Tideline by Penny Hancock Read Free Book Online Page B

fell in the night. Mick had never worried, as far as she could tell. Now he wouldn’t sit still, and she wondered if there was something else behind his concern.
    ‘Have you tried his mobile?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘And you’ve seen the boys today?’
    ‘No. They weren’t up when I went out and they’d gone when I got back.’
    ‘Then Jez will be with them. Relax Mick, please. Look, have a glass of wine, and I’ll make some food. They’ll all be in soon, and we can phone Maria.’
    Ben and Miranda together in Madagascar. She didn’t want to think about it. Couldn’t stop thinking about it.
    ‘Where are the boys’ mobile numbers?’
    ‘On my phone. In my bag.’
    Helen kicked her bag over to Mick. He gave her a look before rummaging through it. He found her mobile and started to press the keys.
    ‘Typical. Both of their bloody phones are switched off,’ he said.
    It was after midnight when they heard the front door swing open and bang against the hall wall. Mick leapt up as Barney came into the room, hair all over his face as usual,
slouching, staggering a little. He brought a blast of frosty night air in with him.
    ‘Shut the door,’ Helen said. ‘It’s freezing. Is Jez with you?’
    ‘Eh?’
    ‘Barney! Tune in!’ said Mick. ‘Jez hasn’t gone back to Paris. And Alicia hasn’t heard from him. Have you any idea where he is?’
    ‘Theo might know.’
    Theo appeared in the doorway, eyes shining, face pink.
    ‘Theo! Where’s Jez?’
    ‘Jez?’
    Helen could see Mick’s jaw tighten with irritation. She knew what he was thinking: he’d like to take his son by the unwashed hood of his smelly sweatshirt and shake some sense into
him. Mick’s disappointment in his own sons had become palpable since Jez arrived. Theo flicked the remote for the TV to come on. Mick told him to turn it off. Helen asked Barney to run up and
put the heating on to constant. She gave up on the idea of eating, poured herself another glass of wine instead.
    ‘I thought he’d gone home,’ Theo said. ‘He said he was going home on Saturday.’
    ‘To Paris?’
    ‘Yeah. Where else?’
    ‘He’s not there. Was he even at the gig last night?’
    Helen watched this new, fraught side of her husband with detachment. His face was scrunched and red. His eyebrows did odd things too, were bushier than before and somehow more mobile. She
wondered when she’d last really looked at him.
    ‘We assumed he was with Alicia,’ Barney was saying.
    ‘Alicia hasn’t seen him,’ said Helen. ‘He was supposed to meet her in the foot tunnel yesterday afternoon and he didn’t turn up.’
    Theo and Barney exchanged glances.
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Helen. ‘That look.’
    ‘Nothing,’ said Theo. ‘It’s just it’s quite funny the way Alicia makes him meet her down there as if it’s somewhere romantic. He’s a bit scared of
saying no to her. Even when he’d rather be with us.’
    ‘He’s whipped,’ Barney muttered and Theo chuckled.
    ‘Whipped?’
    ‘It means he does what he’s told,’ said Barney.
    ‘Slave to little Alicia,’ added Theo. ‘I’ll ring him.’
    They might be lazy, good-for-nothing layabouts, Helen thought through the consoling mist of the alcohol, but nothing can buoy you up like a son. Two sons.
    ‘I don’t suppose there’s any chance he’s gone to his dad’s?’ Mick said. ‘Might he have gone to Marseilles? Did he say anything to you about it? Rather
than stopping in Paris I mean?’
    ‘No. He didn’t mention Marseilles,’ said Barney.
    ‘It’s not connecting,’ Theo said. ‘Must be switched off.’
    ‘What now?’ Mick said. ‘What do we do now, for pity’s sake?’
    The phone call with Maria was long and difficult. Helen tried to sound calm.
    ‘For all we know he’s on the train now, on his way back. He probably went into town shopping on his way to St Pancras. There’ll be an explanation.’
    ‘So he’s got his stuff with him?’ Maria asked.
    It hadn’t