by Dan Clark
Carolyn doesn’t follow. This time of night on a quiet road like this will surely raise his suspicions. Could the body from the well be hidden inside that unit? There must be something shady going on, for the two men to meet at this time of night. But could they have anything to do with the two missing boys?
Carolyn watches as the low, red sidelights of the van move out of focus. It takes a turn up ahead and is hidden behind trees. She turns on the engine and pulls the car into the industrial site, parks where the van had been, and walks over to the front of the shop. The shutters are electric, and she knows she wouldn’t be able to prise them open without the key. She’d already tried once with her own shop after the shutters malfunctioned. It wasn’t worth the effort, or the dirty hands. She rests her face against the shutters and peers through the slits between the metal. It’s pointless; the shop is in complete darkness. She’ll have to come back during the day.
She heads round the back in search of another door, even though she knows it will be locked. There is just a fire exit, which has no external handle and is flush against the brickwork. She digs the tips of her fingers in the gaps, but nothing. She slams her hands against the door.
“SHIT!” she shouts. The condensation of her breath lingers in front of her face, reminding her of the foggy night, and immediately causing her to feel uncomfortable.
She heads back to the car and makes a note of tonight’s events before heading home.
Chapter Thirteen
Carolyn starts the day late – or at least, later than she’d planned. She’s made a note in her pad to revisit P’s Party Accessories, though she feels it’s best to leave it for a day, in case the owner spotted her car last night, or Julio had described her to him. So first on the list is the Roberts family, the boy who went missing in 2011. The address she got from The Llanbedr Times shows it to be just outside Llanbedr. The sat-nav says it is a twenty-two-minute drive.
Out on Alexandra Drive, Carolyn heads east. Father Joseph is out brushing the steps. He waves, and Carolyn waves back. Carolyn wonders what he must be thinking. There goes crazy Carolyn. Off to cause more trouble, she presumes. Passing the rusted gate surrounded by dumped rubbish, Carolyn can’t help but look. She imagines the night the killer dumped the body; her mind immediately visualises the killer as a mountain of a person with a disfigured face. They’d be climbing from a van in the early hours of the morning, holding the lifeless body over one shoulder and carrying a torch to guide their way. Carolyn shudders and brings her attention back to the road.
During the drive, the radio is off, and she rehearses the questions she is about to ask, saying them out loud. She tries to ignore the thought of having the door slammed angrily in her face.
On her way through Llanbedr town centre, she stops at The Coffee Shack, an independent business. It isn’t Costa Coffee or Starbucks like she’s used to in Leeds, but coffee is coffee, and today she’s in need of some. It’s already 1:15 pm, and of the eight round tables in the coffee house, at least five are occupied. Her eyes fall on a man who is sitting alone near the front and eating a sandwich. He is watching her. He’s huge, and his thick fingers are wrapped around a coffee mug as though it’s an espresso cup. Even sitting, Carolyn can tell he’d be at least 6’6, maybe 6’7, and strong-looking – not particularly muscular, but chubby and broad-shouldered, like a rugby player who holds his weight well. She remembers that he was the man who’d been knocking on the function hall door yesterday when she was speaking with the frustrated Julio Alcala.
The man is dressed in white overalls which are full of rips and splashes of paint. Carolyn orders her latte and turns to see if he is still staring, but the table is now empty, and the man is heading through the door. He’s left half of his sandwich uneaten, and steam is still escaping his cup.
“Who’s that man?” Carolyn asks the barista, pointing through the window towards him.
“I think his name’s Barry. Usually comes in for lunch most days,” he replies, before turning back to the attention of the coffee machine. Carolyn watches him climb into a battered white van. She thinks that it’s same van that pulled up yesterday, though she’d hardly paid it much attention at the time. On it are the words:
B. Cookson.
Painter and Decorator, Llanbedr.
Carolyn pulls out her notepad and writes down the name before she forgets it. She feels awkward about the way the man left immediately, discarding his full mug of coffee and his half-eaten sandwich.
