2

 It was 11.07am, the clock on the oven sat unchanging, each minute seeming longer than she had ever thought possible. Lyn was by the sink, the sound of a thousand droplets of water filling the kettle. Tea, that golden liquid that was meant to cure all. How many cups had been made and left undrunk on table and shelf in the past 17 hours? The rings of where the half full cups once stood stayed behind as a reminder of how the house was once full of people asking questions. But now, just like the cups that had been cleared and washed and put away, so the people had gone, leaving behind only dirty marks on table, shelf, floor and mind.

Lyn called to her as she sat on the bottom step, “Do you want a cuppa?” She looked up the stairs to where the two pools of water had been, silently and ominously waiting for her. “No thanks Lyn, just a glass of water please.” Her voice sounded alien, it echoed around the house as if a ventriloquist had answer for her, throwing its voice from the lounge to her lips. She moved up the stairs until she sat on the top step staring at the two damp patches that remained. From here she could hear the past, hear the questions and her own silence filled with a lack of answers. “So Mrs Wunsted, you came up the stairs to help with bath time and they were just gone, your husband and son had....disappeared?” “Had you and your husband had an argument of any sort?” “Was your husband unhappy Mrs Wunsted?” “Is there anywhere they might have gone?” The police officer was kind in his nature but his pacing and constant looks to the window, like a captive lion, made it clear what a waste of his time he felt this was. It hadn’t even been 24 hours and although there was a child involved in the disappearance, it was probably with its father.