three decorative sprigs of wood, the only other ornamentation were the framed pictures of Barney.
Curious for a better look, I got up and traced my thumb along the mantelpiece, lined with photos three deep. A few of the pictures had Jason in them. I picked one and took it over to the window so that I could study it in more detail. It was the kind you get taken at a professional studio and it featured Vicky and Jason against a white background with a baby Barney in a nappy on the floor, two milk teeth peeking out of his bottom gum. Jason’s hair was shorter than he wore it now and he was as skinny as a colt.
I stroked Jason’s face through the glass with my finger. He and Vicky both looked so young. Probably because they were. Having got together at school, everything else followed on from there. They were engaged by eighteen, married by twenty and Vicky was pregnant with Barney at twenty-two.
They’d celebrated their fourth wedding anniversary a few weeks before Barney went missing. One year later, one year of him being gone, and the marriage was over. Jason told me they’d done everything they could to carry on, but that being together meant they were never able to think or talk of anything else except Barney. It had paralysed them. While on the one hand, Vicky was the only other person in the world who could truly understand what he was going through, on the other, the fact she was Barney’s mum meant he never had any respite.
We met a year after their divorce. I was under no illusion as to why we worked as a couple. Jason needed someone who could understand his loss and pain, and I did, truly. But, at the same time, my loss was different from his and so, with me, he would always have the space to breathe.
I put the picture back where I had found it and moved over to the largest photo on display. Positioned next to the armchair where Vicky had sat, it showed Barney modelling a junior Middlesbrough Football Club kit. The shorts were way too big for him and he could barely hold the adult-sized football under his arm, but he looked so proud.
Was this the boy from the off-licence?
For a moment I considered asking Vicky for help. I could tell her what I’d seen. Ask her if she recognised the child as Barney. But no. It would be too weird. And besides, to go to her behind Jason’s back with something like this would be such a betrayal. He’d never forgive it.
I was about to go and sit back down and wait for Jason when I saw a thin line of silver poking out from the armchair’s seat cushion. Vicky’s mobile phone.
I couldn’t help myself. Wedging it out of the sofa, I flipped it open, found the envelope symbol and clicked.
Most of the messages were from her mum and friends. I opened a few but they were all fairly boring and meaningless. I went to scroll down, but I must have pressed too hard because the texts went zooming up the screen and before I knew it I was looking at messages from a few weeks back. I was about to start the laborious process of scrolling forward when I noticed a text message from someone called ‘Jason’. I tried not to let it worry me. I knew that Jason had to stay in touch with Vicky because of Barney. The text was dated Sunday 3rd October. The day after our wedding anniversary.
‘Are you OK? What Mandy said about you going back to see the doctor – is it true? Anything I need to be worried about?’
Vicky’s reply was there, right beneath it.
‘Am fine. Mandy shouldn’t have said anything. Just had a rough few days, that’s all. xxx’
It meant nothing. Of course he’d checked to see if she was OK. It was in his nature.
I closed the message and returned to her inbox. She seemed to have saved lots of messages into a separate folder. I opened it. They were all from someone she’d entered into her phone as ‘MG’. DS Martin Gooder.
I opened the most recent exchange. They were the usual texts you’d expect to see between a romantic couple. They were either busy arranging their next tryst or reminiscing about their previous time together, but then I came across an odd sequence of messages. The first was dated a few weeks