by Dan Clark
There is movement to her right. It is a young man wearing a beanie hat pulled down to just above his eyebrows. Thick strands of greasy hair dangle from the front of his hat and reach his spotty cheeks. He’s jumping up and down in his chair with excitement at his computer screen. Carolyn can hear him mumbling into a headset as she pushes the door open. A little chime rings out above her.
The smell of chip fat, sweat, crisps and marijuana stings her nostrils, and Carolyn has to fight the urge not to cover her nose. Her first thought of the place is that it’s being used as a cover for the marijuana that they probably store in the basement. The man pauses his game and removes his headset. He stands and straightens his stained t-shirt before brushing the crumbs off his lap in a bid to show some professionalism.
“Welcome to Ray’s Internet Café. How can I help you?”
Carolyn wonders how many times he says that line in a week, or a month, or even a year.
“Are you Ray?” Carolyn asks.
The gamer shakes his head and points to his chest to indicate his name badge. When he doesn’t feel it, he begins searching around his cluttered desk, which is filled with empty pop cans and sweet wrappers. He eventually unearths the badge and pins it back in place.
“No, I’m Terry, the café manager,” he says proudly.
Carolyn explains she’d like to use a computer. At Terry’s request she opens an account, then sits down at the computer at the back of the room and takes out the notepad from her bag. The outdated machine comes to life making a whirring noise and eventually prompts her for the login details.
She gives the dusty screen a wipe with her sleeve and logs in.
Waiting for the computer to register her username, Carolyn looks around. The carpet feels sticky under her shoes. The tables the computers sit on are also grimy and stained with circles from mugs. The wallpaper has started curling at the corners, as though trying to free itself from the walls and escape this joyless place.
The computer screen flashes and a search engine appears. She types in the name Julio Alcala and waits for the results. It appears Julio Alcala shares the name with a famous movie stuntman who was known for his daring motorbike stunts. She types in Julio Alcala, Llanbedr. There’s a small article dated some six years ago, stating that a forty-six-year-old man had been arrested by police after they randomly searched his house and found child pornography in his possession. He was also linked to numerous other investigations about a man exposing himself to children in a nearby park. There’s no picture of Julio, and no address for Carolyn to write down.
She clears the search and types in Dylan Lloyd, Llanbedr. A result appears at the top of the screen. She clicks the link and is directed to The Llanbedr Times online paper. The story appears underneath a thumbnail picture. She clicks the thumbnail, and it expands across the screen. When the pixels clear up, the image shows a smiling boy with someone’s arm slung across his shoulders. The person next to him has been cropped out. She hits the PRINT button, and a loud grinding noise comes from the desk next to Terry. He looks up from his screen and tuts, before returning to hitting the keyboard in an attempt to save the world from flesh-eating zombies.
The article is dated a couple days after Dylan was last seen, on 23rd February 2016.
THE TOWN OF LLANBEDR IN SEARCH FOR MISSING TEEN.
Search parties worked throughout the night in search of the missing teen, Dylan Lloyd. The fifteen-year-old was reported missing by his mother, Gwen Lloyd. Dylan Lloyd is the second boy to have gone missing since 2011, when Elwyn Roberts disappeared.
The search for Elwyn Roberts is still ongoing with no new reports. The Lloyd family have spoken to friends of Dylan but they have so far had no positive leads. The father, Mr Frank Lloyd, told The Llanbedr Times that his son is a happy child with a good home life and that there is no reason for him to run away or want to leave. Anyone with any information should contact the police.
Carolyn opens a new tab on the internet page and types in Gwen Lloyd. The results come back with a few Facebook profiles, but none were of the woman she met the other day. Next, she searches for Frank Lloyd, Llanbedr. A search box loads with the results: Frank Lloyd, cheap and reliable mechanic. Green Farm Lane. Carolyn scribbles down the address and goes back to the website for The Llanbedr Times.
In the search bar at the top of the page, she types in Elwyn Roberts.
