The Missing: The gripping psychological thriller that’s got everyone talking...

The voice fills my brain, screaming and buzzing, and my head is vibrating and the light, happy feeling inside me is fading.

Dark. Light. Dark. Light.

My thoughts are dark and foggy, then brighter, clearer and then, just for a second – a split second – I know who Claire is, then the darkness returns and with it a confusion so disorientating my hands instinctively clench as I try to anchor myself to something, anything solid. There is something smooth and slippery soft under my fingers. Bed linen. I am sitting on a bed. But this is not my bed, this is not my room. There is a framed art print on the wall to my right: a faded Lowry, stick people milling around a town. There is a lone boy in the centre of the scene. He has his back to me. He’s looking at the crowd of people spilling out of one of the buildings. Who is he looking for? Who has he lost?

A shrill sound makes me jump. A small black mobile phone jiggles back and forth on the orangey pine bedside table to my right. A name flashes onto the screen. A name I don’t recognize. But the noise hurts my head and I need it to stop.

I reach for the phone and press it to my ear.

‘Mum?’ says the voice on the other end of the line.

I want to reply but I can’t talk. I can’t think. I can’t … it’s as though my mind has shattered. I can’t focus … I can’t form coherent … what’s happening to me?

‘Mum?’

‘Claire.’ I say the word out loud. It sounds strange. Like a noise, a sound, an outward breath. ‘Cl-airrrrr.’

‘Mum? Why are you saying your name?’

My name?

‘Cl-airrrrrr.’

‘Mum, you’re freaking me out. Stop doing that.‘

‘Claire.’ The word crystallizes inside my mouth. It tastes familiar. As though I’ve known it for a long time. Like buttered toast. Like toothpaste. ‘Claire. Claire Wilkinson.’

‘Oh Jesus Christ. Dad, I think she’s having a stroke or something.’

My head … my head … my brain hurts … no, aches … but not a headache … foggy … and then a thought, breaking through the darkness and I grip hold of it as though it is a rock to tether my sanity to.

‘Is my name Claire Wilkinson?’

‘Yes, yes, it is. Jesus, Mum. We’ve been trying to ring you for hours. Where are you?’

Mum. I am a mum? The man on the phone sounds scared. Is he scared for me? Or of me? I don’t know. Nothing makes any sense.

‘Where are you?’ says the voice on the phone.

‘I’m … I’m …’ There are gingham curtains at the far end of the room and a full-length mirror, smeared with fingerprints. Beneath me is a bedspread. Pink, satiny, puffy. I dig my nails into it and cling to it, rigid with fear. ‘I don’t know. I don’t recognize this room.’

‘It’s okay, Mum,’ the man on the phone says. ‘Just … sorry, hang on a second …’ There’s a muffled sound like a hand being placed over the receiver but I can still make out the low rumble of his voice.

‘Mum?’ His voice is clear again. ‘Is there a door or a window you could open? Tell me what you can see.’

I don’t want to move from the bed. I don’t want to open the pine door to my right or the closed gingham curtains at the far end of the room.

‘Please, Mum. As soon as we know where you are we can come and get you.’

We? Who is we? Who is coming to get me? I’m in danger. I need to run but I can’t move.

‘Dad’s here, Mum. Do you want to speak to him?’

‘No,’ I say and I don’t know why.

‘Are you sure?’ the man says and an image appears in my mind – vivid and sharp in the gloom – of a young man with tousled fair hair, shaved at the sides, and broad shoulders, lying on a bench, pushing weights into the air.

‘Jake?’ I venture.

‘Yes, Mum. It’s Jake. I’m at home with Dad. Liz just came round, wanting to talk to you. That’s when we realized you’d gone missing.’

I search for a memory, something, anything, to still my mind, to stop this terrifying free-fall sensation. Where is my home? Why don’t I remember?

‘Yes, I know, okay. Okay, Dad.’ The man is talking to someone else again. ‘I just asked her that. Mum, can you describe what you can see?’

I look back at the Lowry painting, at the boy standing right of centre staring into the crowd, looking for someone, then I look at the shiny pale pink bedspread, the mirror, the cheap pine table and the white tea tray.

‘I think I’m in a hotel room.’

‘Is there a phone? Can you ring reception to find out which hotel you’re in? Or is there a brochure or room-service menu anywhere?’

I slide across the pink bedspread and press my toes into the worn pile of the beige carpet, then inch my way across the room, keeping one eye on the door, and approach the table near the mirror. There’s a white china teapot on a tray and two cups and saucers. There’s also a dish containing tea, coffee, sugar and tiny cartons of milk. There are no brochures, no menus, no phone. Nothing else in the room at all other than my handbag and boots, with my socks tucked into the top, on the floor by the bed.

I touch the edge of the gingham curtain and tentatively pull it back. Outside is a low railing, a balcony and a stretch of grey-brown sea with a lump of land in the distance, an island shaped like a turtle’s back.

‘Steep Holm,’ I say and the darkness in my mind fades from black to grey at the sight of the familiar lump of rock in the distance. ‘Jake, I’m in Weston-super-Mare.’

As he relays the information I feel a sudden desperate urge to throw open the window and inhale great lungfuls of sea air but when I yank at the sash it only opens a couple of inches at the bottom.

‘Do you know which hotel, Mum?’ Jake asks. ‘If you stay where you are we’ll come and get you.’

It’s a small room: shabby but warm and clean. The floral wallpaper behind the bed is peeling in one corner and when I open the door to the en suite there are no branded toiletries, just a bar of soap in a frilled wrapper and a glass, misted with age, on the shelf above the sink. There is no welcome pack on the table that holds the tea and coffee things, no branded coaster or complimentary notepad.

‘Reception,’ I say. ‘Need to find reception.’ But then I spot a fire-evacuation notice pinned next to the door. It is signed at the bottom by Steve Jenkins, Owner, Day’s Rest B&B.

‘Day’s Rest,’ I say. ‘I’m at Day’s Rest B&B.’

‘The one we used to stay in as kids,’ Jake says and I have to steady myself against the wall as a wave of grief knocks the breath from my lungs.

Billy.

I have two sons. Jake and Billy. Billy is missing. He’s missing.

‘Mum?’ The worry in Jake’s voice bounces off me like a stone skimming the sea.

I snatch up my handbag, my boots and my socks and I reach for the door handle.

‘Mum?’ he says again as I yank open the door.