The Missing. C.L. Taylor

black eyeliner and generous dusting of bronzing powder her heart-shaped face looks pale and the sprinkle of freckles across her nose makes her look younger than she is. ‘Just … a thing … just an argument.’

      ‘It looked serious.’

      ‘It got a bit out of hand, that’s all.’

      ‘I’m guessing Jake didn’t go to bed last night.’

      ‘No. He didn’t.’

      ‘Oh God.’ I sigh heavily. ‘Now I’m even more worried about him.’

      ‘Are you?’

      I feel a pang of pain at the surprise in her eyes. ‘Of course. He’s my son.’

      ‘He’s not Billy, though, is he?’

      ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

      ‘Nothing. Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.’

      I wait for her to say more but no words come. Instead she reaches into her handbag, pulls out a black eyeliner and flips down the sun visor. Her lips part as she draws a thick black ring around each eye, then dabs concealer on the raised, discoloured patch of skin near her right temple. It looks like the beginning of a bruise.

      The red light turns amber, then green and I press on the accelerator.

      Neither of us speaks for several minutes. I glance across at Kira, at the lump on her temple, and my stomach lurches.

      ‘Did Jake hit you?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘When you were fighting over the bottle. There’s a bruise on your head. Did he hit you?’

      ‘God, no!’

      ‘So how did you get the bruise?’

      ‘At the club last night.’ She flips down the visor and examines the side of her head in the mirror, prodding it appraisingly with her index finger. ‘I dropped my mobile and hit my head on the corner of the table when I bent down to get it.’

      ‘Kira, I know I’m not your mum but you’re the nearest thing I’ve got to a daughter and if I thought anyone was hurting you—’

      She slaps the visor shut. ‘Jake didn’t hit me. All right? He’d never do something like that. I can’t believe you’d say something like that about your own son.’

      I tighten my grip on the steering wheel.

      ‘Sorry,’ she says quickly. ‘I know you’re trying to look out for me but—’

      ‘Forget it.’ I slow the car as we approach the roundabout. ‘Just tell me one thing. How long has he been drinking in the mornings?’

      She doesn’t reply.

      ‘Kira, how long?’

      ‘Just today. I think.’

      ‘You think?’ I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. They spend every waking minute together. How could she be unsure about something like that?

      ‘Yeah.’ She zips up her make-up bag and gazes out of the window as the car swings around the roundabout and we approach Bristol Temple Meads. As I indicate left and pull into the station and park the car, I can’t help but scan the small crowd of people milling around outside the station, smoking cigarettes and queuing for taxis. I can’t go anywhere without looking for Billy.

      ‘Do you think he’s got a drink problem?’

      ‘No.’ She shakes her head as she unbuckles her seat belt and opens the door. ‘He’s not an alcoholic, if that’s what you mean. He opened the rum when we got home from the club. He was wired and couldn’t sleep.’

      ‘Because of Billy’s appeal?’

      ‘Yeah.’ She lifts one leg out of the foot well, places it on the pavement outside and gazes longingly at the entrance to the train station.

      ‘Kira?’ I reach across the car and touch her on the shoulder. ‘Is there anything you want to talk to me about?’

      ‘No,’ she says. Then she jumps out of the car, handbag and make-up bag clutched to her chest, and sprints towards the station entrance before I can say another word.

       Chapter 4

      It’s a small conference room, tucked away in the basement of the town hall with a strip light buzzing overhead and no natural light. It’s a quarter of the size of the one where we made our first appeal for Billy, forty-eight hours after we reported him missing. Unlike that first appeal, when every single one of the plastic-backed chairs in the rows opposite us were filled, there are only half a dozen journalists and photographers present. Most of them are fiddling with their phones. They glance up as we file in with DS Forbes, then look back down again. A couple of them begin scribbling in their notebooks.

       Mrs Wilkinson looks sombre in a pale grey jumper and trouser ensemble whilst Mr Wilkinson looks surly and distracted in a dark suit, the leg of his trousers stained with what looks like dirt or oil.

      I have no idea if that’s what they’ve written. I’ll find out tomorrow, I imagine. I can’t bear to read the papers, particularly not the online versions with the horrible, judgemental comments at the bottom, but I know Mark will. He’ll pore over them, growling and swearing and mumbling about ‘the bloody idiot public’.

      I didn’t know what a double-edged sword media attention would be back when Billy disappeared. I was desperate for them to publish our story – we both were, the more attention Billy’s story got the better – but I couldn’t have prepared myself for the barrage of speculation and judgement that came with it. I looked pale and distraught, those were the words most of the reporters used to describe me during that first press conference. Mark was described as cold and reserved. He wasn’t reserved – he was bloody terrified, we both were. But while I quaked, twisting my fingers together under the desk, Mark sat still, straight-backed, his hands on his knees and his eyes fixed on the large ornate clock on the opposite wall. At one point I reached for his hand and wrapped my fingers around his. He didn’t so much as glance at me until he’d delivered his appeal. At the time I felt desperately hurt but later, in the privacy of our living room, he explained that, as much as he’d wanted to comfort me, he hadn’t been able to.

      ‘You know I compartmentalize to deal with stress,’ he said. ‘And I needed to deliver my appeal without breaking down. If I’d have touched you, if I’d so much as looked at you I would have crumbled. And I couldn’t do that, not when what I had to say was so important. You can understand that. Can’t you?’

      I could and I couldn’t, but I envied his ability to shut out the thoughts and feelings he didn’t want to deal with. My emotions can’t be shut into boxes in my head. They’re as tangled and jumbled as the strands of thread in the bottom of my grandmother’s embroidery basket. And the one thought that runs through everything, the strand that is wrapped around my heart is, Where is Billy?

      ‘Claire?’ DS Forbes says. ‘They’re ready for your statement now.’

      A television camera has appeared in the aisle that runs between the lines of plastic-backed chairs. The lens is trained on my face. We decided some weeks ago that I should be the one to make this appeal.

      ‘The public respond more favourably when the mother does it,’ DS Forbes said. He made no mention of the horrible comments that had appeared online when Mark made the last appeal six months ago. Comments like: You can tell the father’s behind it. He’s not showing any emotion and I bet you money it was the dad. It always is.

      ‘Ready?’ DS Forbes says again and this time I sit up straighter in my chair and take a deep breath in through my nose. I can smell DS Forbes’s aftershave