Chapter Text
Bea could feel the power of the afternoon sun pushing solidly against the top of her head. It pressed down like an actual load, equivalent to the weight of a bag of sugar when she held one in her arms at the supermarket. Before too much longer they’d all have headaches. She should have thought to include a shade-giving awning in her planning for this event. Why hadn’t she considered that? It was midsummer after all. It was obvious that it was very likely to get hot and it was her responsibility as event planner to protect the other volunteers, some of whom were very young, from the heat of the day. She was such an idiot …
‘Mum … ‘
She looked up to find Debbie regarding her with concern. Damn. She had done it again. She had worried her daughter. With deliberate effort, she uncreased her brow, removed her tugging hands from her hair and gave Debbie a reassuring smile.
‘I’m okay,’ Bea told her.
Debbie looked sceptical but responded with a cautious nod before returning to restocking the table with flyers from the cardboard boxes they had stowed beneath it. She had every right to be doubtful, Bea reflected guiltily. There had been any number of occasions during the last year when Bea had been in danger of losing her shit. Fortunately, now that Harry was safely behind bars, they had become fewer and fewer. But her long history of being belittled and demeaned meant that Bea didn’t know if she would ever be free of the internal voice that made her put herself down and down and down at even the slightest whiff of a setback.
She straightened her spine and mentally shook herself. Behind her eyes she placed one of her go-to images for moments like this: Harry in a small, dark cell with bars on the windows, pacing, despairing. Rationally, she knew that his cell or room was likely nothing like this mental image. It was probably modern and clean, well lit and reasonably comfortable and the shadows and filth she imagined were borrowed from old movies and even older books. The Count of Monte Cristo. That was one her dad had read to her, an abridged version she supposed, but seared into her young brain nonetheless. But it always helped, knowing that she had had the courage to leave Harry, knowing that her testimony had helped put him in prison. This pleasant daydream was a small but important revenge. And she took pleasure in it, knowing that, as much as she would have to live with the damage he had done to her for the rest of her life, now he would have to live with his incarceration. Even once he was released, surely, the effects of his years locked away would continue to haunt him. Perhaps then they would be even, Bea thought. Or not even, exactly, but in a state of balance that she thought she could live with.
A tall man that Bea judged to be in his mid to late twenties paused by the table, reading one of the flyers that lay there. He glanced up and met Bea’s eyes. It used to bother her, that people would look at her and, guessing her history, pity her. But she had become used to it by now. She held his gaze without shame and waited to see if he would walk on without speaking, looking embarrassed, or if he would make some sly comment or other. He did neither.
‘Small Steps for Hannah?’ he read.
Bea nodded. ‘You heard about the case, I assume?’ she asked. He didn’t deny it, just paled slightly. Everyone had heard about Hannah Clarke and her children. ‘Small Steps is a foundation set up to halt the cycle of domestic abuse,’ Bea said, for the hundredth time that day. ‘Today, we’re here raising funds and, just as importantly, raising awareness. We aim to support victims, advocate for change and educate the public …’ Bea continued. It was a well practised spiel, but no less true and urgent for all that. The man didn’t appear to be listening. His eyes had gone distant and he was paler than ever. Bea touched him lightly on the arm. ‘You okay?’ she asked.
He straightened up and nodded busily. ‘Urm … yeah.’ He thrust his fist into his pocket and pulled out some crumpled bills. Hastily, he flattened them out as best he could and started to pass them to Bea. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘For a worthy cause.’
Bea caught hold of his hand. ‘Thank you. That’s very generous,’ she told him. ‘Please … take a flyer. It has all our contact details on it. The foundation doesn’t just help women. We have counsellors who can help anyone who has been impacted by domestic or family abuse.’
He jerked away from her. Not angrily, Bea thought, but panicked. She knew that reaction from her own life. There was a fear in having your trauma recognised by another. Something about it made you have to face it in your own heart and mind, if only for that moment. He turned and began to walk away. Bea held out a flyer and he snatched it from her at the last second. She let out a relieved breath. She couldn’t make him call any of the numbers listed on it but at least he had it in his hand. The rest was down to him.
Feeling a hand on her arm, she glanced to the side to find Debbie regarding her with approval. Bea smiled at her daughter and gave her a one armed hug. For every one of these flyers that she handed out she felt like there was a penny of healing deposited in her personal account. Day by day she was becoming a tiny bit richer.
፨፨፨
She dumped the multipack of chilled water bottles on the table and shook her hands to get the blood circulating in her frozen fingers. She tore into the encasing plastic wrap and began freeing the bottles so that she could hand them out to the wilting volunteers. But her hands wound to a stop as she noticed a group of the young volunteers, who were bunched together by the other table, begin to gabble excitedly. One of them gestured dramatically. Another, a steady lad named Liam, turned around, apparently seeking an authority figure. His worried eyes met Bea’s. That's me, then, she told herself, gathering her courage.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked, reaching Liam's side.
