh, no,’ Lily said. ‘I’m coming straight home.’ There was another noise of Aiden sleepily asking her where she was going, and it sounded as if he was volunteering to walk the couple of streets with her.
The anticipation of her arriving was some solace: in my distress I wanted my family around me; people who knew Wilf as much as me and would care as much as me that he was gone.
I rang Daisy too. ‘What’s going down?’ she whispered, when the phone had rung a good few times.
I explained quickly. ‘Fucking weird of Bro,’ she concluded with much less panic than her sister. ‘I’ll get Aiden and Lily to come round for me on the way back.’
While I waited, I texted a few parents with a brief:
Hi, I know really unlikely but if you see or hear from Wilf, please let me know. Prob nothing to be worried about. Kid thing.
Jowan’s mum was the only one who texted back – all the other parents would be sensibly asleep. But she had young children as well as Jowan and slept erratically, if ever.
Is everything OK?
Wilf and I had a row and he’s gone off. Am sure he will be back soon.
The problem was, as the clock ticked forward, I was less and less certain that this was right.
The kids came running down the street ten minutes later, Aiden between the girls wearing what looked very much like pyjamas under his hoodie. Lily’s face was puce, her jaw rigid and she was out of breath. I grabbed her to me on the doorstep, then her sister.
‘Right, it’ll be nothing and he’ll be home soon but thanks for coming back,’ I gabbled.
‘You go back to bed, Aiden,’ said Lily. ‘I’ll call you in the morning.’
‘I’ll stay and help…’
‘No, this is just us now,’ Lily said firmly, and he sloped off down the street, making ‘call me’ signs back at her in the half-light of the street lamps.
Daisy just asked, ‘What happened to make Wilf leave like that?’
‘I think it all just got too much,’ I said.
I was pale, powered only by coffee and fear, my eyes aching from lack of sleep exacerbated by crying.
‘It’s OK, Ma,’ they both said in unison. ‘It’ll be OK,’ and I wondered just for a minute when they’d grown up so much that it was their job to comfort me now.
23
In the end, Ralph went to every house all of us could think of and woke up Wilf’s school mates and their parents. They answered, according to him, with general wrath at being woken up, but all quickly felt the panic of a parent with a missing child and, after saying that Wilf wasn’t there, offered their help. By now it was 3 a.m. – tortured hours of waiting had gone by – but we still thought he would come home soon.
‘It was just a bit of a scene,’ was all I could manage to tell the twins. I guessed it would come out quickly enough – my role in Wilf’s disappearance – but I couldn’t bring myself to tell them yet, terrified of their judgement. Instead, the kids circled Ralph warily and looked at him accusingly under their lashes. Then they took to thinking of anywhere else that Wilf would have gone and fired up their laptops to start looking online for any signs.
Trying to stay calm, I rang the police, attempting to keep the panic out of my voice. The officer on the other end was soothing and helpful. She took my address, listened to me confirm that I had every reason to suspect he’d run away following a ‘family scene’ and told me she would put his description out to all current patrolling cars. An officer would be round to see us shortly. Yes, we should keep following up any ideas. Statistically, she added kindly, it was highly likely he would be found or return shortly.
By 4.30 a.m., when we were almost mad with worry, there was a whoosh of a car outside. My first thought was that the police had found Wilf and were bringing him back, but as we all rushed to the door it was clear the two PCs on the path were alone. In the dark of the early morning we stepped back to let them in.
‘PC Warren, and this is PC Moshulu,’ the female one said. I motioned to the girls to stay in the sitting room and sat down with them and Ralph at the kitchen table. Quickly, feeling there was no time to waste, I made tea and told them the basics of what had happened.
‘He might be upset though,’ Ralph said, his face a pale shade of grey.
‘Why would that be?’
