My son Thomas vanished on 30th November 2004. He was 12 and had been playing football in our front garden when he disappeared off the face of the Earth.
There was no media circus for Thomas, despite my best efforts to get his case some attention. He wasn’t at a “cute” age, and although people pretended to be sympathetic, I overheard more than one person in our small market town gossiping that he’d probably run away. We hadn’t always been the most stable family, if truth be known. In small towns like ours, everyone latches on to any negative gossip they can get their hands on. It’s like a local pastime.
True, my husband Dylan and I had been arguing a couple of hours before Thomas went missing. And it shames me to say I knew he could hear us shouting from outside – the banging of the football against the house’s walls got louder and angrier as our argument escalated. When the police officer we reported Thomas as missing to heard we’d been arguing a lot recently, I saw his eyes glaze over. A runaway, he was thinking. Just another runaway.
A couple of weeks of frantic searching from us later, the police were suddenly more interested. But by then, any evidence they might have gathered had long gone. No trace of Thomas was ever found.
I always left the front light on for Thomas, even years later. I never gave up searching, and all my energies went into it. My life was searching for Thomas. Work, friends, and hobbies fell by the wayside one by one. Dylan was initially sympathetic, and our arguments even got better for a while.
By the end of the first year, I started to notice his heart wasn’t really in the search anymore. By the time the second anniversary rolled around, he started telling me to “get over it”, “move on”, and “stop acting crazy”. I threw him out. He didn’t argue. I’d never felt so alone.
I’d taken to sleeping with Old Ted, the toy Thomas had loved as a young child. He’d carried it everywhere for years and loved most of its fur off, before sheepishly giving it to me at the age of ten. “Thought you might want to keep it,” he’d said, avoiding my eyes. I’d tried not to laugh and put Old Ted at the bottom of a drawer for safekeeping. Who knew that token of his childhood would be so important in keeping me company on hundreds of lonely nights when I cried myself to sleep, missing my boy so much it physically hurt.
Last night was windy and at first I thought I was imagining the knocking. It got louder and more insistent. It was 10pm, almost time for me to go to bed, and I was irritated that someone would bother me at this time.
The door swung open, and there he was. My darling, wonderful Thomas. All grown up! It took a while for my eyes to relay the information to my disbelieving brain.
“Hi, Mum,” he said. His voice was deep and manly now, but as cheeky as ever.
I collapsed into his arms. My emotions were too overwhelming to say anything; I just heaved and cried into his shoulder. He half-hugged, half-carried me to the nearest chair and sat me down. I looked into his face, surveying the miracle. His features had filled out and he even stubble now, but there was no doubt about it – there was my boy.
“I’ve missed you! I missed you so, so much, darling!”
He grinned again, and nodded towards my hands.
“I can see that.”
I only realised then that I was still clinging to Old Ted.
“But sweetheart – where have you been? What happened? I thought you were dead – thought some scumbag abducted you.”
Thomas shook his head.
“There’ll be time to explain all that. Where’s Dad?”
I swallowed and wondered how to explain. I hadn’t spoken to Dylan for years.
“He’s not here.”
“Mum, can you get him here? I really want to see him.”
How could I say no? I dialled Dylan, hoping he still had the same mobile number. To my relief, it rang and he answered. I told him I needed him round straight away: it was an emergency. His grumbling made me angry – any hesitation was time away from my boy – but he relented eventually.
As we waited, I spoke to Thomas, a decade and a half of things I wanted to say to him spilling out. Whenever I tried to move the subject on to where he’d been, what had stopped him coming back or what made him leave, he clammed up and said all would be clear later. I was terrified of scaring him away again, so I backed off. We mostly talked about what his cousins and school friends had been up to. He found it funny I’d left the light on every night, but from the distinctive way he looked away when I mentioned it, I knew he was touched.
Dylan turned up after a few minutes, moaning about how I’d “called him at this ridiculous hour” and how I was “hysterical”. I said nothing; I couldn’t formulate the words. I simply grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the lounge.
