The Missing

by C. L. Taylor

  When I stopped outside the Mama Valerie’s I was convinced that Billy had secretly had a tattoo of his design inked somewhere on his body but I must have seen or heard something that made me change my mind.

  I know you were sleeping with Billy. I know about the tattoo. I know you were responsible for his disappearance. And so do the police.

  Mark, Jake, Stephen, Kira, Lloyd, Liz and Caleb.

  Do I really believe one of them would have hurt my son? Seven months ago I wouldn’t have. But now?

  I move my thumb over the thick, clunky buttons and hit “send.”

  Chapter 60

  20:16.

  20:17.

  20:18.

  In my house Mark, Jake and Stephen are still in the kitchen. They drift into view, then out again. Mark’s and Stephen’s arms are still crossed. Their expressions are strained. As I watch, Jake walks past the landing window toward the bedrooms. Seconds later he walks back the other way and reappears in the kitchen. Liz’s front door remains closed.

  20:19.

  20:20.

  20:21.

  My heart catches in my throat as the door to Liz’s house flies open and Lloyd storms out, his palms pressed to his temples. A split second later Liz appears behind him with Caleb at her side.

  “A baby?” she screams as Lloyd marches down the garden path. Caleb grabs her arm and tries to wrestle her back into the house but she shakes him off and runs after her husband.

  “You want me to sell the house so you can have a baby with some slag you met at work?” she shouts as Lloyd heads for the Alfa Romeo. The sidelights flash as he points his key fob at it.

  “Melissa,” he shouts back. “She has a name and she’s more of a lady than you’ll ever be.”

  “What about him?” Liz turns and points toward Caleb. “He’s your child too. Or have you forgotten that?”

  She launches herself at Lloyd, arms whirling. One of her hands makes contact with the side of his head and he twists away, an arm raised to protect himself as he wrenches at the car door.

  “Mum, don’t! He’s not worth it.” Caleb appears at her side and tries to pull her away but she shakes him off and lunges at Lloyd again.

  “Listen to Caleb,” Lloyd shouts as his son wraps his arms around his angry, squirming mother and lifts her clean off her feet. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  Liz howls with rage but Caleb is too strong and she can only watch as Lloyd slips into the driver’s seat, slams the door and starts the engine. As the car pulls away Liz’s howls turn to sobs. My heart twists in my chest as Caleb gently sets her back on her feet, then turns her back toward the path and half-leads, half-carries her back into the house.

  As the front door of number 10 closes I look back at the phone.

  20:25. No reply to the text I sent.

  20:26.

  20:27.

  The door to my house opens and Stephen appears on the step with his phone in his hand. He raises it to eye level. Moments later he tucks the phone into the pocket of his jacket and stares out into the fading light. For one terrible second I think he can see me but then Mark appears behind him and puts his hand on his shoulder.

  Stephen glances around, nods and then takes a step onto the path. Mark follows, then Jake. Mark says something I can’t hear before all three men walk down the path in single file. When they reach the pavement Stephen looks back at Mark. He indicates that he should turn left. Stephen nods and sets off again, with Mark and Jake following behind him. As they disappear down the road in the direction of the pub Jake says something to Mark who laughs and puts his arm around his son’s shoulders. Kira appears briefly in the kitchen then disappears from view.

  20:29.

  I pull my coat tighter around me and shiver, but not because I’m cold. I feel tired, confused and embarrassed. I don’t know what I was expecting to happen when I sent that text. A reply? A confession? For the person who was responsible for Billy’s disappearance to come flying out of one of the houses, jump into a car and speed away?

  What if someone walked past and spotted me here; crouched in the bushes, spying on my own family? I need to go back to Dr. Evans and ask her if there’s any way she can speed up the request for a CAT scan. Or beg for medication. Valium or something. There must be a drug I can take to prevent this from happening again. I can’t live like this anymore. It needs to stop.

  I open my handbag and drop both phones into it, check that the coast is clear and then step out from the bushes. The park is still empty.