Ralph avoided my eyes and then said, ‘We – his stepmother and I, no, not Callie here, but my wife…’ I realised he wasn’t about to tell the police what Wilf had seen. Instead he gave the police a rundown on our relationship, referring to me as ‘the woman he considers his stepmum’. Then he carried on, ‘The thing is my wife and I are relocating to South Africa with Wilf and so it’s a big change.’
PC Warren looked at us with sympathy. ‘So potentially a little emotional distress, then?’
I coloured. This wasn’t the only emotional distress. ‘He also saw… I mean he saw… I mean, Wilf came back unexpectedly…’ PC Moshulu smiled at me encouragingly. ‘He came home unexpectedly, and I was in… bed… with someone.’ The PCs looked unfazed. ‘Unexpected… wasn’t expecting anyone here…’ and then, looking through the deep crimson blush that was now my face at the police, I said, ‘Doesn’t usually happen…’
‘But you’re saying that Wilf catching you… might have been a bit of a shock to him?’
‘Well, on top of finding out that he’s moving away from us.’
PC Moshulu nodded. ‘Right now, the best thing to do is sit tight, try and get some sleep if you can…’ I looked at him amazed: sleep? He handed me a card. ‘Ring us the moment you hear from him. In the meantime, all our patrol cars have his details. We’ll go and check the school grounds – kids go there sometimes; it’s a place they feel at home – and we’ll have a good look in the parks.’
*
7.30 a.m. A gathering of the clan. The extended clan. This included Lois and Lorca, who’d arrived in a taxi when they’d found out he hadn’t returned, Ralph, Daisy, Lily and me. Marvin was on his way.
I’d warned Ralph about Lily’s anxious state, although without any sleep, her jaw rigid, she was now one of the calmest people in the room.
‘Yeah, Wilf said there was an ambulance round,’ he mumbled. ‘She always was a bit more… sensitive than the others.’ There was a moment when it was nice to share an understanding of what was going on with someone who actually knew my children.
He went out into the back garden and I could see him rolling a fag while h
e talked on his mobile to someone – probably Petra. She hadn’t managed to make him give up all his vices, then.
Ralph came back into the sitting room and everyone pointedly ignored him.
‘Look, we need to work together to work out where Wilf is,’ I implored my parents, my ex-partner and my children.
Dad sniffed. Mum raised her eyebrows. Daisy, fuelled by an audience, spat at Ralph, ‘I just want you to know that none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for you.’
He looked shell-shocked but didn’t answer her directly. ‘I’ve been to all his mates’ we could think of, the sound-engineering centre at school, the market, the square. The police are keeping an eye out too.’
‘And no sign of him at Seymour House,’ Dad said. ‘I mean, why didn’t he come to us?’
‘Nothing on his social,’ said Daisy, who’d been furiously tapping on her laptop and phone all night. ‘He might turn up at football?’
‘Good thinking, Daisy,’ barked Dad. ‘We need more factual thinking like that.’
‘I’ll go and look at 9.30,’ said Ralph. ‘But I guess he still hasn’t got his mouth guard.’ I was silent but Daisy looked at me with more suspicion.
‘Who has he been talking to in the last few weeks?’ I asked, to move the conversation on. ‘Is there anyone new in his life? Anyone he’s mentioned?’
‘Only the food-delivery guy,’ Lily said.
‘Patrick?’
‘With his bike and stuff,’ Lily went on. ‘He did say that.’
‘That man who helped us move,’ shouted Mum. ‘Wilf seemed to like him.’
‘Well, I’m sure he won’t know anything, but it’s definitely worth asking him if he’s seen him.’ I pulled out my mobile and searched for ‘Bloke in Lycra’.
‘Who?’ Ralph looked blank.
‘Mum got mowed down by a Deliveroo dude,’ Daisy said, as if it were Ralph’s fault that I’d been sprayed with Thai green curry a few weeks ago.
‘Yeah, Wilf said about that.’ Ralph ignored her malevolent tone.
‘You guys carry on thinking,’ I ordered and went into the kitchen.
