can say is that we’re keeping this one out of the newspapers. This is an extremely sensitive matter, considering all that’s happened recently. So I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this to yourself for the time being. And as for hauling you down the station…” There was a meaningful pause, before Tom Benson continued, “You didn’t keep anything from me, did you?”
“No.”
“So what would be the point? I’d simply be wasting precious man-hours that should go into finding Mia Bradshaw.”
Julian had no reply to that. He recognised the sound of the detective inhaling through his nose. “You remember what we spoke about before?” said Tom Benson.
“Of course I do.”
“Good, because I’m sticking my neck out for you, Julian. Don’t make me regret it.”
Am I supposed to be grateful? Julian felt like retorting. Tom Benson seemed to have Mia, his and the town’s best interests at heart, but there was something about the business that made him feel used and manipulated. Remembering the red car that’d seemed to follow his dad’s car a few mornings back, another thought occurred to him. Maybe the detective was playing him. Maybe all that stuff about protecting him and the factory was a load of bollocks. Maybe the real reason Tom Benson hadn’t hauled him down the station was because he was waiting to see if he’d lead him to Mia. Julian glanced around, half-expecting to see the same car lurking nearby, but the road was empty.
His face faraway in thought, Julian made his way to the pub. His beer sat untouched as, over and over, his thoughts followed the same track — I should’ve never listened to that fucking policeman. I’ve got to do something. But what? What can I do? “You can get up off your arse and start looking for her,” he muttered at himself, standing to leave.
The curtain of dusk had fallen low, but the streetlamps hadn’t yet come on. Julian glanced about for a taxi. His gaze locked on a car parked further along the street — a red car. But was it the same car? It was hard to tell in the gloom. Squinting, he slowly approached it. His head snapped forward as something hit him hard from behind. He fell over, instinctively flinging out his hands to break his fall. Hands grabbed him and rolled him over. A hollowed-out face and shaved head swam into focus. Wolfish teeth leered at him. “What the fuck have you done to my sister?” demanded their owner.
“Nothing.” Pain lanced through Julian’s neck as he tried to sit up. A whole galaxy of stars burst in front of his eyes when Jake Bradshaw knocked him back down with a punch to the jaw.
“Fuckin’ liar!”
“It’s the truth.”
Jake raised his fist for another punch, but a shout from somewhere nearby drew his attention. Like a startled wild thing, he straightened and sprinted away. “Wait, I need to talk to you,” Julian gasped, fighting off waves of dizziness. A second later two men’s faces loomed into his line of sight.
“You okay?” asked one of them, reaching to help him to his feet.
“Yes,” answered Julian, swaying a little, licking his lip and tasting blood. After a moment, he thought to look for the red car and saw that it was gone. He thanked the men and staggered to a taxi rank, wondering who’d put Jake Bradshaw onto him. Most likely, he realised, it was Weasel or his girlfriend. During the taxi ride, his eyes scanned the streets constantly for Mia, without hope. By the time he got home, the grogginess had cleared, but the pain in his jaw and neck remained. His mum was in bed; his dad was asleep on the couch. He took some painkillers, quietly lifted his dad’s car keys from the coffee-table and left the house. The fact that Mia’s brother didn’t know where she was had brought home to him even more sharply that she might be beyond finding. But that didn’t matter to him anymore. All that mattered was that he tried to find her, and kept trying as long as he could. And fuck Tom Benson, fuck the future, fuck anything or anyone that got between him and his search.
He drove to the crossroads where he’d crashed, and followed the road to the edge of town. He didn’t see the black Merc, didn’t see anything that struck him as suspicious, all he saw was row after row of neat suburban houses, then fields and the forest edge. He cruised around aimlessly for a while, before heading out of town to the bridge. He scrambled down the bank under the eaves of the huge steel and concrete structure. There was almost no daylight left, so he squirted fluid from the same can Mia had used over the sooty remains and held a lighted match to them. In the light of the flames, he studied his surroundings. He didn’t know what he expected to find, but there was some profound connection between Mia and the place. He felt sure of it. And he felt sure, too, that if he could find out what that connection was it would bring him a step closer to finding her.
Julian noticed something at the base of one of the bridge’s concrete feet. A small, multicoloured Indian-style purse. Inside was a tenner, some loose change and a school identity card with Mia’s unsmiling face on it. He stared at it a moment, hardly breathing, before returning it to the purse. Looking to see if there was anything else of hers there, he spotted words scrawled on the bridge — words that that seemed to confirm the dreadful fear his heart was already sinking under the weight of. They read ‘Mia Bradshaw, May twentieth, two thousand and ten. R.I.P.’. The day after he’d last seen her. “Oh God,” he murmured.
Hesitantly, as if afraid what might be waiting for him there, Julian approached the water’s edge. The river was its usual inscrutable self. He tried to imagine what drowning would feel like — the water sliding over you like an icy blanket, the bursting lungs, the obliteration of consciousness, of everything. He pictured Mia amongst the sludge and weeds at the river bottom, fish nibbling her flesh. Swallowing a thickness in his throat, he phoned Tom Benson. “You got it wrong again,” he said, trembling between anger and tears. “Mia hasn’t run away. She’s thrown herself in the river.”
“What? How do you know that?”
“I should never have listened to you. I knew you were wrong all along. I fucking knew it!”
“Calm down, Julian. Where are you?”
“The High Bridge.”
“Stay there. I’ll be there soon as I can.”
Julian made his way back up to the road. He took out the ID card again. “I’m so sorry, Mia,” he said, his voice choked with shame. Tears ran down his face. He swiped them away when Tom Benson pulled up alone, and brandished the card accusingly at him. “I found this under the bridge. And there’s something else down there too.”
Tom Benson took the card and frowned at it. “Show me.”
They clambered down the bank, Julian lighting the way with a torch the detective handed him. Tom Benson studied the writing in silence for a full minute, as if trying to decide on its authenticity, before turning the same scrutinising gaze on Julian. “How did you find this?”
“I came here with Mia a couple of times. This place seemed to mean something to her.”
“Oh this place meant something to her alright. This is where her mother died.” The detective traced a line with his finger from the bridge’s railings to the water. “She jumped. She was only fifteen.”
“Fifteen,” Julian parroted, shaking his head as the grim symmetry of it all became clear to him. “What happens now?”
“We’ll drag the river, see what we find.”
“You really think Mia’s killed herself?”
“Looks like it. I can’t keep you out of this anymore, I’m afraid. I’ll need a statement.”
Julian followed the detective up the bank, his legs heavy as wooden posts. He suddenly felt bone tired, as if he’d grown old under the dusty, graffiti-scarred eaves of the bridge. Fifteen, he kept thinking, fif-fucking-teen. He gave his statement mechanically, then asked, “If she’s in there, will you find her?”
Tom Benson shrugged. “The current’s strong here. As I recall, her mother surfaced after nearly a month, a good thirty miles downstream.”
Something about that shrug sparked Julian’s anger again, but he said nothing. He was too drained for recriminations. All he wanted to do was sleep, blank everything for a few hours. “Can I go now?”
“Yes, but don’t go too far. I’ll probably need to talk to you again.”
Julian gave the river a lingering glance, before returning to his car. He didn’t drive home. He didn’t want to have to explain to his dad why he’d taken the car. He drove to the forest and, wrapped in its silence and secrecy, slid into an uneasy, dream-wracked sleep.
