The Missing

by C. L. Taylor

  “We could have handled it differently. Instead of flying off the handle we could have—”

  “Done what? Sat down and had a nice chat? Taken him to a counselor? Because that worked out well for you, didn’t it? You stopped going after three weeks.”

  “Why are you having a go at me, all of a sudden?”

  “Because you’re the one that’s brought it up! Jake is a nineteen-year-old man, Claire. He’s not a kid. I’m not going to mollycoddle him. He needs to hear it how it is.”

  “You squared up to him. You goaded him. And you’re supposed to be the parent. You’re supposed to—”

  “Don’t tell me what I’m supposed to do!” He leaps off the sofa and glares down at me.

  “All I’m saying is that, if you’d have listened to me in the first place—if you toned it down instead of exploding whenever you get angry—then we wouldn’t be in this position.”

  “What position?”

  “Billy wouldn’t be missing.”

  Mark freezes, hands still clenched at his sides, eyes fixed on mine, his lips moist with saliva. It’s as though someone has pressed pause on our argument.

  “I’m sorry.” I can’t get the words out fast enough. “I didn’t mean it. I was angry. I’m not saying it was your fault. Mark! Mark!”

  I continue to shout his name as he walks out of the room. Seconds later I hear the back door slam.

  Tuesday, October 7, 2014

  ICE9: I am having a shit day. How about you?

  Jackdaw44:

  ICE9: You’re sad?

  Jackdaw44: Cos you’re having a shit day. What’s up?

  ICE9: Arguments.

  Jackdaw44: Relationships suck. You should be single like me. No women. No drama. Result!

  ICE9: No drama? What about the graffitiing at school? (Tell me to fuck off and I’ll never text you again.)

  Jackdaw44: Fuck yyyyy . . . (Just kidding!) Bollocks to the graffiti. I’m expressing myself. No bastard understands that.

  ICE9: You can express yourself without doing it on school property.

  Jackdaw44: Don’t you start!

  ICE9: You brought it up.

  Jackdaw44: Actually, you did. Anyway, forget that shit. Do you want to go for a beer?

  ICE9: Ha! Ha!

  Jackdaw44: What’s so funny?

  ICE9: a) It’s 3pm and b) You’re 15.

  Jackdaw44: a) It’s never too early for a beer and b) I look 18.

  ICE9: Well b) is true.

  Jackdaw44: So? ?

  ICE9: You’re at school.

  Jackdaw44:

  ICE9: Skipping again!

  Jackdaw44: Yeah, and I’m bored. Come to the pub with me.

  ICE9: I’m busy.

  Jackdaw44: No, you’re not. You’re having a shit day.

  + =

  ICE9: Look at you, the emoticon mathematician!

  Jackdaw44: It’s all true. So is that a yes then?

  ICE9: Oh, sod it. What harm could one beer do?

  Chapter 19

  There’s a cold space on the left of the bed, where the warm imprint of Mark’s body should be.

  I didn’t chase after him when he left last night. Instead I sat on the sofa with my arms crossed and the TV still on pause and reran the argument in my head. How had we gone from me asking him to have a word with Jake to me implying that he was responsible for Billy going missing? Because he’d pushed my buttons, that’s why. He’d gone straight on the offensive, bringing up my failed sessions with the counselor and implying that I didn’t know what I was talking about. I hadn’t even mentioned getting counseling—just that he should talk to his son. What was so wrong with that?

  I rehearsed what I’d say when Mark came back from the pub. I had it all word perfect. Only he didn’t come back. There was a space in the street outside the house, where his silver Ford Focus had been parked. He’d taken his jacket too, and his briefcase from the hall. Wherever he’d gone he was planning on staying overnight.

  I rang him several times but his mobile went straight to voicemail. I sent text after text.

  I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s your fault.

  Please, Mark. Let’s not fall out. We need to stick together. I’m sorry.

  Please. Please talk to me.

  And then, after an hour of silence, I got angry.

