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

  ‘Really?! Did she? That’s actually right. It was their first anniversary. And Dad always joked that he gave her chip paper to celebrate – you know, the paper wedding thing. And she remembers all this, how? She didn’t even know my name last week!’

  He shrugs. ‘It’s just the way it is. You can’t predict it. And anyway, I love old photos and I’m dying to see some more of you as a kid.’

  ‘Oh God. How embarrassing. They’re at the house, actually. I just had a few with me. So I’ll have to – I need to see if I can get the rest. I’ll do my best.’

  A puzzled look flickers across his face but he doesn’t ask any more.

  ‘So how are you really, anyway?’ he asks me, filling the silence that is settling on us. He reaches out to touch my arm but I slide it away.

  Simon knows about Chris, about Kayleigh; of course he does. But usually we focus on Mum, the weather. We talk around it.

  ‘Listen,’ he says. He looks more hesitant now.

  My stomach drops at the fear of more bad news.

  ‘Do you fancy coming round to mine for tea one night? We can talk more if you like, or just hang out or whatever. I’m always in a rush here.’

  I freeze. My lack of response hangs there, awkwardness growing.

  After a while, which feels like minutes, he steps in. ‘Anyway, just forget it. Don’t worry about it. Maybe another time,’ he mumbles, looking embarrassed.

  Finally, I answer. ‘Come round for tea? Chicken nuggets, chips and beans? What are we, ten?’ I mean it as a joke but it comes across with more malice than I intended. He looks wounded and I feel bad.

  ‘Well, the offer’s there if you ever feel like it. Nothing fancy – just a catch-up, you know? As friends.’

  I think of an early date with Chris, round at his flat. He threw his housemates out for the night and cooked heart-shaped pizza. ‘Even the dough,’ he told me, full of pride. He’d remembered I said pizza was my favourite food. He hadn’t cooked for me in a long time when he left. I know that I won’t go to Simon’s. Somehow it would feel like a betrayal, some kind of acceptance.

  There’s a screeching of chairs and the saucers clatter; I realise I have jumped, spilt the tea, and it’s burning through my jeans and into my thighs.

  ‘What the hell is that?!’

  ‘Oh, hello cutie.’ Simon’s bending now. ‘This is Doodlebug, he’s our new cat, for this place.’ He pulls the cat in close to his face and makes kissing noises.

  ‘A what now?’

  ‘The residents love him. Your mum even had a little stroke of him the other day. Didn’t she, Doodlebug?’

  ‘Doodlebug?! Is that appropriate? Calling a little cat after a bomb?’

  ‘Jim named him – you know Jim – a few doors down from your mum. I think it’s cute. We mainly call him Doodles anyway.’ He scratches the little black cat under its chin.

  I shake my head and give it a little stroke. I am glad the conversation has been shifted on.

  ‘Anyway, I best get off and… you know, do stuff.’

  ‘Yeah, I better get back to work.’ He pretends to be engrossed in the cat.

  It’s starting to get dark when I set off. I like this time of day – the air is fresh and biting and the sky is a navy-blue colour. I decide to walk; it gives me something to do, and I feel better about being out and about when it’s dark. I am less likely to be recognised, and I feel a certain freedom in that. I walk along the seafront, the endless snake of cars moving slowly in both directions, people impatient to get home from offices and shops to cook family teas, watch TV, take children to evening tap classes and football clubs. In the distance, the traffic streams look like chains of lights.

  Eight

  Monday, 9 November

  ‘So, how’s it going? Caravan and stuff. Any news on the house? Or… work?’

  I’ve come round to see Jeannie at her house. I think she was surprised when I accepted her invitation, used to me refusing. She is sitting sideways on the sofa facing me, one leg tucked underneath her. She tries to make the last question sound lighthearted, but I know it’s the main thrust.

  Jeannie is my closest friend. Friends since secondary school and one of the few people from round here I really kept in touch with when I was in London. When we were at uni – Jeannie in Edinburgh, me in London – we used to get the coach to see each other at least once a month. Get drunk on vodka and diet cherryade, go dancing on £10, share a single bed in the halls of residence.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll see. Maybe I’ll go back soon,’ I lie. I can’t go back, not yet. Ever? I don’t tell her that I’ve had letters from work. Voicemails. Asking me to come in for a meeting. Debbie from HR hoped I was fine. I should come in for a ‘chat’. Delete. A letter came on headed notepaper. Sounded like more of a compulsory meeting than an informal chat this time.

