by Matt Shaw
“Nike,” I said. I half expected mum to say something - especially given the standard of shoe I had picked up for Lewis. She didn’t say anything. More pressing things on her mind.
“Okay, we’ll start with Lewis... and then you,” he pointed to the brunette, “and then we’ll check for your daughter,” he said to the blonde.
We all nodded. There was nothing else we could do, after all. It’s not as though we knew how to use the equipment in the office. The security officer turned to me, again, and asked, “Do you know the approximate time?”
“Probably about quarter past four,” I said.
“Okay...” he pushed past the brunette lady to get to the screens, “excuse me, please.” We all shuffled around to give him the necessary space to get to the desk.
A few buttons were pushed and all the screens flicked to various different images of some of the random stores, within the centre, before it settled on the store-front of Nike. We watched as people walked backwards into and out of the store - as the security guard rewound the tape to the required timeframe, which was displayed in the top right of the monitor’s screen.
“About quarter past four....” he confirmed.
I didn’t say anything, there was no need, as we saw Lewis come out of the store, on the screen. Pretty much quarter past four on the dot.
“That’s my baby,” said mum. She broke down into tears. “My baby...” she reached out for the screen but the security guard stopped her.
“We need to see...”
It was strange seeing Lewis throwing his strop from another angle. I watched as he threw himself back against the glass window before sliding down it until he was sat on the floor.
“I watched him do that,” I said, “I didn’t think he was going to go anywhere... I just thought he was having another tantrum...” I looked at mum, hoping she would have agreed with me in that it didn’t look as though he was going anywhere. She didn’t say a word. I could see she was fighting back her tears and, if anything, looked a little embarrassed at the, obvious, bad behaviour of her son. Maybe she didn’t hear me, “I didn’t think he was going anywhere, mum...” I noticed the other two women were looking at me with pity in their eyes. Having lost their own children, they must have known how easy it was to lose them in the crowds. A glance to the security guard and he was still engrossed in the monitors.
“Who’s that?” asked the officer.
I looked to the monitor and saw the same clown, from earlier, talking with Lewis.
“Some clown,” I said, “he was trying to cheer Lewis up earlier...”
“And you didn’t think to say anything?” mum asked.
“I didn’t get a chance to say anything, the first time... he told the man to fuck off.”
“What?!” mum looked horrified.
“He told him to fuck off and I dragged him away.... we went, from there, to the Nike shop,” I said. “I told you...”
“You didn’t tell me what he said,” said mum. Now she looked really embarrassed.
“He’s leaving,” the officer said. I turned back to the monitor, avoiding mum’s stare and saw the clown leaving Lewis... leaving the shot. “Maybe he was just trying to cheer him up again... he looks pretty upset,” the guard finished.
Lewis didn’t move, to start with, he just kept sitting there - against the window where I knew he was. A couple more minutes went by, on the monitor, when he suddenly stood up and walked off in the same direction as the clown...
“He’s following the man,” said mum. “He’s following him!” She turned back to me again, “You see what you’ve done?!”
“The toy shop is in the direction he’s walking,” I said.
The security officer flicked through various camera angles until he found the store front of the toy shop. He set the time back a bit and we waited.... hoping to see Lewis walk into the store. Approximately six minutes went by before we suddenly saw me run into the shop. I looked at mum and wondered whether she saw how worried I looked. I hope she did. A couple of minutes went by, on the screen, and I came back out again. If only he had been in there.
“Okay, so we aren’t sure where he went but at least the tape shows he wandered off by himself...” said the guard.
“What did that man say to him? Maybe he went off to meet him....” asked mum.
“The cameras don’t pick up sound,” he replied.
The security officer turned to the blonde lady, “Do you remember the approximate time?”
“That’s it?” said mum - as though she expected Lewis to suddenly be found.
“You’ve seen your son just wandered off,” said the woman, suddenly getting angry.... “Let me see if my daughter did the same or whether she was snatched...”
Mum ignored the blonde woman and turned back to the security officer, “You must know the company who sent the clown... call them up.... they can get him to give us a ring... let us know what he said... it might help...”
The security guard nodded, “I’ll look the company up just as soon as I’ve checked the other children,” he said.