I’ve never seen someone stiffen so quickly and completely. Dylan looked like he’d been given an electric shock. Thomas didn’t rush to him. It was the strangest reunion I’d ever seen.
“Hello, Dad,” Thomas said. His voice was harder, somehow.
“Impossible,” Dylan muttered, finally.
“It’s him, Dylan!” I cried, feeling the tears of joy sting my eyes again. “It’s our Thomas!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Martha,” Dylan barked at me. “It’s not him.”
I was taken aback. How could he look at this man, so obviously our boy, and not recognise him instantly?
“Look – I don’t know who you are,” Dylan growled at Thomas, stepping into his space, “I don’t know whether you’re after money, or attention, or what. But I want you to get out of this house this instant and never come back. You’re not our son.”
Thomas stood his ground. He was a good six inches taller than his father now, and much more sturdily built.
“Oh yeah? What makes you so certain, Dad?”
They looked into each other’s faces, sizing each other up.
“How about you tell Mum why you’re so sure I’m not your son?” Thomas challenged.
I was lost. All I knew was the creeping sense of dread growing in my gut.
“What does he mean, Dylan? Can one of you tell me what’s going on?”
Dylan breathed in through his nose and closed his eyes. He paused for what seemed like an age.
“I’m so sorry, Martha.”
This was the first time I’d ever heard Dylan apologise in over two decades of knowing him. I almost wanted to put my hand over his mouth, stopping him saying what I knew he would say next. I didn’t think I could bear to hear it.
“It was me. I did it. I killed Thomas, the day he went missing. I… strangled him. And hid his body in the lake.”
A deathly silence fell over the room. I felt my heartbeat pulsing in my ears. Every night I’d spent crying, sobbing away in my then-husband’s arms – it all raced past my eyes in that moment. I thought I might vomit.
“That’s it, Dad?” Thomas scoffed. “You’re not going to tell her why? Nah, didn’t think so. After all these years, you’re still a coward. That’s why you killed me, isn’t it? Didn’t want me blabbing to people about what you’d done to me over all those years? Fucking pervert. Your freedom, your reputation, your life – I was worth sacrificing, so you could keep going as if everything was normal.”
Dylan didn’t respond. He simply bowed his head.
I don’t remember grabbing the heavy lamp from the coffee table. I don’t remember slamming it, with all my strength, into the back of Dylan’s lowered head. I don’t remember the immediate aftermath. I just remember dropping the blood-spattered light to the floor and looking at Dylan’s oozing corpse, half his head missing. My whole body was shaking.
I put my hands over my face and sobbed. Thomas – or whoever the hell this twin of his was – held me.
“Who – are – you?” I gasped through desperate cries.
“I am Thomas, Mum. I promise.”
I believed him because I wanted to. That counter-balanced my knowledge it was impossible. Maybe Dylan had just thought he’d killed him, and Thomas had survived and run away to start a new life?
There were two spades in the garage. It took Thomas and I two hours to dig a shallow grave – he was tough and strong, and dug quickly. We didn’t speak as we carried out the task, or as we lowered Dylan’s body into it. I spat on his body before we filled it back in again. By the time we’d finished the job completely, it was almost dawn.
Thomas looked at me sadly.
“I want you to drive me somewhere,” he said quietly. I nodded.
He directed me to the lake at the edge of town. We sat in silence for a moment.
“This is where he took me,” Thomas said.
I lowered my head to the steering wheel and cried. I felt like I might run out of tears. Thomas’s hand was on my back for a moment – and then it was gone. I lifted my head. The passenger seat next to me was empty. I’d half-expected this, but it felt like my heart was being ripped out for a second time.
As I drove home alone, my grief was replaced by something better: a plan. I’m going to sell my house. I’ll use the money to pay for a team to dredge the lake. They’ll find his remains, of course, and I’ll give him a proper burial.
Once that’s done, I’ll join my boy. There’s nothing left for me in this life and I only want to be with Thomas. I hope I’ve done him proud. As I sit here, cuddling Old Teddy and thinking joyously about how we’ll be reunited properly at the end of this month, I couldn’t be happier.