Carolyn thinks about sitting down and taking a seat by the window for half an hour, to watch the people of Llanbedr shopping and taking their lunch breaks. But she knows she would just be procrastinating, nervous to speak with the grieving families.
***
The Roberts’ house is a semi-detached in a row of six, down a tight leafy country lane which faces acres of field. You wouldn’t know the homes existed if you didn’t have the postcode.
Carolyn approaches the gate and pushes through it. A woman is kneeling beside a rose bush and turning a trowel through the soil. The garden is well cared for, and Carolyn wonders if this is the woman’s way of dealing with the disappearance of her son, or whether she has always been an avid gardener.
Carolyn begins to imagine what she will do once she’s back home, no longer under the watchful, caring eye of her mother. She has never been one for gardening herself. The grief counsellor had suggested she find herself a hobby, maybe knitting or crocheting, but anything, really, to occupy her mind for a few hours a day.
The woman turns and jolts at the sight of Carolyn.
“I’m sorry, Mrs Roberts?” Carolyn asks.
“Yes, I’m Heather Roberts,” she responds, standing and brushing the dirt from her knees. Her Welsh accent is strong. “Who are you?”
Carolyn gives the woman her best trustworthy smile and walks up the path. “Hi, I was wondering if I could ask you a bit about Elwyn—”
The woman cuts her off and drops her trowel onto the grass. “Are you another journalist?”
A black man with a balding head and deep eye sockets appears in the doorway of the house. He’s wearing a blue jumpsuit with a small logo across the chest. He stands and watches, waiting for Carolyn’s answer.
She shakes her head. “No, I’m not a journalist. I’m here staying with my mother, Jeanette Stephenson. My son was killed in an… an accident, and I was just wandering if it’s possible to ask you a few questions about the day Elwyn disappeared.” She can’t believe how quickly the words have left her mouth, or how open she has just been with a couple of complete strangers.
The man turns and heads back inside. Heather Roberts pulls off her gardening gloves, dropping them to the grass next to the trowel, and gestures Carolyn to follow her.
Inside the house, the Roberts offer her a cup of tea. Satisfied from her latte, but not wanting to sound ungrateful, Carolyn accepts, and is left alone in the front room as the pair of them head into the kitchen to make it. She hears them whispering, but the sound of the boiling kettle masks their conversation.
She passes the time by examining the wall, which is full of pictures of a young Elwyn. Each frame is the same: stylish, thin black wood and plain glass. The grey wall – more of a shrine really – is dust-free and is obviously cleaned regularly, and a strong scent of glass cleaner lingers in the air. Carolyn looks to the chair and sofa in the corner. Both look old – there are clear signs of wear and tear on the floral fabric, and the cushions are sloped and no longer have any bounce. The dusty television, with its bulky back, sticks out noticeably from the wall. The curtains at the window are frayed and tatted at the bottom. The ancient table next to the sofa is cluttered with small glass figurines, and shows signs of woodworm infestation. Carolyn looks back to the pictures. Two wall lights, positioned level with the top of her head, give a low glow from the middle of the wall.
The majority of the pictures show the boy looking happy. He is either laughing or giggling at something. Carolyn can see they’ve been arranged to
show that each photo is a year older than the previous one.
One photo in particular catches Carolyn’s eye: the final one in the sequence, on the bottom right of the wall. Presumably this is the last picture ever taken of Elwyn Roberts before he was reported missing. He must be about seven years old in this picture. He’s sitting on a rock next to a river, holding up the line of a fishing rod with a pleased smile, displaying the silver fish he had just caught. His hair is short, and his face is round, and Carolyn estimates the boy to be around four feet tall. Then her eye is caught by the picture to the left of this one. Her stomach drops and goosebumps begin to surface on her skin, sending a shudder through her spine. Elwyn is wearing a green school jumper with a logo on the chest. A large S is stitched into the crest.
Carolyn now knows for certain. This is definitely the boy she saw in the well.
“We went fishing that day. It wasn’t long after his birthday,” a voice says from behind, startling her.
