The Missing: The gripping psychological thriller that’s got everyone talking... (11 page)

‘You didn’t do anything wrong. Billy’s fifteen. It was a phase. He would have grown out of it.’

‘Would he? What if he’d started dabbling in drugs next? Or stealing cars? Claire, some of those kids he was hanging out with were dropouts. Eighteen years old, living off benefits, graffitiing bridges and running from the cops. He looked up to them and thought I was the arsehole!

‘Anyway –’ he shakes his head as though trying to clear it – ‘I’m sorry we argued. I was stressed and I took it out on you. I thought the appeal would result in some new information and then Jake—’ He stops abruptly. ‘Let’s not go there again.’

‘No.’

‘I’m glad you came home early,’ I add as Mark takes my hand and eases me up off the floor.

As he leads me towards the doorway I glance back at the sketchpads on the floor. ‘Mark? You haven’t seen the photo album, have you? The grey one with the pictures of Billy and Jake at school?’

‘Nope.’ He gives my hand a small tug. ‘It’ll turn up. Nothing’s lost for ever.’

I can’t watch a TV programme all the way through any more. I can’t sit still for that long. I need to do something instead – tidying, cleaning, chatting or surfing the Internet. I don’t know if it’s because motherhood and sleep deprivation have wrecked my concentration span or because I’ve forgotten how to relax. I miss being able to turn off my brain and lose myself in a film or TV drama. We used to watch
The X Factor
or
I’m a Celebrity
as a family when the boys were younger. We’d sit on the sofa, Mark and I bookmarked on the ends with the kids squashed between us in the middle. We’d order pizza, drink thick, sticky Coke and pass comments on the acts or the celebrities. Mark and I would exchange looks at some of Ant and Dec’s more risqué jokes and then burst out laughing, prompting confused stares from the kids and a chorus of, ‘What? What’s so funny?’ I’d give anything to turn back time and do that again. Anything at all.

Mark went upstairs to do some work half an hour ago and Jake and Kira disappeared into their room after tea so it’s just me sitting in front of the TV, half-watching a programme about adoption, half-reading the magazine on my lap. I can’t stop thinking about the art pad I found in Billy’s room earlier with
DStroy
scrawled over every page. DS Forbes still hasn’t got back to me about the disused sorting office although I’m no longer convinced that’s where Billy is. And I can’t go driving around Gloucester Road knocking on the doors of squats. That just leaves the last place on Billy’s list – Avonmouth. There’s a pub near the river, the Lamplighters. I could suggest to Mark that we go for a walk along the riverbank and then grab a pint.

I take the stairs two at a time. The door to our bedroom is ajar. The curtains are still open and Mark, lying on the bed with a file on his chest and his mouth slightly open, is bathed in soft light. A snore catches in his throat before he falls quiet again. I gently fold the duvet over him, then retreat back out onto the landing. I can’t wake him, not if he’s this tired. He works so hard.

I glance at my mobile phone. It’s just after 7.30 p.m. If I want to get to Avonmouth before the sun sets I need to leave now. I cross the landing to Jake and Kira’s room and stand silently outside the door. Tinny dialogue drifts through the cracks. A second later Jake and Kira roar with laughter. The sound is so foreign, so wonderful, it makes my heart leap. They sound so happy. I can’t ask them to come and look for Billy with me.

I return to the living room and call Liz. She picks up on the second ring.

‘You all right?’

‘Yeah. I was just wondering if you fancied coming to the Lamplighters in Avonmouth with me.’

‘Now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, sorry, mate. I’m in town. I’m meeting Caleb and his new boyfriend for a drink.’ She practically squeals the words ‘new boyfriend’.

‘He’s letting you meet him?’

‘I know! I’m under strict instructions not to do, or say, anything that might embarrass him so that’s basically me sitting mute in the corner for the whole night but yes, can you believe it?’

‘That’s great news, Liz.’

‘We could go for a drink tomorrow if you like? Why do you want to go to Avonmouth anyway?’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Enjoy your night.’

‘I will. Take it steady!’

I put down the phone and drop back into the armchair. The documentary has finished and a weight-loss programme has started. I flick through the channels. Images flash up on the screen and then vanish – a woman in the throes of labour, a father and son playing football, a pregnant woman, a family having dinner, a teenager in a hospital bed. I turn off the TV. The sudden silence makes my ears ring.

I pick up my magazine.

Put it down again.

I pick up my mobile and scroll through Facebook.