‘There’s a kid missing,’ Liam told her.
Panic bloomed in her chest. Automatically, she looked around for Debbie. But she was there, right at Bea’s side, which she had barely left all day. She sighed with relief, allowing the fear to drain away. Her kid was safe. Though Debbie was hardly what you would call a kid anymore. Not the little kind that you couldn't take your eyes off for a second. And even when she had been little, she hadn't been the type to run off, though she had made mischief in plenty of other ways.
‘A kid?’ Bea asked, looking around. Was it one of the volunteers? They were all older teens who had arrived here to help out under their own power and seemed as independent, almost, as adults. ‘One of ours?’ Bea asked.
But Liam was already pointing. ‘That lady. She says her kid has run off.’
Bea followed where his finger pointed. Within the group of volunteers there was an unfamiliar face. Young, but not unformed; tear-streaked, but holding steady; attractive, but not blandly so. She wore a white sleeveless t-shirt with a Betty Boop decal on the front and a pair of denim cut-offs. Her shiny blonde hair was held back by the pair of sunglasses she had pushed up onto her head. She was holding one hand out flat, just below the level of her shoulder, as if to say, ‘this tall’.
Bea approached the group. ‘Can I help?’ she asked.
The woman’s eyes swivelled to Bea and her face seemed to lose some of its tension. ‘Yes!’ she yelped, so emphatically that it was almost a shout. Bea blinked. ‘Yes,’ the young woman repeated, this time with more self-control. ‘Are you in charge here?’ she asked with her hands reaching towards Bea, as though she would like to grab hold of the front of her shirt.
Bea looked past the woman and glanced at the other volunteers. In charge? Of a pair of fold-out tables and a few collection boxes? If anyone was in charge, she supposed she was. She nodded cautiously. ‘Bea Smith,’ she said, by way of introduction. ‘Collecting for Small Steps.’
‘Thank God,’ the woman replied earnestly. Her tear-muddied cheeks were pink, perhaps with exertion, and her blue eyes were hectically bright. ‘You help women and children, right?’ she asked.
Bea nodded. Perhaps Liam had got the wrong end of the stick. Perhaps this woman was fleeing a bad domestic situation. ‘Yeah. Do you need our help?’
The woman nodded. ‘Yeah, it's my little boy … he ran off this morning and I could really use your help to find him.’
Now Bea was confused. ‘Did his father take him?’ she asked. Abusive men would often use their children as pawns in the struggle to control their partners, Bea knew.
‘No, no,’ the young woman replied. ‘Nothing like that. He …’ she hesitated. ‘We had a disagreement and left the flat all upset. I don’t know where he is and he’s only eleven.’
Bea opened her mouth and then closed it again. ‘Are you and your son in a domestic abuse situation?’ she finally asked. ‘Because Small Steps is a charity that helps people …’
‘Oh, God no,’ the woman replied. ‘It’s just me and Cody.’
Bea frowned and huffed in frustration. Why was this woman wasting time talking to her? Wasn’t it obvious what she should do? Perhaps she was too panicked to realise the obvious. Bea spelled it out. ‘You should notify the police,’ Bea told her. ‘They have all sorts of resources. They’ll find your boy in no time, I’m sure.’ Bea dragged her phone out of her pocket, in case the woman didn’t have one.
The young woman made a sound, a growl almost, in the back of her throat. Bea recognised it for what it was: frustration rather than aggression, but still, she took half a step back. ‘That’s the first thing I did!’ the young woman exclaimed, gesturing wildly with her hands. ‘I went through the whole thing with them but they wouldn’t help,’ she explained. ‘I’ve been running all round the area, looking for him but there’s only one of me and then I saw you lot and I thought you might help me. Think of all the extra ground we could cover!’ she said, her eyes pleading.
Bea was still caught up on the idea that the police wouldn’t help. A missing child! What was the matter with them? Perhaps it was too soon. She’d seen that in movies. They would only start looking after a certain amount of time had elapsed. But anything could happen to an eleven year old, unaccompanied in the city. Bea knew that if it had been Debbie she would have been pleading with strangers for help, too.
She gave an abbreviated nod. ‘Okay,’ she agreed. The woman grabbed her arm by way of thanks and her face briefly split into a smile. ‘Do you have a picture we can use?’ Bea asked.
፨፨፨
Bea had got the volunteers to fold down the tables and pack the flyers away in the boxes. She gathered everyone around her and explained the situation to them, glancing at the young mother every so often, in case she got any details wrong.
‘Right everyone! There’s a child missing so we have a new objective for this afternoon.’ Bea held up her phone, displaying the photo the woman had shared with her. It showed a round-faced kid with his mother’s electric blue eyes partly concealed by an overlong, blond fringe. ‘Cody Novak, aged eleven. He’s around four foot nine, which is …’ she glanced at Debbie. ‘A hundred and forty something centimetres? Blond hair, blue eyes, wearing …’ she hesitated. ‘A Clone Wars t-shirt?’ The woman nodded emphatically.