Kelvin Roberts places the tray of mugs onto the coffee table, shoving a stack of envelopes out of the way. He walks around the table and sits on the sofa, leaving a space at the end for his wife to join him. Carolyn takes a seat in the chair opposite.
“Mr Roberts, I know this must be hard for you and your wife, bringing all this back up again. I’m just wondering if there’s anything you might have left out of your statement from that day, anything you remember. In Leeds, I work… I work as a private detective, you see, and I’d really like to help.”
Kelvin shakes his head and rubs at the two-day-old stubble on his cheeks. “So… you’re here for money. Freelance I take it. You’re looking for a job?” His voice is raised and agitated.
Carolyn frowns. “No, no. Nothing like that. Just with losing my own son, I know it must be hard for you not to have answers. I’d really like to help, for free… of course… though I can’t promise I can bring you anything you haven’t heard already.”
Kelvin rubs his hands together and sighs. He lifts his legs up as his wife squeezes past him and takes her seat.
“Good. Because we don’t have any money left to pay you. We’ve spent it all on private investigators, and they all came up with nothing. No idea what happened to our boy. They all tell us the same. Anyway, if you think it could help, I’ll tell you what I told the rest.” He sits back and takes Heather’s hand. “It was a Friday, and I was working in the factory. I’m still there, as you can tell from my uniform.” He smiles, but there’s no joy in his eyes. “From what I remember, it was around five when I got the call. Heather rang the office, and they shouted me up to take the call. Wasn’t allowed phones on the factory floor, you see. I hung up and drove home as fast as I could. When I got here, there was a police car parked outside the house and officers taking statements.”
Carolyn looks at Heather Roberts. Her eyeliner has run, and she now has dark streaks around her eyes and running down her cheeks. She pulls out a tissue and wipes at them.
“It’s…” Heather sobs as fresh tears appear. “It’s my fault he went missing, you know.”
Kelvin squeezes her hand and shakes his head. “Don’t be silly, love. We’ve spoken about this, remember?”
“Mrs Roberts… Heather... What do you mean by ‘It’s your fault’? How could it be your fault?”
“I should have been watching him. I should have…” She sinks her face into her hands, and Kelvin rubs the top of her shoulders.
“Elwyn was playing outside, after school. He was kicking his ball against the front wall. This lane is a dead-end, and we’re the last house, so nobody really comes in or out without any of the neighbours seeing. He’s always played out front. He knows he isn’t allowed to kick the ball in the back, you see.” Heather releases another cry.
“Heather likes to take care of the garden,” Kelvin says. “You know, plant flowers, trim the bushes. There are lots of painted ornaments out at the back.”
Carolyn nods. She guesses Heather must feel she is to blame because if she wasn’t an avid gardener, maybe Elwyn could have been playing with his ball in the safety of the back garden.
Heather looks back up towards Carolyn, her eyes red and bloodshot. Carolyn wonders how many nights this woman’s eyes have been in this state. She imagines Heather crying herself to sleep, face pushed into the pillow to muffle the sound. Carolyn’s concentration is side-tracked for a minute as she thinks of her own many sleepless nights spent screaming at the ceiling in agony, asking why it was her son, why it was her husband.
Heather speaks again, breaking Carolyn’s thoughts. Her voice is low as she catches her breath through the sobbing.
“I was listening… to the sound of his kicks, of the ball hitting the wall every two or three seconds at a time. I… I told him to come in some thirty minutes earlier because it was October and it would be getting dark soon. His tea was cooking in the oven, so I told him half hour more then come in.” Heather wipes at her eyes and continues. “I’m not sure how long it was that I didn’t hear the thumps of the ball against the wall. I was doing the dishes at the time and was tapping my foot to each thump. Like I was in sync with the noise… and with his kicks.” She frowns, sniffing and wiping at her nose. “My mind must have wandered off, as my foot was still tapping on the floor, but I couldn’t hear the thumps any longer. It was the oven timer that snapped me out of my daydreaming. I dropped the cup I was washing into the sink, and I ran out of the front door. I knew, then, I just knew at that time my little Elwyn wouldn’t be outside.” She breaks down again.
