The Missing

by Jane Casey

  ‘Thank you for coming in, Laura, Alan. And this must be Sarah. We’re going to have a little chat, Sarah – would you like that?’

  If I was braver, I would say no, but my father’s hand tightens on mine and I squeak something that sounds like yes.

  ‘Good girl. Would you like to come with me?’

  My father pulls my hand forward so the woman can take hold of it, and she starts to walk away, drawing me behind her, heading for a plain white door. I look back over my shoulder to where Mum and Dad are standing, not touching, watching me. Dad’s face is worried. Mum has a dead look, as if I mean nothing to her. Suddenly, I am afraid that they are going to leave, and I try to twist my hand out of the woman’s grasp, leaning away from her, back towards my parents, crying, ‘Mum, I don’t want to go.’

  Dad starts forward a pace and then stops. Mum doesn’t move an inch.

  ‘Now, don’t be silly,’ the woman says briskly. ‘I just want to have a talk with you in a special room. Your parents are going to be watching you on a little television. Come on.’

  I give in, following her through the door and down a corridor, to a small room with an armchair and a very old, sagging sofa. There are toys in a heap in the corner – dolls, teddy bears, an Action Man with felt hair whose arms are thrown up over his head.

  The woman says, ‘Why don’t you go and choose a doll to look after while we’re talking?’

  I go over and stand by the pile, looking at the tangle of legs and arms. I don’t really want to touch any of them. In the end, I pick the one on top of the pile, a floppy doll with a smiling face and bright red wool hair, wearing a frilled dress with a flowery pattern. Her face is painted on, and the paint has gone grey around her mouth and cheeks.

  I come back and sit down on the sofa, holding the doll stiffly. The woman sits in the armchair and watches me. She isn’t wearing make-up and her mouth is colourless, her lips almost invisible until she smiles. But she smiles often.

  ‘I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m a police officer, a detective constable. My name is DC Helen Cooper, but you can just call me Helen. I’ve got you to come here today to have a little talk with me about your brother, because we haven’t found him yet, have we? I just wanted to go through it with you one more time, in case you’d remembered anything since the police first talked to you.’

  I want to tell her that I haven’t remembered anything, that I’ve tried, but she doesn’t give me a chance to speak.

  ‘This is a special room with cameras to record what you and I say to each other. There’s one there, up in the corner –’ and she points with her biro at a white, boxy camera mounted near the ceiling ‘– and one over there on a stand. And what we’re saying is being recorded, so other people can listen to what you have to say. Don’t worry about them, though, just talk to me normally, because we’re just having a little conversation, aren’t we? So there’s nothing to be scared about.’

  I start to comb out the doll’s yarn hair with my fingers. It is stuck together in places with something that might be hardened snot.

  ‘Do you like school, Sarah?’

  I nod without looking up.

  ‘What’s your favourite subject?’

  ‘English,’ I whisper.

  She smiles widely. ‘I used to like English too. I like stories, don’t you? But do you know the difference between a story that someone has made up and something that really happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do we call it if someone pretends something happened, but it really didn’t?’

  ‘A lie.’

  ‘That’s right, good girl. Just say that I went out of the room and I left these papers here, and another police officer came in and ripped them up – if I came back and said, “Who ripped up my papers?” and the police officer said, “Sarah did,” what would that be?’

  ‘A lie,’ I say again.

  ‘But if the other police officer said, “I ripped them up,” what would that be?’

  ‘The truth.’

  ‘That’s right. And we’re only interested in the truth in this conversation, aren’t we? We only want to hear what really happened, don’t we?’

  But they don’t. They don’t want to hear that I don’t know anything. They don’t want to believe that I fell asleep, that I didn’t ask Charlie where he was going. Everyone wants me to tell the truth, but they want a better version of it than the one I can tell them, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  The questions are all the same: what I saw, what I heard, what Charlie said, when he left, whether anyone else was there. I answer automatically, without stopping to think much about what I’m saying.

  Then, all of a sudden, Helen leans forward and asks, ‘Are you trying to hide anything, Sarah? Are you trying to protect someone?’

