Tick Tock Time's Up

LATER

CHAPTER 1

22nd July

The disco at All Saints Primary School was in full swing; in fact the first of two end-of-year discos was nearing its closing time. It was seven p.m. and the older group of nine to eleven-year-olds were chomping at the bit to get into the main school hall, which to their obvious disappointment, as they peered through the half-glass doors, was still filled with the younger five to eight-year-old children.

The last song, Katy Perry’s Last Friday Night came to a faded end and the deputy head of the school, Mrs Smithson, was on hand to turn on the main hall lights just as the song ended.

‘That’s all, children. Thank you for coming and I hope you all had a good time.’ A big cheer came from the assembled youngsters, tinged with a little sadness that the early evening fun had come to an end.

‘Would you all leave the hall via this door, please?’ Her outstretched arm pointed toward the double doors adjacent to where she was standing. ‘And make sure you take your coats, bags and anything else that you brought with you, please. And finally, your parents should be waiting outside for you, if you cannot see your mum or dad then please wait with Mrs O’Hara outside until your parents arrive. Do not leave the school premises on your own.’

And with that, sixty young children filed out of one set of doors, as fifty more were waved in through another set of doors, and the music started up again.

Joshua Hardwick had retrieved his coat from his named peg on the rail, and walked out of the school doors with his friends Harry Jacobs and Noah Williamson. They were sharing a joke about how their other friend Ben, currently absent, had been dancing with Abi. ‘Dancing with girls…’ They laughed. ‘Errrr.’

Mrs O’Hara caught sight of the boys as they approached. ‘Harry, your mum is over there.’ She held his arm and with her other hand she pointed toward Harry’s mum standing ten or fifteen metres away. Noah had seen his mum and had started to run towards her.

‘Have you seen your mummy, Joshua?’

‘Yes, she is over there.’ Joshua pointed towards a group of six women huddled together talking. They were about twenty metres away, towards the school gates.

‘OK, goodnight,’ replied Mrs O’Hara. She didn’t have a clear sight of Joshua’s mum, but the crowd of women to which Joshua was pointing were mainly facing away from her line of sight. She watched for a few seconds as he made his way towards the group of women. She had thought that she recognised Mrs Hardwick by her brown leather boots; boots that she had previously seen Mrs Hardwick wearing, and boots that she had herself coveted, and had promised that she would buy a pair come pay day.

Joshua walked up to the crowd of women, but as he got closer he realised that he had been mistaken and that none of them were his mum. He looked back towards Mrs O’Hara, but she was busy talking to some other children now. He placed his hands in his coat pockets and decided to walk towards the school gates which were a further ten metres from where the group of women had been standing. He didn’t cut a lonely figure appearing to walk out of school on his own, there were many parents and children walking in the same direction at the same time, and he simply blended into the crowd. Whilst non-one noticed in particular, they simply thought that he was with one of the other parents. The other parents and children continued to leave the school grounds and towards their respective waiting cars, whilst Joshua stood at the entrance gates and waited.

He had waited little more than five minutes when a car pulled up alongside the pavement, and the electric passenger side window started to open. The car was a taxi, and although its roof-mounted taxi sign was not illuminated, it was a black Mercedes Benz with a white bonnet, and Joshua had seen similar cars like it around Manchester in the past; in fact he had travelled in a few taxis over the past couple of years with his parents.

The driver leant over from his seat. ‘Joshua?’ Joshua was a little surprised as he didn’t know anyone that drove a taxi. ‘Joshua, I’ve come to pick you up and take you home.’ Without taking any steps forward Joshua leant over and peered into the car.

‘But I don’t know who you are, and my mummy and daddy said that I should never get into a car with someone that I don’t know,’ he confidently explained, in a well-rehearsed reply that had clearly been drilled home by his parents on more than one occasion.

‘And your mummy and daddy are right, Joshua, but, I’m a taxi driver and all taxi drivers are strangers really.’ He looked for some sign of comprehension and agreement. ‘Are they not?’

Joshua was not convinced, and pushed his hands deeper into his coat pockets whilst taking a purposeful step back. He looked over his shoulder, past the school gates and towards the entrance doors. The teachers had all gone back inside, and only a handful of parents remained in the playground, busy chatting whilst their children ran around. He didn’t know any of the parents that were left in the playground.

‘But I’m not a stranger though, Joshua, your mummy sent me to pick you up, as I said. She said to tell you that she is running late and won’t get here in time to pick you up.’

Joshua still needed a little more convincing; and then it came. ‘Listen, Joshua, your mummy is called Joanna, your daddy is called Steven and you live on Woodnewton Close in Gorton.’ Joshua’s face lit up. ‘That’s where your mummy has asked me to take you to, Joshua.’

Joshua smiled at the driver, seemingly now more heartened by the latest verbal exchange.

‘I also know that your house is only five minutes away, so jump in the car and we will be home quicker than you can say abracadabra.’ Joshua smiled again, he had immediately thought of CBeebies, and how he had heard that word before on a TV programme. It made him smile then, it made him smile now. Joshua opened the rear door, climbed in, and sat down.

