The Disappeared

by Ali Harper

  ‘Who the bloody hell is Aunt Edie?’ asked Martin.

  I watched Jo step back outside.

  ‘Speak soon, Auntie.’ I put the receiver down and hurried after Jo, to help unpack the van. I don’t know why I pretended that Martin was Aunt Edie, just that I didn’t fancy explaining to an undercover copper that we’d made a deal with a journalist. Their driving principles seemed at odds with each other – Col wanted to keep things hidden, Martin wanted to expose.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Jo as she pushed a cardboard box into my hands.

  ‘Kind of.’ I don’t like lying, even white lies. I believe truth runs like a river, and it’s not a good idea to try to stem the flow. It only backs up and overwhelms you further downstream. ‘No sign then?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’ Jo banged the van doors shut and locked them. She had an armful of pillows and a couple of carrier bags. We took it all into the office and unpacked. She’d brought my alarm clock, a couple of Ginsters cheese and onion pasties from the fridge and a rucksack full of random clothes. Everything you need for a sleepover.

  ‘Who’s Aunt Edie?’ Col asked.

  ‘Closest thing I have to a mother. Mad as a stick. Don’t worry about her.’

  ‘OK, well, I’d better let you two settle in,’ Col said. ‘Get some rest. And, listen, if you decide you don’t want to go through with it, just give me a ring. We can think of something else.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said as I walked out the door with him. Jo stayed in the office, munching her pasty.

  ‘You’re an amazing woman,’ he said as we hit the pavement.

  ‘I’m really not.’

  ‘Do me a favour?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Find someone who deserves your anger. Don’t turn it on yourself, Lee. There are enough good people suffering out there.’

  I tugged at my sleeves. ‘They’re nothing – I was a kid. Stupid.’

  ‘Anger’s fuel. Use it to make the world a better place, a cleaner place.’

  We stopped walking. There were a million stars splattered across the sky. I felt peaceful, knowing how small we were. How none of this mattered to the cosmos. It would go on regardless of what happened.

  He put his hands in his pockets. ‘Would you fancy a drink some time? With me, I mean?’

  ‘Aren’t you off to the next place?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well, you know where I am,’ I said. I tried to clear the frog in my throat. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ I realized as I said that, that I meant it. Leeds is my home, which is weird, because it’s the first time in my life I’ve felt like I’ve had one. I knew then that I’d have to find a way of getting rid of David. I’d done running.

  He leaned forward and kissed me, just above my lips. I felt the warmth of his breath, smelled mint and tobacco. I didn’t move.

  He put his hand on my waist, gentle, hardly touching.

  ‘Ring me if you need me,’ he called after me as I headed back to the office. ‘You’ve got my number.’

  Jo was watching me, so I rang Martin and gave him an update on what had happened. In truth there wasn’t much I could tell him, but I did let him know that Karen Carpenter had died in suspicious circumstances.

  ‘I missed that,’ he said, and I knew he was pissed off.

  ‘Happened out east,’ I said. I could still feel the warmth of Col’s hand imprinted on my waist. ‘Probably didn’t make the national news. We’re going to try and find the others – the one who refused to speak to you back then. Maybe she’ll have something to say now.’ I told him we might also try to talk to Jayne’s brother.

  Lies. More lies. My insides churned. ‘So I won’t ring you in the morning, but I’ll try and call tomorrow night. Late. OK?’

  ‘I knew this one would come around again,’ he said. ‘I bloody knew it.’

  Jo had put the duvets and blankets on the floor in the back room, and we lay down and slept until almost lunchtime on Tuesday. A full twelve hours. My body seemed to know what was coming, that it needed to recharge. I woke up five minutes before the alarm. I switched it off and lay on my back, thinking about the day ahead.

  Col had got us Wilkins’s home address with just one phone call. I thought about the kiss he’d given me. I’m not good at the physical. I’m not used to it. Sometimes I think I’m allergic to other people. That some kind of chemical reaction goes off in my skin. But he’d kissed me, and it hadn’t hurt. I usually need to be pissed for that to be the case. I kicked the duvet off and sat up, rolled two cigarettes and blew on Jo’s face. She rubbed at her nose in her sleep. I blew again.

