Groomed

by Casey Watson

  I was still feeling jaunty, when, the bacon cooked and in the warmer and the pancake batter made, I went back upstairs to rouse the troops. Mike first. He was dressed and busy making the bed.

  ‘I could smell the bacon,’ he said, grinning. ‘On my way.’

  Then Tyler, who was sitting up in bed, scrolling through his phone. I kissed his forehead. ‘Breakfast’s almost ready, love,’ I told him. ‘Pancakes.’

  ‘Totes amaze!’ he answered, grinning too.

  Then on to Keeley, whose door was shut. I duly knocked and entered. ‘Time for breakfast, love,’ I said, as I stepped into the room. ‘It’s –’

  And then I stopped. Because Keeley wasn’t in there. And this wasn’t a ‘got up and went out’ kind of ‘not there’, either. Not unless she was a master at extreme stealth and forensics, at any rate. For one thing, I’d been up since forever ago. And for another, it appeared that her bed hadn’t been slept in. Her pyjamas – which I’d laundered and placed on her pillow – sat there exactly as I’d left them there the previous afternoon.

  Key things were missing, too, I realised, identifiable by the spaces they’d left in their wake. Her phone charger, normally snaking from the extension lead by the chest of drawers. Her enormous black make-up bag. The boots with the low heels. The tub of moisturiser that normally sat on her bedside table. The pack of cleansing wipes that wasn’t on the floor at its base. The shoulder bag that normally ended each day in a flump of black suede on the rug by her bed, tassels sprawled like seaweed.

  I turned around. And her giant Mary Poppins handbag, which always hung on the other side of the bedroom door. But now didn’t.

  And her bed hadn’t been slept in. She gone to bed at – what – half nine? Quarter to ten? She’d taken water up – the glass, two-thirds full, was on the dressing table still, densely bubbled. But she’d not gone to bed. Possibly lain on the bed, but not got into bed. I thought back. Had we spoken? Yes we had. I’d gone up at eleven. Knocked and not gone in. ‘Night love,’ I’d called. ‘Night Casey,’ she’d called back.

  And since then and now she’d made a bid for escape.

  Chapter 14

  Mike was calm personified. When he joined me in the bedroom following my exclamation of alarm, he barely inched up an eyebrow. And even when he did it was only to roll his eyes.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ he said, after I’d pointed out all the evidence that Keeley must have sneaked out after we’d all gone to bed and that we had to call the police as a matter of priority. ‘She could equally have disappeared early this morning.’

  I looked at Mike as though he were mad. ‘Are you kidding me? She can barely drag herself out of bed to get to college – much less make up her bed as perfectly as that.’ I pointed. ‘Much less have the wherewithal to arrange her pyjamas exactly where I left them for her yesterday.’

  I was talking nonsense. Keeley was capable of that much and more – wasn’t it me who’d commented on her initiative? But it didn’t matter anyway. She clearly wasn’t trying to cover her tracks. She’d packed and left systematically, only wishing not to wake us, and knowing full well she’d be missed in the morning. ‘She didn’t sleep here, Mike, fact!’ I huffed anyway.

  ‘Okay,’ Mike replied in his best calming-me-down voice. ‘If that’s the case, she’s probably sneaked out to one of her friends’ houses and stayed over. Most likely been drinking again,’ he muttered. ‘And too scared to come home and face the music.’

  ‘Well, wherever she is, we need to report this right now,’ I said, rattling off past Tyler who’d just appeared from his room. ‘Does this mean breakfast is cancelled?’ he groaned.

  They both followed me down, and we reassembled in the kitchen, which was full of the mouth-watering smell of the bacon.

  ‘Absolutely not, son,’ Mike told him. ‘Just slightly delayed. And listen, love,’ he said, addressing me. ‘Let’s make a start, shall we? If you’re right, and she’s been gone since last night – and had planned it all so meticulously – then half an hour to fill our bellies isn’t going to make any difference. Trust me, the police aren’t going to be scrambling half a dozen rapid response vehicles for this one. Am I right or am I right, Ty?’