Patrick didn’t sound surprised to hear from me at such an early hour of the morning. In fact, he sounded really pleased – and it was like an unexpected salve to my soul to hear his voice. He was always so helpful.
‘Great!’ he said when he answered the phone, instead of ‘hello’.
‘Umm, it’s not that great, actually,’ I said. ‘Look, sorry to ring you so early… You haven’t heard from Wilf, have you?’
‘Umm, no. Why?’
I burst into tears. ‘He went out last night… after a bit of a scene… and he hasn’t come back all night,’ I managed in between blubs.
‘Oh, shit,’ Patrick said. ‘I’ll be round as soon as I’m dressed.’
*
He arrived at the same time as the two PCs, who’d come to talk me through a plan of action before they finished their shifts. The sun was now high in the sky; Daisy and Lily were still pinned to a laptop; my parents had both gone to sleep again in their armchairs. I’d urged them to go home but they insisted on staying. Bodger walked round the house, his face in an expression of extreme concern, peering up the stairs, as if he knew someone was missing.
PC Warren had a sympathetic smile on her face. ‘We’ll find him, Ms Brown. He can’t have gone far.’
Patrick, in jeans and a bright red jumper, just waved at me to go ahead but gave me a nod to say he was ready and waiting. I indicated the sitting room – he could join the mêlée.
I could hear Ralph on the phone. ‘Babe, no, you stay there in case he comes back.’ I raised my eyebrows at him, and we all sat down in the kitchen. ‘Look, I know it’s a hassle, but kids just aren’t predictable.’
How was she going to cope with a teenager she didn’t understand when he was under her roof in another country? I thought viciously, but then shook myself. Hating Petra wasn’t going to get Wilf back.
‘Now, we suggest the following in these circumstances,’ PC Warren said. There was something heartening about realising that they had a ‘usual’ plan of action. ‘Kids do this all the time. So, the first thing is that he just turns up again. It’s quite likely he’s been staying with a friend.’
‘Should we put something on Facebook?’
‘Well, we advise holding off on the social media until at least a few more hours have passed,’ said PC Warren. ‘It’s because it’s highly likely that he’ll return – and that sort of thing causes quite a lot of embarrassment at his age. We make a distinction between “missing”, which means he could be in danger, or “absent”, which means he is probably somewhere close but not at risk.’
I shuddered at the words ‘danger’ and ‘at risk’. ‘Absent, then,’ I confirmed.
‘Now, has it occurred to you that Wilf might have a girlfriend or a boyfriend?’ PC Moshulu asked. ‘Not unusual at his age.’
‘I think I’d know,’ Ralph said. ‘I’m sure I would.’
PC Warren smiled as if she knew better. ‘We don’t always tell our parents everything.’
‘True but…’
‘Some colleagues will be in touch either as soon as we hear anything, or later in the day.’ PC Moshulu got up and PC Warren followed. I told them how grateful I was for all their help and Ralph and I stood in the doorway, as if we were still a couple, watching them get back into their patrol car.
‘Who’s the guy in the sitting room?’ he asked as we turned back inside. ‘Is he the guy from…?’
‘No! Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said. ‘He’s the guy who knocked me over – lives down the road. He’s become a friend. He’s a teacher. Starts new term in September.’
Patrick was sitting with the twins in the sitting room discussing what they knew. ‘You look absolutely exhausted,’ he said.
I grimaced. ‘It’s been a long night. Look, thanks for coming.’ He got up and looked as if he wanted to hug me. He held out his hands instead but then returned them to his side. ‘This is Wilf’s dad, Ralph. This is my friend, Patrick.’
Patrick looked momentarily pleased and briefly shook Ralph’s hand.
Mum woke up then and shouted, ‘Men, bloody everywhere.’
Patrick smiled at her and said, ‘I’m here to help.’
‘She needs a rest,’ shouted Mum, glaring at Ralph, as if the lack of sleep was his fault too. It was really.
