The Missing

by Jane Casey

  ‘Louisa Shaw in Surrey, thank you,’ the anchorman said, swivelling to face another camera as a picture of a running tap flipped onto the screen behind him.

  I waited for Mum to mention the fact that her daughter had just been on the news, but she was still staring vacantly at the screen, to all intents and purposes absorbed in a story about water charges. Maybe she hadn’t recognised me. Well, at least it saved me from explaining. I felt tired beyond belief. I had had enough of the day, the week, everything. ‘I’m going to head up to bed, Mum.’

  ‘Sleep well,’ she said automatically, not registering the fact that it was barely dark outside and I was about two hours ahead of schedule. I left her staring at the screen. If I had had to bet, I would have guessed that the only thing in her mind was Charlie.

  The bulb in the light fitting over the bathroom sink had burned out. The ceiling light cast a greyish glare that made my skin look dead, tinged my lips with blue, shadowed my eyes so they looked dull and dark. I gazed at myself in the bathroom mirror, reminded of Jenny. For an instant I saw her as she had been in real life, then as she was when I found her in the woods. Something was missing from the second image – whatever made her who she was. It had gone. Put out the light and then put out the light. Shakespeare had got that right, with his poor, baffled, murderous Moor. When I have plucked thy rose, I cannot give it vital growth again. It needs must wither … I switched off the bathroom light and found my way into bed in the semi-darkness of my room, crawling between the covers with a sigh. I stared up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep. I should have felt anger, or sorrow, or some sort of resolve. But what I mostly felt was numb.

  * * *

  In the morning, I went to school with no great pleasure. I had to be there; Elaine had made it clear that the teachers were to show up, even if the students didn’t. I expected that more than one of my colleagues would have seen the news, and my skin prickled with the anticipation of embarrassment. But as it happened, when I got to the school gates, the first people I recognised were girls from Jenny’s class, three of them – Anna Philips, Corinne Summers and Rachel Boyd. They were dressed casually in jeans and hoodies. As I drove in, they were hugging one another self-consciously in front of the numerous camera crews and reporters that still besieged the school. But there was something sincere about their display of emotion, something real – they were blotchy and pink from crying, not groomed and camera-ready. I pulled in to the first available space and hopped out of the car, heading back to do my duty as a bodyguard or counsellor or friend, whatever they required.

  They had been laying flowers, I realised once I got closer. An impromptu shrine had sprung up all along the school railings, with cards, teddy bears – balloons, even – and posters that featured pictures cut out of the newspapers. Jenny’s face appeared time after time in blurry, poorly reproduced newsprint. And of course there were bunches of flowers, gaudy in brightly coloured wrapping paper. Candles flickered wanly in the bright sunlight. While I waited for the girls to finish their little vigil I walked up and down along the railings, reading some of the cards and posters. A little angel taken too soon. We won’t forget you, Jennifer. Although I never knew you, I will always remember you … The collection spoke of a desperate need for people to involve themselves in the tragedy, to show how much it had affected them. It was spectacularly futile.

  I didn’t have to worry about getting the trio to talk to me; they came straight up to me as soon as they noticed I was there. And that was the difference between children and teenagers, I reflected. Another year and they would have walked the other way, just to avoid having to talk to a teacher. These girls were unsophisticated, trusting. Easy prey. Jenny had been the same way.

  ‘How are you doing?’ I asked sympathetically, leading them over to a bench that was safely out of bounds to the media, well inside the school grounds.

  Corinne, who was a beanpole, dark-skinned and slender, gave me a one-sided smile. ‘We’re OK. It’s just really hard to believe.’

  ‘Have the police spoken to you yet?’ I asked. Three heads shook in unison.

  ‘When they talk to you,’ I began, choosing my words carefully, ‘if they need to talk to you, you might find that they ask you about Jenny’s life.’

  Three heads nodded.

  ‘They might ask you about people that Jenny knew – friends.’

  More nodding.

  ‘Maybe about people who her parents didn’t know about,’ I suggested.

  Wide eyes at that from Corinne and Anna, whose little round face and sturdy body reminded me irresistibly of a hamster. Rachel’s blue eyes dropped to the ground and stayed there. Interesting.

  ‘You see, if Jenny had any secret friends, it might help the police to find whoever killed her,’ I said, watching to see if there was any reaction from Rachel. She had a naturally downturned mouth that gave her a sulky look in repose; usually this was misleading, but today maybe not. She didn’t move a muscle, and her eyes were still locked on the grass at our feet.

  Anna cleared her throat. She was looking even more upset than she had been earlier. ‘Jenny was friends with us, Miss, but we don’t know anything about who killed her, I promise …’

  I hurried to reassure her. ‘No one thinks that you’re involved, Anna. Just, if she mentioned anyone strange, anyone who might have asked her to do something, or asked to meet up with her, you’d remember that, wouldn’t you? Someone outside school? Maybe a boyfriend?’

  Corinne shook her head. ‘She definitely didn’t have a boyfriend. No way.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ I pressed. ‘No one at all? Rachel?’

