Rock, Paper, Scissors

by B Baskerville

  “She said she wanted to take me to Bangkok this summer, we’ve been saving up for the flights. Anyway, I was freaking out that she’d met someone or was sick of me because I’m not interesting enough or not exciting enough. I was proper paranoid. So I thought I’d pick up a little gift and go over and see her. I got pastries and a Frappuccino but when Pearl answered the door and I said I was there to see Macey, her face sort of fell. She pulled me inside and started going on about how she thought Macey was with me and I told her I thought she was there. Pearl tried to call her but it went straight to voicemail, I tried as well but the same thing happened. That’s when we properly started to fret. Pearl was hyperventilating. We rang everyone we knew but no one had seen her.”

  Cooper crossed her legs and tapped the end of her pen against her notepad. The way Aaron Quinn was pacing and constantly fidgeting had caught Cooper’s attention. It would be perfectly natural for him to be anxious about his girlfriend’s disappearance, but he was coming across more nervous than worried. The traits were similar, but in all her years of police work, Cooper had learnt the difference.

  “Aaron, do you mind if DS Daniel takes a quick look around while I finish up my questions?”

  His eyes darted to the door leading to the hallway and bedrooms. “Why?” he asked. “Don’t you need a warrant?”

  Cooper kept her face neutral. “The hair sample we took from Macey’s brush yesterday didn’t have enough root to provide us with a DNA sample; I was hoping we could find something with Macey’s DNA here.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. The hair sample was with the lab and she hadn’t heard yet if the quality was good enough to extract DNA from. “And, we only need a warrant if you won’t let us look around. Is there a reason you wouldn’t want to cooperate?”

  Back and forth Aaron’s eyes flickered between Cooper and Tennessee. “Okay, go ahead. Sorry about the mess though. Three lads under twenty. We’re not the tidiest.” He took a seat and immediately stood up again as Tennessee excused himself.

  Cooper gave a little cough to bring his attention back to her. “Does Macey have any friends in Gateshead or South Tyneside?”

  “Gateshead?” His expression turned to one of a man racking his brains. “South Tyneside? Don’t think so. I mean some of her uni friends might be from there but not that she’s mentioned.”

  “No relatives in that area?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Her whole family’s in Ireland. Why?”

  “We heard from her network provider that her phone was in Jarrow on Monday.” Cooper saw Aaron’s pupils dilate. “That doesn’t mean she was there, of course, her phone could have been stolen, and I appreciate that you think Macey was in a good place, mentally, and that you don’t think she would have harmed herself, but there’s also the possibility that she left and doesn’t want to be found.”

  Aaron’s exterior toughened. “That’s not her style,” he said gruffly.

  “Mr Gallagher, Macey’s father, seemed to think Macey had a habit of running away or going AWOL.”

  A look of hurt passed over Aaron’s face as he contemplated the idea. “She had no reason to run away. She loves me and she loves Pearl. She’s doing well at uni. She’s happy. I promise you she’s happy. You can’t give up on her, we have to find her.”

  Cooper stood as Tennessee re-entered the room. “It’s okay, Aaron. I’m not giving up on Macey. I promise. I don’t think she would leave without her insulin and I’m going to do my very best to find her.”

  Aaron wrapped his arms around himself and let his chin fall to his chest.

  “Call us if you can think of anything else, and be careful with those posters, Aaron. There’s a lot of sick people out there and you’ll no doubt get hoax calls, time-wasters and cranks.”

  His jaw slackened for a moment. He hadn’t considered that.

  Out in the cool breeze of Heaton Road, Cooper turned to the DS. “Find anything interesting?”

  “Some alt-right literature and about fifty Adderall pills, but no sign of foul play if that’s what you mean.”

  Cooper started walking back towards her car.

  “But I need to see the photo of Macey again,” added Tennessee.

