Ali Harper - The Disappeared - A gripping crime mystery full of twists and turns!

‘Two weeks ago, he said he loved me. First time ever.’

‘You believed him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what happened?’ asked Jo, puckering up her lips like she might just kiss her own reflection.

‘He disappears.’

‘Typical,’ said Jo, and I braced myself for a diatribe.

I watched their reflections, half-fascinated, half-repulsed. So intimate and intense, the kind of scrutiny I could never face. Jo took a deep breath, applied a deep red smudge of colour to her lower lip.

Carly wiped a finger under the eyelashes of her right eye, creating a soft black line that made her eyes appear bigger. ‘He was supposed to meet me at the Hyde Park cinema, week last Sunday. Never showed.’

‘Did he ring?’

‘No.’

‘Has he disappeared before?’ I asked.

‘Not for this long.’ Carly’s voice wobbled again. ‘It’s been nearly a week.’

‘Tell me about the last time you saw him,’ said Jo.

I watched her hesitate. ‘It might help us find him,’ I said, trying to draw the words out of her.

Water drizzled from the tap at the far sink. I tried to turn it off, but it wouldn’t budge. Carly shrugged at her reflection.

‘Just over a week ago, last Thursday. We both worked here. Thursday. Normal night. Afterwards he came back to mine. We hung out, watched a film. Then, you know.’ She paused, and I envied her the memory as a small smile flickered across her face. ‘That’s when he told me he loved me.’

The sadness returned, and she drank more beer. ‘He got up the next morning, we got breakfast at Chichini’s. Said he had to go see someone but asked if I wanted to go to the pictures on Sunday. Said to meet him outside at eight. That’s it.’

‘Did he seem worried about anything?’

‘You know what he’s like. Always worried about something, but he never lets on. He can’t sit still, always has to be doing something.’

‘What does Brownie think?’ asked Jo.

At the mention of Brownie’s name, a wall sprang up. Carly’s tone, her whole demeanour changed. She straightened up. ‘I don’t give a fuck what Brownie thinks.’

‘Bill says he might be in later,’ I said.

‘He’s always in later.’

‘He might know where Jack is.’

She shook her head so that her curls bobbed. ‘He’s looking for him. That’s why he comes here every night. He’s following me, thinks I’ll lead him to Jack.’ She wiped at her eyes in the mirror. ‘He’s bad news.’

‘Bad news how?’

She tucked the mascara brush back into its bottle and turned to stare at Jo. ‘Come on, friend of a friend ? Balls.’

Jo glanced at me, and I nodded.

‘We’re private detectives,’ Jo said, handing over another of our cards. She hitched herself up onto the worktop next to the sink, next to the toilet rolls, sitting with her legs swinging as she lit a fag. ‘We’ve been employed by his mum. She hasn’t seen—’

‘Jack’s mum?’ The disbelief in Carly’s voice was about the same I’d expect if Jo’d said we’d been hired by the Tooth Fairy.

‘Yeah,’ said Jo, exhaling smoke into the small room. ‘She’s not heard from—’

‘Jack hasn’t got a mum.’

That stopped us. The music continued to bounce off the walls and the tap at the far sink continued to drizzle, but I had the feeling everything else stood still.

‘Everyone’s got a mum,’ said Jo eventually.

‘Yeah. And Jack’s died when he was 5.’

The three of us stood there in the women’s toilets, staring at each other as we let Carly’s statement sink in. This time it was me that cracked.

‘She can’t have.’

Carly turned to face me, so I could see the back of her head in the mirror. She folded her arms across her chest. ‘She did.’

‘Jack’s mum died ?’ I repeated. I saw Mrs Wilkins in our offices, twisting the wedding ring on her finger.

‘He could be telling you a sob story,’ said Jo. ‘Blokes’ll tell you anything if they think they’re in with a mercy shag.’

Carly shook her head in a way that didn’t brook any argument. ‘She was killed in a car crash. He was in the car. He survived. She died. He’s never got over it.’

No one spoke.

Jo frowned at me. I felt panic stir in my belly.

‘You need to be careful,’ said Carly. ‘This woman could be anyone. What did she look like?’

‘What about his dad?’ Jo asked.

‘Never talks about him. Never talks about his past. All I know about his dad is that he’s a workaholic. They have no relationship. Jack never goes home.’

‘Where is home?’

‘He doesn’t have one. He was sent to boarding school when he was like 7.’

‘His dad must live somewhere.’

‘Some posh village outside of Manchester but, I’m telling you, Jack has nothing to do with him. He sells cars,’ she said, like this was the worst thing a man could do. ‘He’s only into making money. Jack hates him. Wherever Jack is, it’s definitely not with his dad.’

She seemed certain on that fact, so I didn’t press it.

‘What were you going to see?’ I asked.

‘What?’

‘At the Hyde?’ The Hyde Park Picture House is a small, independent cinema nestled among the red-brick terraces. It shows arty films, often subtitled – the kind of film I can never understand.

Carly stared at me without recognition.

‘On the Sunday, when Jack didn’t show?’

‘Oh, right. The Ken Russell one – what’s it called it – Daniel something.’

‘ I, Daniel Blake ,’ said Jo. ‘Awesome.’

It was difficult to think of anything else to ask, so we left Carly in the toilets. She wrote her number down on the back of one of our business cards, and I promised her we’d be in touch if we heard anything.

‘The custard thickens,’ said Jo as we hit the pavement and the chill evening air.

‘Do you believe her? About his mum being dead?’

‘Dunno.’ Jo shrugged her shoulders – like the fact our client may have told us a pack of complete lies was a mere blip in an otherwise ordinary day.

I pictured Mrs Wilkins in our offices. Remembered the shake in her hands as she crushed out a cigarette. ‘She’s got to be his mother,’ I said as we headed through town, no real idea what we were going to do next. I felt the need to burn off some energy, see if I could outrun the smell of beer that was clinging to my clothes. My throat ached. ‘If she’s not his mother, why would she want us to find him?’

‘He’ll have been spinning Carly a sob story. You know what blokes are like. Lying, cheating—’

‘You reckon?’ I clutched at the paper-thin straw Jo offered.

‘We need to talk to Brownie.’

‘She could be his stepmother. Maybe his dad remarried.’

‘Maybe,’ said Jo, but her voice lacked the conviction I was looking for. ‘When you next speaking to her?’

‘She’s ringing at nine tomorrow.’

‘So, ask her then.’

‘We can’t wait till tomorrow. We need to know who she is.’ The words fell out of me, without me really knowing what was coming next. ‘She’s our client, the whole fucking point of why we’re here. She said she was his mother. Why lie? Maybe that’s a thing – we need to get ID from people.’

‘Ring her then,’ said Jo. ‘That’s why I bought you a phone.’

‘She didn’t give me her number.’ I tried not to notice Jo’s raised eyebrow. ‘She’s staying at the Queens.’ I grasped her arm. ‘She said not to ring her husband. Said he’d go apeshit if he knew what she was doing.’

‘Might be true,’ she said.

‘Or she might not be Jack’s mother; in which case, ’course she doesn’t want us ringing his dad.’