  At that, she dragged her eyes back up and looked right at me, with a gaze so direct and guileless that I knew before she even spoke that she was about to lie. ‘No. No one.’

  ‘And would you know if she was having problems at home? Was anything bothering her?’

  Three nos. I gave a tiny sigh. This was useless. ‘OK,’ I said brightly. ‘Well, if anything occurs to you, don’t be afraid to talk to someone. You won’t get in trouble.’

  A chorus of yeses, thank yous and goodbyes and the three girls leaped to their feet. I watched them walk away and disappear around the side of the school. I’d done my best, but it was hard not to feel disheartened. I should tell someone about Rachel, tell Vickers or someone that I thought she had something to say that might be important. But who would listen to me? And how could I be sure I was right?

  I sat on the bench for a few minutes more, turning it over in my mind. There was nothing I could do, I decided in the end. I’d just have to wait for her to come to me. And having concluded that, I looked up to see a small figure coming across the car park. Rachel, unencumbered by her friends. She had allowed the neutral mask to drop, and her rounded, still-childish face was troubled as she approached me.

  ‘Miss Finch, I’m not sure, but – well …’ She looked back over her shoulder. ‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, because Jenny told me not to tell anyone.’

  I sat up, trying to look calm. ‘What is it, Rachel?’

  The girl was looking increasingly distressed. ‘You know how you said if she knew anyone? Someone out of school? Well, she showed me once, she had a picture of herself with – with her boyfriend.’

  ‘Her boyfriend? Are you sure?’ I was sounding far too excited; Rachel looked at me with doubt in her eyes and I realised how close she was to bolting, secrets untold. I took a deep breath and said, very gently, ‘Who was he?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was someone she saw after school.’

  ‘Every day?’

  Rachel shook her head. ‘No. She had a friend – a boy she knew. She used to go around to see him a couple of times a week.’

  ‘And it was him in the picture?’

  ‘No!’ Rachel was beginning to get frustrated with me. ‘He was just a friend. It was his older brother who she liked.’

  ‘OK,’ I said calmly. ‘And what was the brother’s name?’

  S
he shrugged. ‘She never said.’

  ‘Well, what was Jenny’s friend’s name?’

  ‘She never told me that either. I don’t know anything else about them except – except …’

  I waited.

  ‘Her boyfriend – the person in the picture was – he was old, Miss Finch. Grown-up. It was only the side of his face that I saw, because he was kissing her, but he was definitely a grown-up.’

  ‘Grown-up like a parent, or grown-up like me?’ There was no point in asking her to be more specific; we all looked ancient to twelve-year-olds, but I felt she wouldn’t be likely to confuse early twenties with mid-thirties and older.

  ‘Grown-up like you,’ she said. ‘Miss, do you really think that he … do you think he might know who killed Jenny?’

  The adult boyfriend of a twelve-year-old child, a girl who just happened to be murdered and dumped in a lonely patch of woodland? I imagine so, I thought, but what I actually said was, ‘Maybe. But don’t worry. You’ve done the right thing by telling me about it. And I’m sure the police will have found her friend already.’

  I spoke without really thinking, concentrating on my own train of thought. So it was really that simple – a misconceived crush leading to an unsuitable relationship that had ended in a crisis pregnancy and a clumsy, violent solution. All of the pieces were fitting into place. The police probably had him in custody already. I’d get them to speak to Rachel and she’d confirm what they knew already and it would all be over, pretty much. Justice would be done, Jenny would be avenged, the Shepherds and everyone else would grieve, but essentially everything would go back to normal. And I would have done something to help. Made a difference, even though it was too late to save Jenny.

  I noticed that Rachel was balancing on the outside edge of her feet in an ecstasy of agitation; I was missing something here, something important. ‘Don’t worry,’ I repeated. ‘They’ll know who it is and where to find him. Jenny’s parents will tell them.’

  When she spoke, her voice was high and tight with tears. ‘That’s the thing. She never told her parents where she was going. She always told them she was at my house, and they always believed her. I don’t know who her boyfriend was, and I lied for her, and now she’s dead.’

  Just under an hour later I arrived in Elaine’s office with Rachel and her mother in tow, to find DCI Vickers staring moodily out of the window. I guessed he wasn’t really seeing the beech trees outside. The overall impression he gave was of a man in the depths of despair. It certainly didn’t look as if the investigation was proceeding satisfactorily, as his press officer had suggested on the news that morning. On the other hand, this was the third or fourth time I’d seen him, and every time he had looked dispirited to the point of collapse, so it was probably best not to read too much into it.

  ‘Hello,’ I said quietly, tapping softly on the open door, and he turned, his hangdog expression lifting slightly. A split-second later, he clocked Rachel, who was standing a little bit behind me, still red-nosed and woebegone, drawing the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her hands compulsively. He looked back at me expectantly, fatigue swept aside by the razor-sharp acuity I had noticed before.

  ‘This is Rachel, one of Jenny’s friends,’ I said. ‘She’s just been telling me a couple of things about Jenny’s life out of school that I thought you would find interesting.’ I didn’t want to overplay it. I had been deliberately low-key with Mrs Boyd on the phone when I asked her to come up to the school, not wanting her to think that her daughter was the star witness in case she got into an overprotective flap. I hoped Vickers was reading between the lines.

