The Missing: The gripping psychological thriller that’s got everyone talking... (20 page)

‘You’re back!’ Jake rushes into the kitchen as I stumble in through the front door. ‘Oh my God. You look awful! You’re limping. Why are you limping?’

His eyes are bloodshot as though he’s been crying, there’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his hair is dirty, slicked back with grease or hair product – I can’t tell which. He’s wearing a tatty jumper, pulled over his hands. It feels as though I haven’t seen him for years and I’m shocked anew by how broken he looks.

‘Mum?’ he says again and his strong, handsome face seems to collapse in on itself. ‘Say something, Mum.’

‘I had another blackout.’ It’s all I can manage before I collapse into his arms.

He pulls me into him and I press my face to his chest, comforted by the familiar but musky scent of his skin through his T-shirt.

‘Oh my God, another one?’ he says. ‘What happened? Tell me everything you can remember.’

‘And then they walked me to a taxi rank and I came home,’ I finish. ‘And let myself in.’

I’m on the sofa and there is a cup of tea on the table beside me. Steam no longer rises from the surface of the mug. I haven’t had more than two or three sips since we sat down.

‘That’s it?’ Jake asks. ‘That’s all you can remember? Coming round in the toilets?’

‘Jake, I …’

I want to tell him how terrified I was. How I thought I’d woken up in a coffin or been locked in a box. But I can’t tell him how disorientating, how truly, truly frightening it is not to know where you are or even who you are, because I don’t want to scare him. I don’t want him to worry about me. He’s falling apart as it is. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘That’s all I can remember.’

My handbag is tucked between me and the arm of the sofa. I haven’t told Jake about the knife. How can I when I don’t know what it means? It looks like one of mine, one of the knives we use for steak, but there must be hundreds or thousands of people who own one. I bought it from B&M in the Broadwalk shopping centre, not somewhere fancy.

There are only two possibilities: either someone used the knife on me or I used it on them. But I’m not bleeding. There was blood on my fingertips but I’m not hurt. I surreptitiously checked myself for injuries while I was sitting in the back of the cab.

Someone else’s blood then.

‘Mum?’ Jake says. ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Your phone.’ He points at my bag. ‘It’s ringing.’

I tilt the bag towards me, hiding the contents from Jake who’s sitting in the armchair across the room, as I unzip it and carefully take out my phone.

It’s Mark.

‘Hello, darling.’ His voice sounds muddied, as though he’s tired or been drinking. ‘I just wanted to check that you’re okay and say goodnight before I turn in. I was thinking about you all the way from Bristol to Gloucester.’

‘You’re there then?’

‘Yes, of course.’ He laughs. ‘Where did you think I was?’

‘Nowhere. I … it’s good to hear your voice.’

‘And it’s good to hear yours.’ He laughs again. He’s definitely drunk. He always used to get a bit soppy after a night out. Soppy and loving. ‘It’s been a while since I rang you to say goodnight, hasn’t it? Remember when we were dating and I’d go on a night out with the boys and you’d go on a night out with the girls? I’d always give you a ring before I went to sleep. Well, it was more like passing out and we’d …’

He continues to talk, laughing at his one-sided reminiscences, his voice a low murmur in my ear as Jake reaches into the pocket of his tracksuit and pulls out his phone. He taps at the screen with his thumb.

I interrupt Mark, still in full flow. ‘I’d better let you go. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’

‘Yeah.’ He sighs. ‘I have. Okay. Sleep well, Claire. I love you.’

‘I …’ I pause. It’s been so long since I told Mark I love him that the words feel alien in my mouth. ‘I love you too.’

‘Bye then. Bye!’

The line goes dead and Jake looks up from his phone. ‘Was that Dad?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You didn’t tell him what happened.’

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘I didn’t want to worry him and …’ I pause as an image flashes across my mind. The last thing I saw before I blacked out.

‘Mum?’ Jake says. ‘What’s the matter?’

The room swims and the air grows thick and hot.

‘Mum?’ Jake tucks his phone back into his pocket as he moves to stand up. ‘You’re not having another blackout, are you? Should I ring someone?’

‘No.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Tell me the secret you’re keeping from me.’

Jake shifts in his seat. ‘Secret? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes, you do.’