As before, the page loads, and shows a small thumbnail picture above the headline with the date of the article: 6th October 2011. She clicks it, and it expands. Once the picture is fully loaded and becomes clear on the screen, Carolyn gasps.
It is the face of the boy in the well.
Chapter Eleven
If it wasn’t for the strong back of the computer chair, she would have fallen backwards onto the sticky carpet. Terry doesn’t look over this time. He’s too engrossed in his game.
Confusion sweeps across her, boggling her mind. The corpse she had seen in the well looked as though it had been dead for no longer than a week, possibly even just three to four days. How does that make sense?
She searches online for any other reports containing missing children in or around the Llanbedr area. None since 1968: a young girl whose body was found in the river. Her foot had become snagged on a weed and she’d drowned. A freak accident, the online search states.
How could the boy in the well be Elwyn Roberts? He’s been missing for eight years.
The gamer at the front desk shouts at his screen again, which looks to have explosives going off and debris flying around. It snaps Carolyn out of her confused daydream. She clicks on the picture and selects PRINT. As the printer screams into life, she reads the article on the screen.
CHILD VANISHES PLAYING IN STREET
Heather and Kelvin Roberts, the parents of missing eight-year-old Elwyn Roberts, reported their son missing yesterday afternoon. Elwyn was playing out at the front of his home on Jarrett Lane.
Mrs Roberts told our reporter at The Llanbedr Times that the young boy was kicking his ball as she was inside doing housework. “Our house on Jarrett Lane never gets any visitors or cars. Even the main road outside is quiet the majority of the time,” Mrs Roberts said. Elwyn Roberts’ father, Mr Kelvin Roberts, works at Sleepy Nights mattress factory.
The parents of the missing boy are offering an £8,000 reward for anybody who comes forward with information that leads to the finding of their son. Anyone with any other information should contact the police.
Carolyn makes a note of the address for the Roberts family and signs out of the computer. Looking forward to leaving the shop and using some hand sanitizer, she heads over to the front desk. Terry has got the pictures she printed.
“That’ll be sixty pence for the prints,” he orders. Carolyn reaches for a pound in her purse.
“What do you want pictures of dead kids for?” he snorts, moving a strand of greasy hair away from his eyes.
“How do you know they’re dead?” she asks.
Terry shrugs. “How often do missing kids show up?”
Carolyn feels the urge to slap the ignorance out of him. She thinks quickly.
“I am… I am a Private Detective. I’ve been asked to look into it by the family.”
“Oh… right,” he sneers. “A Private Detective, wow.”
“What do you know about a Julio Alcala?” she asks, folding and sliding the pictures into her bag.
“What do you want to know?” he says, taking a seat back at his computer and feeding his mouth with crisps.
“Do you know where he lives? Or where I can find him?”
“I know exactly where he lives,” Terry replies.
“Great,” Carolyn says, waiting for him to continue. He doesn’t. “Want to share it?” she asks.
“Information isn’t free, Miss Private Detective,” Terry says, chomping on the crisp in his mouth. He looks at her, pushing the thick greasy hair from his eyes again, and smacks his lips. He types at his computer keyboard quickly and hits PRINT. He reache
s for the printed page and walks towards Carolyn.
“That’ll be a tenner,” he says, holding the paper close to his chest and smudging cheesy crisp stains on to the back of the printout.
“Ten quid? For information?”
Terry doesn’t answer. He just stands there and stays quiet.
Carolyn reaches for her purse. “You found out his address from using the web that quickly? That’s impressive.” She keeps herself calm and fights the urge to not call him a thieving bastard. Her knowledge of computers is limited. She knows how to order stock and file invoices at home for Happy Bakes, but that’s all. She hands over the tenner from her purse.
Terry laughs. “I got that information from passing his house every day on the bus into work. I Googled the bus route and found out the name of his road.”
She shakes her head and snatches the printout from him.
Terry chuckles, shoving more crisps into his mouth. “Oh, and it’s the house with a dick spray-painted on the front wall.”
