Chapter Twenty-Six
Twenty-six
Harriet and James sat on her sofa, a scented candle burning, the nutcrackers standing sentinel on the fireplace and Love Actually playing on the TV above it. She’d cooked them a meal, from scratch. It felt very decadent for a Monday. She felt contented, with his arm draped loosely around her, her head resting on his chest.
“I should go soon,” James said, kissing the top of her head.
“Oh.” She snuggled in deeper. “Stay to the end of the film.”
“It’s already half past eleven.”
“Did you always want to be a solicitor?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“It seems like a strange thing for a child to aspire to. Surely you must have wanted to be an astronaut or a firefighter before a solicitor?”
He sighed, chuckling. “Not if you grew up with parents who avidly watched L.A. Law , Hill Street Blues , and Cagney and Lacey ,” he said.
“Wouldn’t that have made you want to join the police?”
“No way! In all of those shows, the people who had the power to make the bad guys go away were the lawyers. Plus, they got to wear nice suits and talk fast. Although I hadn’t realized that practicing law in England meant I’d have to wear a wig.”
She laughed.
“So that’s why you wanted to go to America, you didn’t want to ruin your hair.”
“It’s great hair.”
She could feel him smiling and reached up to run her fingers through his great hair.
“What about you? Did you always want to be a teacher?”
“Always. I mean, of course I wanted to be a pop star and a member of a famous dance troupe and a fashion designer, but mostly I wanted to be a teacher. I had a couple of amazing teachers at primary school and obviously there was Miss Honey from Matilda .”
“Obviously,” James parroted. “Who is Miss Honey?”
She sat up.
“Seriously? You never read Matilda ? We might have to break up.”
Her phone rang from where she’d left it in the kitchen and she stiffened, her contented drowsiness evaporating. Everything’s okay, you just talked to Maisy a couple of hours ago, it’s fine, it’s fine. Even Cornell wouldn’t call you at this hour, would he?
“Do you need to get that?” James asked. “I can see you freaking out a little bit.”
She bit her lip. Alarm bells were clanging in her head.
“It’s just, it’s so late…”
“Answer it.” He gave her hand a squeeze.
She bounced off the sofa and dashed to the kitchen in time for the ringing to stop and a notification to pop up. Missed Call: Tess Armitage.
Oh god! Her heart hammered as she hit redial.
“Tess, is everything all right?”
On the other end of the phone, Tess’s voice quivered as she swallowed a sob. “Billy and Sid have gone.” Her voice broke. “They’ve run away.”
Harriet felt light-headed. She gripped the worktop with her free hand. Not again. Please not again. James had muted the TV and joined her in the kitchen, concern etched on his face. Harriet put the phone on speaker and took a breath, swallowing down her panic.
“Tell me what happened,” she said calmly. Her hands shook.
A shuddering sigh on the other end of the phone. “Arthur had heart bypass surgery a few weeks back.”
“Oh my god!”
“He’s fine. We didn’t tell anyone because we worried that if social services found out, they’d take the boys into respite care while Arthur recovered, but at our age, we knew there was a chance that we might not get them back. Billy didn’t want to take the risk, and neither did we.”
“Oh, Tess.”
“We made it work. Billy did the school runs so that I could look after Arthur. We just wanted to keep the boys with us until Billy turned eighteen. They’ve had such upheaval in their lives.”
“What changed? Why did they run?”
“Arthur had a small turn yesterday, nothing major, just some medication hiccups. The surgery must have contacted social services. They came this evening when the boys were at the theater. They’ve arranged for a respite placement starting tomorrow. It was out of our hands.” She sobbed. “We broke it to them when they got home, but when Arthur went to check on them before bed…they were gone.”
Harriet closed her eyes.
“Tess.” James spoke into the phone. “It’s James Knight, we met at Grace’s house. What time did you realize that they’d gone?”
“Um.” Her voice was very small. “About half an hour ago. We’ve been calling their phones. We went out looking for them. We don’t know what time they left. Billy put Sid to bed at about nine o’clock and then he didn’t come back downstairs. We knew he was upset, we just assumed he wanted some alone time.”
“You stay put,” said Harriet. “You need to be home in case they come back. I’ll find them.”
“Please,” Tess sobbed.
“I’ll find them.” She was already grabbing her coat off the hook and pushing her feet into her boots. “I’ll find them, Tess, I promise.”
Hanging up, Harriet rushed to the bathroom to throw up, then splashed water on her face, grabbed a scarf from the coat stand, and wrapped it around her neck.
“I’ll drive,” said James, pulling his coat on. “You contact the famous five.”