  Cooper unlocked her phone, opened the photo app and handed it over. As Tennessee studied the photograph that Pearl had sent her, her mind drifted back to the night she and Kenny had met at the Metallica gig. Catching herself feeling all warm and fuzzy, she vigorously shook her arms out as if to free herself from such ridiculous thoughts. As Tennessee handed the phone back to her, she pushed Kenny from her head and glanced at her messages to see if Justin - sweet, intelligent Justin - had been in touch. He hadn’t.

  “What did you need the photograph for?” Cooper asked.

  “I thought I remembered Macey being fairly slim but I wanted to check. There was a bra in Aaron’s room, under the bed. The label said thirty-eight D.”

  “There’s no way that can be Macey’s. Far too big.”

  “So, my theory is that Aaron Quinn and Macey Gallagher aren’t as loved up as he wants us to believe.”

  Cooper raised her brows and looked up at Aaron’s flat. Aaron’s face was pressed up against the glass, watching the two detectives on the street below. As soon as he made eye contact with Cooper, he disappeared behind the curtain.

  Tennessee patted Cooper on the shoulder and pointed across the Metro bridge that connected Heaton with the ward of Byker. A pasty man in board shorts with scrawny, lily-white legs poking out of them, reached into his pocket before shaking hands with a greasy-haired girl with a terrible bout of the shakes. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  - Chapter 7 -

  “Well, well, well,” Tennessee smirked. “If it isn’t my old acquaintance, Mitch Logan. How’s my favourite petty criminal?”

  “Oh, bugger off, will ya?” Mitch Logan stood no more than five-foot-four and wouldn’t weigh more than eight stone if he was fully dressed and soaking wet. His shaved head reflected the sun and his bare, pigeon chest was tattooed with a Sunderland AFC crest; a brave move in these parts.

  “Boss, have you had the honour of dealing with this little toe rag?”

  “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure. Mitch Logan, did you say? I’m DCI Cooper.”

  Tennessee folded his arms over his chest and grinned knowingly. “Did you hear the joke about the skinny chav who robbed a load of tools and paint from a building site?”

  Mitch propped himself up on a low wall and pouted. “Oh aye, here we go. Never going to live it down, am I?”

  “Well the dummy dropped one of the tins of paint, the paint spilt and he stood in it. Left a trail of magnolia footprints right to his front door.”

  Cooper chuckled. “That was you? I remember that case. It won the Piece of Piss award at the department Christmas party last year because a three-year-old could have solved it.”

  “Aye, that was me. Sixty hours community fucking service. So what do you two want?”

  “Ah, just a catch-up,” teased Tennessee, “and to conduct a stop and search.”

  Mitch tensed. “You can’t do that. I know my rights. You need reasonable suspicion.”

  Tennessee snorted. “I literally just watched you give something to a girl who was shaking so hard she’d register on the Richter scale. I am reasonably suspicious that you are dealing drugs. Now empty your pockets.”

  Mitch threw his arms out wide. “I gave her a stick of chewy. That’s all.”

  Tennessee glanced at Mitch, his watch, then back to Mitch. “I’m waiting.”

  “Fine,” he grunted after looking left and right and deciding that running wasn’t a wise choice. One by one he laid the contents of his pockets on the wall behind him.

  “So, what you driving these days?” asked Tennessee. “Still got that rust bucket of a Renault?”

  “Nah,” answered Mitch, laying a lighter, a ten pence piece, three sticks of gum, a torn five-pound note, and a key on the wall. “Got a fourth-hand Audi. Nice paint job
. Glacier white.”

  “And how’s that handsome fella of yours? James?”

  “Haven’t seen him in months, mate. Met this six-three Jamaican lad called Harrison on Grindr.”

  “Good for you.” Tennessee assessed the items on the wall and made Mitch turn his pockets inside out to be sure.

  “Happy?” he asked, with a smug grin.

  “Ecstatic.” Tennessee couldn’t sound more sarcastic if he tried. “Now clear off.”

  Mitch Logan gathered his things, stuffed them back in his pockets and sauntered away while muttering about police harassment.

  Two large coffees later and Cooper was up to speed on all Tennessee’s dealings with Mitch Logan. Having also nicked a load of designer gear from John Lewis, he was caught after bragging about it on Facebook. He’d even posted the links to the eBay auction where he was flogging it all.

