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

  Bright white strip lights shock my eyes coming in from the darkness. The bell above the door rattles as I enter the shop, and two women standing close to the counter stop talking as I enter. One, wearing slippers with a loaf of bread tucked under her arm, is slowly looking me up and down, holding eye contact. My face burns, the blood pumping in my ears. I look to the owner. Don’t know why. What do I expect him to do, chuck her out for looking at me? I see him a few times a week, mostly when I buy vodka and bread or milk, but he’s one of the few people who are quite pleasant to me. Perhaps he hasn’t heard the stories. He let me put a ‘missing’ picture of Chris in the shop window at first, and he said he’d take some leaflets a while back. But I don’t see them anywhere now on a glance across the counter, and there’s nothing on the noticeboard.

  He refuses to look at me, checking off a list in his notepad, purposefully counting nothing. One of the two women stares, hard-faced. I flee into an aisle, my heart thumping in my chest, and pretend to look at the papers and magazines. Newspapers: the last thing I want right now. Up to the magazines. Before me, the weeklies are a sneering wall of gaudy pink banners, tanned breasts – skin stretched taut, veins close to the surface, white teeth. Screeching headlines: a single mother who spent charity money on a boob job, a woman who had sex with a ghost.

  ‘You want to be more careful who you serve in here,’ the woman says to the shopkeeper, raising her voice to make sure I hear her. ‘Really careful.’

  ‘Please, madam. I don’t want any trouble here.’

  Fight or flight?

  I run for the door, empty-handed, the stupid bell chiming again as I go. Outside, my chest is tight. Chris’s ‘missing’ picture, from when he first disappeared, is gone from the window – you can still see the tacky marks where the tape was, replaced by fading neon stars, blaring out cheap deals on cans and frozen food in black marker pen.

  I don’t want to risk facing the women when they come out of the shop so I run most of the way back along the seafront to the caravan, slowing down as I get close to the bus shelter. But I don’t hear anything and there’s no sign of anyone now. They must have moved on somewhere else.

  Without even thinking about it properly, I head straight for the social club, Barnacles, when I get back to the caravan park. I just need a drink to calm down, take the edge off the night. It’s dead inside, a couple of blokes drinking frothy pints.

  Barnacles is low-ceilinged, claustrophobic, with woodchip paper, a deserted pool table in one alcove corner and a television in the other corner of the room, attached to the wall. Not a flat screen, one of the old ones with the tubes in the back. There’s a table with a corner sofa and seats underneath, torn maroon pleather, cheap yellow foam spewing out.

  Julie is behind the bar. She runs the caravan park. ‘She probably runs the whole town. I wouldn’t mess with her,’ Jeannie said about her when I moved here.

  ‘Hiya, love, what’re you having?’ Julie greets me. ‘We’ve not seen you in here for a while.’

  Her voice is gravelly, like that of a heavy smoker, and her skin looks matt and tanned, leathery. Even though it’s winter she wears her usual uniform behind the bar – a short denim skirt with flip-flops and a vest. Julie knows who I am, what’s happened – a lot of people around here know. ‘It’s none of my business, as long as you pay your way and don’t bring trouble to my door,’ she’d said when I moved in, shouting back over her shoulder as she showed me to the caravan, walking ahead, dangling the keys off one finger.

  ‘Innocent until proven guilty in this country, and as far as I’m concerned we ain’t none of us responsible for other people’s actions.’ I was touched at the time; no one else had really shown me any kindness. Since then she’s always been friendly but kept her distance. She takes the caravan rent in cash and she doesn’t pry, and that suits me.

  ‘Double vodka and a pint, please, Julie,’ I say, putting the money on the counter: £2.30 for a Fosters and £1.50 for a vodka. An extra shot for £1. I know the prices in here off by heart.

  Julie’s eyebrows rise slightly at my drink request but she just jokes, ‘Not in a cocktail, the lager and vodka, I presume?’ A few seconds later, ‘Fosters is off, love, I’ll need to change it. Sit down and I’ll bring it over.’ She gestures her head towards the seats. I feel self-conscious sitting here alone, not knowing what to do with my hands, instinctively touching my hair over and over.

