Alex Barclay - The Drowning Child

Wiley didn’t ask any questions, even though, at times, it looked like he was struggling to stay quiet.

I wonder were you under strict instructions from Ruddock. Or do you just not give a fuck?

There was a knock on the door and Ruddock walked in. ‘Sign-in for the search is kicking off, if you’d like to come out.’

‘OK,’ said Gary.

‘So,’ said Ruddock, nodding toward the screen. ‘What do you think?’

‘They’re both lying,’ said Gary and Ren at exactly the same time.

Jimmy Lyle was driving, happily, freely, down the west coast. Home, in whatever altered state he had left it, was far enough behind him to bring comfort. He was taking quiet roads, darker ones, roads less traveled. He didn’t want to be pulled over, he didn’t want the trunk of his car to be searched.

The day he had the shit beaten out of him by the pond was coming up on Valentine’s Day: after the operations, as he looked around the hospital with his unbandaged eye, he caught sight of heart-shaped balloons, bunches of flowers, cards, an air of buoyancy. Jimmy hadn’t a face for Valentine’s Day, hadn’t a heart for love. He had seen it go wrong too soon. His wild and beautiful mother married his sensible teacher father. She walked out on them when Jimmy was eight years old, his father’s heart spiked on her stiletto as she made her glamorous exit. She had loved Jimmy deeply, and suddenly she was gone, and his father looked at him across the table of their first dinner alone like he was a dog who he now needed to find a home for. He kept him, though. Jimmy made sure to be indispensable. He cooked his father breakfast the very next morning and Outside Jimmy and Inside Jimmy were born; one the white, tranquil, opaque shell, the other the dark, crimson, screaming, angry, bleeding, weeping soul it covered.

The day Jimmy had left the hospital, he went via the cancer ward. He stole some things, some ‘personal effects’. He found an empty room and changed. He could barely look at himself in the mirror.

Afterward, as Jimmy stood, eyes on the floor, waiting for the elevator, he had heard a gasp beside him. It was to his right – it was always to his right. He turned to see a little girl standing there, wide-eyed.

She cried out. ‘Mommy, Mommy!’

Jimmy froze. The little girl’s mother scooped her up in her arms.

‘What happened to that lady’s face?’ said the little girl, pointing to Jimmy.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said the woman. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’m trying to teach her... she’s only three years old. She...’

Jimmy smiled. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘She’s just a little kid. They say what they think, don’t they? We could all learn from that.’

The mother’s shoulders relaxed. The little girl slowly turned to Jimmy, her head bowed. She looked up at him through teary eyes.

‘I had an accident when I was a little girl,’ he said.

The mother looked at him nervously, not sure what he was going to say next, not knowing whether or not he would say something that would scar her child.

‘So,’ said Jimmy, ‘you need to listen to your mama when she tells you to stay away from boiling water.’

The little girl was transfixed, horrified. The mother nodded, took a few steps backward. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You have a good day.’

‘You too,’ said Jimmy.

Jimmy walked through those hospital doors, holding a bunch of red roses close to his face on one side, holding a still-buoyant balloon on the other.

I HEART YOU, it said.

I FUCK YOU UP, thought Jimmy. I ABANDON YOU.

He remembered picking flowers from the back garden for a woman once, and, even while he was handing them to her, thinking exactly those words. And later, doing exactly those things.

There were good people who had scars, people who had to fight every day to bring others past the outside to the beauty underneath. Jimmy Lyle’s face and body, with their layer upon layer of damage, were the perfect complement to his soul.

Ren and Gary stood in the parking lot of Tate PD, watching the volunteers arrive. A table had been set up to sign them in, manned by two members of Team Adam. Ren watched as they went through a process they’d gone through countless times before – Team Adam was a program run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It was made up of retired law enforcement officers, who, like CARD, had specialist expertise, and mobilized as soon as they heard a report of a missing child anywhere in the US.

Ren studied the crowd. ‘Sometimes I feel so guilty thinking some of the shit I think about these kind people,’ she said. ‘They’re here sacrificing whatever it is their day would have held, while some stranger lady is thinking they’re Ted Danson. I mean, Ted Bundy.’ Hello? Charles Manson, maybe?

Gary glanced at her briefly.

‘You know,’ said Ren, ‘it still blows my mind how often the guilty party shows up. Whatever about the ones who are so close to the victims that it would be suspicious if they didn’t show. But I’m thinking of those peripheral nutjobs who put themselves in the frame by hanging around. The ones who might never have been on our radar otherwise – and they can’t see how that’s what they’re doing. I mean, even if you change channels on your television in a micro-second these days, there’s a crime show helping your ass out with these things.’

‘We like the dumb ones,’ said Gary.

Ren scanned the crowd again.

Is there a psycho among you?

Gil Wiley was moving through the line, greeting the people he knew.

‘Wiley looks like he’s on the campaign trail,’ said Ren. ‘His voice... it’s like it’s being garbled for a TV interview to protect his identity. Like we should only ever be seeing him in sil-you-ette.’

Gary held in a laugh, but still managed a low-volume sound of approval.

‘It’s not Denver cold,’ said Ren, ‘but it’s still cold. That Puffa jacket might have been fine for the walk to school, but if Caleb Veir’s been out overnight...’

Gary nodded. ‘I know.’

People continued to arrive, and the crowd began to expand toward them.

Ren’s heart started to pound.

Oh, no, please don’t do this. Not here.

She swallowed. She swallowed again.

No, no, no. Not now. Not here.

And the sensation struck, again.

Drowning, drowning.

Keep it together, bitch.

‘Gary...’ One word, and it came out like it had needed the Heimlich maneuver to make it.

Oh, God. My legs.

She pressed her hand against her thigh.

Like that’s going to help.

‘Gary,’ she said. ‘I’m not feeling a lot like being around big groups of people.’

He turned to her. He was waiting for more.

Breathe. Breathe.

Speak.

Speak!

‘Ren?’ said Gary.

Crowds people I’m going to pass out don’t you won’t stop breathe in out in out breathe I can’t you’re going to pass out.

Gary took her to one side. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m... I’m feeling overwhelmed.’

He studied her face.

Oh, no. Not the grave concern. No fucking way.

‘I just need a moment,’ said Ren, ‘I’m fine.’

No you’re not.

‘I just... don’t feel like being in the thick of this right now,’ said Ren, ‘or, like, in the middle of search teams or lunches where I have to do small talk with people. I just—’

‘If that’s how you’re feeling,’ said Gary, ‘I’m glad you told me. So I know to make sure you do exactly those things.’

You have got to be shitting me. I can’t believe I said ‘lunches’. Jesus.