Tideline (20 page)

‘Depends whether we’re talking mental or physical,’ said Helen. ‘Anyway I told her about Jez. Her theory is he might have a lover. Might have chosen to go away without
contacting anyone.’

‘What would
she
know?’ asked Maria. ‘Has she ever met him?’

Helen noticed a change in the atmosphere as she brought Jez’s name into the conversation. They could breathe at last.

‘She’s got a daughter Theo’s age, so she knows about teenagers. She met him once when you lot were shinning up the walls by the river, do you remember, Barney? We called in
there for tea. Oh, and they must have met at Mick’s fiftieth recently.’

‘They did.’ Barney plonked his plate on the table and sat down. ‘Now you come to mention it. Her husband, Greg, offered to lend Jez that Tim Buckley album he was always on
about. Jez said he was going to pick it up . . . actually, I think it was last Friday afternoon. The day he went missing. You mentioning Sonia reminded me. That’s where he said he was
going.’

‘When did he say this?’ Maria asked. All their faces turned to look at Barney.

‘I dunno. The night before, maybe. He said that before he left for Paris, he had to pick up the album from the River House. I asked if he knew where it was. He said he’d been there
once before. It must’ve been that time you’re talking about, Mum. He was going to go there, then meet Alicia in the tunnel. Before the gig. The one he never came to.’

‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you mention this before, to the police?’ Mick said, reddening.

Maria stood up. ‘We must tell them immediately.’

‘What sort of brain have you got?’ Mick said, standing over his son. ‘I know you’re a bit doped up sometimes but this could be crucial. What d’you think
you’re playing at?’

Barney shrugged. ‘Nothing. Really, I forgot. Honestly. I hadn’t given it a thought until just now when Mum mentioned Sonia.’

‘It’s ringing,’ said Maria, holding the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

‘God, I’d like to knock some sense into your skull sometimes,’ said Mick, cuffing Barney’s head.

Helen stared at Mick. She’d been with this man for over twenty years. Did he usually touch his sons like that? She had a sudden need to examine him, to work out what it was about him that
made him the man she thought she knew.

‘There’s no need for that,’ she said at last. ‘Barney forgot. It’s not the kind of thing you’d remember necessarily. A minor detail like that.’

‘It throws a whole new light on Jez’s possible movements,’ said Mick.

Maria stuck her finger in her ear. ‘Shh!’ she hissed. ‘I can’t hear the options.’ She took the handset into the hall.

‘Dad!’ Barney said. ‘Bloody hell. He just mentioned it, I didn’t think, oh I must make a note of that. I had more important things on my mind.’

‘Like where your next smoke was coming from?’

‘Oh sod off!’

‘Don’t speak to me like that!’

‘But you’re being such a dick over this Jez thing,’ Barney said. ‘Mum’s right. You’ve changed. You aren’t like this with us when we go off for a few
nights.’

‘No, I’m not having that. We’re responsible for that boy. He’s gone missing from under our roof and now we’re bloody well going to find out what’s happened to
him.’

Barney stomped out of the room.

‘I can’t see how Jez saying he might call in at the River House can have anything to do with this,’ said Helen.

‘If Sonia saw him that afternoon, it means he disappeared
after
that but
before
he was due to meet Alicia. It narrows down the possibilities,’ said Mick.

‘Yes, but she didn’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because Sonia would’ve mentioned it when I saw her today.’

Maria came back into the room. ‘They said they’ve made a note of it and will have a meeting in the morning to discuss what to do with the information. Now, I’m exhausted. Does
anyone mind if I have a bath?’

‘Help yourself,’ said Helen without looking at her.

Mick waited until Maria had gone, then lowered his voice. ‘I didn’t want to tell you in front of Maria. Pauline from your work called this afternoon. I had a little chat with her.
She says she’s worried about you and all the time you’ve been taking off. She said you weren’t there last Friday morning. The police have been making enquiries.’

Helen felt the blood rush to her face. She stared at Mick rigidly.

‘I don’t know what’s going on with you, Helen,’ he said, ‘but I think you need to get your record straight.’ The look he gave her as he left the room was just
like the one he’d given Barney. As if he despaired of them both.

Sonia

I’m in the bathroom the next morning, doing my face when the police come. Greg stands at the foot of the stairs and calls up to me. Harry and Kit have their bags packed,
they’re getting the 10.33 up to Charing Cross.

