The Boy in the Park: A gripping psychological thriller with a shocking twist

It is discouraging to walk into the office of a law enforcement officer and immediately sense a spirit of mistrust and disbelief, but this is precisely what I feel as I enter into Lieutenant Brian Delvay’s office at mid-morning. I’d asked to speak with someone involved in missing persons, and after being kept waiting for almost an hour while others in the office conferred and passed the request from one set of ears to another, I’d finally been led through the back to a small room in which Delvay was waiting for me. I don’t know if he’s a man who doesn’t enjoy his job, or if for some other reason he’s just become a rather jaded character, but there was little eagerness in his eyes as I approached his workspace, and there’s little there now that I’m sitting before him.

He produces the requisite form from a drawer in a clanking, metal desk. He lays it flat on the surface, cracks his knuckles, and takes up a pen in his right hand. This all appears to be a routine of which he’s long since grown tired. He fills out a few lines in silence before finally raising his head to look directly at me. His hair is greasy, lumped strands flopping down from what were probably neatly combed rows when he left home this morning. I can smell that he’s a heavy smoker. He looks like he spends too much time at the gym. His arms are disproportionately massive in comparison to the rest of his torso.

Behind us, the door to his office still open, there are noises of the general melee of others going about their business.

‘I’m told you want to speak with me about a missing person.’ He places the tip of his pen inside one of the fields on what looks like a bespoke form. ‘Can you tell me your relationship to whomever it is you believe has gone missing.’

I immediately dislike the flippancy in his tone.

‘I’m not related,’ I answer. ‘I’m reporting the abduction of a little boy.’

Officer Delvay squints his brows and scribbles down a few words.

‘A boy, then. How long has the boy been missing?’

‘Since yesterday afternoon at twelve forty-nine p.m.’

He looks up. ‘That’s awfully specific.’

‘That’s the last time I saw him. I know the time because it was just at the end of my lunch break. I’m there every day. In the Botanical Gardens. I saw him, and then he was gone.’

I’m not surprised that there’s a look of suspicion in his eyes. The words sound strange even to me, and were I not sure of what I’d witnessed I would be inclined to disbelieve myself.

‘What’s this boy’s name?’ Delvay asks.

‘I don’t know.’

He peers at me for a few seconds, then returns to writing on the form. I’m pleased that he’s taking down the details. I wasn’t able to do anything directly for the boy yesterday, but this feels like a concrete step in his favour. Something I can actually contribute to his well-being, being penned on an official document by an officer of the law.

‘It’s strange to me that you’re filing a report without knowing the boy’s name,’ the officer finally says.

‘I’ve never met him before,’ I answer honestly. ‘I’ve only seen him in the park.’

Officer Delvay’s eyebrows wander up his face. He can’t seem to help it. Surprise is evident on all his features. He scribbles on the form in earnest, which I take as an act aimed more at calling himself out of his surprised stare than of actual note-taking. It’s clear I’m not convincing him.

‘If you don’t know the child, don’t even know his name and you’ve only ever seen him in a park, then how can you know he’s missing?’

I squirm a little in my seat. I’m entirely aware how strange this whole scenario is.

‘Because I haven’t seen him in the park lately. I always see him there. It’s been a daily thing. For as long as I can remember.’

‘You – watch this boy in the park?’ The officer is now squinting out a sentiment other than simple curiosity.

‘It’s nothing like that,’ I answer. God forbid he should believe I would do, or even think, anything untoward to a child. The notion is repugnant. ‘I go there every day to sit and write. And he’s always there. Always.’

Officer Delvay sets down his pen and leans back in his chair. He looks exasperated, annoyed.

‘I don’t know what to tell you. We can’t file a missing persons report on a child we can neither name nor identify, and whom you don’t even know is actually missing.’

‘But I saw him taken.’

Delvay stiffens. He grabs his pen again. ‘You personally observed a child being abducted?’

‘I saw a hand grab him and pull him back from the edge of the pond.’

The officer contemplates this for a few seconds. His words are choppy when they come. ‘Pull him back?’ he asks. ‘From a pond?’ Suddenly his tone is tainted with sarcasm. ‘Maybe it was one of his parents.’

‘I don’t know his parents. I’ve never set eyes on them.’

The pen is flat again. Delvay’s expression is broadcasting unsalvageable disbelief. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

‘Why aren’t you taking this more seriously?’ I ask. I’m deeply annoyed.

‘I’m sorry, but I’m taking it as seriously as I can. You’re suggesting you witnessed someone pull back a young child from a spot too close to the water of a pond, who could easily have been his parent. You don’t know. That’s not an abduction. That might just be good parenting.’

‘But he was hurt.’

‘All the more reason to keep him from playing off on his own. And by the water!’

I can feel my body sagging in frustration. Officer Delvay is trying to look sympathetic, but it is evident he isn’t feeling it.

He hesitates, then looks directly into my eyes. ‘While you’re here, maybe you can tell me, for the report … are you on any medications?’

I’m startled by the question. ‘Medications?’

‘Anything new? Anything that might be, I don’t know, impairing your judgement?’

I’m confused for a few seconds, but suddenly his meaning registers. He thinks I’m drugged up. Thinks I’m inventing all this. Here I am, trying to help an innocent child, and this worthless police officer is asking questions about my mental clarity and what pills I might be popping to cloud it.

‘No,’ I snap, rising to my feet, ‘I’m not taking any medications.’ I stress the final word. We both know it’s code for what he’s really suggesting, and I might as well have said ‘crack’ or ‘meth’. Me, a man who works in a health food shop!

‘And I don’t appreciate the insinuation,’ I add, straightening my shirt in the only act of demonstrative protest I can think of. ‘I’ve come here to be of help, and to ask for yours. Not to deal with your jaded attitude. There’s a boy in trouble.’

I make to sit back down, but Delvay is now standing. There is an air of finality to his demeanour. He’s showing me the door, figuratively and literally.

‘I’m sorry, there’s really nothing we can do. If you’ve ever got something substantive, you can always come back, Mr … Aaronsen, is it?’

I nod. I’d given my details to the desk clerk when I first arrived. ‘You’ll make a proper note of all this, at least?’ I ask as I leave.

‘You can be sure of that. I’ll put everything in the file.’

That, at least, makes me feel a little better. Because I’m quite certain that the boy is missing, and that at some point others are going to become aware he’s missing, and these notes are going to be important.

11 (#ulink_34f59691-8988-5246-9427-e2e9005909b1)

Sunday (#ulink_34f59691-8988-5246-9427-e2e9005909b1)

I am not sorry that I went to the police yesterday. Not sorry, though I do feel a bit the fool. What I must have looked like, an almost middle-ager in a stressed state, trying to attract police interest to a case in which an unknown child, of unknown parents, with no name, vanishes from nothing more than a pattern of being present beside a pond to which I’d grown accustomed. I’m not a nutcase, but hell, after that display I’d be hard pressed to prove it.