‘Yes, you should see if you can get some kip,’ Patrick said. ‘I can wait here. You guys must be knackered.’
Ralph took on a proprietorial air. ‘It’s fine, mate,’ he said. ‘Cheers but…’ My mum humphed loudly and Dad woke up.
‘Is he back?’ he said immediately and having to say ‘no’ made me cry again.
Patrick came forward and awkwardly rubbed my back. ‘I’ll go and look round the town, then,’ and went off.
‘Are you going to ask Sunil to help?’ Daisy asked, wide-eyed.
‘Ummm…’ I said, colouring. ‘I’ll definitely ask him for any ideas about what to do,’ I wanted to add, ‘when he messages me,’ because surely he’d do that first thing to check that Wilf was OK.
*
Wilf didn’t just turn up. Ralph had gone to the football club and waited there to find no sign of him, asked his friends to keep an eye out and then gone home to wait there. I sat shaking in my kitchen with my parents, Patrick and Marvin. It was an unlikely rescue party: Marv was wearing striped harem pants and sandals; my mother had her eyes shut. Patrick looked quite bewildered but was politely listening to my dad.
‘What we need to do is gather all the evidence,’ he was saying in his best professor voice. ‘Map out the facts. Ensure absolute objectivity through an entirely empirical approach.’
‘Good suggestion,’ Patrick said. ‘The trouble with kids though – I’m a teacher—’ Dad grunted something about ‘fellow professional’ while Patrick carried on ‘—is that their emotions during adolescence mean that we can’t guarantee that it won’t be a rando
m outcome.’
‘Random outcome, eh?’ Dad prodded Mum, who opened one eye. ‘This bloke might be a bit more with it than Callie’s usual sort.’
‘Not that there’s been many lately,’ she barked. I blushed – little did she know. I also couldn’t be bothered to clarify that Patrick wasn’t my boyfriend. Patrick smiled over at me though.
He continued, ‘But, Mr Brown…’
‘Please, call me Lorca,’ Dad said.
‘Lorca… we should start with your approach. Write down everywhere and everyone that Wilf has had contact with in the last few days and make a plan. I suggest that I go out and drive around again to some of the places you might expect Wilf to go in the day – parks, Maccy D’s, that kind of thing; Marvin, you help Callie’s folks with the plan, as you’ve described, and, Cal, well, you need to get a couple of hours’ kip. Then you’ll be better able to help later.’
‘I’ll never sleep,’ I said, but with little resistance.
‘We’ll wake you up as soon as we hear anything,’ Patrick said and pushed me gently in the direction of the door. It struck me anew how calm and together he was when he stopped trying to be funny; I was glad he was there. This might have shown in my knackered face because Marv raised his eyebrows theatrically at me. I ignored him.
Upstairs, I went into Wilf’s room, which had the usual stench of used football socks, and breathed it in, cursing myself for all the times I’d made him put all his shoes outside the back door so that we weren’t overwhelmed by their toxicity. I shut my eyes and willed him back into the fug.
His sheets were unmade; the desk was a muddle of screens and wires. It was the room of a boy who intended very much to come back. For a start, he didn’t have his beloved Mac, which was in the centre of the desk. Beside it was The Rough Guide to South Africa – I supposed a present from Petra to get him acclimatised.
I looked amongst the piles of clothes and school books on the floor for a clue and spoke to him out loud, but softly. ‘I’m so sorry, Wilf, please come home.’
Then I went into my own room to be faced with the evidence of my role in his running away. There on my dressing table was my make-up, spewed across the surface, as I’d painted my face in anticipation of going out with Sunil. I felt a new tang of shame: my infatuation with him had been sudden, physical and, in retrospect, foolish and ridiculous. The bed clothes were a tangle from the tussle of two bodies underneath them; my top was thrown into the corner where Sunil had ripped it off. What the hell had I thought I was doing?