I'll Find You

by Liz Lawler

  ‘Do you think it’s genuine?’

  Emily’s eyes shot open and her face stretched wide to stop the threat of tears. She knew Geraldine was just doing her job, but her words caused her chest to ache. For the first time in a year she was hoping that her sister was not lying in some grave, her body still waiting to be found. This was the only evidence that indicated she could still be living.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Geraldine pressed her lips together, concern on her face. ‘I don’t know. How would she have got into your flat? Does anyone else have access to it? Are you dating?’

  ‘She has my spare key. I presume she got in that way. She and the landlord are the only ones to have keys to my flat. I gave her the spare key to feed my fish if I was ever away. Not that she ever did. She always forgot.’ She pulled a guilty face. ‘After she disappeared I forgot about the fish altogether. The poor little things floated to the top one morning. But she used to go there to study as well. There were fewer distractions.’

  Geraldine sipped her coffee and left a film of foam across her upper lip. She wiped it clean. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to find something with Zoe’s writing on so that we can compare it against this note. I will check to see if any CCTV cameras are located around your road and if so, hopefully spot her on one. If she visited your flat this morning it should be an easy search. I don’t suppose you’ve tried calling her?’

  Emily shook her head. ‘I didn’t think of it. It’s been so long since I called her mobile. Though I still search for her on Facebook. I post photos of her, asking if anyone has seen her.’ She pulled out her mobile and a second later she was calling Zoe’s number. Both women heard the recorded message: ‘Please hang up and try again.’

  Geraldine gave a small tut. ‘Well, that’s to be expected. As you know, there’s been no activity from her mobile, social media or banking since she disappeared. She’s been missing for thirteen months and this note may be the first contact she has made. But why now?’

  ‘Maybe because she just turned twenty?’ said Emily, hopefully. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she’s been out of the country and has come back and spotted one of the posters. Or, like the note says, she wants me to stop looking.’

  Geraldine sighed again. ‘This is going to be hard for you. Please don’t get your hopes up. We will do everything we can to check out if this is genuine. Another thought that crosses my mind: could one of her flatmates have done this? Maybe as an act of kindness? Perhaps they found your key and thought about what you’re going through. We’ll ask them, of course. Ask if any of them have had any contact with her. I’m thinking that we should check the photo frame for prints and have the note and envelope sent to the lab. We have Zoe’s fingerprints on file. Her DNA. Though not a sample of her handwriting, if memory serves me right.’

  Emily sipped her tea while Geraldine munched on the toast. Everything was happening so fast. In a short time she might know if her sister was still alive.

  Geraldine eyed her with concern. ‘So, you came home from work unwell. Are you OK?’

  ‘It was just a headache. It’s gone now.’ She decided she wouldn’t mention the last two weeks, the lead-up to the real reason she was sent home – her preoccupation with finding a so-called missing patient. She was just glad she had an answer to that particular problem, now that she needed to concentrate on Zoe right now and not have her mind elsewhere. Finding that girl to give back a bracelet was the last thing on her mind. It was probably of little value anyway. She could no longer afford to think about someone who had briefly stepped into her life when Zoe was out there to find. That’s where she needed to focus. Her year of searching may finally be coming to an end.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Geraldine stopped at the traffic lights as she waited to cross the road. Everywhere she looked she could see tourists. Hear them. Their excited voices pitched loudly, speaking in other languages as they pointed at the buildings around them. She shamefully took for granted this beautiful city and bemoaned its hilly streets, especially after shopping.