Chapter Twelve
The pictures of the two missing boys are laid out on the passenger seat of Jeanette’s car, and the creases where they had been folded into Carolyn’s bag are now roughly straightened out. Carolyn stares at each of the boys, studying their faces one after the other.
She’s parked in the car park of a closed function hall, across the road from Julio’s house.
The house hasn’t been as easy to find as the greasy-haired Terry had claimed. Carolyn has already passed it a couple of times before turning around at the top and giving the road another scan. It’s 5:30 pm, and the lack of sunlight makes it hard to see the spray-painted dick on the wall. Also it is faded into more of a purple cloud, from past attempts of getting rid of the graffiti. Words have been scrubbed away above the lewd artwork, making it hard to spell out. Carolyn thinks she can picture the words Scum and Paedo, but she can’t be certain.
Julio’s house looks scruffy. An old petrol scooter with a ripped leather seat is chained to the wall next to the front door. Though the owner needn’t bother; the green bodywork is dinted and battered, and the handlebars are corroded with rust. Bin bags sit around and on top of the already-full wheelie bins, suggesting he’s too lazy to pull them to the kerb to be taken away. Empty beer cans and food tins are scattered around the garden, half-hidden in the overgrown grass. The windows of the house are streaky and smudged, with a build-up of years of mucus from wet dog noses pressed against them. The small window next to the front door has been replaced with a plank of wood. The curtains are almost fully closed, blocking out the majority of daylight.
Carolyn spots a face in the upstairs window, poking through the gap between the curtains. Its owner’s eyes meet hers, but the face disappears before she is given a chance to see if it’s male or female.
The front door swings open. A moment later, a man with bronzed European skin exits. He crosses the road, zipping up his hoodie as he approaches Carolyn’s car. Her chest tightens and her jaw clenches. She reaches for the keys in the ignition, ready to turn the engine on and make a swift escape if he becomes aggressive. He stands next to the car window, evidently waiting for her to wind it down. Her brain is screaming at her to turn the key and to leave the car park, watch him disappear in the rear-view mirror and head back to her mother, where she’ll be safe in the house, and take Jeanette’s advice to forget all about this before she gets herself into serious trouble.
Instead, she breathes out and lowers the window a couple of inches. Julio stares at her for a moment in silence, clearly expecting her to speak. He’s a short man with an athletic build, and a deep scar running across his left cheek. Carolyn wonders if Frank Lloyd was the one who gave it to him. As his brown eyes move to the passenger seat, Carolyn notices the change in his expression. Though it isn’t the expression of a man who has recently moved the corpse of a boy pictured in one of the printouts, but more of a frustrated sigh.
“Why are you watching my house?” Julio asks.
A noisy white van pulls into the car park and a big man climbs out, the metal from the suspension creaking under his weight. He heads to the doors of the function hall and bangs loudly to be let in, watching the agitated Julio as he waits.
Carolyn opens her mouth to answer, but a huge lump in her throat stops her from speaking.
“You’re a private detective, aren’t you?” Julio asks.
She looks in the rear-view mirror and can see the midriff of the man at the doors behind her car. The sound of large steel bolts unlocking the doors of the function hall is heard, and the big man steps in after giving Carolyn another glance.
That prick charged me a tenner for information, then got straight on the phone to his friend Julio to warn him to look out for me, she thinks, silently furious. She opens her mouth again.
“I… Mr Alcala. I am—”
“Save it,” he interrupts. “I know you’ve been hired by the family of one of those missing boys. They’ve hired many private detectives in the past, and they always approach me. I have nothing to do with their disappearances.” Julio looks again at the pictures on the passenger seat, and then back to Carolyn. “I’ve been questioned, and I have my alibi. Now please, tell whoever hired you to leave me the fuck alone!” He turns and heads back across the road, holding out his hand to stop an approaching bus as he crosses into his garden. The bus driver gives him an angry look and shakes his head.
