Chapter 60
Read on for an extract of Strangers
A conversation with C.L. Taylor
Book club questions for The Missing by C.L. Taylor
Jackdaw44: Do you want to play a game?
ICE9: No.
Jackdaw44: Not sex.
ICE9: What then?
Jackdaw44: Questions. I’m bored. It’s just a bit of fun.
ICE9: …
Jackdaw44: I take it that’s a yes. OK. First question. Would you rather go deaf or blind?
ICE9: You really are bored, aren’t you? Deaf.
Jackdaw44: Would you rather drown in a river or burn in a fire?
ICE9: Neither.
Jackdaw44: You have to choose.
ICE9: Drown in a river.
Jackdaw44: Be buried or cremated?
ICE9: I don’t like this game.
Jackdaw44: It doesn’t mean anything. I’m just trying to get to know you better.
ICE9: Weird way of doing it.
Jackdaw44: I love you. I want to know everything about you.
ICE9: Buried.
Jackdaw44: Be infamous or be forgotten?
ICE9: Forgotten.
Jackdaw44: Seriously???
ICE9: Yes.
Jackdaw44: I’d choose infamy every time.
ICE9: No surprise there.
Jackdaw44: Cry at my funeral or save your tears for private?
ICE9: WHAT?!! Stop being so morbid.
Jackdaw44: I’m not. I’m just preparing you.
ICE9: For what?
ICE9: Hello?
ICE9: HELLO?
Wednesday 5th August 2015
What do you wear when you peer into the barrel of a camera and plead for someone, anyone, to please, please tell you where your child is? A blouse? A jumper? Armour?
Today is the day of the second television appeal. It’s been six months since my son disappeared. Six months? How can it be that long? The counsellor I started seeing four weeks after he was taken from us told me the pain would lessen, that I would never feel his loss as keenly as I did that first day.
She lied.
It takes me the best part of an hour before I can look at myself in the bedroom mirror without crying. My hair, cut in a short elfin style last week,
