The Bad Mother (34 page)

Going for her shower, Tessa saw that Mitch’s bedroom door was closed as usual, and couldn’t help hoping that today he would sleep late. She dressed quickly and went downstairs, glad to focus on the regular tasks of the day. She found Carol in the kitchen – another person whose loyalty she had rewarded with ingratitude. Maybe yesterday had been the final wake-up call she needed to get her life back on track. She would banish Roy from her life, apologise to her family, and hope they could all have a fresh start. Maybe she could even go round later and straighten everything out with Charlie Crawford too.

For the next hour or two Tessa worked alongside Carol, preparing, serving and clearing the guests’ breakfasts. In a spare moment, she took Mitch up a late breakfast. She wanted to apologise for what she’d said to him, and maybe
have a quiet chat about her and Sam. It would be wrong to ask him to keep quiet if he didn’t want to, and she cowered from the idea that, even tacitly, she would have to ask him to lie for her, but perhaps, if he let her explain, he might see for himself that it would be kinder to protect Nula from the truth.

She knocked on his door and, getting no answer, looked in. Mitch was not in his room. Thinking perhaps he’d slipped out while she and Carol were busy, she rang his mobile, but the message told her that his phone was either switched off or out of range. Disheartened, she accepted that he had every right to block her excuses until he was ready to talk.

Downstairs, she answered queries about local walks and attractions and did her best to make small talk with departing guests as they settled their bills. Once the public rooms had been straightened, she set off to the farm shop and only on her return did she ring Mitch’s mobile again. As she listened to the same message, it occurred to her that, when she’d opened his bedroom door earlier on, she’d only half registered how the room contained the stillness of unmoved air. The conviction took hold that he had not been there overnight.

She went back up his room, forcing herself to think rationally. Mitch was good about tidying his bed in the mornings, so she couldn’t be certain whether it had been slept in last night or not. Trying to remember if this was how his bed had been left the day before, whether she’d come in here yesterday, she felt the first prickling of fear.
If he hadn’t been there overnight it wasn’t simply because he’d gone off somewhere: her actions had driven him away. The angles of the sloped ceiling seemed suddenly sharper and more precarious, the roof of her house neither solid nor sheltering.

She shook herself. She couldn’t pretend that Mitch wouldn’t be upset, but surely he was too sensible to do anything stupid? She doubted he would have gone to Sam’s, but he might have spent the night at a friend’s house or with his grandparents. If he had gone there, maybe it would be better if it didn’t look as if she were checking up on him. She went to sit on the window seat and looked out at a perfectly ordinary day. Below her was a typical English scene, with families spread out across the sand and elderly couples filling up the benches on the promenade. Among the crowd on the beach, Tessa watched a mother suddenly leap up and dash to the water’s edge, snatching her unsteady toddler away from the incoming waves.

By the end of the afternoon, Mitch had not appeared, Carol said she hadn’t seen him since the previous day, and his phone was still turned off. Affecting a casual tone, Tessa called the homes of three of his school friends. There was no reply from his best friend Chris, another hadn’t seen him for days, and the mother of the third was pretty sure Mitch wasn’t hanging out with her son today. Tessa recalled the plummeting, weightless drop into fear she’d felt when Evie’s mother had called to say that Evie and Lauren had not come off their train from Norwich after a shopping trip, yet that had turned out to be merely a
lost phone and a teenage failure to communicate. Why should this be any different?

But Tessa knew why: this was her fault for failing to heed that earlier warning. The world was not a safe place, and what safety her son had, she had destroyed.

She wondered if she should alert Sam, and with a leaping heart was certain that Lauren would know where he was. She pressed her number without further thought, and heard laughter and street noises in the background as Lauren said hello. ‘Where are you?’ Tessa asked anxiously.

‘Shopping with Evie. It’s her birthday and she’s having a big sleepover at her house tonight. Gotta go. Bye, Mum.’

Tessa called Sam’s number, and only when she heard his wary ‘hello’ did the leaden swing of their culpability knock her sideways.

‘Hi, Sam,’ she said as naturally as she could, though her voice quavered. ‘Is Mitch with you?’

‘No. Why?’ Sam was instantly sharp.

‘He’s not come home.’ Tessa didn’t need to spell it out.

‘You’ve not seen him since?’