  You’ve made mistakes. You’ve said things you didn’t mean in the heat of the moment and I’ve always forgiven you. Just talk to me, let’s sort this out.

  OK, fine. Ignore me. Because that makes everything better, doesn’t it?

  I’m going to bed.

  Any anger I felt toward him has evaporated overnight. I’m pissed off with myself now. I was an idiot for taking my stress out on him. He didn’t deserve it.

  I glance at the bedside clock. 8:30 a.m. With any luck he’ll be sitting in his car outside an appointment and I’ll catch him before he goes in.

  Mark. I’m sorry. Please. Just send me a text to let me know you’re OK. I know you’re angry. But please. Just let me know you’re—

  A noise from downstairs makes me jump. I heard Jake and Kira clattering down the stairs at least half an hour ago so it can’t be them. And Mark should be on his way to work. Unless he’s come back. Maybe he’s decided to take the morning off and sort things out?

  I push back the duvet and swing my legs out of bed, then cross the bedroom and take the stairs one at a time, treading quietly. Logically I know I’ll find Mark sitting at the kitchen table, or standing by the sink, looking moodily out into the street, but there’s still a tiny part of me that hopes that it’s Billy. And if it is, if a miracle has occurred and he’s home and he’s tired and he’s dirty and he’s traumatized, I don’t want to be the one who scares him off.

  But it’s not Billy bent over the kitchen table with his head bowed low. It’s Kira, an earbud in one hand, a camera lens in the other, her tongue stud clacking against her front teeth as she flicks her tongue forward and backward in her mouth. It’s a habit she’s developed since she had her tongue pierced a few months ago.

  Clack-clack-clack.

  She looks deep in thought, totally focused on wiping every last smear and streak from the glass.

  I swallow my disappointment and step into the kitchen. “You’ll damage your front teeth if you keep doing that.”

  She jumps at the sound of my voice and gathers her camera equipment to her chest.

  “Sorry I startled you. I thought you were at college. Cup of tea?”

  “No, thanks.” She stands up and begins replacing lens caps and zipping lenses and camera bodies into their cases. “I’ve got a couple of free periods this morning so I thought I’d clean my kit before I head into town to take some photos.”

  “Don’t mind me. This is your home too.” I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve told her that. When she first moved in she could barely look me in the eye. I don’t know if it was because she was shy or if the way her mother had treated her had left such a terrible imprint that she was intimidated by older women. She’s been living with us for eighteen months now and she’s still not comfortable being alone with me. If anything she’s worse. A small, possibly foolish, part of me thought that we might develop a mother-daughter type relationship after she moved in. I thought we’d go to the cinema to watch romcoms or to the nail salon in town to get manicures but you can’t force a relationship where there isn’t one. Some people need time to settle in to new situations, to get used to people, to trust them. I genuinely care about Kira. I worry about her, almost as much as I worry about my own sons, but she’s still not ready to let me in.

  She continues to shovel her belongings into a large carry case at breakneck speed, her blond hair covering her face. “It’s okay, I was pretty much finished anyway and I really should get—”

  “Don’t go. Please.” I approach the table, my hands wrapped around a steaming cup of tea. “I’d like to have a chat with you.”

  She peers at me through the curtain of hair that ha
ngs over her face. “What about?”

  “About you, and how you’re doing.” I pull out a chair and sit down. We haven’t really had a conversation since my blackout in Weston. I’ve barely seen her to talk to, but I imagine Jake will have filled her in. Whenever I pass their room on my way to bed each night the low rumbling of their hushed conversations creeps from beneath the door.

  “I’m fine.” Her gaze flits toward the kitchen window and the driveway outside and I instantly understand. She thinks I want to have another chat about her relationship with Jake and she wants to escape.

  “Can we chat later?” She glances at the kitchen clock. “I really need to get into town. I’m taking photos of someone and she’s got to go to work at half past nine.”

  “Okay, don’t worry.”

