He laughs this time. ‘I’m not sure our resources quite stretch to that.’
‘I thought that’s what ASBOs were for…?’
The constable settles onto the sofa and I sit on the other. He takes out a small notepad, resting it on his knee. His hat is now abandoned on the coffee table, next to his colleague’s.
‘We’ve spoken to Mr Lambert,’ he says, ‘and he insists the reason his son is missing is because of some sort of argument between the two of you.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ I snap back. ‘Tyler’s gone missing before.’
A nod: ‘Your daughter has filled us in on that – but I believe he’s never been gone for five days…?’
‘I don’t know.’
He gives me that knowing smile again. Parents united and all that.
‘Tell me about the argument.’
His pencil is poised over the pad. It’s a small gesture but it doesn’t feel like it. It’s a long time since I’ve given any sort of statement to the police – even if he is calling it informal. It’s not the same as telling them about a broken window; it feels as if I’m under investigation myself. What if it was the argument that made Tyler disappear? Does that make it my fault?
‘We’ve never really got on,’ I say.
‘Tyler Lambert and yourself?’
‘Right.’
‘How long has he been seeing your daughter?’
It takes me a second. ‘Eighteen months, something like that. I don’t know – I think he was seeing her before I knew about it. Back when she was seventeen. He’s five years older than her.’
PC O’Neill scratches something onto his pad but I suspect he already knows this if he’s spoken to Tyler’s father and Olivia. There’s nothing illegal going on, even if it doesn’t feel right to me.
‘Is it the age gap of which you don’t approve?’
‘In part.’
He smiles calmly. ‘I have a daughter myself. Not quite Olivia’s age – but she’s getting there.’
It’s irrelevant, of course. Dan does this – linking happenings to something he’s seen or dealt with at school. I suppose there’s no specific reason to be suspicious. It’s how people think, how they talk. One person’s experience is aligned to their own. I do it. The problem is that, with my confusion and now suspicion, I’m not sure who I trust. Is he saying this to try to trick me, or is it a genuine parent-to-parent interaction?
‘You’ve got all this to come,’ I reply meekly.
He tilts his head, conceding the point. ‘What else is it that you don’t approve of?’
‘Tyler doesn’t have a job and it doesn’t seem like he wants one. Olivia works really hard for a low wage – and then uses part of her money to buy things for him. I don’t think many parents would approve of that.’
PC O’Neill is tight-lipped. ‘And is that what you argued about on Saturday?’
‘I suppose. It wasn’t really an argument, not like that. I asked how the job hunting was going and he took it the wrong way.’
There’s a pause, and then: ‘Which way was he meant to take it?’
I snort at that. ‘Well, yes. Okay. He took it the exact way it was meant. Either way, he stormed off, slamming the door behind him. It’s not like I knew he wouldn’t be seen again.’
There’s a scratch of pencil on pad and then the officer looks up to me. ‘Is this the main reason why you don’t get on?’
‘Do any mothers get on with their daughter’s unemployed boyfriends?’
‘Good point.’
PC O’Neill pushes back into the sofa, wiggling his backside, making himself more comfortable. ‘How is your daughter’s relationship with Mr Lambert?’
It feels strange to hear that. Mr Lambert. It makes Tyler sound like a grown-up. He is, of course, but it never seems that he acts like it.
‘You’re better asking her,’ I reply.
‘We are – but I think your input would be useful as well.’
I shrug, wishing I had the cup of tea he had. I could do with it right now. ‘Olivia and Tyler break up and make up,’ I say. ‘They fall out over things all the time. I’ve stopped asking Olivia about what’s going on between them. Sometimes he disappears for a weekend but he always comes back.’
‘Any idea where he disappears to?’
‘You’d have to ask Olivia. I have no idea.’
Something new goes on the pad and I wonder if he’s written ‘no idea’.
‘Olivia’s set up a Facebook page,’ I add. ‘It’s called Find Tyler. I don’t think she’s having much luck.’
‘She showed us.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you know much about your daughter’s friends?’
I puff out a long breath. ‘I used to when she was at school. There were birthday parties and trips out in the summer. I’d hire a van and drive them off to the zoo, or a few of us mums would carpool. Then Olivia hit about fourteen and that was that. She stopped talking about what was going at school, or about her friends. She was out a lot, or using her phone to message them. I know hardly anything about her friends now.’
‘Do you know much of what she gets up to in her free time?’
‘She works evening shifts at the Cosmic Café and I pick her up every now and then. The owner pays for her taxi other times. Sometimes she says she’s staying out with Tyler.’
‘But you don’t know what they get up to?’
I shrug. ‘They’re eighteen. What am I supposed to do?’
‘I’m not criticising.’
I stare at the floor and it feels like he is. All of this reeks of reckless mother. The opinion pieces almost write themselves. I’ll be in the Daily Mail; some privileged wife of an MP banging on about how I’m a terrible example of twenty-first-century parenting.
‘Tyler smokes weed,’ I say, looking to push the blame for all this back onto him. ‘He smells of it a lot and I’ve caught him with cannabis a couple of times.’