Pictures of cats. Pictures of food. Pictures of sunsets. Gripes about bad days at work, leaking showers, annoying neighbours and the government.

I close the app.

My foot
tap-tap-taps
on the floor as I look around the living room – at the photos of Jake and Billy on the mantelpiece, at the DVDs and books in the bookcase, at the framed print I bought Mark for our first anniversary.

Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

I can’t just sit here and do nothing.

I can’t.

Liz’s voice rings in my ears as I park the car and walk down the lane towards the Lamplighters pub.

‘
Don’t you be going to any more places on your own. You need to let the police do their job.
’

I block her voice out.

There isn’t a single empty table outside the pub. Everywhere I look there are men and women in T-shirts and shorts, vest tops and dresses; all drinking, smoking and chatting and enjoying the last vestiges of summer. The sun is low in the sky, the clouds striped amber and red. It’s warm but I still shiver in my thin cardi, maxi dress and sandals. I should have changed before I left the house.

I take a right outside the pub and weave through the gate into Lamplighters Marsh, the pathway that follows the river Avon. It’s been a long time since I was last here. It was before the kids were born, back when Mark had a motorbike and we’d go off on adventures, discovering parts of Bristol we’d never visited before, spending hours nursing pints of shandy (him) and glasses of Martini and lemonade (me) as we learned everything there was to know about each other.

Spiky bushes and dense bracken flank me on both sides, obscuring the view of the river and the city. In the distance is the Avonmouth Bridge, a grey metal slash cutting through the sky. A seagull circles overhead and then dips down towards the ground and disappears from view. I continue on towards the bridge. If Billy was going to tag anything around here that would be his target.

For several hundred metres I can still hear the laughter and chatter from the pub behind me and then it is gone, replaced by the rush of a wind that seems to come from nowhere and the low drone of cars speeding across the bridge. The path winds and curves as I continue to walk and the sun dips lower in the sky. I cross paths with a solitary dog walker. He raises a hand in greeting and then he too is gone. I continue along the path for five, maybe six minutes more and then discover a break in the bushes and a lone green bench on the edge of marshy riverbank. I pause as I spot something floating on the surface of the water. Something black, voluminous, like an item of clothing puffed up with air. When Billy first disappeared there was talk of dredging the river. I couldn’t bear it. I had to leave the room.

I stand stock-still, with one hand pressed to my chest as the river carries its hoard closer, closer and then air rushes from my lungs as it turns in the water and the twisted knot of a torn bin bag appears on the surface. It’s a bag. Just a bag.

As I turn away my toe catches on something and I look down. There’s a patch of burnt grass beside the bench with stones at the edges and three or four charred logs in the centre, where a fire must have been. I dip down and hover my hand above them. Cold. Whoever started the fire is long gone. But there was someone here, someone who needed to light a fire to keep warm. The sound of voices cuts through the wind’s whistle and the roar of the traffic and I freeze, my hand still stretched towards the logs. The voices are too close to have drifted up from the pub. And they’re male voices, young male voices. My walk becomes a jog as I rejoin the path, then a sprint as I realize that the sound is coming from directly below the bridge.

I slow to a halt as I get closer: I can still hear the voices but there’s no obvious way of getting to them. The foliage is thicker here with bushes and trees reaching way above my head. And then I spot it, a disturbance in the bracken and a stamped-down path leading directly under the bridge. The voices grow louder as I crash through the undergrowth and then someone shouts, ‘Whoa,’ as I burst into a small clearing on the riverbank. Four teenagers, sitting cross-legged around a fire with their bags and bikes scattered around them, stare back at me. There’s a shocked silence, then one of them giggles. He stares at me, his eyes big and round, then tips backwards, his arms wrapped around his body as he explodes with laughter.

‘Naz, you dick!’ The boy to his right picks up a can of lager from beside his friend’s head and turns it upside down. ‘That was the last of my beer.’

‘Lost your dog?’ says another of the boys. He dips his head and takes a puff on the spliff hidden in his curled hand.

‘No, I …’ Behind the boys is a concrete column. Even in the dim light I can make out the swirl and curve of the graffiti at the base.

‘Graffiti fan, are you?’ says the boy with the spliff as I take a wide circle around the group to take a closer look. In two places someone has written the initials
DBK
in thick orange paint. There are some nonsensical letters sprayed in purple along the centre of the column.
CNSCS
, that’s all I can make out.
ZYNK
is written in black spray on the lower strut of the column and there’s something in a white bubble shape with black edging. I can’t read a word of it.

