Missing in Tokyo by Graham Marks

he’d left him, still trying to attract the punters. Adam stopped and stared at him, long enough for the man to pick up, the weird way you can do sometimes, that he was being observed. He looked straight across the road at Adam, smiled a yard of teeth and waved. Adam shook his head and went down the stairway, back to his box.

16
Unwept, unhonoured and unsung
    You weren’t supposed to park in a teacher’s space, but it was raining and, quite frankly, thought Tony Grey as he killed the engine, so what. He was trying to hold it all together, but when something like this happened, and nothing in the life you’d led so far gave you any kind of experience to know what you should do or how you should act, it was hard. It was like the first day of your first job, that feeling that whatever you did was bound to be wrong.
    He knew Sarah understood how he was feeling, but he didn’t know about Adam. Over the last week there’d been a look in his son’s eyes sometimes that made him feel weirdly guilty that he wasn’t doing enough. Inside he was like a tightly wound spring, waiting to be released, and Adam was old enough, surely, to understand he was jammed solid by the desperate state of affairs with Angie and Eddy. God, whoever wanted to grow old …
    As he walked round to where he could see students starting to exit the campus site where Adam’s sixth form college was, Tony scanned the faces for one he might be familiar with from the old junior school days when Adam still had birthday parties and he knew just about all his friends. Hardas he tried, though, no one rang any kind of bell.
    â€˜Hi … Mr Grey?’
    Tony looked round and saw a boy, about Adam’s age, smiling at him. ‘Hello … do I … do I know you?’
    â€˜I’m Andy, Andy Cornwell … I was at Hillside with Adam?’
    â€˜Oh yeah, right. I’m sorry, didn’t recognise you.’ Tony shook his head. ‘It’s been a few years, you’ve all kind of morphed.’
    â€˜You’re not looking for Adam, are you? Not, you know, here?’ Andy looked somehow uneasy.
    â€˜I do know he’s been suspended, he didn’t forget to tell us, but I am looking for Adam. The police want to interview him again, as soon as possible, and he hasn’t been home since yesterday. We think he’s with his girlfriend – Suzy, is it?’ Tony thought he saw the boy almost nod. ‘Look, Andy, I know Adam would go ballistic if he thought I’d been up here asking questions about his private life, but it is so private we have no way of getting in touch with him, no idea where he is. Have you seen him?’
    â€˜Not since the weekend, actually. Texted him yesterday, but not had a reply.’
    â€˜Is Suzy – that is her name, isn’t it?’ Still no response. ‘Is she here? Could you point her out to me? I really do need to talk to him.’
    â€˜Is Charlie going to be OK?’
    The question took Tony completely by surprise, coming right out of the left field. ‘I, uh … I think so. I hope so. I don’t really know, Andy. I don’t know anything, really, nothing at all.’ He stopped and breathed in slowly, tamping down the fire inside that made him want to shake this boy and force him to say what he wanted to know. ‘Are you going to help me?’
    Tony had tried to keep the edge out of his voice, but he knew he hadn’t succeeded; he watched Andy move back slightly.
    â€˜Help you?’
    â€˜You’re not ratting anyone out, just helping. Adam isn’t in trouble, he’s just been in touch with Charlie more than we have, that’s all the police want to check on. Maybe there’s something she’s said that might help find her.’
    â€˜OK, look,’ Andy glanced round, almost furtively, ‘Suzy wasn’t in this afternoon. I think she had a revision period.’
    â€˜Where does she