  The lights finally changed and she continued her walk back to the One Stop Shop to collect her bags. The note and envelope in the sandwich bag were now in her possession. She would send them to be chemically treated and ask for it to be done as a high priority. Then she would wait for Emily to find something with Zoe’s handwriting on before setting in motion the need for analysis. She wished she felt more excited by this message. While she was prepared to keep an open mind – lots of people disappeared every day and were found – the disappearance of Zoe had always struck her as sinister. She believed the young nurse had met with someone that day, someone who had caused her harm, and that it was only a matter of time before the body of Zoe Jacobs was found. She didn’t fit the profile of a runaway. Being in debt or failing exams had caused many people to commit suicide or run away from their troubles, but in all the interviews with friends, family, colleagues, her GP, her tutors, Zoe was considered a lover of life. Her character suggested she could weather such pressure and disappointments, ride them out. Nothing in her character suggested that she would abandon her family, especially her sister, and go into hiding. It was this collective opinion, and the lack of an indicator of a serious problem in Zoe’s life, which decided for Geraldine to believe that Zoe was missing unintentionally.

  If that was the case, and Zoe was in fact already dead, who had placed the note in Emily’s flat? Clearly someone who had access. The landlord? A friend? Someone more sinister?

  Geraldine had worked her fair share of missing persons cases, and seen the hope slowly diminish as each day passed until a light extinguished in the eyes of the family waiting for news. In Emily’s eyes the light never went out. She suffered long and hard to keep it burning brightly, and guilt played a large part in keeping it alive. If only. The cry of the guilty meant that they punished themselves, tortured themselves because they believed they could have done something to prevent that person disappearing. They thought that they should have done this or they could have done that, usually citing all the things that they didn’t do. Emily had punished herself to the point of making herself ill. Her search for her sister had almost walked the flesh off her bones. She had taken things to the extreme by crawling into a mortuary fridge, and Geraldine truly believed that if Emily could have dug up freshly covered graves in the days following Zoe’s disappearance, she would have.

  If things had gone better from the outset of the investigation, maybe things would be different now. Maybe the mystery of Zoe’s disappearance would have been uncovered. The best thing she could do for Emily was to find Zoe, though Geraldine didn’t hold out much hope of that happening anytime soon. Her large team at the beginning of the investigation had been reduced to just her, and support officers as and when new evidence came to light. Geraldine was just a point of contact for the family. Zoe’s case was assessed as high-risk three days after she went missing. The golden hour had well and truly gone by then. And so too had the hospital CCTV footage showing her heading to the short road used by delivery vehicles. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been able to view the footage again due to a power surge at the hospital the following day and the digital data was not backed up and stored on a server. The fact that the police officer in charge of the footage had had the chance to record it when he first looked at it, using either his goddamn phone or getting someone at the hospital to download the CCTV onto a USB stick, had seriously annoyed Geraldine. He’d discovered the problem with the footage when Geraldine asked for it, coming back from the hospital sheepishly, saying that there was nothing they could do to help. It was vital evidence that would have shown the vehicles on the road that Sunday morning at around the same time that Zoe would have been there, but now it was gone for ever. CCTV was not in place along the main road where she would have come out. But Geraldine’s best guess had always been that she was picked up before she ever got there. And whoever took her still had her or had disposed of her body somewhere.


  Geraldine carried the guilt of that cockup as if it were her own. The team had done everything else they could; a full-scale search had been put in place, along with force helicopters, dogs, divers and search teams. All enquiries made. Press statements released. TV appeals made. At the first review, twenty-eight days later, they had nothing to show for the long hours put in and the costs incurred. They had absolutely nothing except for their own failed fuckup. A plod who failed to secure evidence, which then got destroyed – and it only got worse from there. The gormless git then couldn’t bring to mind anything he had seen on the tape. Geraldine remembered that Emily had tried so hard to remember any cars she might have seen on the footage, but all she could recall seeing was her sister.

  She wished she had more faith in this note being genuine. She would certainly treat it as such. Yet fast-forwarding a few days, she simply couldn’t see herself making a statement to the press with the news that Zoe Jacobs had been found.

  *

  Monica Summers hugged the patient who came into her office, then stepped back as if fully appraising her. ‘Well, you don’t look ill, so I hope this is a social visit.’