  I look up, feeling cold. What does she mean?

  ‘If someone told you to tell us something that wasn’t true, you can tell me.’ Her voice is quiet, gentle. ‘You’re safe here. You won’t get in trouble.’

  I stare at her without saying anything. I can’t answer.

  ‘Sometimes people ask us to keep secrets, don’t they, Sarah? Maybe someone you love has asked you to keep something secret. Has your mummy asked you not to say something to us?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘What about your daddy? Has he asked you to pretend that something happened when it didn’t, or that something didn’t happen when it did?’

  I shake my head again, still staring at her. Her eyes don’t blink, I notice. She’s watching me intently.

  After a minute or two, she sits back. ‘OK. Let’s start again, shall we?’

  I answer Helen’s questions as best I can while I plait the red wool into two neat braids. Every time I finish, I undo the plaits so that I can start again, to get it right, to make it perfect. By the time Helen gives up, I almost like the rag doll and her faded, gentle face. I’m sorry to leave her in the stuffy little room, and I lay her down on top of the pile of toys while Helen stands by the door, clicking the top of her pen impatiently, her smile long gone.

  Chapter 6

  LATER, QUITE A long time later, Blake slept. He was as self-contained in sleep as he was in everyday life, his face serious, composed. I sat up, leaning on one elbow, and watched him for a while. I didn’t feel like sleeping yet. Nor did I want to wake up in the morning and feel, in the cold light of day, like I wasn’t welcome. Better to leave before he thought I should go.

  I flipped back the duvet and eased myself out of bed, careful not to disturb him, then hunted for my clothes in the half-light of the bedroom. My legs weren’t quite steady; I felt giddy, slightly drunk. I found my jeans and my pants together where I had slid them off – or had he? I couldn’t quite recall – but my bra was nowhere to be found. I searched the carpet, running my hands over it in a widening arc, finding nothing on the soft smooth pile but a butterfly earring back that didn’t belong to me. I smiled wryly to myself; no point in thinking that this was the first time Blake had entertained female company in his bedroom. I left the butterfly where it was and crept out into the hall, where my top was lying in a crumpled heap. Still no sign of my bra. I would have to go without. The thin silk fabric of my top was cool to the touch, and sent a light chill racing over my overheated skin as I pulled it down over my torso. I winced a little as I bent to pick up my bag from the floor; I was beginning to feel slightly sore in certain places. He had been gentle at first, and then had forgotten himself enough to be less so, which I had taken as a compliment. I couldn’t help playing it back in my mind, especially since I didn’t expect it to be anything more than a one-off. How could it be anything more? He’d been right; I should have been off limits. There wouldn’t be a next time.

  I caught sight of myself in the hall mirror on my way to the front door and didn’t know myself: eyeliner had smudged under my eyes and my hair was all over the place. I ran my fingers through it, shaking out the curls. There was nothing I could do with it, except to be
glad that it was unlikely anyone would see me on my way home at that hour – after one o’clock, I noted with a mild sense of surprise, wondering where I had lost the time, knowing full well that it had been in Andy Blake’s arms, on the first or maybe the second time.

  I drew the front door close behind me, not daring to shut it properly in case the sound woke him, gambling that he was unlikely to be burgled. I walked down the stairs, too wound up to wait for the lift. I could still feel him on me, in me as I unlocked my car. I sat there for a second before starting the engine, looking at my hands on the steering wheel as if I’d never seen them before. I should have spoken to him before I left – sneaking out guaranteed that it would be awkward when I saw him next. But I couldn’t deal with reality now. I couldn’t deal with seeing regret on his face when he woke up. It was no one else’s business, what we had done. As long as he kept it to himself, I would do the same. And no one need ever know.