She nodded, grateful that James was here. Her hands trembled so violently she could barely type.
The roads were quiet, the pavements empty. The night sky was eerily pale, with clouds the color of split pea soup, a promise of more snow. But for now, the air was still, as though time had stopped, and Harriet thought that was what this diabolical uncertainty felt like, like the real world had abandoned them and left them sealed in a nightmarish snow globe.
Any hopes she’d had that Billy might have holed up with one of the famous five had been dashed early on. But her phone pinged relentlessly with suggestions of places Billy might go. She’d contacted Mallory and Hesther, and they’d spread the word among the rest of the community groups. The theater security guard confirmed that no one was in the theater. Those with cars drove around the town, checking in frequently with Grace—who had appointed herself search-and-rescue coordinator—so that time wasn’t wasted searching areas already covered.
Harriet was still nauseous. The uncertainty was a dull agony that dragged through her body, a dread so heavy it was an effort to move. But move she did. They’d combed the park, torches swinging in wide arcs, frozen leaves crunching beneath their boots. Every now and again one of their beams would illuminate a pair of gleaming eyes in the darkness: foxes and badgers, fellow prowlers in the freezing night. The air was sharp with cold, making her ears ache and the tips of her fingers tingle.
At the bus station they scanned every booth, shelter, and bench, thinking maybe Billy and Sid had decided to wait it out and catch the first bus out of Little Beck Foss in the morning. But the boys weren’t there, and the rough sleepers they approached hadn’t seen anyone matching their description.
When they reached the train station and found that it too was empty, Harriet sat on a bench with her head in her hands.
“Where are they?” she called out in frustration.
“We’ll find them,” said James.
“Will we?”
It was almost two a.m. Deep night. Frigid cold. That was what killed her, thinking about the two of them shivering together somewhere, frightened and alone. James put his arm around her. The station clock ticked loud on the deserted platform.
“I dropped the ball,” she said. “I knew it. I knew in my gut that something wasn’t right. I should’ve pushed Billy. I knew it when he kept picking Sid up from school. I let it slide. I let all the other things I had on my mind push it to one side.”
“But he told you everything was fine. How were you to know he wasn’t telling the truth?”
“Because that’s my job, James.” She rounded on him. “I’m supposed to know.” She shook her head and looked up at the sky glowing tawny in the hazy light cast by the station lamps. “It’s happening again.”
“No.” James’s voice was firm. “This isn’t Zoe. It wasn’t your fault then, and it isn’t now. We’re going to find them. They’re going to be okay.”
She wondered if the conviction in his voice was to keep her sane or himself.
“Where would they go?” She’d lost count of how many times she’d asked that question over the last two hours; it was going around in a loop inside her head.
James rubbed his chin. “Billy wouldn’t do anything that would put Sid in danger,” he said.
“No.” She sniffed and wiped her nose. It was so cold that it felt like it was running even when it wasn’t. “He wouldn’t.”
“It’s a long shot, but do you think he might have checked them into a hotel overnight?” he asked.
“Maybe. I mean, he’s got a job; he could have money stashed. I don’t know.”
“Does he have any other friends? Outside of the famous five?”
“Not really. No one he would trust enough to ask for help.”
“Okay. Okay. So we’ve called all the taxi ranks in town and none of the drivers have picked anyone up matching his description…”
“They could have caught a bus or a train hours before we even knew they were missing,” said Harriet.
“But to go where? Where do desperate sixteen-year-olds go to escape?”
Harriet stood abruptly.
“I know where he is,” she said, wiping her nose again, even though she couldn’t feel it.
“Where?”
She laughed, borderline hysterically.
“He’s at the theater,” she said, throwing her arms in the air in exasperation at Billy Matlin.
James was looking at her with concern.
“The security guard searched all over, there was no sign of them.”
“That’s because they’re hiding in the flunking basement!”
Twenty minutes later, they stood outside the Winter Theater, waiting for Ken to unlock the door.
“Are you sure about this?” Ken asked, pushing the doors open. “I mean, how would they even have got in? All the doors are locked by nine p.m. And we’ve got a security guard doing the rounds.”
“I’m sure,” Harriet replied. “I can’t tell you exactly how he did it. But that kid can climb a drainpipe. He was coming here by himself long before he inducted the rest of the famous five into breaking in.”
They stood in the silent foyer. It had been a long time since she’d seen the place empty, not since she’d first followed Leo here. It had undergone quite the transformation. But even though it was shiny again, in the dark, its ghosts could be felt.
