Reported Missing: A gripping psychological thriller with a breath-taking twist Read online

  ‘It’s not that.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re not looking for a job as you are seriously out of luck!’ He gives a small laugh to himself.

  I rummage in my bag. ‘I… I… Have you seen this man?’ It always sounds ridiculous when I say that, like something from a cheesy TV show.

  He looks at me strangely. ‘What man?’

  I finally retrieve the leaflets from my bag.

  ‘He’s my husband,’ I say, pointing to the picture. ‘We live round here. He’s missing.’

  ‘Missing? Really? Not another one. That’s three people in a year! Fuck me, that’s awful.’

  I have his full attention now.

  ‘How long’s this one been gone? Sorry, love, how long has your husband been missing?’ He puts a protective hand on my arm but I wriggle away. His nails are dirty.

  I hear the boys celebrating again behind me and the machine plays a louder jingle. ‘Get in, you little bastard! Yesssss!’

  ‘He’s been missing since July. The last day of the school term?’ I think this detail might help since so many kids come in here. ‘You, er, you might remember? I… I was hoping I could leave some of these leaflets in here. I think he might have been in here, that’s all.’

  I tried to keep the leaflet simple, to the point. It reads: Missing. Have you seen this man? There’s a picture of Chris, wearing his jogging gear and grinning. There are strips with my mobile number at the bottom to tear off. Jeannie – my best friend – said I should change it, that I shouldn’t give it out. But I have to keep it the same, in case he tries to call.

  I see the recognition fall across his face. ‘Oh. So it’s not another missing person, is it? It’s him.’ A grimace of anger is spreading now. ‘Listen, love, don’t come in here and try and pull the wool over my eyes. Are you taking the piss?’

  The old woman is staring, listening in, one hand in the box of coins but gawping over, the lights dancing on her face.

  ‘I’m not trying to trick you.’ I try to sound assertive and direct.

  He’s edging closer to me, invading my personal space.

  ‘I told you he’s my husband!’

  ‘Look.’ There’s a sneer across his face.

  ‘Hey!’ the woman shouts over. ‘I’m watching you, matey.’

  It’s hard to tell but I assume she is addressing him. He steps back a little.

  ‘And what makes you think he’s been in here? We don’t allow nonces in here, love. I am personally very careful about that.’ He jabs at his chest, puffing it out slightly.

  ‘I’m not just asking in here, I’m asking everywhere in town,’ I say, as if it will make any difference.

  ‘Alright then. Give me some of your leaflets.’ He is already yanking them from my hand.

  I try to hold on and a few tear.

  ‘Sure, I’ll put these out for you, my love.’ He makes a theatrical show of walking to a nearby bin and dropping the leaflets in before pouring his cup of coffee in on top of them, holding his arm higher than he needs to for dramatic effect, not looking away from me the whole time.

  I see the old woman shake her head. At me or him? But she is already putting coins into the slot again.

  Matty is teeing up his money for the next race. I think about appealing to him, tearing a strip off him, using his name, but I know it would be pointless. I give up and leave.

  The wind is getting up outside, a freezing gale pushing my breath back into my mouth. The waves are crashing high, close to the railings above the beach, sometimes sloshing across the road. It’s dangerous but people still walk close by. The boys from the arcade are over there now, standing near the edge, leaning over then running away when a wave comes. One of them gets drenched and screeches, the sound mingling in with the cries of the seagulls. People have been pulled in this way before, dragged into the sea, drowned. I worried that the sea had taken Chris, but the helicopters, the lifeboat searches brought up nothing. Not Chris and not Kayleigh either.

  I carry on up one of The Parades, stopping every now and then to attach a leaflet to a lamp post. It will get damaged in the wind and rain but not immediately. You never know when the right person will walk past.

  From a certain vantage point in Shawmouth, at the top of The Parades, by the train station, there’s an angle from which you can’t see the road or the promenade. It looks like the whole town, all these houses and people, shops and cars, just float on the sea. That’s why in the neighbouring towns they call people from Shawmouth ‘floaters’. The name has always given me the creeps. Shadowy shapes in the eye. Dead bodies, drifters, people who can’t commit or decide. Pennywise the Clown: ‘They all float down here.’