  ‘Get lost,’ she said.

  We didn’t talk much as we got dressed. I folded the duvets away and made us both a cup of tea while Jo went to get the items we’d put on the shopping list.

  While she was out, I rang Aunt Edie to ask how Brownie was doing. I could hear The Archers on in the background.

  ‘Just cooking up some bone broth.’

  ‘Bone broth? But he’s vegan.’

  ‘Put lead in his pencil. He’s at the allotments with Joyce from number twelve, helping her turn her compost heap. Flora, bless her cottons, she went down to Sue Ryder’s and picked him out some clothes.’

  ‘He’s not giving you any trouble?’

  ‘Meek as a lamb.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But you should have heard him last night. Shouting out, screaming, yelling. All kinds of carry on. I had to sedate him.’

  ‘Sedate him? With what?’

  ‘Breaks your heart. But I told him, you’ll find his friend for him. He needs his friend, Lee. He’s not going to make it without Jack.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ I said, but my words felt heavy. Since the previous night, I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that we might be too late to help Jack Wilkins.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I put the phone down on Aunt Edie and when Jo came back with a couple of shopping bags we checked the equipment and then packed it into knapsacks.

  We filled the van with petrol on our way out of Leeds, Jo driving, taking the route into Alderley Edge that led us past Wheels Motor Sales. The signs were out on the forecourt, the flag flying. The king was in his castle. We didn’t say a word to each other as Jo pressed on towards the village, my fingers on the road map, tracing the route.

  Wilkins’s house was set back from the road. After driving past it twice, we parked the van a couple of streets away and looped back on foot, Jo carrying the knapsack. He’d got a Beware of the Dog sign on the gate but, like many people, it told a lie. The gravel crunched beneath our feet as we made our way up the drive. It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

  Breaking in was easy, despite the wealth of the place. You’d think he’d have been more concerned with security, but there was none. Not even a burglar alarm. Round the back of the house was a conservatory, wooden-framed, the paint peeling from the frame like chalk dust. Ivy and other creepers covered most of the windows. We had a quick look under the biggest stones and the couple of ceramic pots that stood on either side of the back door, but no joy. I unzipped the bag while it was still on Jo’s back and pulled out the crowbar and bolt cutters that Bobats stocked as a matter of course. Jo kept watch while I climbed onto an old chimney pot that had probably once contained flowers. I tucked the metal edge of the bar under the small window frame and levered. The first two didn’t give and I had to clamber down and heave the chimney pot a couple of feet to the right. I climbed back up and was rewarded for my efforts. The third window groaned and splintered before it buckled and gave. As I opened it wide, the interior catch fell off and clattered onto the tiled floor inside. Jo was back by my side in an instant. She gave me a shoulder to stand on and from there I slithered through the gap. Like I said – a natural affinity for it. I crouched in the semi-gloom, waiting, listening.

  Nothing.

  It was darker inside than it was outside because the ivy covered so much of the glass. I gave it a minute, waited for my eyes to readjust. It was obvious t
hat the conservatory hadn’t been used in years, at least not in any conventional sense. A large wickerwork settee and matching armchairs were only just visible under piles of newspapers and hundreds of carrier bags. On the floor were several pots that seemed to contain only dead plants. I turned around. Once upon a time this would have been a lovely space, light and airy, overlooking the huge back garden. I could almost see the three of them, Nick, Jayne and Jack. Jack running in and out from the back garden while his mother made sandwiches and homemade lemonade, like something out of the Enid Blyton stories I used to devour in school. I felt a breath on the back of my neck and shuddered, then jumped a foot in the air as Jo banged on the window.

  ‘Get a sodding shift on,’ she mouthed through the glass.

  I manoeuvred my way through the piles of cardboard boxes towards the door that led from the conservatory to the garden. I could see scuffmarks on the paintwork. I saw the set of keys hanging on a rack to the left-hand side of the door and grinned. Wouldn’t need the bolt cutters. I helped myself to the ring, and the second key I tried found its niche and twisted gently. The door groaned as I pushed it open. Jo winked at me. I stood aside and let her in, closing the door behind her.

