What Was Still There

The police kept the bag.

That was the first answer on Wednesday, and for most of the morning it was the only one. I had spent days wanting the cards found. Now they had been found, and I could not look at them. The work of waiting changed shape without becoming easier.

Adebayo came to the house at eleven with another officer. Caroline Dunn joined the conversation by phone for the part about my own statements. Mum sat beside me with a notebook she had bought at the supermarket, the first page already bent from being carried in her bag.

The detective asked me to describe the cards I had packed on Friday. Not what I thought might have happened afterwards. The number, the labels, which camera used which kind, where the wallet had been in the case.

I drew it on a sheet of paper because my words kept becoming less clear the more carefully I tried to choose them.

“The wallet was here,” I said, marking the lid pocket. “Not in the main compartment. There were spare batteries underneath.”

“Did you put any cards loose in the soft bag?”

“No.”

“Could someone else have done so without you seeing?”

“Yes.”

“Did you use any of the cards after the fundraiser?”

“No. I didn't have them.”

She asked about the viewing copy and how I had made it. I explained the separate export without the scratch audio, the later assembly of the evening's files, the highlights cut on Saturday. I named the folders I had given them and the backups still on my drive.

“Some of the media we received yesterday has been used since the event,” she said. “Our specialists are examining it. We need to be clear about which uses could be yours.”

“None after Friday.”

“All right.”

“Is the original gone?”

“Not all of it.”

The answer made me grip the edge of the paper.

“Can you get the rest back?”

“We'll see what can be recovered. I don't want you building expectations around a process that isn't finished.”

I nodded.

She showed me a photograph of the wallet as it had been received. Two labelled cards were where I expected them to be. Another slot contained a card with a label I had never seen. One slot was empty.

“That isn't mine,” I said, pointing to the unfamiliar label on the printed image.

“Have you seen it before?”

“No.”

“And this empty position?”

“The card with the long first-half recording should have been there. Unless it was moved to another slot.”

She let me look at the other photographs. I identified what I could. I did not find the missing card by wishing harder at the page.

The note Finn had left was handwritten on the back of a college printout. Adebayo read the relevant part aloud rather than handing me the original.

Bee, I moved things because I panicked about how it would look. I thought if it came back through you we could still explain it properly. Please don't let one part become the whole story.

Below it he had written that one card might still be in equipment at his grandmother's house, then crossed out the address and written that he was not sure.

“Do those words have a particular meaning to you?” Adebayo asked.

I looked at Mum.

“He knows I make films,” I said. “He keeps talking as if this is something I can fix by arranging it differently.”

“Has he asked you to alter a file?”

“Not directly. He said there were private things on the card. He wanted to talk before he handed it over.”

I gave the same answer I had given before. Repeating it did not make it feel more complete.

The detective asked about our childhood, not as though she expected a hidden incident to explain everything, but because Finn might go somewhere familiar. I named places we had spent time: the recreation ground, the old railway path, a friend's allotment where we had once filmed a badly planned horror short. I said which places I had not visited for years and which owners might no longer be there.

“Is he missing?” I asked.

“We haven't been able to locate him. His family are concerned. We want to speak to him as soon as possible.”

“Do you think he'll hurt someone?”

“We're taking appropriate precautions. You should not try to find him yourself.”

She did not answer the question I most wanted answered. I did not know whether that meant she could not or would not.

After they left, Mum made tea and forgot to put a bag in mine. We stood looking at the clear hot water until she said, “Well. That's where we are,” and we both laughed in a way that came very close to crying.

At three, Clare came to the door.

She had called Mum first. I heard them speak in the hall before Mum asked whether I wanted to come down. She made it a real choice. I stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, then went.

Clare sat on the edge of the armchair with both hands around her phone. She was wearing the same trainers I had noticed outside the pharmacy. One lace had come undone.

“Thank you for seeing me,” she said.

I sat on the sofa beside Mum.

“I don't have any messages you haven't heard about,” I told her. “I've given them everything.”

“I know. Helen said.”

Hearing Adebayo's first name in Clare's mouth was unsettling. Adults occupied parts of the world I did not see. They spoke to one another, made calls, learned things, while I sat waiting for my own phone to light.

“I wanted to apologise for the interview,” Clare said. “And for the conversation outside the pharmacy.”

“You don't have to—” Mum began.

“Yes, I do.”

Clare looked at me.

“I offered something useful while asking you to make things easier for my son. I told myself they were separate. They weren't.”

I did not know what to say.

“Thank you,” I managed.

She nodded, as though she had expected no more than that.

“The programme has withdrawn his provisional award,” she said after a moment. “That happened on Monday. He knew before he contacted you.”

I looked at her phone.

“Because of the form?”

“Because the information wasn't accurate. There are other questions about the application. We're cooperating with them.”

She stopped, swallowed, and began again.

“I keep wanting to tell people he's good at things. As if that answers what they're asking.”

Mum moved the tissue box closer without putting it in her hands.

“He is good at things,” I said.

Clare's eyes filled.

I wished I had not said it, then knew I was glad I had. I did not want to help erase the person he had been in order to make whatever came next easier to understand.

“He can also be very frightened of not being the best,” I added.

Clare looked down.

“Yes.”

We sat quietly. A car door closed outside. Upstairs, the floor creaked as Sam moved across his room.

“Has he ever talked to you about just leaving?” she asked.

“Lots of us talk about leaving Alderwick.”

“I don't mean going to college.”

I thought carefully before answering.

“Not in a way that made me think he was planning to disappear. He said he wanted people to stop asking what he needed. He said everyone was talking at him.”

She nodded and made a note. I could see her trying to use my words without turning them into something larger.

At the door, she asked me to tell the police immediately if he called. I said I would.

Then she said, “You don't have to make him feel better.”

It surprised me enough that I looked at her.

“Just don't try to manage him by yourself,” she said.

After she left, Mum shut the door and leaned against it.

“She's frightened,” I said.

“Yes.”

“So am I.”

Mum opened her arms. I went into them without first deciding whether I had earned it.

That evening Imani rang from home. Her interview had gone well, though she would not know the result for a while. I told her I was glad and meant it without the complicated effort it had taken the day before.

“Can you tell me something that has nothing to do with any of this?” I asked.

She considered.

“My aunt says the tart was acceptable, but only because she has lowered her standards for family.”

“That sounds serious.”

“It is. We're appealing.”

I lay on my bed and listened while she described the train journey, a woman with a very loud packet of sweets, and the strange confidence of people who already seemed to know which city would suit them.

For a while, I could hear a future that was still being made by ordinary decisions.