  The Parades are a set of parallel streets between the top of town and the sea. Mostly streets of houses, giving way to a street full of bars, and on the next one a couple of restaurants and B&Bs. Close together, these streets, but occupying different worlds.

  As you get nearer the sea, down the sweeping avenues, the houses get more expensive.

  Old, three-storey, candy-coloured terraces, faded yellows, pinks and blues, with white detailing like the icing on Christmas gingerbread houses. I used to imagine we’d live in one of these one day. We’d be tidy then, when we had one of these houses. We’d have solid wood floors, classy chandeliers, fancy serving bowls. We’d lounge around barefoot – a carefree, magazine life. God knows how we’d ever have the money, though. What do you need to do to own one? Be a doctor, an old-school academic, the lucky recipient of an inheritance, the beneficiary of someone’s death? I like to study the families as they come and go from these houses. The fragrant wives gleam: lean, healthy, ‘lit from within’, as they say in the magazines; dressed in expensive casuals. Slim thighs in well-cut jeans, a tasteful white shirt that doesn’t crease or pull. They walk pedigree dogs, bundle babies into 4x4s. The men are clean-shaven, tight-torsoed, like catalogue models; the catalogues I spent hours poring over as a kid – I was thinking ahead to my life about now with someone like Chris, what it was going to be like.

  I try to look into the houses as I pass, imagining my alternate life, being careful to make it look like a casual glance in case anyone should notice me. The houses all look pristine; have cleaners, no doubt. Wood floors, high ceilings, white paintwork. They look welcoming, calming.

  I’m out of breath and too hot in my coat now, after walking up the hill. I used to go swimming, jogged sometimes with Jeannie. I barely do any exercise now.

  Up near the river and the train station, they call this area ‘The Fields’, the wild area surrounding the river and a few playing fields. Chris used to play football there sometimes on Sundays.

  Chris was last seen on CCTV on the wide road that runs along the top of The Parades, separating the town from the river and the fields: 9.37 a.m. Shirt on, loosened at the neck, work rucksack on his back. He wasn’t picked up anywhere else on camera. An article in the paper said the surveillance cameras in the town had been ‘prioritised’ due to budget cuts. Up to a third of them shut off to save money, they said.

  On the film, he just crosses the street and then vanishes. I found myself craning my head, trying to catch the last glimpse, to see round the corner, beyond the screen. Did he meet someone? Kayleigh? Jump on a train to start a new life somewhere else? He always talked about going to America, said they needed teachers there. But his passport is still at home.

  Detective Fisher had me watch the video to confirm it was Chris, and I made her play it over and over. It was him. And at the same time, it wasn’t. I don’t want that to be the latest memory I have of him, a grey figure drifting past. Glowing white eyes, supernatural.

  There were a couple of other reported sightings too, but Detective Fisher was cagey; she shared what she wanted to. Probably only what she was allowed to.

  The CCTV is why I often come here, though this is the first time in a while. Chris and I used to come here too, when we first moved back. I run the tape again in my mind. Stand on the same spot, the last place I know
he was. Was it here? Or here? I close my eyes, but I can’t feel anything.

  I go further along, towards the water. People sometimes sit here by the river in summer, walk their dogs. Mum and Dad sometimes brought me for picnics when I was little. Chris and I would walk here on Sundays or after tea on summer evenings, watching the last sun of the day fade. He’s into nature, the beach, bike rides – more so than me. That’s why I thought he’d like it in Shawmouth after the shock of leaving London subsided.

  I’ve always been fascinated by this place. It’s quite deserted now. The weather, the time of day. I get closer; the ground is already sodden and slippery underfoot.

  ‘DANGER,’ the red sign blares. ‘The Cut is DANGEROUS and has claimed lives in the past. Please stand back and beware all slippery rocks.’

  They call this section of the river ‘The Cut’. Chris liked it here too. It has a certain beauty, something ethereal and fairy-taley, I’ve always thought. The water is higher than usual at the moment, fast-flowing and playful, skittering over rocks, but not violent like it can be. The narrow gap and stepping stones inviting you to stride across. But it’s a cruel mirage. The water here runs faster and deeper than the rest of the river. No one knows how deep it goes. There’s a network of caverns and tunnels underneath – they hold all the unseen water.