  I imagine they’re looking to get more official now, patience wearing thin. Maybe they consulted a lawyer, were advised to terminate my contract, stop paying my sick pay – £88 a week. Covers some of the mortgage and bills, not all of it, but I still can’t really care that much. The credit cards pay the rest. So many plates spinning.

  ‘It’s a decent job, Becs. They’ll make allowances. They’ve been flexible with you so far. You need the money.’

  It’s true they have, so I feel guilty for hating it but I do. I work in a printing factory – supposedly as the marketing coordinator, managing the design of garish leaflets, sending pointless letters. It’s more an office manager job, really. Re-ordering stationery and coffee, taking minutes. But they’ve paid me since Chris left, and before that they let me have time off to see Mum when I needed to. ‘Not easy for a family business but we do our best,’ my boss Mike would often remind me.

  In London, I used to be on my phone as soon as I woke up when I was doing marketing at the university. I loved the job, thrived on the deadlines and problems, even the constant hum of anxiety about a mistake I had failed to spot; a message I hadn’t passed on; a schedule not mapped out. It almost makes me laugh to think I thought I was stressed then, compared to this.

  ‘You need structure,’ Jeannie says, determined not to change the subject. ‘I know you’re not that keen on the job anyway. But you need something. Now you’re up and about again, that’s progress. But you need to keep busy; have something else to focus on. I know you think I am nagging you but it isn’t good for you to sit about all day moping.’

  She sees my hackles rise and holds her hands up to calm me.

  ‘Sorry, mope is the wrong word. I take that back. I just don’t think it’s good for you to dwell too much. Being busier might be good for you.’

  ‘Like I said, maybe. Soon.’ I might as well go along with her. I know that Jeannie thinks I have to start thinking about moving on. ‘I know it isn’t easy but you can’t stay stuck like this forever,’ she says, when she’s feeling brave. She doesn’t think he’s coming back, clearly.

  She changes tack slightly. ‘What about the house? You must be freezing in that caravan now it’s winter. You need to look after your health. And it’s a waste of money.’

  ‘I can’t think about this stuff right now, Jeannie,’ I snap.

  ‘Well, when then? You are still welcome to stay here as well, if you can’t be at the house. You wouldn’t have to pay.’

  ‘If I’d known you were going to ambush me, I wouldn’t have come round.’

  I offer her a top-up of wine but she shakes her head. She’s hardly touched hers.

  We both stare at the TV for a while.

  ‘Do you really believe it’s unrelated? Chris and Kayleigh?’ Jeannie asks me. I didn’t notice before but she is quite drunk now, red dots on her cheeks, glassy eyes. We’ve only had two glasses of fizzy rosé and I feel pretty much nothing. I keep glugging it back.

  ‘I can’t drink like I used to now I’ve had kids,’ she always says. ‘Combination of surviving on two hours’ sleep a night and living off half-eaten kids’ food.’

  Dan is clattering around u
pstairs.

  ‘So, do you then?’ she slurs again, emboldened, waiting for me to answer.

  She’s always been a drunk blurter. Any problems she’s having, things she feels are festering between us will come out after a few wines. It’s usually been good to clear the air, but this time I don’t especially want to go there.

  EastEnders is starting in the background, the theme tune grating and setting my teeth on edge.

  ‘What do you want me to say, Jeannie?’

  I think of telling her the story of a couple I read about once. They were both in New York, but not together. They were involved in a late-night, high-speed car crash – both drivers killed instantly. Investigations found that the drivers were married to each other, but they’d been separated for several months. Police initially suspected some kind of murder or suicide pact, but they said in the end neither could have known the other’s whereabouts that night – it was just a terrible coincidence.

  There is nothing to lead to Chris or Kayleigh. Not as far as I know anyway. The trails are cold – they’re both simply gone.

