Last Seen

by Lucy Clarke

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ That was all I’d said. Maybe it was my tone, the knee-jerk defensiveness, or the way my eyes darted away from his face, but he knew. He knew I was lying. He’d turned to face me, his whole body square to mine. I couldn’t catch my breath. He fixed his dark gaze on me. I felt exposed, as if he could read something buried deep inside me. I wanted to turn away, run – and yet I stood before him, frozen to the spot.

  ‘I’d never do anything to hurt you, Sarah.’ He let a pause hum between us. ‘But please, don’t ever take Jacob away from the sandbank. Promise me.’ Then he added, ‘Otherwise, I’ll be forced to tell Nick.’

  Nick is silent for a few minutes, lost in thought. ‘Isaac guessed,’ he says quietly, ‘but I didn’t.’

  I watch as he pockets his wallet and phone, then gathers an armful of clothes, stuffing them into a bag. ‘I need to get off the sandbank,’ he says without looking at me.

  ‘Okay,’ I manage. I have no right to ask where he’ll go or for how long.

  He flings the hut doors open and the breeze comes rushing in, causing the white cords of the blinds to dance and swing, tapping a rhythm against the windows. He stalks across the beach, a bag on his back, the wind raking through his hair.

  I watch until his shape becomes faint, lost to distance, then I curl up on the sofa bed, drawing my knees towards my chest. When Jacob was a few months old and was able to sit up on his own, I used to prop him on this bed in a throne of cushions, and he’d sit contentedly, watching as I pottered in the hut, cooking dinner and chatting to him lightly. As a mother, all I’ve ever wanted is to protect Jacob. Yet somehow I’ve managed to fail him on an incredible, terrifying scale.

  If he has drowned …

  My arms wrap around my knees, hunching against the thought. I can’t let that voice in. I need to hope. I want to believe that there is a possibility, a chance that he survived.

  I have to.

  Time grinds on. I listen to the sounds of the world beyond the hut: the high pitch of a dog whistle being blown in the distance; the low vibration of a plane; the buzz of insect wings against glass; a boat engine straining.

  The air turns thick, stuffy. I force myself to my feet, and drift towards the hut doors, pushing them open. I’m surprised to find dusk has arrived, velvet-grey. I pad across the deck but make it no further. Slumping down on to the bottom step, I dig my heels into the cool, damp sand.

  Running a knuckle back and forth across my lips, I think about the strangeness of the note that was left in our beach hut. Isaac claimed he didn’t write it and, if he’s telling the truth, then it begs the question: who did?

  Names spring into my thoughts. I wonder whether it could be something to do with Robert. Or, Diane, even. Or Lorrain, perhaps. But even if one of them had overheard something about Isaac and myself, why leave a note for Nick that would devastate us?

  I shake my head, trying to push aside the train of thought. My nerves are raw. I need sleep. Everything is spinning away from me, out of my grasp. I can’t seem to straighten any of my thoughts.

  Waves are breaking on to the shore, low rumbles like distant, settling thunder. I am tuning into the sound, letting my breathing fall into rhythm, when I hear raised, urgent whispers nearby.

  I turn my head, trying to make out where they are coming from. It takes a few seconds to understand that, next door, Diane and Neil’s voices are escaping through the small side window that is ajar at the side of the hut, just a couple of feet away from where I sit. I straighten, lifting my gaze so that I can see through the window.

  Neil is standing with his back to me, arms held out at his sides, gesturing expansively. I can’t see Diane, but it’s clear from the way Neil leans forward as he talks, hands opening and shutting in quick movements at his sides, that there’s an intensity to their conversation.

  I catch a word that holds me in its grip: Jacob.

  My whole body becomes alert, poised, my hearing keen.

  Diane’s voice pushes from somewhere within the hut, her delivery rooted and firm, as if these words are often repeated. ‘You need to stop fixating on this.’

  I watch as Neil shakes his head, hands rising in front of him. ‘How can I? It was my fault. I need to tell her. I should have said something immediately.’ His words are sliding, slippery things, well oiled by alcohol.

  ‘You don’t know anything—’

  ‘I know I was driving the boat too fast! I know I’d been drinking! I know I was reckless—’

  My fingers curl into fists at my sides, the nails embedding in my palms.

