Ready or Not (18 page)

Twenty Five

Kate made the call without giving herself a chance to talk herself out of it, and in the half hour between the call ending and Neil arriving at the flat, she agonised over whether or not she had done the right thing. She briefly imagined Clayton’s reaction if he was to find out that she had invited the father of a missing child to her flat – her own home – during the middle of an investigation. It would send his moustache into spasms.

             
Of course, she knew, he would be appalled. She would probably receive her final written warning. Maybe even face suspension. Worse than that, she thought, would be the look.
That
look: his disappointment in her stamped on his face with pursed lips and a disapproving stare – far worse than a good, old-fashioned bollocking. 

             
She imagined Chris’ reaction and quickly shook off the thought. Lydia’s voice echoed in her memory.

             
He had made his decision and she had to accept it.

             
None of it really seemed to matter anymore. She was on her way out anyway. She would stay for the remainder of the Stacey Reed case, find Neil’s son, if she could, then she would quit before anyone had a chance to fire her. Hadn’t she already had enough? Wasn’t she already, long before now, tired of the long hours, the red tape that strangled her, the instability of it all: the sense of hopelessness that followed even the cases that were solved?

             
There was no joy in success. Success at the station was equated with the number of cases that were solved and the number of criminals brought to justice. For Kate, there was no satisfaction in knowing a crime had been committed and nothing could be put in place to prevent it happening again.

             
Because it would happen again. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but at some point in the future another child would go missing, another family would be ripped down the middle; another person would demonstrate that human beings were inherently evil, and that the underlying thread of darkness that could be found in even the best of people would somehow find a way of weaving itself to the surface and poisoning the world around it.

             
Closure was never really attainable: Kate was on an endless loop, and the following day, the following week, no matter how short or lengthy the space between, another child would vanish from their lives and the misery of it all would begin again. She would continue to chase a thread of darkness, like Theseus in the maze, following the string that would eventually lead him to his own demise.

             
She often had moments like these. Since Stuart left these moments had been arriving with greater frequency; perhaps because he wasn’t there to irritate her sufficiently enough to provide a diversion. She would often lose sleep, lying awake at night and wondering where her life was going and what she had actually managed to achieve so far. Sometimes, it felt like very little. She would be forty years old in a few years: unmarried, childless; hopeless.

             
Kate knew she was kidding herself. Though she regularly thought of quitting her job she would never leave, not really. She couldn’t. While her brother was still out there somewhere, she would never stop searching, or hoping for a miracle. She knew, in her heart, that he was out there somewhere. She just needed to keep looking.

             
But what if Andrew Langley isn’t just another time waster, she asked herself. If he really does know what happened to Daniel, what then? What was there to keep her?

             
And could she really bring herself to walk away from Chris so easily?

             
When the intercom rang Kate was torn from her thoughts of Chris and knew that she couldn’t invite Neil up to the flat. It was absurd; she had known the man for little over twenty four hours and in any other instance would have waited weeks before allowing a man to come into her home. Getting her jacket from where she had left it in the bedroom, she decided she would take him instead to the pub a couple of streets away from where she lived. At least there she would be able to pretend that they had just happened to bump into each other should anyone from the station see them; a lot easier than trying to explain why he had been to her flat.

             
The thought of Chris’ reaction passed again suddenly and fleetingly. She paused by the front door of the flat and remembered Lydia’s voice when she had answered Chris’ phone. Why was she answering his house phone? She shook herself and put her shoes on. She was being ridiculous, she scorned herself. Lydia was still Chris’ wife and he had never stopped wanting them to be a family. Of course he hadn’t. He wanted it for Holly. He wanted it for himself, Kate thought, and why shouldn’t he? They were more than she would ever be. They were family.

             
She took a deep breath, mentally shrugged off the thought of him and made her way out of the flat to meet Neil downstairs.

*

‘Maybe I should have left you to have an early night,’ Neil said as they got their drinks and made their way to a small table in a quiet corner of the pub. ‘You look tired.’

             
The pub was fairly busy, as town increasingly seemed to be on a Thursday night these days. Friday as a working day had obviously become null and void; either everyone was now working a four day week, or they just didn’t care by the time Friday came around.

             
Kate placed her drink down on the table, removed her jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. ‘I always look like this,’ she replied. ‘Anyway…I called you.’

             
Neil waited for her to take her seat before sitting opposite her. Again she noted his impeccable, almost outdated, manners and it put her in mind of a Saturday afternoon black and white film, the type she used to snuggle under her duvet to watch when she’d been a student.

             
‘Well’ he said, ‘I did say any time…’

             
‘Bet you regret that now,’ Kate joked.

             
‘Not at all.’

             
He looked at her intently and Kate felt herself begin to colour. He watched her almost too intensely, again as though trying to read her thoughts. She found she couldn’t look at him for too long; his eyes were too piercing and there was something almost hypnotic about his gaze; something that rendered her illogical and left her feeling uneasy. It was like looking into the eyes of someone who could read her mind, although she knew that it was nonsense and didn’t believe in fortune-tellers, mind readers and magicians. Even so, looking at him made her feel nervous, but she was unable to explain why. Nervous, but oddly excited.

