The Missing

by C. L. Taylor

  Kira slips her hand through the crook of my elbow. She tugs me, ever so slightly, away from Edie Christian. At the same time the two boys I’ve been watching disappear into a crowd of people crossing the road and the band around my chest loosens.

  “I didn’t realize you two knew each other,” Miss Christian says, looking pointedly at Kira’s hand on my arm.

  “Kira lives with us. She’s my son Jake’s girlfriend.”

  “I remember Jake. He was a hard worker. Oh!” She looks back toward the group of school kids on the other side of the road. “I’d better be off. Good to run into you, Mrs. Wilkinson. I know you’re probably in touch with Mr. Edwards but if there’s anything I can do to help, then do let me know.”

  “Miss Christian!” I call as she starts back up the street.

  “Yes?” She turns back.

  “You ran into my husband, Mark, near Gloucester Road.”

  “Did I?” Her expression changes. It’s the same worried look I saw in the photo. “Yes, outside the doctor’s. I remember.”

  “How was he?”

  “Um.” She looks confused. “He seemed well. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Wilkinson. I’m really going to have to go. Rosie isn’t legally allowed to take charge of that many kids on her own and . . .” She raises a hand in goodbye, then speeds across the road just as the green man turns red.

  “What was that about?” Kira asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “What was she like—as a teacher, I mean?”

  I’m interrupted by the muffled sound of my mobile phone ringing inside my bag. DS Forbes said it could take weeks to follow the new line of inquiry. If the call is from him it can only be bad news.

  A name flashes on the screen. I press “end call” without picking up.

  Tuesday, November 25, 2014

  ICE9: We need to be careful. I thought I saw your mum at the window last night.

  Jackdaw44: Probably wondering where Dad was.

  ICE9: Where is your dad?

  Jackdaw44: At a conference. If “conference” is another word for fucking someone else.

  ICE9: Do you really think he’s cheating on your mum?

  Jackdaw44: Hello?!

  ICE9: Yeah. I know, but maybe what you saw was a one-off.

  Jackdaw44: And you think I’m the naive one.

  ICE9: I never said that.

  Jackdaw44: You think I’m too young for you.

  ICE9: Did I say that?

  Jackdaw44: No, but I know you’re thinking it.

  ICE9: Mind reader are you?

  Jackdaw44: You seemed a bit nervy last night.

  ICE9: a) It was freezing b) We were in the park opposite your house!

  Jackdaw44: I like to take a risk.

  ICE9: You’re not kidding.

  Jackdaw44: Exciting though, wasn’t it? I know it turned you on, the risk that we might get caught.

  ICE9: That wasn’t what turned me on.

  Jackdaw44:

  ICE9: I take back the comment about you not being immature!

  Jackdaw44: I’m good though, aren’t I? In bed.

  Jackdaw44: *coughs*

  Jackdaw44: *coughs louder*

  ICE9: Yes, you are. You cocky bastard.

  Jackdaw44: Let’s go to Weston tomorrow. Get a hotel room.

  ICE9: I need to work and you need to go to school.

  Jackdaw44: Skip!

  ICE9: You live in a dream world.

  Jackdaw44: And you need to have more fun.

  Chapter 33

  I keep expecting the phone to start up again on the drive back home but it sits silently on my lap the whole way. I should have known Stephen would eventually try and ring when he didn’t get a response to his text message. If he’s looking to kick everything off again I’m going to have to tell Mark what he said when I went into Wilkinson & Son.

  I’m not surprised to see Jake’s van still parked in the street but I am surprised to see Mark’s car. If he comes home early it normally means one thing—he’s off to a conference or training day and he’s come back to shower, change and grab an overnight bag.

  Sure enough, when I walk into the kitchen with Kira, Mark is sitting at the table, a mountain of paperwork piled up on one of the chairs beside him. He gets up when he sees me and pulls me into a tight hug before holding me at arm’s length and looking into my face. He looks so tender, so loving, so like the man I fell in love with that all the concerns I had about him and Edie Christian flit from my mind.