‘No. Have you?’

Sam was silent. Tessa waited.

‘He’s not with Pamela and Hugo?’

‘I don’t know. His phone’s off. And I haven’t called them yet.’

‘Want me to?

‘Ok. But, Sam, wait!’

‘What?’

Tessa swallowed. ‘What will you tell them?’ She could almost feel Sam’s shame wash down the phone at her. ‘We could say Mitch was upset because of Charlie Crawford,’ she suggested, when he said nothing. ‘At least for the time being.’

‘Ok. Bye.’

Tessa waited for Sam to ring back, which he soon did.

‘They’ve not seen him,’ he said. ‘Hugo will let us know right away if they do.’

‘What shall we do?’

Sam did not answer immediately. ‘If he’s not back by supper-time,’ he said at last, ‘perhaps we should call the police. What do you think?’

Tessa had not prepared herself for this. She started to shiver. ‘What can they do?’

‘I don’t know. But are you going to wait a second night for him not to come home?’

‘No.’ She had a vision of how time could expand into vast, unknown realms without them ever knowing where Mitch was, and tied herself back to the present. ‘I’d like you to be here,’ she added. ‘But I guess that’s not such a great idea.’

‘No,’ Sam said gently. ‘Speak later.’

At six o’clock Pamela and Hugo let themselves in, claiming they’d come to help with arriving guests. Tessa had never been so glad to see them, and hugged each of them with a fierce new tenderness. Pamela offered to make supper, but watching the kitchen clock tick on, Tessa knew she wouldn’t be able to eat. At seven Sam arrived.
He’d spoken to Hugo and agreed that, with Mitch’s phone turned off, they should at least inform the police of their concern. He’d spoken to some central switchboard operator, who told him not to worry and they’d send someone over, just to get the details.

Sergeant Fowler arrived just after eight o’clock and Hugo brought him down to the kitchen where Tessa waited with Sam and Pamela. A serious young man, he reassured them as best he could and listened as Sam and Tessa gave as truthful an account of the events of the previous night as they dared: Mitch had been upset about his girlfriend, then run off. Answering the police officer’s preliminary questions, Tessa wanted either to laugh at such a ridiculous waste of his time or to cry out in fear and lament.

Learning that Mitch’s girlfriend had unexpectedly left for Los Angeles the day before, the sergeant asked for Mitch’s passport. While Tessa went to look for it, Hugo accompanied him on a search of the house. Watching from the hallway as they went upstairs, Tessa thought it was as if they were playing some absurd game of hide-and-seek with Mitch waiting to leap out and go ‘Boo!’ Her hands were cold and she felt sick, but it was impossible yet to believe that this could turn out to be real.

Tessa doubted that Mitch would have remembered where the key to the document safe was hidden, and, as she expected, found his passport beside her own and Lauren’s. But she was unprepared for her intense disappointment, the strength of her hope that Mitch had run off in pursuit
of Tamsin on some crazy adventure they could all laugh about another day. She realised that she wouldn’t mind not knowing precisely where he was, just so long as she knew his purpose. At what point, she wondered as she shut the safe, would she have to accept that she was one of those parents to whom the very worst had happened? Ought she to prepare herself for such acceptance, and, if so, just how exactly did one steel oneself for what one could not begin to imagine?

Hugo appeared, white-faced, to ask for the key to the padlocks on Averil’s doll’s house for the police sergeant. It hung on a labelled hook beside all the room keys. ‘I’ll take it to him,’ she said. ‘You go downstairs.’

She found Sergeant Fowler sitting on his heels peering in through the miniature windows. As he got to his feet, he brushed back his hair, embarrassed.

‘I found Mitch’s passport,’ Tessa told him, handing him the padlock key.

‘Right. We’ll circulate his details on the Police National Computer,’ he said. ‘Juveniles are automatically assessed as Medium Risk, and all cases reviewed after forty-eight hours. The vast majority are quickly resolved.’

She found his reliance on official phrases more frightening than his earlier optimism. The officer undid the padlocks and opened up the doll’s house – more for form’s sake, Tessa was sure, than because he expected to find anything significant.

‘It belonged to my grandmother,’ she told him, as he gave her back the key. ‘She tried her best to pretend that
life could be kept tidy and in order like that. But it can’t, can it?’