  A while later, Julie brings over a circular tin tray with the lager and vodka, along with a jacket potato with baked beans poured over it and a limp, browning side salad drizzled with thin bean juice. ‘It needed using up, so you’re doing me a favour. I hate waste,’ she tells me. ‘Saves you cooking back at the van, eh?’

  Her rings chink against the side of the plate when she puts it down. I have never seen anyone wear as much gold as Julie. You wouldn’t think that running a caravan park would be that lucrative. Each finger has at least four gold rings stacked up close to the knuckle. Many are plain like wedding bands, others are studded with diamonds. I notice one tarnished ring is a heart wearing a crown clutched by two hands. I think of all the dirt and moisture that must fester underneath the rings.

  ‘How you doing, love? Good to see you up and about.’

  ‘I’m alright, thanks, Julie.’

  ‘What have I told you, kid? Think on: don’t let the bastards grind you down.’

  She picks up some glasses and goes back to the bar.

  I probably wouldn’t have eaten anything at the van; sometimes I like feeling empty and hungry, floating. But I appreciate the gesture from Julie after what just happened at the bus stop and the shop, so I thank her for the food.

  The potato has been microwaved and the middle is still hard, the skin gritty and earthy, but I eat it anyway, realising I am actually quite shaky, that I haven’t eaten yet today. When Julie comes back over, the plate is clean and my glasses are empty. I notice her checking. ‘Another round, love? I’ve got some sticky toffee pudding on the go if you want some?’

  I order just the lager.

  ‘Hey, it’s karaoke in a sec. You getting up?’ Julie smirks and nudges me, her laugh chesty.

  The next lager starts to make me feel warm and fuzzy. I can’t afford to be going out drinking like this but I need it right now, and at least it’s cheap. That’s why people come here.

  ‘It’s what keeps me going in the winter, this place,’ Julie often says when it’s busy.

  Chris and I didn’t used to think anything of blowing £100 on a night out just after payday. We’d go out straight from work on the Friday, have a few drinks and a pizza then stay out in the pub until closing, knowing we had nothing to do the next day but laze around at home.

  It dawns on me slowly that ‘Delilah’ is being belted out by a drinker from the club. I’ve seen him before, white-haired with dark eyebrows, big lamb chop sideburns, cowboy-style shirt, strained by his solid-looking beer belly. He has a deep, booming voice that could pass for a good one if you don’t pay attention too closely. He doesn’t sound much like Tom Jones, though. I feel a little dizzy, and the disco ball lights bouncing around the room are not helping.

  From the dance floor, the man throws one arm out in front of him dramatically as he belts out the lyrics. I’ve always liked karaoke – watching it, not performing. I like to see people showing off and really giving it some. It strikes me as something that people with the right attitude and a zest for life do; the sort of people you want to be around. Perhaps that’s why I like coming in here, to Barnacles. Sometimes, not very often, I want to be alone but around people, and this is the ideal place for that. Usually I just want to be alone.

  The bar is filling up and getting warm under the low ceiling. Most of the tables are crowded with glasses and people on stools, clustered together. Thankfully, no one bothers me and I keep my table to myself. If anyone sits down, I will need to leave, but I realise I am feeling OK, to my surprise – as OK as I can, anyway. Not raging or hysterical, not cramped up from t
he inside out with anxiety. It’s just the drink, I know that, but I’ll take it for a short respite.

  I put my coat on the table to hold my spot and order a treble gin and tonic. It’s served in a fingerprint-marked half-pint glass, the tonic warm and flat. I gulp it down and order another one before returning to my seat.

  Someone drops a drink. Shattering glass pierces the air and people cheer like in school dinner halls. I jump; an image breaks into my brain. The brick through the window, the red spray paint across the front of the house and on the pavement outside. ‘Nonce.’ It was Jeannie who saw that, who had to break it to me that someone had written it. I cowered in the bathroom after the brick. Had to call her and Dan to come round and help clean up.

