C.L. Taylor - The Missing

The man runs a thumb along the length of his gingery moustache. ‘And your name is?’

‘Claire Wilkinson.’

He reaches for a clipboard on his desk. He raises it to eye level, then mutters, ‘I can’t see a thing without my glasses,’ and replaces the clipboard and begins ferreting around in a drawer. I tap the counter as he searches. It’s all I can do not to clamber over the top and snatch up the clipboard.

‘There!’ I point at a pair of glasses on top of a paperback book. ‘Your glasses are there.’

‘Ah, thank you.’ It takes an age for him to clasp his fingers around them, for ever for him to unfold them and then, as he finally places them on his nose, he removes them again and wipes the lenses on the hem of his jumper.

‘If you could hurry. Please. It’s urgent.’

‘All in good time, Mrs Wilkinson, all in good time.’

‘Hmmm.’ He hums through his nose. ‘Room eleven, is that right?’

I hear the sound of footsteps on the stairs but it’s a middle-aged man, not Billy, who steps into the reception area and raises a cheery hand at the man behind the desk. ‘I don’t know what room I’m in. I didn’t look.’

The receptionist gives me a quizzical look, then says, ‘I’ve got a Mrs Wilkinson in room eleven. Queen room. One occupant.’

I press a hand to my forehead but the fog in my brain remains. Somehow I booked myself into a B&B in Weston. I can’t remember doing it, so either I did check in and I don’t remember or … nothing. There’s a black void where my memory should be. ‘Could Billy have checked into one of the other rooms?’

The man’s lips disappear beneath the bushy arc of his moustache. ‘I can’t give out information about other guests. Guesthouse policy.’

A vision plays out in front of my eyes, of me ripping the clipboard out of his hands and smashing him around the head with it – thwack, thwack, thwack – and I have to close them tightly shut to make it disappear. When I open them again he’s still pursing his lips, still staring at me.

‘Billy is my son. He’s missing. You have to tell me if he’s here.’

‘Missing? Goodness. Have you told the police?’

‘Yes. Six months ago. Please! I need to know if he’s here or not.’ I lean over the counter and reach for the clipboard but he snatches it away, flattening it against his chest.

‘I’ve got a flier.’ I duck down and rummage around in my bag. ‘Here!’ I hold the appeal leaflet face out so he’s eye to eye with Billy’s photo.

The man gives the briefest of nods when he’s finished reading and our eyes meet as I lower the leaflet. There. He’s giving me the look. The ‘you poor bloody woman’ look I’ve come to know so well.

‘I wouldn’t normally do this but …’ He presses his glasses slowly onto his nose, lowers the clipboard and dips his head. He trails a bitten-down fingernail along the list and my heart stills when his finger stops.

Has he …

Is it …

He shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry. There’s no Billy Wilkinson on this list.’

‘Maybe he’s using a different name?’

He places the clipboard on the desk and presses down on it with his palms. ‘It’s a small hotel, Mrs Wilkinson, just thirteen rooms. We’ve got a couple in with a teenage girl and half a dozen families with young children. I’d remember your son’s face if I’d booked him in.’

‘Does no one else take the bookings?’

There’s sadness in his eyes now. Sadness and pity. ‘No. I’m really very sorry.’

The tension that’s been holding me upright for the length of the conversation vanishes and I slump against the desk, eviscerated. It’s all I can do not to lay the side of my face on the cool wood and close my eyes.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says again.

I look up. ‘Did you check me in?’

He nods. ‘Yes. One night, paid upfront. Don’t you remember?’

‘No. I don’t remember walking in, or even how I got to Weston. One minute I was talking to a friend in Bristol and the next …’ I can’t explain what happened because I don’t understand it myself. I came to but not in the way you do when you wake up after a nap or a long sleep. And it wasn’t like the hazy slip into consciousness after a general anaesthetic either. I was awake but my mind was muddled, tangled in a jumble of sounds, images and thoughts that gradually faded away. And then everything was sharp, in focus, as I became aware of my surroundings. And it was terrifying. Utterly terrifying.

‘Boozy lunch, was it?’ the man asks, the sympathy in his eyes dulling.

‘No,’ I say. ‘We were drinking tea.’

‘Sounds like you should get yourself to a doctor.’

‘I will. Just as soon as I get home.’ I crouch down and pull on my boots and socks. A drop of sweat rolls down my lower back as I haul the strap of my handbag over my shoulder.

‘Thank you,’ I say as I head for the door.

‘No problem.’

I wrench the door open and then, as the sea air hits me, I turn back. The receptionist looks up, Billy’s flier still in his hands.

‘Can I just ask one more thing? Was I alone when I checked in?’

‘You were, yes.’

‘And did I seem frightened? Scared? Confused?’

‘No. You seemed …’ He searches for the right word. ‘Normal.’

The wind whips my hair across my face as I pull my handbag onto my knee and unzip it. There are five messages on my phone from Jake, each one more frantic than the last.

‘Mum. Stay where you are. We’re coming to get you.’

‘We’re half an hour away. I just tried to ring you. Could you pick up, please?’

‘Mum, where are you?’

‘Mum? We’re in Weston. WHERE ARE YOU?’

‘MUM, PICK UP OR WE’RE CALLING THE POLICE!’

I press the button to call him. Jake answers on the first ring.

‘Mum?’ I can hear the relief in his voice. ‘Where the hell are you?’

‘I’m on the seafront. On a bench just to the right of the pier.’

‘Okay. Don’t go anywhere. We’ll be right there.’ He stops talking and I wait for him to hang up, but then he speaks again. ‘Promise me you won’t go anywhere.’

‘I’m not going anywhere, Jake. I promise.’

‘Good. She’s on a bench, on the right of the pier …’ I listen as he relays my whereabouts to Mark and then the line goes dead.

It’s the middle of summer but the wind cuts through the thin material of my top and I wrap my arms around my body, tucking my hands under my armpits. We used to sit on this bench with the boys when they were little. They’d eat ice creams and Mark and I would drink scalding-hot tea from thin paper cups. Both boys loved our visits to Weston-super-Mare. They adored the bright flashing lights and the bleep-bleep-bleep , ching-ching-ching of the amusement arcade; Mark standing beside them, pressing two-pence pieces into their reaching palms. I’d slip outside, ears ringing, and stand on the pier, breathing in deep lungfuls of sea air, relishing the sense of freedom and space that opened within me as I looked out at the horizon.

I was eighteen when I met Mark, nineteen when we got married, twenty-one when I had Jake, twenty-five when I had Billy. I slipped effortlessly from the family I grew up in, to the one I created with Mark. I never regretted that decision, not once, but there were moments when I envied my single friends. Especially when Mark was away on a training course and whatever activity I’d dreamed up to try and entertain the boys had descended into chaos, fights and tears, and I couldn’t even escape to the toilet without small fists pounding on the door, voices begging to be let in. What would it feel like to read a book without interruption, to nurse a hangover on the sofa with a film and a mountain of chocolate, or book a holiday and just go? What would it be like to have a career where people respected you instead of taking you for granted and to have a bedroom, all of your own, where you could retreat when you’d had enough of the world? Those thoughts were always fleeting and I would dismiss them guiltily, tucking them away deep in my mind where they wouldn’t bother me. I knew how lucky I was to have a husband who loved me and two healthy children.