The Missing

by C. L. Taylor

  “I’m going to take you back,” she says, “to the moments before your first fugue. You were in Liz’s house and you went to the bathroom. Remember it now, remember what her bathroom looked like. Have a look around and tell me how you feel.”

  I am so relaxed I have to work hard to form words in my throat but the urge to answer her question is stronger than my desire to remain silent. “Liz just suggested that Billy might never come home and I feel sick.”

  “Let that feeling go,” Sonia says. “Let it go. You no longer feel sick. You are running the tap. Feel the sensation of the water on your face.”

  I hear myself sigh.

  “What happens now, Claire?”

  “I see . . . I see a newspaper, sticking out of the bin. Billy’s name is on the front page.”

  “What else does it say?”

  “There’s a quote. Someone, a neighbor. They said . . . they said . . .”

  “It’s okay, Claire. You’re safe here. You can tell me what it says.”

  “Maybe someone in that family knows more about Billy’s disappearance than they’re letting on.”

  “How do you feel now, Claire?”

  Panic grips my chest and my breath catches in my throat.

  “Relax. Relax and go deeper. Those memories cannot hurt you now. Listen to my voice and go deeper, Claire. Let your whole body relax. You are safe.”

  “No. No, I’m not. They know.”

  “Who? What do they know?”

  “Everyone. They know what I fear.”

  “What do you fear, Claire?”

  I hear a low groan. It must be coming from me.

  “That someone I know hurt Billy.”

  “And why do you fear that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do. Let yourself go deeper, Claire. As you listen to my voice let yourself go deeper. Let your body and mind relax. You are safe. You have nothing to fear.”

  The gray walls close in on me and I drift backward, deeper into myself. It is dark but it is safe. I am safe. I want to stay here.

  “Why do you think that someone in your family hurt Billy?”

  “Gut. Gut feeling.”

  “Is it something someone has done or said?”

  I don’t want to talk anymore. I feel tired. I want to go to sleep.

  “Claire? Was it something someone said or did?”

  “I don’t know.”

  There is a pause, silence, and I drift around within it until Sonia’s voice calls me back again. “Okay. Okay, let’s move on. To the next fugue. You found a photo album with images of Mark blacked out and abuse scrawled over the pages. You went looking for Mark, didn’t you?”

  I try to search my memory, to answer her question, to please her, but there’s nothing there. “I don’t know.”

  “What did you feel? When you saw those photos?”

  “Scared. Shocked.”

  “And did it occur to you that maybe Mark had hurt Billy? That he’d had something to do with his disappearance?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the next fugue. When you saw the message on Jake’s mobile phone. What did you think?”

  “Secret. About Billy.”

  “You thought Jake and someone else knew what had happened to Billy?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who did you think sent the text to Jake?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who could it have been, Claire?”

  Faces flash at me through the darkness. Kira. Mark. Liz. Caleb. Stephen. Lloyd. Edie Christian. Caroline. Ian.

  “Someone you know?” Sonia says and I don’t know if I said those names aloud or if she can see inside my head. “You think your friends and family are keeping secrets from you, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m going to bring you out of your trance in a minute, Claire, but I’ve got one more question I’d like to ask you first. It’s a difficult question but I want you to give me the first answer that comes into your head. Can you do that for me?”

  I attempt to nod my head. It feels heavy and unwieldy. “Yes.”

  “Claire, do you think Billy is alive or dead?”

  I don’t want to speak. I don’t want to say a word but the compulsion to answer her is too strong. My lips part and my tongue taps at the roof of my mouth. “Dead.”

  Chapter 40

  We drive in silence through Bristol and up the Wells Road. The streets flash past. Mothers, bent double and panting, heave their strollers up the hill as schoolchildren speed past them on scooters. Old men sit at bus stops staring vacantly into space as their wives natter, unheard, beside them. Weary shoppers pour out of the Co-op, heavy shopping bags cutting into their palms, and men stride out of the barber’s, tapping at their hair. Everywhere I look there is life but mine has ended.

