The Boy in the Photo

by Nicole Trope

  ‘Queensland, I think he said. Yes, Far North Queensland, but I have no idea of exactly where.’ She spells out Tom’s full name as she walks around the living area, checking the windows are closed and the door leading to the garden is locked.

  ‘I’ll call my contact there and see if there’s anything to find out. The best-case scenario is that he’s upset with you and trying to scare you. If I can find him, I’ll make sure he knows not to contact you ever again.’

  ‘But why would he want to scare me? What could he be hoping to achieve? I’m sure that he’s upset because I unfriended him but surely this is an overreaction?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe it’s because he’s lost his last link with you. He liked you and you rejected him and now you’re not even his friend on Facebook. It’s also possible that he’s jealous.’

  ‘Jealous of what?’

  ‘Jealous that your son has come home and his daughter is still missing.’

  Megan looks around at her house, at her daughter chewing on a toy. She is blessed to have Evie and to have her son back in her life. Is it possible that Tom is angry because she is no longer suffering as he is?

  ‘Where did the flowers come from?’

  Megan finds the small envelope that held the card but it’s blank. She picks up the flowers and searches the wrapper for the name of a store but it too has nothing to offer. ‘I can’t find anything.’

  ‘That’s weird, you’d think there’d be a sticker advertising the store. Did you see the van when you signed for the flowers?’

  ‘I may have but I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I thought they were from you.’

  ‘Okay, never mind, I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it. I’ll get one of the tech guys to look into him as well, see if we can trace him through Facebook. They’re pretty good at finding people online.’

  Michael’s voice calms Megan down.

  ‘Don’t stay at home today. Why don’t you take Evie and go and spend the day at your mother’s flat? I’m not on night shift so I’ll be home by five.’

  ‘Yes, great, good idea.’ Megan sighs.

  She packs Evie’s bag and puts her in the car. As she backs slowly out of the garage, she scans the street behind her, but aside from her neighbour, Mrs Evans, no one is around.

  When Daniel had returned home, she’d taken him over to Mrs Evans to introduce him and had fumbled through an explanation of where Daniel had been, eventually settling on ‘living with his father overseas’.

  Now she slows down her car and opens the window. ‘Good morning, Mrs Evans,’ she calls.

  ‘Hello, Megan, hello, little… little, um…’

  ‘Evie,’ supplies Megan. She has told Mrs Evans her name many times before.

  ‘Evie… that’s right.’ Mrs Evans walks closer to the car so she can peek inside at Evie, who throws her hands up when she sees her. ‘Clever little thing,’ laughs Mrs Evans.

  ‘Mrs Evans, I just wondered if you’d seen a van out here this morning?’

  ‘Oh yes, I see everything that goes on in this street. I saw that van and the man who jumped out holding that big bouquet of flowers. You’re a lucky wife to have a husband send you something so beautiful. My Eddie never really was one for flowers, but he did like to come home loaded up with chocolates.’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ murmurs Megan.

  Mrs Evans is nearly ninety and has a tendency to repeat herself. Megan has heard about Eddie and the chocolates many times

  ‘Did you happen to see the name of the florist on the van? Michael has forgotten it and I wanted to call and thank them.’

  Mrs Evans removes her hat and stares up at the weak winter sunshine. ‘I don’t think I did, no. It didn’t have a name. It was just white. Of course, I could have simply forgotten it. I do tend to forget things now and again.’

  ‘Oh, well, thanks anyway. I’m sure I’ll find it.’ Megan places her hand on the parking brake, getting ready to pull away.

  ‘Of course, that man was here again,’ says Mrs Evans.

  ‘Which man?’ asks Megan, feeling a chill go right through her.

  ‘Oh, you know, brown hair, tall and thin. I see him all the time now. He stands outside your house early in the morning. He just stands and stares up at the house. He looks very sad. Sometimes he looks like he’s talking to himself but I can’t hear what he’s saying. He’s very skinny, quite young, I think. I wave sometimes but he doesn’t wave back, just scurries away.’

