The Sleepover Page 6

  “He hasn’t got a smartphone.” Jason swipes the screen of his own iPhone. “Ade refused to lend him his.”

  “I got it for my birthday,” Adrian protests, pouting.

  “Yeah. And don’t we know it.”

  “OK, boys, let’s keep our eyes on the ball.” The detective claps his hands together, extinguishing the spat before it flares into a fight. “You’re all tired. I suggest we take a break.” He straightens up. “But I want you to put your thinking caps on, right? Your parents are on their way.” He turns to DS Clarke.

  “Should be here any moment,” she confirms, checking her watch.

  “So, this is the plan. When they arrive, I’ll go with you guys down to the station. I’ll introduce you to our specialist officers. They’ll talk to you in more detail. In the meantime, Sarah—DS Clarke—will head over to your house with you, Izzy. OK?”

  “I’d like your husband to join us, too.” DS Clarke finally tucks away her notebook.

  “Ex-husband,” I say under my breath.

  “Of course. No problem.” Craig comes to stand next to me. “I know the first few hours are crucial after a child goes missing. Anything and everything we can do to help, we will.” He rests his arm across my shoulders. “Nick’s our boy. We just want him back.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “We need to let the police do their job, Isobel.

  Chasing round the streets is going to help no one. Least of all Nick.” Craig draws me into the living room, guiding me toward the sofa, at the same time unhooking the car keys from my hand and putting them on the coffee table.

  “I have to do something.” Reluctantly, I sit down on the red leather chesterfield that, along with two matching armchairs, was the first piece of furniture Craig bought for our new home, I remember incongruously. “You heard what the detective was saying. I’m sure he thinks Nick’s run off in a sulk. Either that or I’ve driven him away.”

  “No one thinks that.” Craig sits next to me, looping his arm around me.

  “I wish I had your confidence,” I say, edging away from him.

  “Look, please don’t get the hump with me. I know we’ve had our differences, but we need to pull together now. For Nick’s sake. The DCI’s pretty laid-back, sure. But he’s taking this seriously. He has to. Don’t forget he’ll have been in this situation before. We haven’t.”

  “You mean he’s seen it, done it, and now he’s just going through the motions.” I’m still too wound up to let go of my impatience with DCI Maxwell. “Thank God for DS Clarke. At least she seems determined to find answers.”

  “She was certainly very thorough in her questioning,” Craig says drily.

  I can tell he’s still raw, too, even though he hides it far better than I do. The younger detective’s quiet manner belied the probing intensity of her questioning after she returned home with us. While officers searched the house from top to bottom, DS Clarke sat with us in the kitchen, firing off questions and taking yet more notes until I know both Craig and I started to feel uncomfortably like we were the ones under investigation.

  While I was happy to spill out anything and everything that might help, I could see Craig’s feathers were ruffled at being grilled about his relationship with Nick, our separation—and his movements last night. Eventually, he plonked the keys to his apartment on the table, swept them toward DS Clarke, and said it might be quicker and easier if she simply searched it.

  “I just hope we’ve convinced her that the answers don’t lie here. The truth is out there. Somewhere.” I stare longingly again at my car keys.

  “I know it’s frustrating,” Craig acknowledges, following my gaze. “But I still think the police are right. It makes far more sense for you to stay here. In case Nick does come back. And I’m sure he will, once he’s had time to think.”

  “So you keep saying. But what if he’s had an accident? Nick always has his head in the clouds. He never looks before he crosses the road. What if he’s been kidnapped?” I stand up and stride to the window, feeling frustrated and more terrified with each passing minute.

  “Try not to torment yourself, Isobel. I know it’s easier said than done, but it won’t help. We need to stay positive. The detective said they’ve phoned all the local hospitals, remember?”

  “But what if he just hasn’t been found yet?” I watch Craig wander over to the fireplace, propping an elbow on the mahogany mantelpiece as he picks up a framed photo of Nick. I feel baffled and irritated that he can remain so calm.

  “I love this shot of him,” he muses, looking over his shoulder at me. “Which photo did you give the police, out of interest?”

