The Missing

by Jane Casey

  I sat and listened to the silence, fiddling with my phone. Things never worked out the way I thought they would. I had assumed for years that my mother had been wrong to think I could unlock the mystery of what happened to Charlie. I had resented her for being unreasonable; it had burned through our relationship and salted the earth it stood on so nothing else could grow. And now, it was starting to look as if she’d been right, much though I hated to admit it.

  I felt totally drained, but I had to muster the energy to move. It was time to go home.

  1999

  Seven years missing

  The park is different at night. It’s dark under the trees, where the streetlights don’t shine, and all I can see is the red glow from the end of Mark’s cigarette. The cherry, he calls it. It flares and fades as he draws on it and I can see the side of his face, the line of his cheek, his eyelashes sweeping low. I think he likes me, sometimes, and other times I’m not so sure. He’s three years older than me. He’s just passed his driving test at the first time of trying. And he’s good-looking enough to turn heads as he swaggers down the high street. All the girls in my school are obsessed with him.

  There’s a scuffling sound: Stu changing position beside Mark. I move over, trying to take up less space. A light rain has started to fall, and the little group of us crowd closer together. Annette’s elbow is in my side and when everyone laughs at a joke Stu’s cracked, she jabs me, hard. It’s deliberate. She doesn’t like me.

  ‘Let’s play spin the bottle,’ she says, holding up the vodka bottle and shaking it so the mouthful of liquid left inside sloshes about. I lean into Mark’s side, hoping that he’ll say no. I feel sick. I just want him to put his arm around my shoulders and talk to me in that funny, quiet way he has. It’s not what he says, exactly. It’s the way he makes me feel.

  ‘It’s too dark,’ another girl says, and someone else – Dave – takes out a bike light and puts it on. Around the circle, faces are sloppy with drink, all drooping eyelids and wet mouths. I haven’t had as much as everyone else, and I don’t want to play spin the bottle, not with these people, not now. It’s late, and I’m tired, and I keep checking that my keys are in my pocket, so I can get back in quietly, before Mum realises I’ve gone out.

  Abruptly, I come to a decision. I get to my feet and Annette laughs loudly. ‘Don’t fancy it, Sarah?’

  ‘I’m going home.’ I pick my way over legs, bending to clear the branches as I step out into the open air. Behind me, there’s a scuffle, and Mark follows, shrugging off the jeers of his mates. He puts his arm around me and I feel warm, cared for, thinking that he’s going to walk me home – but he guides me away from the path, towards the groundsman’s hut, a couple of hundred yards away from the group.

  ‘Don’t go,’ he murmurs into my hair. ‘Don’t leave.’

  ‘I want to, though.’ I’m pulling away from him a bit, half laughing, and his hand tightens on my arm. ‘Ow. That hurts.’

  ‘Shut up. Just shut up,’ he says, and pulls me after him into the shelter provided by the wall of the hut.

  ‘Mark,’ I say, protesting, and he shoves me hard into the wall so my head bangs against it. Then his hands are on me, grabbing, feeling, probing, and I gasp from shock and pain and he laughs under his breath. He goes on and on, mauling me, and then there’s a noise nearby and I look and it’s Stu, with Dave coming up beside him. Their eyes are wide, curious. They are there to stop me from running away. They are there to watch.

  ‘You love it, don’t you,’ Mark says, and his hands go to my shoulders and push, so that I fall to my knees in front of him and I know then, I know what he wants me to do. He is fumbling at his jeans, his breath coming fast, and I close my eyes, tears prickling the inside of my lids. I want to go home. I’m afraid to do what he wants, and I’m afraid to say no.

  ‘Open your mouth,’ he says, and cuffs the side of my head to make me look at him, to make me see what he’s holding. ‘Come on, you bitch. If you don’t want to, there’s plenty of girls who will.’

  I don’t see what happens, but suddenly there’s a bright light that’s red through my eyelids and I hear Dave swear, his voice high and frightened. The two boys run, their feet slipping on the grass, and before Mark can react there’s a hollow sound and he buckles, falling sideways, his legs kicking. I jump up, my eyes screwed up against the light that I now see is a narrow beam from a torch, and whoever is holding it turns away from me, playing the light over Mark’s body, over his lower half, his trousers and underwear bunched around his ankles.