  Dogs, a young couple, even a child – they’ve all been sucked in over the decades, gone for good. As a child, this place was a bogeyman drummed into us.

  I stand at the edge now, letting the rushing water hypnotise me, like watching road markings whizz by on a car journey. I am woozy, as if my head is rolling back and forth. I’d have kept back before, obeyed the sign and my mother; I wouldn’t have dared get this close or let Chris either. The muddied edge is ragged and uncertain. It could collapse; I could slip.

  I notice the cold after a while, feel like I am breaking out of a trance. I check around, shake myself out of it and head back into town. I am tired. But I have to complete the circuit or I feel superstitious.

  Roaming the glut of bars and pubs near The Parades, I peer through windows, occasionally stopping and watching to see who’s entering and leaving. By day, the bars and pubs look stark and grubby, unrecognisable from the dark, thronging evenings.

  There’s a cleaner in one of them, wiping down the bar and putting upturned stools onto the tables.

  ‘We’re closed,’ she says when I go in, without looking towards the door.

  ‘I don’t want a drink. I was wondering if…’

  She looks up now and I can see she recognises me, she knows who I am. It’s often women who do.

  ‘Something of a local celebrity,’ Jeannie said once, a misplaced tentative joke.

  From the picture they kept using in the paper, I assume. Taken on our wedding day, swiped off my Facebook before I changed the settings.

  I consider just leaving, especially after the incident at the arcade, but my feet are rooted to the spot. If people are going to start pushing again, I have to push too. Jeannie always said I’m like a Weeble; I bounce back up.

  ‘I was wondering if I could leave some leaflets. I’m... erm… looking for my husband. He’s missing.’

  The woman doesn’t look surprised or ask for any more details, but she glances behind, seemingly checking if anyone else is there. She bites her lip.

  ‘So can I? Leave a few leaflets here?’

  She twists her wedding ring, eyes darting.

  ‘Let me see,’ she says, holding her hand out for a flyer. She looks round again before examining the leaflet and takes a few moments to read it – her eyes move from top to bottom, not the cursory glance people usually give.

  Her posture is hunched, like she’s trying to make herself smaller somehow, to take up less space. ‘It’s not really for me to decide…’ She meets my eye. ‘I’m sorry. Really I am. I’ll ask the fella who owns this place when he gets back though.’

  There’s a pile of flyers behind her, for takeaways and taxis, a 99p drinks night at one of the clubs on the same strip. I look at the pile and back to her.

  She just shrugs, apologetic. ‘Sorry, if it were up to me, but it’s not my place, you know? It’s more than my job’s worth. I’ll ask him, I promise.’

  I can tell that she is sincere.

  ‘OK, thanks, I appreciate it. Maybe I can come back later in the week?’

  She doesn’t answer. She has already returned to the cleaning, rubbing hard at an imaginary stain on a table already shiny with polish.

  After they showed me the footage of him on the CCTV close by, I wondered if around here, the bars, is where he might have been that weekend, when he didn’t come home. But no one had seen him, he wasn’t there. It’s not like we ever really came to these pubs. He’s more of a real ale type. But he came sometimes with the football lads. ‘Just for a laugh,’ he had said. I thought maybe he just needed to let off some steam, drink a bit too much; blow the cobwebs off.

  He’d been going to the pub after work for ‘a quick one’ more often, or so he said, and so I stupidly believed. He’d been playing with his phone more, always fiddling with it. Before, I used to answer his mobile for him sometimes, if he was driving or in the shower. But suddenly he was taking it everywhere with him and leaving the room when it rang. I didn’t think much of it at the time. He was always glued to it for the internet anyway.

  ‘You can talk,’ he’d say, if I challenged him. ‘You’re just the same.’ He had a point.

  But looking back now, wasn’t this different? Was he talking to her? Did he have two phones? Could he really be that cunning? Maybe it was just nothing. Maybe the accusations about Kayleigh are just contaminating everything, the whole life we had before this.