  ‘I have to believe that, don’t I, Jeannie? I mean if I don’t… then, what can I do?’

  I had been hoping for a relaxing night to take my mind off things.

  ‘Don’t think you have to do anything.’

  I don’t like the arrogant tone just under the surface of her voice. I bite at my tongue to stop myself snapping at her. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s the closest thing I have to family besides Mum. And Chris.

  ‘Becs? I am not trying to hurt you, you know. I’m just trying to talk to you. Apart from anything else, I mean, what about the gambling and the money? His job? He did lie to you, Becs. He cleaned you out.’

  I feel like I have been slapped again.

  Detective Fisher told me about Chris’s job after he went missing, after they took his stuff away; that he’d been sacked two weeks earlier and hadn’t told me. He’d been fired for gambling online at work. I don’t think she believed me that I didn’t know. But I had no idea. I was still making him sandwiches every morning. He was still leaving ‘for work’ every morning.

  If it weren’t for that, perhaps I’d never have any doubts about any of this; I’d never believe for a second that any of this could be true. But it’s planted a seed of doubt, for other people – for Jeannie, for the police. And maybe for me too sometimes, although I push it out. He lied about this and I didn’t have a clue. What else was he lying about? What else was I too stupid to see? I even considered lying myself; saying that I did know about his job, the gambling. Because it was, it is, skewing people’s view of him.

  I go to the fridge and get the second bottle of wine, the air hissing out when I twist the cap. I stand for a moment, enjoying the cool air on my face.

  Jeannie makes her voice gentler now. ‘I know you miss him and I know it’s hard. But you can’t abandon your life forever. Can you? You can’t want that.’

  Maybe that’s it. The hardest thing. His disappearance would be easier to bear if it wasn’t so open-ended. But I have nothing to hang it on: the screeching of car wheels, the torturous sound of a skull crack or a final death rattle. Would I really prefer that? Some kind of finality, however painful? But now, when I look back to make sense of what’s happened, it’s just still water, an empty street. No sign of a disturbance at all.

  A creak from the staircase. Dan comes down the stairs holding the baby, ducking to avoid the slope of the roof. My eyes roll involuntarily. That’s the end of that – mine and Jeannie’s night in, having any kind of proper conversation.

  The baby’s face is purple, twisted into something goblin-like. Sam, I need to call him Sam, not ‘the baby’. Dan jiggles him up and down half-heartedly, giving Jeannie a questioning ‘I give up’ gesture. He looks so tall. He is anyway, but my perspective looking up at him from the sofa, the chandelier-style light casting a wobbling starburst shadow across the ceiling, maybe the wine, gives a weird dreamy feeling, like he’s a giant.

  ‘Alright, Becs. Good to see you up and about again. How you doing?’ he says.

  ‘Good, thanks, Dan. You?’

  ‘Yeah. Knackered, you know. I’m telling you don’t ever have—’

  Jeannie clears her throat to cut him off.

  Dan offloads Sam onto Jeannie and he stops crying almost straight away. She tuts and puts him into the rocker chair near the sofa, looking at her watch. ‘Well, that’s screwed any chance of me getting any sleep then. Routine blown.’

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have come round. I’m getting in your way.’ I make a gesture at getting my coat.

  ‘God, don’t be daft and don’t go! It’s just what he’s like sometimes. Sam, that is.’ She shoots a smile at Dan and rocks the chair gently with her bare foot.

  Dan goes upstairs and closes a door behind him loudly.

  We sit for a while both looking at the baby.

  ‘Look, Becs,’ Jeannie says eventually, ‘I didn’t know whether to say anything about the vigil.’ She’s shifting in her seat, holding her wine glass up and looking into it as she swirls it around, pretending to concentrate. She looks towards the baby. Sam, I remind myself again, it’s Sam.

  I feel my throat tense and my lips wobble. Stupidly, I somehow didn’t think of the vigil being public knowledge. Jeannie squeezes my hand. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Don’t.’

  Is that impatience? Am I making her uncomfortable? She has enough to contend with with a crying baby, I bet that’s what she’s thinking. It’s not her fault. She just doesn’t know what to say anymore, what to do with me.