  The day after the brick, I saw an advert in the classifieds in the paper; it was non-descript, but the words jumped out at me. ‘Escape’ the heading beckoned. The small print said that as well as for holidays, static caravans were also available for short-term rents ‘very cheap rates’. That’s when I decided to move here to the caravan park.

  Jeannie says I should go and stay with her at her house; she always has. She hates me being in the caravan. She seems to take it as a personal failing. But I think she wants a pet version of me to move in, to eat my vegetable-packed dinners and take my baths and say yes, it’s all helping, that I’m coming back to life, that I can see a way ahead. She wouldn’t want me staying for long if she saw what I’m really like.

  Next up on the karaoke is a woman with dyed black hair styled in a wet-look spiral perm. She has tight leather trousers on and a thin T-shirt with a bejewelled tiger on the front, a tanned shoulder poking out on one side. When she turns with the mic I see she has heavily fake-tanned skin, and a gold tooth glints. Her voice is growly with an affected American twang and another accent I can’t quite place. She winks at people in the crowd from time to time as she walks across the stage area, singing ‘Still the One’ by Shania Twain.

  There’s a spirited atmosphere in the bar. Some people get up to dance, mock slow-style, old-school spins. Glasses clatter from people bringing the next round back from the bar. As I look round it feels like everyone is smiling or laughing, holding shouted conversations over tables. The room gently swims and I feel a certain sense of contentment, alone in this crowded place, no one bothering me. I watch the glitter-ball sequins glide round on the roof, feeling like they are sweeping me along with them.

  An older woman in a lilac skirt suit and floral blouse gets up to sing Cilla Black’s ‘You’re My World’. She’s small with short, severe hair, hot-brushed into submission. There’s something about the words, the song, and the tears threaten to swell up. I fill my mouth with the remains of my drink and hold it in there, focusing on the burning numbness, on breathing through my nose, to quell the crying. She gets a whoop from the crowd and is followed by a local Michael Bublé, a male Patsy Cline and an unlistenable Kylie, who gets good-naturedly booed off.

  When the karaoke is finished, I start to feel awkward and fidgety again. I don’t know where to look; should have brought my phone. The club is starting to empty out in some areas. Julie is wiping down the bar, probably getting as much done in advance as she can for closing. Or maybe she will have a lock-in like she sometimes does.

  ‘Hey, did you hear on the news they’re having a vigil for that wee lassy?’

  At first I wonder if the Scottish accent is addressing me, and I panic. Should I turn around? But someone answers.

  ‘Aye, terrible business. Terrible. Are you gonna go over to the vigil, like?’

  ‘Aye, I expect I will. Pay my respects. Show some support to the family. It doesn’ae look good for the wee lassy, being gone all this time, does it? Imagine being the mother, poor woman. I’d be gone mad.’

  It’s dangerous, but I allow myself a sneaky look round. The woman speaking, the Scottish one, is the Shania wannabe. The tiger on her T-shirt looks like it’s leaping out of her, teeth bared. She’s sitting at the table behind me, bronze-painted talons draped around a half pint of lager. I quickly look back round to my table, but I am straining my ears to catch the rest of the conversation. Morbid compulsion.

  The man’s voice again. Easier to hear now it’s less busy, and he’s booming, self-important. ‘She’s no angel in this either, mind. She should know where a fourteen-year-old is.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’ae look good, and she’s going to have to live with that.’

  ‘I don’t know what to make of it all, me. It’s a weird old do, that is for sure.’

  ‘You not having an opinion, Jimmy? That’s gotta be a first!’ The table laughs.

  A new voice. ‘What do you think about this fella they’re all saying it was?’

  My stomach twists.

  ‘God knows,’ says another. ‘Ah don’t know enough of the facts of it all, and neither do you.’

  ‘You don’t usually let that stop you. But it’s odd, isn’t it? You cannit deny that it’s weird, them both going missing on the same day. I mean, come on. There’s a rabbit off somewhere.’

  ‘True enough, Pat, it’s true enough. I heard he was a teacher down London. Not up here though.’

  ‘Really? Is that right?’

  ‘Aye, that’s what I heard, aye.’

  ‘Eurgh! Dirty bastard! I wonder why he went into that profession then... Not.’