‘I’m sure he’ll be home soon,’ said the officer.

She shook her head. ‘If something terrible has happened, then it’s my fault.’

‘Is there anything you’d like to tell me, Mrs Parker, while there’s no one else present? Anything that might help?’

‘Whatever’s happened, I’m the only one to blame.’

‘Why? Do you know of anyone who might have harmed your son?’

Tessa nodded. ‘Me. I’m responsible,’ she said. ‘I’m his mother, and I failed him. Now he’s gone, and it’s too late. I don’t know how to bring him back.’

Sergeant Fowler regarded her carefully. ‘In what way are you responsible?’ he asked.

She sank down onto the couch. ‘I didn’t believe him.’

‘About what?’

Tessa had no idea where to start, how to explain. ‘His girlfriend’s father was upset about some photos they’d taken of each other on her phone. He accused Mitch of harassing her.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Tamsin Crawford. Her father has the big house on the Green.’

‘The one that’s been done up recently?’

Tessa nodded.

‘We’d better have a word with him.’

Tessa hung her head. ‘Mitch explained, but I didn’t believe him.’

‘Do you have a recent photo of your son?’ asked Sergeant Fowler.

The request made Tessa think of Roy. if she
had
given him photographs of her children, she would now be tearing the prison apart to retrieve them.

‘Mrs Parker?’ prompted the officer.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ll find you one. But what will happen to it? You won’t give it to the newspapers?’

‘It’s unlikely we’ll get to that point,’ he said carefully. ‘And it wouldn’t happen without your permission.’ He took a notebook from his breast pocket. ‘Can you remember what he was wearing?’

‘Jeans and a T-shirt. Green, I think. And his jacket’s gone. Black waterproof. One of those outdoor brands. What happens now?’

‘We’ll do the obvious checks,’ he told her. ‘Hospitals, any traffic or other incidents. The coastguard’s been alerted.’ He closed his notebook.

‘Where do you think Mitch is?’ she asked in desperation.

‘It’s most likely that he’s run away. In which case, statistically, he’s also likely to come home of his own accord in the next few days.’

‘If not, where would he go?’

‘London? A lot of kids think they’ll find work, that it’ll be easy.’

‘He doesn’t know London. He’s not streetwise. He wouldn’t manage in London.’

‘Then he’s less likely to put himself in danger, or get
mixed up with unsavoury characters. Was he under any other stress? Other problems? Exam results coming up, for instance?’

‘Yes, but it’s not that. This is my fault.’

‘Was he depressed? On any medication?’

‘No.’

‘Into drugs at all? You need to tell us, Mrs Parker. He won’t be in any trouble if he is.’

‘There was cocaine at Charlie Crawford’s house, but it’s not that either.’ She looked up at the young officer. She was certain he would never understand, but she had to say it – someone had to hear what she had done. ‘Mitch’s grandfather is a murderer and a rapist,’ she said. ‘He’s serving a life sentence in Wayleigh Heath, and I’ve been visiting him. I told Mitch he’s just the same, that he’d end up in prison like his grandfather. That’s why he’s run away. That’s what he’s running from. Me.’

FORTY-EIGHT

As Pamela lay in Lauren’s single bed, she could hear the familiar sound of Hugo’s muffled snores through the wall. She was glad he was asleep, and hoped Tessa too would manage to get some rest. She thought about Erin who had insisted on remaining at home, at least until it became clear how seriously they should take Mitch’s disappearance. For a split second Pamela had half thought that Erin couldn’t comprehend the urgency of their concern because she’d never had children of her own. She’d corrected herself immediately, but her shame still burned. Yet somehow, she reflected, having Erin here for a proper stay, going on a couple of outings and doing ordinary domestic things together, had made Pamela see herself as a mother in a way it was clear that Erin was not. While this did not lessen her regret about the past, she realised she was beginning to feel more confident, more authentic.

It was well after midnight, and she had left the curtains open to let in air from the open window. She watched the full moon riding high across wispy clouds and wondered
where Mitch was now, praying, as much for Tessa’s sake as for Mitch himself, that he was safe. She hadn’t really understood Tessa’s garbled story about the row with Tamsin’s father, nor quite what she and Sam appeared so penitent about, but Mitch was a sensible boy and the mystery was sure to be resolved soon.