‘Oh God, has something awful happened?’ Kit’s asking as I come down the stairs. ‘Is Grandma OK? I should have gone to see her. We should have gone to see her,
Harry.’ She plucks at Harry’s cuff while he frowns at the police, then glances at his watch.

‘It’s not your grandmother,’ the policewoman says, ‘but if you wouldn’t mind staying while we ask a few questions.’

Greg takes the two police officers, a young man and the woman, into the living room. There’s a fire alight in the grate that he must’ve lit earlier. Greg and I sit side by side on
the sofa, while Kit perches on the armchair under the window and Harry stands behind her, one hand on its back.

The woman introduces herself as Inspector Hailey Kirwin and explains that a boy with whom she believes we have some acquaintance has been reported missing and that he hasn’t been seen for
over a week.

‘I think you know about this,’ says the woman turning vivid blue eyes on me. ‘You met his aunt at the opera house yesterday.’

‘Yes. Helen. It was in the papers too,’ I say.

‘Jez!’ Kit exclaims. ‘God! He’s gone missing? Why didn’t you tell us, Mum?’

‘I didn’t want to worry you. ’

‘But he’s Barney and Theo’s cousin.’

‘So you know him?’ the woman asks, turning her eyes on Kit.

‘I did. He’s younger than me. Used to live round here. He moved to Paris but he sometimes stays at Barney and Theo’s. I know them better. Our dads used to play guitar together.
And our mums were friends. Oh God. That’s terrible. What do you think’s happened?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. It’s out of character for him to go off without telling anyone. And it’s been over a week now.’

I have the oddest sensation that a pane of glass has come down, that I’m viewing and hearing everything through the misted panel. I catch some of Inspector Kirwin’s words, but they
are disconnected . . . no one noticed . . . over twenty-four hours . . . river search . . . never arrived.

‘What we need to know,’ she continues, and her voice seems thick, muffled, ‘is whether he ever turned up here for the album?’

‘When was this?’ Greg asks.

‘A week ago yesterday,’ the young male constable says.

‘So while I was away,’ says Greg, looking at me. ‘Did Jez come round while I was away, Sonia?’

My mouth is so dry I can barely get the word ‘no’ out.

‘The album he wanted to borrow, it was apparently . . .’ the constable looks at his notebook, ‘by someone called Jim Butler.’

‘Tim Buckley,’ Greg corrects him. ‘That’s right. I have a copy. It’s hard to get hold of. He and I were talking about it at Mick’s fiftieth birthday party,
under the arches. Do you remember, Sonia?’

‘What was that?’ I ask.

I feel much too hot. I take off my cashmere scarf, and fling it onto the back of the sofa.

‘I told you. He’d been trying to get hold of the album. I said I had a copy that he could borrow. I remember because I was impressed that such a young man could be interested in
music like that.’

The fire in the grate crackles and spits as if it is joining in the conversation.

‘And I said of course he could borrow it, as long as he returned it in good nick.’

‘Oh yes,’ I say.

‘But he never did come?’ says Kirwin, who must wear coloured contacts lenses. No one’s eyes are that blue.

‘No,’ I say again.

‘Do you think we could just have a look at the album we’re talking about?’ she asks.

‘Of course,’ says Greg. He gets up. ‘It’ll be up in what we call our music room. I’ll go and get it. Or do you want to come up?’

‘Perhaps Sonia could take me,’ says Kirwin. ‘Since she was the one who was here on the day he planned to call in. My colleague would just like to ask you and your . .
.’

‘This is my daughter Kit and her boyfriend Harry. They’ve just been here for the weekend. They’re students at Newcastle University and actually have a train to catch.
They’re due back today.’

‘We won’t keep you long,’ says the woman, and smiles. She raises her eyebrows at me. I stand as if in a trance and she follows me up the stairs to the music room.

I know exactly where the Tim Buckley album is because Jez waved it at me the other day when he told me he was leaving, and no longer wanted to borrow it. But I make a bit of a show of not being
certain. I rummage through various piles and riffle along the shelf before I find it and hand it to her. Kirwin looks at it, turns it over, puts it down and scribbles something in her notebook. It
means nothing to her as an album, but what about as a piece of evidence? Jez’s fingerprints must be all over it. I wonder if she’s going to take it with her, because if she does, the
forensics will have a field day.