  “Good day?” he asks.

  “Interesting.” I lower my voice as Kira slips past us into the hallway. “I went to collect her from college so I could talk to her about Jake. Ian rang this morning. If Jake doesn’t go back to work soon he’s going to get someone else in.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” He raises his eyes to the ceiling, then sighs. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go off on him. I just wish . . .”

  “I know.” I reach a hand to the side of his face. “We’ll get through this, just like we’ve got through everything else.”

  His eyes soften. “You’re a good woman, Claire Wilkinson. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Where did that come from?”

  “I was thinking about you on the drive home today, about how strong you are. Sorry.” He suddenly looks embarrassed. “I’m not very good at mushy stuff but I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate you, how much I love you.”

  “It’s not mushy. I need to hear it.”

  “Then I should say it more often, shouldn’t I?” He kisses me softly on the lips and one of his hands slips down to my waist. He pulls me against him as the kiss becomes deeper and I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back. I close my eyes as months of fear, frustration and exhaustion slip away and I lose myself in the embrace. His hands slide from my waist to the sides of my breasts and down to my bum. I tip back my head as his mouth travels from my lips to my neck and a low groan rumbles from the base of his throat.

  A scream from upstairs makes us jump apart.

  “What the fuck?” Mark leaves the room first, sprinting down the hallway and up the stairs, taking them two at a time as I tug my bra strap back over my shoulder and follow after him.

  “Weekend break?” Jake shouts. “You want me to go on holiday when some filthy pervert has done God knows what to my brother? How fucked up are you to even suggest that?”

  “Jake!” I shout. “It wasn’t Kira’s idea. It was mine. I—Kira!” I reach for her as she shoves her way past me on the stairs. “Kira, wait!”

  I run after her and grab her wrist as she yanks at the back door handle.

  “Get off me!” She pulls away, her eyes red-rimmed. Streaks of black eye makeup reach down to her jaw. “Please, Claire. Please. Just let me go.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know.” She pulls at the door handle. “Everything’s fucked up. I’m fucked up. Jake was right.”

  “He’s not. You haven’t done anything wrong. You’re a kind and thoughtful girl, a good girl.”

  “No, I’m not.” Her hand falls from the door handle but she keeps her back to me. “My dad used to say I was a good girl. He used to tell me every day how proud he was of me and how much he loved me. It didn’t stop him from killing himself though, did it?”

  All the hairs on my arms go up. “Oh my God, Kira. I had no idea.”

  “I’m going to Amy’s house,” she says, her voice a monotone.

  It takes me half an hour to talk Jake out of his festering pit of a room and down to the living room where Mark is sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands.

  “Where’s Kira?” Jake says, looking toward the kitchen. “I need to talk to her.”

  “She’s gone to a friend’s house.” I gesture for him to take a seat on the armchair. “And you’re going to have to do some serious apologizing if you want her to come back.”

  “She’s got nowhere else to go,” he says flatly as he slumps into the chair.

  “Give her a
ring after you’ve called Ian.” I hand him the cordless phone. “Tell him you’ll be back in work this week.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “What if you don’t want to?” Mark jumps up from the sofa, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Do you think I enjoy getting up at the crack of dawn so I can sit in traffic for an hour each day? Do you think I enjoy it when some sour-faced doctor’s receptionist tells me the doctors can’t make the meeting I scheduled three weeks earlier and drove halfway across town to make? Do you seriously think I’d rather go to work when I could stay here and look after your mother instead? Someone has to bring some money in. Someone has to feed this family and keep a roof over our heads.”

  Jake claps his hands; a slow, sarcastic round of applause. “Well, congratulations. The father-of-the-year award goes to Mark Wilkinson.”

  “Jake, stop it!” I say.

  “Stop what? It’s all bollocks. All that shit about providing for the family. He doesn’t do it for us. He does it for him. And if we don’t toe the line we get it in the neck. He’s not a father, he’s a fucking dictator and he won’t be happy until I’m dead and buried too.”