  There was a second door inside the dusty conservatory, which the first key on the ring opened. It led into the kitchen, a huge room that could have catered for scores of guests without any trouble; although I sensed it had been a long time since any kind of dinner party had been held. In contrast to the conservatory, it looked like this room was cleaned regularly, but it had a forlorn air, as if nothing ever happened.

  We crept our way through the kitchen and into the large hallway. It was gloomy inside, so I pulled the torch from the bag and used the beam to point out to Jo a framed photograph on the wall at the bottom of the wooden staircase. I assumed it to be a picture of Jack with his mother. They were on a beach. She was wearing a summer dress that was blowing in the breeze, and the boy was laughing, his little hands clapped together. He looked 3, maybe 4 years old. Her hair swirled around her shoulders, and as she smiled at her young son, I was struck by what a good-looking woman she was. Nothing about her gave any sign of the tragedy to come.

  Jo and I didn’t speak as we scoped out the house. We’d agreed we’d start with the upstairs. We split up – Jo checked out the first room on the left and I inched my way into what was obviously the master bedroom. The walls were lined with black-and-grey striped wallpaper, and the sheets on the bed were black. The bed was made, which surprised me, but then I remembered the state of the kitchen. The guy had a cleaner. I hoped she worked mornings.

  The master bedroom had a small shower room attached, again spotless. The maid or whoever obviously didn’t consider the conservatory part of her domain. I turned and checked out every inch of his bedroom, opened each of the three drawers in the cabinet next to his bed, ran my hands under the mattress. Everything that Col had told me to do. There were two dozen pairs of highly polished shoes on shelves in one of the cupboards. Must attend a lot of weddings. Or funerals.

  I found what I was looking for in the bottom of the last wardrobe, in a shoebox. I opened the lid and lifted out the gun. Heavy, cold. The weight of it surprised me. I didn’t want to use it, but more than that, I didn’t want Wilkins to use it. I stuffed it into the waistband of my trousers.

  I joined Jo in the room next door. It contained a bed and a wardrobe but nothing else. The other two rooms on the other side of the landing were bare. Faint imprints in the carpet gave away the fact that furniture had been there once upon a time, but no longer.

  ‘Find it?’ asked Jo.

  I nodded, and we made our way back down to the ground floor. Downstairs was a study, which was dark and masculine, with a large desk and piles of papers covering the floor. Next door to that was a room that contained a full-sized snooker table, the walls papered with a dark purple, embossed wallpaper – the kind you’d expect to see in a pub. We were in a museum, a house trapped in time. The huge front room had a carpet that was cream and green swirls, threadbare in places, with an exposed brick fireplace that took up the whole of one wall. There were two armchairs, opposite each other, one on either side of the fireplace and then two settees at the far end of the room.

  ‘Where’s best?’ asked Jo.

  ‘He’s going to come in through the front door – no one’s been round the back for years.’

  ‘The hall?’ she said.

  ‘No. Let’s stay here. Let him get settled.’ It was obvious that was the room he used, apart from his bedroom and the study. I noticed the ashtray on the table next to the armchair, and the newspaper on the floor. It must be odd living in a house this size on your own, I thought. I wondered what he did for food. I couldn’t imagine him cooking in the huge kitchen.

  We took a settee each, and lay for what seemed like hours, fighting the urge to smoke. I watched daylight drain from the sky. I hated the waiting. Hated the space in my brain for thoughts to creep in. I tried to keep it occupied by running through the sequence of events that had led us here, starting with 8 September 2000 when Jayne Wilkins hadn’t gone to the cinema with a friend. We’re all dancing to a tune that someone else set, whether we know it or not. Jack Wilkins’s future was mapped out that night, and he wasn’t even there. I thought of the boy in the photograph in the hall, frozen in time. Captured by fate.

  ‘Jesus, how late does this guy work?’ Jo stretched her legs up into the air.

  ‘He’s probably in the pub,’ I said. ‘Professor what’s-his-face seemed to think he spent a lot of time in there.’

