by Jason Ayres
“I think she’s gone to the pictures with Charlie”, she blurted out to her mother, who was still on the phone.
“Lauren’s here”, said her mother, handing her the landline.
Lauren took the phone and tried to explain the situation as best as she could, but Cathy wasn’t happy. She hadn’t seen Kaylee since she’d stormed out earlier and apparently her phone was switched off. It was also late - too late for her to be out on a school night, especially with a boy.
Lauren assured her that Kaylee would be home soon, managed to get her off the phone, and then turned to her mother.
“You know you’ve dropped Kaylee right in it, don’t you?” she said. “You should have said she was staying here. She’s round at Charlie’s house.”
“You mean like you were staying at hers last night?” replied her mother. “Is that what you two do? Perhaps I should ring Kaylee’s mother back to see if you really were there last night.”
This made Lauren feel extremely uncomfortable. How much did her mother know? They never talked about such things, though she was pretty sure her mother suspected what she got up to. It would be best to just bluff her way out of the situation.
“Of course I was. Look, I’m sorry if I was abrupt before. Kaylee really likes Charlie and I just don’t want her to get into trouble. Don’t worry about it. I’ll ring her and tell her to get herself home before her mother starts to panic.”
Lauren’s mother appeared to accept this, so Lauren took herself back off to the privacy of her bedroom and got onto her phone straightaway. First she tried to phone Kaylee but it went straight to voicemail. So she sent her a text, but after a few minutes there was no reply.
Should she push it further, she wondered. Maybe she should try and get hold of Charlie. But then she might end up interrupting something. Charlie and Kaylee had had enough false starts. What if they were in the act of getting it together right now?
It wasn’t getting any earlier and she had to do something. She decided to text Charlie.
“Is Kaylee with you?” she wrote.
The reply came back within seconds.
“I haven’t seen her all evening.”
Now Lauren was seriously worried. If Kaylee was not with Charlie, then where was she? She’d have to go out and look for her.
She turned off the TV and turned out the bedroom light to make it look as if she were asleep if her mother looked in. She grabbed a fleece from her wardrobe, slipped quietly down the stairs and out through the front door, making sure that she closed it as gently as she could.
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Lauren wasn’t the only one who was worried. A couple of streets away, Cathy was venting her concerns to her husband.
“She’s never stayed out this late before, Phil. Lauren said she was out with Charlie, but it’s gone eleven now.”
“What exactly did you say to her earlier?” asked her husband, wearily. There always seemed to be some sort of argument going on.
“If you had been here, you’d have known. It wasn’t me anyway, it was Liv. You know what those two are like.”
“Sisters fight all the time”, offered Phil. He didn’t like getting involved in these family battles.
Being the only male in a female-dominated household, he felt like an outsider a lot of the time. He was completely unable to join in many of the conversations that went on as they were on topics he knew absolutely nothing about.
At the time the row had taken place he had been down at the gym. He was very proud of his muscular frame which he considered pretty good for a man in his early forties. He kept his body in shape by working out three or four times a week after work. This also gave him what he considered to be an excellent excuse to be out of the house.
“Something Liv said really worried me, too”, said Cathy. “She said that Kaylee was planning to have sex with Charlie. Well here we are – it’s gone 11pm and she’s with him, according to Lauren. They could be at it right now.”
“She is old enough”, remarked Phil.
“I don’t believe you at times”, snapped Cathy. “Whatever happened to overprotective fathers? I sometimes think you don’t give a toss about this family. You’re more interested in posing down that gym than you are in spending time with us.”
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting a fit body”, replied Phil.
“Yeah, and for whose benefit, I wonder?” retorted Cathy. “Certainly not mine”, she added, in a thinly veiled reference to the fact that they hadn’t had sex for months.
Phil didn’t want to go down that route. “Alright”, he said. “If you are really that worried, I’ll go round to Charlie’s and collect her.”
“Fine”, replied Cathy. “And you tell her when you see her she’s grounded.”
Phil was really irked by all of this. All he really wanted to do was settle down in front of the TV for an hour or so before bed, have a beer and watch the Champions League highlights. He couldn’t see what the big deal was. Teenagers stayed out late and did things that teenagers did.
But if his wife was going to nag on at him, he wouldn’t enjoy sitting there. Also her jibes about who was getting the benefit of his attentions were rather too close to the truth for his liking, so if he went out she wouldn’t be able to pursue it any further.
He pulled on his coat and headed for the door.
Outside it was getting bitterly cold. There was a bang and the sky lit up briefly, making him jump, but it was just some kids letting fireworks off in the park. He walked down to the end of the street and then spotted a familiar figure coming towards him.
“Lauren!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing out here at this time of night. Have you seen Kaylee?”
Lauren was unsure how to reply. She didn’t want to worry Kaylee’s father unduly. She decided to give a non-committal answer.
“I think she may have gone over to Charlie’s. I was just popping over there myself. I wanted to borrow a Blu-ray off him.” It was a lame excuse and she knew it.
“At this time of night?” asked Phil. “Couldn’t it have waited until morning?” It was obvious he didn’t believe her.