The digital clock on the dashboard of Joanna Hardwick’s car showed seven-eighteen p.m. as she pulled into the car park at All Saints Primary School on Belle Vue Street. She was annoyed with herself, really annoyed with herself; she had changed her hair appointment at a local salon to five-thirty p.m., and she assured herself that she would be finished in plenty of time to collect Joshua from the school disco. Unfortunately her stylist’s previous appointment had overrun by twenty-five minutes, which in turn had made her appointment run late by roughly the same time, if not a little more in total. Joanna leapt out of the car and walked briskly towards two other mums that she recognised…Debbie Prior and Sophie Beckington, who were also walking towards the school building.

‘Hi, you haven’t seen JJ, have you?’ JJ being the name that Joshua more frequently went by, especially with his parents.

‘No sorry, Joanna, I thought he had already been collected,’ said Debbie.

‘I’m sure that we are the last,’ added Sophie. ‘I rang through about half an hour ago to say that I would be late, so I’m hoping that my little James is still inside with Mrs Smithson.’

All three ladies walked together towards, and through, the school doors. They could hear the latest song from Lady GaGa pumping out from the speakers in the main hall. As they rounded the corner, Mrs O’Hara was standing there with James Beckington and Sam Prior, both wrapped up in their coats ready for their pending exposure to the summer evening weather, which was at the minute less than summery. The boys left Mrs O’Hara and approached their respective mum.

‘Where is Joshua?’ asked an increasingly concerned Joanna, frustrated in herself that Joshua didn’t have a mobile phone, and that she couldn’t just call him. But he was too young to have a phone.

‘Joshua? Well he went home about fifteen minutes ago. He went home with you, didn’t he? He found you in the school car playground shortly after the disco had finished.’

‘No, I didn’t pick him up, clearly. Did you see him leave with anyone?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. As I say, I thought that he came across to you, standing in the car park with a number of the other parents.’

‘Jesus fucking Christ, I cannot believe that you let a child, my child, leave the building without checking that one of his parents was here to collect him. He is eight years old, for God’s sake.’

Sophie Beckington interjected and looked at the two boys. ‘Did you see Joshua leave the disco?’

‘No, mum,’ responded one.

‘No, sorry, mum,’ said the other in a despondent manner as though they were being blamed for not knowing anything.

‘Look, let’s go back outside and check the car park,’ said Debbie. ‘If Steven hasn’t picked him up, then I bet he’ll still be in the grounds of the car park or the playground somewhere.’ Joanna acknowledged that this was a sensible approach, and was sure that they would find JJ leant against a wall somewhere waiting for his mum. Anything was better than thinking the worst in these situations.

As they exited the school doors they were joined by Mrs O’Hara and the Deputy Head Mrs Smithson, and they started to fan out in all direction to look for Joshua.

‘Joshua…Joshua.’

‘JJ…JJ, it’s Mummy, where are you, darling?’

They searched all the nooks and crevices of the car park, the gardening area, the outbuildings, cycle shed and known hiding places in the playground and school field, but after twenty minutes they came up empty handed and converged back in front of the school doors. The main building, they decided, was the only place left in the entire school grounds that Joshua could be. Having enlisted the help of a teaching assistant, Miss Romely, they set about systematically and thoroughly searching the classrooms, stock cupboards, toilets and shower cubicles; but the internal search was no more successful than that of the outside areas. They found themselves standing down by the school gates, and Joanna was frantic, she took her mobile phone out of her jacket pocket, but in her distressed state she fumbled to hold the phone and it fell to the floor.

‘Fuck.’ She picked it up and started to dial. She was ringing Steven, her husband.

‘Where are you? It’s JJ, where are you?’

‘I’ve just set off from work, babe, why? What’s the matter? What’s JJ done now?’

‘He’s missing, Steve, he’s not at school and we can’t find him. The teachers say that they saw him come out of school after the disco had finished, but they thought he had walked over to me and I that had taken him home.’

‘But you hadn’t?’

‘No, of course of fucking hadn’t.’

‘OK, babe, calm down, he won’t have gone far. Have you checked the school?’

With growing frustration she answered, ‘yes, Steve, we’ve checked the classrooms, playground, and the car park, everywhere.’ She started to sob down the phone. ‘Steve, I can’t find him, I can’t find him anywhere. Do you think that he has been taken by someone?’

‘Okay, listen, don’t worry, he will be safe somewhere, trust me, babe, he will be fine.’ Steve thought for a second. ‘Right, you ring all the parents of his friends, and ask the school to start ringing the parents of all the other kids, you know, those that we don’t know too well. You never know, he might just have gone with anyone of them when you weren’t there. There are over one hundred and twenty kids at the school, babe, and there is a significant chance that JJ is safe with one of their parents.’

‘They would have rung us, Steve, to let us know.’

‘Yes, I accept that, babe, but let’s not rule anything out. Yes…?’

‘Okay.’

After twenty minutes of numerous frantic and escalating emotional phone calls, Joanna had drawn a blank and decided to call Steve back.

‘Steve, I’ve got nothing.’ She started to sob again. ‘Nothing, no-one saw him, no-one picked him up, and no-one knows where he is.’ Her crying started to turn into loud wails, and Debbie Prior wrapped a reassuring arm around her shoulders. Joanna calmed down sufficiently within a couple of minutes in order to continue the conversation with Steve who had been waiting, nervously but patiently, on the other end of the phone.

‘Sorry, babe, nothing from either of our parents. Look, what I need you to do now is go home. The most likely situation now is that JJ has made his own way home and is probably sat on the front doorstep waiting for you. When you think about it, it’s the most logical