Last Seen

by Lucy Clarke

  A flight delay was announced over the airport Tannoy, and I listened to check it wasn’t mine. Then I reached into the side pocket of my backpack, and slipped out a silver key that was attached to a small stone by a browning piece of string. ‘Here,’ I said, handing it to Sarah. ‘This is for you.’

  ‘Your beach hut key?’

  ‘I want you to look after it while I’m gone. Use it. Stay there.’

  ‘Really?’

  I couldn’t bear the thought of the hut standing empty. I wanted it to be used, enjoyed, loved. I looked Sarah squarely in the eye and asked, ‘Take care of Nick for me, too?’ I paused. ‘I want him to be happy.’

  Sarah stared at me for a long moment, her gaze moving searchingly across my face. ‘Okay.’

  I sometimes think about that request and wonder exactly what I meant by it.

  What Sarah thought I meant by it.

  It’s easy to start pondering the possibilities of how life could have turned out differently. What if I’d kept my beach hut key safely tucked in my pocket? What if I’d asked Nick to wait for me? What if I’d never left at all?

  They are questions without answers. Beginnings without ends. I don’t waste time in that place, not any more. I once thought it was answers I was looking for – but now that I’ve found them, I realize they’re not enough.

  I want something far more.

  7. SARAH

  DAY ONE, 8.15 P.M.

  Nick and I eat dinner in silence. Each mouthful of chilli feels like an effort, but I force myself to chew, washing down the food with sips of wine. When we’re finished, I clear our plates, grateful for the activity. Jacob’s meal is still left on the side, the jacket potato already slumping, the chilli congealing with a dark red film of oil. I stretch clingfilm over the plate and, even though the gas fridge in the beach hut is tiny and already crammed with food, I spend a minute or two crouched down rearranging everything so that I can make room for Jacob’s meal. I need everything to be normal.

  Yet nothing is normal. Jacob has never disappeared like this. There’ve been arguments in the past where he’s taken himself off for a whole day. Once he didn’t come home at all – but he’d at least messaged Nick to say he was staying at a friend’s. I let myself hope he’s done something similar this time.

  I turn to find Nick looking at the clock, his expression serious.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘We should probably let the police know.’

  The knot in my stomach pulls tight. Police. Nick – who is always the calm to my storms – is taking this very seriously. He’s right, though: the police do need to be informed. I don’t know why I’m hesitating. I think it’s because it suddenly switches Jacob’s disappearance from being a protest by an angry teenager to being potentially worse. Far worse.

  ‘It’s quarter past eight,’ Nick says. ‘Let’s give it until nine o’clock.’

  Waiting forty-five minutes will make no difference, but we make these small rules and deadlines to give ourselves control in a situation where we have none. ‘Okay,’ I tell Nick. ‘Nine o’clock.’

  Nick tells me he’s going to get some fresh air. I’m about to say I’ll join him, when I catch the tightness of his expression and realize this isn’t an invitation. He wants to be alone.

  As the door closes behind him, I have a sudden sensation of being trapped here, sealed within the four walls of the hut. Night seems to push right up to the windows. On the sandbank there are no streetlamps or car headlights to diffuse the thick blackness and, on a moonless night like this, the dark is so heavy that it feels like I can’t breathe.

  Out on the water I catch the flicker of a light, the faint shadow of a boat sliding past. I find myself wondering if it’s Isaac’s boat – whether he’s out there, looking back at me. I shake my head, pull the blinds down, then set about lighting extra candles, placing them on shelves, the kitchen counter and the windowsills. I can’t bear to sit down, be static, so I decide to check through Jacob’s belongings. I know he took his rucksack with him to Luke’s – I remember him slinging it over his shoulder before he stormed out – and I wonder whether he’d packed anything that would indicate he was planning to stay away.

  I kneel down and pull out Jacob’s drawer. A musty, boyish smell immediately hits me. His iPad is still here, and beside it are a heap of crumpled clothes: unwashed T-shirts mixed in with clean ones, balled-up socks, a pair of jeans with the belt wagging from the loops. Tangled among them is a damp beach towel that sprinkles sand across my lap as I shake it. Out of habit I begin folding things. I set the neatened pile of clothes aside, then pull out an old shoebox that is stuffed with odds and ends: a fin for his paddleboard, a piece of downhaul rope for his windsurfer, a pair of ancient goggles that washed up on the shore a couple of summers ago, a pack of cards that have softened with salt, a collection of bottle tops.