“Yeah, I’m an insomniac” was Lauren’s response. “I need something to get me through the small hours.”
“Well, I think I’ll come with you”, said Phil. “If Kaylee’s at Charlie’s we can all walk back together.”
But Kaylee isn’t at Charlie’s, thought Lauren, unless he was lying to me, and why should he do that? Nervous and uncertain about what they’d find when they got there, they walked on towards the tunnel.
Lauren spotted the bike first. “That’s her bike!” she exclaimed, and ran towards it.
“Are you sure?” asked Phil. He took so little interest in his daughters that he didn’t even know what her bike looked like.
Lauren reached the bike and examined it. The front light, shining brightly a couple of hours ago, had now dimmed to a pale orange glow as the batteries died.
She grabbed the bike in order to place it the right way up and then noticed her hand. There was blood on it. It had come from one of the handlebars.
“Blood!” she exclaimed. “Oh my God, something’s happened to her. Call the police.” In her distressed state she had forgotten about the plaster she’d put on Kaylee’s cut hand earlier.
If Phil had not been showing much interest before, he certainly was now. All sorts of horrifying thoughts started to go through his head about what might have happened to his daughter. There had been enough high-profile media cases about missing girls over the years. She could have been abducted…or worse.
He pulled out his mobile phone and dialled 999.
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Kent was about to get the case he had dreamed of for his whole career. He might have preferred it, though, if it had not arrived at 1 o’clock in the morning. He’d had a most enjoyable evening in the pub. There had been no idiots like Andy Green to ruin it, and to top it all he’d seen his beloved Arse
nal beat Barcelona 2-1 in the Champions League on the pub’s big screen.
He’d been asleep less than an hour when the phone rang. Despite having had a few pints it woke him immediately. His long-suffering wife continued sleeping oblivious beside him, but that wasn’t surprising. She always wore earplugs on account of Kent’s horrendous snoring.
The caller display was showing Hannah’s mobile number. Why was she ringing him at home? She never rang him at home. Although in theory any of them could call any time in an emergency situation, such a scenario had never occurred.
“What?” he bellowed, grumpily. “Do you know what the bloody time is?”
“Sir, this is P.C. Benson”, she said, very formally. “I’m down by the new railway tunnel. I’ve got P.C. Johnson with me.”
“What are you doing down there again - more graffiti? Hardly worth waking me up for, is it?” He hoped this wasn’t another wind-up. He wouldn’t be surprised if it was. And Johnson was with her as well. They would both be in it together.
“Sir, I am here with the parents of a sixteen-year-old girl who has gone missing tonight”, said Hannah.
Kent was slightly more interested, but even so, sixteen-year-olds went missing all the time, didn’t they? What happened to “We can’t do anything for 24 hours”, which was the line they used to trot out in the Met when someone disappeared. She’d turn up – she was probably with a boyfriend or something.
However, what Hannah said next certainly caught his attention.
“The thing is, sir, we’ve found her bicycle abandoned in the tunnel. And there is blood on it.”
“I’ll be right there”, replied Kent and he sprang out of bed. Blood – that could mean a murder. This could be the big one, his big chance to make a name for himself.
He didn’t for a moment spare a thought for the girl as he dressed quickly. He was too busy dreaming of how he was going to solve the case just like all those clever detectives on TV.
By the time he got to the tunnel, he could see that more officers had arrived and some tape had been put across the entrance reading “Police Line – Do Not Cross.” There was a couple with Hannah and Adrian who looked to be around their mid-forties. The woman was crying.
Kent made his first and probably last correct deduction of the case – these must be the parents.
A couple of forensic officers were examining the bike. One of them was taking a sample of the blood from the handlebars.
He also noticed that there was a teenage girl there who was talking to Johnson, who called Kent over when he saw him.
“Sir, this is Lauren Watson. She is the missing girl’s best friend and the last one to see her alive.”
Cathy overheard this and burst into tears again. Hannah put a consoling arm around her.
“Can you be a little more tactful with your words, Johnson?” suggested Kent. “You’re implying the poor girl’s dead.”
His usage of the word “dead” merely served to set Cathy off even more.
“Sorry, sir”, replied Adrian and filled him in on the details of the case. Once he’d got the basic facts he turned to Lauren.
“Now then, miss, you’d better tell me everything you know, from the beginning.”
Lauren went over everything that had happened over the past day or so. By the end of it, Kent was very interested in Charlie.
“I think we ought to have a chat with this lad”, he said. If the girl had been abducted or worse the obvious place to start was with the boyfriend. It was always the boyfriend or husband that did it when women got murdered on the TV. “Benson, Johnson, I think you ought to go round to his house and get a statement off him.”
In the meantime he was satisfied that something really had happened to this girl. He felt quite justified in getting on the phone to Oxford to call up some more officers.
He needed to tread carefully, though. If he overplayed it they might bring someone senior in over him and he didn’t want that. This was his town and his case.
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Charlie was sleeping so deeply that he didn’t hear the banging on the door. He’d tried again to get hold of Kaylee on the phone before he’d gone to sleep but to no avail.
