by Carys Jones
‘And where will we get a boat?’ John had asked with a shake of his head, the gesture more fitting to a grown man than an eight-year-old. ‘We can barely find twenty pence to go and get sweets from the newsagents.’
‘I’ll make one.’ Shane had stared at Amanda as he made the promise. ‘I’ll make one and together we’ll set sail and explore the entire coast. We’ll find caves full of hidden treasures and swim with dolphins.’
‘You’re going to make a boat?’ John wondered dubiously, not yet realizing that Shane’s invitation didn’t extend to him, that in a few years their trio would be down to two.
‘Don’t get too close to the edge,’ Amanda’s father delivered his warning loud and clear. She waved a dismissive hand towards him. She just wanted to see the bird’s nests up close. From down on the beach she’d see the birds swarming at the side of the cliff. Their decision to build their nests so close to such a perilous drop intrigued her. Usually she’d have Shane or John by her side for such an exploration, but they were off on a Scouts camping trip. Her plan was to find one of the pristine baby-blue eggs and keep it as a trophy to triumphantly reveal to her friends when they returned. Especially Shane. Amanda couldn’t wait to see the glow of approval in his eyes when she showed him the little egg.
The wind tried to push her back, but Amanda forced her way to the edge. She dropped to her knees and shuffled forwards. A few rocks were dislodged and they went tumbling over the side. Amanda swallowed. She could feel her bones starting to rattle together, but she knew she needed to be brave. Her small hands gripped the very edge of the rocks. She peered down at the sheer side of the cliff. She could make out the little baskets of nests resting on random outcrops. They were filled with soft downy feathers and some contained eggs.
‘Yes,’ Amanda gushed into the wind. She spotted one nest just a few feet below her. If she stretched, she could just grasp an egg. She strained, sending more stones skittering down around her.
‘That’s too close.’
She barely heard her father’s shout of disapproval over the thunderous roar of the waves beneath her. The water swirled, whipping up white foam and crashing against the jagged rocks. There was no beach beneath her on this part of the coastline, only the icy waters of the ocean ready to swallow her whole.
‘Almost…’ Amanda stretched her arm out as much as she could. Her fingertips grazed the edge of the little nest, stroking the rough twigs which had been lovingly collected by the mother bird. She pushed herself forward again, determined to claim her prize. Only her hand didn’t connect with the nest. It didn’t connect with anything. It waved through open air as her entire body tumbled over the edge of the cliff. She saw the sky rolling above her which was swiftly replaced by the frothing waters of the ocean. She was plunging to her death. She tasted metal in her mouth as though she’d just bitten her tongue. She was too stunned to scream. Too stunned to do anything other than fall like one of the stones she’d previously dislodged.
Then something was grabbing her legs, digging in tightly and hauling her back. Amanda was shaking as her father bundled her up in his embrace and fearfully shuffled away from the cliff edge as though the sea might still rise up and claim his little girl.
‘How could you be so stupid?’ he was berating her and crying at the same time as he sat on the rough grass and rocked her back and forth in his arms. ‘You stupid, stupid girl. You could have died.’ He kissed her forehead numerous times, refusing to let her go. Amanda continued to shake, her teeth noisily chattering together.
‘Oh, Amanda,’ her mother came running up to them, her long white skirt billowing in the wind as though she were signalling her surrender to ships out on the water. ‘Amanda,’ she threw her arms around her little family, the tightness in her grip equally as protective as Ivor’s. She’d seen what had happened from the little house with the rose garden. She’d seen her daughter almost plummet to her death.
‘Amanda, you could have died,’ Corrine exclaimed desperately.
‘But I didn’t,’ Amanda managed to wriggle fear of her parents’ embrace just enough to enable her to look up at her father. Ivor’s kind face was set against a clear blue sky. His cheeks were slick with tears and his eyes were red, but his smile of relief, and the feeling it gave Amanda in that moment, imprinted on to her soul. ‘Daddy, you saved me,’ she told him adoringly. ‘You’re my hero.’