‘It’s mostly black,’ she clarified.
Bea nodded and continued. ‘And red footie shorts. So, I need you all to split into teams of two. Come to me and I’ll give you an area to cover. Anyone who doesn’t want to take part, that’s fine, just let me know before you head off, yeah?’ The volunteers began to pair up.
‘Can you share the photo?’ Liam called out, waving his phone in the air.
‘Yeah,’ Bea replied, preoccupied, swiping at her phone screen to do just that. ‘Use the group chat to keep in touch, everyone, and to report any sightings.’
‘Even if you’re not sure,’ the woman with the missing boy added.
There was a chorus of agreement from the volunteers. Bea brought up a city map on her phone and began assigning manageable zones for each pair to cover.
‘Okay, everyone. Stick together in your pairs. Be careful,’ Bea told them. ‘And keep your eyes peeled.’
The volunteers began to disperse, leaving Bea, Debbie and the boy’s mother standing next to the folded tables and cardboard boxes. The young woman was agitated. Bea didn’t blame her. The amount of time it had taken to organise the volunteers must have seemed endless to her. And now she was bouncing on her toes, raring to be doing something, anything; looking for her son, Bea knew, even if she didn’t know where to start.
The three of them should make a search team, Bea thought. She supposed it was safe enough to leave the tables and flyers where they were. No one was likely to pinch them. But should she wait here and be a base for any of the returning searchers? She couldn’t give Debbie the responsibility of accompanying someone so near to the edge. They’d better all go together.
‘You said you’d already tried his friends?’ Bea asked.
‘Yeah,’ the woman confirmed. ‘They’d not heard from him or seen him.’
‘Is there anyone else you can think of? A grandparent, aunt or uncle?’ she asked. The woman shook her head.
‘There’s no one but the childminder, and she’s out of town,’ she replied. ‘Look, I know it seems weird but Cody and me … we never needed anyone else. We do just fine.’ She looked at Bea impatiently until she nodded. ‘I need to carry on looking. Thanks for your help. You have my number …’ She made as if to hurry off. Bea grabbed hold of her arm.
‘Hold on a minute …’ she stopped, realising she didn’t know the woman’s name.
‘Allie,’ the woman replied.
‘Allie. How about we search as a team? There’s this area here that no one’s covering,’ Bea showed her on the map. ‘I don’t know it myself but it might be worth a look.’
All three of them crowded around Bea’s screen. ‘Out past the zoo. Phoenix Street … then there’re a couple of green blobs that are probably parks …’
‘Could he have got that far?’ Debbie asked doubtfully.
‘Defo,’ Allie replied. ‘He’s a bonzer little walker. You can’t tire him out. And if he saw a sign for the zoo, that might make him go that way cause he’s crazy about the butterfly house.’ Bea nodded and raised her brows at Allie questioningly. She nodded. ‘Let’s go.’
፨፨፨
They made quick progress. All of them were fast walkers and with three sets of eyes they could be pretty sure that if Cody was on the same street as them, they would spot him. As they went, Bea checked her phone every minute or so, in case there was an update from any of the other teams, and peppered Allie with questions as they came to mind.
‘What shoes has he got on?’
‘Runners. An old pair of blue Adidas with white trim.’
‘Does he have any money with him?’
‘Nah, I doubt it. He stormed right out without going into his bedroom.’
‘A phone?’
‘Nuh. I said he was too young to get one yet.’ She sighed. ‘I guess it would be pretty convenient if he had one right now.’
Debbie nodded. ‘Find my device,’ she said.
‘I hate to ask, but what’s his stranger danger knowledge like?’ Bea asked.
Allie groaned as if in pain.
‘Sorry,’ Bea said.
‘No, you’re right,’ Allie said, wiping a hand over her face. ‘Yeah, I’d say pretty good. He knows not to get into a car with anyone. Not to listen to promises about lollies or puppies. He’s a young eleven, ya know, but not totally naive.’
‘Okay. Good,’ Bea said, laying a comforting hand on her arm briefly. ‘We’ll find him,’ she said.
Allie blinked at her and gave a tentative smile. ‘Yeah,’ she said, so simply and trustingly that Bea cursed herself. Shit! What was she doing, making promises she didn’t know she could keep? Getting this woman to trust in her, when for fifteen years of her life she hadn’t even been able to keep herself safe? Allie might be under the impression, given the responsibility the charity had given her and the way she had organised the volunteers, that Bea was a capable individual. That the search for her son would thrive under her leadership. Bea knew better. She was bound to screw this up, just like she did everything. She couldn’t do anything right. She was useless. Stupid. Worthless.
Useless.
Stupid.
Worthless.
Her brain rang with the words. Once they started it was difficult to shut them up. She could visualise them, inside her skull, bouncing from one side to another, caroming back and forth, echoing and magnifying as they went.