Mum went to say something else but the blonde lady butted in before she could get a word out, “It was the hole in the wall downstairs... next to the gadget shop and toilets.”
The guard nodded and flicked through the screens until he found the one of the cash machines next to the gadget shop. It wasn’t the best of camera angles but it was better than nothing. “Do you know what time it was?”
The woman shook her head, “Five, I think...”
We all watched as the time counter, in the corner of the screen, whizzed to five o’clock. People, on the screens, coming into and leaving the shot - some with bags of shopping, some stopping to use the cash machines and others disappearing through the doors to the toilet.
“STOP!” shouted the blonde haired lady.
The security guard hit play, slowing the camera’s down to normal speed in the process. There, on the screen, we saw her slide her bank card into the cash machine. Behind her, a few feet away, we saw her daughter.
“That’s her,” she said.
The body language of the little girl, same sort of age as Lewis I would have guessed, was that of someone who was upset. Couldn’t tell from her facial expressions, though. The camera footage was too grainy. No one said anything as we continued to watch the little girl - waiting to see what she did next. Like Lewis, did she wander off too or was there someone else involved.
“Is she upset?” asked the brunette lady.
“I had just shouted at her,” said the blonde woman. “She wanted to go home but I hadn’t finished with what I needed to get done...”
“Look,” said the security guard.
The little girl on the screen suddenly turned towards the toilet door. A second or two went by. She looked to her mum and then back to the toilet door.... and then she went through it. The door slammed shut behind her. At not one stage did her mother turn around.
“No, I checked in the toilet... she wasn’t in there... it was the first place I checked...” said the lady. True to her word, on the screen she was frantically looking for her daughter. She disappeared into the toilet - out of shot for seconds before she re-appeared without her child.
Just as mum had reacted, the woman started to cry. The other lady, the brunette, put her arm around her. Little comfort for a missing child.
“Can you rewind it to when the girl went into the toilet?” said mum.
The security guard nodded and rewound the recording back to where the girl was looking at the toilet door.
“Can you pause it?” mum asked.
The security guard nodded, “Now?”
“Not yet...”
The girl, on screen, opened the door to the toilet again and mum shouted, “There! Pause it! Look! What is that?”
Both mum and the security guard peered closer to the screen to see what mum had spotted. I didn’t need to, though. I knew what she had seen. “It’s a bit of a clown’s shoe,” I s
aid.
“What? What do you mean?” asked the blonde mother - a look of concern on her face.
“The clown who was trying to cheer Lewis up, he was wearing these big red shoes... that looks like it’s part of one of the shoes...”
The girl on the screen was even looking up. As though she was looking to someone, in the toilet, who was out of camera shot.
“There wasn’t a clown in the toilets though,” said the mother. “I went in there... there wasn’t a clown.... one locked cubicle....”
“He could have been in the cubicle,” I said.
“Then where’s my daughter?”
No one wanted to say it but we all knew where she could have been. She could have been locked in the cubicle with Pogo the clown. The security guard un-paused the camera and we waited. First the mother went into the toilet before coming back out.... and then we waited... and waited.... fifteen minutes went by, on the screen, before the door opened again and a tall woman, dragging a suitcase behind her, came out.
“Who’s that?” asked the security guard.
No one knew the answer.
“Was the clown a woman?” the security guard turned to me.
“No. Definitely a man.”
The security guard hit fast forward again and, again, we watched as people went in and out of the toilet. As the time got closer to when the centre closed, the visitors got less and less. Before long the screen was empty and remained so.
“Where is she?” asked the mother. “Is she still in there?!” No one said anything. “Can you come with me to check?” she asked the security guard.
I stepped forward, “I’ll come with you.” Anything to get out of the security office. “Is that okay?” I asked the guard. He nodded.
“What about my son?” asked the brunette lady.
“I’ll check for him now.... you said you were in a clothes shop?” said the security guard.
I turned to the blonde lady, “Ready?”
She nodded, “Yes please...”
I walked over to mum and gave her a kiss on the cheek, “I’ll be back soon...” She didn’t react in any way - just kept looking at the screen whilst the security guard hunted for the necessary camera.
7.
“Thank you for coming with me,” said the blonde lady.
“No worries, I’m just happy to get out of the office...”
“Have you been in there for long?”