  I watch as she crosses the kitchen, her body sloped to the right under the weight of her camera bag and her battered sneakers squeaking on the kitchen tiles. Her long, thin legs look pale and mottled despite the fact that it’s the middle of summer.

  “Kira!” I call as she reaches for the doorknob.

  “Yes.” She turns back.

  “Has Stephen—Jake’s uncle Stephen—has he ever said anything inappropriate to you?”

  She frowns. “Like what?”

  “About . . . I don’t know . . . the way you dress?”

  “The way I look?” She glances down, at the black T-shirt that clings to her body, the denim skirt that ends mid-thigh and the faded purple Converse on her feet. “Why would he comment on that?”

  “I don’t know. I just wanted to check that he’s never said anything to upset you?”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “Never. He’s always been really nice to me.”

  “And no one else in the family has ever made you feel uncomfortable? You don’t feel uncomfortable being around Mark . . .”

  “No!” She glances down at her outfit again and I feel angry at myself for paying attention to what Stephen told me. I’ve made her feel self-conscious about the way she dresses now. As if her self-esteem wasn’t fragile enough anyway.

  “No,” she says again, more softly this time. When she looks back up I’m startled to see tears shining in her eyes. “Of course not. You’ve all been lovely to me. I’d be on the streets if you hadn’t taken me in.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “It is. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t said I could live here. Mum was . . . Living with her could be difficult and Jake knew that. He rescued me. I know we’ve had our problems but I do love him. He’s everything to me and I’d die if I lost him. Actually die.”

  “Oh, Kira.” I cross the room, arms outstretched, but she twists away before I can hug her.

  “Please don’t, Claire.” She fumbles the back door open and squeezes through the gap, knocking her camera bag against the wall in her haste to escape.

  Wednesday, October 8, 2014

  Jackdaw44: Yesterday was cool.

  ICE9: Until your mates turned up.

  Jackdaw44: What’s wrong with my mates?

  ICE9: They’re immature.

  Jackdaw44: And I’m not?

  ICE9: Would I have been having a drink with you if I thought that?

  Jackdaw44:

  Jackdaw44: Hey?

  ICE9: What?

  Jackdaw44: We should do beers more often. I like talking to you. Feel like you get me.

  ICE9: Maybe that’s because I do.

  Jackdaw44:

  ICE9: Why are you punching me?

  Jackdaw44: That’s a fist bump, you twat!

  ICE9: Ha. Ha!

  Chapter 20

  I am sitting on the floor on the upstairs landing, photo albums scattered around me.

  Mum’s text arrived half an hour after Kira left.

  Don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to find those school photos of the kids yet, have you? Ben from the Bristol News said he’d run the feature but he needs them NOW. Can you have a look and let me know.

  I still hadn’t moved from the kitchen. There was a part of me that could relate to Kira’s outpouring of emotion. I’d felt the same way about Mark when I was her age. Your emotions are so big when you’re a teenager, so powerful. It’s as though they’re a violent storm, sweeping you from one day to the next. My worst fear was that Mark would realize that he could do better and dump me. I want to shake my eighteen-year-old self now. That wasn’t fear. It’s not until you have children that you truly know what fear is. After Jake was born I had to stop watching the news because the world seemed so terrifying. What chance did I have of keeping my tiny baby son safe when there was danger around every corner? How the hell was I supposed to protect him from that?

  I’ve found the album with Mickey Mouse on the outside that’s full of photos of us and the kids at Disneyland Paris. I’ve also found the blue, slightly battered album with photos of Jake as a baby, crammed full of images of his tiny, soft shape, taken from every conceivable angle. There’s Jake and me in the hospital bed, Jake in the stroller for his first walk, Jake having a cuddle with Granny, Granddad hanging Jake upside down by his ankles, Jake in the bath, Jake going down a slide. It’s as though we captured every waking moment of the first year of his life.

  There’s a similar album for Billy, with a pale green cover, but there aren’t as many photos. I swore we wouldn’t be one of those families that take fewer photos of the second child but, with Jake to look after too, I didn’t have the time to luxuriate in Billy’s first smile, his first word, his first step. Now I wish I’d recorded every single second of his life.