  Behind the shoebox are a pair of binoculars housed in a tired black leather case that used to belong to Marley. I remember the times I’d see Marley sitting at the end of the rocks, the binoculars pressed to the bridge of his nose, watching the shorebirds, rapt. He’d run up the beach and I’d hear him on the deck excitedly recounting to Isla what he’d seen. ‘A herring gull caught a spider crab in its beak! I saw it, Mummy! Plucked right out of the sea. The crab was almost as heavy as the gull – but he got it. I saw him!’

  Isla had gifted the binoculars to Jacob, wanting him to have the thing that Marley treasured the most. I was apprehensive that Jacob wouldn’t use them or treasure them in the way she’d hoped – but I was wrong. Jacob loved looking through the lenses, watching the horizon for yachts or passing ships, or seeing a weather front blowing in.

  I open the case now and find a slim book tucked inside. Shorebirds of the Northern Hemisphere. On the inside cover, I see Marley’s handwriting: Marley Berry, age 8½. He would be turning seventeen soon. I picture that flyaway blond hair, the dreamy look in his eyes, the way he’d politely touch my hand and say, ‘Auntie Sarah, please may I have a drink?’ He was a beautiful little boy. My godson. Jacob’s best friend. Even as a toddler – when Jacob was bombing around, yanking everything he could reach from cupboards and drawers – I remember how Marley would sit quietly, sucking his fingers, watching with a thoughtful, observant expression. He was a quiet boy – My little thinker, Isla used to say – but he was wonderfully happy, too. He could spend hours turning the pages of his storybooks, or playing make-believe with the set of plastic dinosaurs I gave him for his third birthday.

  I glance back down at the binoculars in my hands. A lump forms in my throat as I remember Isla using them to search the sea for Marley for days and days after he disappeared. She sat inside her beach hut with the doors closed, her gaze tracked to the rolling water.

  I slip the book of shorebirds inside the leather case and return the binoculars to the drawer. Next I pull out Jacob’s wash bag. I unzip it and find a toothbrush with worn bristles and a bar of soap stuffed in a plastic bag. Although he hasn’t taken it with him, it doesn’t mean Jacob didn’t plan to stay out overnight, as the small detail of not having a toothbrush or soap with him wouldn’t have mattered. There are other things too – a can of deodorant, a razor, a bottle of shampoo. At the bottom there is an open pack of condoms.

  I try not to be surprised. I tell myself he is seventeen. He has a girlfriend. It’s perfectly fine. I’d be naïve to think they weren’t sleeping together.

  But, still.

  He’s my baby.

  I zip up the wash bag and pretend I haven’t seen.

  I’m good at pretending.

  In fact, Jacob was the one who pointed that out.

  I’ve almost finished going through Jacob’s drawer, when I find something hard nestled in the bottom of a sock. I slip my hand inside and pull out a small metal tin. I used to have a similar tin myself when I was his age, so I know exactly what I’m going to find when I open it.

  Inside are a pack of large Rizlas, a pouch of tobacco, and a small polyt
hene bag of what I’m guessing is weed.

  I lean back against the foot of the sofa and open the bag, pinching a small amount between my thumb and forefinger. I’ve never caught him with a joint – but it doesn’t come as a surprise to me that he smokes the stuff. Only a fortnight ago he’d returned to the hut one evening with the smell of smoke on his breath. His eyes had that slightly hazy, bloodshot look to them and he’d raided the biscuit tin, and then the crisp drawer.

  ‘Have you been smoking?’ I’d asked from the sofa, where I’d stayed up reading.

  ‘Mum, you might wanna hold your application for detective school. The thing about beach fires is that sometimes there is … smoke.’ He gave me a wide, easy smile.

  Even though I knew he was lying, I didn’t call him on it. Those smiles were rare. He flopped on to the sofa beside me. Up close, I could see his widened pupils, the light slackness to his face. ‘Living in a beach hut – we’re lucky, aren’t we? The sea is just right there. Literally there.’

