MISSING EILEEN’S LAST CALL FOR HELP
Jack’s breath stopped in his throat with a soft click and the dangling orange phone on the twisted wire came back to him with all the sick terror of that moment.
Don’t touch it! …
The headline was above a weird story that ran down the page in short, ragged lines, like a poem – but Jack didn’t need to read the story to know what it meant.
His mother had called for help. She’d held that orange phone. She’d been right there … How long before they had arrived?
Ages?
Moments?
Jack’s heart twisted with regret. If only he’d gone after her sooner! If only he’d walked faster! If only he hadn’t played stupid ‘I Spy’, or had to carry Merry, or stopped under the apple tree! They would have caught up with her, and she wouldn’t have disappeared.
He was in charge! He could have saved her!
If only …
He took a deep, shaky breath.
Hello?
The word floated off the page at him and Jack could hear his mother say it as clearly as if she were standing at his shoulder.
What’s your emergency?
Oh. Hello. My car’s broken down.
What’s your name please, Ma’am?
Mrs Eileen Bright.
OK, Mrs Bright, and where is the car now?
On the hard shoulder.
Is it parked safely off the carriageway?
Yes.
Are you alone?
My children are with me.
Are they still in the car?
Yes.
Can you get them out and move them to the other side of the crash barrier away from the traffic? I’ll wait for you.
Um, no. I can’t. They’re not here with me. The car’s back down the road. It was too dangerous to walk up the road with them all. Merry’s only a baby, you see? And I didn’t know how far it would be. But they’re safe.
Jack hitched in a shocked breath.
Safe? How could she say that? How could she say they were safe? They weren’t safe! She didn’t know how unsafe they’d been! How Joy’s flip-flops had hurt her, or how Merry had cried, or how his arms had almost fallen right off with the effort of carrying her. Or about the fox and the crows and the car that had nearly hit them!
Or how nobody had stopped. Nobody had got involved.
Anger lit a match in Jack’s belly. She didn’t care about them! How could she? She’d left them! Joy was abandoned. They all were!
A creak overhead and Jack held his breath at the ceiling, then read on fast …
OK, Mrs Bright, is the car to the north or the south of your location?
Umm, let’s see [laughs]. We were going to Exeter—
[Sound of a car pulling over]
Oh, somebody’s stopping to help now … Hi …
[Sound of muffled voices. Eileen Bright. Unidentified male.]
Mrs Bright?
[Silence]
Hello, Mrs Bright?
[Silence]
Mrs Bright. Are you there?
[Silence]
[Sound of car driving off]
Jack stared blankly at the last line.
Sound of car driving off.
He didn’t want the story to end like that. He even turned the page, in the dumb hope that it went on somewhere else but, of course, it didn’t.
Sound of car driving off.
With his mother inside it?
He didn’t know.
Apparently nobody knew.
But everybody knew that getting into a stranger’s car was a good way to get murdered …
There was a knock at the front door. He pushed the paper into the pile and scuttled back to the sofa.
Low voices in the hallway. It was Call-Me-Ralph, and with him was a jolly-looking young policewoman, who smiled at Jack and said her name was Pam, and asked if she could sit next to him on the sofa.
Jack didn’t want her to sit next to him, but she did anyway, while Call-Me-Ralph followed his father into the kitchen with a higgledy-piggledy pile of papers under his arm. Folders and forms and photos, and a plastic evidence bag.
Jack felt a sudden rat-ball of fear and fury squeeze his throat in a tight, writhing lump. His cheeks blazed and his ears went all underwater.
In a horrible dream he got up, but Pam caught his wrist and held it hard enough so that he knew she wasn’t going to let go without a fight.
‘Let me go,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘Let me go.’
Then they both flinched as behind the kitchen door his father wailed like a butchered dog.
And Jack knew … he knew! And he hated them all for letting him guess what he didn’t want to know.
‘Let me go!’ he cried, and twisted and jerked his arm and broke Pam’s hold. He ran out of the room and drummed upstairs.
Joy was in her bedroom playing Snap with her doll. She looked up at him and said, ‘What’s all the shouting?’
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t say. He just stood.
‘You want to play?’ she said.
Jack didn’t want to play. But he also didn’t have the words to tell her that their mother was dead.
Instead, he sat slowly down on the scratchy blue carpet and watched Joy fumble the cards back together, so that they could start at the beginning again.