‘Do you …’ I turn back to the boys. ‘Do any of you do graffiti?’

‘“Do you do graffiti?”’ Spliff Boy repeats, totally deadpan, and Laughing Boy howls with amusement.

There was a time when I would have found a group of young lads like this threatening. I’d have crossed the street rather than risk attracting their attention but I’ve stopped being scared. I don’t care if they think I’m old and embarrassing and uncool.

I rest my hand on the column. It feels cold and damp under my palm. ‘Do any of you know Billy Wilkinson?’

‘Why?’

‘He’s my son. He’s been missing for six months.’

‘I know him,’ pipes up the smallest boy in the group. It’s the first thing he’s said since I appeared in the clearing but I’ve seen him watching me, tracking me with his half-closed eyes.

‘Shut up, Gray. We don’t know who this woman is. She looks like police.’

‘Undercover mum,’ says Spliff Boy.

The lad with the beer can swipes him round the head. ‘Don’t be a dick.’

‘This is Billy.’ I unfold the flier I carry everywhere with me, and take a step towards them. It’s very nearly dark now, the last of the sunlight is fading away and they peer through the firelight at the image of Billy’s face. ‘He’s fifteen. He does … he’s really into graffiti. Have you seen him? Recently, I mean?’

My question is met with shrugs and glazed looks.

I step around the group and crouch down next to Gray. The air surrounding him is thick with the scent of woodsmoke, weed and beer.

‘You said you knew him. How?’

He inches away, pressing up against the boy sitting next to him.

‘I know of him,’ he says as he’s shoved away. ‘I heard of him.’

‘How?’

‘From the news, like.’

‘Are you sure?’ I look him straight in the eye but he’s unable, or unwilling, to meet my gaze and he fiddles with the laces of his trainers. ‘Please, it’s important. I know he’s been here before. I know he wanted to tag the bridge. Have you seen or heard anything unusual?’

‘Naz’s face is unusual,’ says Spliff Boy and they all laugh. Everyone apart from Gray who is twisting a lace round and round the index finger of his left hand. He’s hiding something from me. If the others weren’t here he’d tell me the truth. I feel sure of it.

I dip my head down to his and lower my voice. ‘Could I just talk to you? Alone? Just for a minute?’ I touch his shoulder and he jumps away from me, as though electrocuted, narrowly missing the fire as he scrambles to his feet.

‘Whitey alert!’ shouts Naz as Gray runs towards the river, then drops to his knees and pukes all over his hands. My heart sinks. He wasn’t hiding anything from me – he was trying not to be sick.

I get to my feet, unsure whether I should check if he’s okay or just go. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice Naz whispering something in Laughing Boy’s ear. He stops talking the second I turn my head.

‘What is it?’ I say. ‘It’s Billy, isn’t it? You know something about him?’

There’s a sound from the bushes behind me. The sound of someone crashing through the undergrowth, snapping off twigs and scraping past branches in their desperation to escape.

‘Billy?’

Bushes and brambles scratch at my chest, arms and hands as I force my way through them, following the sound. My dress catches on a brier. It rips as I tear it free and continue to run.

‘Billy, stop! Stop!’

He’s fast, so much faster than me. My smooth-soled sandals have no traction on the gnarly ground and I trip several times as I scramble through the near-darkness. The sound of laughter follows after me. Thorns tear at my palms and something sharp whips me across the cheek as I pick myself up and stumble after my son. He’s been in the bushes the whole time, watching me, listening to me talk to the boys. Why would he run? Why?

‘It’s Mum! Billy, it’s Mum!’

And then it stops. Almost as suddenly as it began, the noise of crashing and snapping stops. The only sound is the
thud, thud, thud
of my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

No, I can hear footsteps too. The faint pad of someone running. He must have made it onto the pathway.

‘Billy, wait!’ I wrap my arms over my head and plough through the bracken in the direction of the sound. My foot hits something solid, the path.

‘Billy, it’s—’

A hand grasps my wrist and a concerned face peers into mine. It’s a woman’s; she’s roughly the same age as me, with her hair tied back in a ponytail. She’s dressed in a neon vest, shorts and running trainers. ‘Are you okay? I heard screaming and shouting coming from the bushes and—’

‘Did you see him?’ I look up and down the path but all I can see is near-darkness, stretching away from me in both directions.

‘See who?’

‘My—’ Something brushes against my ankles; a border terrier with its tongue hanging out and bits of twig woven into its thick fur.