Читать книгу Someone to Watch Over Me: A gripping psychological thriller - Madeleine Reiss - Страница 10

He wasn’t in the sea. It was the first place Carrie looked, scanning the water for his head, looking out to the very edge of the horizon that suddenly seemed even further away than it had earlier in the day. She ran along the beach, occasionally stopping and asking people if they had seen a small boy in yellow shorts. They shook their heads and got up and looked around too. Most of them parents themselves, they knew from her face what she was feeling. They said things like; ‘He’ll turn up,’ and, ‘Where shall I say you are if I see him?’ but she barely listened. She stumbled on the sand, breathless, desperate already. She saw the boy who had played with Charlie earlier walking back across the beach and she ran up to him. ‘Have you seen my boy?’ she asked him. He shook his head and walked on, hands in the pockets of his shorts.

The tide had come in and the sun gleamed on the sea. The dazzling light and panic filled Carrie’s head like static. She ran backwards and forwards, into the shallows and then up the beach again, searching the dunes for small hollows in which Charlie might be hiding. The desire to see the familiar shape of him was so intense it made her whimper. Maybe he was playing a game. She remembered how the year before he had crawled into a cupboard in a holiday caravan and fallen asleep. When they had found him he had a crescent-shaped mark across his cheek where his face had rested on the edge of a plate. He liked small spaces. Perhaps he had found his way into the old lookout post further along from where they had been sitting. Carrie ran to the concrete bunker and looked through the slotted aperture. At first she couldn’t see anything but a small shape in the corner. Then her eyes grew accustomed to the dark and she saw it was nothing but a heap of abandoned clothes. She ran to where Damian was standing, still scanning the beach.

‘I can’t find him,’ said Carrie, grabbing Damian’s arm and holding on to it.

‘Where did you last see him? How long ago?’ asked Damian.

‘Where we were sitting. I’m not sure. Not long. I’m sure it hasn’t been long.’ She could barely talk.

‘I’d better go and tell the lifeguard. You stay here. You have to be here in case he comes back. It’s alright. We’ll find him. We’ll find him, Carrie.’

Carrie stood and waited. She looked around her, turning from side to side. The empty world stretched out in front of her and she heard herself panting. Breath in, breath out. Where was he? Where was he? She picked up the fleece that Charlie had left half buried in the sand and held it to her face.

They sent two helicopters and little crowds gathered, thrilled by the glamour of impending disaster. ‘He’s how old?’ they asked, so that they could be part of the drama. They watched the boat go out with a kind of awe. Afterwards, when they got home, still sticky with salt and sand, they would talk about it in hushed tones with half an eye on their own, safe children and turn on the news, hoping for the end of the story. Some people stayed and organised themselves into lines and walked methodically across the dunes as far as the car park and then back again. Some of them had sticks, and Carrie thought suddenly of similar lines of people going across a moor, turning over the heather for clues. The boat moved slowly across the water as if it had all the time in the world.

It started to get dark, but Carrie still stood waiting on the beach. Damian wanted her to go into the lifeguard’s hut and have a hot drink but she had to stay where Charlie could find her.

‘Come on, Carrie, there’s nothing you can do …’

Someone had given her a coat to wear, but she was still shaking. She couldn’t feel her body but it was moving strangely, as if she no longer had any control. He would come, if she waited long enough. He would surely come. It was inconceivable that he wouldn’t. How could she leave this place without him? He would put his arms around her neck and she would lift him off the ground and hold him close and smell the salt on his warm skin.