1st May 2020
Post date: 01-May-2020 20:19:32
What a day! Dean rang this morning to tell us that Carl has gone missing. He must have sneaked out during the night, because he just wasn’t there when Harry woke up. When Wayne asked Harry where he was at breakfast time, he said that he thought his brother must have got up while he was still asleep. They hunted all over the house and garden, but neither of those are very big and they soon realised that he must have gone out somewhere. His bike was missing from the shed, and so was his school bag and some of his clothes, so it looks as if he was planning to be away for some time. The question was where could he have gone when everywhere is closed and none of his friends’ parents would have allowed him into their houses?
Wayne stayed with Harry while Dean scouted round the neighbourhood, but there was no sign of him and none of the neighbours whose doors they knocked on had seen him. So they rang the police. They got the usual stuff about children usually turning up safe and sound within a few hours, but I don’t think they found that particularly reassuring. For one thing, everything’s different from how it’s ever been before, and nobody knows how it might affect the chances of finding a runaway child
Anna Davenport is in charge of the hunt, which, as we told Dean, is a good thing. She’s a very competent DCI and she’s also a mother, which means that she understands what it’s like for Wayne and Dean to have their son disappearing into the blue. Of course, normally, there’d be teams of people out looking for him. Probably the neighbours would all be scouring the parks and open spaces. As it is, getting a crowd of people together to brief them on what to look for and then setting them off covering every inch of ground in minute detail just isn’t going to happen.
Dean rang again later to say that PC Stanton had been round with PD Q asking for something of Carl’s that had his scent on it so that Q could track him. She seemed to be following a scent trail towards the City centre, but then lost it somewhere near Magdalen Bridge.
Dean says he’ll ring again in the morning to let us know if there’s any more news.