The Boy in the Park: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist. A Grayson J

in his eyes. The words sound strange even to me, and were I not sure of what I’d witnessed I would be inclined to disbelieve myself.

      ‘What’s this boy’s name?’ Delvay asks.

      ‘I don’t know.’

      He peers at me for a few seconds, then returns to writing on the form. I’m pleased that he’s taking down the details. I wasn’t able to do anything directly for the boy yesterday, but this feels like a concrete step in his favour. Something I can actually contribute to his well-being, being penned on an official document by an officer of the law.

      ‘It’s strange to me that you’re filing a report without knowing the boy’s name,’ the officer finally says.

      ‘I’ve never met him before,’ I answer honestly. ‘I’ve only seen him in the park.’

      Officer Delvay’s eyebrows wander up his face. He can’t seem to help it. Surprise is evident on all his features. He scribbles on the form in earnest, which I take as an act aimed more at calling himself out of his surprised stare than of actual note-taking. It’s clear I’m not convincing him.

      ‘If you don’t know the child, don’t even know his name and you’ve only ever seen him in a park, then how can you know he’s missing?’

      I squirm a little in my seat. I’m entirely aware how strange this whole scenario is.

      ‘Because I haven’t seen him in the park lately. I always see him there. It’s been a daily thing. For as long as I can remember.’

      ‘You – watch this boy in the park?’ The officer is now squinting out a sentiment other than simple curiosity.

      ‘It’s nothing like that,’ I answer. God forbid he should believe I would do, or even think, anything untoward to a child. The notion is repugnant. ‘I go there every day to sit and write. And he’s always there. Always.’

      Officer Delvay sets down his pen and leans back in his chair. He looks exasperated, annoyed.

      ‘I don’t know what to tell you. We can’t file a missing persons report on a child we can neither name nor identify, and whom you don’t even know is actually missing.’

      ‘But I saw him taken.’

      Delvay stiffens. He grabs his pen again. ‘You personally observed a child being abducted?’

      ‘I saw a hand grab him and pull him back from the edge of the pond.’

      The officer contemplates this for a few seconds. His words are choppy when they come. ‘Pull him back?’ he asks. ‘From a pond?’ Suddenly his tone is tainted with sarcasm. ‘Maybe it was one of his parents.’

      ‘I don’t know his parents. I’ve never set eyes on them.’

      The pen is flat again. Delvay’s expression is broadcasting unsalvageable disbelief. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

      ‘Why aren’t you taking this more seriously?’ I ask. I’m deeply annoyed.

      ‘I’m sorry, but I’m taking it as seriously as I can. You’re suggesting you witnessed someone pull back a young child from a spot too close to the water of a pond, who could easily have been his parent. You don’t know. That’s not an abduction. That might just be good parenting.’

      ‘But he was hurt.’

      ‘All the more reason to keep him from playing off on his own. And by the water!’

      I can feel my body sagging in frustration. Officer Delvay is trying to look sympathetic, but it is evident he isn’t feeling it.

      He hesitates, then looks directly into my eyes. ‘While you’re here, maybe you can tell me, for the report … are you on any medications?’

      I’m startled by the question. ‘Medications?’

      ‘Anything new? Anything that might be, I don’t know, impairing your judgement?’

      I’m confused for a few seconds, but suddenly his meaning registers. He thinks I’m drugged up. Thinks I’m inventing all this. Here I am, trying to help an innocent child, and this worthless police officer is asking questions about my mental clarity and what pills I might be popping to cloud it.

      ‘No,’ I snap, rising to my feet, ‘I’m not taking any medications.’ I stress the final word. We both know it’s code for what he’s really suggesting, and I might as well have said ‘crack’ or ‘meth’. Me, a man who works in a health food shop!

      ‘And I don’t appreciate the insinuation,’ I add, straightening my shirt in the only act of demonstrative protest I can think of. ‘I’ve come here to be of help, and to ask for yours. Not to deal with your jaded attitude. There’s a boy in trouble.’

      I make to sit back down, but Delvay is now standing. There is an air of finality to his demeanour. He’s showing me the door, figuratively and literally.

      ‘I’m sorry, there’s really nothing we can do. If you’ve ever got something substantive, you can always come back, Mr … Aaronsen, is it?’

      I nod. I’d given my details to the desk clerk when I first arrived. ‘You’ll make a proper note of all this, at least?’ I ask as I leave.

      ‘You can be sure of that. I’ll put everything in the file.’

      That, at least, makes me feel a little better. Because I’m quite certain that the boy is missing, and that at some point others are going to become aware he’s missing, and these notes are going to be important.

       11

       Sunday

      I am not sorry that I went to the police yesterday. Not sorry, though I do feel a bit the fool. What I must have looked like, an almost middle-ager in a stressed state, trying to attract police interest to a case in which an unknown child, of unknown parents, with no name, vanishes from nothing more than a pattern of being present beside a pond to which I’d grown accustomed. I’m not a nutcase, but hell, after that display I’d be hard pressed to prove it.

      I am, however, more than a little annoyed at the officer’s implication that the only explanation for the oddity of my report is that I must be an addict high on some mind-polluting cocktail. I know the circumstances are strange, but surely a more serious consideration is warranted. I can’t recall the last time I felt as if I’d been so summarily dismissed out of hand.

      I should have ironed my clothes. Maybe worn a suit. On the television the men who walk into police stations in suits always get paid more attention. I’ll have to remember that if I’m ever back.

      Still, I don’t apologize for the action. A knot in my gut was telling me that something wasn’t right, and it still is. I may not know that boy, but I know that these last two days are the only days I can remember that he hasn’t been in the park. Supportable by credible evidence or not, I know that something is wrong. There are certain things in life that you know with a type of knowledge that doesn’t rely on factual data. A kind of knowing that comes from a place other than the brain, and is all the more forceful because of it.

      Yet as certain as I am that some sort of action has to be taken, one cannot wholly abandon the necessary course and flow of life. I’m back at the health foods counter this Sunday afternoon, as bereft of his presence as the past two. I have to calm myself down. We sell a powdered concoction that advertises itself as a ‘non-medical, natural Prozac alternative’. Something made from two parts garden weeds and one part homegrown (but organically certified) fungus. I’m agitated, but not an idiot. I’ll try that, perhaps, if two days become twenty.

      It’s funny, really, how quickly emotion can shift intensity. Two days ago I was running through the park, convinced