The Drowning Child - Alex Barclay

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my right here are Caleb’s parents,’ said Ruddock. ‘John and Teddy Veir. Teddy would now like to say a few words.’

      Teddy shifted the chair forward. ‘Thank you, Chief Ruddock.’ She looked up, her lost and panicked eyes blinking quickly before she focused on a point on the floor three feet ahead. ‘Our son, Caleb, has been missing since yesterday morning. Caleb is only twelve years old. Caleb, we want you home with us, we want you to come home. To your mom and dad. We miss you, and we love you very much. Please … come home.’

      She welled up so quickly, and the pain robbed her of her voice so suddenly, that everyone else on the platform was thrown; they weren’t ready to break in, to rescue her.

       Someone help!

      John Veir kicked in, putting his arm around his wife, sliding the microphone that was in front of her toward himself, knocking over a glass of water as he did. The piercing sound of feedback erupted in the room.

      ‘Caleb is a good boy,’ said John. ‘Just a … good kid, who is … good to everybody … and everyone … and helped his mom and me out, and …’

       No one prepared you. You weren’t planning on speaking.

      ‘Please bring him home,’ said John. ‘Whoever has him, if someone has our son, please bring him home. We love him so much.’ His voice started to crack. ‘He’s our son.’ He broke down. He briefly raised his head to say: ‘No matter what. We want him back. We love you, Caleb. I want you to know that. We love you very much.’

       No matter what? He’s our son, no matter what? Or no matter what, we want him back?

      A sudden smell – powerful, stale and liquor-laced – struck Ren.

       What the … whoa …

      She turned to see a man take a few steps, then stop abruptly. He was dressed in a faded black sweatshirt with unraveling cuffs and crusted white stains. His pale jeans had two stripes of filth down the center, his sneakers were gray, the laces half undone. His eyes did a full sweep of the room before he walked any further.

       Now, who might you be?

      He took two steps closer.

       And what bar’s supplies have you recently depleted?

      He walked past Ren. She put her hand to her mouth and swallowed.

       Jesus. Christ. Wow.

       I probably smell the exact same …

      In a flash, Wiley was striding their way. He struck Ren hard with his shoulder as he passed.

       Dickhead.

      He grabbed the man by the arm, effortlessly dragging him toward the exit. The man’s face was pinched in anger, his expression childish, petulant. There was tutting, eyerolling and nose-wrinkling from locals who seemed to know him.

      The man opened his mouth wide, looked ready to speak, but he took in all the stares and his face fell and he didn’t say a word.

       You are a hurting man. You know you’re a sideshow to these people.

      Just as he was about to go through the door, a burst of courage delivered his voice:

      ‘Lake Verny!’ he shouted. ‘You need to look in Lake Verny! Tell Ruddock. Tell Ruddock! You tell him Clyde Brimmer says that lake’s a killer!’

      Ren looked around at the crowd, gauging their reactions. There was no sense that the man’s words held any meaning, that they were anything other than a terrible thing to shout in a room where two parents were hoping to reach out for a son they wanted to believe was alive and well – not sucked down into the depths of a lake.

       7

      Gary, Ren and Ruddock stood in the shelter of the back door of Tate PD after the press conference. Ruddock pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

      ‘Do you smoke?’ he said, extending the pack toward Gary, then Ren. Gary declined.

      ‘For one night only,’ said Ren. Filthy habit.

      Ruddock lit it for her, lit his own.

      ‘Sounds like Mom thinks Caleb ran away, and Dad thinks he’s been abducted,’ said Gary.

      Ren turned to Ruddock. ‘Could he have run away?’ she said. ‘What do you think?’

      ‘Honestly, I don’t know,’ said Ruddock. ‘All I know is something is not quite right with the Veirs.’

      ‘It seems like they’re blaming each other,’ said Ren. ‘They weren’t even touching when they walked in. What vibe did you get from them when you first met?’

      ‘It was tense,’ said Ruddock, ‘but under the circumstances, that’s to be expected. Even if John Veir thinks his son was abducted, I agree – he sure is acting like he blames his wife for something.’

      ‘Maybe for not being there yesterday morning,’ said Ren. ‘But, surely, that wouldn’t have made a difference. It wasn’t like we know that Caleb was snatched from their home while she was distracted. And John Veir had his phone on silent. Maybe that’s what’s bothering his wife.’ She paused. ‘What was John Veir’s “no matter what” about?’

      Ruddock shrugged. ‘Nerves? I don’t know.’

      They could hear footsteps coming their way. They looked around. Wiley was striding toward them from where he had dumped the man who interrupted the press conference. He rolled his eyes at Ruddock. Ruddock didn’t respond.

      ‘Who was that guy?’ said Ren.

      ‘Clyde Brimmer,’ said Wiley. ‘A drunk.’

       Wow … what drunk fucked you over?

      ‘Why was he talking about Lake Verny?’ said Ren.

      Wiley was shaking his head. ‘His usual bullshit.’

      Ruddock intervened. ‘It’s got to be about Aaron Fuller.’

      ‘The boy who drowned?’ said Ren.

      ‘Yes,’ said Ruddock. ‘Clyde was fired for drinking on the job. He was an embalmer. The last body he worked on was Aaron’s …’

      ‘Ah,’ said Ren. ‘It’s haunting him …’

      Ruddock nodded.

      ‘And that was the job he was caught drunk on?’ said Ren.

      ‘Well, it was the last straw,’ said Ruddock. ‘There were some earlier complaints. He swears he wasn’t drinking when he was working on Aaron—’

      ‘Clyde doesn’t do himself any favors,’ said Wiley. ‘He showed up for work Monday to Friday in reasonably good shape, didn’t go too wild on weeknights. But he drank heavily on the weekends. Once you’re propping up a bar regularly, slowly drinking your way into oblivion, well, you’re telling people how to remember you. It’s all about perception, really, isn’t it?’

       Jesus.

      ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Wiley. He walked back toward the gates.

      ‘What is Clyde Brimmer’s story?’ said Ren.

      ‘A sorry one,’ said Ruddock. ‘We were in school together. A group of us hung out, usual stuff: playing football, going swimming, duck-diving in the lake. We were pretty innocent kids. But Clyde went off the rails when he was seventeen, when his little sister died. He started drinking, doing drugs. Got off drugs eventually, but kept on drinking. He’d get sober every now and then, then he’d fall off the wagon again. The longest he was sober was when he did his embalmer

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