‘No, I—’

‘Give me your phone then.’

‘What?’ He blanches. ‘No. It’s … personal.’

I sit forward, my mind suddenly clear. ‘I read one of your messages. It said, “I can keep a secret if you can.” Who sent it to you?’

‘Uh …’ His hand moves to his pocket, as though he’s checking that the phone is still there. ‘No one.’

‘I read it. Tell me who sent it to you, Jake. Was it Billy? Do you know where he is?’

‘Billy?’ His eyes widen in surprise. ‘God … no … no, of course it wasn’t. How could Billy—’

‘Then who? Who sent it? Tell me or I’ll ring the police.’ It’s an idle threat but Jake doesn’t know that. I can’t ring the police, not until I’ve checked whether the knife is one of mine.

Jake looks across at the photograph of Billy on the mantelpiece. ‘It’s from a girl.’

‘What girl?’

‘A girl I know.’

‘You haven’t left the house in days. How could you have met a girl?’

‘Well, I …’ He rubs his palms against his thighs. ‘I haven’t exactly met her in person yet but … but I know her.’

‘How?’

‘Through –’ he clears his throat – ‘Tinder.’

‘Tinder? The dating app?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But what about Kira? I thought you loved her.’

‘I do. I do love her, more than anything in the world, but she won’t let me near her. We haven’t had sex in months.’ The base of his throat flushes red as he stares at the carpet. ‘I was just having a bit of fun, a bit of banter.’

I hold out a hand. ‘Show me the phone.’

‘No.’

‘Show me the phone, Jake.’

‘Mum, it’s … the messages, they’re … they’re quite explicit.’

‘Show me the phone.’

‘Okay. But you’re not going to like it.’ It seems to take an age for him to cross the living room and join me on the sofa. He tilts the phone away from me and unlocks it, then shows me the screen. ‘See, Tinder.’

He points at a white icon containing a red flame. It’s the same app Liz showed me earlier.

‘Show me the messages.’

He cringes away. ‘Mum, please.’

‘Now, Jake.’

‘Okay.’ He sighs as he taps the message icon and a list of his most recent messages fills the screen. The one at the top says:

I can keep a secret if you can.

It’s the message I saw earlier. Below it is a message Jake sent:

I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m really nervous someone will find out.

The one before that reads:

I can’t wait to see you. Last night I fell asleep dreaming of your cock in my mouth and your fingers in my hair.

Beneath it, another message from Jake:

I really want you. I know I shouldn’t but you’re all I can think about. You make me feel things I haven’t felt before. I want to fuck you really hard and—

‘Okay.’ I push the phone away. ‘I’ve read enough.’

‘I told you.’ Jake can’t bring himself to look me in the eye. ‘I told you it was bad.’

‘Bad?’ Rage builds in my chest as I think of Kira, standing at the back door crying because of how much she loves him. ‘Go!’ I point at the living-room door. ‘Get out of my sight before I do something I regret.’

The second Jake’s bedroom door slams shut I head for the kitchen and yank open the cutlery drawer. I rifle through the different compartments and count out the steak knives.

I find three and put them on the kitchen table, then pull open the door to the dishwasher. It’s mid-cycle – Jake must have put it on shortly before I returned home – and a cloud of steam hits me full in the face. When the steam has dissipated I pull out the cutlery basket and pick through the spoons, forks and knives.

I pull out two steak knives by their handles and line them up with the others on the table. Five knives.

I go through the cutlery drawer again, lifting up the metal tray to see if a knife has found its way underneath but there’s nothing there apart from a rusty bottle opener. I look in the dishwasher, both trays this time, then pull the bottom one out and feel around in the drum of the machine. Nothing.

The utensils pots near the oven are next. The missing knife isn’t in with the wooden spoons or the spatulas, nor is it in the knife block. I rummage through the junk drawer beneath the microwave but there’s no knife there either. The only other place to check is Jake’s room.

I have to knock three times before my son responds.

When I open the door he is lying on his bed in his boxer shorts, his thick arms crossed over his chest, his hands tucked beneath his armpits. I can see the wariness in his eyes. He thinks I’ve come to have another go at him about cheating on Kira.

‘What is it, Mum?’