  ‘I won’t believe that. You’re not a reckless person, Neil.’

  ‘No?’ He spins round, suddenly lurching into view. The bright downlights in their hut illuminate his narrowed lips, his wildly darting eyes. His hands fly to his head, clasping the back of it and – just as swiftly as he came into view – he disappears, the vibrations of his footsteps crossing the hut. Whatever he says next must be mumbled as I lose most of it, except for the words, ‘… prove something to Robert!’

  I rise to my feet, taking a step forward so as to place myself closer to the window. My fingertips press against the outer slats of Diane and Neil’s hut, as I peer through the glass, my nose inches from the open window.

  Neil is in full view now, sitting at the edge of their sofa, his head hanging forward, so that I can see the thinning patch of hair at his crown. Diane crosses the hut in a dressing gown, her expression weary, exhausted. She sits beside Neil, putting a hand lightly on his back. He bends towards her, as if blown by wind, his head leaning against her chest. The next words are whispered, lost.

  I’m aware of the pads of my fingertips pressing against something lightly sticky, but dry, as I strain to listen. A spider’s web. I want to pull my hands back, wipe away the clinging cotton sensation, but I stay rooted as Neil lifts his head, his eyes screwed tightly shut as he says, ‘I still can’t get the noise out of my head. I remember it exactly, the sound of the hull hitting something. The clunk.’

  ‘You don’t know it was him.’

  I feel the blood swirling away from me.

  ‘I should have told her.’

  ‘Told her what? You heard a clunk. It could’ve been a fish, a piece of driftwood, a buoy marker – anything.’

  I am suddenly thinking of the strangeness of Neil’s interest in Jacob’s disappearance, and Diane’s hesitance to answer questions about Neil’s whereabouts the night Jacob was last seen.

  ‘He was in the water,’ Neil says. ‘That clunk – it was his head hitting the hull. I killed him.’

  35. SARAH

  DAY EIGHT, 7 P.M.

  I am trembling from head to foot. Neil’s words are a seismic quake, ripping through me.

  I killed him. I killed him. I killed him.

  Fragments of information shuffle and reform like tectonic plates aligning, until I see it all with glaring clarity.

  Jacob dived from Isaac’s boat and was swimming in the sea at night.

  Neil was out on his boat, drinking, driving too fast.

  He heard a clunk – the hull connecting with Jacob’s head.

  Neil returned to shore. Told no one except for Diane.

  I must have been holding my breath, as suddenly I am gasping in air, lurching through the sand, clambering on to the deck of Diane and Neil’s hut, yanking their door open.

  Diane shoots to her feet, her face white. ‘Sarah? What are you doing—’

  My focus swings to Neil. The inner edges of his eyes are bloodshot, a grey pallor to his skin. He is breathing heavily, the smell of scotch souring on his breath. ‘You … you killed him!’ My voice is hoarse, choked with fear.

  He steps back, eyes widening.

  ‘Please,’ Diane is saying, her palms opening towards me. ‘Please—’

  ‘How could you?’ I cry at Neil.

  ‘Oh God! I’m so sorry. It was an accident. I should have told her. I know, I should’ve …’

  Her? My mind stalls, not following.r />
  I look to Diane, but she is saying, ‘We don’t even know if anything happened. Let’s just slow down.’

  ‘Isla deserved the truth,’ Neil says.

  I shake my head. ‘Isla?’

  Neil continues, ‘I was searching for him. I wanted to help. But instead … I hit him! I killed Marley!’

  Marley. His name spins through my thoughts, disorientating me. ‘Marley? Not Jacob?’

  Diane’s eyes widen. ‘Oh God, Sarah! You thought … you thought we were talking about Jacob—’

  There’s a hot pain behind my eyes as I blink rapidly, seeing the truth unspool before me … Marley. Neil was part of the rescue effort, the second boat on the water after Isaac’s. Had he been drinking? I have some vague memory of it, an unsuccessful fishing trip, drowning his sorrow with a few beers on the deck of his hut. When he went out to search for the boys, he was driving fast, with urgency.