I expect a response, not quite a leap-off-the-sofa, call-for-the-riot-squad-reaction, but something. Instead, PC O’Neill calmly adds a few words to his pad.
‘Do you know if there are harder drugs involved?’
His question takes me by surprise, not because I haven’t asked myself the same thing, but because it’s so unruffled.
‘I hope not.’
‘Have you seen any signs?’
‘I mean… I… don’t know. I suppose I’m not sure what to look for. Liv’s moody – but she’s a teenager. I was moody at her age. Dan’s a deputy head. He’s trained with this sort of thing. I think he’d have noticed.’
He seems to accept this answer but I feel like asking him what I could do. Should I go through Olivia’s room, looking for evidence? And evidence of what? That would only make our relationship worse, regardless of whether I found anything. Even if I did find something, what then? An ultimatum? It’s us or Tyler? I don’t know who or what she’d choose.
‘I don’t think my daughter’s on drugs,’ I say. ‘I know she’s not. She drinks – but everyone does at eighteen. I don’t think she smokes, not cigarettes anyway. I don’t think she’s that different from any other teenager.’
‘What about Tyler?’
‘I…’ I stop myself, not quite trusting my own words, before telling him I don’t know. ‘You’ll have to ask Olivia,’ I add, aware I’m beginning to sound like a parrot.
We go over a few details, mainly relating to timings. He asks if there’s anything else I can think of and I mention the broken glass that might have been a break-in. We examine the door together and he says he’ll check the details in the file.
We’re still standing in the kitchen when he nods towards the back door. ‘Do you suspect this was Tyler?’ he asks.
‘It crossed my mind.’
‘But nothing’s missing?’
‘There might have been a bit of money. Neither Dan or myself can remember everything that was in there. We checked the important things – passports, expensive goods, that
sort of thing. Nothing obvious has gone.’
PC O’Neill writes that on the pad and then pockets it, along with his pencil.
‘Do you think you’ll find him?’ I ask.
‘I’d like to think so. Most missing people turn up themselves.’
‘What about those who’ve been missing for five days?’
‘I don’t know the specific stats…’
‘But what do you think?’
He glances towards the stairs, willing an interruption that doesn’t come. The gesture says more than words and it’s probably only at this moment where I realise how serious this all is. I’ve expected Tyler to return at any point. Olivia would be overjoyed and everything would continue as they have. That now seems naïve.
I wonder if I should tell the officer about the taser in my husband’s gym locker. Could it be relevant? I want to say no – but I’m unsure about so many things at the moment. If I do say something, there’s no turning back. It’s a can of worms I can’t reseal.
‘You shouldn’t read anything into this,’ PC O’Neill says, ‘and please don’t take offence, but I do need to ask about your whereabouts for the past few days.’
‘Oh…’
‘It’s perfectly normal procedure.’
‘You don’t think—’
‘I don’t think anything – but I have to ask. I’m sure you understand why…?’
I can’t reply that, no, I don’t understand. I’m sure there’ll be a load of police double-speak – ‘ruling out of inquiries’ and the like – but the only reason to ask is if there’s a nugget of suspicion about me, however small.
‘I’ve been at work during the day,’ I say, ‘then here in the evenings. Nowhere special. My friend Ellie’s down the road.’
The officer doesn’t write anything down but he nods acceptingly.
‘And that’s since Saturday…?’ he asks.
The thing is, I know I had nothing to do with Tyler going missing – but I also know how easy my schedule will be to check. If I lie, I’ll be found out – and then it’ll look bad. The problem is that I can’t tell the truth, not all of it.
‘I was in a hotel on Monday night,’ I reply. ‘It was for work. I can give you the name if you want...?’
He waves a hand as if it doesn’t matter, but takes out his pad and notes the name anyway.
‘When did you get back?’ he asks.
It’s perfectly innocent, of course. A normal question – but how can I tell him I woke up in a field?
‘Early on Tuesday,’ I reply. Not a lie.
We’re interrupted by movement from the stairs. My daughter’s timing has never been better as, moments later, Olivia and PC Marks appear in the living room. There’s a momentary glance between constables and then PC O’Neill says he thinks that’s all for now.
I see them to the door, full of thank yous and needless apologies. It’s the British way. They head along the drive and sit in the car chatting. It takes about a minute for me to realise I’m staring. I close the door and take a breath, wondering what counts as lying to the police.
Is omission a lie?
Is keeping information back something that can get a person in trouble?
Because, if it is, then I could really have a problem.
What I didn’t tell PC O’Neill is that, after Luke did his no-show on Monday night, I spent at least part of the night at that hotel with another man.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Olivia is sitting by herself on the sofa when I head back into the living room. She’s staring aimlessly towards the wall, her body present but her mind elsewhere.
‘I’m worried about him,’ she says quietly. It’s haunting: a crumbling, vulnerable tone bereft by angst.
‘At least the police are involved now,’ I reply. ‘They’ll be able to get a proper search going.’
‘I suppose.’
‘What did they ask you about?’
‘Not much. Where he hangs around, who his friends are. That sort of thing.’