  When I turned off the main road into the Wilmington Estate, I decided on a whim not to go straight home. There was something I had been avoiding that I felt I should do, and there would never be a better time to do it unobserved. I drove past the entrance to my road, carrying on up the central road that curved through the estate. The houses on either side of the road looked deserted in the harsh orange streetlights. Nothing moved, and for a moment I felt as if I was the only one alive on the whole estate, in all of Elmview. I turned right, then right again, following a half-remembered route to a small open space surrounded by houses, where the far-sighted 1930s planners had left a place for children to play. My parents had once taken us to a fireworks display there; we had had sparklers, and I had cried at the noise of the rockets. Near there, as far as I knew, was Morley Drive. I had to hunt around a bit, going the wrong way a couple of times, but I had the general direction right and eventually I spotted it. I drove down the narrow road, scanning both sides until I saw the police car parked on the pavement. It would have to be outside Jenny’s house, I reasoned, as I started to look for a space. I found one a few car-lengths away from the police car on the opposite side of the road and pulled in.

  The red-brick house was familiar to me from the news; it seemed strange to see it in real life. The curtains were all closed, blankly uninformative, and I wondered if the Shepherds were living there or if they had fled to neutral territory, away from the media. The house looked immaculate in the orange glare of the streetlights, neatly painted, the hedge trimmed, a cherry tree in the front garden still dappled with blossom. But as I looked closer I could see a large hand-tied bouquet standing in the porch with another bunch of flowers laid beside it. The grass straggled over the kerbstones that lined the driveway, as if mowing the lawn had been put off a couple of times. When would that be a priority for the Shepherds again, if ever? Who could be bothered to care about the appearance of their house when they had lost the most important thing in it?

  I sat in the car and just looked at the house. I didn’t know what I had hoped to see. I had just wanted to be there, to see for myself how close to me Jenny had lived out the short span of her days, to pay my respects, to take a sounding of the Shepherds’ grief and know it as I knew my own. The small signs of neglect that I could see from where I sat were like blemishes on an overripe pear, tokens of rot that ran to the core. There had been no outward sign of the corruption that ran through the Shepherds’ daughter, but it had been there all the same, and when the press got wind of it, if they hadn’t already, the Shepherds would lose Jenny all over again. I shivered at the thought, at the tabloid editor’s dream and middle-class mother’s nightmare that was the pretty child with a double life. Poor Jenny, with her innocent face and her grown-up problems. She had been an only child. Did that make it less likely that the Shepherds would one day recover? Would it matter to them that they had each other? Maybe if they found out what had happened to her, and who was responsible, it would help. It was the not knowing that had corroded my family. My parents had come apart instead of drawing together, and I had fallen into the gap between them.

  A thought was beginning to form somewhere at the back of my mind – an idea. I had spent so long not thinking about Charlie, not allowing him to be a part of my life. I had tried to forget about him, and it made it all the harder to live with his loss. I needed to confront what had happened to him. No one else was going to do it. The police were not likely to be helpful about a case that had run out of leads sixteen years before. I couldn’t expect anyone else to care. But I cared, I admitted to myself. Jenny’s death was resonating in my own life. I needed to find some answers, or at the very least know that I had tried. I had wanted to help the Shepherds when really I needed to help myself. And no one would tell me I couldn’t, I thought, my cheeks warm at the recollection of Blake’s warning earlier in the day. It was well worth doing a bit of research. OK, so I probably wouldn’t solve the case, but I should really understand what had happened to my brother. The bare facts were familiar enough, but undoubtedly there was a lot of nuance that I was too young to understand at the time. Not to mention the fact that a lot of water had flowed under various bridges since 1992. It couldn’t hurt to see if any connections could be made between Charlie’s disappearance and other crimes that had occurred locally since then. I might see something that everyone else had missed.

  It felt good to make that decision; for the second time that night, it felt as if I was taking control. I had seen enough in Morley Drive. It was time to go home. I took one last look at the Shepherds’ house, then turned the key in the ignition. With a wet cough, the engine failed to catch. I swore quietly and tried again, and then again, horribly self-conscious about the noise I was making. The car rattled unhelpfully a couple of times and then fell silent. Nothing. I smacked the steering wheel in frustration, and even though it had zero effect on the car and hurt me quite a bit, I felt slightly better. It wasn’t the first time my car had let me down, but the timing was horrendous. I couldn’t think of calling the AA at that hour of the night. It would cause a fuss in the quiet street, and draw attention to me, attention that I profoundly did not want. However, I wasn’t far from home. I could walk. At least it hadn’t happened at Blake’s. I imagined myself returning to his flat five minutes after stealing away, to ask if I could have a lift home. Embarrassing would not have been the word.