  ‘I was trying to help,’ Neil tells me. ‘Marley was out there all on his own. I wanted to save him. Bring him back to her. But I was going too fast, I know that. It was stupid, childish, but I wanted it to be me, not Robert, who rescued him.’ Suddenly he is coming towards me, clutching my hands, squeezing them tightly in his hot grip. A vein in his temple pulses as he says, ‘Do you think it was me? Do you think I hit him?’

  ‘You’d have seen him, Neil,’ Diane answers. ‘If you’d hit him, he’d have come up. You’d have known.’ These words sound well worn, like they’ve been said again and again.

  Neil doesn’t release me. ‘But do you, Sarah? What do you think?’ Desperation radiates from him.

  I try to form an answer, make my mouth move around the shape of words, but I can’t speak. I yank my hands from his grip, then rush from their hut.

  ‘Wait!’ I hear Diane calling after me, her footsteps hurrying across the deck.

  I am already on the beach when she catches up with me.

  ‘Sarah! Please! Just listen.’

  I pause, my legs unsteady.

  She gulps in air as she tells me, ‘Please understand – Neil isn’t himself. He’s blown all this up in his mind. It’s not as it sounds.’ She lowers her voice. ‘It’s got out of hand … he’s drinking too much, letting his mind play tricks on him.’ She shakes her head. ‘It’s my fault. I should have told him to speak to Isla years ago, when it was just a tiny niggle. He told me about it the day it happened. It was nothing then – just the breath of a thought. “Think I clunked something out there … boat seems fine though.” That’s what he said. He was relaxed about it. Thought it was a buoy marking a lobster pot or something. You know where he was when he heard the clunk? Right out east – about five hundred feet from the yellow buoy that Marley and Jacob swam to. There’s no way Marley would’ve been that far over. Not on a running tide. Neil knows all this, he really does.’ She sounds exhausted, wrung out. ‘But every anniversary it gets worse, like the idea of it has grown into something more than it is. He goes out on his boat, thinks about it, gets himself worked up. Then this summer, well, I think … Jacob’s disappearance has brought it all back, you know, what with him disappearing on the anniversary, it happening in the same bay.’

  It is not the same! I want to scream.

  ‘Neil has worked himself into a state that Jacob has disappeared because he feels … I don’t know …’ she grapples for a word and comes up with ‘responsible’.

  My throat feels tight, choked.

  ‘I’m sorry if … if I’ve given the impression that I’ve been … overly interested in your affairs, speaking to the police about Jacob. It’s just – I wanted to reassure Neil that Jacob’s disappearance had nothing to do with Marley, with the anniversary. I need him to let this go.’ She glances over her shoulder towards the hut, where Neil is slumped on the sofa. ‘I wish I’d made him talk to Isla at the time. Now the possibility of it has grown and distorted into something it wasn’t.’ Diane reaches out, a cool hand on my forearm. ‘Sarah, I just want you to know, if I thought there was any chance Neil had hit Marley, any chance at all, I would’ve told Isla. I would never have let her suffer like this. But I know his boat didn’t hit that little boy. Marley drowned. That’s all there was to it. He drowned.’

  My hands are still trembling as I pull open the door to our beach hut.

  I blink and look again. Somehow Nick is inside, sitting on our sofa. I don’t understand. My head is whirling. Whirling. Didn’t he pack a bag, leave a few hours ago? How is he back here already? How much time has passed?

  Seeing my expression, he asks, ‘What is it, Sarah?’

  ‘I … I thought Jacob was … Neil said he was out in his boat, and I thought …’ My sentence trails away. I take a deep breath, then try again, recounting the conversation with Diane and Neil.

  Nick’s brows draw together as he listens. When I’ve finished, he asks, ‘Neil really thinks he hit Marley?’

  I nod.

  ‘My God, he’s been nursing that guilt all this time. But surely Diane is right – there’s no way Neil’s boat could’ve hit him. He was too far away. He’d have seen him.’

  I nod because I agree.

  It wasn’t Neil.

  My voice is a whisper as I say, ‘I thought they were talking about Jacob. I thought Neil’s boat had hit him … I honestly thought we’d lost him, Nick! I couldn’t bear it … I couldn’t bear it if he’s—’

  Nick interrupts. ‘PC Roam called me. She’s on her way here. That’s why I’m back; she wants to talk to us both.’

  I straighten, suddenly alert. ‘About what?’