  I let my questions drift away. Stoned or not, I’d liked that pleasant version of my son who sat next to me and actually held a conversation. We talked for a few minutes, reminiscing about past summers. But then I ruined it. ‘Was Caz at the party tonight?

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She’s nice. I like her.’ I told myself I should edit my next thought, but it slipped out so quickly, I didn’t have the chance. ‘Take things slowly, won’t you?’

  I was worried Jacob might scare Caz off. I’d overheard his last girlfriend telling him, ‘You’re too possessive, Jacob. You need to back off. I’m your girlfriend, not your wife!’

  As Jacob looked at me, his expression changed. He leant towards me, his face pressed up close to mine. I could smell the smoke and alcohol on his breath. He stared at me, eye to eye. His voice was low as he said, ‘Intense. Me?’

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Jacob burst out laughing. Then he patted me on the shoulder as he stood, saying, ‘Great chat, Mum. Really great.’

  Now I bring the weed towards my face and inhale.

  The nutty, pungent smell takes me back to long evenings lying on the beach with Isla. We’d put a rug down by the shore and lie with our hair fanning around us, blowing smoke rings to the stars. On rainy nights, we’d bundle into her beach hut – Nick, too – and we’d smoke in there, the fumes so strong that we’d be stoned for hours.

  It’s been years since I skinned up, and my fingers itch to make those practised movements. I almost laugh at the thought of Jacob walking in now to find me smoking a joint. At least it’d be an icebreaker.

  I put the weed back in its bag, and return the tin to Jacob’s drawer. I’m surprised he didn’t take it with him to the party. I commend myself for being relaxed: there are condoms and drugs in his drawer. It’s not a parenting dream, but it could be worse.

  I have a final rummage to see if I’ve missed anything, and my hand meets a white envelope. I pull it out, turning it over in my hands. There is no writing anywhere on it. The envelope is not sealed, so I simply lift the flap.

  Inside is a wad of cash.

  I count out the money. There’s exactly five hundred pounds in a mixture of denominations, the notes dirty and used.

  Over summer Jacob’s been working part-time on the harbour ferry. He does three afternoon shifts a week and makes £70 at the end of it, but I know he’s recently spent much of that on a new skateboard. I wonder why he’d need this amount of cash at the beach, when there’s nothing to spend it on.

  I look again at this envelope of money, wondering what he’s doing with it – and why it’s in a blank envelope.

  I put everything back into his drawer and get to my feet, standing in the centre of the hut. My heart is beating harder now as the facts hit me, one after another: Jacob has not been seen in almost twenty-four hours; his phone isn’t connecting; he doesn’t appear to have taken any belongings with him. He has condoms, weed, and an envelope filled with money.

  I don’t commend myself about being relaxed any more.

  The moment Nick returns, I show him what I’ve found.

  It’s the money that concerns him most. ‘Is there anything he’d talked about buying? I don’t know, like a new music system? A bike, maybe? Or something he knew we wouldn’t want him to get – like a moped?’

  ‘No, nothing.’ I’ve already been through this in my mind, and I can’t think of anything Jacob particularly wanted. I’ve even wondered whether the money was for Caz – to buy her a piece of jewellery, perhaps. She’s a girl of expensive tastes, used to being indulged by her father.

  ‘Maybe my parents gave him the money?’ Nick suggests.

  ‘No, they gave him twenty pounds,’ I say, showing him the birthday card propped on the shelf, a cheque fastened inside. I feel impatient with Nick as he tries to catch up. I hurry him through my thoughts: ‘It doesn’t make sense that Jacob would have that amount of money here. There’s nothing to buy at the beach. Anyway, most people make big purchases by card. Plus the money was in an envelope. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? It’s as if … I don’t know … as if he was going to give it to someone.’

  ‘Or,’ Nick says, ‘someone gave it to him.’

  I press my lips together. I’ve told Nick about the weed, but neither of us have verbalized the possibility that the money could be linked to Jacob selling drugs – although the thought hovers in the back of my mind.