  The night air was like cold fingers running up my bare arms. I hadn’t thought to bring a jacket. I locked the car, even though there was nothing of value in it and it was unlikely to be stolen, unless someone wanted it badly enough to tow it away. They were welcome to it, I thought sourly, dropping the keys into my bag, but I didn’t mean it really. I loved my car, unreliable and shabby though it was. I found some comfort in the thought that there was a police car nearby, that someone would be keeping an eye on it until the following morning, when I could get it back on the road. I wouldn’t even allow myself to consider the possibility that what I had just heard from it was a last-gasp death rattle. I needed it to work. Until it did, I was effectively grounded.

  My footsteps sounded unnaturally loud on the pavement as I walked quickly back along the road, wondering if there was any sound as lonely as someone walking on their own in the small hours of the morning. A faint bloom of condensation blurred my reflection in the car windows as I passed and I folded my arms across my chest, hugging myself for warmth. When I breathed out, my breath misted in front of me for a split second. The ice-white moon shone in chill perfection, high and remote. The clear night had let the warmth of the day seep away. My bag swung against my hip rhythmically as I walked; I was jangling as loudly as a caravan of fully laden camels in the desert. I expected at any minute that someone would pull open their curtains to glare at me as I passed.

  It seemed to take a long time to get back to the main road. I crossed over, checking both ways automatically, even though I would have heard anything coming a mile off. The road stretched away into the distance; it was a good ten-minute walk to Curzon Close from where I was. I started walking
on the grass strip that bordered the road rather than the pavement, muffling my footsteps deliberately. The dew saturated the bottom of my jeans and my feet slipped wetly in my sandals. A playing field was dark and deserted on my right and I swallowed, assuring myself that I was not afraid. The goose bumps, dry mouth and damp palms were caused by something else entirely.

  Nearly there. Nearly home.

  As I walked into Curzon Close, something crunched under my feet. Broken glass lay scattered all over the ground, a cluster of orange sparkles showing where the streetlight glinted on the mazy remains of a wine bottle. The air was heavy with the sweet musky smell of cheap wine. I slowed down, trying to avoid the worst of the glass, conscious that my toes were unprotected in my sandals. The night was still, with no breeze to disperse the smell – the bottle could have fallen hours before. There was no one behind me, no one lurking in the shadows, no reason for the hairs on the back of my neck to be standing on end. On the other hand, there was no harm in checking. I stopped and half turned to look behind me, pretending to be casual about it, ready to run if I had to, and saw nothing at all that would make my heart pound in my chest. I shook my head, annoyed with myself, and rummaged in my bag for my keys. As I walked up the path to the front door, I was aware of nothing but relief. I know I didn’t hear a sound, and only half saw the shape detaching itself from the overgrown bushes as I passed. Without being properly conscious of what was happening, acting on pure instinct, I ducked, twisting away so the blow that was aimed at the back of my head landed across my shoulder. It connected with shattering force and I fell hard, landing on one knee. The pain ran up into my hip like fire.

  I don’t think I lost consciousness, but I was quite a long way from alert in the minutes after he struck me. I was floating, lost in a sea of agony, too shocked to put anything like a coherent thought together, and when hands grabbed me under the arms and hauled me to my feet, I didn’t try to resist. I lolled against the warm bulk behind me, as limp as a rag doll. My left arm hung down by my side, useless, and I couldn’t feel it. With strange detachment I wondered why that might be, while at the same time I knew that there was something much more important to worry about. Slowly, painfully, the distant alarm bells I could hear came closer and louder, until they were jangling in my mind, drowning everything else out. I’m in danger, I thought. I should do something about that.