  ‘You cunt,’ the person holding the torch says, and at first I think he’s talking to me. ‘Couldn’t you find someone your own age? Taking advantage.’

  He steps forward and kicks at Mark, connecting hard with his thigh, and Mark groans. The torch wheels around and for a moment I see a face I know: Danny Keane, Charlie’s friend. I don’t understand. I step back, and the torch stabs the shadows, finding me, running over my top. It’s ripped at the front, I realise, fumbling at the tattered edges, trying to draw it together.

  There’s silence for a second as Danny stares at me and I look back, eyes screwed up against the light of the torch.

  ‘Go home, Sarah,’ Danny says, and his voice is dead. ‘Go home and don’t do this again. You’re just a kid. Be a kid, for God’s sake. This isn’t for you. Just go home.’

  I turn and run, haring across the grass as if I’m being chased, and behind me I hear a thud, and another, and I have to look, to see what’s happening. Danny is crouching on top of Mark, and slowly, methodically, he’s knocking out his front teeth with the heavy torch, while Mark screams and screams.

  As I run, I know two things. Mark will never speak to me again. And I will never be able to look Danny Keane in the eye again for as long as I live.

  Chapter 16

  NOT FOR THE first time, I sat beside my mother on the sofa and had no idea what she was thinking. She seemed to be concentrating on the television, watching a quiz show I had never seen before and couldn’t get a handle on at all. The bright colours of the set and the audience’s shouts and cheers jarred; I would have preferred to sit in silence. My mouth was dry, and the urge to fidget was almost irresistible; nothing could ease the restlessness that I was feeling. The plush fabric on the arm of our ancient sofa had come in for some surreptitious gouging. It wasn’t doing the material any good, but it went some way towards relieving my feelings. I had tucked my feet up under me to stop myself from tapping them compulsively in time to the quickened beat of my heart, and now they were tingling, threatening pins and needles. My stomach twisted. I hadn’t eaten for hours – couldn’t think of eating. The only thought I had, running around and around in my head remorselessly, was what did he say?

  The phone call had come twenty minutes earlier, after a long day of waiting. Vickers, asking very properly if my mother was there, if he might come around and talk to us both, as he had information he thought we would be interested to hear. Tell me now, I had nearly begged, but I knew he wouldn’t. There was nothing but professional courtesy in his voice. Deliberately or not, he had shut me out again. I was back on the wrong side of the partition between the police and the civilian world.

  I’d warned Mum as soon as I got off the phone with Vickers. I’d told her that the police were coming to the house for the second day in a row, that it was something to do with Charlie’s disappearance. She hadn’t seemed surprised. No hand to her chest, no widening of the eyes, no uptick in blood pressure. She had waited a long time for this. I could only guess that she had lived this moment in her mind more times than I could imagine, so there was nothing to surprise her. She sat beside me, as remote and unfathomable as the stars, and I couldn’t find the words to ask her how she was feeling. She hadn’t even spoken to me about the search the police had conducted the previous day, the questions they’d asked her. I’d stood in my room and stared at it for a long time when I got back from the hospital, trying to see it through Blake’s eyes, trying to see what had been o
pened and what had been moved. It felt strange – altered, somehow – and I had turned to leave it with a feeling of claustrophobia that overlaid the shame that had stayed with me since I’d heard about the search.

  And now I was waiting for the police to come again, this time impatiently. In the end, I wasn’t even in the sitting room when they came to the door. I was in the kitchen, boiling the kettle to make tea that neither of us particularly wanted to drink. Out of sight of Mum, I could pace and fidget to my heart’s content. The long-drawn-out hiss of the kettle coming to the boil effectively blocked out sounds from the rest of the house, and as it clicked off, I froze, hearing voices from the hall. Forgetting about the tea, I shot out of the kitchen, my heart pounding.

  ‘Hello, Sarah,’ Vickers said, looking past my mother, who had opened the front door. A pretty female officer that I recognised from the station stood beside Vickers. No Blake. Well, that didn’t matter.

  ‘Please,’ I said, gesturing to the sitting room. ‘Sit down. Would you like a cup of tea? I’ve just boiled the kettle.’ After all that impatience, I was stalling. Now that they were here, I didn’t want to hear what they had to say. I couldn’t imagine how Mum was going to deal with it either.

