by Susan Gee
‘He’s probably just with friends,’ she said, but as the words came out of her mouth, they didn’t sound like she meant them.
‘I should have listened, he was upset about that girl going,’ Dave replied as he pushed the untouched bowl sideways.
‘You’ve been amazing with him,’ she pouted. ‘So patient.’
She used the voice that he used to like – the one that once excited him – but there was nothing from him, not a flicker. He didn’t even look at her.
‘I don’t know why he hasn’t rung.’
Paula stared at the soup. She’d made it especially for him. It was hard not to be annoyed at the way he let it sit there until it went cold. He hadn’t even lifted the spoon to his mouth. All he’d done for hours was talk about Jacob. She could have been standing there naked and he wouldn’t have noticed. It was just the way it used to be, all he cared about was him.
‘He’ll turn up, you’ll see.’
‘I haven’t been spending any time with him.’
‘You know what he’s like.’
‘I don’t know if I do anymore.’
She started to put her hands on his shoulders, but he got up and walked over to the sink.
‘He’s got his friends, he needs his own space now he’s older.’
‘I’m worried. It’s not like him,’ he said to the window as though she wasn’t even there.
Paula poured the rest of the soup into the sink and tried to pretend that it didn’t matter. She used to know what he needed. This was his favourite – tomato – and she’d even roasted them first to make it taste better. Delia Smith said it would make them taste sweeter, but he wouldn’t know. She’d been in the kitchen for an hour. The smell of it was all over her. She watched as it stuck to the chrome sink, soup sliding down in fat globules into the drain. He was still controlling their lives.
‘What if he’s done something to himself? There’s photos of his mother left on his bed.’
‘That’s what he wants you to think.’
‘He was never like that.’
‘Well…’
As the phone rang from the table in the hall, he turned to face her, face pale in anticipation. Paula started to walk towards it, but he almost ran towards the hall. As he left the room, she wanted to grab him and scream. Jacob was all he cared about still and she wondered when it would end. She had to stop herself from shouting, ‘What about me? Who cares about that piece of shit son of yours? I’m here.’
Paula heard him grab the phone. He used to have a quiet dignity but that had gone since Jacob went missing. It was though it had consumed him. She walked through the kitchen and stood in the doorway so that she could hear the conversation, but there was only silence.
When she came out, he was still there. Slumped on the floor with the phone hanging from a wire from the table. She took a step towards him, not knowing him anymore. She was on the outside. There could be a sheet of glass dividing them, because she couldn’t get close. As he sat on the hall floor with the sound of the person on the other end of the phone calling his name, she wondered if they would ever get things back again or if this was it now?
He looked up at her from the floor. He looked weak – not the man she met that night in the bar. He took control that night. The other woman that he was with didn’t bother him. He wanted her and she wanted him. It happened from then. He didn’t look at anyone else and he told her that he was going to be leaving with her. There was something about the way he spoke to her that left her breathless. He was good-looking, well-dressed and he commanded respect. Now he was just a sad rag sat on the floor.
‘It was just the office,’ he mumbled.
She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, tell him to stand up and be a man again, but she didn’t. She was angry that Jacob had got the upper hand again. She thought that he would have been waiting where she left him when she went back.
‘Right.’
‘I thought for a second that…’
‘Sorry?’ she asked.
‘I need to go to work.’
He stood up and got his shoes from behind the door.
‘You haven’t shaved.’
‘Ring me if he comes back. Ring me straight away. Or if anyone’s heard anything.’
He grabbed his coat and left.
33
Mr Anderson looked out of his window onto the park below. The students were lethargic and ready for a holiday. It was always the same this time of year.
Jacob Clarke was missing. Noreen had been curt and almost accusatory in tone when she mentioned it. As she spoke, he thought about his clay figures and imagined what she’d say about them. She had no idea what he was capable of.
‘An unhealthy interest in that boy…’ he’d overheard Noreen saying, with a pout to Angela in the staff room, as he walked in. They stopped talking and she gave him a knowing look. He wanted to grab her fat face and push her to the ground. He’d had an understanding with the boy and realised that this was going to lead to questions. He’d been so careful, and now Noreen was going to ruin everything. He couldn’t have the police taking an interest in him now.
A few others asked if he’d seen Jacob and Mr Anderson realised how much people noticed. He’d had no idea how much they saw, these blank-faced people, until now.
‘That boy you like has gone missing,’ said one of the library assistants. ‘I hope he’s alright.’
She waited for him to say something back. As though he should have a reaction.
‘Sorry?’
She looked at him in the eyes. ‘Jacob, isn’t it? The one you talk to? Terrible.’
She said it was as though she was accusing him of something. It was grotesque. This was going to lead the police straight to him. It wasn’t going to take long before Noreen or one of the others told them. They were already itching to do it. Noreen was loving it. She was even walking differently and whenever he looked over, she had a wry smile on her face.
‘Well, I did wonder after that night,’ he overheard her saying.
A part of him was glad that it had happened. He couldn’t help think that he had almost lost focus. Things could have been so very different.