  I put my hands on his shoulders and shout in his face. “STOP IT!!”

  He stares at me with such shock, such uncomprehending horror, that it’s all I can do not to burst into tears.

  “Ring Ian.” My hand shakes as I point at the phone. “Ring your boss!”

  My heart is beating so hard in my chest I can hear it in my ears.

  “I’m sorry I screamed at you but you’re better than this. Stronger than this. And I won’t stand by and watch you destroy yourself and everything you’ve ever loved. I have already lost one son and I won’t lose you too.”

  “Jake?” I say as Mark walks silently out of the room. “I need you to ring Ian and tell him you’ll be back at work this week. Then I want you to ring Kira and apologize for shouting at her. Okay?”

  “Okay.” His voice is no louder than a whisper.

  Mark is in the bedroom, perched on the edge of the bed, his overnight case packed and zipped at his feet.

  “Tell me to stay,” he says as I gently close the door behind me. “Just say the word and I’ll stay.”

  The bed squeaks beneath me as I sit down next to him. “No. You should go. And don’t feel guilty.”

  “I do though.” They’re just three words but they’re so laden with pain and sorrow he seems to bow under their weight.

  “You need to go to work. We need to keep this house.”

  “You’re more important than this house. Jake’s more important than this house.” His voice cracks as he says his son’s name and I wrap my arms around him.

  “I feel so awful,” I say as I press my face into the crook of his neck. “I screamed at him like a banshee.”

  “You were standing up for me. You’ve never done that before.”

  I twist in his arms so I can see his face. “Haven’t I?”

  He shakes his head. The sadness in his eyes is more than I can bear.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You put the kids first—that’s the way it should be.”

  “No.” I shake my head. “It’s not. We should have been a team. I should have supported you.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” He brushes a strand of hair out of my eyes. “At least we’re talking again. Properly talking, I mean.”

  “Mark.” I pull away, the tiniest bit. “I need to talk to you about Stephen.”

  He stiffens. “What about him?”

  “I’m finished at Wilkinson & Son. I haven’t told him yet. Not officially.”

  Mark leans forward and tugs on the zip of his overnight bag, even though it’s already shut. “Right.”

  “Don’t you want to know why?”

  “Not really.” He gives me a long searching look and my cheeks flush warm. He knows I’m hiding something but, like me, he doesn’t want any more arguments. This is the closest we’ve been in months and neither of us wants to shatter our fragile truce. “So what do you think you’ll do now? Get another job or wait until after DS Forbes gets back to us with—”

  A knock at the bedroom door interrupts him.

  “Yes?”

  The door opens slowly, revealing Jake in the doorway with the landline phone in his hand. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

  “I rang Ian,” he says, looking directly at me. “I’m going in later this week. I rang Kira too. She’s sleeping on Amy’s floor tonight. I said I’d pick her up in the morning.”

  He looks so broken, so contrite, so deeply ashamed that my heart twists in my chest. One of my sons is missing and the other is falling apart in front of my eyes. I have never felt so powerless or so impotent in my life.

  “Wait . . .” He holds up a hand, palm out, as I move to stand up and hug him. “There’s something else I need to say. Dad. I . . . um . . . I just wanted to say sorry. I . . .” His gaze drops to the floor and he swallows. “I was out of order. I’m sorry. I just . . . I was angry and . . .”

  “It’s okay, son.” Mark steps over the suitcase and crosses the bedroom. “I understand.”

  Hug him, I urge silently. Please just hug him. But only one of Mark’s arms reaches for his son.

  “You look after your mum,” he says as he grips Jake’s upper arm and gives it a squeeze. “I’ve got to go.”

  He turns to look at me. “I’ll be back on Sunday night. Give me a ring if anything happens. I’m only in Gloucester.”

  “Of course,” I say. “We’ll be fine. Won’t we, Jake—”

  But our son has already slipped away into the shadows.

