It’s as though the earth has just tilted on its axis. That’s the only way to explain how I feel. I was here yesterday. I bought a ticket to Weston. I crossed through the barriers. I got on a train. One of the staff, a man with fair hair and glasses, catches my eye as I glance across at the ticket counter and I look away sharply. Did he recognize me? Is that why he’s staring? Has he been told to keep an eye out for me because of something I said or did?
‘Claire?’ Mum touches my arm. ‘Do you want to go back to the car? I can do the leaflet drop if you’re not feeling well. Or we can do it another day.’
‘No.’ I press a hand over hers. There’s no reason to think I did anything strange during my blackout. Even when I’m drunk the worst I’ll do is massacre a song during karaoke or embarrass Mark by firing off the most childish jokes I know. ‘I’m fine. Honestly, Mum. Let’s get this done.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’ I let go of her hand and pass a leaflet to the man waiting patiently for us to vacate the ticket machine. ‘My son Billy is missing. Have you seen him? Do you recognize his face?’
We’ve barely passed through the ticket barriers when Mum’s phone rings.
‘Oh, bugger,’ she says under her breath as she fishes it out of her handbag. ‘It’s Ben, the journalist from the Bristol News that I was telling you about. I’m going to have to take this, Claire. You okay to go by yourself?’
‘Of course.’
Mum turns left towards the coffee shop while I continue down the stairs to the subway that gives access to the platforms. I approach a lady who’s waiting for an elderly man to use the cashpoint and show her Billy’s flier.
‘This is my son, Billy Wilkinson. He’s fifteen. Have you seen him?’
She looks down at his photo and, as her eyes dart from left to right, scanning his face, my heart flickers with hope. There are nearly half a million people in Bristol but all I need is for one person, just one, to say, ‘I saw a boy who looks like him sleeping rough, or ‘I think I was served coffee by this boy yesterday.’
‘Sorry.’ The woman shakes her head.
I rush away before she can offer me any words of sympathy and thrust a leaflet at a man in a suit.
He raises a hand. ‘No, thank you.’
‘It’s not a charity leaflet.’ I rush after him. ‘And I’m not selling anything—’
I’m cut off as he takes a sudden left and disappears into the men’s toilets.
Undeterred, I approach a gang of foreign students, gabbling away to each other in Spanish outside the juice bar. ‘Have you seen this boy? He’s my son. He’s missing.’
They exchange glances, then an attractive girl, with glossy black hair that reaches almost to her waist, steps forward and peers at the leaflet in my hands.
‘Nice,’ she says, looking back up at me. ‘Nice boy. Handsome.’
‘Have you seen him? You or any of your friends?’
She takes the leaflet from my hand, shows it to her friends and says something in Spanish. I can’t understand a word they say in reply but I know what a head shake, a shrug and a pouting mouth signify.
‘Could you put it up where you’re studying?’ I ask the black-haired girl. ‘In your school? There’s a contact telephone number and an email address at the bottom if anyone has seen him.’
She nods enthusiastically but I’m not sure she understands me. I don’t have time to double-check. I need to move on. I need to get Billy’s face in front of as many people as possible.
The barista behind the counter of the coffee shop in the middle of the subway tells me she can’t put up Billy’s poster without consulting her manager, and he’s not in until 5 p.m. The queue at the sit-down coffee shop just yards away is too long to even contemplate talking to a member of staff, so I drop a pile of leaflets on the table nearest the door instead. As I hurry through the subway towards platforms thirteen and fifteen I scan everything I see – posters, free newspaper racks, walls, doors – but they’re graffiti-free. If Billy did tag the train station he didn’t do it down here.
I stop short when I reach the top of the stairs to the platforms. There’s a wreck of a building on the opposite side of the tracks. It’s the derelict sorting office, now little more than a rectangular slab of concrete with gaping holes where the windows used to be. As I watch, pigeons flutter in and out but it’s not the birds that catch my eye. It’s the graffiti daubed all over the building. There are high walls, topped with barbed wire, surrounding it but that wouldn’t stop Billy, not if he was determined to put his mark on it.
‘Excuse me, madam.’ A hand grips my shoulder and I spin round to find myself face to face with a tall man in a luminous yellow waistcoat and a black peaked cap.
‘British Transport Police,’ he says, glancing at the bundle of paper in my hands. ‘It’s been reported that you’ve been distributing material to members of the public. Can I see your licence or badge, please?’
‘Licence?’ I step away from the yellow line on the platform edge as a train pulls into the station and the overhead announcer reports that the 11.30 a.m. train to Paddington is standing at platform thirteen. ‘What licence?’
‘You need a licence from the council to distribute leaflets at this station. There’s a fixed penality of eighty pounds or a court-imposed fine of up to two thousand five hundred if you haven’t got one.’
‘But … I … I don’t know. I came with my mum. She’s the one who got the leaflets printed and I’m sure she’s got permission for us to—’
The doors to the carriages open and, as the passengers disembark, I’m distracted by a fracas further up the platform. There’s a small crowd of people around one of the doors and a man is shouting at someone to stop pushing in.
And then I see him. Tall, slim, in a baseball cap and a black Superdry jacket, shoving his way to the front of the queue.
‘Billy!’ I fling the leaflets away from me and sprint up the platform. ‘Billy! Billy, wait!’
The policeman shouts. A pigeon, pecking at crumbs beneath a bench, is startled and flies into the air. A woman gasps, the crowd parts and my lungs burn as I launch myself through the open door and sprint down the carriage.
‘Billy!’ I shout as he reaches an empty seat at the end and pauses. ‘Billy, it’s—’
The words dry in my mouth as he turns and I see his profile.
It’s not Billy. It’s not him.
Jackdaw44: Sorry.
ICE9: What for?
Jackdaw44: Telling you to go fuck yourself last week.
ICE9: No, you’re not. You want something.
Jackdaw44: Ha. Ha. Spot on.
ICE9: So?
Jackdaw44: Just wanted to talk to you.
ICE9: You know where I live.
Jackdaw44: Ha. Ha. Am at school. Need advice.
ICE9: What about?
Jackdaw44: Girls. Why are they such bitches?
ICE9: What makes you think I know?
Jackdaw44: I fucking hate Liv. She dumped me so why is she