Bea ran a hand through her hair and tried to slow her breathing. She knew she was spiralling but, even knowing it, her success at pulling herself out of one of these tornadoes of negativity was mixed. She had had some good outcomes recently, using techniques her therapist had taught her but, equally, she had had some distressing meltdowns. And now would be a terrible time to fall apart, just when Allie, with a real, actual crisis on her hands, needed someone to be strong for her.
Useless.
Stupid.
Worthless.
Bea clenched her hands tightly and began to talk herself down. Okay, no one is competent all the time and no one is useless all the time. That includes me. She glanced across at Allie’s face and noted the worried set of her brows. She was looking from side to side as she walked, her eyes unnaturally wide. Her stance was upright, her gait springy, as though she might break into a sprint at any moment. Her face was flushed, from the heat of the day no doubt, but probably also because her whole body was on high alert. Bea sympathised. There was nothing worse than having your child out of sight and out of reach when you feared the worst. She glanced at Deb who was looking through the plate glass window of a milk bar.
‘Hey, there’s a few kids in here,’ she said. ‘I’ll just ask if they’ve seen him,’ she announced.
Bea nodded, noting the way Allie’s head had swung hopefully towards the milk bar at Debbie's words, only to swivel away again almost immediately. There were some boys in there but none of them were her boy. Bea watched with pride as her smart, compassionate daughter pushed open the door and approached a mixed group of teens and tweens sitting at one of the tables. She could see Debbie’s lips move as she spoke to them. She watched as Debbie held her phone up for them to look at Cody’s picture, saw the heads shake in concert. She sighed in disappointment.
‘It was a long shot,’ Allie said, surprising her with a consoling hand on her arm.
‘Yeah,’ Bea croaked. Who was this woman? Why should Allie feel the need to reassure her? She was the one with the missing kid, not Bea.
‘We’ll keep looking,’ Allie said firmly. ‘Someone will have seen him. Or he’ll get tired and want to come home.’ She looked at her phone screen as though she imagined she might have missed a call from him.
Debbie came out of the milk bar shaking her head and they continued on up the street. ‘We’ll keep looking,’ Bea repeated, under her breath. Screw useless, stupid, worthless. This was her new mantra.
We’ll keep looking.
፨፨፨
‘Come and sit in the shade for a moment,’ Bea said. She took hold of one of Allie’s hot, damp hands and gave it a mild tug. Allie was on her tiptoes, craning her neck, looking all around the park from the top of the low rise they stood on, like a meerkat sentinel in one of those natural history documentaries that Debbie loved so much.
‘We have to keep looking,’ Allie replied.
‘Of course,’ Bea replied evenly. ‘But a minute out of the sun will freshen us up a bit.’ Allie looked reluctant and, for a moment, Bea thought she would rebel against her common sense suggestion. Then, looking at Bea and perhaps noticing her concern, she shrugged and allowed Bea to lead her towards the deep shade cast by the overhanging roof of the cricket pavilion.
‘Alright. Just for a minute,’ she conceded. Bea nodded, feeling relieved.
‘Deb,’ she said, turning round and catching her daughter’s eye. She made a dumb show of raising a cup to her lips and pointed to the café by the park gates. Debbie nodded and took the tenner Bea held out to her.
Bea steered Allie into the shade and positioned her in front of a wooden bench. Instead of sitting, Allie just stood there, looking out at the bright park. Bea sat down.
‘I’m just gunna check my phone and see if any of the others have any news,’ she said, holding up her phone. Allie immediately sat down beside her, peering hopefully at the screen. Bea began to scroll through the messages on the group chat. ‘They’ve covered quite a bit of ground,’ Bea commented. ‘William and Leo did the skate park and spoke to tons of kids, showed Cody’s picture around. He’s definitely not been there.’ Allie hummed in agreement. Bea carried on talking, glad of an excuse to keep Allie at rest and out of the sun for as long as possible. She didn’t like the way she was looking. Too much fear, too much exertion, too much sun and too little hydration were starting to take their toll. Her eyes were beginning to look a little wild, her nose and cheeks had caught the sun, and dust had stuck to the sweat and tears on her face, giving her a grimy aspect. Still attractive though, Bea reflected, watching her from the corner of her eye. Still stunning, by anyone’s standards.
‘Amelia and Charlotte have finished checking Flagstaff Gardens. Shall I send them up by the uni?’ Bea asked. Allie gave it a moment’s thought.
‘Can you ask them to do docklands?’ she asked. ‘Round by the stadium and Newquay? There’s that arcade down there that’s like a magnet for kids.’
‘Good idea,’ Bea said, typing a message and pinging it off to the group.
They sat in silence for a minute, looking out. In the distance, Bea could see Debbie was on her way back from the café, striding across the grass with her hands full.
‘The police,’ Bea began. ‘When can you report Cody missing for real? Is it twelve hours? Twenty-four? What did they say?’
Allie was silent for a minute. Bea watched her face closely as a series of emotions seemed to pass over it, shame and anger chief among them.