  ‘You are so right,’ Tyler said.

  ‘And while we’re eating it,’ Mike added, passing me the jug full of pancake batter, ‘we can put our heads together and make a plan.’

  So it was that ten minutes later we were assembled round the kitchen table, Mike and Tyler tucking in while I nibbled on a few still half-frozen berries, my own appetite having completely disappeared as I contemplated how completely I must have missed all the signs. She’d been toeing the line because she had arrived at a long-term plan, and had clearly just been marking time while it came to fruition. But what plan? Where had she gone? Because I definitely didn’t buy into Mike’s idea that she’d gone AWOL just to hang out and drink.

  ‘So, first up,’ Mike said, ‘is that I’m not going to be able to make the football. So maybe the first thing you should do, Ty, is to call Kieron and let him know.’ He pointed his fork at me, then. ‘Case, you can follow protocol. Phone EDT and the police or whatever, and as soon as I’ve eaten this I’ll jump in the car and have a drive around.’

  ‘If she’s been on the lash with her cronies all night, it’s too early for her to be out and about now, Mike,’ I said. ‘You won’t find her on the streets at this time.’

  Unless she was in some sort of dangerous situation. Which instinct couldn’t help but scream at me wasn’t the case.

  ‘What else should I do?’ he asked. ‘Got to go through the motions. Anyway, it’s what I’m supposed to do. When you report it, the police will expect that we’ve covered all bases, won’t they? Which would include trying to find her ourselves. Anyway, we need to organise a lift for you, Tyler – or maybe I could drop you round at Kieron’s while I’m out. Or –’

  ‘No way,’ Tyler said. ‘I can help in this. I bet I can.’

  ‘Tyler, no,’ I said. ‘Don’t miss the football. That’s just silly. It’ll be something and nothing, like Dad says. And why should you miss out, just because –’

  ‘But I bet I can,’ he persisted. ‘She was up to something last night, I know it.’

  Both our heads swivelled in his direction. ‘What sort of something?’ Mike asked.

  Tyler worked his way through a mouthful of pancake before answering. He was a strapping sixteen-year-old boy, after all, and priorities were priorities.

  ‘She borrowed my laptop last night,’ he said. ‘After she’d gone to bed. Well, not to bed, obviously, but after we’d both gone up for the night. She said she had some college thing she had to get submitted before half-term which she’d forgotten about. Some assignment or other for her English module.’

  ‘Oh, did she now …’ I said, mentally checking the box marked ‘initiative’ again.

  ‘She said she didn’t want to go back down and use yours while you were watching telly. And she seemed completely legit, so I let her. She even had some paperwork in her hand. But now I’m thinking she might have been up to something else, mightn’t she?’

  ‘Well, that’s definitely a possibility,’ Mike said.

  ‘And there was something else,’ Tyler said, obviously warming to the task now. ‘When I went in to ask for it back – this must have been about half an hour later – her phone rang, and she was, like, in such a rush to go and grab it off the charger and answer it, and I’m thinking she’d been waiting for a call or something, and didn’t want you to hear it ring. Anyway, I left her to it, and took the laptop, and she was all in a bit of a flap and stuff, so I’m thinking …’

  ‘Thinking what, Ty?’ Mike said, placing his cutlery together.

  ‘That she might not have had time to cover her tracks.’ Tyler grinned. His Crime Scene Investigation hat was appearing above his head. In a parallel universe, he’d definitely have been a detective. ‘So, you never know, I might be able to find something out.’

&nb
sp; ‘What do you mean, love?’ I said. ‘You think you might be able to see who she’s been talking to?’

  He nodded. ‘You never know. I can definitely try. People have no idea. There’s always a trace somewhere. D’oh, Mum,’ he added, ‘I do study IT. Not that I have anything to hide myself, obviously,’ he added quickly. ‘But I know a trick or two. Nothing is ever completely hidden. Just ask the police.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Mike said, standing up. ‘We need to put the plan into action. Tyler, after you’ve called Kieron, you can deal with the technical stuff, while Mum makes the phone calls, and meanwhile I’ll head on out and have a drive round the streets. If you’re sure, that is. There’s no need for you to miss football if you don’t want to.’

