#1

 

and when, exactly, did he become

Detective Ian Ratliff of Missing Persons?

certainly not here

squatting over the compost bin

releasing his insides as his dressing gown swings open

and the dark shapes of trees make busy with the wind

 

and he wants you to know he does have a toilet,

he has two,

not a brag but a fact but

cowboy builders broke the pipes downstairs and

between small-claims court and his wife,

Annie,

who locks herself away every morning,

well…

 

look,

the pinky bits of dawn on the horizon,

and regrets can take any shape,

like the hurt which curves from the bottom of his belly to the

tip

of his spine

 

and £60 can get you a long way,

but that is true in both directions and

sometimes when he cannot sleep he watches Annie

and she mutters and her nostrils flare and

she never says much,

except in couples therapy,

with Norman who wears a Hawaiian shirt and a gold chain

who takes her side by impulse and

look,

here comes the day,

something he can ball up into the shape of a fist and

people want to feel safe and they don’t want to know what that costs,

 

and he will stick around I’m afraid

you might say his self-importance is justified

Detective Ian Ratliff of Missing Persons,

who has lost a son and will shed some blood but I better stop

now,

or I will give it all away

 

#2

 

and he hates those men who

park up and

open the door and

let their lives spill out of the car,

coffee cups and laptops and vetinary boxes and the spare steering wheel

and then spend five minutes stuffing it all back in.

 

and Detective Ian Ratliff of Missing Persons

may be hanging on by a thread

a bottle of whiskey

and TV static

and a headache

and all the sadness raging up inside of him but

when he steps out,

he is a man,

ready to work.

 

#3

 

and there it is,

six-thirty

another day

at the cost of work

 

and it is payday drinks

and the department are going to a bar

on a boat

 

and he tells Annie

that he is going to stay over at a colleague’s

someone she knows but never speaks to

 

and he hires a flat in the city centre

 

and he makes his excuses in the office

until he is sat alone

in a grotty sports bar

with the other lifers

 

and at least,

here,

he doesn’t need to hide his despair

which seems to cast about like a forest fire

 

and he keeps moving bars

 

and he tries to think about nothing in particular

 

a rum and a beer

a rum and a beer

 

and there he is

a stranger,

laid out on his arms

atop the bar

 

and he looks up as Ratliff takes a seat

 

and he is young,

 

and Detective Inspector Ian Ratliff

of Missing Persons

knows something in the young man’s despair

 

and what harm can it do,

to buy him a drink?

 

and then it is much later

 

and he is stood in the flat in the city centre

as the young man lies on the floor

as all the blood in his body runs out,

via the skull

 

and he didn’t touch him,

didn’t lay a finger on him,

but he is still stood there,

not phoning the ambulance as

the life goes

wherever it goes

 

and he takes a seat

 

and he pours a drink

 

and he understands this is the end

of something

 

and then he does reach for his phone

but it isn’t for the emergency service

but an old friend with a van

 

and

 

together

 

they bundle the young man up in the carpet

 

and drop him deep,

into a dark hole

in the earth

 

#4

 

and here is August

where everything dies

bleached grass and bins

rotting in the sunshine

 

where even the pigeons

seem at the end of their

nerves

 

and Detective Ian Ratliff

of Missing Persons

eats a Tesco meal deal

without tasting it

and squints across the square

built to commemorate … someone

 

and hid phone dings

an email, no subject,

and all it says is

 

one hundred thousand

 

and there is an attachment

and his signal is poor

and it takes a minute to download

and then

on the bench surrounded by scorched earth

he watches a four minute video,

blurry,

but unmistakable

watches himself

dispose of a young man’s body

and whoever sent it tried their best to remain anonymous

but,

back at his desk,

it takes him ten minutes to get a name

and a face

and an address

which he recognises,

and yes, he feels a thrill,

and what is it his mum used to say?

 

in for a penny in for a pound

 

an then he follows her over the back fence

and finds her shaking

and gazing up at a streetlamp

 

he steps closer

he thinks about his son

 

who would be twenty five now

and who is the only human he has ever loved

the only one to prove him worthy of that word

 

and he thinks about the gameshow host

and then he sighs

and the hunger begins to leave

and she doesn’t look up at him

but seems very focused on the way the light bunches up against the shadows

and he sighs again

Detective Inspector Ian Ratliff

of Missing Persons

and he lifts the gun

and touches it to the side of his own

head

 

 

—Published 10th of January 2026

 

About Jack Jenkins

Jack Jenkins is a writer and editor from Bristol, UK. He works in children’s publishing and, in his free time, he writes strange, confessional stories and poems. He has been recently published in the Libre Lit, The Adelaide Review, Apple Valley Review and The Frogmore Papers. Currently, he is deep in the draft of a dark espionage thriller called ISME.