  Emily sat down and surveyed her GP and friend, a friend she had given little thought to for some months now. The two had become friends when Monica had worked one day a week in the emergency department to better her clinical skills. Though a highly trained general practitioner who spent her days diagnosing, treating and referring, she had felt her hands-on skills with life-threatening emergencies were out of practice. She had shadowed Emily and taken every opportunity to improve herself, and not just with the emergencies. She inserted cannulas, catheters, set up drip lines, sutured wounds, stapled wounds, put dislocated shoulders back in place, set broken limbs in casts. She had arrived nervous, with clammy hands, a fish out of water, and Emily had looked at the tiny woman with her small features and mousy hair – who she later learned could pack a mean verbal punch when she needed to and had an intellect Emily could only envy – and taken her under her wing. Their relationship had worked on all levels, and until Zoe’s disappearance they’d had regular contact. Emily had been invited into the doctor’s home, met her husband, her son and had enjoyed being part of a stable, loving family for a while. The only time she saw her old friend now was as a patient.

  ‘Well, I’m here because I meant to get you to declare me fit for work.’

  Monica made an ‘o’ shape with her mouth, a small frown bringing her thin eyebrows together.

  ‘I think I lost the plot for a little while, Monica. Well, no, that’s not true, I got fixated on a situation, a missing patient, but I’m fine now. In fact, I’m better than fine.’

  Monica was blinking fast, clearly not having a clue what her patient was trying to tell her.

  Emily drew a breath and started at the beginning, and a good ten minutes later Monica was still wearing the same expression, only now her brows were almost touching her hairline.

  ‘Oh my goodness, you poor thing. What a terrible ordeal you’ve been through, and now you have all the hope and worry of this letter you have found. Are you sure you want to work while all that is going on? I can sign you off sick, you know. It’s not a problem. It would be entirely understandable following today’s discovery.’

  Emily shook her head. ‘If I need time off, I’d rather take unpaid or compassionate leave. No, I need to work, Monica. I can do both – assist the police and carry on with my job. Being busy is the best remedy for me.’

  ‘You certainly look well. Have you discussed all this with Eric Hudson?’

  Emily’s thumb instinctively went to her mouth. ‘Of course,’ she mumbled as she chewed a corner of her nail.

  ‘And he’s OK with everything you’ve told him?’

  Emily shrugged. ‘I haven’t yet had a chance to tell him that I’ve found a reason for seeing this missing patient in my room.’

  Monica wrapped her arms around herself, as if trying to get warm. ‘It’s so good to see you. I’ve been so worried about you. Are you sure you’re doing OK?’

  Emily nodded vigorously, feeling unnerved by Monica’s concern. ‘I’m fine, Monica. Just get me back to work. I can do the rest.’

  With a sick note signed by her GP declaring her fit and well, Emily slowly walked out of the surgery. The excitement upon discovering that Zoe might be alive was starting to fizzle out. She hated the attention of people worrying about her.

  *

  Geraldine stood up to let PC Ruth Moore take her seat in front of the bank of screens. At Geraldine’s request, she’d been dispatched to take over the search for a sighting of Zoe Jacobs’ face, because she was more familiar with Zoe’s image. Ruth had been the family liaison officer assigned to the Jacobses, though it had been a long time since any of them had contacted her. They went straight to Geraldine instead if they wanted information. The CCTV control room was only a short stroll from the One Stop Shop, and Geraldine had wandered up to start the search herself. So far she hadn’t found any sighting of Zoe Jacobs. She had viewed footage from four street cameras covering that area and had seen only Emily leaving her flat and returning to it this morning. Geraldine now wanted Ruth to concentrate on Emily’s road again, but for the day before. If that proved unhelpful, she’d ask her to go back another day. As the constable got comfortable in the chair, Geraldine peered over her shoulder. Although they had a clear view of the street, the doorway to Emily’s flat was out of shot. She would ask Emily when exactly she had last seen the photo before it was moved, to help pinpoint more accurately when the note might have been put there. Emily had found the note this morning, but it could have been there for a few days.

