This is the opening chapter from Helen Gray’s crime novel Magdalen Park. To read the second chapter, read the MA Crime Writing Anthology from Egg Box Press. But to read any further, you’ll have to join the rest of us in waiting for Magdalen Park to be published. Meanwhile, Helen Gray’s darkly comic short story ‘Unsupervised Dead Women‘ can be read on the Crime Writers’ Association website.
Chapter One
George stood outside his only grandchild’s bedroom, staring at the hand-written ‘fuck off’ sign that had been taped to the door, and wondered whether it was perhaps time to call the police. That was what you were supposed to do, wasn’t it, when a child went missing? Even if that child was a boy not a girl, a boy who thought himself already a man, a boy who was probably already well known to half of Norfolk Constabulary (certainly better known to them than he is to me, thought George.)
The last time George had seen Luke was at eight-thirty on Monday morning. It was now eight-thirty on Wednesday morning. (You didn’t think to raise the alarm any sooner, Mr Cunningham?) George had been eating his usual breakfast of toast and marmite with a strong tea, when he heard the thudding from Luke’s room upstairs, followed by the thudding down the staircase, and then the thudding of feet being stomped into shoes. George had got up to poke his head round into the hallway, just in time to see Luke’s silhouette in the door frame, a cloud of smoke drifting lazily above the back his head, and the front door swinging shut behind him. (And how did he seem, Mr Cunningham?)
Now George stood on the landing, on the same spot that he had been for twenty minutes, with one hand resting on the balustrade, the other holding his mobile phone, squeezing it in his palm such that his knuckles looked like the little white marbles he used to roll around on the patio with his own child, Luke’s mother, Frances. George missed Frances every day, but only allowed himself to properly think about her on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, so as not to risk being overwhelmed by so much grief that he would no longer be able to look after Luke. Not that he was doing a particularly good job of that, George had to admit, given he had no idea where Luke was, who he could be with, whether he had a girlfriend or a boyfriend or a close circle of friends, whether he spent too much time online and was getting those funny ideas that he’d read about in the papers, if he did enough exercise and was nice to his teachers, if he was excited about the future or it filled him with dread, if he was happy or lonely or angry or sad, whether he liked English or Maths, set honey or runny, wintertime or summer. Frances had liked the Autumn. She had liked Maths, and set honey, and she had liked the day in October when the air turns crisp.
George looked at the phone in his hand and unlocked the screen. He hovered his thumb over the number nine. (Done this kind of thing before, has he, Mr Cunningham?) Elizabeth would be here soon. (Maybe he’s got himself into a bit of bother, perhaps?) Elizabeth would know what to do. (He’s got a way with words I see—) George ripped the sign off Luke’s door, scrunched it into a ball and shoved it into his pocket. Then he went downstairs to put the kettle on and to wait for Elizabeth. Elizabeth always knew what to do.
George and Elizabeth had been meeting for a little over a year. George liked to think of them as companions, but he knew Elizabeth liked to think of them as lovers. He thought this was because of all the romance novels Elizabeth read. They gave her glamorous, European-sounding ideas that probably made her whisper to her coworkers in a conspiratorial voice that she ‘kept a lover’. She’d say, ‘we met at the ballet,’ and then swing her imaginary long hair over her shoulder, making all of her coworkers jealous.
Elizabeth worked at the Norfolk County Library. Although she appeared not to remember it, they had actually met before, three and a half years ago, when she had helped George track down a surprisingly in-demand book on Churchill’s strategic bombing offensive. Elizabeth liked to pretend she was a very well-spoken woman who was perennially surprised that they might be about to have sex (Gosh! What are you doing, George!) even though that was precisely why she came round every Wednesday. (You’re not going to fold me over the kitchen counter, are you?) Now George wondered if Elizabeth would think of him differently, think of him as a negligent, dithering old fool, an old fool who had somehow managed to lose his only grandson (it’s one thing losing your Clubcard, George!)
George sat at the kitchen table and waited for the kettle to boil. Luke was almost certainly with a friend, he thought. All this worry would seem silly in a few hours. Luke would be with a nice friend over at their nice home, with their nice parents. They’d be feeding him lasagne for tea and chocolate cereal for breakfast. ‘Not allowed this at home,’ Luke would grumble, as he shovelled in second helpings. And then they’d send him off to school with a packed lunch. ‘Go on, take it,’ they’d say. ‘Just in case.’
George had never met any of Luke’s friends. George had only met Luke’s teachers. Their faces would often be lined with deep worry and George was never sure whether it was for him or for Luke. ‘Troubled’ was a word that got used a lot, though no-one seemed too troubled to find out what he was troubled with. Rather, the word itself was apparently conclusive.
It felt to George that Luke’s life was lived behind a door that was only millimetres ajar, and George was left staring at the slice of light that lined the bottom of it, daring himself to nudge it, to hear it creak open, and to see what lay behind. Luke’s life had become something that George simply imagined. Irresponsibly so, George thought now, because how likely was it really that Luke was just down the road, eating his troubles away with a bowl of cereal?
The water boiled and rumbled violently, making the kettle shake in its plastic stand. George sighed as he pushed his chair back and wandered over. He clicked the off button and watched as the steam coated the glass of the cupboard door and obscured his reflection. (You really have no idea, Mr Cunningham?)
