The Missing

by C. L. Taylor

  “What you going to do now then?” she asks, snapping off another piece of Galaxy and popping it into her mouth.

  “I need to get Mark and Jake in the same room as each other so they can sort out their differences.”

  “Claire . . .” Liz reaches across the table and puts her hand over mine. “I’m only saying this because I love you but maybe you should let them sort it out in their own time. You’re going to make yourself poorly if you don’t let go.”

  “Let go of what?”

  “Of them. You’re not responsible for everyone else’s happiness, sweetheart.”

  “None of us are happy.”

  “Least of all you.” She gives me a searching look. “Mark and Jake are going to butt heads from time to time—you need to accept that.”

  “They’ll kill each other if I don’t intervene.”

  “They won’t.”

  “Jake will move out.”

  She makes a soft, sighing sound. “Would that be the worst thing in the world? He’s nineteen years old. He makes a good living as an electrician. He could afford a one-bedroom flat.”

  “What about Kira?”

  “There’d be enough space for her too. They pretty much spend all their time in his bedroom as it is from what you’ve said. And they’d have more space.”

  “But the house would be so empty without them. And besides, I want everything to be exactly the same as it was when Billy left. That way we can just go back to normal when he returns.”

  My best friend gives me a long, searching look. She wants to comment but something is holding her back.

  “What is it?”

  She shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does. What were you going to say?”

  “I just think . . .” She looks away and rubs her fingers over her lips. I’ve never seen her look this uncomfortable before. “I just think that maybe you’re putting your life on hold for something that might not happen. I think you should . . . prepare yourself for bad news. It’s been six months, Claire.”

  I stand up abruptly. “I think I should go.”

  “Oh God.” Liz stands up too. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Are you okay? You’ve gone very pale.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I’ll make us some more tea. Are you sure you won’t have some chocolate? You look—”

  “I’m going to be sick.” I sprint from the room, one hand to my mouth, and only just make it up the stairs and into the bathroom before my stomach convulses and I dry retch over the toilet.

  “Claire?” Liz says from behind me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll be fine. I just need some water.”

  As I twist the cold tap something in the bin by the basin catches my eye.

  “No!” Liz shouts as I reach for the newspaper. “Claire, don’t! Don’t read that.”

  I turn my back on her and angle myself into the corner of the room as I unfold the newspaper. Billy’s name is on the front cover.

  BRAWL OVER MISSING BILLY

  There’s a photo beneath the blaring headline: me, wide-eyed and frantic with Mark at my shoulder. I’m reaching across the journalists for Jake who has his head against the wall, his hands balled into fists on either side of his face.

  Pandemonium broke out at the six-month appeal for missing Knowle schoolboy Billy Wilkinson yesterday when his mother, Claire Wilkinson (40), was interrupted during her message to camera as Jake Wilkinson (19), the missing boy’s older brother, burst into the council offices. Wilkinson, who was visibly intoxicated, was heard to shout that he had a right to speak. His mother Claire and father Mark (42) abandoned their appeal to intervene and Mark Wilkinson was heard to exclaim, “Get him out of here! Get him out of here!” Mrs. Wilkinson looked visibly upset as the family was bundled out of the room. Bristol Standard reporter Steve James spoke to a neighbor who watched the appeal on the television. “We’ve never had any run-ins with the Wilkinsons. They seem like a perfectly normal family but you have to wonder whether someone knows more about Billy’s disappearance than they’re letting on.”

  “Claire!” Liz snatches the newspaper from my hands before I can read another word. “It’s all crap. They make stuff up to sell copies. No one believes that shit.”

  She reaches an arm around my shoulders but I twist away from her, knocking her against the basin in my desperation to get out of the bathroom. It’s unbearably hot and I can’t breathe.

  I take the steps down to the hallway two at a time and wrench open the front door. The second I step outside I run.

  Chapter 8

  I stand at the end of the bed with my feet pressed together and my arms outstretched and I tip backward. The bedspread makes a delicious floop sound as I hit it and the bed springs squeak in protest. I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy.