  ‘Scurries away where?’ Megan asks, breathless.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I don’t watch him after he doesn’t wave, he’s a bit of a rude bugger. I was going to tell you about him, of course. I mean, I have been meaning to but then I didn’t see you and… it must have slipped my mind.’

  Megan’s mind races, trying to process what Mrs Evans is saying. A skinny young man? Megan cannot think of anyone she knows who looks like that. She doesn’t understand how neither she nor Michael have seen him. Who on earth could he be? Is it Tom? Has Tom been watching her for weeks, or even months?

  ‘He looks just like your boy,’ says Mrs Evans.

  ‘Just like my… oh, just like Daniel.’ Megan feels a weak laugh bubble up inside her. ‘Mrs Evans, do you think it could be Daniel, maybe he comes outside in the morning?’

  ‘Well… well, I suppose it could be, love. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. Brain is still all there, mind you, except for sometimes, but I do need my glasses for even the smallest thing these days.’

  ‘I need mine more and more as well.’ Megan smiles. ‘We’d better go now. Evie and I are off to see her nana.’

  ‘Lovely, I’m looking forward to a visit from my grandson on the weekend – he’s back from… um…’

  ‘America?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it, America.’

  Megan pulls away from the kerb and gives Mrs Evans a wave. She has no idea why Daniel would be standing outside the house early in the morning. Whenever she goes to wake him for school, he is still in bed, but he must be getting up earlier than that. She is surprised she hasn’t caught him when she gets up early with Evie. She knows she will have to speak to him about it. Perhaps he wasn’t allowed out of the house when he lived with his father in case he was seen? Megan feels an overwhelming sense of sadness for her little boy. How will he ever leave his past behind?

  I’m not going to think about that now, Megan admonishes herself.

  ‘We’re going to see Nana, Evie,’ Megan sings to her daughter.

  As she turns the corner, she checks her rear-view mirror and spots a white van behind her. For a moment her heart races but then at the intersection the van turns right when she turns left.

  She shakes her head. You’re being paranoid and ridiculous. Paranoid and ridiculous.

  Thirty-Six

  Monday 20 May 2019, Six years since Daniel was taken

  ‘Hey,’ says Michael as she opens her eyes.

  Megan smiles.

  ‘I don’t know what you want to do today but I can leave you alone with Evie or I can take her out for a bit, if you like?’

  ‘You really didn’t have to take the day off, Michael.’

  ‘But I did and whatever I can do to make it easier, I’ll do – just tell me.’

  Megan thinks about what she would like to do, how she would like to remember her son today.

  ‘Six years is a long time,’ she says.

  ‘I know. Evie’s nearly five months old and it feels like she’s been in our lives forever. I think I understand finally, like really understand, how impossible this must feel for you.’

  Megan nods. ‘I think I would like to go for a walk first, just alone. I might even run a little. And then maybe we could… I usually go through all the pictures I have of him. I would like to try and work a little in my studio as well. I haven’t been in there since Evie was born and I think I’d like to have some time in there today.’

  ‘Whatever you need,’ says Michel.

  Evie’s cries fill the room and Megan turns the m
onitor’s sound down. ‘She really wants to get up.’

  ‘I’ll get her. You can feed her and I’ll take her.’

  ‘Okay.’ Megan sits up in bed.

  ‘Oh, and Megan,’ Michael says just before he leaves the room.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’re still looking for him. I called Tali yesterday and we had a chat and they’re still looking for him.’

  ‘I know,’ says Megan. ‘I know.’

  Thirty-Seven

  Daniel – twelve years old

  Daniel scratches inside his hair. ‘You’ve probably got lice,’ his father had said this morning. ‘You need to cut that hair, shave it off.’

  Daniel hadn’t said anything to him. He likes his hair this long; it feels like he’s turning into one of the animals that live in the bush out the back. A feral cat maybe. This morning he saw a fox nosing around by the rubbish bins. It saw him too and growled, showing small pointy teeth. Daniel wished he could go closer and stroke its orange-red fur but the fox looked angry so he shouted and threw a stone at it instead. He wouldn’t have liked to have to deal with a fox bite. His father wouldn’t take him to the doctor and animal bites can get infected.