  But Tyler was already rising from his own chair. ‘Are you joking?’ he said. ‘I’m going to crack this.’

  Tyler brought his own laptop down while I went through the formalities on the phone, and as Mike had predicted, because Keeley was sixteen now, the police officer I spoke to didn’t seem to have that much interest. Although he obviously had to go through the motions – asking the same list of questions as last time, albeit pretty robotically. As I answered them, however (probably equally robotically), I became aware of Tyler’s fingers flying ever more speedily across his keyboard and, though he half had his back to me, over at the dining table, his body language was growing obvious; it seemed as if he had discovered something.

  He turned then and I flapped a hand at him, before wrapping it round the mouthpiece. ‘Have you got something?’

  He nodded. ‘Think so.’

  I couldn’t wait to get off the phone. Unfortunately, the police officer was obviously having a slow morning, but without knowing what Tyler had found I didn’t want to break his flow and potentially prolong things even longer – not till I knew more about it, anyway.

  ‘Well, I think that’s about everything, Mrs Watson,’ the officer said, a full five minutes later. ‘Now, you’ve made a note of the log number, yes?’

  I assured him I had and repeated it back to him. Which was important – it was the number that would identify the case, if I needed to call them back and ask about progress, and would take whoever took the call straight to all the relevant information.

  But it was the information we could give them that was of most interest to me currently. I finally banged the phone down and rushed across to where Tyler was now studying his screen carefully. ‘Come on, then,’ I said, pulling up a dining chair to join him. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense. What have you found?’

  He grinned, his fingers wavering above the keyboard like a child’s at a sweet counter. ‘Seriously, Mum,’ he said, ‘this is, like, such a gift. You remember what I said about her being so intent on getting to her phone before I could see it? Well, I was right. She was so fixated on getting me out of her bedroom so she could speak to whoever it was that she forgot to log out. She just minimised the screen. Well, actually, she’d already done that when I went in to ask for it back – prob’ly thinking she could send me away again, to give her another couple of minutes. But then the phone went and I’m guessing she didn’t even realise she’d left this one logged in. She’s got two accounts. That’s the key thing, and she was on the other one, I reckon.’

  ‘I wish I had the first clue what you’re on about,’ I told him. ‘What d’you mean, two? Two accounts of what? Are you talking about her bank account?’

  Tyler grinned. ‘Facebook accounts, of course! Sorry, Mum – I’ll slow down. Okay, so look.’

  Tyler turned the screen towards me and took me through what he’d found step by step. ‘See this?’ he said. ‘This is her other Facebook account. Completely different from the one she’s friends with me on. See?’ He pointed to a profile picture that was unmistakably Keeley. ‘Same profile picture, but the account details are different.’ He clicked through to another screen. ‘See her age? According to this account, she’s an eighteen-year-old hairdresser. You know what I reckon? I reckon she thought she’d left the other account open – you know, the one she wouldn’t have been so bothered about me seeing. Must get confusing, after all, to keep having to go back and forth between accounts.’

  I nodded as if I completely understood what he was talking about. I didn’t, but the basics seemed clear enough: Keeley was living an online double life. I sat and nodded grimly as he then made it clear to me quite how much initiative she had shown.

  Because her disappearance last night wasn’t just premeditated recently. From what Tyler was showing me, it had been something she’d been involved in for what looked like weeks, even months. Not necessarily with a view all along to disappear under the radar, but certainly an option she’d apparently been exploring.

  Because Tyler had taken me to where Keeley had been sending messages – private messages, as opposed to posting things on her wall. And many of these were to and from a twenty-one-year-old lad who apparently only lived a few miles away from us. Was he one of the friends she’d been keen to continue seeing when she came to live with us? Was he even the reason she’d ended up in our neck of the woods in the first place?

  We continued to scroll through the messages together. Ty had taken us back to the point where they’d apparently first made contact, so we could read them chronologically rather than back to front. Which soon became a problem in itself, as the messages between the two were becoming more and more flirtatious – not explicit, like the phone stuff I’d stumbled upon originally, but, given the way they were going, I was fearful they soon might be.

