The Lost

In the weeks after Theo vanished, Jonah’s life entered a new dimension. The days were a nightmarish, sleepless blur. On that first afternoon he’d stood by, dazed and numb, as police cars and vans arrived and the park was cordoned off. Jonah felt he was trapped in a bad dream as the quiet green space began to fill with figures in yellow hi-vis jackets and white coveralls. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d related what had happened, forcing himself to answer questions when he wanted to scream with impatience. You need to check shops and CCTV around the park, he repeatedly told the officers who questioned him. They’d given him assurances, employing the same calm and measured manners he’d used in interviews himself.

Then they’d asked more questions.

The worst of it was that Jonah knew. Knew what they were thinking. Knew what went on in cases like this. But the possibility that it could relate to Theo, to his son, who’d been laughing with him only hours before, was too enormous to grasp. He’d insisted on staying in the park, as though leaving that place without Theo would somehow be an acceptance of what had happened, making it irreversible.

Calling Chrissie to break the news had been the second-worst moment of Jonah’s life. There had been times when he’d wondered if she’d actually loved their son, so cold could she seem towards him. But she’d become hysterical on the phone, screaming into it until the connection abruptly went dead. When she arrived in the park with her mother, he held out his arms, as much out of a need for comfort for himself as to offer it. She knocked them aside and begun flailing at him.

‘How could you? How could you have fucking let him go?’

He stood there mutely, making no attempt to defend himself from either her attack or her accusations until two PCs intervened, easing her away and leading her sobbing back to her mother. Jonah had almost welcomed the sting of her blows on his face.

He blamed himself as well.

When he saw Gavin crossing the cordon, he could have wept with grateful relief. Come on, let’s go somewhere private, Gavin said, steering him like a zombie to the police trailer that had been set up inside the park entrance. There were chairs, desks and a whiteboard arranged inside, but no one was using it. Gavin shut the door behind them and took a flat bottle of vodka from his jacket.

‘Here,’ he said, holding it out. Jonah shook his head but Gavin pressed it on him. ‘Go on. You’re no use to anyone like this.’

The alcohol burned a track down Jonah’s throat to his stomach. He realised he was shaking.

‘I fell asleep, Gav. I fell asleep...’

If Gavin had offered any sympathy, Jonah would have lost it. But instead he told him to get a grip, snapped that a guilt trip wouldn’t help. When Jonah raised the vodka to take another drink, Gavin had taken it away from him. We need you functioning, not pissed, he’d said.

He listened without comment as Jonah described what had happened and described the man he’d seen on the bench. He’d always been a good observer, and the image felt seared on his brain. Tall and in his thirties, the impression of a gaunt, rangy build given even while seated. Pale skin with a bony skull closely shaved but a shadow of stubble on the lantern jaw. Frayed, dirty blue jeans and a greasy olive-coloured combat jacket. Gavin listened in silence, then said something that would echo in Jonah’s mind for years to come.

‘We’ll find him,’ he’d said, looking Jonah in the eye. ‘I promise, I’ll do whatever it takes.’

Jonah had desperately wanted to believe him. But when he went back outside and saw the police tape cordoning off the play area, the CSIs in coveralls searching the bushes where he’d found Theo’s hat, the reality of it threatened to crush him.

The next two days were torture. Each minute was an eternity, a limbo of waiting for the doorbell or phone to ring. Chrissie wouldn’t speak to him, or if she did, the conversation would quickly descend into shrill accusations. They were more strangers to each other than the family liaison officer who waited with them. The televised appeal they made was a disaster, a surreal nightmare of bright lights, cameras and microphones. As they took their seats Jonah rested his hand on Chrissie’s shoulder, as much to bolster himself as her. When she’d shrugged him off, it had been caught for all to see, and things went downhill from there. Chrissie was sullen and cold, leaving him to answer most of the questions. He tried, but his mind refused to engage, leaving him tongue-tied and lost in front of the judgemental lenses. When a journalist asked if it was true he’d fallen asleep, a tsunami of guilt left him unable to speak.