‘Just looking for dirty dishes.’ Normally I’d find plates on the carpet, mugs on the chest of drawers and breakfast bowls stacked on top of each other on his bedside table, but his room appears to be completely free of either crockery or cutlery.

‘I put the dishwasher on earlier.’

‘Yes, I saw.’

‘You don’t need an excuse if you want to come and talk to me, you know.’

‘I didn’t … I wasn’t …’

‘I deserved it,’ he says flatly. ‘You screaming at me earlier. It’s been a long time coming. I’m surprised you didn’t hit me.’

‘I’d never do that.’

‘I know, and I’ve always found that weird. When me and Billy were at primary school the other kids would come in sometimes and they’d tell everyone how they’d been walloped the night before because they’d stolen something or talked back to their parents or whatever. It wasn’t just one kid – loads of kids in my class were hit by their parents and I didn’t get it. Me and Billy answered you and Dad back all the time. We played up. We didn’t do what we were told. Billy even nicked money out of your purse one time and—’

‘I didn’t know that!’

‘He was sneaky like that.’ He smiles. ‘We both were. We were little shits, just like the kids in school who got smacked by their parents, but you two never touched us.’

‘That’s because our parents hit us and we swore we’d never do the same to our kids.’

‘Me and Billy – neither of us were angels.’

‘I know that,’ I say softly, ‘but I still love you. There’s nothing either of you could do that I couldn’t forgive.’

‘Seriously? So if I told you that Billy had killed someone or I’d raped someone you’d still forgive that?’

I stare at him in horror. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

‘Nothing that bad … but … I …’ His chin drops to his chest. ‘I said and did some horrible things the night Billy ran away.’

I put a hand on the door frame. ‘Like what?’

‘After Dad went to the pub and you went to Gran’s, Billy started dicking about with his lighter, holding it under a cushion and saying he was going to burn the house down to pay Dad back. I lost it. I told him that everything Dad had said was right. That he was a loser and an embarrassment to the family.’

‘That’s no worse than the things your dad said.’

‘It gets worse. Billy told me I was going out with the town bike and that everyone was laughing at me behind my back. I lost it and I hit him. I punched him in the face. I split his lip.’

I try to cover my shock with my hand but I’m too slow and he hears me gasp.

‘Kira heard the whole thing.’ He turns to look at me. ‘She was standing at the top of the stairs. I ran up to her, thinking she’d thank me for sticking up for her, but she just … she just sort of froze, so I asked her if it was true. She didn’t say anything. She just stood there.

‘I was so angry I went into my room and cracked open a bottle of whisky and necked it. Next thing I knew it was morning and Kira was in bed beside me and I was so hungover I could hardly open my eyes.’

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘Why haven’t you told me this before? Does Dad know? Did you tell the police?’

‘I thought Billy would come back. I thought he’d done it to get attention and I wasn’t going to play along.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘When we realized that he wasn’t dicking about and the police interviewed us I told them the truth. They asked if anyone could corroborate my statement and I said that Kira could. They never talked to me about it again. I should have told you and Dad too but you were both so cut up and I didn’t … I didn’t want you to hate me.’

‘Oh, Jake.’

‘No, Mum. Don’t hug me. I don’t deserve it. If I hadn’t hit him Billy wouldn’t have left and Jason Davies wouldn’t have got hold of him. My brother’s been murdered and it’s all my fault. It’s my fucking fault!’

He moves in a blur. One second he’s sitting on the bed, the next he’s up on his knees. He swings back his right arm and smashes his fist into the bedroom wall, then follows it with a punch from his left hand.

‘Stop! Jake, stop! Don’t do this!’

I use all my body weight to try and pull him away but it’s like wrestling a bull as he punches the wall again and again and again, driving his fists into it, smearing it with blood.

‘Please! Stop! Please!’

Jake pauses, fist pulled back, and as quickly as his rage boiled to the surface it dies away and he slumps onto the bed and curls up in the foetal position, his knuckles raw and bleeding.

‘Jake.’ I press myself into the curve of his back and wrap my arms around him. ‘Jake, it’s not your fault. Listen to me, please. I could never blame you for what’s happened. Never. Never.’

He howls with anguish and then bursts into tears. I hold him as he cries, his body juddering in my arms just the way it did when he was a toddler.