  ‘I don’t think I need to read these,’ I told him, conscious that he definitely didn’t. Whatever relationship had blossomed between the two of them under our roof, this was proof positive that whatever attraction Tyler had felt for her, for Keeley he was of little romantic consequence. My hunch was that he already knew this deep down but, even so, seeing it laid bare like this couldn’t have been easy.

  He scrolled faster back up the list of messages, and another thing struck me – just how painstakingly she’d created her alter ego. For a start, in every photo she was plastered in make-up, with the result that she looked older than her years; an effect enhanced by the clothes she was dressed in for the photos – a selection of skimpy tops and short skirts that were presumably a part of her wardrobe which never saw the light of day around us. And, most interestingly, it looked like she was the one making most of the running, instigating the flirting, doing the chasing, building a picture of a young woman who was decidedly interested in taking things further.

  She had also given herself a compelling backstory. She spoke often of her unhappiness, explaining that she was in an abusive, controlling relationship, and that it was impossible to escape from her horrible, controlling partner, since he controlled the purse strings as well as her.

  ‘Hmm,’ I said, as we scrolled through the progress of this fiction. ‘I think I can see where all this is going.’ And, sure enough, down the line came the message she’d presumably hoped for. One in which the lad – who was called Jamie – told her she was welcome to go and stay with him for a while until she got her ‘head together’ and that she needn’t worry – he could transfer the funds she needed to get away from ‘that monster’ directly into her bank account.

  So had the money arrived finally? Tyler had clearly read that bit too. When I looked up at him and sighed, he said, ‘Exactly! It’s what I thought. I bet that’s who it was on the phone, Mum. That bloke telling her he’d transferred her the dosh. She could be anywhere by now, anywhere. She must have waited till the house went quiet and then sneaked out. What are we going to do now?’

  Though I didn’t correct him, I mentally told myself that from now on it would be an ‘I’ rather than a ‘we’. Tyler had already delved more than far enough into the whole seedy subterfuge. And though he’d lived enough, and knew enough, not to bat an eyelid at any of it, it still made me feel as if he’d been marked by something distasteful. I was beginning to see why Mike, always patern
ally protective, had so little sympathy for Keeley.

  As for me, I really wasn’t sure how I felt now. Angry, yes. Concerned. Staggered at her audacity. But, most of all, stupid – for having failed to see what had been happening right under my nose.

  ‘What we are going to do,’ I said, ‘is phone the police again.’

  Then EDT, then John Fulshaw, then Danny.

  Though I wondered if any of it would make any difference. She’d said she’d be ‘offskies’ as soon as she was able, hadn’t she? Whatever happened next, in terms of tracking Keeley down, perhaps we needed to accept that that day had come.

  Chapter 15

  Things happened fairly quickly after my second phone call to the police and within half an hour there were two uniformed detective constables sitting in my living room, taking statements from both me and Tyler.

  By now, Mike had returned – minus Keeley, of course, because she could be miles away by now – and had been as stunned as me to find out about her secret online life – which made us both pretty dense, I thought, didn’t it? He was also concerned about how Tyler was dealing with it. ‘The little …’ Mike had whispered to me, when Tyler was out of earshot. ‘She’s played him good and proper, hasn’t she?’

  I wasn’t sure I’d put it as strongly as that, but it did make me realise that part of Mike’s issue with Keeley had probably been how she’d flirted with Tyler from day one. And perhaps he’d always envisaged this day coming, even if what had happened had been a shock to us both.

  Still, whatever his feelings about things, Tyler had been impressive. He’d printed screenshots of all the messages that had gone back and forth between Keeley and her virtual boyfriend, as well as some of the photographs she used. ‘Just in case she’s changed her appearance,’ Tyler told the police officers – like a pro, ‘because she doesn’t really look like that normally.’ He proffered his own phone, and showed them a photograph he’d taken a couple of days ago, while we’d been sitting around the tea table. ‘Normally she looks like this.’