  Four

  Saturday, 7 November

  I wake at 6 p.m. in the caravan. I slept most of the afternoon. I sleep better when it’s light outside; it passes the time. People are busy with their lives during the day – work, children, shopping. Sometimes, when I am wretched with tiredness, I turn off the fire in the caravan and snuggle under the covers, letting sleep take me.

  I wasn’t going to drink tonight; I want to get things under control. But I need to take the edge off.

  I pull on jeans, boots and a thick jumper and Puffa coat, which makes a swooshing sound each time I move. This is all I ever wear now, my hair scraped back, no make-up. I don’t want to look like my old self, prefer people not to take any notice of me. My wardrobe back at the house is full of bright dresses, flowers, dots, vintage. Career Becky, sporty Becky, Saturday pub-lunch Becky. ‘A real clothes horse,’ my mum used to say. Back then, we used to go shopping together at least once a month on a Saturday, cakes and coffee in Marsh’s department store. I’d feel warm and content, looking forward to spending the evening with Chris or maybe going out with the girls, the Sunday stretching ahead – a lie-in, no plans.

  There’s no one around at the caravan park, only a few caravans with their lights on. It’s mostly deserted for the winter, no holidaymakers, just the odd person. I imagine men eating from tins, trying to get out of the way of rows at home, or perhaps they’re in work boots, labouring in the area on one of the new housing developments.

  I leave the caravan park, walking underneath the arches of the rusting blue ‘Welcome to Sandy Nook’ sign. My hands and lower legs are freezing from the dampness of the grass, breath blooming in a cloud in front of me, the smell of burning on the air. In the distance I can hear fireworks again, coloured glitter erupting in the sky, who knows how far away. For a moment, I wonder if the attack the other night really happened, but the drying scab close to my eye reassures me I didn’t dream it.

  I tighten as I approach it, turning onto the seafront. The concrete bus shelter, an ugly textured concrete shell – if you scraped against it, it would graze the skin right off. No buses stop here anymore, but kids like to hang out here sometimes. Have they always done this? Is it because I’m here? There’s been a campaign by locals to get it knocked down. Antisocial behaviour, they
argue.

  Whooping and low chatter: they are here tonight. I can smell marijuana. But as much as I want to, I can’t hide away in the caravan forever. And if I do, it will be on my terms, when I choose. I have these flashes of defiance, moments of relative strength, and then they’re quickly gone.

  A boy appears from inside the shelter, staggering out into the road as if pushed. ‘You wanker!’ he shouts, laughing and circling his arms to try and steady himself. He doesn’t seem concerned about the threat of a car slamming into him. But there’s very little traffic tonight – just the odd car every now and then, the whooshing as they pass merging into the sound of the waves across the road. When he sees me, he rights himself and his eyes narrow. He’s excited about giving the group something to do, and he disappears back into the bunker. It all goes quiet and I try to speed up, but they start to appear, file out one by one, some with their hands in pockets. I try not to make eye contact.

  ‘Alright, love?’ one of the boys shouts, voice surprisingly deep. ‘How much you charging? Oi, love – answer me, you ignorant cow.’

  I rush on so they’re behind me now. Not daring to look back.

  ‘Fuck off then, you pikey bitch. Get back to your scratty caravan.’ A girl this time. They all laugh, but the sounds are more muffled, as they’re back in the bus shelter again. There isn’t any other way back to the caravan park than past the shelter.

  Reaching the cash machine outside the shop, I chance a look back but there’s no one. A man walking his dog on the other side of the road, but no sign of the kids from the bus shelter. I am almost out of money. Earlier this week I cashed in some coppers I had been saving, an ongoing game with myself that I’ve played since I was young. Chris and I used to cash in a carrier bag-full once every few months and use the money for a day out in town. A film, out for tea and a few drinks.

  I try the first card. ‘Sorry, your request cannot be processed at this time.’ I snatch it out. Shit, I need to keep better track of which ones are working, which are maxed out. My hands are shaking as I rifle through my purse for another card. It’s in the machine and I have to close my eyes and picture the blue plastic, the raised numbers, to conjure up the PIN . So many numbers. Again, insufficient funds. A third one. The screen freezes then blinks before spitting out £20. Since it’s working, and it could stop doing so at any time, I repeat the process and take out another £10. I don’t want to push it; alarm the algorithm about erratic activity.