‘What do you need to know? How can we help you find Seth?’ Julia asked, her voice tense.
‘We need you to be absolutely honest with us,’ Carol said. ‘Sometimes parents don’t want to tell us the whole story when children go missing. They don’t want to get their child into trouble, or they don’t want to admit that they have rows, like every other family in the world does. But honestly, the best thing you can do for Seth is not to hold anything back.’
‘We’ve got nothing to hide,’ Kathy said, her voice rough and heavy with pent-up emotion. ‘We’ll tell you anything you want to know.’
Carol glanced at Kevin, who had readied his notebook and pen. ‘Thank you. The first thing we need is a recent photo of Seth.’
Kathy jumped to her feet. ‘I’ve got some I took at the weekend. They’re on my laptop, hang on, I’ll get it.’ She hurried from the room. Julia looked after her, her expression slipping momentarily into bereavement. She’d pulled herself together by the time she turned back to face Carol. ‘What do you need to know?’ she repeated.
‘When was the last time you saw Seth?’
‘When I left for work yesterday morning. It was the same as any other morning. We had breakfast together. Seth was talking about some history homework project he wanted me to help him with. My degree is in history, you see. He thinks I know everything about anything that happened before the middle of last week.’ She spoke on a faint, breathy attempt at a laugh. ‘Then I left for work.’
‘Where is it you work?’ Carol said.
‘I run the education department at the city council,’ she said.
That went some way to explaining how they afforded the sprawling ranch-style bungalow on its corner plot in the section of Harriestown known as the Ville. Back in the 1930s, it had been the home of De Ville Engineering Works, a vast sprawl that had built engines for planes, commercial vehicles and racing cars. In the 1980s, the last of the de Villes had seen where the future lay and exported the whole business to South Korea, selling the site to a local builder whose daughter had just married an architect whose heart belonged to Frank Lloyd Wright and the American Southwest. The result had been a landscaped development of forty houses that became an instant hit with style magazines round the world. Nobody could quite believe it, but those who had bought their houses off-plan soon found they had acquired some of the most sought-after real estate in the north of England.
‘And I’m a graphic designer,’ Kathy said as she returned carrying an open laptop. ‘That’s how we ended up here. I designed all the original brochures for the Ville, so I knew to buy in ahead of the crowd.’ She turned the screen to face Carol, revealing a full-screen head-and-shoulders shot of a smiling dark-haired boy with his mother’s olive skin and dark eyes. His hair was long, roughly parted on one side and falling halfway across one eye. A scatter of spots across his chin, a chipped front tooth and a slightly crooked nose finished the thumbnail sketch Carol was already drawing in her mind. ‘That was taken on Sunday.’
‘Is it possible for you to email it to my team? That’s probably the quickest way to get it out there.’ Carol was already fishing in her pocket for a business card.
‘No problem,’ Kathy said, putting the laptop on a side table and running her finger across the mousepad. Carol handed over her card, which included the generic email for MIT. They all waited while Kathy set the upload in motion. ‘Done and dusted,’ she said, returning to her partner in the armchair. Carol, acutely aware of Seth’s eyes on her, hoped the screen-saver would cut in sooner rather than later.
‘DCI Jordan was asking when we last saw Seth,’ Julia said, reaching up to clasp Kathy’s hand.
‘After Julia left for work, I walked down to the bus stop with Seth. Usually he goes off to school on his own. It’s only a three-minute walk to the bus stop. But we were low on bread and I decided to walk across to the supermarket. So we set off together. The bus arrived almost as soon as we got to the stop, and I waved him off. That must have been about twenty to nine. He’d already arranged to have a sleepover with his pal Will, so he had clean pants and socks and shirt with him.’
‘And as far as you know, he was at school all day?’
‘When he didn’t come home today as usual, I called the school,’ Kathy said. ‘They told me he hadn’t been in at all today. So I asked about yesterday. And he was in all his classes. I admit, I wondered if he’d sneaked off somewhere with his girlfriend and Will was covering his back. It wouldn’t have been like either of them, you understand? They’re not wild lads. But you wonder, don’t you?’
‘It’s only natural. We’ve all been teenagers,’ Carol said. ‘I certainly didn’t tell my parents all I got up to.’
‘So I checked with Will and with Lucie, his girlfriend. That’s when I found out he wasn’t at Will’s and never had been. Will said Seth had told him yesterday morning that he wanted to take a rain check, he had other plans.’
‘And Will didn’t ask what those other plans might be?’
Kathy’s brows furrowed. ‘Not that he’s telling me. He might be a bit more forthcoming to someone with an official reason for asking, though.’
‘That’s not fair, Kathy,’ Julia protested. ‘You’ve no reason to believe Will hasn’t told you all he knows.’
Kathy rolled her eyes skywards. ‘You’re so trusting. If Seth told him not to say anything, he’s not going to tell me, is he?’
Carol let the moment settle, then said, ‘Have you heard anything from Seth at all since he left yesterday morning? A text? An email? A phone call?’
The two women checked with each other, then both shook their heads. ‘Nothing,’ Kathy said. ‘Not that that’s unusual. He doesn’t usually make contact unless there’s a reason. Like a change in arrangements. Which he didn’t communicate to us this time.’
Kevin cleared his throat. ‘Is his girlfriend at home?’
‘Yes. I spoke to her on the landline at her house,’ Kathy said. ‘The last she saw of him was at lunchtime yesterday. They ate together in the school canteen - they’re in different streams so they didn’t see each other in class. But he didn’t say anything to Lucie about not going to Will’s. She still thought the sleepover was on.’
‘Did he often have a sleepover on a school night?’ Kevin asked.
Kathy looked as if she wanted to slap him. ‘Of course not. We’re not the kind of wishy-washy liberals who let their kids run the game. Last night was out of the usual run of things. Will and Seth are big grunge fans, and one of their favourite bands was doing a live webcast. We said they could hang out together to watch it for a special treat.’ Her breath seemed to stick in her throat and she coughed helplessly. When she recovered, eyes streaming and face suffused with blood, she gasped, ‘Some fucking treat.’
Julia put her arm round her and leaned her head against her arm. ‘It’s OK, Kathy. It’s going to be OK.’
‘Is there anybody else you can think of that he might have gone to visit or gone to meet?’ Carol said.
‘No,’ Kathy said wearily. ‘We’ve already tried his other school friends, but nobody’s seen him since yesterday.’