  “No!”

  I look to the right, in the direction of the voice, but there’s no one beside me on the bed. I’m alone in the room. There must be someone in the corridor. A woman arguing with her husband perhaps, although I can’t hear the low rumble of a male voice.

  “No!”

  The voice again, quieter this time but closer, as though someone has spoken the word directly into my ear. I sit up in bed and pull my knees in to my chest.

  “NO!”

  I clamp my hands to my ears but there’s no blocking out the woman’s voice as she shouts the word, machine-gun fast—NO, NO, NO, NO, NO.

  It’s inside my head. The voice is coming from inside my head.

  “CLAIRE!” it shouts. “I AM CLAIRE. I AM CLAIRE.”

  Claire? Who is Claire? I recognize the name but I don’t want to. I don’t want to know who Claire is. I just want to get back to the seafront. Back to the sunshine and wind and the café on the edge of the pier.

  “I AM CLAIRE! I AM CLAIRE!”

  The voice fills my brain, screaming and buzzing, and my head is vibrating and the light, happy feeling inside me is fading.

  Dark. Light. Dark. Light.

  My thoughts are dark and foggy, then brighter, clearer and then, just for a second—a split second—I know who Claire is, then the darkness returns and with it a confusion so disorientating my hands instinctively clench as I try to anchor myself to something, anything solid. There is something smooth and slippery soft under my fingers. Bed linen. I am sitting on a bed. But this is not my bed, this is not my room. There is a framed art print on the wall to my right: a faded Lowry, stick people milling around a town. There is a lone boy in the center of the scene. He has his back to me. He’s looking at the crowd of people spilling out of one of the buildings. Who is he looking for? Who has he lost?

  A shrill sound makes me jump. A small black mobile phone jiggles back and forth on the orangey pine bedside table to my right. A name flashes onto the screen. A name I don’t recognize. But the noise hurts my head and I need it to stop.

  I reach for the phone and press it to my ear.

  “Mum?” says the voice on the other end of the line.

  I want to reply but I can’t talk. I can’t think. I can’t . . . it’s as though my mind has shattered. I can’t focus . . . I can’t form coherent . . . what’s happening to me?

  “Mum?”

  “Claire.” I say the word out loud. It sounds strange. Like a noise, a sound, an outward breath. “Cl-airrrrr.”

  “Mum? Why are you saying your name?”

  My name?

  “Cl-airrrrrr.”

  “Mum, you’re freaking me out. Stop doing that.”

  “Claire.” The word crystallizes inside my mouth. It tastes familiar. As though I’ve known it for a long time. Like buttered toast. Like toothpaste. “Claire. Claire Wilkinson.”

  “Oh Jesus Christ. Dad, I think she’s having a stroke or something.”

  My head . . . my head . . . my brain hurts . . . no, aches . . . but not a headache . . . foggy . . . and then a thought, breaking through the darkness and I grip hold of it as though it is a rock to tether my sanity t
o.

  “Is my name Claire Wilkinson?”

  “Yes, yes, it is. Jesus, Mum. We’ve been trying to ring you for hours. Where are you?”

  Mum. I am a mum? The man on the phone sounds scared. Is he scared for me? Or of me? I don’t know. Nothing makes any sense.

  “Where are you?” says the voice on the phone.

  “I’m . . . I’m . . .” There are gingham curtains at the far end of the room and a full-length mirror, smeared with fingerprints. Beneath me is a bedspread. Pink, satiny, puffy. I dig my nails into it and cling to it, rigid with fear. “I don’t know. I don’t recognize this room.”

  “It’s okay, Mum,” the man on the phone says. “Just . . . sorry, hang on a second . . .” There’s a muffled sound like a hand being placed over the receiver but I can still make out the low rumble of his voice.

  “Mum?” His voice is clear again. “Is there a door or a window you could open? Tell me what you can see.”

  I don’t want to move from the bed. I don’t want to open the pine door to my right or the closed gingham curtains at the far end of the room.

  “Please, Mum. As soon as we know where you are we can come and get you.”