  I’ve learnt with people, since all this happened, that you have to support them through it, as much as the other way around. To be fair, though, how could they ever really help? They offer you little bits of solace that you have to swallow, or they just can’t face it.

  ‘At least you and your mum are so close,’ people said at my dad’s wake, mouths full of egg sandwiches from the buffet, half cut on the cheap booze at the social club. But we weren’t actually all that close, not then, and so what? We didn’t need to be – she was independent then. She had Dad. And my dad was still dead, so what difference would it make either way?

  With Chris, they struggled to say anything at first. Everyone around me was on edge. But as time passed they’d say I was looking better or it might be nice to have a day out sometime soon. Because they need me to be. Now I know to just nod and smile. They can’t even acknowledge the abyss, let alone stare straight into it. And I can’t blame them. Before all this happened, I couldn’t have contemplated the blackness of it either.

  Texts from friends tapered off after a few weeks. It was hard to tell if they believed the media speculation, didn’t want to be guilty by association, or they just didn’t know what else to say anymore.

  I stare at the grey dots cast by the chandelier on the ceiling. Jeannie and I used to be able to hold a comfortable silence. Not anymore.

  ‘How do you know about the vigil?’ I fill my glass again, Jeannie eyeing me.

  ‘Well, for one thing I’ve got a TV – you might have noticed. But actually, a couple of the mams were talking about it at the group the other day.’

  ‘Right. Which one was it this time?’ We joke about Jeannie’s packed social schedule, with all her kiddy clubs, as I call them. Baby massage. Baby sing and sign. Baby art.

  ‘Just a boring old coffee morning this time,’ she beams. ‘No wonder I am stacking it on,’ she says, patting her tummy. ‘You eat a lot more cake when you have a baby. Don’t we? Yes, we do.’ She switches to a cutesy voice and pinches Sam’s cheeks lightly. He gurgles and kicks his feet.

  I don’t ask but Jeannie tells me that Sam is eating better now and sleeping right through the night.

  ‘So we need to have a night out soon, me and you,’ she says. ‘Go for a meal or something. Dan can have Sam for the night; it’s about time. And my birthday is coming up of course…’

  I drink my wine back. It is starting to taste syrupy and s
ickly, my head getting woolly.

  Jeannie is making faces at the baby, making him giggle. She looks pale and tired, purple under her eyes, small tyre round her middle visible under her thin top. I feel a wave of affection towards her.

  ‘Yeah, maybe… Let’s see how it goes.’

  The stair creaks again. Ellen comes downstairs in a polka-dot onesie and pink dressing gown.

  ‘Well, hello there,’ says Jeannie. ‘Thought you were doing your homework and getting your stuff sorted for tomorrow.’

  Ellen tuts. ‘I’m just getting a drink, Mum – and I wanted to say hi to Aunty Beccy.’

  I love that she calls me that.

  ‘Anyway, Dad’s computer game is distracting me and when I knocked he said I couldn’t go in.’

  ‘For God’s sake! Get yourself some juice – I’m going to talk to your dad. Then you can finish your homework and get ready for bed at a decent time. And you too!’ she says to Sam, who gurgles again.

  Ellen flops down on the sofa next to me and slurps on some orange juice, looking at me over the rim. She looks at the wine. I like her. I like most kids, but I don’t know what to say to them. I feel on edge around them. Although with Ellen it’s comfortable. I don’t feel the need to try to entertain her or impress her. I think she’s too intelligent for that.

  Jeannie and the girls could never get their heads round the fact that Chris and I hadn’t had kids yet; that we weren’t ‘trying’. ‘You’ll be a great mum,’ Jeannie always said, as if it’s inevitable. Not lately of course.

  Ellen’s twelve, only a little younger than Kayleigh. She’s growing up fast. ‘She’s got more clothes than me!’ Jeannie always says. And you can see it in her face too, the plumpness hollowing out. She pulls the belt of her pale pink dressing gown around her small waist tightly.

  ‘How are you? Are you feeling better now?’ asks Ellen, mimicking a grown-up. I feel a rush of love for her that she would even think to ask me that; that she senses or registers that I might not be. She must get it from Jeannie.