Time to Die

23

Annette’s husband came home with her son, Sam, about one o’clock. They were both gleaming with that healthy, over-washed glow that swimming gives you and smelt strongly of chlorine. Sleek from the pool, they were like upholstery that had been steam-cleaned, or a valeted car. By contrast, there was a tangible air of gloom in the untidy sitting room.

‘You OK?’ he said to his wife, who looked unusually preoccupied. Declan wondered if something bad had happened to her mother, who wasn’t in the best of health.

‘In a minute,’ she said, holding her hand, palm up to him to forestall any conversation, then, ‘Sammy, darling, did you see Peter at school yesterday?’

Sam looked puzzled. ‘Yes, Mum, but I didn’t get to speak to him. We had that football match in Southgate, and he’s not in the team, and then when we got back, like after lunch, he was in the field for biology looking at their insect traps, Bradley McDonald got a stagbeetle! Everyone was like, a stagbeetle, and we’re in different sets for maths. Why?’

‘Oh, no reason,’ said Annette. So far, so good, she thought. Peter obviously wasn’t due to come here or Sam would have known.

Her son went upstairs to play Black Ops or some such game on his Xbox. Declan had dropped the sports bag containing their towels, costumes and dirty clothes on the floor by the sofa. Bet he leaves it there, she thought, he’ll be off down the pub in a minute. He picked up the phone, the landline, and punched in the number to check any missed calls. She watched as his face grew puzzled. He put the phone back on its holder.

‘That was Kathy Reynolds. She was calling to tell Peter she’d pick him up from here later today. She’s abroad again. Is he staying somewhere else? He usually comes here, doesn’t he?’

Annette suddenly felt very sick indeed. Her head swam and she felt faint as the terrible implications sank in, her worst fears coming true. ‘Oh God, Declan,’ she said to her husband. ‘Oh my God.’

Declan stared at her, uncomprehending, and Annette told him what she thought that meant. Jesus Christ, said Declan. Annette started crying while he tried to comfort her.

For a couple of minutes they sat together on the sofa as they tried to think of something other than the obvious to do. Declan broke the silence. ‘We’ll have to call the police,’ he said. ‘And Kathy. Do you want me to do it?’ Annette sniffed and shook her head.

‘I’ll do it, darling. But I’m going round to her flat first, I want to check he’s not there. He might be there right now, you know, like Home Alone. He’s got a key, after all. Please, it’s only five minutes away.’

Declan nodded and acquiesced. Why not? he thought. He had a terrible desire to shout at Annette, to attack her verbally. How could you be so forgetful? he wanted to shout. How could you have been so criminally stupid! He managed to control himself. He stood up and kissed her hair and squeezed her hand. She automatically squeezed his hand back.

‘Oh, Declan,’ she said. ‘What have I done. It’s all my fault.’ Yes, he thought. It is.

‘It’s not your fault,’ he said. ‘Go round there, take your phone. If he’s not there call the police, Kathy, and then me, OK. I’ll be waiting here for your call. I’ll keep an eye on Sam.’

She nodded and stood up. She left the room and returned a second later. ‘Have you seen my car keys?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know where I’ve put them.’ She started to cry again.

Annette sat outside Kathy’s flat in her old, scuffed Ford Mondeo. The pockets in the door of both the driver and passenger side were full to overflowing with old parking tickets from machines and empty sweet and crisp packets. There was a child’s woolly hat on the floor in the passenger well, left over from March’s cold weather, and a stack of magazines that she’d meant to get rid of in the recycling but hadn’t.

Her friend’s small, ground-floor flat looked immaculate. There was a tiny piece of front garden, the lawn a manicured strip of green between the flat and the road, and the path was swept, with a little tub of flowers. It was all so neat. Just like Kathy’s life.

She thought of her own house. Its small, rusted, metal gate falling off its hinges, the path choked with weeds, and what was left of the lawn dotted with old plastic toys of Sam’s that she’d never got round to clearing away. The paint around her windows was flaking badly; she couldn’t afford to pay anyone and she didn’t have the time to do it herself. Annette felt as though she was slowly drowning in a sea of inescapable tasks while every day the tide rose higher.