  We? Who is we? Who is coming to get me? I’m in danger. I need to run but I can’t move.

  “Dad’s here, Mum. Do you want to speak to him?”

  “No,” I say and I don’t know why.

  “Are you sure?” the man says and an image appears in my mind—vivid and sharp in the gloom—of a young man with tousled fair hair, shaved at the sides, and broad shoulders, lying on a bench, pushing weights into the air.

  “Jake?” I venture.

  “Yes, Mum. It’s Jake. I’m at home with Dad. Liz just came around, wanting to talk to you. That’s when we realized you’d gone missing.”

  I search for a memory, something, anything, to still my mind, to stop this terrifying free-fall sensation. Where is my home? Why don’t I remember?

  “Yes, I know, okay. Okay, Dad.” The man is talking to someone else again. “I just asked her that. Mum, can you describe what you can see?”

  I look back at the Lowry painting, at the boy standing right of center staring into the crowd, looking for someone, then I look at the shiny pale pink bedspread, the mirror, the cheap pine table and the white tea tray.

  “I think I’m in a hotel room.”

  “Is there a phone? Can you ring reception to find out which hotel you’re in? Or is there a brochure or room service menu anywhere?”

  I slide across the pink bedspread and press my toes into the worn pile of the beige carpet, then inch my way across the room, keeping one eye on the door, and approach the table near the mirror. There’s a white china teapot on a tray and two cups and saucers. There’s also a dish containing tea, coffee, sugar and tiny cartons of milk. There are no brochures, no menus, no phone. Nothing else in the room at all other than my handbag and boots, with my socks tucked into the top, on the floor by the bed.

  I touch the edge of the gingham curtain and tentatively pull it back. Outside is a low railing, a balcony and a stretch of gray-brown sea with a lump of land in the distance, an island shaped like a turtle’s back.

  “Steep Holm,” I say and the darkness in my mind fades from black to gray at the sight of the familiar lump of rock in the distance. “Jake, I’m in Weston-super-Mare.”

  As he relays the information I feel a sudden desperate urge to throw open the window and inhale great lungfuls of sea air but when I yank at the sash it only opens a couple of inches at the bottom.

  “Do you know which hotel, Mum?” Jake asks. “If you stay where you are we’ll come and get you.”

  It’s a small room: shabby but warm and clean. The floral wallpaper behind the bed is peeling in one corner and when I open the door to the en suite there are no branded toiletries, just a bar of soap in a frilled wrapper and a glass, misted with age, on the shelf above the sink. There is no welcome pack on the table that holds the tea and coffee things, no branded coaster or complimentary notepad.

  “Reception,” I say. “Need to find reception.” But then I spot a fire-evacuation notice pinned next to the door. It is signed at the bottom by Steve Jenkins, Owner, Day’s Rest B&B.

  “Day’s Rest,” I say. “I’m at Day’s Rest B&B.”

  “The one we used to stay in as kids,” Jake says and I have to steady myself against the wall as a wave of grief knocks the breath from my lungs.

  Billy.

  I have two sons. Jake and Billy. Billy is missing. He’s missing.

  “Mum?” The worry in Jake’s voice bounces off me like a stone skimming the sea.

  I snatch up my handbag, my boots and my socks and I reach for the door handle.

  “Mum?” he says again as I yank open the door.

  “Billy!” I scream into the empty corridor. “Billy, where are you? Where are you, son?”

  Friday, August 22, 2014

  Jackdaw44: You there?

  ICE9: Yep.

  Jackdaw44: Liv is a bitch.

  ICE9: Who’s Liv?

  Jackdaw44: Girl I was seeing.

  ICE9: I didn’t know.

  Jackdaw44: You wouldn’t. I keep my shit private.

  ICE9: OK . . .

  Jackdaw44: But I’m pissed off today. Need to talk to someone. I know you can keep secrets.

  ICE9: It’s up to you to tell your mum what you saw, not me.

  Jackdaw44: And that’s why you’re cool.

  ICE9: Ha! I’ve never been called that before. So why is Liv a bitch?