  “DS Clarke chose it, actually. A snap I took of him at Christmas.”

  “Oh. I see.” He frowns. Photography is Craig’s hobby, and I sense he’s a little peeved that one of his own pictures wasn’t selected.

  “It was the most recent one,” I explain, not wanting to get into petty point-scoring. “And Nick was wearing his green hoodie in it. The same one he had on last night.”

  “Ah, right. Good thinking.” He dusts the frame and puts it back.

  “I got it for him for Christmas.” Immediately I picture Nick’s grin as he unwrapped the orange Nikes he’d coveted for months. “And the sneakers he had on. The parka he left behind.”

  “It is odd he didn’t take his coat, I’ll give you that. If he has just gone off in a huff, I mean. It’s freezing out there.” He tugs at the shirt collar beneath his gray cashmere sweater. “Actually, it’s not much warmer in here. Is that boiler playing up again?”

  “I think it’s finally packed it in.” Remembering that I’d booked Arthur to come over, I glance at the carriage clock on the sideboard. It’s past lunchtime; Nick will be starving.

  I wonder if he has any money on him to buy food. I didn’t give him any, and he doesn’t have a bank card yet. He has pocket money, though, and DS Clarke said they’ll be checking local cafés, along with CCTV at garages, supermarkets—anywhere he might have been caught on camera. The train station? My heart races at the thought of Nick on the Tube. He’s claustrophobic. What if he has a panic attack? Where would he even be going?

  “I’ll take a look.” Craig pushes his glasses up his nose in a familiar gesture as he strides toward the living room door. “Give me something to do while we wait.”

  “It’s OK. I’ve got a plumber coming. In fact, there’s really no need for you to hang around, Craig. I’ll call you if there’s any news. You may as well—”

  “Pressure gauge probably just needs resetting. I can do that, if you like. Save you some cash, too. Yes?”

  “Right.” He has a point: paying Arthur’s callout charge will mean I won’t be able to treat Nick at half-term. If he’s home by then. “OK. Thanks,” I say absently, distracted by the thought that Nick might never come home; that the photo I gave the police might join the legion of forgotten faces staring out from “missing” posters across cities everywhere.

  I remember Nick asking about them at the airport three years ago. We were on our first family holiday, and Craig was in a buoyant mood. Rather flippantly he quipped that they’d probably all decided to start a new life and found it too hard to say goodbye to their loved ones. I was cross because Nick had never known his own father and I didn’t want him thinking Alex hadn’t wanted to say goodbye to him. Just as Craig didn’t when he left . . .

  DS Clarke asked me who I thought Nick blamed for the breakup. I couldn’t answer, and I can’t stop thinking about it. He woke up one morning to find his stepdad gone, and while I can understand him being angry with Craig about that, it happened a year ago. Maybe it is me he’s angry with, after all: not for smothering him but for disrupting our family home and, as far as he was concerned, driving Craig away. Perhaps he wants to teach me how it feels to be abandoned in the middle of the night . . .

  As I finally showed the detectives out, DS Clarke asked me to give it some thought. In the meantime, she would speak to Nick’s teachers, tell them what
had happened, and solicit any insights they might be able to offer. I felt dreadful that I could only remember the name of one of them: Nick’s form tutor, Mr. Newton. It brought home to me again how much I’ve lost touch with my son. I’ve sensed something preoccupying Nick, but I wanted to give him space to work it through himself. The irony is horrific; the guilt is beyond bearing.

  “Why don’t you give me the number?” Craig says quietly, watching me. “I’ll call and cancel. Save you the hassle.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The plumber, Isobel.” He reaches into his back pocket and takes out his phone.

  “Oh. No, it’s fine. I can do it.”

  “It’s a shame Nick doesn’t have a smartphone. We could have traced him in seconds.”

  “What? Oh God, you’re right.” That must be why DS Clarke wrote down the brand of Nick’s phone as well as his number, I think, watching Craig tap the password into his BlackBerry. “I just got him a basic one. For emergencies.” Like this. Except he hasn’t called me. “Damn. I thought anything fancy would make him a target. And I was worried about more bullying. Group-chat cliques. That kind of thing. Can’t the police still track it?”