She asks me to take her to work, so I do. It’s a near silent journey and I know my daughter well enough – know myself well enough – to realise that it’s not the time to push this. After leaving her at the front of the Cosmic Café, Olivia thanks me and then heads inside solemnly. I doubt even Rahul can cheer her up today.
Back at home by myself and I quickly find out that stun guns – or taser pulses, as Dan’s weapon is called – are illegal in the UK. There’s not even a grey area when it comes to civilians. I thought there might be some sort of low-wattage version allowed – but the law seems clear enough. Or Google, to be more precise. It’s an offence to possess a stun gun, let alone use it. It’s illegal to buy and sell – which means there’s nowhere in the country that Dan could have bought it from legitimately. It’s not even a trivial offence. Under the firearms act, someone in possession of a stun gun can go to prison for five years.
I find myself staring off into nothingness, much like Olivia earlier in the evening.
Five years.
Why would Dan risk something like this for five years in prison?
There’s a chance he might have confiscated it from a student. Perhaps he was concerned that reporting the find to the authorities would ruin the youngster’s life? He used some discretion, gave the student a stern warning and then… hid the gun in his gym locker…?
It’s possible. Highly implausible but possible.
I find the exact model of stun gun online, pictures and all, and it seems readily available in a handful of Eastern European countries. It can be imported from the United States as well. It would be a brave person who ordered and then sat back waiting for Royal Mail to deliver. There’d be every chance it would be the police knocking, rather than a cheery postman.
So where did it come from?
Dan gets home a little before half past nine. He’s flustered and seems tired. We make small talk over our respective days but there’s more of a distance than before – and that’s saying something. There’s a massive part of me that wants to ask him outright what’s going on but the words never quite seem to form. I’m not sure where to start.
Hey, by the way, I was snooping in your gym locker earlier and I was just wondering what’s going on with the highly illegal weapon you’re storing in there?
Ahead of the separation, we’re at an uneasy truce. If I accuse him of gaslighting, or admit to my own snooping, that’s it. There’s no going back. If I’m wrong, I’m the paranoid, unhinged spurned wife. If I’m right, what then? Can I prove anything before he gets rid of any evidence?
For Olivia’s sake, I need him. He’s her father and I have to be sure before I make any accusations.
The only thing I feel some degree of certainty over is that I’m not in danger. I’ve known Dan for more than twenty years. I’ve rarely seen him angry, let alone violent. That’s one of the things that annoys me the most. I might raise my voice, shout, scream, throw around an insult or two. He’ll sit there calmly listening to it all and then reply with perfect composure. It’s infuriating. I always seem like the deranged one.
Despite that, he must sense something isn’t as it should be. He asks if everything is okay and I palm him off by saying the police were round to ask about Tyler. I say they need to talk to him at some point and that I passed on his mobile number. I watch for a reaction but there’s nothing except an accepting nod. He asks if I have the details of the investigating officer – and says he’ll call tomorrow. All very straightforward. No drama.
Being in the house alone with him doesn’t feel quite right, so I say I’m going to nip to Ellie’s for an hour. It’s late – but he doesn’t object. He replies that he’s got a little bit of work to finish and that he’ll probably be in bed by the time I return. This is how we’ve been for months… years. He does his thing, I do mine. Occasionally we cross over but not really.
I text Ellie, telling her to put the kettle on, and then set off along the street. Her house is only five minutes bu
t I walk more slowly than usual, looking for things on the route that I take for granted. This journey is the last one Tyler apparently made and I find myself noticing the cut-throughs I’d normally pass without hesitation.
There’s surprisingly few places he could have deviated from the route back to the High Street. One of the cut-throughs loops back to the furthest end of our road and then there is the row of houses that leads to the crossing before I get to Ellie’s road. The junction is the first place he could realistically have strayed onto a different path. One road leads to the High Street, one to our house, one towards Ellie’s, and the final one towards the dual carriageway.
I stop and look up at the lamp posts, checking for CCTV. It’s everywhere in the cities – but not here. North Melbury is too small, too inconsequential. There’s almost no late-night trouble. Major news stories are a noisy cockerel waking people up on a Sunday, or the weather forecast for the summer fete. I can’t remember anyone going missing around here.
Ellie opens the door herself when I knock. She’s in a different set of pyjamas from the other day, along with fluffy bunny slippers. She says hello but then groans when she turns, stopping to rub her breastbone.
She leads me through the hall into the kitchen and slumps into a seat at the table. ‘Forgot my painkillers again,’ she says.
‘You should set an alarm on your phone to remind you.’
She starts to shake her head and then catches herself. ‘I’ve never really liked taking pills and other medicines. You know what Ma was like.’
I do know what her mother was like – but had largely forgotten. Ellie’s mum was always taking something, be it a miracle youth potion she’d seen on television, or some homeopathic nonsense she’d been sold along with the drum of snake oil. I’m not sure what she was hoping to achieve – but it didn’t do much good in the end.
‘Jason’s in bed,’ Ellie says.
‘I was here to see you.’
‘Sure it’s not to get away from Dan?’
The smile is knowing. She can see right through me.
Last Night Page 17