  “Sounds like he fell out the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.” Cooper fished her keys from her trouser pockets and unlocked the Mazda. “What’s next on our to-do list?”

  “I think it’s time we visited the others who were out the night Macey disappeared.” He checked his notepad. “Imogen West and Alison Sparks-Forster.”

  * * *

  Macey Gallagher’s friends lived in a purpose-built student facility five minutes away from Newcastle University. A bald facilities manager buzzed Cooper and Tennessee in and scrutinised their warrant cards. He was about the same height as Cooper which made him short for a man and his brown beard was flecked with grey. He pointed the detectives in the direction of the lifts and told them they needed the third floor. On their way to the lifts they walked past a glass-fronted, state of the art gym and an impressive social room fitted out with a full-size pool table, air hockey and - Cooper couldn’t believe it - a karaoke machine.

  Tennessee’s eyes were popping out of his head. “Man. University’s changed since my time. I lived in the halls of residence at Sunderland. My room was smaller than a prison cell. Not exaggerating. And man, you should have seen the state of the toilets.”

  “I didn’t go to uni,” said Cooper as she pressed the button for the lift. “I had Tina. I needed a job.”

  Tennessee stole a sideways glance at his chief. Cooper suspected he was shocked to hear that she didn’t have a university education given that it was common knowledge in the department that she’d aced the detectives’ exam. At that moment, the lift doors opened and a raven-haired woman in a stylish blouse emerged carrying a baby in one arm and a pile of textbooks in another. She can’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. Cooper smiled at her and then at her baby. Impressive, she thought, before feeling a pang of jealousy that ripped through her and caught her off guard. If only those opportunities had been there in her day. The subjects she could have studied, the people she could have met. She’d still have wanted to join the force, but a first-class degree in a core subject could put a new recruit on an accelerated course for promotion.

  Emerging on the third floor, Cooper knocked on the door to room three hundred and twelve. A Taylor Swift song was playing from within so Cooper had to knock again to be heard.

  “What’s the password, biatch?” chirped a voice from behind the door, followed by hysterical sniggering.

  Cooper thought about answering, Northumbria Police, in her toughest voice, but she refused to answer to biatch, so instead, she knocked again and waited.

  “Come in already.” This time the voice was impatient.

  Cooper shrugged and pushed the door open to Imogen West’s room. Imogen, whom Cooper recognised from the photos that Pearl had shown her, was an hour-glass of a woman with a waist so much smaller than her hips that Cooper suspected she’d fallen prey to the Kardashian-inspired trend of waist trainers. She was sitting at her desk doing her makeup in a magnifying mirror and a curtain of long red hair flowed to her lower back. She clocked the detectives in the mirror and span on her swivel seat.

  Her eyebrows lowered as she surveyed them with a mascara wand held delicately between manicured nails. “Yah? Can I help you?”

  Yah? Cooper’s jaw tensed. “Northumbria Police. We’re here about Macey.”

  “Oh Gawd. She hasn’t turned up yet?” Imogen turned back to her mirror, finished her mascara and returned the wand to its bottle. She stood, walked to the opposite wall and thudded the side of her fist against the plaster three times. “Get over here, Ali! The police are here,” she shouted into the wall.

  Thirty seconds later and Alison Sparks-Forster was sat on Imogen’s bed. She looked like a modern Snow White; sharp black bob, peaches and cream skin, and scarlet lips.

  “Ladies,” started Cooper, “Macey’s been missing for over eighty hours now and we’re extremely concerned about her well being. It’s imperative we get as much information as we possibly can. Even the smallest detail could be important.”

  Imogen and Alison exchanged a look. “What do you need to know?”

  “Everything that happened that evening,” Cooper said. “Start at the beginning.”

  Alison picked up a stuffed toy and held it to her chest. “Christ. Right, let’s see. Pearl and Macey got the Metro into town and met us at this Greek place for dinner.”