  “Not easily. Not if it’s turned off. But what I meant is a tracker app. See?” He holds up his phone to show me the screen.

  “What’s that wiggly line?” I cross the room quickly, curious to get a closer look.

  “That’s you, Isobel. This morning. That’s the route you took.”

  My eyes follow his finger across the map, tracing the line zigzagging between my road and Beth’s, then my old apartment, then back to Beth’s, and suddenly I remember my surprise at seeing Craig in her living room, before I had even phoned to tell him Nick was missing.

  “Chasing round the streets. That’s what you meant, isn’t it? Not me driving around looking for Nick. You meant earlier. This morning. That’s how you knew where I was, isn’t it? You were following me.”

  His eyebrows arch. “You’re not serious.” His dark brows crinkle into a frown when I don’t reply. “You are, aren’t you? No, Isobel. I wasn’t following you.”

  “Then why have you got this . . . this stalker app?” I glare at his phone.

  “Because it’s a standard function on most smartphones. You’ve got it on yours.”

  “What?”

  “Check it and see.”

  “Oh. Right.” I bite my lip as I take out my phone and see a similar icon on the screen, slightly different from the one Craig has on his, but nevertheless recognizable as some kind of tracking facility. I wish I’d known about it; I wish I’d had the foresight to ensure Nick had a phone with the same feature. “Sorry.” I feel deflated and a little stupid. “I had no idea.”

  “It’s fine,” he says with a small sigh. “Look, I know you don’t bother much with all that tech stuff. I don’t usually. I’d forgotten I’d even set it up to track your phone. In case you lost it,” he explains quickly. “I haven’t looked at it in months. It only caught my eye this morning because it kept pinging. You were all over the place. I was concerned.”

  “So you decided to show up at a complete stranger’s house and ask if your ex-wife was in trouble?” I’m too rattled to drop the point entirely.

  Craig shakes his head. “No,” he says patiently. “That’s not how it was. I was worried about Nick, that’s all. I mean, of course I was concerned about you, too. But you’d mentioned Nick having a sleepover at a mate’s house. I thought . . .”

  “You thought what? That you’d check out where I let him spend the night? Make sure it was a suitable home, with the right kind of people? When are you going to stop questioning every decision I make about Nick?” I draw myself up to my full height, still a foot shorter than Craig. “When are you going to accept that he’s not your son?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.” I lean my elbows on the I kitchen table, gripping my hands together to stop them shaking. “I’m just so worried.”

  “Sure. I know.” Craig doesn’t look up, concentrating on pouring milk into two mugs.

  It was his suggestion that we move into the kitchen, to calm things down with a hot drink. Still bristling, I try not to feel irritated by how he’s making himself at home. Grudgingly, I admit that he’s right: we need to pull together. It won’t help Nick if I’m at loggerheads with his stepdad. The trouble is, in taking our fractured relationship out of the box again, the sharp edges are slicing twice as deep.

  “I know how much you care about Nick,” I force myself to admit.

  “I’m not going to lie. I wasn’t happy about the sleepover.”

  “No kidding,” I huff before I can stop myself.

  “I just wanted to make sure Nick was OK. Believe it or not, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. To take care of him. And you.” Craig sets a mug of coffee in front of me, hovering at my side as though waiting for me to invite him to sit down.

  “Craig, don’t. Please. Now really isn’t the right time.”

  “On the contrary, I think it’s exactly the right time. I shouldn’t have left.”

  I give him a knowing look. “Why, because if you hadn’t Nick might still be here?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just . . . what happened last year . . . I tried so hard to look after Nick. I felt I’d let him down, and I couldn’t deal with it. So I blamed you instead. It was unforgivable. I’m not proud of it. I’m not proud of how I handled anything back then. Or the fact that I’ve been too stubborn to tell you this until now. I’ve got no excuse. I’m sorry.”