Since their date Noreen had changed. She’d been off sick for a week afterwards, which wasn’t like her, and then she had kept away from him. Working on the shelves that were as far away from him as possible and avoiding the time that he took his lunch. Now she seemed to have been brought back to life again. She was in her element.
He’d seen Jacob Clarke’s friends – the two boys and the girl with the long hair. They liked to sit out on the grass verge at the bottom of the road. The girl would know. She’d know where he was. The girl had focus, she wasn’t like the others.
He looked over at Noreen and Angela as they chatted near the till and knew that the family project must go on hold. This was an inconvenience to his work. He took out a scribbled note from his pocket with a list of books he was going to reserve for Jacob and put it in the bin. He wasn’t pleased. There was more to do.
He thought about the special day he’d spent with his mother at Lyme Park, the red picnic blanket she’d laid out on the grass on Cage Hill. They could see everything from up there: the distant hills and the endless green from the tops of the trees, but it was The Cage that drew them up there. It reminded him of the pictures he’d seen of the Tower of London. It was used for hunting the deer and, later, to imprison poachers when they were caught. It was haunted, his mother had told him. She had smiled as she said the words and it felt as though there could be someone in there now, that the ghosts of the past were watching him through the dark glass.
It was the stag that he remembered though, the stag that had waited at the side of The Cage with its matted thick fur and huge body. It tilted its head and stared with dark featureless eyes as though it was about to charge. The pale fur on the tips of its ears matched the dead grass and pale bricks of the old hunting tower. When it bent down, the white plume of fur on its tai
l was bright against the rusty brown grasses.
He remembered the sound of his mother’s breath. He’d never seen her afraid before. When the stag turned away, she’d looked at him with relief. The views stretched outside for miles behind her, nothing like the tiny dark space he was used to. The freshness of the air was so different and she’d smiled. In that moment they’d had a connection. They were a proper family. Noreen would never understand it. His work couldn’t stop now.
Mr Anderson looked over as she talked behind her hand and glanced at him. He had seen Jacob on the day that he went missing. Jacob had run off down the road in the afternoon and his stepmother had gone out in the car shortly afterwards. If he mentioned it to anyone, then he knew that the police would want to speak to him. It couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t happen.
In moments like those, he often thought about the blackness of the cellar where he could be alone in his thoughts. He went over to the pre-ordered loans shelf and started to sort out the ones that had not been collected. He read the name of each person who had failed to pick up their book and memorised them. He would continue the work in silence and wait for the right moment. He couldn’t be too careful. They were all watching. Noreen and the others. He could feel their eyes all over him.
34
Joyce and Harry knocked on the door of Jacob Clarke’s house. As she stood on the doorstep on the compacted snow, Joyce wondered what type of family they were. Paula answered the door wearing jeans and a blouse. She looked composed, almost professional as she invited her in, while Jacob’s dad, Dave, paced the living room.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said.
Joyce looked at the house. It was clean and tidy. There was no sign that a teenager lived there. As Paula stood up to stand near the window, her demeanour changed. Her head hung down and she looked sadly outside through the window. Joyce thought it seemed fake, as though she was acting for them.
Harry looked over and Paula bit her lip and stared down into her lap.
‘Can you think of any reason why he might have run away?’ Joyce asked.
Joyce watched them, but they weren’t giving anything away. Harry smiled at Paula and she relaxed. He was good at dealing with people. There was a way about him that put people at ease. He was personable in a way that Joyce felt she could never manage. She wasn’t wired that way.
‘His girlfriend is moving. He was upset about it,’ Jacob’s dad told them.
‘Could he be with her?’ asked Joyce.
‘No. Well, she isn’t his girlfriend. She’s his friend,’ Jacob’s dad replied.
Paula pouted. ‘He’s always sneaking off out of the house. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s with his girlfriend right now. Just worrying his dad for no reason.’
‘And her name?’
‘Maggie something,’ Paula replied.
‘Miller. He said they weren’t together. Not in that way anyway,’ his dad told them. ‘She goes out with Matty Vincent. I mean I thought he went out with her cousin, rest her soul, but Jacob said not.’
‘Sorry?’
Joyce and Harry glanced at each other.
‘Jayne. The one that was killed. I thought her and Matty were together, but they weren’t.’
‘Sorry, Matty Vincent and Jayne Hargreaves?’ Harry asked.
‘Isn’t this meant to be about Jacob? I mean we’re really worried.’ Paula’s soft blonde curls lit up under the artificial lights and the peach satin blouse that she was wearing clung to her curves as she spoke.
‘It could be relevant.’
‘We want him home,’ she said, licking her lips. ‘I just want to give him a big hug.’ She pouted again after she’d said it and it made Joyce uncomfortable. It felt like it was all for Harry’s benefit.
Joyce looked sideways at Harry, who was staring intensely at Paula. It was odd to watch. It was as though she’d cast a spell over him.
Harry smiled as she carried on.
‘We’re missing him.’
Harry nodded. ‘We need all the relevant information.’
