Trent.’
‘Oh. I’ve got Lorna here.’
‘Well, I assume that if you’re trying to reach a Lorna Trent at this number but instead of a Lorna Trent there’s a Laura Trent then maybe you’ve got slightly the wrong name.’
‘So you’re Laura Trent?’
‘That’s right. How can I help you?’
‘It’s Constable Watts of Lock Road police station here. I understand we’ve had a report of your son Andrew as a missing person, is that right?’
‘Yes it is,’ she said quickly, sitting up in anticipation.
‘Right, well, we’ve no news yet. Obviously there’s only so much we can do, but we have a photo of the young lad and we’ve got several officers assigned to the …’
Laura stopped listening, the voice growing ever fainter as she wrapped herself in the darkness again.
The policewoman wanted to know if Andrew had been found, because apparently that was the usual outcome at this stage. That made it harder for Laura to explain that he was still missing. She had the additional pain of feeling like a failure, one of the pitiful minority who could not easily find their child minutes after they had disappeared. She gave Andrew’s details and the places he might be. Constable Watts told her they would take a look, do what they could, keep her informed, and it all made her feel one tenth of one per cent better.
‘… So we’ll give you a call if we hear anything.’
‘Yes, thanks.’ Laura thought about asking a few questions, just to keep her on the line and hold the silence back, but she was just too crushed to do something so active and pointless, and a small, rational part of her knew she should keep the line clear for Andrew to call.
By the time nine o’clock arrived with no sign or word of her beloved son, Laura began to weep. The possibilities of what lay before her finally made their way in and spread through enough of her to provoke a reaction. All the simple explanations had evaporated one by one and all that was left was a punishing feeling of inevitability. Laura sat on the stairs, looking at a photo of Andrew, smiling, in his football kit and let the tears fall.
Then there was another knock at the door.
4
Within three hours they had finished the loading. The spacious interior of the plane had become cramped as the crates were lined up at one end, halving the amount of room allocated to the soldiers. For now they were enjoying the freedom of the grass outside, lying across it in vests and trousers now a darker shade of the khaki they had been earlier.
‘OK,’ Van Arenn called. ‘Now y’all take a shower. We could be forty-eight hours in that thing, with some hard work at the other end, so wash your stink off. We fly at … 2200.’
As the soldiers picked up their gear and ambled back to the white building, he went over to talk to Garrett. The others took this as their usual cue to whisper amongst themselves about how those two were definitely doing it, and how dirty she must be. The truth was a little different.
Sadie Garrett grew up in a trailer park outside Barwick, Louisiana. Prettier than most, with a dark sheet of shiny hair and a pert, fleshy body, she attracted the kind of bad-boy attention that got her drinking too young. By thirteen she was getting through a bottle of Cisco and forty Newport Menthol a day. By sixteen she had moved on to Oxycontin and the petty crimethat surrounds it. After she was caught cramming herself backwards through the bathroom window of a trailer she was burgling, her daddy cut a deal with the local sheriff to keep her out of the county jail: he agreed to drive her to army recruitment and not come back until she’d signed up. In the end it worked out for everybody, as she found she liked discipline, routine, firing guns and, to an extent she hadn’t really been aware of, showering with other women.
Van Arenn was from Fountain Hill, Arkansas, a town of a couple of hundred people and twice as many cows. At fourteen, too bored to take any more, he
‘Oh. I’ve got Lorna here.’
‘Well, I assume that if you’re trying to reach a Lorna Trent at this number but instead of a Lorna Trent there’s a Laura Trent then maybe you’ve got slightly the wrong name.’
‘So you’re Laura Trent?’
‘That’s right. How can I help you?’
‘It’s Constable Watts of Lock Road police station here. I understand we’ve had a report of your son Andrew as a missing person, is that right?’
‘Yes it is,’ she said quickly, sitting up in anticipation.
‘Right, well, we’ve no news yet. Obviously there’s only so much we can do, but we have a photo of the young lad and we’ve got several officers assigned to the …’
Laura stopped listening, the voice growing ever fainter as she wrapped herself in the darkness again.
The policewoman wanted to know if Andrew had been found, because apparently that was the usual outcome at this stage. That made it harder for Laura to explain that he was still missing. She had the additional pain of feeling like a failure, one of the pitiful minority who could not easily find their child minutes after they had disappeared. She gave Andrew’s details and the places he might be. Constable Watts told her they would take a look, do what they could, keep her informed, and it all made her feel one tenth of one per cent better.
‘… So we’ll give you a call if we hear anything.’
‘Yes, thanks.’ Laura thought about asking a few questions, just to keep her on the line and hold the silence back, but she was just too crushed to do something so active and pointless, and a small, rational part of her knew she should keep the line clear for Andrew to call.
By the time nine o’clock arrived with no sign or word of her beloved son, Laura began to weep. The possibilities of what lay before her finally made their way in and spread through enough of her to provoke a reaction. All the simple explanations had evaporated one by one and all that was left was a punishing feeling of inevitability. Laura sat on the stairs, looking at a photo of Andrew, smiling, in his football kit and let the tears fall.
Then there was another knock at the door.
4
Within three hours they had finished the loading. The spacious interior of the plane had become cramped as the crates were lined up at one end, halving the amount of room allocated to the soldiers. For now they were enjoying the freedom of the grass outside, lying across it in vests and trousers now a darker shade of the khaki they had been earlier.
‘OK,’ Van Arenn called. ‘Now y’all take a shower. We could be forty-eight hours in that thing, with some hard work at the other end, so wash your stink off. We fly at … 2200.’
As the soldiers picked up their gear and ambled back to the white building, he went over to talk to Garrett. The others took this as their usual cue to whisper amongst themselves about how those two were definitely doing it, and how dirty she must be. The truth was a little different.
Sadie Garrett grew up in a trailer park outside Barwick, Louisiana. Prettier than most, with a dark sheet of shiny hair and a pert, fleshy body, she attracted the kind of bad-boy attention that got her drinking too young. By thirteen she was getting through a bottle of Cisco and forty Newport Menthol a day. By sixteen she had moved on to Oxycontin and the petty crimethat surrounds it. After she was caught cramming herself backwards through the bathroom window of a trailer she was burgling, her daddy cut a deal with the local sheriff to keep her out of the county jail: he agreed to drive her to army recruitment and not come back until she’d signed up. In the end it worked out for everybody, as she found she liked discipline, routine, firing guns and, to an extent she hadn’t really been aware of, showering with other women.
Van Arenn was from Fountain Hill, Arkansas, a town of a couple of hundred people and twice as many cows. At fourteen, too bored to take any more, he
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