  ‘We’re all right for tea at the moment,’ Vickers said, leading the way into the sitting room. ‘But don’t let me keep you from having one yourself.’

  I shook my head wordlessly, and sank down on a hard chair by the door. Mum settled herself with dignity in Dad’s old armchair. The police had taken the sofa. The female officer perched on the edge uncomfortably. Vickers leaned forwards, his elbows braced on his knees, and ran the fingertips of his right hand over the knuckles on his left, over and over. He didn’t say anything at first, just looked from Mum to me and back again. I couldn’t read his expression for a moment – was there no news? Maybe I had been wrong about the necklace. Maybe Danny had stalled them. Maybe he had refused to answer any questions. I rubbed my hands down my jeans and wondered how to begin.

  ‘How can we help you, Chief Inspector?’

  The words had come from Mum and I blinked at her, surprised. She was sitting there as calmly as a queen, in complete control. I started a rough calculation of how much she had had to drink during the day, then gave up. Enough to stiffen her backbone, not so much that she couldn’t deal with this visit like a lady. Her hands were folded in her lap; the telltale quiver wasn’t apparent.

  ‘Mrs Barnes, as you are probably aware, we’ve been investigating the murder of a young girl in this area that occurred a few days ago. During that investigation, some things have come to light about the disappearance of your son. We have reason to believe, Mrs Barnes, that Charlie was murdered very soon after he disappeared in 1992, and we know who was responsible.’

  Mum waited, her composure holding. I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Charlie was friends with a boy named Daniel Keane – Danny – who lived at 7, Curzon Close with his mother and father, Ada and Derek. Charlie spent a lot of time with Danny, and indeed he was interviewed following Charlie’s disappearance. At the time, he denied any knowledge of Charlie’s whereabouts and there was no reason to believe he was lying. He has come to our attention in connection with the murder of Jennifer Shepherd – the young girl I mentioned just now. Having him in custody, we raised the issue of Charlie’s disappearance, and found that he was more helpful on this occasion. He told us a number of things we didn’t know before.’

  Vickers’ voice dropped slightly. A wind that wasn’t there lifted the hairs along my arms. I could barely breathe.

  ‘What we didn’t know at the time of Charlie’s disappearance was that Derek Keane was a prolific and determined sexual predator. He operated in this area, attacking women over a period of fifteen to twenty years. At the same time, he engaged in physical and sexual abuse of his son and a number of other children.’

  ‘Not Charlie,’ Mum said, shaking her head.

  ‘Not initially,’ Vickers said heavily, regretfully. ‘Daniel Keane claims that he went to some trouble to ensure that his father was never alone with Charlie, and managed to hide the abuse he was experiencing from your son. Derek Keane preyed on young girls and boys from poor backgrounds – children who had been taken into care, mainly, who he met through the youth club that used to operate on this estate. I don’t believe that he ever did an honest day’s work in his life, but he used to act as a general handyman at the club. It was the perfect place for him to meet and gain the trust of vulnerable youngsters, and he took full advantage.’

  The youth club had closed down ten or twelve years before. The building, essentially a red-brick shed with high, barred windows that had been adapted into a club in the 1950s, had eventually been demolished. I had never gone there – too young before Charlie’s disappearance, too overprotected afterwards. To my childish imagination, the club had seemed like a wonderland, a place where children ruled and adults were present by grace and favour. I had longed to be allowed to go, yearned to look inside. The high windows, so tantalising at the time, took on a distinctly sinister cast in retrospect. They had hidden more than innocent fun. I swallowed convulsively, willing myself to listen to what Vickers was saying.

  ‘Derek was violent in and out of the home and regularly spent short spells in prison. According to Danny, his family lived in fear of Derek, and his moods dictated the pace of their lives. When he was happy, they had learned to be happy along with him. When he was angry, withdrawn or drunk, they tried to stay out of his way.

  ‘In the summer of 1992, things had been pretty quiet and stable in the Keane household for a couple of months. Derek was preoccupied with some scheme to make money – some sort of motor-insurance fraud. He spent a lot of time away with his gang of pals, driving to different parts of the country to stage accidents. By his own account, Danny relaxed. When Derek wasn’t there, Charlie was free to come and spend time at the Keanes’ house. They preferred to meet there rather than here because they didn’t have to involve Sarah in their games.’ Vickers looked at me apologetically before he went on, but I wasn’t upset; it rang true.