  I make my way toward the gate a few feet away. The park is supposed to be locked at night but the gate has been broken for months. I make a mental note to ring the council about it in the morning as I head toward the house. I step onto the path, stop and look up at the first floor windows. The landing light is still on and Kira is standing at the top of the stairs. There is something in her hands. Something long and white like a looped dressing-gown cord. She lifts it into the air and then, almost in slow motion, lowers it over her head.

  Chapter 61

  I twist my key in the lock.

  Nothing happens.

  I twist it again but the back door doesn’t budge. It’s been double-locked from the inside.

  “Kira!” I pound on the door with both fists, then run around to the front of the house and stare up at the landing window. She’s vanished.

  “Kira!” I run back to the door, twist the key in the lock and barge against the door with my shoulder. It doesn’t give an inch but the glass panel at the top rattles.

  There are two small bay trees in ornate pots on either side of the door. Liz gave them to me for Christmas. I pick up the slightly smaller one and hurl it at the panel, then press my handbag against the jagged glass at the bottom and reach my arm through the hole.

  I fumble at the catch as I search blindly for the button that releases the double-lock.

  “Come on, come on, come on.”

  I flick it to the side, turn the key in the lock and press my shoulder into the door. It swings open and I fall inside.

  “Kira!” I scream as I run through the kitchen. “Kira, no! Don’t! Don’t!”

  My heart is in my mouth as I reach the bottom of the stairs.

  “I’m so sorry, Claire.”

  Kira is balancing awkwardly on the wrong side of the landing banister. There’s a noose around her neck made from the belt of my white terry cloth dressing gown. She’s holding on to the railing but her toes hang over the ledge. One step forward and she’ll drop at least ten feet.

  “Kira,” I say as her eyes fill with tears. “Don’t do this. Whatever you’ve done, whatever’s happened, we can talk about it.”

  She closes her eyes.

  “Please don’t do this, Kira. Let me ring Jake and—”

  She moves to takes a step into the void and I scream.

  The sound makes her draw back again. The skin stretches over her knuckles as she tightens her grip on the banister. It’s not just her legs that are shaking. It’s her whole body.

  “Okay, okay. No Jake. No one else. Just you and me. Just you and me, Kira.”

  She doesn’t move or open her eyes. She doesn’t speak or react in any way but I know she’s listening.

  “You can talk to me,” I say. “You can talk to me about anything. I want to make things better. I want to help you.”

  A low moan escapes from her throat.

  “It’s true.” I place a foot on the bottom step of the stairs. Kira’s eyes fly open as it creaks under my weight.

  “I’ll jump,” she says. “If you come upstairs I swear I’ll jump.”

  “Okay, okay.” I hold out my hands in surrender and take a step back. “I’m not going to try anything. I’m not going to touch you. I promise. All right?”

  She doesn’t reply. Instead she continues to stare at me as I take another step backward. She doesn’t look afraid. Her large blue eyes are completely devoid of any emotion. I’ve never been more scared in my life.

  “I’
ll stay back here,” I say. “But I need you to promise me you won’t do anything silly. Whatever’s happened, whatever it is that you’re worried about, we can deal with it. I love you. We all do. You know that, don’t you?”

  She doesn’t reply but I see something spark behind her eyes. Relief? Is that what it is? She’s relieved because I’ve said the right thing. Oh, thank God. Thank—

  “No!” I scream as she mouths the word, Sorry, and steps free from the ledge.

  Chapter 62

  “NO!”

  I lurch forward and reach for Kira’s legs as she drops through the air. I manage to grab hold of her calves and try desperately to hoist her upwards but she’s too heavy and she oscillates wildly above me, tipping from left to right as one outstretched hand smacks against the banister, the wall, the banister. Her fingernails scratch at wood and then paint as she tries and fails to grab hold of either. Her other hand is up by her neck, tugging at the dressing-gown cord that bites into her skin. A terrible gasping, choking sound fills the air as she fights to breathe.