“Since half four, although I did step out to have another look around to see if I could find my brother. I’m Alex, by the way.”
“Jackie.”
I would have said it was nice to meet her, as we walked down the staff corridor towards the double doors which would lead us to the shopping centre, but... we were only meeting because we had both lost someone close to us. It would have been nicer for us to both be at home, or on the way home at least, having successfully come to town to get the bits we needed before venturing back to our houses. It would have been nicer, still, to be stuck in a traffic jam, outside of the centre... anywhere would have been nicer than here right now.
“Do you think she’ll be there?” Jackie said.
I pushed one of the doors open and held it there so she could pass through.
“I’m not sure,” I said. I didn’t want to give her any false hopes by saying ‘yes’ - pretending that everything was going to work out okay. I don’t think she will still be in the toilet. Why would she be? There’s no reason for a child to stay somewhere like that - especially without their parent. Fine - it’s possible had they been somewhere like a toy shop, or a playground but... I’ve never known a child who actively wanted to stay in a public toilet.
I let Jackie lead the way to the restrooms; down the escalators, which had now been switched off - by the other security guards I presumed - and right past a row of different stores, towards the entrance to the shopping centre. I recognised we were in the right place as soon as we got there, from the images I saw on the monitors.
“I’m scared,” she said to me. “What if she’s not in here?”
I didn’t know the right words to offer her any sort of comfort.
Maybe I wasn’t the right person to have escorted her.
All this.... all this is new to me.
“What then?” she asked.
I gave her a sympathetic smile. It was all new to me but I knew exactly what she was going through. I had been going through it too and had the same thoughts when I was running around the stores, earlier, trying to find him - both before I went to the security office and after, when I decided it would be worthwhile to have another look for Lewis.
“Did you want me to go in?” I asked.
She nodded.
I was afraid of that.
“What’s her name?” I asked. If the girl was in there, stuck in one of the cubicles, she’d be scared. She might feel better if I knew her name, at least. I could reassure her, and tell her that her mum is outside, before coming back out to get Jackie to come in with me.
“Lisa,” Jackie replied.
She wiped a tear from her cheek with a shaky hand.
“I’ll be right back,” I said.
I wonder if the security guard is currently watching us. I hope so. I’d feel a little better if I knew someone else was watching. Was that really the clown’s foot we saw on the screen? They didn’t come out either. What if the clown is still in here?
I hate clowns.
I think I hate the smiling ones worse.
There’s something really sinister about them.
Stephen Fucking King.
I’ll never read one of his books again, I swear.
With a shaking hand, I reached out and pushed the door open, before I peered into the room. White tiled floors, white walls, a flowery scent... the scent I didn’t expect. Not compared to the smells you normally get in the men’s public toilets - a mixture of crap and piss.
We should learn something from the female of the species, I thought, keep our toilets nice too.
That’s cool, keep thinking things like that.
Keep your mind focused on something other than clowns.
Dammit.
Thinking about clowns again.
“Lisa?” I called out.
No reply came.
Surely, if she were in the room... surely she would have responded. The door slammed shut behind me as I stepped in and I couldn’t help but jump. I’m kind of glad there wasn’t anyone else around to witness that.
Pathetic.
“Lisa?”
I pushed the first cubicle door open.
Empty.
The second.
Empty.
Third.
Empty.
Two left. She isn’t here.
“Lisa, you in here?”
Getting closer to the end of the row of cubicles, and still picturing a clown - with red eyes and a beaming manic grin - jumping out at me, I kicked the fourth cubicle door open with my foot.
Empty.
My heart is beating so fast it feels as though it’s going to burst through my chest.
Get a grip.
Sort it out.
Is that sweat I feel dripping down my forehead?
Last door.
“Lisa?”
I kicked the door open and froze when I saw a single red balloon on a piece of string - a weight tied to the other end of the string, holding the balloon a few feet off the floor and stopping it from floating off to the ceiling... ‘Smile’ written across it... the same type of balloon that was offered to Lewis earlier in the afternoon.
“What is it?” asked Jackie.
I jumped at the sound of her voice, didn’t even hear her come in.
“A balloon,” I said. I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t take my eyes off the balloon. I reached into the cubicle and took a hold of the string, pulling the balloon towards me - not even sure why. I didn’t want a souvenir from the day.