  ‘On the second of July, young Charlie left here at some time in the late afternoon. There was no record of anyone he knew seeing or speaking to him again after the point that Sarah saw him, as you are aware. We now know that he didn’t go far. He went straight across the road to see his best friend.’

  Mum was leaning forward, white bone shining through the thin skin stretched over her knuckles. If her hands hadn’t been clenched in her lap, I wouldn’t have known she was upset by the policeman’s calm recitation of the facts.

  ‘Unfortunately, Danny wasn’t at home. He’d gone to the supermarket with his mother, in part because he didn’t want to remain in the house alone with his father. Derek had come back from a long trip and was catching up on some sleep. Danny didn’t want to run the risk of waking him accidentally.

  ‘We believe that Derek answered the door when Charlie knocked on it. Rather than telling him to shove off, Derek asked him to come into the house. He could be pleasant when he wanted to be, and of course Danny had always hidden his abuse from Charlie. There was no reason for Charlie to be afraid.’

  Vickers paused and cleared his throat. He’d been talking without a break for a while, but I recognised it as a stalling tactic. This was the hard part. Get it over with, I willed him silently. Just say it.

  ‘We aren’t sure what happened in the house, but we believe, based on what Derek told his son, that while they were alone together, something happened to Charlie. We can assume, given his past behaviour, that Derek took the opportunity afforded him by an empty house to abuse Charlie. However, Charlie was not like his usual victims. He was brave and intelligent and he had a close relationship with his parents. He knew what had happened was wrong. He wouldn’t be comforted, or frightened into silence. Derek must have panicked, knowing that he would be in serious trouble when Charlie went home and complained to his parents. By the time Danny and his mother came back to the house
, Charlie was dead.’

  The last word fell with a thud into the absolute silence in the room. Mum leaned back in her chair, one hand to her chest. She looked drained. Even though I had been expecting it – even though I had known it for years – the shock of having it confirmed shuddered through me.

  ‘Derek wasn’t what you might call clever, but he had cunning and an instinct for self-preservation,’ Vickers went on after a short, respectful pause. ‘He knew that you and your husband, Mrs Barnes, would be quick to sound the alarm when Charlie failed to return home. He hid Charlie’s body in the boot of the car – which, incidentally, would have been the riskiest part of his plan, as the car was parked on the driveway in front of the house. No garage with these houses, so no privacy. But he was lucky and no one spotted him. When Danny and his mother came home, the only sign that anything had happened was Derek’s strange mood. He was irritable and absorbed in his own thoughts. He sent Ada out to spend the evening at her friend’s house, telling her not to think of coming home before he sent for her. She tried to take Danny with her, but Derek forbade it, saying that he needed his son’s help. If Ada suspected later that her husband was responsible for Charlie’s disappearance, she never spoke of it to Danny or to anyone else, as far as we can tell.’

  Mum was nodding, her eyes unfocused. ‘But she must have guessed. I remember, you see, she gave me flowers,’ she murmured, mostly to herself. ‘Pink carnations. She couldn’t even speak to me. Pink carnations.’

  Knowing that Mum was capable of going on like that indefinitely, I spoke over her. ‘But Danny stayed at home. When did he realise what had happened?’

  ‘When his father showed him Charlie’s body,’ Vickers said grimly. ‘Derek waited for nightfall, which must have been pretty stressful as sunset would have been late enough at that time of year. Then he made Danny get into the car with him. They drove a couple of miles towards Dorking, to a place in the middle of nowhere, where there’s an alleyway that ran behind a little development of houses. There was an access point there for railway workers that led down to the train tracks. Derek had a friend who was a British Rail maintenance worker, who’d told him about it. It wasn’t overlooked by houses – the embankment is heavily planted with trees and bushes at that point. The railway was a branch line that wasn’t in use at the time. It was a great place to dispose of a body.’ Vickers sighed. ‘I don’t think Danny has ever got over the shock of opening the boot of his dad’s Cavalier to see his best friend’s body lying there. Derek didn’t give him any warning, just told him to help carry the torch and the shovel while he carried Charlie onto the embankment.’