  “Here we are, love,” Mum says as she turns off the engine and I am surprised to find myself outside her two-bedroom two-family on the edge of Knowle. “Let’s get you in.”

  She reaches over and unbuckles my seat belt, then gets out of the car and disappears from view. A second later she is beside me and I feel a rush of cool air on my face as she reaches for my hand. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get you inside.”

  She leads me toward the front door and I stumble after her like a child who’s just learned to take its first steps. She turns the key in the lock and gently ushers me into the living room. She angles me toward the sofa and I land heavily as my feet disappear from beneath me.

  “Tea,” she says under her breath as she disappears back out through the living room door.

  Sounds drift toward me from the kitchen: a tap running, a kettle boiling, mugs clanking together and my mother speaking in a low voice.

  “I’ve rung Mark and Jake,” she says as she reappears beside me, two steaming mugs of tea in her hands. “I’ve told them you’ll be staying with me for a bit. They were both concerned, of course. They want to come and see you but I told them you need a break, just for a few days.

  “I put some sugar in yours,” she says as she presses the mug into my hands. “Good for the shock.”

  I don’t know what Sonia said to her. She took Mum into another room when she came to collect me. When they reappeared my mother’s eyes were red and shiny. Sonia had promised me that anything I told her was strictly confidential but, in that moment, I didn’t care if she’d told Mum everything. I just wanted her to get me out of that room.

  I drink my tea, draining every last drop as my mother sits beside me, her eyes never once leaving my face. She takes my empty mug away when I’m finished and places it on the floor in front of the sofa.

  “Do you want to talk?” she asks. “Would it help?”

  I am so exhausted I can only manage a single word.

  “Sleep.”

  “Of course. I’ve got the spare room made up.” She reaches for my hand and helps me to my feet.

  Together we walk up the stairs, Mum leading, me following, my hand drifting along the same banister I slid down as a child.

  She pulls back the covers of the double bed that nearly fills my childhood room. Piles of cardboard boxes bursting with clothes, toys and ornaments take up the rest of the space. To get onto the bed I have to sit on the end and crawl up to the pillow.

  “Let’s get your sandals off,” Mum says as she fiddles with the straps, then pulls them off my feet.

  She hovers at the end of the bed as I curl my knees up to my chest and pull the duvet over my shoulders.

  “You sleep,” she says as my eyes close. “You sleep, sweetheart, for as long as you need.”

  Thursday, November 27, 2014

  Jackdaw44: FUCK.

  ICE9: What?

  Jackdaw44: Busted.

  ICE9: What?!!!

  Jackdaw44: Mum found a bunch of tickets from the machines on Weston pier. She went through my jeans pockets when she was doing the washing. She knows I wasn’t in to
wn with mates when I skipped school last week.

  ICE9: Jesus! I thought you meant WE’D been busted. I nearly had a heart attack.

  Jackdaw44: That’s old age for you.

  ICE9: You’re an idiot.

  Jackdaw44: And you’re amazing at blow jobs. I can’t stop thinking about last week. You’re a fucking pro.

  ICE9: Charming.

  Jackdaw44: Not like that. You were fucking amazing. And it wasn’t weird.

  ICE9: You thought me sucking you off would be weird?

  Jackdaw44: Well, duh. Seemed like you were enjoying yourself too.

  ICE9: I can’t believe we’re having this conversation!

  Jackdaw44: That means you did.

  ICE9: I think you know the answer to that.

  Jackdaw44:

  Chapter 41

  When I wake it is dark, the only light a low glow from beneath the bedroom door. For one terrifying second I’m convinced that I’ve suffered another fugue but then I make out the shapes of the boxes beside the bed and the bundle of clothing hooked over the metal frame on the back of the door and I realize where I am. At the same time the memory of what happened in Sonia’s office earlier comes flooding back. I rub my fist against my chest but the pain doesn’t dissipate. It can’t be soothed like a small child’s bumped elbow or bruised knee. It is relentless.