             
‘Did you find what you were looking for this afternoon?’ Neil asked. He sat back in his seat and ran a hand through his dark hair. He was wearing a thin, long sleeved black knit top and light blue jeans. Kate had already noticed his shoes before they had sat down at the table: smart black leather, clean. He was obviously a man who took a pride in his appearance, without seeming arrogant with it. Kate liked that.

             
‘Not quite,’ Kate admitted. ‘But I’m hopeful.’

             
‘You work too hard.’

             
‘Perhaps,’ she agreed. ‘Perhaps not.’

             
‘Do you always do that?’ Neil asked, reaching for his drink.

             
‘Do what?’

             
‘What you just did. Question yourself. Berate yourself.’             

             
As he drank Kate noticed the softness of his lips. She felt a frisson as she watched him.

             
‘I don’t know,’ she said, looking away.

             
‘It’s not your fault,’ he said bluntly, but not unkindly.

             
‘What isn’t?’

             
‘My son,’ Neil explained. ‘It’s not your fault we haven’t found him yet.’

             
Kate noted the use of ‘we’ and ‘yet’. In one simple sentence he had joined them, given them a common ground and a mutual purpose, and he had given her hope where she had so often doubted herself. What was it about this man? How did he have the ability to make her feel so reassured? And why did he feel the need to do it?

             
‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said.

             
‘What are you sorry for?’

             
‘I’m sorry Ben is missing. I’m sorry Stacey Reed is missing.’ She paused and sipped her drink. ‘I’m sorry that any child ever disappears.’

             
Neil studied her. He put his drink back on the table and leaned back in his chair. ‘Is that what happens?’ he asked. ‘Do they ‘disappear’?’

             
Kate shrugged despondently. ‘I don’t know anymore,’ she admitted. Some seem to.’

             
There had once been a time when her answer to the same question would have been a definite and immediate no. No, no child ever just disappears. There is an accident. There is an abductor. There is someone who means to cause that child harm, or to cause the family harm even if for no apparent reason.

             
Now she wasn’t so sure. One minute there, the next gone. All traces of that child evaporated, as though everything they had left behind them, the tangible belongings and the memories shared with others were lifted into the ether and taken with them, leaving only shapes around what once had been. Grey shapes that blurred when questioning eyes got too close.

             
Neil smiled reassuringly. ‘No one disappears, Kate,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘They just remain unfound.’

             
There was a sadness in his words. For a moment it was as though everything around them had stopped. She once again felt like a teenager, locked in an unbelievable, unlikely moment with the school heart throb; elated and excited at finding he was the first person to understand her. She was sixteen again and suddenly anything was possible.

             
The longing to touch him was there again, unbearable.

             
He had barely touched his drink, Kate noticed. He smiled and she felt reassured, so reached for her own drink and took a cautious sip.

             
‘You OK?’ he asked. There was genuine concern in his voice and he studied her as though trying to read her; as though he had known her for years and already knew what she was thinking.

             
Kate nodded. ‘Fine,’ she said.

             
‘You must think badly of me,’ Neil said.

             
‘Why would I?’

             
‘Sitting here, drinking with you when my son is missing.’

             
The thought had occurred to Kate. She had noticed that Neil seemed far too calm at first; almost too relaxed. When he had given her his mobile number at the station it had been because Kate needed it and would have to contact him with regards the investigation, surely. But hadn’t there been an ulterior motive? One that was evident to them both? And hadn’t it struck her as strange at the time, though she had ignored the doubt that questioned the action?

             
And that look he had given her…that was certainly not for his son’s benefit.

             
Kate thought of Dawn Reed and Nathan Williams, watching TV and enjoying a take away; laughing together as though they hadn’t a care in the world. It was as though they had forgotten their daughter; as though the tears and fears of previous weeks had been quickly shrugged off and forgotten. Walking in on the cosy domestic scene had angered her. It made Nathan Williams a heartless bastard and Dawn Reed a cold, unfeeling mother.

             
But Neil wasn’t the same, she reasoned with herself. He was here because he cared; he wanted to help her find his son. He was trying to stay positive, helping her to keep faith in herself and her abilities as a detective. Neil was looking away from her, his attention distracted by the noise and lights blaring from a fruit machine at the far side of the room and a man who had just hit the jackpot, frantically scrabbling around in the cash tray for his winnings.

             
Kate studied Neil’s profile. A strong jaw, good skin; he was the type of man who exuded a strong personality: a man who inspired confidence in others by doing very little. He had thick hair and youthful good looks; he could easily have passed for a man in his twenties. He blinked slowly, as though in a permanent daydream, and Kate noticed again how long his eyelashes were.

             
‘Why do you do it?’ Neil asked, turning back to her. He saw her staring at him and she averted her eyes quickly, embarrassed at being caught out.

             
‘Do what?’ she said, twisting her hands anxiously in her lap.