Chairs scraped, papers rustled, murmurs became mutters, whispers words.
“Thank you, gentlemen. That’ll be all for now.”
Detective Chief Superintendent Oldman stood up and turned to go but no-one else at the table moved. He turned back into the glare of the TV lights, nodding at journalists he couldn’t see.
“Thank you, lads.”
I looked down at the notebook again, the wheels still turning the tape, seeing any developments face down in
I looked back up, the other detective was lifting Mr Kemplay up by his elbow and Oldman was holding open the side door for Mrs Kemplay, whispering something to her, making her blink.
“Here you go.” A heavy detective in a good suit was passing along copies of the school photograph.
I felt a nudge. It was GUman again.
“Doesn’t look so fucking good does it?”
“No,” I said, Clare Kemplay’s face smiling up at me.
“Poor cow. What must she be going through, eh?”
“Yeah,” I said, looking at my father’s watch, my wrist cold.
“Here, you’d better fuck off hadn’t you.”
“Yeah.”
The M1, Motorway One, South from Leeds to Ossett.
Pushing my father’s Viva a fast sixty in the rain, the radio rocking to the Rollers’
Seven odd miles, chanting the copy like a mantra:
A mother made an emotional plea.
The mother of missing ten-year-old Clare Kemplay made an emotional plea.
Mrs Sandra Kemplay made an emotional plea as fears grew.
Emotional pleas, growing fears.
I pulled up outside my mother’s house on Wesley Street, Ossett, at ten to ten, wondering why the Rollers hadn’t covered
Into the phone:
“OK, sorry. Do the lead paragraph again and then it’s done. Right then: Mrs Sandra Kemplay made an emotional plea this morning for the safe return of her daughter, Clare, as fears grew for the missing Morley ten- year-old.”
“New para: Clare went missing on her way home from school in Morley early yesterday evening and an intensive police search throughout the night has so far failed to yield any clue as to Clare’s whereabouts.”
“OK. Then it’s
“Thanks, love…”
“No, I’ll be through by then and it’ll take my mind off things…”
“See you Kath, bye.”
I replaced the receiver and checked my father’s watch:
Ten past ten.
I walked down the hall to the back room, thinking it’s done and done right.
Susan, my sister, was standing by the window with a cup of tea, looking out on the back garden and the drizzle. My Aunty Margaret was sat at the table, a cup of tea in front of her. Aunty Madge was in the rocking chair, balancing a cup of tea in her lap. No-one sat in my father’s chair by the cupboard.
“You all done then?” said Susan, not turning round.
“Yeah. Where’s Mum?”
“She’s upstairs, love, getting ready,” said Aunty Margaret standing up, picking up her cup and saucer. “Can I get you a fresh cup?”
“No, I’m OK thanks.”
“The cars’ll be here soon,” said Aunty Madge to no-one.
I said, “I best go and get ready.”
“All right, love. You go on then. I’ll have a nice cup of tea for you when you come down.” Aunty Margaret went through into the kitchen.
“Do you think Mum’s finished in the bathroom?”
“Why don’t you ask her,” said my sister to the garden and the rain.
Up the stairs, two at a time like before; a shit, a shave, and a shower and I’d be set, thinking a quick wank and a wash’d be better, suddenly wondering if my father could read my thoughts now.
The bathroom door was open, my mother’s door closed. In my room a clean white shirt lay freshly ironed on the bed, my father’s black tie next to it. I switched on the radio in the shape of a ship, David Essex promising to make me a star. I looked at my face in the wardrobe mirror and saw my mother standing in the doorway in a pink slip.
“I put a clean shirt and a tie on the bed for you.”
“Yeah, thanks Mum.”
“How’d it go this morning?”
“All right, you know.”
“It was on the radio first thing.”
“Yeah?” I said, fighting back the questions.
“Doesn’t sound so good does it?”
“No,” I said, wanting to lie.
“Did you see the mother?”
“Yeah.”
“Poor thing,” said my mother, closing the door behind her.
I sat down on the bed and the shirt, staring at the poster of Peter Lorimer on the back of the door.
Me thinking, ninety miles an hour.
The three car procession crawled down the Dewsbury Cutting, through the unlit Christmas lights in the centre of the town, and slowly back up the other side of the valley.
My father took the first car. My mother, my sister, and me were in the next, the last car jammed full of aunties, blood and fake. No-one was saying much in the first two cars.
The rain had eased by the time we reached the crematorium, though the wind still whipped me raw as I stood at the door, juggling handshakes and a cigarette that had been a fucker to light.
Inside, a stand-in delivered the eulogy, the family vicar too busy fighting his own battle with cancer on the very ward my father had vacated early Wednesday morning. So Super Sub gave us a eulogy to a man neither he nor we ever knew, mis taking my father for a joiner, not a tailor. And I sat there, outraged by the journalistic licence of it all, thinking these people had carpenters on the bloody brain.
Eyes front, I stared at the box just three steps from me, imagining a smaller white box and the Kemplays in black, won dering if the vicar would fuck that up too when they finally found her.
I looked down at my knuckles turning from red to white as they gripped the cold wooden pew, catching a glimpse of my father’s watch beneath my cuff, and felt a hand on my sleeve.
In the silence of the crematorium my mother’s eyes asked for some calm, saying at least that man is trying, that the details aren’t always so important. Next to her my sister, her make-up smudged and almost gone.
And then he was gone too.
I bent down to put the prayer book on the ground, thinking of Kathryn and that maybe I’d suggest a drink-after I’d written up the afternoon press conference. Maybe we’d go back to hers again. Anyway, there was no way we could back to mine, not tonight at any rate. Then thinking, there’s no fucking way the dead can read your thoughts.
Outside, I stood about juggling another set of handshakes and a cigarette, making sure the cars all knew the