*
Amanda stirred in her bed. Waking up, she touched her cheeks and noticed that they were damp.
‘Daddy,’ she breathed, the moment from her dream slipping away from her, getting sucked into the darkness of the room. Her hand strayed across the bed, expecting to find the solid form of Will sleeping soundly beside her. She wanted to curl up against him, to absorb some of his warmth. He was always so warm.
‘Will?’ Amanda huskily called out his name. She needed his arms around her, to be reassured. Her hand moved further across the bed, finding only smooth sheets where her husband should have been.
‘Will?’
Sitting up, Amanda flicked on her bedside light. Its garish glow revealed that her bed was empty; the pillows on the far side weren’t even indented. The fog of sleep began to clear. Amanda tensed as she recalled how her husband wasn’t in the bed, wasn’t even at home. He was missing. Or he’d left her. She still didn’t know which. She wanted to drop against her pillows and disappear back into her dream, back to a place where her father still existed. Her hand lingered on the switch for the lamp, preparing to turn it off. But then Amanda heard it. A high-pitched beeping. It was brief yet consistent, like a piece of hospital machinery which would beep all through the night. Now that she’d noticed the sound there was no going back to sleep until she’d silenced it. With a groan, Amanda swung her legs out of bed.
Stepping out on to the landing, she wondered if it was the smoke alarm shrilly telling her that it needed its batteries replacing. That was the kind of job that Will always took care of. He prided himself in managing things around the home. The second something broke, like a chair or a mug, he was instantly there fixing it.
Amanda moved towards the sound. It wasn’t coming from the landing. She let the noise guide her further away from her bedroom. It seemed to be coming from her study. Amanda’s heart clenched as she rested her hand on the door handle to the room. She remembered setting up her scrape, allowing her laptop to remain connected to the darknet while she slept.
Like most hackers she’d set up numerous alarm systems to alert her if someone became aware of her activity and began to track her. What if such an alarm had been triggered? She’d have to shut down the entire search, wipe her hard drive, take a drill to it and then blow it up in her microwave just to be certain that all evidence had been erased. And then she’d have to start all over again as she knew that the scrape of the CCTV network was the only way she’d find Will. Names could be changed. Faces couldn’t.
Pushing open the door, Amanda was able to confirm that the sound was most definitely coming from her study. From her laptop to be precise. The device called out shrilly, demanding her attention. Pushing back her shoulders, Amanda made herself as large as possible, prepared to take on her digital foe. She approached her computer and unlocked the screen.
A message was flashing. Blinking like a faulty light bulb. It took a few seconds for Amanda’s tired eyes to process what she was seeing. When she realized what she was looking at, she dropped down into her chair in shock.
The message was simple.
Match found
On the screen behind it were two pictures side by side. The first one was the image of Will which Amanda had previously scanned into her laptop. He was smiling out at her from the screen, dressed in his suit and photographed just before their wedding ceremony. He looked so handsome, so strong. Like the hero out of some fairy tale.
In the accompanying image there was a man walking down what looked like a railway station platform. His head was angled as if he’d just looked up for a second. But in that second
he locked eyes with the CCTV camera overhead and it was enough for Amanda’s facial recognition technology to pick him up.
The man on the platform was Will. There was no mistaking the glisten in his eyes or the slant of his mouth. There was her oak tree. Her knight in shining armour. Her husband. But where was he? And where was he going?
16
Amanda’s heart was pounding, echoing in her ears like an ominous war drum. Her mouth went dry as she let her fingertips move across her keyboard in a flurry. She needed more information, needed a specific time, a date. And within seconds she had it.
Amanda stared at the data, searching the succinct text for some hidden meaning. Will had been caught on CCTV camera twenty-four hours ago on the platform at Glasgow’s railway station. Was he going there to see his family? Were they in some kind of trouble? Her mind was a jumble of questions as she fumbled for her phone. She needed to tell Shane, to get him to focus all his resources on Scotland. The image on the CCTV camera was just over a day old; Will might still be in the area.