The hope that maybe Peter would be there after all had proved illusory. She had thought it would. No one had answered the door. Peter had gone.

She took a deep breath and looked at her mobile. Its screen full of harmless apps seemed to mock her. They promised so much: cookery apps so you’d never run out of ideas or knowledge, restaurant apps so you’d always know where to go, games so you’d never be bored, search engines so you’d always know everything, Google Earth, so you’d always know where you were.

But, she thought bitterly, it was all lies, wasn’t it. The cookery apps were pointless. Her food was 90 per cent convenience: pizzas, sausages, fish fingers, burgers, baked beans, the usual things that people actually ate and 10 per cent what the family as a unit would agree to eat together. Planning meals was like a Venn diagram, one would eat one thing, the others wouldn’t, and she didn’t have the time, patience or money to cook three different variations on a theme every night. The only unanimity lay in dishes like spaghetti Bolognese, chilli con carne and cottage pie. We’re a family bound together with mince, she thought. She couldn’t afford to go to restaurants, TripAdvisor, don’t make me laugh, so much for those apps, and she didn’t have time for games.

And what use Google Earth with its pinpoint accuracy? Would it find Peter? No, it wouldn’t. Would playing Candy Crush distract her from guilt? No.

Briefly, she wondered what the number was for non-emergency police calls, then she thought, if a twelve-year-old missing since end of school yesterday doesn’t qualify as an emergency, what does?

Heart thudding, head throbbing, stomach knotting, she dialled nine, nine, nine and asked for the police, took a deep breath. ‘Hello, yes, my name’s Annette Fielding and I’d like to report a child missing.’ Tears started to run down her cheeks and she rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

And in Stuttgart Max had ordered coffee and left the table when Kathy checked her voicemail and called Annette. Her conversation was short and to the point. Kathy didn’t cry, she didn’t scream, although she felt like doing both. She clicked her phone off. She looked around the restaurant in disbelief, as though she was amazed that life could carry on so normally. All thought was virtually suspended. Every beat of her heart said, this cannot be. She felt as if the roof had fallen in on top of her. There must be some mistake.

The fat man on his own carried on eating his spatzeli. The two young lovers were still holding hands and looking at each other over the tablecloth. A tired-looking, quite drunk, English businessman in a crumpled suit was reading a book propped up on the salt and pepper in front of him. All was as before, except in her head, where everything had exploded into Edvard Munch-like despair. I must get home, she thought.

Images of Peter flashed through her head in bewildering succession. Terrible thoughts of what might be happening to him, mixed with random memories of his face. The police would meet her flight, Annette had said. She had felt Annette’s guilt and pain through the iPhone in her hand, but she had no desire to say anything comforting. She felt like throwing up. She was stunned. I must go, she thought, and stood up, then immediately sat down. She was too unsteady on her feet. Her legs were like jelly. I must tell Max I’m going, she thought. But I can’t say why, I can’t face talking.

When Max rejoined her at the table, he thought to himself as he saw her across the restaurant that she looked ethereally beautiful. Before, she’d been funny, sexy, warm. Now, she was like a woman transformed. She was staring expressionlessly into space. Momentarily he wondered if he had done something, or said something, terrible to offend her. They had been speaking German, Kathy’s was so good Max had to keep reminding himself how unusual this was from a British person. Now she switched to English. Her beautiful eyes held his and she spoke as if she were reading a script, her voice flat and uninflected.

‘Max. I need to leave now. Something’s happened. No, I’m not going to talk about it now, I’m sorry. There’s a taxi rank on the corner.’ He opened his mouth to speak and she touched him gently as a feather on the lips. ‘Please don’t say anything. I can’t talk right now.’

She stood up and left. He watched her back retreat through the restaurant. Kathy always had excellent posture, she didn’t stoop like some tall people, but now she was walking drawn up to her full height in an almost exaggerated way. She didn’t look back or left or right. ‘Entschuldigung. Zahlen, bitte,’ he said to a waiter, asking for the bill.

He realized she had left without taking her small suitcase. He would look after it for her until he saw her again. He guessed it had to be serious. Most of us can recognize when someone has just had bad news, but Max couldn’t even begin to guess how bad it could be.