‘I mean… I… don’t know. I suppose I’m not sure what to look for. Liv’s moody – but she’s a teenager. I was moody at her age. Dan’s a deputy head. He’s trained with this sort of thing. I think he’d have noticed.’
He seems to accept this answer but I feel like asking him what I could do. Should I go through Olivia’s room, looking for evidence? And evidence of what? That would only make our relationship worse, regardless of whether I found anything. Even if I did find something, what then? An ultimatum? It’s us or Tyler? I don’t know who or what she’d choose.
‘I don’t think my daughter’s on drugs,’ I say. ‘I know she’s not. She drinks – but everyone does at eighteen. I don’t think she smokes, not cigarettes anyway. I don’t think she’s that different from any other teenager.’
‘What about Tyler?’
‘I…’ I stop myself, not quite trusting my own words, before telling him I don’t know. ‘You’ll have to ask Olivia,’ I add, aware I’m beginning to sound like a parrot.
We go over a few details, mainly relating to timings. He asks if there’s anything else I can think of and I mention the broken glass that might have been a break-in. We examine the door together and he says he’ll check the details in the file.
We’re still standing in the kitchen when he nods towards the back door. ‘Do you suspect this was Tyler?’ he asks.
‘It crossed my mind.’
‘But nothing’s missing?’
‘There might have been a bit of money. Neither Dan or myself can remember everything that was in there. We checked the important things – passports, expensive goods, that sort of thing. Nothing obvious has gone.’
PC O’Neill writes that on the pad and then pockets it, along with his pencil.
‘Do you think you’ll find him?’ I ask.
‘I’d like to think so. Most missing people turn up themselves.’
‘What about those who’ve been missing for five days?’
‘I don’t know the specific stats…’
‘But what do you think?’
He glances towards the stairs, willing an interruption that doesn’t come. The gesture says more than words and it’s probably only at this moment where I realise how serious this all is. I’ve expected Tyler to return at any point. Olivia would be overjoyed and everything would continue as they have. That now seems na?ve.
I wonder if I should tell the officer about the taser in my husband’s gym locker. Could it be relevant? I want to say no – but I’m unsure about so many things at the moment. If I do say something, there’s no turning back. It’s a can of worms I can’t reseal.
‘You shouldn’t read anything into this,’ PC O’Neill says, ‘and please don’t take offence, but I do need to ask about your whereabouts for the past few days.’
‘Oh…’
‘It’s perfectly normal procedure.’
‘You don’t think—’
‘I don’t think anything – but I have to ask. I’m sure you understand why…?’
I can’t reply that, no, I don’t understand. I’m sure there’ll be a load of police double-speak – ‘ruling out of inquiries’ and the like – but the only reason to ask is if there’s a nugget of suspicion about me, however small.
‘I’ve been at work during the day,’ I say, ‘then here in the evenings. Nowhere special. My friend Ellie’s down the road.’
The officer doesn’t write anything down but he nods acceptingly.
‘And that’s since Saturday…?’ he asks.
The thing is, I know I had nothing to do with Tyler going missing – but I also know how easy my schedule will be to check. If I lie, I’ll be found out – and then it’ll look bad. The problem is that I can’t tell the truth, not all of it.
‘I was in a hotel on Monday night,’ I reply. ‘It was for work. I can give you the name if you want...?’
He waves a hand as if it doesn’t matter, but takes out his pad and notes the name anyway.
‘When did you get back?’ he asks.
It’s perfectly innocent, of course. A normal question – but how can I tell him I woke up in a field?
‘Early on Tuesday,’ I reply. Not a lie.
We’re interrupted by movement from the stairs. My daughter’s timing has never been better as, moments later, Olivia and PC Marks appear in the living room. There’s a momentary glance between constables and then PC O’Neill says he thinks that’s all for now.
I see them to the door, full of thank yous and needless apologies. It’s the British way. They head along the drive and sit in the car chatting. It takes about a minute for me to realise I’m staring. I close the door and take a breath, wondering what counts as lying to the police.
Is omission a lie?
Is keeping information back something that can get a person in trouble?
Because, if it is, then I could really have a problem.
What I didn’t tell PC O’Neill is that, after Luke did his no-show on Monday night, I spent at least part of the night at that hotel with another man.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Olivia is sitting by herself on the sofa when I head back into the living room. She’s staring aimlessly towards the wall, her body present but her mind elsewhere.
‘I’m worried about him,’ she says quietly. It’s haunting: a crumbling, vulnerable tone bereft by angst.
‘At least the police are involved now,’ I reply. ‘They’ll be able to get a proper search going.’
‘I suppose.’
‘What did they ask you about?’
‘Not much. Where he hangs around, who his friends are. That sort of thing.’
She asks me to take her to work, so I do. It’s a near silent journey and I know my daughter well enough – know myself well enough – to realise that it’s not the time to push this. After leaving her at the front of the Cosmic Café, Olivia thanks me and then heads inside solemnly. I doubt even Rahul can cheer her up today.
Back at home by myself and I quickly find out that stun guns – or taser pulses, as Dan’s weapon is called – are illegal in the UK. There’s not even a grey area when it comes to civilians. I thought there might be some sort of low-wattage version allowed – but the law seems clear enough. Or Google, to be more precise. It’s an offence to possess a stun gun, let alone use it. It’s illegal to buy and sell – which means there’s nowhere in the country that Dan could have bought it from legitimately. It’s not even a trivial offence. Under the firearms act, someone in possession of a stun gun can go to prison for five years.
I find myself staring off into nothingness, much like Olivia earlier in the evening.
Five years.
Why would Dan risk something like this for five years in prison?
There’s a chance he might have confiscated it from a student. Perhaps he was concerned that reporting the find to the authorities would ruin the youngster’s life? He used some discretion, gave the student a stern warning and then… hid the gun in his gym locker…?
It’s possible. Highly implausible but possible.
I find the exact model of stun gun online, pictures and all, and it seems readily available in a handful of Eastern European countries. It can be imported from the United States as well. It would be a brave person who ordered and then sat back waiting for Royal Mail to deliver. There’d be every chance it would be the police knocking, rather than a cheery postman.
So where did it come from?
Dan gets home a little before half past nine. He’s flustered and seems tired. We make small talk over our respective days but there’s more of a distance than before – and that’s saying something. There’s a massive part of me that wants to ask him outright what’s going on but the words never quite seem to form. I’m not sure where to start.
Hey, by the way, I was snooping in your gym locker earlier and I was just wondering what’s going on with the highly illegal weapon you’re storing in there?
Ahead of the separation, we’re at an uneasy truce. If I accuse him of gaslighting, or admit to my own snooping, that’s it. There’s no going back. If I’m wrong, I’m the paranoid, unhinged spurned wife. If I’m right, what then? Can I prove anything before he gets rid of any evidence?