  Dead.

  Billy is dead. I know it with the same level of certainty that I know my name is Claire Wilkinson.

  My younger child has gone and he’s never coming back. I’ll never get to hold his angular body in my arms again, inhale his scent or hear his voice. I’ll never watch him fall in love. I’ll never see the look of adoration and terror on his face as his wife-to-be walks down the aisle. I’ll never get to watch his face light up with love and fear as he holds his first child in his arms. My baby. My child. My beautiful son. I was there for every scratched knee, every playground fight, every monster in the dark, every nightmare, but I wasn’t there when he needed me most.

  I watched a documentary once, about a surfer whose arm was bitten off by a shark. He didn’t feel any pain until he was hauled out of the sea by lifeguards. The doctor who treated him said that pain is a survival mechanism, and where pain would make survival even harder, we shouldn’t be surprised that there is none. Is that why the pain is so unbearable now? Because Sonia tugged my true feelings out of my subconscious in the same way that the lifeguards hoisted the surfer out of the waves? But my ordeal isn’t over. It isn’t even remotely close.

  “Hello, sweetheart.” Dad gives me a smile as he puts a mug and a pint glass away in the cupboard. “Mum said you’ve had a bit of a day.”

  “Yeah. It’s been tough.”

  Mum stops stirring the pot of brown gloop on the stove and gives me a smile too. “Cup of tea?”

  “I’ve had enough tea to last me a lifetime. I’ll just have some water.”

  “I’ll get it.” They turn instantaneously but Dad reaches the sink first and fills a pint glass.

  They watch as I drink the water. Dad grabs the empty glass before I can put it in the sink. “Why don’t you go and put your feet up? Watch a bit of TV or something?”

  “Maybe in a bit. There’s something I need to talk to you both about first.”

  They exchange a look and I catch the fear in Mum’s eyes.

  “There’s no news,” I say quickly. “DS Forbes hasn’t been in touch. It’s about me. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Why on earth didn’t you tell us?” Mum says.

  “Shh, Maggie.” Dad holds up a hand.

  “I didn’t want to worry you.” I adjust my chair, shifting myself closer to the kitchen table, and press the soles of my feet against the kitchen tiles. The coolness is soothing. “I knew how upset you both were about the TV appeal going wrong.”

  “We both were,” Dad says and this time Mum is the one to make a shushing sound.

  “I thought the fugue to Weston was a one-off. So did my GP and counselor. No one thought it would happen again.”

  “But it’s happened three times now,” Mum says. “How many more are you going to have? Surely there’s something they can give you for it. Some drugs or something.”

  My mum, the pill popper. When I was a kid she’d demand antibiotics from the doctor if I so much as sniffed.

  “What’s causing them?” Dad asks. “And why did you go to such weird places?”

  Although I’ve told my parents about finding myself in Weston, Gloucester Road and a car park in the center of town I haven’t mentioned the photos I took of Mark or the knife I found. I’m not ready to tell them everything.

  The knife.

  At some point I have to go home and get it. I need to take it to the police—but not yet. Today has drained me and I couldn’t cope with the fallout.

  “Claire?” Dad says. “Do you know what’s causing the blackouts?”

  “Yes, sorry. Sonia thinks they are caused by stress. She says I’ve been bottling up my feelings.”

  “You were always like that as a girl,” Mum says, looking to my dad for a nod. “Always keeping yourself to yourself. We didn’t have the first clue that you were being bullied at school until we went in for parents’ evening. Did we, Derek?”

  My dad shakes his head.

  “You know you can always talk to us, Claire.” Mum reaches for my hand and clamps it between hers. “There’s nothing you can’t tell your dad and me. We’re always here for you. Aren’t we, Derek?”