Chewing on her lip, she scrolled through her contact list and noticed the time. It was just after six in the morning. Looking towards the window for confirmation, Amanda saw that sure enough the sky outside was lightening as a new day began. Shane hadn’t returned to her home the previous night like he’d promised. He’d barely stuck around long enough to board up her broken window. Had something come up? Had he felt that his time would be better spent elsewhere?
Jayne.
Amanda thought of the overly made-up face which always scrunched up with disdain whenever she was around. Shane had probably spent the evening with Jayne. Her stomach twisted in dismay and she threw her phone down onto her desk, angry at herself. She wasn’t supposed to feel jealously towards Jayne, she wasn’t supposed to feel anything.
Postponing her call to Shane, Amanda decided to shower. If she called him now, at such an unsociable hour, it set the wrong precedent. She needed to push Shane back to where he belonged; at a professional distance. Having him around, being so kind to her when Will had revealed himself to be built of lies was getting confusing. And Amanda needed to be focused if she had any hope of finding her husband.
The hot water slid down her back and steamed up the surrounding glass panels. Leaning back, Amanda savoured the sensation of it massaging her aching limbs. She scrubbed at her skin until it felt pink, but she still didn’t feel clean or refreshed. She kept thinking of Will out on that train station platform, dressed in jeans and a dark hoody. If he hadn’t looked up at the CCTV camera for that split second she would still be searching for him, still thinking him lost. He appeared to be alone, walking with his hands shoved into his pockets. There was no captor by his side urging him to move forwards, no sign of assault on his strong features. Will looked very much like a free man moving around of his own volition. And that made it all seem so much worse.
Heat clung to Amanda’s skin as she stepped out of the shower and began to hastily dry off. The sun was now fully risen and sending bright light into the bathroom, making the white surface of the tiles glisten as damply pure as freshly fallen snow.
Despite the presence of the sun, the early hour meant that the air outside was still crisp. Large dewdrops clung to the blades of grass on Amanda’s front lawn as she hurried to her car. She wasn’t going to call Shane and invite him over, she feared she was reaching a point where she couldn’t trust herself around him. Instead she planned on driving over to the station, on meeting Shane there like any regular person would do. No more house calls. No more confusion. And no more speculation about where Will was. Amanda knew now. He was in Glasgow which meant that with or without Shane’s help, soon she would be too.
*
‘Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise?’ John greeted her with a jovial smile as the double doors parted and allowed Amanda into the small reception area of the police station. The air was heavy with stale coffee and sweat. It reminded Amanda of how her local gym smelt first thing in a morning.
‘Hey, John,’ Amanda forced her sweetest grin, tucking a lock of still damp hair behind her ear. She should have taken more time to blow-dry it properly but she’d been in such a rush. Her heart thudded heavily with each passing second, reminding her that Will might already have left Glasgow, even Scotland, might have eluded her grasp.
Shaking her head, she pushed away the unpleasant feeling that she was actively hunting her husband, and that he was actively evading her.
‘Is Shane in yet?’ Amanda sounded so much like her former self that she groaned. ‘I mean DCI Perton. Sorry.’
‘He’ll always be plain old Shane to us,’ John said with a raise of his eyebrows and a low chuckle. ‘And yes, he is in. Up with the birds as always, puts the rest of us to shame.’
Amanda didn’t recall Shane being an early riser. She remembered panicked mornings trying to rouse him from a deep slumber so that he could get to college in time for an exam, or avoid missing a university lecture. But her efforts were always in vain. Even if she splashed Shane with cold water he’d just groan and roll over. He could easily sleep the day away, emerging around three in the afternoon bleary-eyed and yawning as though dawn had just broken.
‘Can I…’ Amanda smoothed her hands down the white lace tunic top she’d hurriedly pulled on over her skinny jeans and swallowed. ‘See him?’ she eventually finished, cringing. She felt like the needy, emotional wreck she’d once been when it came to Shane, back when everything was falling apart and she’d come and cry to John at the station about how she didn’t know her boyfriend anymore. ‘I mean, as an official appointment. It’s about my husband.’