Lauren’s last text had worried him. Why did she think Kaylee was with him? Never mind, he’d seek Kaylee out first thing and sort everything out.
He may not have heard the banging on the door but his mother certainly did. She looked at the green fluorescent numbers on the alarm clock on her bedside table. It was 2.09am. Who on earth could it be at this time of the night?
She wasn’t about to go straight down and open the door: it could be anyone. She opened the bedroom window instead and called out.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s the police.” Adrian stepped back from the door so that Sarah could see him. “I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of night but could we have a quick word?”
“Just a minute, I’ll come down”, she replied. As she pulled on some clothes, all sorts of thoughts were going through her head. What could be so important that the police would call at this time of night?
She thought about her elderly mother in Oxford – had something happened to her? But if it had, would the police really come round in the middle of the night to tell her? Or was it something to do with Charlie? Had he done something? But how could he? He had been here with her all night – hadn’t he?
To reassure herself, she crossed the landing to look in Charlie’s room. She was relieved to see him still in his bed. At least nothing had happened to him. She thought about waking him, but decided not to for the moment. She would deal with whatever it was herself.
She headed downstairs and opened the door. There were two of them. She hadn’t seen Hannah from the window. It must be serious.
“Mrs Adams?” enquired Adrian.
“I prefer “Ms” these days” replied Sarah. “What’s all this about? Is my mother alright?”
“Don’t concern yourself, Ms Adams”, said Hannah. “It’s not that kind of call. We’ve had a report of a missing person and we’d just like to speak to your son urgently. I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of night, but speed is of the essence in these sorts of cases.”
“Who’s missing?” asked Sarah. “And what’s Charlie got to do with it? He’s been here with me all night, you know.”
“We are investigating the case of a young girl called Kaylee Thomas who disappeared this evening. She was last seen when supposedly heading over here to see your son. Now if you could go and wake him up for us, we would much appreciate it. Any information he can give us could be vital to finding her safely.”
Sarah was relieved that Charlie was not in trouble, but was worried about Kaylee. She had known her since she was in reception class. She used to chat to Cathy all the time when they were picking them up from school when they were little. They had also arranged more than a few playdates at each other’s houses.
“I’ll just go and get him. You’d better come in.” She showed them into the living room and went upstairs to wake Charlie.
Adrian had a quick browse around the room and noticed the folder he had seen in Charlie’s bag the other night with the large heart on it with their initials inscribed into it. He had left it on the coffee table, and he pointed it out to Hannah.
“Looks like he’s pretty keen on this girl”, he remarked.
Sarah and Charlie came into the living room. Charlie hadn’t got dressed but just wrapped a navy blue towelling dressing gown around himself.
“I’ll make some coffee”, said Sarah and went through to the kitchen. She knew she’d be able to hear every word from there.
“What is all this?” asked Charlie. “What’s happened to Kaylee?”
“We were hoping you might be able to tell us”, replied Adrian. “When did you last see her?”
“Not since school this afternoon”, replied Charlie.
“And you’ve had no contact since then?” enquired Adrian.
/> “She sent me a couple of texts earlier”, said Charlie.
“Can we see them?” asked Hannah.
He felt a bit uncomfortable letting them look at his private messages but then if he said no, it would look suspicious. He handed over his phone. Whilst Hannah was looking at it, he took the opportunity to ask Adrian a question. He was extremely worried about all of this and needed to find out more.
“What exactly has happened?” he asked.
“She left her friend’s house earlier this evening saying she was coming round here to see you”, began Adrian.
Sarah returned to the room carrying a tray containing a pot of coffee and a plate covered in an assortment of biscuits. Before Charlie could speak she responded, saying, “She hasn’t been round here this evening. Charlie and I spent the whole evening watching TV together.”
“What time did you go to bed?” asked Adrian, addressing Sarah directly.
“About eleven, I think”, she replied.
“So your son could have popped out after eleven and you wouldn’t have known about it?” suggested Adrian.
“What are you implying?” asked Sarah, keen to defend her son. “He hasn’t done anything. He hasn’t been out tonight and he hasn’t seen Kaylee. Now I think it’s about time you told us what all of this is about.”
Hannah filled in the details for them. “Kaylee has not been seen since around 8.30pm this evening. Her bicycle was found abandoned in the new railway tunnel linking the town to this housing estate. No one has seen her since.”
Of course, thought Charlie, with a palpable sense of relief. She must be in the Time Bubble. Before he could stop himself he smiled and blurted out, “Well that’s alright, then”, and instantly regretted it.
“Why is that alright, then?” asked Hannah, wondering what on earth the boy was thinking. “Did you not hear what we just said? She is missing. And there was blood on the handlebars of her bicycle. It’s not something to be happy about. According to her friend Lauren, you two are seeing each other. Is that right?”
“Yes”, replied Charlie, suitably chastened. He knew Kaylee was almost certainly in the Time Bubble, but the blood on the handlebars had cast an element of doubt. What if something else had happened to her?
