‘Does Dad know?’
‘Yes.’ Seb turns pink. Pretty clear evidence that not only is he lying but he is ashamed to be doing so. Oli sometimes wonders how his brother survives at school.
‘Don’t let me stop you.’
Seb sets off down the street, Oli watches him get smaller. He stops at the corner where their road joins the busier high street. He hangs about the lamppost for a while. Oli can’t see what he’s doing. Might he be waiting for Theo after all? When Seb eventually turns right, Oli sets off after him. He has a lot going on, but he can’t just let his little brother wander off into London on his own. As he approaches the lamppost on the corner where Seb was hanging about, Oli spots it immediately. A poster, one of several. A plea. Oli’s heart contracts and swells. He can actually feel it beating.
HAVE YOU SEEN MY MUM?
The question is, he has to admit, bold and arresting, it will probably get more attention than a simple MISSING. But it is exposing, horrifying, for Seb and somehow for Leigh too. Oli acknowledges that Seb’s computer skills are pretty good. There is a picture of Leigh, a good one. She looks happy and sparkling. Not the sort of woman who would want to go missing at all. Seb took the photo eight days ago just before they all went out for a family meal. It’s the same one the police have. The next line spells it out, in case a passer-by didn’t understand.
SHE IS MISSING.
Oli almost laughs at the innocence, the naivety, but the laugh catches in his throat, and sounds suspiciously like a sob.
REWARD FOR RELIABLE INFORMATION
What reward? Seb has about £24 to his name, and it’s only as much as that because he’s saving for the latest FIFA to drop. Seb had also put his own mobile number on the poster. Stupid kid. He’ll have endless weirdos ringing him.
The posters are not laminated. They will tear or the ink will run once it rains, Seb obviously hasn’t thought about the fact that they will become illegible pretty soon. They are attached with zip ties. Oli recognises them as his own zip ties that he keeps under his bed. Zip ties are useful things to have, you can make keyrings or fix binder files with them. Seb has probably rooted about and found them. Oli got them out of his dad’s shed in the first place so he can’t complain that Seb nicked them. Besides, Seb saved a couple of quid by doing so and he needs all his cash for his reward. Oli is being sarcastic because that is how he behaves with his brother, as a matter of routine. Teasing, sort of scrapping, but they are always on the same team really. Even though they are three years apart, they’ve always been close. The posters are killing him. He can’t believe Seb has made these alone and that he feels he needed to lie about what he was up to. But then, everyone has their secrets it seems. Presumably, Seb is not planning on going to Theo’s at all but instead trailing the streets of London putting up these miserable, desperate posters. He could get lost, he could get into trouble. He can’t go about plastering his phone number everywhere. Oli tears at the poster, crumples it up.
Oli follows his brother’s Hansel and Gretel trail from lamppost to lamppost, ripping down the posters, faster than his brother can pin them up. He has to hang back, lurk in shop doorways so as not to be spotted. He watches his brother carefully, laboriously tie the posters to the lampposts. Other people are watching his brother too. Some give him a sympathetic smile; others give him a wide berth. Oli tears the posters into small bits and throws them in rubbish bins. Their work carries on for a couple of hours. It becomes apparent that Seb has run out of posters when he allows himself a rest. He goes into a newsagent’s, comes out with a Coke and a Snickers bar.
Oli is waiting for him.
‘Oh.’ Seb jumps, blushes. Oli feels bad for him. He’s not the one who should feel guilty. He’s just trying to do a nice thing. He’s just trying to find his mum.
‘I thought you were going to Theo’s,’ says Oli.
Seb juts out his chin. ‘Oh, he sent a text to say his mum said no.’
Oli thinks it’s a weird thing listening to someone lie to you but pretending you believe it. It makes you feel powerful but also sad. ‘I was just thinking of going over to Aunty Paula’s,’ he says. His Aunty Paula. Their mum’s sister could be a bit intense, clearly she never got used to the idea of losing her sister, but he sort of gets that. He’s not sure he got over it either and he barely remembers her. Is it possible to get over such a thing? Still, despite her intensity, Oli likes Paula, he knows she always has his back. Neither he nor Seb can do any wrong in her eyes. They practically have papal status. She has called a couple of times since Leigh went missing, but she’s only spoken to his dad. Leigh always denied that there was any beef between her and Aunty Paula, and maybe that was true. But there wasn’t any love between them either. He really needs to see Paula. ‘Do you want to come? You know she always has like a mountain of treats. We could maybe stay over at hers.’
Seb’s face lights up. ‘For real? Yeah.’
They head towards the tube together, Oli stuffs his hands deep into his low pockets, hunches to glue his eyes to the pavement. It hurts to