‘It’s hard to explain,’ she finally said, sighing. She looked at Bea assessingly. ‘Are you the judgmental type, Bea?’ she asked.
Bea was taken aback but tried to answer honestly. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’ve made enough mistakes in my time that I don’t think I can afford to be.’ She really hoped that Allie wouldn’t ask her to elaborate. But Allie just nodded slowly.
‘I’m what you might call known to the police,’ she said. ‘Or at least that bastard Senior Sergeant they have on the desk remembers me. He doesn't approve of me or how I live my life. He certainly doesn't approve of a woman like me raising a child, so …’ She shrugged. ‘He declined to help me. And his mongrel mates just followed his lead.’
Bea’s stomach shrank. Although Allie had stated her occupation in fairly cryptic terms, Bea felt almost sure she knew what she meant. She thought about Allie’s life. Did she disapprove? It made her unhappy, that much she knew, but she didn’t disapprove on moral grounds. Women made all sorts of hard choices in their lives. Sometimes it was because they associated with bad men, sometimes it was because of drink or drugs, sometimes it was for their kids. She supposed a cop might have to maintain a certain attitude towards the sex trade but what about Cody? He was just a kid. He hadn’t done anything and he hadn’t made any life choices yet, good or bad.
‘That’s bollocks,’ Bea said, feeling the unfairness of the situation. ‘There’s a kid missing! What are they pissing about at?’ Allie laughed and turned to look at Bea. Bea smiled at her. She couldn’t help it. Allie’s face was made for laughing, it seemed. Her eyes glowed with a light that reminded Bea of sunlight in shallow water, her lips … Allie’s face stilled and, almost before Bea registered it, she was up on her feet and racing long-legged across the grass like some thoroughbred.
‘What ..?’ Bea jumped up and took a step or two after her, as if to give chase. Then she noticed the figure Allie was aiming that long stride towards. A kid. A kid in red shorts. ‘Ha!’ Bea gave a short bark of satisfaction. Cody. She had found him. But then Allie’s steps slowed and came to a stop. She twisted away from the child and turned her face up to the sky, her mouth forming an agonised grimace. Then she threw her arms up in the air, as though asking a question, before doubling over at the waist and resting her forearms on her thighs, her hair hanging down and hiding her face. Bea started towards her, her pace picking up as she noticed that the kid Allie had been running towards was too young, too dark-haired, too carefree to be Cody. Shit.
Reaching her, Bea slithered to a halt on the parched grass and unthinkingly threw one arm around Allie’s waist. Using her opposing hand to grip and lift her shoulder, she turned Allie’s body until she could hold the younger woman against her. She shook lightly in her arms so that Bea didn’t need to see her face to know that she was weeping, though silently.
‘I thought …’ Allie keened, her voice shrill with strain.
‘I know,’ Bea replied, rocking her slightly. ‘I know. Me too.’ She continued to hold her for a while longer, knowing that Allie would benefit from the comfort, but beginning to feel awkward about this unexpected intimacy with a near stranger. She drew back from the embrace, leaving one hand in the small of Allie’s back, and began to guide her back towards the shade of the pavilion, where Debbie waited, squinting at them worriedly. As they walked, Allie reached her hand behind her back and brought Bea’s hand round so that it rested snugly between the top of her hip and the bottom of her ribs, and held it there. Bea looked at her out of the corner of her eye but Allie’s face was blank, her eyes focused on her shoes, mindlessly keeping pace with Bea.
‘Not him?’ Debbie asked as they drew near enough for conversation. Bea shook her head. She led Allie over to the bench and pressed her into a seated position, taking her place beside her. Allie bent forwards and covered her face with her hands, making a loud, pained sigh as she did so. Bea beckoned Debbie over. Her daughter held up the drinks she had bought: a can of soda in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. Bea took the can of Passiona and cranked the tab so that it fizzed open. She held the can in front of Allie’s face and gave her shoulder a light bump. After a pause Allie’s smudged and mottled face appeared from behind her hands. She took the cold can out of Bea’s hand.
‘Thanks,’ she whispered. She took a sip, then gave a tiny bark of a laugh. ‘I haven’t tasted this stuff in years,’ she commented.
Bea smiled. ‘A blast from the past, huh? It’s a firm favourite at our place,’ she said. Allie sat up straighter and smiled first at Debbie, then at Bea. A melancholy smile, but still, a genuine smile that recognised the bond between mother and daughter and acknowledged their shared nostalgia for the flavours of childhood.
‘I still miss Polly Waffles,’ Alllie said and turned her mouth down in exaggerated misery. ‘But this is good,’ she added, throwing her head back and taking a long drink. Bea watched her throat move rhythmically as she chugged it down. Her mouth felt dry all of a sudden. ‘Want some?’ Allie asked, apparently reading her mind.
‘No. Thanks,’ Bea said, flushing. She waved her hand dismissively, attempting to disguise her sudden confusion. ‘You drink it. You need to rehydrate. And the sugar’ll do you good.’