  “Help!” I scream. “Help! Somebody help me!”

  I try to change position, to move the heel of my hand from under the sole of Kira’s foot so I can get a better grip but as I do she kicks out, thumping me in the side of the head. I fight to keep my balance, to keep her leg up in the air, but my ankle twists beneath me and I fall.

  “What the fuck?”

  Caleb thunders up the stairs and suddenly Liz is beside me. She grabs Kira’s foot as it slips from my fingers and hoists it into the air. She reaches up for the other foot and, as she grabs it, Kira’s head smacks against the corner of the banister. Her hand falls from her throat and she closes her eyes. She is deathly pale.

  “Claire!” Liz shouts as Kira’s legs go limp in her arms but I’m already beside her. I reach up and grab hold of Kira’s hips and heave them up in the air. My arms shake. She’s too heavy. I’m going to drop her.

  “I’ve nearly done it,” Caleb shouts from above us as his clumsy fingers pick at the white cord wrapped around the banister. “Have you got her? As soon as this is undone she’s going to fall.”

  Liz and I adjust our positions so that, between us, we are holding Kira’s near-horizontal body above our heads. Her head lolls on her neck, eyes closed, and her arms dangle at her sides.

  Please let her be okay, I repeat over and over in my head. Please, please God, let her be okay.

  “There!” Caleb shouts and the dressing-gown cord drifts down from the banister and lands on Kira’s chest.

  “Ring nine-nine-nine!” Liz screams as we lower Kira’s limp body to the carpet, but Caleb already has the phone pressed against his cheek.

  “Ambulance,” he barks. “Number eleven Whitehart Road. Kira Simmons, nineteen. She’s just tried to hang herself. I don’t think she’s breathing.”

  Chapter 63

  Jake’s face is white as he walks back into the waiting area. We’re back in the hospital after returning home just after eleven last night. None of us has slept.

  “Kira wouldn’t say why she did it,” Jake says, his voice thick with emotion, as he approaches the plastic chairs where I’m sitting beside Mark. “She didn’t say anything. Not a word. She wouldn’t even look at me. I don’t know why she’d do something like that, Mum. I don’t . . .” The muscle in his jaw pulses as he stares at the ceiling, fighting back tears.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” I wrap my arms around him and pull him in to me. There are other families in the waiting area with us. I can feel their eyes on us but I don’t care.

  “I don’t get it.” Jake gently removes my hands from his shoulders and slumps into a chair beside Mark. “I just don’t get it.”

  “She seemed fine.” My husband sits forward in his seat and rests his forearms on his thighs. “I spoke to her yesterday morning and she seemed really excited about the exhibition. She was really quiet when she got back from college, but she so often is . . .” He trails off.

  Everything happened very quickly when I arrived at A&E in the ambulance with Kira last night. She regained consciousness en route but was groggy and confused when the medic asked her name and whether she was in any pain. She was lying on a stretcher, packed into a vacuum mattress with an oxygen mask over her face. Once at A&E she was wheeled into a booth and immediately seen by a doctor who asked me a series of questions about what I’d seen—how far she’d fallen and how long she was suspended from the banister before the ligature was untied. As I answered he checked her breathing and hooked her up to a heart monitor. Kira passed out as he was attending to her and he shouted something about intubation and asked me to leave the cubicle. That’s when I called Jake.

  “How is she physically?” Mark asks.

  Jake shrugs. “The doctor said she’s okay. She’s breathing on her own and he doesn’t think she’s done any damage to her brain, heart or spine but”—he touches his throat—“she’s got a red speckled mark that goes all the way round her neck. I couldn’t look at it.”

  “Thank God you came home when you did,” Mark says, looking at me. “If you’d have stayed at your mum’s like you were supposed to . . .” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Are you going to text Liz again and let her know that Kira’s woken up?”

