She said, “Have you been to the police?”
“Well of course I’ve been to the police! You think you were my first option?”
“Sorry. Sorry. What did they say?”
Clare Addison calmed as suddenly as she’d erupted. “No, I’m . . . They took details. They’ve put him on a register or whatever . . . A missing persons list.”
“How old is he?”
“Seventeen.”
Seventeen: Jesus. Where did the time go? But his mother didn’t need to be asked that.
Louisa said, “He’s a minor. Aren’t they treating it with urgency?”
Clare looked away, towards the door. Someone was coming in, or going out. It didn’t matter which. She said, “He’s had some . . . issues. In the past.”
“He’s run away before?”
“He had difficulties. When Min left. And when he died.”
“Of course . . .”
“There was trouble at school, and he took off for a few days. But that’s all it was, a few days.”
“And the police looked for him then?”
“There was a bit of a palaver. And there was some, well. Drugs. Cannabis, that’s all.”
“Did they prosecute?”
“No, thank goodness. It was just a small amount. And that was two years ago.”
“When he was fifteen.”
God, shut up. This isn’t a maths lesson.
“Yes,” Clare said. “And after that, he . . . Things got better. I came down on him hard of course, but that’s what he needed, what he wanted, really. And he settled down. Sixth form college now. He’s been doing really well.”
“But now he’s disappeared?”
“And the police think he’s done another bunk, that he’s off getting high in some squat or other, but he isn’t, I know he isn’t.” Clare broke off and stared into her lap. It was a second or two before Louisa realised she was crying.
She reached awkwardly across, and laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder.
Clare said, “He’s been gone three days.”
“What happened? Did he . . .” Did he what, she wondered. What did teenagers do? If her own experience was anything to go by, nothing they wanted their mothers to know about, but they were past that stage. Here his mother was, in tears, looking to a stranger for help. And it only then struck her what was going on: Clare wasn’t here because Louisa and Min had been lovers. She was here because Louisa was a spook, and might have access to uncommon search engines, to special forces. Clare was a frightened mother, with no space to be anything else. And desperate too, turning to Min’s old colleagues for help.
“He’s like his dad,” Clare said at last.
“Headstrong?” said Louisa, unable to help it. “Prone to . . . charging off?”
“You knew him, didn’t you?” Clare reached into a pocket and produced a tissue; blew her nose noisily. “Sorry.” She lifted her cup, set it down. Brushed at her hair with a hand. “Yes. He gets it into his head to do something, it’s hard to dislodge.”
“What did he get it into his head to do?”
Clare didn’t know.
But what had happened was, a few days previously, Lucas hadn’t come home from college. A telephone call had established that he hadn’t made it as far as college that morning, either. Clare had called the police, whose response was initially alert, but became significantly more lax once details were gathered.
“He’d taken some money from his savings account.”
“How much?”
“A few hundred pounds.”
Louisa nodded, trying to keep all expression from her face. The kid had been minted; he had a history of skipping out and getting wasted. There was only one box left unchecked:
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“He’s not just sloped off to shack up with a girl. He wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that without letting me know.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just asking the obvious questions, that’s all . . . Did he take anything other than money?”
Again the door opened, closed; again Clare looked up. It was as if she expected him to walk in and plonk himself down next to her. As if this nightmare she was living through could be wiped away as easily as that; the way real ones were, when you opened your eyes.
“A rucksack,” she said. “Just a small one.”
Louisa mentally filled it with the things a teenage boy might think essential—a mobile phone, charger, condoms. Dick Whittington for the twenty-first century. She took a deep breath, and said what needed saying. “I’m sorry, but it’s pointless kidding around here. He left of his own accord. You must see that.”
“But why?”
“That’s not for me . . . Clare, I’m sorry.” She’d apologised more this past ten minutes than in the past two years combined. And all for stuff that was less her fault than it was her business. “But it’s a good thing. If he left of his own free will, under his own steam, then he’ll come back when he’s ready. I’m sure he will.”
Yeah, right, because she was an expert.
She said, “You should go home. Wait there. He’ll turn up soon.”
Clare threw her a look. “You think I’m making a fuss about nothing.”
“I read some stats not long ago,” Louisa said. Her job was all stats; she couldn’t avoid them. “Ninety percent of missing teens come home inside of three days.”
She was pretty sure that’s what she’d read.
“His three days are up.”
“Which is why you should be at home.”