  She tapped the officer’s shoulder. ‘I’m going now. Call me if you spot anything.’

  Ruth nodded. ‘How’s Emily holding up? This must have really shaken her. Last time I saw her, the poor thing looked like a basket case.’

  Geraldine pulled a face. ‘Best not use that description. At least not in anyone’s presence.’

  Ruth wrinkled her brow, then caught on. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘She’s doing well by the sounds of things. Back at work.’

  ‘Gosh,’ the surprise in Ruth’s voice was evident. ‘She is doing well. I liked her counsellor, mind. I’d recommend him anytime. You remember when Emily used to almost camp out at the station? He’d come and talk to her after we gave her the same old, same old. He had a lovely way about him.’

  As Geraldine exited the Guildhall, she glanced at a couple kissing on the entrance steps. The magnificent building, which housed, among other things, the twenty-four-hour CCTV control room, was also home to the Mayor’s Parlour, city archives and the Registry Office. It was this last purpose which she suspected was the reason for their being there, seeing the small bunch of white roses clutched in the woman’s hand. Switching her gaze away she scrolled through her mobile contacts and tapped Eric Hudson’s number.

  ‘Hello, DI Sutton,’ she heard him say.

  Geraldine smiled. She loved the sound of his voice. It was measured, warm and with a hint of humour in the tone. If she could fancy a man for his voice alone Eric would win hands down. Her husband’s voice was pure Bristolian. She had become used to his, ‘Where you tos?’ and ‘Don’t do that, minds.’ Though she was trying to ensure that the kids didn’t copy him. Her oldest, Tommy, had asked the ice cream man for a ‘gert’ big one only yesterday.

  ‘Hello Eric, I’m just calling regarding Emily Jacobs. How do you think she’s doing? I’m not expecting you to break any patient confidentiality or anything, I just want your take, really, on this latest find.’

  The psychologist remained silent and for a second Geraldine wondered if they were still connected.

  ‘What latest find?’

  Geraldine was glad he couldn’t see her face, feeling suddenly foolish. Why should Eric know about something that had only happened this morning? ‘Oh, it was just a thought that if she had told you, you might have an opinion. It was only discovered t
his morning, so no doubt she’ll tell you sometime. Emily found something. I can’t really say what at the moment, Eric, as it’s now part of an ongoing enquiry. The information would need to come to you directly from her. Do you understand?’

  ‘Sure,’ he replied, his tone of voice more serious. ‘I’ll let Emily tell me. Is it a good find?’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t know yet. It’s certainly something we need to check out.’

  As they said their goodbyes, Geraldine saw she’d received a text from Emily:

  Thanks for the tea. Both scared and excited for the next few hours. Praying you spot her soon.

  Geraldine sighed. She hoped Emily would find a sample of Zoe’s writing and lay to rest her concern that this letter was not quite kosher.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Emily was sure the bin liners in her spare bedroom had been touched since she last went through them. She hadn’t noticed it that morning when she found the note. She had walked out of the room with the note in her hand and hadn’t gone back in. She now wondered whether she had touched them while on her little walkabout. Geraldine had replied to her text, reminding her to look for the handwriting sample and warning her not to handle the photograph frame again as she wanted it dusted for fingerprints. Emily wondered if they’d also check her flat for other places Zoe may have touched: the front door, this bedroom door and possibly these bin liners. The bin liners sat on top of cardboard boxes covering the length of the single bed, set against the wall. On the opposite wall were Emily’s investigations – her notes, photographs, maps, newspaper cuttings curling at the edges; her year of searching for Zoe at a standstill. The narrow space between the bed and ‘Zoe’s Wall’ was the space where Emily did her thinking, as if by being among Zoe’s things she would find her sister more easily.