  He smiled at her and all of the lines on his face creased into curves. ‘Rachel, is it? Thank you for coming to talk to me, Rachel. Is this your mum? Very good. We’ll just get ourselves into the little meeting room, and then we’ll have a chat, all right?’

  Without seeming to hurry, he had moved the two of them into a room that had been set up for interviews with armchairs and a coffee table. One of his female police officers appeared out of nowhere and sat to one side, notebook at the ready. I hesitated in the hallway, wondering if I should try to explain to Vickers that I had met Rachel by chance – that I hadn’t meant to interfere.

  The inspector crossed the room, intending to close the door, but stopped when he saw me standing there. He leaned out and muttered in a voice pitched too low for those inside the room to overhear, ‘Thanks, Sarah. You’ve been very helpful. I won’t keep you hanging around any longer.’

  And with that, he closed the door. I stood there for a couple of moments, looking at the blank, uninformative wood, nonplussed. I had the distinct feeling that I had been dismissed.

  1992

  Three days missing

  ‘We want you to do another TV spot.’

  The big policeman is sitting at the kitchen table. His shirt is dark under the arms and there are two damp half-moons on his chest. It’s hot in the kitchen and hot outside, but no one else is sweating. Every now and then, the policeman wipes his face, mopping the drops of liquid that roll down from his hairline to his jaw. He whispers to himself as he wipes the sweat away – oh God, oh Christ – so I am watching him intently, watching the beads of water prickle on the surface of his skin, swelling and joining up until they are heavy enough to slide downwards, like rain on a windowpane.

  ‘Another one?’ Dad says, and his face is grey. ‘What’s the problem? Wasn’t one enough?’

  The policeman spreads his hands out, helpless. ‘It did what it was supposed to do, but –’

  ‘It wasted everyone’s time. I told you there was no point to all that “please come home, you’re not in trouble” crap. As if Charlie wouldn’t be here if he could be. As if he’d stay away if he had the choice.’

  ‘I agree, it didn’t get us anywhere.’

  ‘So what point is there in doing it again?’

  ‘We’re changing the focus of the publicity. We now want to appeal to someone who might be with Charlie. We’re now concerned that he may be being held captive.’

  Dad folds his arms. ‘Oh, so you’ve finally decided that someone’s taken him, have you?’

  ‘It’s our view that it’s a definite possibility, yes.’ Mop mop mop. ‘Oh Christ …’ he whispers, then looks around the table with piteous eyes. ‘We’ve got to listen to the psychologist’s opinion. She knows how they operate. Paedophiles, I mean. She says we need to make them aware that Charlie is a real person, part of a family. Most of them would see a child like Charlie as a commodity, according to her, so we have to get through to them that he’s more than that.’

  Mum makes a tiny sound under her breath. Her eyes are closed and she is swaying in her seat. I edge around the table to stand next to her, leaning into her. She feels slight – fragile almost, as if I might break her. I butt up against her like a little goat, but she doesn’t respond.

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ Dad asks.

  ‘We want you to speak about Charlie on camera. We want to put him in a family context, maybe by looking at family photographs that include him. We want to release some new images of him to the media, and also get a film crew in here to get some footage of you as a family. All three of you.’

  I jump, a thrill of excitement running through me at the thought of being on TV. A big smile that I can’t stop spreads across my face. I hope the girls in my class will see me.

  ‘I don’t want her to be involved.’

  I don’t realise what Mum means straightaway. Then everyone around the table looks at me.

  ‘I know you want to protect your daughter from the publicity, but this is really, really important, Mrs Barnes,’ the policeman says, his face serious.

  Mum’s mouth is a thin line. ‘I don’t think it’s right for her to be on TV.’

  She doesn’t want me to be on TV because she knows how much I want it. She doesn’t want anything good to happen to me because I don’t deserve it. My knees are shaking so badly I can hardly stand up. ‘But Mum—’ I
start to say.

  Dad interrupts. ‘Laura, we have to do this.’

  She doesn’t answer him, just shakes her head, looking down into her lap where her hands are knotted together, working all the time. Her face is shuttered, blank.

  Dad tries again. ‘We have to do this. For Charlie.’

  That’s what he’s been saying all the time. Eat something, for Charlie. Talk to the police, for Charlie. Get some rest, for Charlie. It’s the one thing she can’t refuse.

  The TV crew set up their equipment in the garden. They tell us where to sit and what to do. I sit between my parents, the ruffles of my favourite dress foaming up between us. We are pretending to look through a photograph album – pictures of Charlie as a baby, then as a toddler with a red tricycle that I recognise. I played with it too. It’s still in the garden shed, though the paint is chipped and worn now.

  I’m waiting for the first picture of me, with Charlie leaning over the edge of the cot to look at me. I know exactly what page it’s on. I’ve looked at it many times, trying to recognise my own features in the little round red-faced bundle wrapped up in a blanket, one fat hand poking out. Mum turns the pages slowly, too slowly, stopping to sigh every now and then. When I look up, her face is twisted with grief.