The disappearance was investigated.

The cold case has been reviewed.

The fact that investigation has not produced answers is not evidence of investigative failure; it may simply reflect the absence of evidence that would support answers.

But the uncomfortable feeling that the Bourdin story — with its compelling psychological dimensions, its documentary film, its media coverage — has somehow overshadowed the simpler and more important question of what happened to a thirteen-year-old boy, is one that many people who have engaged with this case have expressed.

Nicholas Barclay was real.