  His eyes flick around the kitchen, but I sense he’s looking beyond the heavy pine furniture, dated seventies Formica cabinets, and garish floral tiles we never got around to updating, and I know we’re both remembering that morning. Ironically, Craig and I were in exactly the same positions as now, only we were both dressed for work: I was sitting at the table transcribing Nick’s new-year dance schedule from my phone to the kitchen calendar, while Craig was sipping coffee before heading out to a meeting . . .

  * * *

  “I won’t take the shortcut, Mum. I’ll stick to the main roads.”

  Nick leaned on my shoulder as he reached over to grab a piece of toast from my plate. I caught the scent of citric muskiness and smiled as I remembered Craig promising to show him how to shave when he was older. He must have been trying on his stepdad’s aftershave, I thought, feeling a pang at how fast he was growing up.

  “I’m not sure, darling,” I said slowly.

  “You said you wanted me to get used to doing it before secondary school. That’s only, like, in September.”

  “True. And I’m glad you want to try.” I chuckled as I spotted jam at one corner of his mouth, toothpaste at the other. I could never get over the contrast between Nick’s mesmerizing poise on stage and his dreamy absentmindedness off it.

  His chin was definitely up this morning, though. He looked determined, defiant almost, and I felt happy that the reviews of his show we’d spent the weekend sticking into a scrapbook must have given him a boost. I was so proud of him, and I really wanted to encourage that budding self-confidence. But when we’d talked about him walking to school alone, I’d had the summer term in mind, not a bleak, frozen day in January.

  “So? Can I?” Nick wheedled, sashaying toward the kitchen door.

  He lives in his head, and it’s full of dance, I thought, worrying again about him being picked on if he walked to school alone. “It’s actually your dad’s turn today, love,” I reminded him. “You always enjoy your chats with him, don’t you?”

  “I guess.” Nick’s head dipped as he looked away.

  “You guess?” I raised my eyebrows. “But—”

  “I’ve got an early meeting. You’ll have to walk him,” Craig cut in, setting his coffee down on the counter and unhooking his coat from the back of the kitchen door.

  “I can, of course,” I said, still watching Nick, trying to read what was going on in his head. “I’m just wond
ering, though . . .” I hesitated, knowing Craig probably wasn’t going to like my suggestion. His solution for avoiding the bullies was simply to keep Nick apart from other kids. Only I knew Nick was being teased about that, too: loner; weirdo. He couldn’t spend his life running away, and I couldn’t hold his hand forever.

  “Wondering . . . ?” Craig checked his Rolex. “Sweetheart, I need to get the early train.”

  “I could walk a few paces behind Nick. That’s all I was thinking. He could go on ahead, but I could be there. Keeping an eye out.”

  “I don’t want him walking alone. He’s not up to it.”

  “He’s not helpless,” I said, taken aback by his dismissiveness.

  I wondered if something had happened. Usually, Craig loved hanging out with Nick, and Nick did always say how it helped to talk things over with his stepdad. I felt the same. While I tended to be driven by emotion, Craig operated purely on logic, so much so that I’d often wondered if, as a stepparent, he was able to view problems without the cloudy filter of paternal emotion. Generally, I saw that as a good thing. Occasionally, though, he came across as dogmatic. This was one of those times.

  “Look, I’ve got to go,” he said, checking his watch again. “I’ll be late for my meeting. Just walk him, would you?”

  “I have a say in this, too.” I glanced between Craig and Nick, sure I must be missing something. “It’s only a few streets away. Other kids come from miles—”

  “I said no, Isobel.”

  “You don’t get the final say in every decision, you know.” I didn’t necessarily disagree with what he was saying, and I certainly hadn’t made up my mind to let Nick walk alone, but I was shocked by Craig’s uncharacteristic sharpness.

  It was also the first time Nick had made a big deal about walking to school by himself. I wanted to understand why; I didn’t want to stamp on his burgeoning confidence. Only when I looked up, he’d gone. A second later, I heard the front door slam shut.

  * * *

  I don’t need Craig to remind me that I should have stopped him, but I can’t change that now. All that concerns me is what happened at the sleepover, and what might have made Nick sneak out in the middle of the night without saying a word to anyone.