Allie nodded. ‘Good old sugar,’ she murmured.
‘Allie,’ Bea began. ‘I … I know a police detective and I think … I think if I call him he won’t dismiss you out of hand. He’s not missing persons but I reckon he could pull some strings, get officers out there looking for Cody.’
‘You know a detective?’ Allie asked, with a sideways glance that let Bea know she was wondering how that had come about.
‘Yeah. I mean, we’re not best mates or anything,’ Bea said, really not wanting to have to explain. ‘But he’ll take my call.’ Bea allowed her eyes to meet Allie’s for a long beat, wanting her to see and accept her sincerity.
Allie nodded. ‘Call him,’ she said. ‘Please.’
Bea took her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through her contacts. She stood up and walked a few paces away from Allie, feeling that she required a little privacy for this conversation. It was groundless, really, as why should Allie judge her for, or even care about, her having been a victim of a man’s violence? But, illogical as it seemed, it didn’t seem right for such intimate information to come to light incidentally.
‘Detective Joshi? It’s Bea Smith.’
‘Bea … Is everything alright? He’s not been in touch again, has he?’
‘No. No, nothing like that,’ she assured him. ‘Listen, it’s a friend of mine,’ she said, glancing at Allie. ‘Her kid’s missing and when she tried to report it to the police earlier they wouldn’t give her a fair go.’
‘Huh. Which station?’ he asked.
‘Er … I dunno. Can I put her on? Hold on …’ She passed her phone to a wide-eyed Allie, giving her a reassuring nod.
‘Hello?’ Bea heard her say.
‘Yeah. North.’
‘About ten-thirty.’
‘Cody Novak. Eleven. Blond. Blue. Allie Novak.’
After listening in enough to establish that the detective was taking down all the details, Bea stepped away to give her some space.
‘Okay Deb?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, fine,’ Debbie replied, as unflappably as ever. During the course of her parent’s marriage, Bea’s daughter had seen some things and, as much as Bea regretted that, it meant that Deb took a lot of things in stride that would make other kids her age arc up. The closest Debbie got to arcing up was usually a meaningful look or an ironically raised eyebrow. Bea appreciated the lack of drama but couldn’t help harbouring a sense of unease about how Debbie’s coping mechanisms might be limiting her. She sighed and tried to push the thought away. Debbie had a psychologist now; by all accounts she was good and Bea just had to trust her to do her job.
‘Drink some of that, wouldya?’ Bea pleaded, tipping her head at the bottle of water Debbie was holding. Debbie gave her one of her looks but obediently unscrewed the lid and took a swig. As she screwed the cap back on she gave Bea another look. Satisfied? it asked. Bea just pursed her lips in response, smothering a smile. It was something of a running joke between the two of them that Debbie hated to be mothered but at the same time would be mortally offended if Bea failed to live up to her duties. These days, Bea’s duties mainly amounted to asking a series of increasingly irrelevant questions such as: Have you done your homework? Are you hungry, thirsty, hot, cold? Do you need a lift, some money, different shoes? Have you got your phone, lunch, books, jumper? (Delete as appropriate.) Debbie was so grown up and so well put together that it was rare that she was under prepared, under equipped or late for anything. But still Bea asked. And Debbie, Bea thought, pretended to tolerate it while actually relying on it. As a proof of Bea’s love, perhaps? Or just as a comforting routine. Either way, Bea wondered how they would cope when Debbie was away at university next year. It would hardly feel the same to text her those questions.
‘He will be found, won’t he Mum?’ Debbie asked now. There was a rare hint of worry in the tightness around her eyes. Bea nodded and put her arms around her reassuringly. She couldn’t say for sure, and Debbie knew that, but they had to assume that Cody would soon be found, unharmed. The alternative was not something that she wanted Debbie to dwell on. Or to dwell on herself. And the idea of Allie having to deal with a situation in which Cody was harmed? Bea’s stomach flipped anxiously at the thought.
Registering that Allie’s voice had gone silent she turned around to find that she had hung up and was holding Bea’s phone out to her. Bea took it and gave her a questioning look. ‘He said to stay put. He’s setting things in motion and he’ll meet us here,’ Allie responded. Bea nodded.
‘Okay. Good.’ Allie’s troubled expression revealed how frightened and unmoored she still felt, so Bea lightly placed her hand on her shoulder. Allie looked at her searchingly, her eyes seeming larger and more vulnerable than ever. ‘He’s a good bloke, Joshi,’ Bea reassured her. ‘He gets stuff done.’ Allie nodded and placed her opposite hand over Bea’s.
‘It makes it more real, somehow,’ she croaked. ‘Having a police officer say those words. Missing person.’ She swallowed with effort. ‘My son is missing,’ she whispered. ‘Not just wandered off for a minute, not out of sight around a corner, not slammed his door and sulking in his bedroom. Actually gone.’
