One afternoon a few days later, Adam lets himself out of the house, waiting until he’s on the porch before putting on his trainers. Inside, drinking their squillionth cup of tea since Mum disappeared, Dad and Aunty Mandy don’t hear him leave.
At the letterbox, Adam hangs a left, and at the Johnsons’ place, ducks down the driveway to the flat at the back. The flat looks deserted; grass sprouts between the bricks that separate the drive from the lawn and the curtains are drawn. On the doorstep, a bundle of freebie newspapers is turning yellow, the pages curling outwards. He skirts the section, following the fence-line, kneeling periodically to check under the hedge, ignoring the damp that seeps through the knees of his jeans. The hedge is thick, so Adam pulls aside the bottom branches, sweeping his hand all the way back to the fence. He finds a discarded Tim Tam packet and an old gardening glove with a hole in the index, but nothing else.
Behind the house, Adam checks the muddy gap between the shed and the fence. An old rake leans up against a fencepost. Pulling his sweatshirt over his hand, Adam grabs the rake and backs out of the narrow space. He turns it upside down and examines the tines. Nothing. He puts the rake back, taking care to leave it as he found it, then rattles the shed door. The rusted padlock doesn’t budge; it doesn’t look as if anyone’s been in there for a while. Not being occupied, Adam had worried that the house and outbuilding hadn’t been properly inspected. Adam takes a last look around, but sees nothing obvious. It wasn’t that likely anyway. It’s the wrong direction. He can’t decide whether to feel disappointed or relieved.
Leaving the flat, Adam heads back past home towards the dairy. There are still a couple of things to check. When he gets to No. 16, he runs his hand along the block wall in front of the house, carefully scanning the grouting and the rough surfaces of the concrete, looking for signs: a tiny thread of green, a strand of hair, the scuff of her shoe. Mrs Steele’s been so swept up in the media hoopla that Adam doubts she’s taken the time to check her property thoroughly. The front of the house checked over, Adam sneaks down the driveway for a gawp at the back. The garden looks exactly as he’d expect it to look, old-fashioned and prim: the lawn is flat, its edges neatly trimmed, and the bordered flowerbeds, while sparse, have been weeded and mulched for the winter. He peers through the garage window, but it’s too dirty to see anything other than a blue blur. Mrs Steele’s Suzuki Swift. Pulling his sweatshirt over his hand for the second time, Adam gives the window a rough scrub, clearing a peephole, and peers in again. This time he can make out an arrangement of gardening paraphernalia: slug bait, seed trays, and a spray bottle of weed-killer up high on a wooden workbench safe out of reach of little hands, as well as a few tools leaning up in a corner.
Suddenly, a movement alerts him. Through a lace-trimmed rear window of the house, Adam spies Mrs Steele pottering in her kitchen. He whips behind the garage to avoid being seen, stopping there for a moment, breathing heavily, the smell of wet moss in his nostrils, then glances out to see if she’s spotted him. Inside, Mrs Steele is intent on her task. Kneading something by the looks of it. Flour streaks her forehead. Please don’t let her be baking them another batch of her paving stone scones. What does she put in them, cement? Keeping his eyes fixed on the window, Adam inches his way along the fence and then, bending low, slips in close to the house. There’s an instant where if she were to look to her right, she’d see him.
Quick dash, then he’s safe.
If this wasn’t so serious, it’d be fun. Tip-toeing around hunting for clues like a paperback detective. Adam strolls hands-in-pockets out of Mrs Steele’s drive; direction: the dairy. Best not to appear as if he’s been trespassing in a little old lady’s back section.
At the dairy, he does a quick reconnaissance. The back door sports the standard dairy-issue fly-screen of multicoloured plastic strips. Blue plastic bread crates are stacked to one side, and opposite, pushed up against the hedge, is a rubbish skip. Adam lifts the lid and peers in, assaulted by the stench of rot. But apart from a few soda bottles, a crumpled cardboard box and the foul-smelling liquid pooling at the bottom, the skip is empty. If there were any evidence of Mum having been here, it’s long gone. Adam drops the lid. It closes with a bump. He brushes his hands on the back of his jeans. Then he crosses the road, stationing himself opposite the dairy entrance where he leans against the bus shelter pretending to wait for the next bus.
It’s past four, so the after-school crowd have already been in and bought whatever junk would satisfy their munchies. Now there’s just the occasional shopper dashing in for the newspaper, a missing ingredient for tea, and one man in a wrinkled suit who’s obviously run out of cigarettes. Stopping to light up outside the dairy, the wrinkled suit guy shakes out his match and flicks it onto the ground beside the rubbish tin. He takes a deep drag, enjoying the hit of nicotine and blowing out a white moustache. It’s starting to rain now, so he doesn’t waste time hanging around. He gets back into his car, not even bothering to glance at the photo of Mum taped to the inside of the shop window. At least his suit won’t be wrinkly and damp, Adam thinks as the car pulls away.
Adam crosses the road and enters the store, brushing raindrops out of his hair.
‘Hello, Adam!’ Mr Singh comes out from behind the counter to stand beside the display of speckled bananas. ‘How are you doing? Is there any news of your mother?’
‘No.’
‘Oh dear.’ Mr Singh looks awkward. ‘Can I help you with anything?’
‘That guy.’ Adam jerks his head in the direction of the empty car park.
‘Which guy? The detective?’
‘No, the guy who just came in here, the one in the blue suit. Do you know him?’
‘Blue suit...?’ Mr Singh puckers his lips in thought.
‘He was just in here buying cigarettes.’
A flash of understanding. ‘Oh, him. What about him?’
‘Do you know him?’
‘No, I don’t think so. I don’t remember serving him before.’
‘He’s not from around here, then?’
‘Like I said, I don’t think so, although he could be new to the area. Want me to look out for him?’ Moving back behind the counter, Mr Singh digs around beside the till, eventually brandishing a business card. ‘You want me to let the police know if I see him again? I have the detective’s card right here.’
Adam shakes his head. An opportunist might well have had something to do with Mum’s disappearance, but Adam doubts it was Wrinkly Suit. He certainly paid no mind to her photo in the shop window. More likely he was just some dude who’d run out of fags. But if Mum has been abducted, it’s quite possible her assailant was someone passing through the neighbourhood, a transient who saw his chance and took it. Perhaps he stopped here legitimately planning to buy something, saw Tiffany and followed her. It strikes Adam that if he’d stopped here once, perhaps whoever it was will try it again.
‘Hey, thanks for putting up Mum’s photo in the window.’
‘I’m pleased to help, Adam. Your mother was a good customer. I hope they find her soon.’
Adam’s heart misses a beat. His mouth goes dry.
‘Adam? Is something wrong? Adam...’ The dairy owner starts towards Adam, alarm on his face. Adam backs away, stumbling out of the store like a drunk. Mr Singh had said was; Mum was a good customer. The words swirl around Adam like the greasy globules in a lava lamp.
Was a good customer!
Bile rising in his gorge, Adam forces it back.
‘Adam!’ Mr Singh shouts. But Adam sprints out of the store, tearing along the footpath, breath hot and fast, arms pumping, jeans scuffing, running hard, intent on getting the hell away from the meaning in those sounds. Your mother was a good customer.
No, no, no!
The rain is coming hard now. Stinging barbs hit his face. Adam ignores them, runs.
At last, spent, he drops to a walk, his lungs still heaving. He’s run all the way to the sports reserve that backs on to the school grounds. Clinging to a soccer goal, his hands as white as the original chipped paintwork, Adam hides his face in his arm and weeps, tears indistinguishable from the rain.