  ‘Do you think we can risk one? In the back garden?’ Jo asked for the thirtieth time. I was saved from saying ‘no’ for the thirtieth time by the sound of tyres on gravel.

  We slid like eels from our respective settees and crawled to our positions. A moment later, a key in the door, a click, and a beam of light appeared around the edges of the living room door.

  I listened to the heavy thump of his footsteps as he made his way down the corridor towards the rear of the house – the kitchen, I guessed. We heard a cupboard door, a crash of something. I crawled across the living room carpet and pulled myself to standing behind the door. My knees clicked as I straightened. I put my back against the wall, trying to use its coolness to instil a sense of calm into me. I slowed my breathing, trying to trick my body into believing it was relaxed.

  I strained to hear the noises, thought I heard the sound of glass hitting glass. Bollocks, he was going to sit in the kitchen. I chewed my lip. I couldn’t see Jo now, it was too dark, so I couldn’t guess what she was thinking. Questions tumbled through my brain as I stood there, flexing my fingers. How long do we wait it out? Should we sneak upstairs to the bedroom, wait for him there? All the while, the thrill of being the stalker, of being the one that knew something the other didn’t, made my nerves tingle. I felt more alive, more in control than ever before.

  I ducked to my knees, ready to inch my way across the room to Jo, to formulate a new plan, when I heard his footsteps, back down the corridor, lighter than before. I held my breath as he opened the door and stepped into the front room, his back to me. A chunk of light from the hallway spilled in behind him. I watched him place a bottle on top of the piano, then duck to switch on the standard lamp.

  As light flooded the room, Jo sat up straight in the armchair. I knew she was trying hard not to blink. With the back of my heel I closed the door behind him. It made a noise as it clicked shut, and he turned from Jo to me. I pulled the Glock I’d recovered from his wardrobe from the waistband of my trousers. I pointed it at him and gave a short wave with my left hand.

  ‘Me again.’

  He placed the glass he was carrying onto the table next to the armchair, a reaction I knew was instinctive. He wanted his hands free. He reminded me of the bare-knuckle fighters that hang out at my local gym, their hands twitching.

  ‘The fuck are you doing here?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve a few more questions.’ I licked my lips.


  ‘You’ve a hell of a nerve.’

  I considered this. Ran a full body check. I surprised myself, but my nerves were holding steady. I was fairly certain I could take him, even without the gun in my hands, whatever mode of combat he chose. His time had been and gone. I knew it and I knew he knew it too, although I guessed he’d rather die than admit it.

  ‘Want to tell us about your wife?’

  He didn’t move. Stock still, staring at me like he wanted to tear me to pieces. ‘Get out.’

  I moved my left foot so that I was standing with my feet hip-width apart. I spread my weight, feeling my centre of balance ground down through the soles of my feet.

  ‘Do you care that no one knows where your son is?’

  ‘You’ve got five seconds,’ he said. ‘Get out.’

  ‘Bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jo, raising one eyebrow like she was Miss frigging Marple. Wilkins turned his head towards Jo, giving her the same stare he’d been giving me. Jo didn’t flinch, and I knew she was feeling the same way I was. I can’t really describe the atmosphere in the room. It was like someone had plugged the floorboards into an electrical current. I’d never felt so powerful in my whole life, and I know Jo felt it too.

  Jo said: ‘People might say a missing wife was unfortunate, but a missing wife AND a missing son. That smacks of something else.’

  ‘Piss off,’ Wilkins said, clenching his fists at his side. I kept the gun trained on his upper body.

  ‘You don’t care where your son is?’ said Jo.

  ‘Why should I?’ he said. ‘Only ever turns up when he wants something.’

  ‘What about your wife?’ asked Jo. ‘Is she ever going to turn up?’

  ‘Doubt it.’

  ‘Because you killed her?’

  ‘Because it’s been a long time since she disappeared – seventeen years – probably about the same time you were born.’

  ‘Funny man,’ I said. I moved a step away from the door, so that I was standing directly behind him, four or five paces. He’d turned his whole body to face Jo, and I kept the gun trained on the area between his shoulder blades. ‘Glad you can joke about it.’