Bea knew what she meant. Despite all the years she had endured with Harry, and the emotional and physical abuse she had suffered, her history had never felt more shockingly real than when she heard the words from the lips of some lawyer, judge or police officer. Domestic violence victim. That was her. How bizarre, when you thought about it, that it took an official pronouncement to make it seem really real. Because what could be more tangible than the bruises, grazes and cuts her body had carried, week in, week out?
Allie’s eyes were still on hers so Bea was able to see the exact moment when her fresh understanding of the situation became too much for her. Her face crumpled and the first few painful sounding sobs wrenched free from her chest. Bea’s eyes filled and she drew Allie into an embrace. What else could she do? No one could witness such suffering without feeling at least a small amount of responsibility for relieving it. So Bea held her, stroked her back and rocked her a little.
Allie was very hot, pressed against her chest, but also very soft. Her shirt was slightly damp from the exertions of the day but she smelled appealingly of fresh grass and sugary passionfruit soda. Each of her sobs sent a quake of misery through their joined bodies. Bea wrapped her arms close around Allie’s ribs and concentrated on being as strong and steady as she possibly could, imagining that this stoicism could somehow reduce some of Allie’s pain.
‘Sorry,’ Allie glubbed, drawing away.
‘It’s okay,’ Bea replied, not letting go. Allie wasn’t done with being comforted, she felt sure; it was just her good manners telling her not to impose upon Bea any longer. So, putting aside that they were almost strangers, Bea kept her arms looped loosely around Allie’s waist, her head bowed alongside Allie’s and, after a moment, Allie subsided back against her chest with a sigh. Bea planted her feet, took as much of her weight as Allie was prepared to lend her, and settled in for however long she was needed.
Bea tried to remember when she had ever been in such a long, peaceful embrace before. Cuddling on the couch with Deb, watching the telly, was the closest she could come, though that was not very close. The sense of protectiveness was the same but that was about it. Otherwise, holding Allie was a distinctly other sensation. Cuddling with Debbie was just obvious. When she was a baby, Bea had even struggled to tell which parts of their joined bodies were hers and which were her daughter’s. Every cuddle since then was just an extension of that, Debbie becoming longer and bigger and more wriggly, but otherwise just the same as ever. Allie, on the other hand, was completely unfamiliar. If someone had told her this morning that she would spend part of the afternoon in an extended hug with a stranger she would have told them they were nuts. Bea just wasn’t the hugging type. But, as strange as this was, Bea’s guard was all the way down. Allie rested trustingly against her and Bea found it impossible not to reciprocate that. She was also warm, soft and smelled good and, to Bea’s surprise, and despite the desperate situation they were in, she found herself comforted as much as comforting.
‘Mum.’
Bea startled and turned to Debbie. Allie lifted her head from its resting place against Bea’s shoulder, leaving a cold patch.
‘Detective Joshi,’ Debbie explained, looking into the distance. Bea followed her gaze and spotted the detective hurrying over the grass.
‘That was quick.’ Bea commented. She cleared her throat. Her voice was husky, as if she had just woken up. Allie wiped her face with her hands. Bea took a couple of steps back so that she could see Joshi as he covered the final stretch and came into the shade of the pavilion.
‘G’day,’ he said, nodding to Bea, his eyes immediately sliding over to Allie. ‘Ms Novak?’ he asked. She nodded and held out one hand.
‘Allie,’ she said. Detective Joshi removed his hands from where they had perched, slightly nervously, on his hips and reached out to shake hands.
‘Inspector Joshi. I’ve alerted all our foot patrols and called out all the backup I could muster at short notice,’ he said. ‘The priority is to find him before nightfall. Do you have any ideas of the best places to start looking?’ he asked. ‘Favourite hangouts, friends’ places, shops …’
‘I’ve already looked in those places,’ Allie told him. ‘And Bea has organised search teams to look in other possible areas.’
‘Okay, that’s great. We’ll look again, though. In case he’s wandering around. Bea … do you have a list of where you’ve looked?’
Bea took out her phone and went to the group chat. She scrolled through it for him so he could see the negative responses from the various places and Joshi noted them down.
‘I have a car here,’ Joshi said. Constable Higson will drive you home and we’ll …’
‘No!’ Allie protested. ‘I have to keep looking. He’s out here alone …’
‘There’s a good chance that Cody will find his own way home,’ Joshi said. ‘Someone should be there in case he does.’
Allie’s mouth came open but immediately closed again, as she saw the sense of this observation. She nodded, looking at her feet as though ashamed not to have realised that before.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Bea offered impulsively, unable to bear the thought of Allie waiting at home alone, pacing or fretting, and jumping up at every tiny sound. ‘To keep you company,’ she added quickly, in case Allie thought she was expecting the worst. ‘Just until Cody gets home.’ Allie looked at her for a moment. Bea wondered what she was thinking but then she just nodded and gave Bea’s arm a brief squeeze of gratitude.