  ‘She wouldn’t say.’

  We’re only kept waiting a matter of minutes. When PC Roam arrives, she casts a quick glance first at me, then at Nick. I wonder what she sees: us sitting on opposite sofas, hollow-eyed, silent. Now that she’s heard about Isaac, does she think I deserve everything that’s happening? She threads her fingers together in front of her, then parts them, smoothing down imaginary creases along the sides of her trousers. ‘I have some news about Jacob,’ she says carefully.

  My skin tightens.

  Nick’s gaze travels towards mine. Our eyes lock and I see it – the fear in his face that mirrors mine.

  In that moment it doesn’t matter what’s happened between us, it doesn’t matter about biology and DNA, or a night in a beach hut seventeen years ago. Right now, we are just two parents filled with dread as we sit before a police officer, waiting to hear what’s happened to our son.

  36. ISLA

  Everything was different this summer. I noticed the shift from the moment I landed – and I believe Sarah did, too.

  Sarah always picks me up from the airport. I’ve never asked her to, but it has become just one of those things we do. She meets me at the arrivals gate, wrapping me in a fierce hug, then leads me to her car, asking about my flight, Chile, work. The moment we pull away – Sarah driving too fast and too close to the other cars – the questions stop and her stories begin: I slide back into her world with a rainbow of tales about the sandbank, mutual friends, the minutiae of the grievances and triumphs that pepper her days. ‘Oh. The twentieth?’ she’d said this time when I called. ‘I’m on a spa day. Miranda’s birthday. She thinks we’re too old to celebrate by getting blindingly drunk, so we’re going to have our toes painted instead. You okay to grab a coach? I’ll be back at the hut by the evening. I’ll do a meal.’

  It was a small thing. Certainly nothing to get upset about. But I can’t help but wonder if it set the tone of what was to follow.

  This summer

  The coach dropped me off in a wheeze of diesel fumes. It was a relief to stretch my legs, and I felt shaky and light-headed as I hauled on my backpack and began to walk through town.

  Ravenous after the long journey, I stopped at my favourite bakery, treating myself to an almond croissant and a pain au chocolat. I was opening the bag of still-warm pastries, their buttery smell making my mouth water, when a brown Ford pulled into a car parking space ahead of me. I was vaguely aware that I recogn
ized the vehicle, but before I’d had time to process the thought, the driver stepped out.

  I froze. A tiny gasp of air escaped my mouth.

  Samuel. He hadn’t seen me as he pulled the keys from the engine and straightened. I took in the familiar frame of his body, still lean and muscular. His once-long hair had been cut short, and I could see a peppering of grey near his temples.

  A powerful shot of longing took me entirely by surprise. I took a step forward, my tongue pushing to the front of my mouth to say his name—

  But the passenger door swung open and a woman with glossy dark hair stepped out, wrapping a primrose-yellow scarf around her neck. She was smiling, two spots of high colour on her cheeks.

  I looked back to Samuel, who was now opening the rear passenger door. He was talking, his generous mouth curving into a smile. Then, in a careful, practised movement, he extracted a child from a car seat, lifting it into his arms.

  A boy with a thick mop of blond hair.

  A deep pain cracked in my chest, my ribcage compressing. I sucked in air, struggling to breathe.

  I thought of the hours Samuel had spent playing with Marley. How he could turn anything into a game: he’d wrap our circular drinks mats with tinfoil and bury them in the sand as pirates’ treasure; he’d create obstacle courses out of driftwood and seaweed for Marley to race through; he’d use skimming stones to clang the iron posts at the end of the rocky groynes. He had loved my boy.

  But now he had his own.

  He was turning, looking up. I couldn’t let him see me. I couldn’t stand on the roadside with my old battered backpack on my shoulders, my skin washed out from the flight, and congratulate him on his new family.

  I spun round, diving into the nearest shop. I heard the tinkling of a bell, breathed in the thick, musty smell of second-hand books, caught a greeting from the shop owner. I hovered at the edge of the shop window, heart ricocheting, as I watched Samuel’s thick hands snapping a buggy into position, taking the bag the woman held, all of them talking and moving and smiling, like a well-choreographed dance. Samuel leant down and placed a kiss on the crown of his son’s head.