  “Anything you need, love, anything at all.”

  “I got such a shock,” Mum says, “when Sonia rang me using your phone. She said you were too upset to speak and could I come and collect you? What’s wrong, love?” She gives me a searching look but I’m not sure if I can answer her. They’re my parents. They love Billy as much as I do. I don’t want to hurt them.

  “Come on, love,” Dad says.

  “Remember what your therapist said. You mustn’t keep things to yourself, Claire. You’ll make yourself ill. Tell us what made you so upset.”

  I look down at my hand. It’s starting to throb under the weight of her grip. “I told her I thought Billy was dead.”

  “Oh!” Mum’s hands fly up to her face.

  “Oh no, no, no.” Dad shakes his head. “You mustn’t be saying things like that, love. You need to stay positive. We’re still hopeful. Aren’t we, Maggie?”

  Mum doesn’t answer him. She’s still staring at me, her fingers quivering against her lips.

  Dad reaches around the table and puts a hand on my shoulder. “I know you had a shock when that nasty piece of work came out with . . . with what he said . . . but if the police haven’t confirmed it then . . .” He trails off, doubting the words he’s saying even as they come out of his mouth.

  I look at them, at my strong, feisty, determined parents, and a wave of sadness washes over me. They shouldn’t be going through this. They should be enjoying their retirement, conquering the bridge club league and gossiping about who’s having an affair with who and the fact that there are men working on the Wells Road again.

  I try to read the look in my mum’s eyes, to work out if she’s horrified because she doesn’t agree with what I just said or because she does, but I can’t see beyond the film of tears.

  “Mum. Please don’t—”

  I’m interrupted by the sound of the landline ringing in the living room. Dad disappears into the hallway. Seconds later he is back, the phone in his hand.

  “It’s for you,” he says. “It’s Mark.”

  Chapter 42

  “What’s happened?” Mark shouts. I hear the roar of traffic down the phone. He must be parked somewhere.

  “Your mum rang,” he says. “She said you had some kind of breakdown at your counselor’s house? I said I’d come and get you but she told me not to. Is she there?”

  “Yes. She’s in the kitchen. So’s Dad.”

  “Good. That’s good. So what happened?”

  I push the livin
g room door closed, aware that my parents have suddenly gone quiet in the kitchen just a few meters away.

  “I had a difficult session, that’s all. Sonia hypnotized me. She said she wanted to discover the reason for my blackouts.”

  “Did it work? What did you say?”

  That I don’t trust anyone apart from my parents.

  “Sonia says I have a lot of fears that I haven’t confronted.”

  “What kind of fears?”

  “Fears about what happened to Billy.”

  There’s a pause, long enough for me to wonder if we’ve been cut off.

  “Mark, are you still there? Can you hear me?”

  “Yes. I can hear you. I was just . . .” I hear the spark of a lighter and the sound of my husband inhaling deeply on a cigarette. “Sorry. I know you hate me smoking but—”

  “It’s okay. It’s fine.”

  “So what”—he inhales on his cigarette again—“what kind of fears are we talking about? Because we talked about this the other day. You can’t assume anything until we hear back from DS Forbes, sweetheart. And if we hear the worst then we’ll deal with it. We’ll get through it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that what upset you?”

  Now it’s my turn to pause.

  “Claire? Are you still there?”

  “Yes.” I sit down on the sofa and reach for a cushion. I pull it close and bury my face in it. The soft material slips between my lips and stoppers my nostrils but I can still breathe. I press harder. I wait for panic to rise in my chest, for the compulsion to rip it away from my face to kick in, but none comes.

  “Claire? What is it? What’s the matter?”

  I move the cushion away. “Do you think Billy’s alive or dead?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Billy. Do you think he’s dead?”

  There is no sharp intake of breath from the phone. No horrified gasp. Just a long, slow sigh.

  “Mark?”

  “I think this is a conversation we should have in person. Face-to-face.”