The Skeleton Tree by Diane Janes (reading women TXT) 📕

A heaviness was growing in Wendy’s chest. It seemed to press against her lungs, making her conscious of each breath.

‘Oh, bugger!’ exclaimed Tara as she re-entered the kitchen. ‘Now I’ve gone and burned the toast. Ouch, that’s hot.’ She extracted the blackened slices from the grill and dumped them in the pedal bin. ‘We ought to get a proper toaster. We must be the only family in the world not to own one. And one of those toasted sandwich-makers. Helen’s Mum …’

Wendy wasn’t listening. She hurried outside, but Jamie was not in the back garden. His bike had been abandoned, just as his sister had said, lying on its side in the middle of the drive. She automatically picked it up and placed it on the grass, so that Bruce’s return in the car would not be impeded, glancing up at Jamie’s window as she did so. There was nothing to be seen apart from the stickers he had put there on first moving in. She entered the house by the front door. The obstruction in her chest was getting bigger. From the kitchen came a burst of laughter. At that moment Katie drifted out of the dining room.

‘Is it teatime?’ she asked.

‘No, not yet. I’m making a drink in the kitchen. Do you know where Jamie is?’

‘No. Are there any biscuits?’

‘Yes … no.’ Wendy almost pushed Katie out of the way, ignoring her puzzled expression. She took the stairs two at a time, gained the top landing and entered the rooms, each in turn, then ran down to the lower landing, checking the bathroom, then Tara’s little suite. No Jamie. The attic? Surely not. All the same, she returned to the upper landing and checked, but one glance from the top of the attic stairs was sufficient. She descended to the ground floor in a helter-skelter of panic, her breath coming in ragged gasps. Katie had joined the other girls in the kitchen. ‘Oh my God.’ Tara laughed. ‘I’ve burned the flipping toast again. What’s wrong with me today?’

‘You’re not concentrating on what you’re doing,’ Katie said reprovingly.

‘Tara,’ Wendy gasped. ‘Jamie’s gone. He’s disappeared.’

‘He’s probably just hiding somewhere. Pass me the bread, Jo, third time lucky …’

‘He’s not hiding! He’s gone!’

‘Don’t fret, Mother. We’ll soon find him. Come on, Jo.’ Tara abandoned the loaf on the kitchen worktop. ‘Katie,’ she instructed, ‘you double check the garden, make sure he isn’t hiding in the bushes or something.’

‘He’s not out there,’ Wendy said, her voice rising. ‘I’ve already looked.’ She knew he wasn’t in the garden. None of their shrubs had achieved the maturity necessary to conceal a six-year-old boy. She stood helplessly in the centre of the kitchen while Tara and Joanne took the same fruitless trip from room to room which she had taken moments earlier. Katie had evidently taken her mission seriously, leaving no stone unturned, but she arrived back simultaneously with the older girls, reporting a negative.

‘He’s lost,’ Wendy said. Tears started up in her eyes. ‘We have to ring the police.’ She sank on to one of the benches beside the kitchen table.

Tara took charge. ‘Of course he isn’t lost,’ she said briskly. ‘Now think,’ she addressed her mother. ‘Think. When did you last see him?’

‘It was hours ago.’ Wendy looked down at her hands and saw that they were shaking. ‘He was out on the drive, riding his bike. It was just after your dad went to the football.’

‘That was hours ago. You must have seen him since then?’

Wendy stared stupidly at her trembling hands and shook her head.

Tara turned to Katie. ‘What about you?’

‘I don’t remember,’ said Katie, in her most absentminded voice.

For a moment Wendy thought Tara was going to shake her little sister. ‘Yes, you do. Come on, you must remember. Think, think. Where have you been this afternoon? What were you doing?’

‘Sticking in my stamps.’

‘Where?’

‘In the dining room.’

‘All the time? The whole afternoon?’

‘Yes.’ Katie’s voice contained a suspicious note of hesitation.

‘Tell me the truth, Katie. Did you go outside? Did Jamie come in to talk to you?’

‘Ye-es.’ Katie spoke reluctantly.

‘Which? When? What time?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Oh, come on, Katie. You must know.’

‘I don’t know. It was ages ago. I didn’t look at the clock when he came into the room.’

‘All right. What did he say? Where did he go?’

‘He didn’t say where he was going.’

‘Well what did he say then? Come on, Katie, this is important. He must have said something.’

‘He said he was going to hide.’

‘Hide where?’ Tara and Joanne chorused.

Katie shook her head.

‘Was he running away from home?’ asked Joanne.

‘Why did he say he was going to hide?’ demanded Tara.

Katie fidgeted her hands and looked down at her feet. ‘He kept bothering me to play with him. I didn’t want to, because I was sticking my stamps in, so in the end I said, “All right then, hide-and-seek. You go and hide first.”’

‘This is wasting time,’ Wendy said. ‘We should call the police. He’s been taken. I know he’s been taken.’

‘Do calm down, Mam,’ said Tara. She turned back to Katie. ‘But you didn’t go and look for him?’

Katie shook her head again.

‘Why not? Look, don’t you start crying as well. You’re not in trouble, we just need to find out what’s happened. Why didn’t you go to look for him?’

‘I didn’t really want to play. I was sticking my stamps in and he was bothering me, so I said—’

‘Yes, yes, we know what you said.’ Tara was becoming increasingly impatient. ‘So what you’re saying is that Jamie went off to hide on purpose. You don’t know exactly when and you’ve no idea where. Did you see which way he went?’

‘No … but he said he was going to hide in a really good place where no one would ever find him.’

Wendy emitted a low wail of distress.

‘Don’t worry, Mam, we’ll soon find him. Has anyone checked in the outhouses or the garage? I expect he thinks he’s being clever, keeping hidden for so long.’

Wendy waited for them in the