‘Mum! Mum!’ Gareth stands in the middle of the near-empty car park, turning in a slow, tight circle. ‘Where are you?’
He remembers making the same frantic cry when he became separated from his parents during their yearly holiday to Barry Island, a seaside resort in South Wales. They were on a mission to get fish and chips, striding across the pleasure park with a distant stand in their sights. He’d jogged behind, three years old, struggling to keep up. He’d stopped in his tracks when he spotted the ‘get the ball in the bottle’ stall adorned with huge cuddly teddy bears, soft toy bananas and brightly coloured buckets and spades hanging in a row. He stood to one side, watching open-mouthed as another young boy tried, and failed, to land a single ping-pong ball in the wide necks of the clustered green bottles but was rewarded with a keyring anyway. Gareth turned, ready to shout to his mum for a go. Only there was no sign of his mum in her flowery summer dress and best M&S sandals, nor his dad in his knee-length navy shorts and open-necked shirt. There were just legs, so many legs. When he craned his neck to examine the faces all he saw were curious or indifferent eyes. Fear hollowed his belly as he ran, pushing through the crowds, shouting for his mum. When he saw her, in her lovely summer dress, he pulled at her skirt. A woman he didn’t know turned and looked down. She had soft, kind eyes but the disappointment made Gareth burst into tears. He was eventually reunited with his parents ten or fifteen minutes later, when they burst into the lost children shack after hearing a tannoy appeal. It felt like a lifetime to three-year-old Gareth. He thought he had lost them for good.
It’s 3.34 p.m. now, nearly thirty-one hours since he last saw his mum, and nearly twenty-four hours since she walked out of the house. He’s looked everywhere. He’s been into every shop and asked every cashier and shop assistant he could find if they’ve seen her. He’s thrust ‘Missing’ posters that he knocked up on his laptop into the hands of every shopper he saw. But there’s no sign of her, not in the retail park and not in the surrounding area. He ran until his lungs burned, stopped to walk, then ran again, always calling her name, alternating between ‘Mum!’ and ‘Joan!’ In three hours it will start to get dark. His mum’s already been missing for one night. He can’t bear the thought of her being gone for two. His only hope is that she’s found some kind of shelter – an outbuilding, garage or shed. The nights have been so cold recently, dropping down to minus five. He’d struggle to sleep outside in this weather, even in a warm coat, and his mum’s seventy-nine years old.
He looks at his watch again. It’s 3.35 p.m. Every minute feels like an hour. He wants to keep searching. When he’s driving or running or handing out flyers he feels like he’s helping, that he’s one street corner, one person closer to finding his mum; there’s hope mixed in with his desperation. But when he’s sitting at home alone, waiting, the only thing that he feels is fear.
The house is a tip. Gareth has left no drawer unopened, no wardrobe unemptied and no pocket unchecked. He started in his mum’s room, searching through her possessions for something, anything, that might be a clue. But there were no answers to be found in her jewellery box, her dressing table, her wardrobe, her chest of drawers or even under the bed. There was nothing to explain where she’d gone, and as he stands in the doorway surveying the mountain of clothes on the bed, his mother’s possessions scattered around the room and the two postcards lying side by side on her beside table, it’s all he can do not to cry.
Was another postcard delivered? Did it tell her to go somewhere? Has she got it with her, tucked in her favourite leather handbag? But how could a postcard arrive? He checked the CCTV and no one unusual approached or entered the house. Might Sally or Yvonne be lying? Did whoever wrote the postcards cajole or blackmail one of them into bringing a third message into the house? He dismisses the thought as quickly as it pops into his mind. But someone convinced his mum to leave, of that he’s sure.
He received a phone call from the police shortly after he returned home. The woman he spoke to said her name was Lisa Read from Avon and Somerset Constabulary, one of the sergeants on duty today. She told him that all available officers were trying to track his mum down. There was a possibility, she said, that his mum had got onto a bus and she needed Gareth to confirm if a captured CCTV image was in fact Joan. He leapt to his feet, ready to drive to the station, but Sgt Read told him that she could text him the image instead. When his phone vibrated with a new message his heart was in his throat.
‘Yes,’ he told her on speaker phone as he gazed down at the blurry image. ‘Yes, the lady in the red coat with white hair is my mum.’
Sgt Read went on to tell him that they also had CCTV footage of his mum getting off the bus on Park Street and walking up the hill, passing several shops. But then she’d turned a corner into a street with no CCTV and disappeared. ‘We’re looking,’ she told him. ‘Right now. We’re doing everything we can to find her.’
When she ended the call, Gareth fought the urge to ring her back. Why hadn’t he asked her more questions – how many officers were out looking for his mum? What was the name of the street where she’d disappeared? How were they looking for her and what more could they do? The grainy image of his mum showing her bus pass to the driver had completely thrown him. It was years since she’d last got on a public bus; he drove her everywhere she needed to go, mostly to the doctor’s and the dentist’s for the last few years as well as the odd day trip. He didn’t even know where her bus pass was; he’d never had to look for it. It had probably been in her handbag, along with the other bits and bobs that she hadn’t used for years.