‘I just keep thinking of Lyme Park.’
Joyce looked her up and down. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The bodies they found up there. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘For God’s sake, Paula,’ Dave said, as he put his head in his hands.
‘I want them to take it seriously.’
Joyce nodded. ‘We’re taking it very seriously. That’s why we’re here. Now if you’ve got an address for Matty Vincent.’
There was a look of despair on Dave’s face, but Paula was looking straight into Harry’s eyes. Her face was immaculate and her lipstick newly applied.
*
At six-thirty that same evening, Mr Anderson was sitting upstairs on his bed when he heard the sound of voices outside as two people came out from next door. Mr Anderson went to the open window and looked out through the net curtains. They were police, he could tell. As they started to walk down the path, Paula came out after them. She stood in the drive and Mr Anderson smiled. It was something to see. The woman he’d watched through the net curtains as she brought in her shopping, the woman who smiled like an angel and screamed through the walls when the doors were shut. She was putting on a new act today. He watched her sniff into her sleeve. He wondered what Jacob’s real mother would make of this.
‘We just want our family back,’ he heard her say.
Mr Anderson inhaled. The words were as sweet as honey.
She dabbed her eyes with a tissue and the wind took her hair. Mr Anderson watched her blink her way through the lies. She was so beautifully corrupt.
‘We just want to know where he is,’ she told them.
As she stared into the policeman’s eyes, Mr Anderson frowned. He had been so careful to make sure that there was no connection to him and there were the police, metres away from his door.
It was satisfying to see that her neck had reddened slightly under the pressure and Mr Anderson felt a prickle of excitement. He wanted to get closer to her. He was finding it harder to resist.
‘All of that at Lyme Park. I’m worried he’s been taken there too…’ he heard her say.
The policewoman shook her head and Paula put up her hands.
There it was. She’d done it. She was reaching out to him with her pale hand, showing him that she wanted them to be together. She wanted to go to Cage Hill. Mr Anderson was annoyed that the police had found the other two he’d left there. He’d been stupid. There had to be a better way. He thought about Jacob and the conversation that they’d had.
His heart started to quicken as he thought about the family project. The thought of it almost made his mouth dry up in anticipation. She had come to him. Just like the others had. Carried on the wind like a seed.
The police officers walked down the path and she stayed there, rigid on the compacted snow. As he looked down her blouse rippled in the wind. She was wearing a necklace so similar to his mother’s that it could have been hers. She wasn’t upset, she looked calm – there was nothing there, no emotion, just a blank space. It could be perfect. He wondered what it would sound like to hear her real sobs. What she would look like if she were really upset. If those pleading eyes would look the same if she was begging for herself instead of Jacob Clarke. As she turned around to go back inside, hair hung over her satin blouse, he wondered how she would look tied up to the metal bed in his basement.
He had grown fond of having Jacob Clarke around. He liked him, in the same way he liked his cats. If he didn’t see him again it didn’t matter, but it would be a shame. He thought about Noreen and the women at the library, the way they’d looked at him as though it was wrong. It didn’t matter what they thought, because they were nothing. There was a chance that he could find him.
For the first time in years, he thought about someone else, he thought about Jacob. He tried to imagine where Jacob Clarke would go. If nothing had happened to him, where would he run to? As he thought about Jacob, he realised that it d
id matter to him that the boy had gone. He reminded him too much of himself. The boy had forced everything to a halt and as long as he was out there, there was a chance that the police would be back. He had to be found. One way or another.
He went over to the bedroom wall and placed his ear against the cold plaster. There was silence from the other side and the house felt empty. He inhaled: nothing.
35
Joyce Taylor and Harry walked down the road towards the library. The traffic was slow and people in scarves and long coats filled the streets. Snow coated the windows and edged in the window ledges of the building. They walked into the small building. The windows were huge, and light fell over the portraits of the great thinkers on the walls. A couple of kids hurried past them on their way out.
Mr Anderson didn’t look surprised to see them. Joyce thought it was as though he was expecting the visit. He sat in one of the faux-leather chairs in the corner of the staff room and nodded when they came in.
‘I guess this is about Jacob Clarke? I know what Noreen thinks about it.’
A miniature dolls’ house was on the top of the cabinet, the tiny wooden people inside looking like artist’s models, each one moveable, standing in different rooms. Joyce noticed Mr Anderson glance at it.
‘What does she think about it?’ Joyce asked him.
He sighed. ‘She’s annoyed, so she’s been gossiping.’
‘What can you tell us about Jacob?’
Joyce thought that he looked uncomfortable and yet there was a smugness about him too – a quiet air of superiority that she didn’t like.
‘He struggles.’
‘With?’
Mr Anderson tapped his fingers on the desk. ‘Life. It’s easy to spot.’ He ran his hand across the table. ‘He doesn’t have a mother for one, but you must know that.’
‘Right.’
‘His stepmother doesn’t get on with him. I can hear them. Through the walls. Shouting.’ He looked Joyce over and took his time.
‘Shouting?’