  All the photo albums are here apart from the one I’m looking for, the gray album crammed with the children’s school photos: staged poses and watery backdrops, the only way to distinguish one year from the next the number of teeth showing in Jake and Billy’s rictus grins.

  Where is it?

  Perhaps Mark took it? The police requested photos of Billy after we reported him missing but I was in no state to help so he took charge.

  I try ringing him but it goes straight to voicemail. Do I keep looking or wait until he gets home? That’s if he does come home.

  I throw open the door to Mark’s bedside cabinet and scoop coffee-stained paperbacks onto the floor, then flip onto my stomach and haul two dusty suitcases from underneath the bed. I riffle through them. Then I search through the wardrobe and chest of drawers. I search every last centimeter of our bedroom but there is no sign of the album.

  Maybe Jake took it? Maybe he wanted to show photos of the two of them as kids to Kira and—

  Kira. Photography. Film Studies. Billy. Photos.

  And there it is, a memory, sparked into life—Billy, telling me about a project he was doing at school in his media class. His teacher wanted them to make videos and he’d been inspired by something he’d seen on Facebook about a man who photographed his daughter every day of her life and then put the pictures together into a time-lapse video.

  “You literally see her grow from a baby to an eighteen-year-old,” he said. “And you’ve got all those photos of us at school. I want to do one about how school changes you.”

  I barely even registered the request the first time he made it. I heard the word “Mum!” and automatically pointed him in the direction of the fridge.

  Now I take several deep breaths before opening the door to his room. It is not how he left it. It’s not a mess of clothes flung onto the floor, empty crisp packets jammed down the side of the bed and exercise books and pens strewn all over the floor. It’s tidier than it’s been since he was a baby and I made him the most lovely nursery room with framed photos of Winnie-the-Pooh on the wall and soft toys lined up on the dresser.

  The police searched every inch of his room after we reported him missing. They took away his computer, his game console and all of his books, comics and sketchpads. I stayed downstairs, in the living room, and listened to the floorboards creak under the weight of their footsteps. When they left I ventured back upstairs. I cri
ed when I saw the room. Not because they’d left it messy—they hadn’t—but because it was as though all traces of Billy had been wiped from the room. All that remained was his bed and his posters of graffiti, rap stars and skateboarders.

  His belongings were returned a few weeks later. A forensic examination of his computer had revealed nothing apart from the fact that he spent a lot of time surfing for information on his favorite graffiti artists and watching YouTube videos of skateboarders. And accessing hardcore porn.

  “It’s increasingly common for young males to access this kind of material,” DS Forbes told us. “It can become quite a compulsion for teenage boys. It becomes addictive. I’m not suggesting this was in any way connected with Billy’s disappearance but it has been noted in his file.”

  Mark wanted to know what kind of hardcore porn Billy had been watching and DS Forbes was quick to reassure us that it was nothing illegal but it was quite extreme.

  “What about his mobile phone?” I asked. “Have you found it?”

  He shook his head. “GPS tracking failed to reveal anything and triangulation showed that it was last used in this house or street. We haven’t located it yet, I’m afraid.”

  “So nothing in his room has given you any clues what might have happened to him?”

  “No, Mrs. Wilkinson, I’m sorry.”

  I push open the door to Billy’s room and inhale deeply but all trace of him is gone. I used to tell him off for piling up his stinking sneakers behind his bedroom door because you could smell them from the landing. There were other smells too: unwashed clothes, half-eaten burgers sweating in their white polystyrene boxes shoved under the bed, and the pungent chemical scent of his thick-nibbed markers.

  I riffle through Billy’s bookcase but there’s no sign of the missing photo album among the neatly stacked comic books, graphic novels and the incongruous pile of Harry Potter books we used to read together before bed. When he turned eight he told me that being read bedside stories was babyish but he still insisted on Harry Potter each night. We made it all the way through the Deathly Hallows. I like to think he did that for me.