Why hadn’t I told them he’d come and taken it away?

I could’ve said,
Yes, he came, I handed it to him, and he left
. You can’t think quickly enough in these situations. But then what if she still wanted to search the music room, and
had found the album? I’m aware of how precarious my situation is. It’s the simplest things that catch you out. Since Greg and Kit came home, I’ve covered all traces of Jez’s
visit, and worked so hard to keep him tucked out of sight in the garage, yet I’ve left his finger-prints all over the music room.

The policewoman turns the album over and over. I wait for the moment where everything crashes in on me. I’m ready to give in, to let everyone else take over. If they arrest me for
incarcerating a boy against his will – because without a doubt they’ll assume it’s against his will – all the tension, anxiety, and emotional turmoil of the last few days
will be over. This thought seizes my heart and crushes it. Losing Jez after all we’ve gone through would be more than I could bear. I need more time. I need to nurture him back to health and
regain his trust. I cannot lose him, however hard it has been for us both. I cannot bear for it all to come to nothing.

‘Thanks,’ she says handing it back to me. ‘So he never came?’

She’s examining me as she asks this question. Her unnaturally blue eyes flash as she does so. I shake my head.

‘And you haven’t seen him, out and about along the river, in the pub, anywhere? You know what he looks like, I take it?’

‘Oh yes,’ my voice seems suddenly loud, high pitched, ‘as Kit said, his aunt’s a friend of mine. I’ve met him, though not recently. I don’t see Helen as much
now our kids are grown up.’

‘Apparently he used to do a bit of base jumping on the river walls,’ she says. ‘You know, jumping off the bridges. Climbing up and down landing stages and things. You
don’t remember seeing him down there, just over a week ago? No recollections at all that may be of help to us?’

I decide to think about this for a minute. She suspects nothing! I want to talk and laugh and discuss this boy and his extraordinary talents at great length.

‘I saw him last . . . Oh, it must be a year ago now, maybe two, with his cousins, shinning up the walls down there, near the pub. I remember his aunt having kittens about it.
“Boys!” she kept saying, and I was grateful I didn’t have any to deal with. Just the one daughter. I should think myself lucky.’

‘So. Nothing recently? You didn’t see him about here lately?’

‘Lately? I don’t think so. Nothing I noticed, no.’ I realize I’m gabbling in relief, and try to steady my voice. ‘I’m here most of the time. I work from home,
so I’m sure I might have noticed.’

She makes a note.

‘You say they’ve searched the river?’ I ask, though I already know from what Sheila told me yesterday at the pier, from the paper and from Helen.

‘Yes. But they’ll keep looking,’ she says. ‘Thanks for your help. Now let’s join the others. We’d like to ask you a few questions about the aunt. Helen
Whitehorn. How well you know her and so on.’

My heart starts to thud again. This isn’t over. I walk behind her down the stairs. I look at her muscular calves not flattered by the flesh-coloured tights she’s probably forced to
wear by the police dress code.

‘Have you any theories at all?’ Greg’s asking the young constable. I see he must be barely more than Kit’s age. He’s still spotty for goodness’ sake. Acne,
poor lad. Fair sandy hair, and a pink complexion behind the spots.

‘In cases like this, if it’s not an accident, if there’s anything unlawful, it’s nearly always the family behind it,’ says the boy.

Kirwin nudges him in the ribs and gives him a stern look.

‘We have no clear theories at present,’ she says. ‘Though we’re following several leads.’

‘Oh well, Helen can’t have anything to do with it,’ Kit says. ‘Or Mick. They’re great. Jez always liked staying with them, in fact, he preferred their house to his
own home in Paris. Helen and Mick are really laid back. Sound as anything.’

‘So you haven’t noticed a change in Helen recently?’ Kirwin asks.

‘Goodness, no,’ says Greg, looking at me. ‘Nothing, have we, Sonia?’

‘Not at all,’ I manage. ‘She was the same as ever when I saw her yesterday.’

‘She hasn’t been under any undue stress at work that you know of?’

‘We don’t see much of her these days,’ I say. ‘Yesterday was the first time I’d talked to her properly in months. She was obviously distressed about her nephew, but
otherwise, no, she was her usual self.’