The Game You Played

by Anni Taylor

  “Call the police,” Luke called to me. “I’m going to keep looking.”

  I fumbled in my pockets, searching for my phone. Neither my fingers nor my mind was working. I couldn’t find the damned phone. Terror roared inside me.

  The red-haired woman moved in front of my face again. “Excuse me, I just called the police for you. I hope that’s okay.”

  Something in the way she said that and the guarded look in her eyes made me think it was me she was concerned about. But I was imagining that, surely. I was a responsible parent. As responsible as she was for the red-haired baby on her hip.

  “Thank you,” I breathed, although I wanted her to go away—her and her doppelgänger baby who was staring at me reproachfully.

  It seemed wrong that a stranger had taken it into their hands to call the police before I did. Tommy was my child. And the more that strangers pushed their way in, the farther away Tommy got from me.

  By the time the police arrived, a frantic half hour had gone by.

  Luke and I met up again. He handed me his phone. “It’s Saskia.” He hadn’t answered it yet—there was just her name flashing on the screen.

  My mind grabbed onto yet another desperate possibility. Had Saskia found him just wandering around and she was calling to tell me?

  “Phoebe,” she said in an excited voice. “I couldn’t get you on your phone, so I tried Luke’s. There’s an art exhibition you have to see with me!”

  “Sass, I—”

  “What’s wrong?” she interrupted.

  “Tommy.”

  “My God, what? What happened?”

  “He’s missing, Sass. He’s just gone. We’re at the playground at Darling Harbour.”

  “I’m there.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Tommy was still missing.

  Less than a minute after that point, not only Saskia— but Pria and Kate—were rushing up to me. The whole gang. I had no idea how Sass had been able to rally them and herself so quickly.

  My friends’ faces were blanched with worry. They all loved Tommy. Sass, with her strawberry-blond waves spilling over her red city jacket. Kate, with her impossibly straight brown hair and gym clothing form-fitting her angular model’s body. Pria, with her warm dark eyes and shoulder-length blond hair and soft green dress. Sass worked for a company a couple of blocks from here, organising home renovation shows. Kate did brochure modelling but was mostly at home with her three-year-old twins. Pria, a single mother with a daughter, worked from a home office as a counsellor.

  I was too numb to feel their sympathetic hugs, oblivious even to the December heat that had me complaining earlier.

  Pria held my arms, her brown eyes crinkled and anxious beneath her thick fringe. “Honey, what can we do to help?”

  “Pray,” I said, my voice cracking.

  “We’ll spread out.” Kate tied her hair into a messy knot. “Maybe he’s scared and hiding.” She nodded firmly. “That’s what my twins used to do at that age.”

  Sass whipped out her phone. “I’m calling the media.”

  “The what?” I frowned. “What would—”

  “It’s my job to know this stuff,” Saskia told me, her tone brisk and efficient. “If you need help in a hurry, call the media. Every minute counts, right? Well, we’re going to blast this across Sydney. Everyone in this city is going to know there’s a little boy missing, and they’re going to be on the lookout.” She stopped for a breath. “Trust me.”

  While Saskia called up her media contacts, Pria and Kate raced away. I noticed then that Luke’s business partner—Rob Lynch—was talking with Luke.

  Somehow, it panicked me that everyone was rushing down here. No one was treating this casually. No one was saying, never mind, Phoebe, he’ll turn up in a little bit. This was serious. And everyone knew it was serious.

  Fifteen minutes later, Tommy was still missing. He’d been missing an entire hour. An army of people had joined the search, moving in swarms. The voices of strangers, male and female, called Tommy’s name. My son’s name. Until I wanted to scream at them: You’re going to frighten him. Stop yelling his name. Just . . . find him.

  But they couldn’t find him.

  Because he was no longer here to be found.

  3.

  PHOEBE

  FOUR DAYS LATER

  January 2

  I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT CLOTHES TO put on my body. What did one wear to a press conference to talk about their missing child? What would people make of me, watching from their TV screens, bleary and hungover from New Year’s Eve celebrations?

