percent or something. It’s a newish phone, it wouldn’t die that quickly. And why would he turn it off when he was out and about? Doesn’t make sense.
Pip:
Yes, the text not delivering at that time certainly is significant.
Connor:
What do you think it means?
Pip:
I can’t speculate until I know more.
Connor:
It means he’s in trouble, doesn’t it? You just don’t want to say. That someone’s hurt him. Or taken him?
Pip:
Connor, we don’t know anything yet. I’m not ruling anything out, but we can’t settle on conclusions without any evidence, that’s not how this works. Let’s move on to yesterday. Can you talk me through your day, your interactions with Jamie? Anything significant?
Connor:
Um.
Pip:
What?
Connor:
Well, there was something.
Pip:
Connor . . . ?
Connor:
You won’t tell my mum, will you?
Pip:
Remember what you asked of me? This will go out to hundreds of thousands of people. Your mum is going to hear it, so whatever it is, you need to tell me and then you need to tell her.
Connor:
Shit, yeah. It’s just . . . OK, so Jamie and my mum, they get on really well. They always have done. I guess you might call him a mama’s boy; they just click. But Jamie and Dad have a tricky relationship. Jamie’s said to me before that he thinks Dad hates him, that Dad’s constantly disappointed by him. They don’t really talk anything through, they just let things build up until they occasionally explode into big arguments. And then once that’s done and the awkwardness has gone, they go back to normal and the cycle resets. Well . . . they had one of their big arguments – yesterday.
Pip:
When?
Connor:
At, like, half five. Mum was at the supermarket. It ended before she got back, she doesn’t know. I was listening from the stairs.
Pip:
What was it about?
Connor:
The usual things they fight about. Dad telling Jamie he needs to buck up his ideas and sort his life out, that he and Mum won’t always be there to pick up the pieces. Jamie said that he was trying, that Dad never notices when he’s trying because he presumes Jamie’s going to fail anyway. I couldn’t hear the whole fight, but I remember Dad saying something like, ‘We aren’t a bank, we are your parents.’ I don’t know what that was about, I guess maybe Dad brought up that he thinks Jamie should pay rent to still live here. Mum thinks that’s ridiculous and will never allow it, but Dad’s always, going on about ‘How else will he learn?’ The last thing they said to each other before Mum came back was . . .
Pip:
What?
Connor:
Dad said, ‘You’re a waste of space.’ And Jamie said, ‘I know.’
Pip:
Is this why everyone was quiet on the drive to the memorial? Your mum picked up on that.
Connor:
Yeah. Oh god, she’s gonna be so upset when I tell her.
Pip:
You should tell her tonight, when I’m gone.
Connor:
I guess.
Pip:
So, back to that night. You arrive at the memorial, and you go off to find our friends, and Jamie goes off to find Nat. But then Jamie did come up to you at one point. When Zach and I were talking to my new neighbours, Jamie came and spoke to you.
Connor:
Yeah.
Pip:
What did he say then?
Connor:
He apologized. Said sorry about the argument with Dad; he knows I hate it when they fight. And then he told me that after the memorial, he was going to go to Nat da Silva’s house for a bit; spend the evening with her. I think they thought it was only right, to be in the company of someone else who knew Sal and Andie. He said he’d back home that night, though. And as he walked off, the last thing he said to me was, ‘See you later.’ I don’t think he’d lie to my face like that, if he knew he wasn’t coming back. But Mum and I called Nat this morning; Nat never saw Jamie after the memorial. She doesn’t know where he is.
Pip:
And where did you go, after the memorial?
Connor:
Well me and Zach didn’t fancy going to the calamity party with Ant and Lauren, because they ignore everyone else anyway, so I went back to Zach’s new house and we . . . we played Fortnite, so now the world knows that then. And later Zach dropped me home.
Pip:
What time?
Connor:
We left Zach’s just after half eleven, so I must have been back around twelve. I was tired, went straight to bed, didn’t even brush my teeth. And Jamie never came back. I was sleeping, went to bed with no second thought about Jamie. It’s so stupid, really, how you take things like that for granted. I was stupid. I thought he’d come home. He was supposed to come home. And now he’s . . .
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