  He looks down at the phone in his hand: it’s way past lunchtime and his father isn’t back from the store yet. Daniel sometimes feels like his stomach is trying to eat itself. He hasn’t had any breakfast or lunch.

  ‘I’ll be back soon enough with a car full of food, stop whining,’ his father had said this morning.

  He looks at the spot where the computer stands when it’s in the house. He wishes his father wouldn’t keep taking it. He’s sick of having nothing to do when he’s done with his work for the day. Sometimes he thinks about running away, about just leaving in the middle of the night and taking his chances. How hard could it be?

  He hears the car pull up outside and gets up to go and help carry the groceries.

  His father isn’t alone. Daniel has to rubs his eyes and look again because he can’t believe there’s another person with him. His heart beats faster as the idea that it might be a policeman occurs to him, but his father looks relaxed. He’s smiling.

  ‘Come over here and meet Steven, Daniel,’ he says. ‘Steve’s going to stay with us for a bit. He’s from the UK.’

  Daniel studies the young man, who smiles widely at him. His hair is long, not as long as his but long and messy, and his jeans are torn at the knees. ‘Hey, mate,’ he says and Daniel nods.

  ‘Guess what I found out today?’ says his father as they all unpack the groceries in the kitchen.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You mother got married again. She got married and has already had another child.’

  ‘How did you find that out?’ asks Daniel slowly, his heart sinking as the tears he thought he’d left behind long ago fill up his eyes.

  ‘Saw it online.’

  ‘Why were you looking her up online?’

  ‘I just like to see what she’s doing sometimes.’

  ‘Can I look her up online? Can I talk to her?’

  ‘No, Daniel, you know the answer to that is no.’

  Thirty-Eight

  Seven weeks since Daniel’s return

  Megan wakes out of a dream, disturbed by some sound she cannot identify. Sighing, she glances at the clock by her bed and reads the time through bleary eyes. Its four thirty and now that she’s up, she’s unlikely to get back to sleep.

  She blinks and then stretches her arm onto Michael’s side of the bed. He is working all night tonight, and will only be home in the morning. She hates it when he does the night shift, hates how empty the bed feels. Usually if she wakes before dawn, she will push up against him, waking him just enough for him to murmur, ‘Go back to sleep,’ and the sound of his voice will sometimes relax her enough to let her drift off again.

  Now she lies and stares at the ceiling, going through what she needs to get done today. She has a lovely new babysitter named Emily starting next week so she can get out of the house without Evie every now and again. Megan smiles as she thinks about Evie, and she glances over at the monitor to see if her daughter has kicked off her blankets in her sleep. The nights are very cold but Evie moves too much to keep her blankets on, and Megan hates to think about her being cold.

  She looks at the monitor for a moment before she registers exactly what she’s seeing.

  Evie’s cot is empty.

  She’s not even aware of her body moving, and in seconds she is standing in her daughter’s room, looking down at the empty cot. She puts her hands down to touch the still-warm mattress. ‘Evie,’ she says and then her heart accelerates into full-blown panic.

  She switches on the light and lifts up the cot mattress, opens up the cupboard, looks under the cot, checks behind the change table. ‘Evie, Evie,’ she says over and over again, but as if she is in a bad dream, her voice emerges only in a soft squeak. She cannot make her voice behave.

  Evie cannot climb out of the cot. Surely, she cannot climb out of the cot? She’s too young. The sides are too high.

  A stray thought gives her a moment of peace. Maybe Michael came home early, heard her crying, picked her up and took her to the living room?

  Megan dashes down the stairs but finds the living room empty. Evie is not there, Michael is not there. ‘Daniel!’ she calls, cursing the fact that her voice won’t cooperate. She searches the house frantically, running up and down the stairs without stopping to think, checking under beds and in closed cupboards in case Evie has somehow locked herself inside. ‘Evie,’ she calls over and over. She runs back to her bedroom and grabs her mobile phone. As she goes to press Michael’s number, she sees there’s a text message from him. It had come through at 11 p.m., after she had fallen asleep.