  It was one of the few occasions in my life that I wasn’t thinking about how an outfit would suit me or not. I just wanted something that would shield me and would make me look like someone who was capable of watching their child—a responsible parent.

  “Time to go.” Luke paused at the bedroom door. He had his sensible suit on, the one he wore when meeting older clients at his real estate agency.

  “How does this look?” My voice was stiff and unnatural. The fifth outfit I’d tried on was a deep-green jacket and skirt that I’d barely worn. It had fitted me much better last time I’d worn it—that was before I was even pregnant with Tommy. Now, it fitted too snugly. It was stupid, worrying about my weight today, but people would be judging me. If I couldn’t look perfect, I had to be perfect. I had my dark hair scraped back into a severe ponytail and had swapped my usual red lipstick for a subdued shade. I felt like an imposter, trying too hard to look like something I wasn’t.

  “You look just right, Phoebe.”

  I knew that he’d say that no matter what. But his words gave me the courage to walk out of the house.

  We drove to the police station, and the police drove us to the media conference from there.

  Luke gave my hand a few pumping squeezes as we were guided to two seats behind a set of narrow tables, alongside the detective in charge of the case—Detective Trent Gilroy.

  The press were already assembled. So many of them, their faces eager, their cameras ready. Fixed microphones were set up on the table in front of us.

  The detective leaned close to Luke and me. “Remember what I said yesterday? They’ll fire all kinds of questions. You don’t have to answer them all. It’s okay to say you’re not prepared to answer a particular question.”

  My throat was too dry to talk. How was I going to face answering questions?

  “Hell.” Even Luke—unflappable Luke—was nervous. “They’re not going to interrogate us, are they?”

  “No,” the detective answered. “Well, a few might try. But I’ll stop them if they go too far.”

  Luke sat back, nodding obediently.

  We were out of our depth. We shouldn’t be here. It was Tuesday today. Luke was supposed to be at work. I was supposed to be at home, wiping sticky custard from Tommy’s hands and face.

  It was only when I heard Detective Gilroy speak my son’s name that I realised the conference had begun. He was saying:

  “. . . and in the four days that have passed since Tommy Basko went missing, the police and rescue teams have mounted massive operations in order to locate him. Police divers and other experts in retrieval of bodies from water have searched what they can of the harbour. All footage from Sydney council cameras in the area has been painstakingly analysed. We’ve also had teams going through hours of video shot by visitors to the harbour area at the time of Tommy’s disappearance. We’re confident but cautious in saying that we believe that Tommy didn’t wander down to the water that day. He didn’t get that far. The most likely scenario is that Tommy was taken or led away from the area in which his parents last saw him. We’re following a number of leads and also investigating information given to us by persons who were in the area that day. At this point in time, we’re hopeful that Tommy is alive. And our focus is on his safe return to his family.”

  Detective Gilroy glanced at us, giving us an encouraging nod of his head. “Tommy’s parents would like to give a statement to the press now
.”

  Beneath the table, Luke still had my hand. He lowered his head to the microphone. “My wife and I have suffered every day, every hour, and every minute since our son went missing. We need to know where he is. He only just had his second birthday on the fifth of December. He needs us. And we need him. Anyone who was in the area taking photos or video that day, who hasn’t already come forward, please contact the police. It doesn’t matter if they were taken before or after our son disappeared—they still might hold a vital clue.”

  Luke’s eyelashes were wet when he looked at me. He tightened his hold on my hand as I prepared myself to speak.

  “Please,” I began, “we just need Tommy back. Someone out there knows exactly where he is. Just give him back. Give him back to us. Please.”

  My carefully worded speech had fallen apart at the seams. I was begging, pleading, trying to appeal to people who didn’t care. Because whoever had taken Tommy didn’t care about us. They’d stolen him from us. I felt raw, sounded raw. Like I’d been split open and my insides were on display. Cameras flashed in my eyes.

