on television, and concerned with getting their performance just right. I want to scream at them that this isnât some soap opera, itâs our real family life thatâs happening, and we donât want to be on the television, we just want the missing part of ourfamily back. But I donât say any of that, even though Iâm wrecked with anger all the time.
The camera crew hang around our kitchen and Mum makes them cups of tea.
Her eyes have purple shadows underneath them from broken night after broken night, and sheâs stopped going to work and hired somebody else to take over her childrenâs parties.
Dadâs still going to the zoo, but he says his heartâs not in it and he rings home several times a day to see how Mum is, and employs a new member of zoo staff to take over a lot of his duties.
I carry on going to school like a robot, but I canât take in a word of whatâs going on and only Bindi can get through to me.
A lot of the other kids whisper and point at me, but Iâm beyond caring.
Our house has become so sad, like a hard shell full of bits of stuff that donât mean anything. The rooms feel cold and empty and just smell of furniture polish instead of spliffs and guitar-strings and trainers and junk food.
I watch the actor playing Jay as he does another take, walking out of our front door and down the street towards the tube station, and I wish harderthan Iâve ever wished for anything in my life that it was really Jay and not some strange boy, and that I could run after him and grab him by the arm and say, âSorry, Iâm sorry, Jay, I didnât mean to tell Mum and Dad and make you run away,â and persuade him to turn around and walk back into the house. But I know thatâs stupid, so I hang around the front garden with Dad, watching in silence and answering the odd question from the film crew. They carry on for the whole afternoon and I watch as the police talk to my parents while the filming drags on, and still I can only think of the one question thatâs been haunting me day and night ever since he went.
When will Jay come home again?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Two years and two months after the day he went missing, the police reckon that they might have found Jay.
Dadâs holding my hand in the kitchen.
He talks in a very soft and steady voice, not like his usual loud bark. Itâs the voice he uses when he has to climb into an enclosure of lions and break up a fight, or rescue a trapped cub, or give an injection.
Except that he doesnât need to tame me on this particular day.
Iâve lost the power of speech and Iâm the quietest Iâve ever been.
Even Benjieâs gone quiet and is huddled under my chair.
Behind the dark bulk of Dadâs head I can see Mum leaning on the banisters in the hall and hiding her face behind her hand. Thereâs a policewoman standing next to her with one hand on Mumâs elbow and sheâs bent towards Mum in concern. I make out the words âteaâ and âsit downâ and âwhen youâre ready,â but I canât make any sense of it, because I feel as if a big part of my side has been ripped off and left all the inside bits of me hanging out.
Jay.
Jay.
I want Jay.
Dadâs stroking my hair, and he has big tears rolling down his face. Iâve almost never seen Dad cry. Even when Jay went missing the first time, he didnât cry. He just went grey and aged about twenty years in five minutes and ever since then heâs not smiled or laughed in the way that he used to.
Mumâs been the one who cries.
Sheâs crying again now, like her heart is broken.
The policewoman comes into the kitchen and fillsup the kettle, hunts for cups and mugs and gets milk out of the fridge.
âWe will need you to come and make an identification,â she says to Dad, with an anxious look at me. âYour daughter should probably stay at
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
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