  My hand goes to my forehead. I get these mental spasms; cramps, like small electric shocks. They’re coming back. Images that flash into my head. They’re all flesh-coloured, it’s blood, open wounds. I squeeze my eyes together as hard as I can to squash the thought, imagining them like tiny pin dots.

  I have to press myself down into my seat to stop from turning around and shouting. That they don’t know anything. Chris left teaching because he was tired, because he wanted a life outside work, because he wanted to spend more time with me. That’s all.

  ‘Well, there’s plenty at it these days. All these bloody celebrities and that.’

  ‘They’ll string him up round ’ere if they ever get ’old of him.’

  ‘And the rest.’

  Someone loudly slurps the remainder of their drink through a straw, and the table murmurs their agreement.

  A different voice this time. ‘But you see these young lasses running about town in next to nothing, don’t you? They’re tarted up to the eyeballs like they’re in their twenties. I’ve seen ’em myself down the Butcher’s Arms on a Friday. And they’re still in bloody school. I’ve told the landlord in there he shouldn’t be serving them, but they just want the money. Then, later on they’re off up The Parades getting legless and getting up to Christ knows what.’

  ‘Aye, we wouldn’t have got away with it. My mother would have had me back upstairs to get changed, sharpish!’

  ‘Right, guys,’ says Julie. ‘Time to drink up. I need my beauty sleep – and so do you, by the looks of it, Jimmy.’

  I wonder if she is moving them along for my sake.

  As she comes past, she taps her long nails a couple of times on my table, but she doesn’t say anything or look at me.

  Five

  Sunday, 8 November

  When I open my eyes it’s early morning and I am back at the caravan, asleep on the couch, fully clothed under a sheet but not the duvet, shivering. It’s even colder in the bedroom so I use it for storage and sleep in the main room.

  I know immediately that I am going to vomit. My stomach is awash with liquid, my mouth dry, head thick and clogged. I know I won’t make it to the bathroom so I make a leap for the kitchen sink, sheet still tangled around my legs. My stomach contracts multiple times but nothing comes up, my mouth is paralysed open in a dry heave. After a few retches, acidic yellow water shoots out. I hang over the sink, recovering before the next wave comes. My head is pounding. I’ve been here enough times to know that bland water will only make the situation worse, so I open a cold can of Coke from the fridge and the fresh fizz burns my throat.

  There is semi-dried mud on my jeans, on the knees. Dirt
under my nails. I must have fallen on the way back to the caravan.

  Lying on the sofa, I fumble in my mind’s blackness to recall what happened last night. I remember the shop, the bus shelter, being at Barnacles.

  I look around to check no one else is in the van, suddenly afraid I had brought someone back with me. Surely I wouldn’t do that? So why does it enter my head?

  I remember the karaoke. My memory is like a TV that won’t tune in, the evening replayed in flashes. Did I get up and sing? I didn’t talk to them about Chris, did I, at Barnacles last night? I wouldn’t talk about it, surely. I instinctively check my phone. At least I didn’t send any texts or try to call anyone. I turn to lie down, to sleep off the sickness.

  I lie most of the day in the caravan, listening to the rain, under the covers in an attempt to stay warm and rest, dwelling on everything: the fireworks, the vigil. It feels like the resurgence of it all. It was bound to happen; it’s never gone away. I’ve been living in a suspended state – I convinced myself that Chris would be back. It’s unfathomable that he wouldn’t be. I tried to make everything around me stop until he returned.

  I have no place to be most days, which I am thankful for. No one expects me or needs me to be anywhere. Except when I visit my mum, and it’s debatable whether she is even aware most of the time.

  Because it’s so cold in the caravan, everything feels wet. My clothes, the covers, even my hair has a mist of moisture. My teeth chatter, nose numb. My head feels like I have brain freeze. But I don’t dare to keep the gas fire on overnight, for fear of carbon monoxide poisoning – I read about it happening to someone at a caravan park. Perhaps a heavy headache and that’s it; you just don’t wake up. Maybe if it gets too much, that’s how I’ll go. It would make it easier for people like Jeannie to bear, if it looked like an accident.