  Chapter 34

  “So are we ready for a bit of vampire action then?” Liz announces as she bursts into the living room, a DVD under her right armpit, a bottle of Prosecco in each hand and two glasses woven through her fingers. One bottle is already open and the wine sploshes out from the neck and runs down her hand as she throws herself at the sofa. It’s 6:30 p.m.

  “You’ve started early.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She pulls a face. “Switched shifts and I’m exhausted. Oh, pizza!” She points at the open box on the rug in front of the TV. “Can I have a slice?”

  “Sure. Jake’s having his in his room and I’m not hungry.”

  “Is he not joining us then?”

  “No. I think he’s watching something on his laptop.”

  “Kira?” She crams a slice of pizza into her mouth, poking a stray piece of pepperoni between her lips before it falls to the floor.

  “Out.” I haven’t told her about what happened earlier.

  “Shame. Though she’s probably seen it before.”

  “How’s Caleb?”

  “Out with his boyfriend.” She smiles as she slips back onto the sofa. “God, I need this.” She hands me the glasses, then tips in the wine so quickly the bubbles surge to the top and spill over down the sides. “Sorry! I’ll get a tea towel.”

  “It’s fine, don’t worry.”

  It’s been a while since I’ve seen Liz this manic. It can only mean one thing. Lloyd’s been in touch.

  “You okay, Liz?”

  “Great.” She places her glass on the table next to the sofa, then tries to insert a DVD into the player.

  “What’s Lloyd said now?”

  “Oh God.” She sighs heavily and rocks back on her heels, holding on to the TV for support. “You don’t need to hear my crap.”

  “Yes, I do. What did he want?”

  “The mortgage paperwork. And his bank statements and pension stuff. I think he’s going to ask for a divorce. He’s an arsehole. What can I say? Anyway”—she waves a dismissive hand through the air—“I’m not going to let him screw up tonight too. We have wine to drink and a film to watch and I’m not going to give him a second thought. How are you anyway?”

  I take a sip of my wine. “Let’s just say I’m looking forward to the film.”

  “Great.” She flashes a smile at me.
“I knew there was a reason I liked you.”

  For thirty minutes we do nothing apart from sip wine and watch the screen as a young girl falls over a lot and a pasty-looking bloke and his equally pasty family act aloof and mysterious at every opportunity. When we’ve finished the first bottle Liz pauses the DVD so I can go to the kitchen to retrieve the other one from the fridge.

  “He’s very lush,” she says as I refill her glass.

  “Who?”

  “Robert Pattinson.” She gestures toward the screen where the freeze-frame has captured the actor looking wistful and conflicted.

  “He’s about twelve!”

  “Actually, he was twenty-two when he filmed this.”

  “But he’s at school in the film, so he’s supposed to be what, sixteen?”

  “Seriously though, Claire.” She pauses the film, then digs in her handbag for her phone. She presses a few buttons and tilts the screen toward me. “Look at this.”

  “Is that Tinder? You installed it then!”

  “Yep. And I have a point to prove. Now here”—she swipes at the screen—“are some of the local men who are about the same age as me. Shout out if you see one you think is fit.”

  She swipes through photo after photo, all of them of middle-aged men. Some are balding, some have a good head of hair, some are fat, some thin, some badly dressed, some in suits, some wearing very little at all. Apart from the half-naked man flexing a bicep in the bathroom mirror and scowling into the camera, I’m surprised at how normal they all look. They’re the sort of men you’d see down the pub, in the supermarket or at work.

  “Still waiting for you to shout when you see a fit one,” Liz says.

  She continues to flick through an encyclopedia of men.

  “That one!” I say.

  “Okay.” She peers at the man I’ve selected. He’s sitting on a picnic blanket, a glass of beer in his hand and his head thrown back in laughter. His hair is peppered with gray above his ears but long and thick on top. He’s got a strong jaw, a Roman nose and good skin. More than anything else, he looks as though he’d be a laugh.

  “Okay, I’ll give you him.” She swipes to the right and laughs. “Or rather, I’ll have him. Anyway, now I’ll change the age range so it’s eighteen to thirty. Shout if you see someone lush.”