  “What Greek place?” Tennessee asked. Cooper knew he knew the answer from their interview with Pearl. He was testing that the girls’ stories matched. Clever.

  “No idea how you pronounce it,” shrugged Alison as she pulled her phone out from her pocket. “I can find it on the map though.” Her fingers slid across the screen. “Here,” she said. “It’s this one.”

  Tennessee made a note. “And how was dinner?”

  “Oh, it was fabulous. We had this delightful meze platter—”

  “I meant, how was the atmosphere? Did Macey mention anything to concern you? Anything out of the ordinary? Or did her mood seem out of character?”

  “Ah,” Alison blushed and she looked to Imogen who took over.

  “Not really. She was as bubbly as ever. She was trying to sweet-talk the waiter into letting her smash some plates. He didn’t let us so Macey said we shouldn’t leave a tip. But we did anyway. All was forgiven after a glass or two of wine.”

  “Can you remember the waiter’s name?” asked Tennessee.

  She shook her head and pouted for a moment. “Another thing, she wasn’t talking that much about Aaron. I remember because she’s been like a broken record recently with all the lovey-dovey talk but on Saturday I remember Alison making a joke, you remember, don’t you, Ali? You said it was a new record. That she hadn’t said his name in over an hour.”

  “Do you think they’d had a fight?”

  “Who knows? It was probably just a sign of the spark fizzling for the first time.”

  “Pearl told us that Macey didn’t have much to drink on account of her having diabetes. Is that accurate?”

  Alison and Imogen traded looks.

  “Please be honest,” said Tennessee. “If Macey was drinking more than usual, we need to know.”

  “It’s not that,” answered Alison. “Macey didn’t need alcohol to have a good time. She had two, maybe three, glasses of wine and once we left the restaurant she switched to soft drinks. When we met up with Nico he bought a round of vodka shots and when Macey refused hers, I think, well I’m not certain and I don’t want to get him into trouble, but I think I saw him drop it in her soda.” She hugged the stuffed toy harder.

  Cooper showed the photo she had of the group on her phone to Imogen and Alison. “This man here,” she said, pointing to the man Pearl had referred to as Nick, or Rick. “Is this Nico?”

  “Yeah, that’s our Nico.”

  “His full name?” Cooper asked.

  “Nicolas Petite,” Imogen replied.

  “French?”

  “Yah.”

  Yah? Seriously? “Lucky, Nico. Outnumbered four to one by you ladies.”

  “Alison thinks he likes boys because he’s so well dressed but I keep telling her all French guys dress immacula
tely. I used to summer in France almost every year, you see. Father owns a château and a handful of gîtes, so I’m fluent in French, and as Nico barely spoke English when he arrived here I sort of adopted him.”

  “And the only French I know is voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir.” Alison giggled to herself before parting her lips slightly and looking up through her long lashes towards Tennessee.

  Give me strength, thought Cooper. “We’ll need to speak to him. Does he live in this block?”

  Imogen flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Yah, he does. But you’re out of luck. He’s gone back to Lyon for Easter.”

  “No problem. We’ll get his details from Admissions. Let’s go back to Saturday night. What time did you leave the restaurant? And where did you go afterwards?”

  “About half eight, maybe nine-ish? Right, Alison? Yah. Nine-ish. We went to Jalou for about an hour and a half, then Tokyo, then Feisty’s because Pearl wanted to dance.”

  “When did you notice Macey had gone?”

  Imogen pulled a face. “I’m not sure exactly. I was having fun. I wasn’t checking my watch every five minutes.”

  “By having fun, she means she was getting frisky with Colin the Cockney.”

  “Shut up, Alison.” She threw a hairbrush at her friend and turned back to Cooper. “It was after one. Before four.”

  “Didn’t you look for her?”

  She shrugged and glanced at Alison but Alison was leaning back and trying to get a better view of Tennessee’s backside. “We’d queued for ages,” Imogen said. It was a shoddy explanation and she clearly knew it as she added, “We didn’t know anything was amiss. We thought she’d snuck off to see Aaron and get her nightly fix of Geordie boy.”