This made John straighten in his seat. ‘Oh, of course, Amanda. I mean, I’ll put a call through to him in the office right away. We’re all crossing everything that your husband turns up soon.’
‘Thanks.’
Less than five minutes later Shane strode into the reception area. Amanda was loitering by a set of plastic chairs, clutching a Styrofoam cup of weak tea which John had insisted on giving her.
‘Amanda?’ the questioning lilt in Shane’s tone was mirrored in his furrowed brow. He wore a pale grey suit and emerald skinny tie, his hair lightly gelled. ‘I know I said I’d stop by last night,’ he extended a hand towards her and Amanda’s eyes flitted nervously back to John who was still behind the reception desk, pretending not to listen to them.
‘It’s not about that,’ she reassured him quickly, talking over him. ‘It’s about Will.’
‘Okay?’ the lines in Shane’s brow remained locked in place.
Amanda took a step towards him and lowered her voice. ‘I’ve found him.’
‘What?’ Shane couldn’t conceal his surprise as the word tumbled loudly from his lips, causing John to look over with interest. ‘Has he come home?’ he asked more quietly.
‘No,’ Amanda was shaking her head. ‘But I’ve found him.’
‘What did you do?’ Shane narrowed his eyes.
Amanda floundered, wondering how much of her darknet activity she could risk revealing to Shane.
‘Dammit, Amanda,’ before she could respond he’d read into her silence and was tugging her by her upper arm, pulling her out of the reception and taking her deeper into the bowels of the station.
‘Shane,’ he pulled her so abruptly that the tea in her little white cup swirled around precariously, almost tipping over the sides. ‘Hey, careful.’
He hauled her into the interview room she’d originally been questioned in with such contempt that Amanda feared she was already a common criminal in his eyes.
‘What did you do?’ he repeated, dropping both hands to the small table but remaining standing. Amanda cowered across from him as she dropped into the vacant chair, beginning to regret her decision to come to the station. She should have told him about her discovery when he stopped by her house, or at least on neutral ground. Here he was very much Shane the cop, not Shane the boy who’d whisper sweet nothings to her beneath the stars.
‘I told you, I’ve found him.’
He leaned towards her, his mouth a tight line. He looked like a panther preparing to pounce.
‘Found him how? Where?’
Amanda looked down at her little cup and picked at some of the soft material at its lip.
‘I’m waiting,’ Shane almost bellowed the words at her. He was mad. Really mad.
‘How do you think I found him?’ Amanda countered petulantly.
Shane groaned and stepped back from the table, crossing his arms over his chest. Amanda noticed the bulge in his upper arms as he did so and wished she hadn’t. She kept seeing flashes of the boy within the man which she knew was dangerous. She needed to separate the two. This was DCI Perton. He was just a local police officer, partner to Jayne the Pain. He had no hold over her heart. Will did. And she was close to finding him. So close.
‘Don’t play games with me,’ Shane growled at her. They truly had reverted to playing their old parts at the very end of their performance together, when everything was imploding in on itself.
Amanda sucked in a breath and placed her tea down on the table. ‘I ran a scrape of CCTV networks using facial recognition tech. It took me a few hours, but I got a positive ID. It’s definitely him.’
‘And you did this via the darknet, didn’t you?’
Amanda was silent.
‘Fuck,’ Shane smacked his hands down against the table. The sound cracked through the small room like thunder. A storm was breaking between them. ‘How can you come to me with this, Amanda? I can’t have any part in this, don’t you get that? This information that you have is utterly useless as you’ve not acquired it legally.’
‘But it’s not useless,’ Amanda insisted. They weren’t in a court of law. It didn’t matter how the hell she came about the evidence all that mattered was finding Will. ‘He’s in Glasgow, he was caught on CCTV there at the train station just over a day ago.’
‘I can’t use this,’ Shane was shaking his head. ‘And I could lose my job just by having this conversation with you.’