፨፨፨
Bea stared out of the window as they slipped through the afternoon traffic. It was quiet in the back of the cruiser. Allie and Debbie were no doubt worn out by the last few hours and the constable driving them had gone silent once she had confirmed Allie’s address. Allie had, at least, seemed a little comforted by Joshi’s reassurances and by his aura of competence. Her shoulders had softened and the pinched look around her eyes had disappeared. Now she was resting, her eyes gone distant, and Bea hoped she wasn’t counting too much on Cody being at home when they got there.
Bea blinked wearily at the cyclists, dog walkers and afternoon shoppers they passed. It was as true now as it had been on the day she had been driven to the station to give her initial statement against Harry: as one woman’s world came undone, everything else carried on as usual. She hadn’t minded it too much at the time but now she was affronted by it on Allie’s behalf. ‘There’s a kid missing!’ she wanted to scream. ‘Don’t you care? How can you buy milk, get a haircut, feed the birds at a time like this?’ But of course, they didn’t know. They hadn’t known what Harry did to Bea behind closed doors and they didn’t know that Cody was out there somewhere, alone and unprotected, without his mum. And they didn’t know about the women in the refuges and the kids in shitty foster placements and the girls on street corners trying to stay out of the system. They didn’t know, these oblivious afternoon strollers, the things a woman would do for her child - take a beating, miss another meal, work another job or, like Allie, do whatever it took to raise her kid alone.
Or maybe they knew and just didn’t care.
That thought made her fold her arms across her chest and stare out of the window more bleakly than before. Soon, sealed inside the air conditioned car, her vision bobbing and gliding with its motion, Bea felt weirdly detached from her body. She felt almost like she wasn’t part of the world at all but was merely an observer who couldn’t speak or move or take part. She wasn’t even breathing. Or was she? She couldn’t tell. All she had were her maze-like thoughts where she wandered, getting more and more lost, existence stretching out, uncountable, unmeasurable periods of time passing while she faded away - until something jerked her back into her body.
Allie’s leg pressed against hers and Bea was wide awake.
She swallowed and glanced at the woman sitting pushed up against her - there were three of them in the back seat and not much room - but Allie seemed unaware of the contact. Bea whisked her eyes away from Allie’s perfect profile and focussed on their parallel thighs, her left one brushing against Allie’s right. Allie’s cutoffs seemed much shorter when she was seated and revealed an impressive length of smooth leg. In contrast, Bea’s faded linen trousers were wrinkled and bedraggled from her stressful day, and the bend of her knee came much sooner, making her leg look abruptly truncated. Shortarse, Bea reproved herself, only half seriously, because she knew she wasn’t actually short, it was just that Allie’s legs were unusually long.
And unusually hot, now she came to think of it. It was cool in the car but Allie’s leg was radiating heat and Bea’s seemed to be sucking it up so that she was now uncomfortably hot. She looked down at her chest, readying herself to struggle out of her jumper, only to remember that she wasn’t wearing one. She had only a thin shirt on over her bra and, despite how disagreeably hot she felt, there was nothing she could strip off. In company. In the back of a police car. Her face heated up some more. Now even her thoughts were making her hot. She sighed. Allie glanced at her. Bea winced inwardly, knowing how red her face must look.
‘Alright, Bea?’ Allie asked. Debbie leaned forwards from Allie’s other side, examining her mother critically. Bea nodded, mortified.
‘Yeah,’ she croaked.
‘I thought you were gunna nod off for a minute there,’ Allie commented with a shrewd look and a hint of a smile. Bea’s whole body flashed hotly. She cleared her throat.
‘Nuh,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m good.’
Allie’s smile grew wider and more knowing. She pressed Bea’s leg again, this time for longer and Bea’s body did … a thing. This thing had no name that Bea knew of. It was a twisting thing. Inside. Or maybe more of a flipping type thing. It was a bit like fear but with an upward lift. So maybe … excitement? Whatever it was, she had no more than a second to wonder about it.
‘Stop the car,’ Bea heard herself say. ‘Stop the car!’ She pounded her hand against the back of the driver’s seat, scrabbling at the smooth plastic moulding of the door beside her. Because, in her confusion, she had looked away from Allie’s teasing smile and out of the window. And she’d seen something. Something red. Something golden.
The car was almost at a stop but there didn't seem to be any way to open the door.
‘Let me out!’ Bea shouted frantically at the officer in front. ‘Open the door …’
Then she was falling out into the road, dodging through the traffic, scanning backward up the street, searching for whatever it was that had caught her attention. She dodged around and sped through groups of pedestrians, searching, wondering if she had imagined it. A moment later Allie’s long-legged form drew level and began to pass her.
‘Where?’ she gasped. Bea shook her head, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the path of a boy on an electric scooter.
‘Dunno,’ she said, head swivelling desperately. ‘Something caught …’ But she was talking to fresh air. Allie was away, racing ahead of her. And it was only a moment later that Bea saw them, two blond heads pressed together, Cody’s blue runners dangling above the pavement.