  It’s past nine o’clock when we finally ring the police. Nick makes the call on speakerphone at my request.

  I stand with my back pressed against the kitchen side, my hands clasped as I listen to Nick answering their questions. As soon as he utters the words, ‘male, seventeen’, I can practically hear the sense of urgency slipping from the officer’s tone.

  If Jacob were a girl, I can’t help but think the officer would be sitting up straighter, listening harder.

  Then I have to ask myself, if Jacob had been a girl, maybe I would have called the police sooner, too. Maybe I’d have called first thing in the morning when Jacob didn’t come home – rather than waiting all day.

  Why the hell have we waited? I wouldn’t forgive myself if Jacob has had an accident and Nick and I delayed until now before doing anything about it. My mind fires with images of Jacob trapped between the rocks, with his ankle bent at an unnatural angle, or crumpled at the base of the headland, tonnes of earth and sand heaped on top of him.

  The officer tells Nick that they’ll send someone out tonight, so Nick has to explain for a second time that he’s phoning from a beach hut on Longstone Sandbank. ‘The earliest you can reach us is first thing in the morning when the ferry starts running at eight o’clock.’ It always seems strange to me that many local people don’t visit the sandbank – often don’t even know where it is.

  When the call is over, Nick places his mobile on the kitchen counter. We look at each other – but neither of us speaks.

  So now a missing person’s file will be opened. There will be a case number. Officers at the beach. It feels as if I’ve been swimming away from the shore, being pulled unknowingly by a current, and now that I’ve turned to look back, I can see how very far away I am.

  8. SARAH

  DAY TWO, 7.15 A.M.

  I sleep fitfully, listening for the sound of the beach hut doors opening, Jacob’s feet moving across the floor – but the footsteps never arrive. I wake unrested, my heart heavy.

  Nick is already out of bed, looping a beach towel around his neck and slipping outside, disappearing into a shaft of light. He’ll swim out to the yellow buoy and back, then rinse the salt from his skin at the shower block. Usually he’d catch the first ferry to the quay at eight, and be in the office before the rest of his employees. Today, though, he won’t be going into the office. He’ll return to the hut and wait for the police to arrive.

  I climb out of bed and set the kettle on the hob, in need of a hit of coffee. When I pull up the blinds, dust motes dance in the spill of sunlight. Outside, I can see the win
d is up, the sea choppy. The patch of blue sky hovering above us will soon be swallowed by the thickening clouds.

  I fold the sofa bed away, going through the motions of plumping the cushions and positioning them the way I like them. When Nick puts the bed away, the cushions are slung on to the sofa in any order – his silent protest that there are too many. Cushions. Did I really care about the positioning of cushions?

  I hook back the beach hut doors so that the breeze can wash in and out. The sandbank is slowly yawning awake; two young girls from a few huts away are already playing by the rocks in their pyjamas, hair tangled over their shoulders. I try not to envy their parents: Your children are there. Right there!

  Once I’ve made myself a coffee, I set the steaming mug beside the notebook I’ve dug out. The police will be here soon and I want to use the time I have productively. I fetch a pen and begin writing a list of all the people who could have seen Jacob on the day he disappeared.

  Disappeared. Is that even the right word?

  I start by listing the people who were at the family barbecue. There were only six of us: Me, Nick, Jacob, Isla, and Nick’s parents, David and Stella.

  Next, I think about his friends at the party at Luke’s hut. I sip at the scalding coffee, realizing I only know the names of four or five of them, so I add a note to speak to both Luke and Caz again today. There are now eleven names on my sheet of paper, and I like looking at the neat structure of it – it gives me something practical I can work through. I want to speak to each of these people and find out if they noticed anything unusual about Jacob’s behaviour that evening, whether he gave any clue as to where he was going.

  I will need to spread the net wider than the sandbank, as he could have hidden out for the night, then taken the first ferry off the sandbank in the morning. I must ask the ferryman, Ross Wayman, if he remembers seeing Jacob, I think as an aside, adding his name to the list.

  It’s also possible that Jacob left the sandbank in the middle of the night without using the ferry; if you know the route through the wooded path, you can walk across the headland, which takes just over an hour on foot.