Carolyn rests back into her seat. The van is still parked to her left. She figures the owner will be out soon. Wiping her sweaty palms onto her jeans, she turns on the ignition and pulls out of the car park and heads down the road before pulling into a gap between parked vehicles. She folds the pictures back into her bag and imagines what DS Hughes would do next. For starters, she probably wouldn’t have shown weakness, or been unable to find her words in front of Julio like that. And DS Hughes, unlike Carolyn, is built like a brick privy. She’s twice the size of Julio. Carolyn imagines DS Hughes would probably speak with the parents of the two missing boys. But she’s not DS Hughes; she’s Carolyn Hill, a cake decorator from Leeds.
If you show you’re not interfering, just trying to come to terms with what happened to the two boys, you shouldn’t piss anybody else off, the internal voice convinces her. Today it seems to be helpful. She decides to not go into detail about what she had seen in the well. She will keep it formal and just show an interest in them, then the parents should be happy to speak with her. As she writes down the plan to visit the two families, she’s disturbed by the hum of a scooter’s engine. It is Julio’s scooter.
Carolyn watches him ride away. Before processing her decision, she pulls out and begins to follow. Although there are now two cars between her and Julio, she still has a clear view of him.
They head out of the housing estate and into a more open space. The scooter doesn’t go very quickly, so Carolyn stays back a fair bit, not to spook Julio, as now they are the only people on the road. The rest of the cars have either turned off onto other side roads or reached their destinations. The sky has quickly darkened, and Carolyn hesitates, turning on the main beams. She keeps the side lights on and stays a hundred yards behind. There aren’t many roads Julio is able to take, so Carolyn concentrates on the hum of the scooters engine, sounding similar to a petrol lawnmower, only louder. They drive on for another fifteen minutes.
Carolyn toys with the idea of calling the police, to tell them she’s got a bad feeling. But she realises how pathetic that would sound. She imagines the laughter at the other end of the phone. No, she will follow and observe, to see if there is anything that looks out of place. She could phone in and report it without giving her name.
The scooter finally takes a left turn into a small metal-fenced industrial site. There are six units, with banners pinned above four of them. The other two show TO LET signs. Holding back outside, she kills the engine and slouches down in her seat.
Julio takes off his helmet and hangs it from the bars. He walks over to the second unit in. The ba
nner on the top reads P’s Party Accessories, and like the other three occupied units, it seems to be closed for the day. Julio bangs on the shutters and they slowly open, but only enough for him to squat under and head through the door.
“What the hell are you doing?” Carolyn says. She wishes she had a set of binoculars and a handheld sound amplifier. She writes down the address of the party shop in case it has some significance, and also the time: 7:00 pm.
Until now, Carolyn hadn’t noticed how long it had taken them to drive here. The thought of it being a trap to lure her here races through her mind.
Maybe he does know something about the body, but he doesn’t have any emotions, or fear, to change his expression.
She grips the steering wheel a little tighter, her palms beginning to sweat. She looks in all three mirrors, expecting to see a man crawl up alongside her car, pull her out and beat her to within an inch of her life.
Out here, nobody would be along for quite a while. That would give her plenty of time to bleed to death.
Carolyn reaches for the ignition and prepares to leave, but then the shutters open. Julio crouches underneath and heads for his scooter, placing something in the inside chest pocket of his coat. Carolyn can’t see very clearly from the distance, but it looks like a small brown envelope. She reaches for her phone and begins to dial the police. Hesitating, she sighs and wonders what she could tell them. Instead, she locks the phone and watches as Julio starts the engine and takes off, passing her car without showing any interest in it. Carolyn decides not to follow. She assumes he’s probably going home, and she has the address anyway.
A couple of minutes later, an overweight man exits, closing the shutters down to the ground and locking up. He walks slowly to a van with the party shop’s logo printed on the side, and each step looks to be causing him a great deal of pain. Carolyn can see the sweat on his face glimmer from the orange street lights around the industrial site. He climbs into his van and drives out of the site, heading in the opposite direction from Julio.