  Jackdaw44: She told Jess not to go out with me. She totally slagged me. Said I’ve got a small dick.

  ICE9: Have you?

  Jackdaw44: Go fuck yourself.

  Chapter 9

  The man behind the reception desk jumps as I slam up against it.

  “Is he here?”

  “Is who here?” He’s a tall man, over six foot with balding hair and an auburn mustache. The buttons of his shirt strain over his gut.

  “My son. Billy. He’s fifteen.” I raise a hand above my head. “He’s about this tall.”

  “Did he check in with you?”

  I don’t know. The last thing I remember was running out of Liz’s house. How did I get here and why don’t I remember? Am I asleep? Unconscious? Did I trip and hit my head when I was running? But this feels real. The reception area feels solid under my fingertips. I can smell the musty aroma of old furnishings beneath the pungent scent of furniture polish. “I’ve got no idea. Could you check to see if he’s booked in? His name’s Billy Wilkinson.”

  The man runs a thumb along the length of his gingery mustache. “And your name is?”

  “Claire Wilkinson.”

  He reaches for a clipboard on his desk. He raises it to eye level, then mutters, “I can’t see a thing without my glasses,” and replaces the clipboard and begins ferreting around in a drawer. I tap the counter as he searches. It’s all I can do not to clamber over the top and snatch up the clipboard.

  “There!” I point at a pair of glasses on top of a paperback book. “Your glasses are there.”

  “Ah, thank you.” It takes an age for him to clasp his fingers around them, forever for him to unfold them and then, as he finally places them on his nose, he removes them again and wipes the lenses on the hem of his sweater.

  “If you could hurry. Please. It’s urgent.”

  “All in good time, Mrs. Wilkinson, all in good time.”

  “Hmmm.” He hums through his nose. “Room eleven, is that right?”

  I hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs but it’s a middle-aged man, not Billy, who steps into the reception area and raises a cheery hand at the man behind the desk. “I don’t know what room I’m in. I didn’t look.”

  The receptionist gives me a quizzical look, then says, “I’ve got a Mrs. Wilkinson in room eleven. Queen room. One occupant.”

  I press a hand to my forehead but the fog in my brain remains. Somehow I booked myself into a B&B in Weston. I can’t r
emember doing it, so either I did check in and I don’t remember or . . . nothing. There’s a black void where my memory should be. “Could Billy have checked into one of the other rooms?”

  The man’s lips disappear beneath the bushy arc of his mustache. “I can’t give out information about other guests. Guesthouse policy.”

  A vision plays out in front of my eyes, of me ripping the clipboard out of his hands and smashing him around the head with it—thwack, thwack, thwack—and I have to close them tightly to make it disappear. When I open them again he’s still pursing his lips, still staring at me.

  “Billy is my son. He’s missing. You have to tell me if he’s here.”

  “Missing? Goodness. Have you told the police?”

  “Yes. Six months ago. Please! I need to know if he’s here or not.” I lean over the counter and reach for the clipboard but he snatches it away, flattening it against his chest.

  “I’ve got a flier.” I duck down and rummage around in my bag. “Here!” I hold the appeal leaflet face out so he’s eye-to-eye with Billy’s photo.

  The man gives the briefest of nods when he’s finished reading and our eyes meet as I lower the leaflet. There. He’s giving me the look. The “you poor bloody woman” look I’ve come to know so well.

  “I wouldn’t normally do this but . . .” He presses his glasses slowly onto his nose, lowers the clipboard and dips his head. He trails a bitten-down fingernail along the list and my heart stills when his finger stops.

  Has he . . .

  Is it . . .

  He shakes his head. “I’m sorry. There’s no Billy Wilkinson on this list.”

  “Maybe he’s using a different name?”

  He places the clipboard on the desk and presses down on it with his palms. “It’s a small hotel, Mrs. Wilkinson, just thirteen rooms. We’ve got a couple in with a teenage girl and half a dozen families with young children. I’d remember your son’s face if I’d booked him in.”

  “Does no one else take the bookings?”