  DNA finally came back. The body in the shack was not Greg. Call me when you get this.

  ‘Not Greg? Not Greg. What? Where is she? Where is she?’

  She rushes into Daniel’s room and switches on the light, not caring if he is asleep. ‘Daniel, you need…’ she begins but then she sees that his bed is also empty. Where is he? She whirls around and opens the cupboard where his clothes hang, silent and still. She gets on her knees and looks under his bed and his desk and then she looks at his side table where his phone is lying upside down. He let go of it. He’s never let go of his phone.

  She grabs it quickly and turns it over, pressing buttons to illuminate the screen.

  The black square lights up. Megan sees the words, holds her breath, reads them, reads them again.

  Now. Do it now.

  The message has come from a phone number; no name identifies who it’s from.

  What? What? What? is all she can consciously think.

  Panic makes her nauseous; her heart races. My babies, where are my babies? She runs back through the house to the front door. It’s open. ‘No, no, no,’ she moans. And then she sees them. Daniel is standing in the pre-dawn light with Evie in his arms. ‘Oh, thank God,’ Megan says, and relieved laughter makes her weak at the knees. What is he doing? Why is he out here? Is this what Mrs Evans had seen before?

  Daniel turns and his eyes widen, panic spreading across his face. His feet are bare and he is dressed only in his thin pyjamas. Evie is dressed in a warm Babygro but it’s not warm enough to be outside. The air is frigid.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ she yells, relief turning to anger at the terrifying few minutes she has just gone through.

  ‘Mum,’ says Daniel. He walks towards her. ‘Take her,’ he says, thrusting Evie at Megan. ‘Take her and run, Mum,’ he whispers urgently.

  ‘What?’ she asks, taking her daughter from him.

  ‘Take her, please, Mum. Run, you have to run,’ Daniel pleads. His eyes shine with tears; his desperation is frightening.

  ‘Why should I run? What’s wrong?’

  His eyes dart from left to right and then he moans a little. ‘Please, Mum, you’re going to get… Please just run,’ he whispers hoarsely.

  Megan jiggles E
vie up and down a little as she begins to fuss. ‘Daniel, listen to me,’ she says quietly, certain he is in the middle of some kind of nightmare. ‘Let’s go back inside and you can get into bed, it’s warm in bed.’

  ‘No, Mum, please, please,’ he cries. His nose runs and tears drip off his chin.

  ‘Don’t you fucking move,’ Megan hears.

  She looks behind Daniel into the gloom of the early morning. She thinks she may have imagined the whispered words. But then her eyes adjust to the low level of light, and as the words are repeated once more, she sees him as he walks towards her and her children.

  Megan stiffens in horror.

  ‘Don’t you move an inch,’ he says. He is holding a small pistol in his hands and it is pointed not at her but at Daniel.

  ‘G-Greg,’ stutters Megan. ‘Greg… Greg.’

  ‘Surprise,’ says Greg. ‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’

  Thirty-Nine

  ‘You were… the fire… you…’

  But then she remembers the message from Michael on her phone. In her panic she hadn’t been able to properly digest it. It wasn’t Greg who got burned, who died, who was hurt. It wasn’t Greg.

  ‘You… you… you,’ mocks Greg. ‘Stupid bitch… I was never there. Some poor slob had to die for you, Megan. He had to die because you’re an evil woman who doesn’t know how to love anyone, not even her own son. Get over here, Daniel, now.’

  ‘Don’t move,’ whispers Megan. ‘Please, Daniel, don’t move.’ She risks a quick glance at her son, who is wringing his hands and bouncing on his feet. She can see that he has no idea who to listen to, no idea what to do.

  ‘He doesn’t love you anymore, Megan. He doesn’t want to be with you. You never cared that he was gone. You just moved right on, didn’t you? But maybe that’s the difference between a man and a woman. Once a man loves you, he loves you forever. I was willing to love you forever.’