“Quiet. I don’t want to spook them,” Harriet whispered. “Torches only.”
The men nodded and followed Harriet through one of the side doors and down the long passages that snaked through the back of the theater. Past dressing rooms and storage cupboards until they came up behind the stage, to the hidden flight of stairs leading to the basement.
“You stay here, I’ll go down,” she whispered. James made to protest but she stopped him with a finger to her lips. “I’ll be fine. Wait here.”
She tiptoed as quietly as she could down the rickety stairs and pushed the door open at the bottom. It was deathly quiet and for a moment she wondered if perhaps she’d been mistaken. But then she saw them. A camping light gently illuminating two sleeping figures, curled up together in sleeping bags on a bed of old blankets on the dirt floor. Sandwich wrappers, a thermos with two plastic cups, and a copy of the second Percy Jackson siblings got split up in the system. It had already happened to them once before, and he couldn’t risk it happening again.
“I didn’t know what else to do,” he said simply. The fight had gone out of his voice and the crack in Harriet’s heart broke a little wider.
Grace took him by the shoulders.
“Look at me,” she demanded. Dejectedly, he did as he was told. “If ever you don’t know what to do, you come to me,” she said. Her voice was soft yet firm. “If you’re worried, or sad or scared, you come to me, and I will move bloody heaven and earth to make things right. You and Sid are not alone. Do you understand?”
Billy’s eyes were tired and glistened with tears he refused to shed, but when he nodded, one dislodged itself and rolled down his cheek.
“Good,” she said. Then she turned to Harriet, James, and Ken. “They can stay with me for what’s left of tonight,” she said with authority. “And we’ll decide on next steps tomorrow when everyone’s had some rest. Billy? Sid? Is that okay with you?”
Sid nodded, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and shivered.
“If that’s all right,” said Billy.
“Of course it’s all right. Do you think I would have offered were it not?” She smiled. “You looked after me when I needed it. Now it’s my turn.”
“That’s very kind of you, Grace, so long as you’re sure. I don’t mind having them to stay with me tonight either,” said Harriet.
“Or they could stay at mine,” offered James. “I’ve got space.”
“No, that makes no sense,” she snapped. “I’ve got two spare bedrooms and Billy’s stayed before, he knows his way around the place, particularly the fridge. No, it’s the only sensible solution, the boys are coming home with me.”
The dawn chorus had already begun by the time James pulled up outside Harriet’s building, though the sun wouldn’t rise for another couple of hours yet.
“You could call in sick,” James suggested. “I’m sure Ali could hold the fort for one day. I’m certainly taking the morning off.”
She yawned and rubbed her eyes. She felt as though she could sleep for a week.
“No, I need to see Cornell. I’ve made a decision.”
“Oh?”
“I’m going to ask to take some leave.”
“That’s a bold move. I mean, I agree with it wholeheartedly, but are you sure? You are a person who likes to be in control.”
“But I’m not in control. I dropped the ball once with catastrophic results, and tonight history almost repeated itself.”
“Harriet, you have got to stop taking responsibility for other people’s actions—
“No.” She put a hand up to stop him. “I know that. Now , I know that. In my head I’ve always thought that if I take charge of it—doesn’t matter what ‘it’ is—at least I know it’ll get done. But all that ends up happening is that I’m doing so many things that I miss the very signs that I took charge to make sure didn’t get missed in the first place.”
“You’re being very hard on yourself.”
“No, I’m being kind to myself by accepting that I’m not She-Ra, and it’s taken me a while to get here. You were right, I did love teaching and I gave it up because I thought I could stop more kids from falling through the cracks if I was in pastoral care. But since being at the theater…I don’t know, I guess I feel like I’m making more of a difference, or at least a different difference? I think maybe I’m drunk with tiredness.” She rubbed her face and was pleased that James didn’t try to fill the silence. “If I can make Evaline see how vital a community space is to the people in this town, I know it could help so many people. It could give all the kids on the list, and even those not on the list, a safe place where they could meet other people and learn new skills and…” She threw her hands in the air. “I don’t even know. I literally don’t know. And I won’t know if I don’t give myself the chance to find out. All I do know is that by trying to straddle my job at the school and my role at the theater I’m doing them both a disservice. Ali’s always telling me about his PhD; well, I’m going to give him the chance to put his money where his mouth is.”
She looked at James, giving him the go-ahead to respond at last.
“I think taking some time off is a sound idea,” he said carefully. “And it sounds like you don’t have a plan at all.”
She laughed. “Absolutely none. Isn’t that brilliant? My only plan is to work out what the hell my plan is.”