He closes the door to her bedroom. He’ll tidy everything up after he’s had a cup of tea. As he heads into the kitchen a loud rapping on the front door makes him clutch the counter in alarm. It’s the police. They’ve found something. He heads into the hallway with his heart in his mouth.
But it’s not a pair of police officers standing on the path beyond his front door. It’s Kath, holding a Pyrex dish, with Georgia behind her, red-eyed and kicking at the ground. The food smells of mince and there’s melted cheese and slices of tomato on top. Gareth’s stomach rumbles. He can’t remember the last time he had something to eat.
‘Can we come in?’ Kath asks, her bright tone a stark contrast to her daughter’s expression. ‘I’ve brought dinner. It’s lasagne. I don’t imagine you’ve been eating well.’
‘Thank you. That’s very kind.’ He stands back to let her in. Georgia doesn’t so much as look at him as she trails behind her mum, clutching a bag of salad, but she mutters, ‘thanks’, under her breath as she passes.
A few minutes later they’re all congregated around the small kitchen table with plates, knives and forks and glasses of water in front of them; Gareth’s apologised for the lack of soft drinks.
Kath looks across at him, wielding a serving spoon. ‘Big portion, Gareth?’ As their eyes meet she sniggers. ‘Sorry.’
‘Mum, that’s gross,’ Georgia mutters, her face stony.
Gareth smiles, for what feels like the first time in days. ‘I’d love a large portion please, Kath.’
She ladles a hefty slice of lasagne onto a plate then gestures to the bowl of salad in the centre of the table. ‘Help yourself. Georgia, how much do you want?’
‘I’m not hungry.’ Her daughter pulls the sleeves of her jumper over her hands, then buries them in her lap.
‘Come on. You need to eat something. Just a little bit, and some of that salad.’ Kath hands her a plate. ‘Right, that’s me done. Enjoy folks!’
Gareth gratefully forks a mouthful of meat and pasta into his mouth. He tries not to stare at Georgia, who’s sullenly pushing a piece of lettuce around her plate with her fork.
‘Ignore her,’ Kath mouths across the table. ‘Bullies.’
Gareth nods then eats another mouthful of lasagne. It’s really quite good.
‘So,’ Kath says. ‘Any updates?’
Her eyes soften as she listens to his reply. She rests her fork on the side of her plate as he tells her about the last phone called he received from Sgt Read.
‘Well that’s good, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘That they know where she got off the bus? It’ll help narrow down the search.’
‘Yeah,’ he says wishing he could match her hopeful smile. Beyond the kitchen window the sun is starting to sink in the sky. In another hour or so it’ll be gone.
Kath catches him looking. ‘They’ll find her. Someone’s bound to have seen her. Her photo’s all over social media.’
‘Is it? I didn’t know.’
‘Excuse me.’ Georgia’s chair scrapes against the floor tiles as she pushes herself back from the table. ‘I’m just going to the toilet.’
Neither Gareth nor Kath say a word as she leaves the room. Kath waits until the stairs stop creaking then gets up and shuts the kitchen door.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she says, taking her seat again. ‘Things at her school are unbearable. I spoke to her form tutor today and she says there’s a rumour going around that a group of girls – the bullies – are trying to get Georgia to bunk off after registration to go on the rob.’
Gareth can’t imagine a group of teenaged girls breaking into people’s houses. He’s completely lost touch with the world.
‘Shoplifting,’ Kath clarifies. ‘At the Meads, where you work.’
‘Right.’ He sits up taller in his chair. He can’t do anything to help Kath and Georgia with school matters but if these kids are trawling round the Meads he could. ‘Have you got photos of them? These girls? I could keep an eye out the next time I’m monitoring the CCTV.’
‘No, I haven’t. I’ve asked Georgia to tell me their Instagram handles but she won’t. And I can’t look through hers either because it’s private.’
‘Ah. The teacher didn’t tell you their names?’
‘I wish. It’s all “the other parties” this and “certain individuals” that. I don’t know what they think I’d do if they gave me their names. It’s not like I’m going to cosh them over the back of the heads when they leave school for the day.’ She laughs dryly. ‘As much as I’d like to!’
‘Could you take her out of school?’
‘What? And have her moping around all day, popping her head into my beauty room whenever she gets bored? Mum can I have a tenner? Mum can I buy this app? Mum, can I use your fake tan? I wouldn’t mind if she actually wanted to talk to me about stuff but it’s like she thinks I’ve got limitless funds. Sorry,’ she says, ‘I didn’t mean to come over here to have a moan.’
‘It’s fine.’ Gareth reaches across the table to touch the back of her hand then thinks better of it and turns the movement into a strange, sideways bend instead. ‘We all need to talk.’
His words sound empty, even as he says them. He looks back towards the kitchen window and the darkening sky and sighs, the voice of his three-year-old self echoing around his head.