  It’ll be over soon, I told myself.

  Saskia had told me I needed to do this. It was my second appeal to the public. She’d set up the first one—an impromptu interview at the playground—an hour and a half after Tommy vanished. She’d told me that holding it as soon as possible was best, and at the place where Tommy went missing (the playground), and that to have the mother appeal directly to the public was better still. People operated on emotion, and a mother desperate to find her child would have everyone’s sympathies. She’d quickly schooled me on how to act. No matter how much I wanted to run off and keep searching, I had to give the camera my full attention. Forget everything else. I had to be exactly what the public wanted to see. I had to cry, even if I was too much in shock to cry yet.

  After the interview with the reporter had started, and after I’d ended up freezing and faltering, Sass had taken over, filling the reporters in on all the details. She’d even supplied them with photographs and short video clips that she had of Tommy on her phone.

  She’d been completely right that the media would pick up the story and run hard with it. Within an hour, all of Australia knew Tommy’s name and what he looked like. They knew what colour his eyes were and what his giggles sounded like.

  She’d coached me before the press conference, too. It was important to show a united front together with Luke. In the eyes of the public, we had to be model parents. Luke and I must never so much as squabble in public.

  Detective Gilroy shot me a reassuring glance. He cleared his throat and told the press they could ask questions now.

  I stiffened like a deer in headlights. I was the parent who was with Tommy when he disappeared. Not Luke. The questions would be for me.

  At first, there came a flurry of questions about how we’d been coping, if we’d sought counselling, and if we were offering a reward for the safe return of Tommy.

  Detective Gilroy pointed to a skinny, bearded man in the front row who had his hand up.

  The bearded man stood. He was tall, his shoulders looking as if they were permanently lopsided from the weight of the camera equipment he wore on his right side. “Mrs Basko, what was Tommy doing the last time you saw him?”

  “He had a little plastic yacht, and he was sailing it in the canals at the water park.” I’d already answered this one many times in the past four days.

  He thumbed his beard. “You were talking with someone at the time Tommy disappeared. Who was that?”

  I stared at him, confused. “I wasn’t with anyone at that time. Just Tommy.”

  “Sorry,” he said, “I meant to say you were on the phone to someone. On your mobile.”

  “No, I wasn’t on the phone,” I told him. “I actually didn’t have my phone with me at all. I lost it sometime before going to the playground that day.”

  He blinked his eyes tiredly, but there was a glazed glint in his eyes. He wasn’t going to let this one go. “I was one of the first reporters on the scene. I spent quite a bit of time going around talking to the people who were searching. I found a woman who was at the water park at the same time as you and Tommy. She said she’d seen you on the phone, with your son playing next to you.”

  I frowned, startled, twisting my head around to Detective Gilroy. He shrugged slightly, a vague look of confusion tempering the annoyance in his eyes.

  I turned back to the man. “She’s mistaken, whoever she is. She must be thinking of my husband. He took a call, from his mother. It was right after that point that Tommy went missing.”

  Detective Gilroy inclined his head towards the microphone. “We’ll leave it there.”

  The bearded journalist didn’t sit down. “Her name is Elizabeth Farrell. A redhead. She also said that you and your husband had some kind of tense argument just before the kid—your son—went missing.”

  The detective nodded. “We’ve spoken with Elizabeth. There was nothing mentioned about a phone call. Or an argument. There was a slight disagreement about ice-cream. Completely normal talk between a husband and wife. I’d advise everyone here not to report this as fact, because it’s not in the official statement from the person in question. The last set of questions needs to be edited out of the footage. Please, no more questions down this line.”

  The man reluctantly seated himself.

  I exhaled a tightly held breath as the next question came. This one was for Luke. Relieved, I sat back in my chair.

  A woman with sharp eyes and dyed black hair stood. “Luke—Mr Basko—you left the water park to get ice-creams. Is it possible that Tommy followed you?”