  I nod but, as I do, a cold, sick feeling twists in my stomach. I still haven’t told them everything that happened yesterday. When Jake arrived at the hospital with Mark last night he was in a terrible state, demanding that the doctors let him see Kira, begging them not to let her die. It tore me up, seeing him like that. I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t my fault she’d tried to hang herself, that I still didn’t know for sure whether she was the one I’d sent the text to. I kept telling myself that, all the way home after a nurse told us that Kira had been stabilized but we wouldn’t be able to see her until visiting hours today.

  The second I got in I plugged my phone charger into the wall. It took forever to flicker back to life and my hand shook as I scrolled through my list of contacts.

  The number on the new phone matched a number in mine.

  I’d sent the text to Kira.

  Before I could decide what to do next Liz popped in to see how we were. She told me what had happened after I’d shouted at her to ring Mark and then clambered into the front of the ambulance with the driver.

  She’d called him straightaway and told him to get to the hospital with Jake. A couple of minutes later the police arrived. They spoke to Liz and Caleb at length about what had happened. Liz told them that she’d heard glass breaking and she’d come around with Caleb to see what was going on. She described what she’d seen and said it was definitely a suicide attempt. The police seemed convinced and told her they’d contact the hospital to check Kira had survived and would be in touch if they had any concerns. After they left she locked up the house with her spare key and Caleb nailed some wood over the broken panel in the door.

  “How’s Jake?” she asked as I slipped the new phone off the kitchen counter and into my pocket.

  “Not good. Mark’s with him in the living room.”

  “Wine.” It was more of an order than a question so I pointed her in the direction of a bottle of red and two glasses.

  “That poor girl,” she said as she handed me one. “I had no idea she was that unhappy. Did you?” She looked at me, as though waiting for a response, then continued. “I wonder if it was the stress of her exhibition. Or something to do with Jake? Had they been arguing?”

  I shook my head.

  “Had her mum been in touch? Fucking bitch. Who treats their child like that? Didn’t you tell me that her dad killed himself? It wasn’t the anniversary or anything, was it?” She pulled out a chair and topped up her glass. “Did I tell you that Lloyd came around tonight? He’s only bloody knocked up the woman he left me for. Someone from work. Melissa he said her name was. Never heard of her. Anyway, he wants to get a divorce and sell the house
so he can buy somewhere for her and the baby. Can you fucking believe it? I know he doesn’t give two shits about me but you’d have thought he wouldn’t want Caleb thrown out on the street. Wouldn’t you, Claire? Wouldn’t you think—

  “Oh Jesus!” She jumped up as my glass shattered on the floor and a blood-red stain puddled around my feet. “Claire, your wine! Are you okay? Don’t worry. I’ll mop it up.”

  “Claire. Claire, love.” Mark taps me on the knee. “I think we should go in now.”

  It takes me a couple of seconds to register where I am. “I’m sorry?”

  “To see Kira,” he says. “Jake said he wants to get off home soon but we haven’t seen Kira yet. You ready?”

  I shake my head. I still feel as though I’m hovering six feet above my body.

  “I’d like to see her alone for a bit.” The words sound as though someone else is speaking them. “Is that okay?”

  Chapter 64

  She has her back to me. Her long blond hair is a mass of tangles and a thin white hospital blanket has been pulled up and over her shoulders. The curtain has been pulled around her bed to give her some privacy but the ward is alive with the sound of other patients coughing and sniffing and talking in low voices.

  “Kira? Kira, it’s Claire.”

  I sit down in the chair at the head of her bed. There is a jug of water and a glass on the small table beside me. Kira’s back rises and falls soundlessly as she breathes in and out. I spoke to her doctor on my way into the ward. She told me that apart from the marks on her neck which will take a few weeks to fade, Kira has no other injuries. Her heart and brain function are fine. There are no injuries to her spine and, despite intubation after she was admitted, there are no problems with her respiration.

  “She was very, very lucky,” the doctor said.

  “Kira,” I say again. “Kira, can you hear me?”