“Did the neighbours see or hear anything, maybe felt like something was off about that day? Any strangers they might have seen hanging around? Any suspicious-looking vans or cars?” Carolyn asks, thinking up the questions as she goes along.
Kelvin shakes his head. “The police have spoken to them all. At the time, the first house as you enter the lane was empty. The other four families didn’t see or hear anything. Elwyn used to play with Josh, the young boy from next door, but after what happened… Well, the family didn’t feel safe anymore, and they moved not long after. I can’t say I blame them.”
“I think about that day every single waking minute,” Heather begins. “And I ask myself, what kind of mother am I?” Her cheeks are shiny with tears.
“Mrs Roberts, you can’t blame yourself for this, what—”
“I hope that… I pray that one day I’ll be out there, doing the gardening, and the gate will open. I’ll turn to find my son, my Elwyn, has returned to us, instead of police or a journalist or somebody else that wants me to keep reliving that fucking day!” Heather barks at Carolyn, then stands up and runs out of the room, heading up the stairs.
Carolyn gives Kelvin a sympathetic smile, closes her notepad and stands up. “I’m sorry again. I’m sorry to come here and bring all this up. Please apologise to your wife for me.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’d like to know anything you find, even if it’s not the best news… We’d still like to know, please!” Kelvin begs. He stands and shakes her hand, looking towards the ceiling. “Heather doesn’t mean to be rude. She knows you mean well. She’s just upset, you understand.”
Carolyn nods. “Oh, one last thing. That picture there, on the rocks with the fish… When exactly was that taken?”
“About two weeks before he went missing. We gave the police a copy of that one. It’s the last picture we have of him.” Kelvin smiles proudly. “It was the first fish he’d ever caught. After I got home that night, I drove there, half-expecting him to have been sitting on those rocks with his rod in his hand and a tackle box at his side, watching his float bob up and down, all excited. I wanted nothing more than to run over and shout at him for the trouble he’s caused, hug him so tight and call him an idiot.” Tears are beginning to trickle down Kelvin’s cheeks. He wipes them away with a finger, his stubble rasping against his skin.
“I’m sorry, again. Thank you. Thank you both. I’ll see myself out.”
Carolyn drives away from the Roberts’ hom
e, but before she turns back onto the main road, she pulls over at the start of the lane. The image of the boy in the well flashes in her mind. She feels anger build in her stomach and squeezes the steering wheel. The leather squeals in her grip and she thinks, Elwyn went missing eight years ago this month.
The image of the corpse looking up from the well implants itself in her mind again, almost turning her stomach. She closes her eyes and concentrates, forcing herself to remember that horrific scene. She imagines herself back in the open, walking along the yellow flowered bed of the forest in her mother’s fluffy slippers, passing the squirrels that chase one another around the thick tree, then walking up to the well and peering down into the dark. That was the moment her happy place was destroyed, the moment her time to grieve for Simon and Ryan was over… for now at least.
She locks eyes with the boy. He stares back up at her with eyes glazed and lifeless, pain etched into his young face, questions in his innocent eyes. His skin is dark!
His father being a black man and his mother a white woman, it would mean Elwyn would have been mixed-race.
It must have been him in the well. It was his face she had seen before, sitting on those rocks feeling chuffed with his catch of the day. It was definitely the same logo she’d seen on the jumper. There’s no way she could ever know what Elwyn had looked like, or his school’s logo. She’d never seen this boy before.
The internal voice speaks up. But the lack of decomposition of his body doesn’t make sense. That wasn’t the corpse of a boy who has been dead for eight years.
She hushes the voice and opens her pad to make a note of it, and just in time, too. She pushes open the car door and leans over as far as the seat belt will allow to throw up the combination of coffee and tea. Wiping at her mouth using a napkin, she decides to apologise to the Lloyd family and tell them she must have been hallucinating, or that maybe she was confused. They’re sure to believe she’s a private investigator, and that she does wants to help them. She’ll do this today before looking more into the man at the coffee shop – Barry Cookson.