  Luke hunched his shoulders—a protective mechanism. “It’s possible.”

  “Did you go directly to get ice-creams?” she asked him.

  “Yes. Straight there.”

  “I’m asking because it seems there was a bit of a disagreement between your wife and yourself at the time. Maybe you went to grab yourself a beer first and cool down? Maybe you went somewhere that Tommy couldn’t follow?”

  “No, I didn’t go get a beer.” Luke sounded annoyed. “And that was hardly a disagreement. Tommy said he didn’t want an ice-cream and Phoebe insisted that he did. He thought getting ice-cream meant leaving the water park. I just don’t understand toddler talk like my wife does.”

  “Mr Basko,” said the woman, “I understand. I have a four-year-old at home. I was just framing a likely scenario. I know that when you turn around and your child is gone, often they’ve followed a family member or friend of the family. The child thinks they’re safe, because they’re with a trusted person. Only, they’re not safe, because the person has no idea they’ve got a kid following behind.”

  Detective Gilroy adjusted his microphone. “We agree that it’s the most likely scenario. That Tommy followed his father. But we can’t say that for sure, and we have to remain open to any possibility. We’ve studied all video footage between the water park and the ice-creamery that we’ve had available to us so far, and we haven’t found anything conclusive. We’re following up on a number of avenues of investigation. In short, the person who took Tommy will be in a number of the videos taken that day. It’s just a question of time before we discover their identity.”

  The reporter nodded, seeming satisfied with that, and she sat down again.

  Trent Gilroy breathed deeply and spoke into the microphone again. “The person who has Tommy Basko needs to either present themselves at a police station or release Tommy to a safe place—a school or a hospital. Because we will find out who you are, and the safe return of Tommy will go in your favour.”

  The detective ended the conference there. It was over.

  Luke and I stared at each other as the press shuffled out. Staring at each other was something we’d done a lot of since Tommy disappeared. We’d catch each other’s eye and then we’d just lock, unable to look away. In those moments, we were one, a stone block in which shock and grief were frozen solid.

&nb
sp; 4.

  PHOEBE

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  Late June, Tuesday night

  I GLANCED AT THE TIME AND panicked. Almost 6:00 p.m.

  Luke would be home from work any minute. And I looked like I’d slept the day away and had barely been up out of bed. Which was true.

  I changed my clothes, ran a brush through my hair, and applied a minimal amount of makeup. Then dashed out to the courtyard to spray the plants with water. As long as they were wet, the plants gave the appearance of being looked after. Cucumbers were actually growing on the trellis, against all odds. Maybe I could make a show of picking them and putting them in a salad tonight. Wait, no, it was Tuesday. Luke always bought Thai on Tuesdays. My head was fuzzy—so fuzzy. I forgot things.

  Next, I did a tour of the house, moving a few cushions around, switching the TV on, opening a magazine, placing a couple of plates by the sink. Enough to look like I’d been down here during the day. Enough to look like I’d eaten.

  Then I rushed upstairs. The last stop on the tour was for my sake, not for Luke’s. I headed into my bedroom and pulled out the shoebox in my wardrobe. Six packets of sleeping tablets left. I counted the number of tablets in each packet. It was a ritual I performed every day. Maybe I was more like my mother than I thought. She’d had undiagnosed OCD tendencies.

  I needed those tablets. There was no guarantee my psychiatrist would prescribe me more of them.

  In the drawer in my bedside table, I kept two packets of the sleeping pills and three of the antidepressants. The pills in the drawer were the only ones Luke knew about.

  I never took any of the antidepressants. I flushed two of those tablets down the toilet every day. I only wanted the sleeping tablets. I took one of those from the packet in my bedside table every night, and two from the secret stash in the shoebox.

  Luke would never understand why I was taking so many of the pills. These were a new type of sleeping tablet that Dr Moran—my psychiatrist—had switched me to a couple of months back. I’d begged her for something stronger. The pills I’d had weren’t working. I wasn’t sleeping.