Becky

by Darren Galsworthy

  Once the police had left, Nathan and Shauna took their little one home, and I sat in front of the computer, staring hard at the screen, as if the answer might pop up there any moment. Tanya and Danny rang to ask for an update, but we had nothing to tell them. From time to time, Anjie offered me a cup of tea, but I refused everything. I couldn’t focus on anything other than where Becky was.

  The fact that she was missing had started to spread across Bristol. My family and friends started to share my Facebook post far and wide, and lots of people started to text or call to see if there was anything they could do to help. In total, the post was shared 887 times. I appreciated that they all wanted to help, but I didn’t know what to say to anyone. Please just find her! was my only thought.

  As the night went on, my imagination ran wild, and I started to imagine all the different scenarios Becky could have found herself in. Maybe she had been walking over to meet Luke and got attacked, beaten, then left for dead. Maybe she had been raped. Maybe my beautiful daughter had been kidnapped by a gang. Perhaps she had been dumped on a roadside, thrown out of a car. Perhaps she was tied up, unable to scream for help. She could have been out there, cold, frightened, and needing her dad. My heart felt as if it was going to explode out of my chest. I needed to find my girl.

  As I worked myself up into more and more of a state, the voicemails I left on Becky’s phone became increasingly frantic. I imagined that I was leaving messages for someone who had kidnapped her.

  ‘If you have my daughter, let her go or I will kill you,’ I said, raging down the phone. ‘Let my daughter go. I want my girl back in one piece. I will kill anyone who hurts my daughter. I promise you, I will get to you, and when I do, you’re dead.’

  When Anjie heard me making my threats to my daughter’s imaginary kidnappers she burst into tears. I hung up and ran my fingers through my hair despairingly. I knew I was acting crazy, but the worst thing about the situation was not knowing if my girl was safe or not.

  ‘If she came back hurt or angry, or there was something wrong,’ I told Anjie, ‘then we could deal with it. We could fix it. As a family we can do anything, and I know we could take care of her. I just want her back, Anj.’

  ‘I know, love,’ she said, wrapping her arms around me. ‘We all want her back.’

  That night, I didn’t sleep a wink. Anjie went up to bed as the stress was making her MS symptoms worse. She was so exhausted it was difficult for her even to speak. I didn’t join her because my mind was too busy to contemplate sleep. I stayed up all night, searching Facebook and trying to find some answers, with no luck. Becky’s friends were constantly messaging me, asking for updates, and I felt wretched as I had to tell them, over and over, that I didn’t have any news.

  I kept walking into Becky’s room, looking for clues as to where she had gone, staring at her belongings.

  ‘Where are you, Bex?’ I asked out loud, trying hard to focus and put myself in her shoes. But it was no use. I couldn’t think of anywhere she would go on her own.

  The next morning, I posted on Facebook again: ‘Please, if anyone has seen or heard from my daughter just let me know she is safe. She went missing on Thursday, 19 February at 11.15 a.m. She hasn’t been seen by any of her friends. I’m really scared now. I want her home.’

  Once again, the message was quickly shared by friends and family – including Shauna. Everyone wanted to help find Becky.

  That day, I felt too paralysed by fear to wash, drink or eat anything. All I could do was stare at the computer screen and make phone calls to friends and family – anyone I could think of who had ever known Becky. Lots of friends knocked on the door, wanting to know if they could help and to check if Anjie and I were all right. But everyone who entered the house seemed like a passing blur to me. If they weren’t Becky, I wasn’t interested.

  I felt as if I was having an out-of-body experience, looking in at all the distress, heartache and desperation. It was like watching somebody else act out my life – like watching a film, almost. I felt suffocated by thick, heavy black clouds. Waves of despair engulfed me relentlessly. The minute I managed to breathe and think clearly, another wave came crashing in. But despite how helpless I felt, I still had hope that Becky would come home unharmed.

  Over and over, I imagined her walking through the door, hugging me and apologising for worrying everyone. Laughing it off, saying there had been a big misunderstanding.

  ‘If she comes home, I’m never leaving her side ever again,’ I told Anjie that night. ‘We can do something special, together as a family. I always want her to know exactly how much we love her.’

  ‘She already knows how much we love her, Dar,’ Anjie replied. ‘She’s always known.’

  ‘I’ll never tell her off for leaving her stuff lying around again if she comes back to us, Anj,’ I said as I choked back tears. ‘I’ll spend the rest of my life making her happy.’

  That set me off and I started sobbing. Anjie wrapped her arms around me, but there was no comfort to be had. The sobs hurt my chest and didn’t bring any easing of the tension, but once I’d started, it was hard to stop.

  At last, we went up to bed and got under the covers. Anjie drifted off to sleep, but for me it seemed impossible. I would slide into unconsciousness for a matter of minutes then suddenly wake up again, realising that the nightmare I was having wasn’t a nightmare after all – it was my reality. I doubted that I would ever sleep again. How could I when my daughter was out there somewhere and needed me?

  I’m not a religious man, but I got up, went into Becky’s room and knelt down at the foot of her bed. I clasped my hands together as hard as I could and started to pray.

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘bring my girl home to me. It doesn’t matter if she’s damaged. Just bring her home. I’ll sort her out, and I promise I’ll take care of her for the rest of my life. Please.’

  I wasn’t even sure which god I was praying to, but I prayed as hard as I could.

  The more time that passed, the more I felt in limbo, not knowing whether my daughter was alive or dead – I was becoming increasingly desperate to find out.

  Chapter 8

  The search

  On Saturday, 21 February, two police officers visited the house and introduced themselves as Detective Constable Russ Jones and Major Crime Investigation Officer Jo Marks. They told us that they were our assigned family liaison officers – FLOs, for short. As they introduced themselves, I noticed that Jo was a little more reserved than Russ, who spoke quite bluntly about the situation and what was going to happen next.

  I was so fraught with worry over Becky’s disappearance and anger over the failure to find her that I struggled to take in a lot of what they were saying, but Anjie nodded quietly. She seemed to be listening a lot more intently than I was.

  ‘We’ll be taking swabs of her DNA today,’ Russ said. ‘We’ll get it from places such as her toothbrush. It’ll help us with the investigation. We’ll also need to look around the house if that’s OK with you, just in case we find anything that could help us.’

  All I could do was nod helplessly. Anjie reached over and squeezed my hand. I felt as if I was trapped in a nightmare, and all I could do was watch it play out before my eyes.

  A few minutes later, about eight officers arrived at my home, ready to take DNA samples and search for clues. I opened the door for them grimly.

  ‘You can come in, look at whatever you want, take whatever you like,’ I said. ‘But the real search should be out there, not in here. We know for a fact that Becky left the house and didn’t come back. She’s out there somewhere, and you need to get out and find her.’

  Jo looked at me sympathetically. ‘There could be vital clues here as to why she hasn’t come back, Mr Galsworthy. I know this is hard for you, but try not to worry. We know what we’re doing.’

  Jo’s compassion disarmed me a little, and I waved the officers through the door so they could do what they needed to.

  It transpired that Becky had left th
e house with her laptop and her phone, but didn’t take any clothes, make-up or a toothbrush. It didn’t make any sense to me. If Becky had wanted to run away – not that she ever would – she would have made sure to take those items. It just didn’t add up.

  The following day, Avon and Somerset Police put out a public appeal for help to find Becky. They also said that they were planning to hold a search in the next few days.

  I sat with Anjie on the sofa, watching the news reports into Becky’s disappearance with my stomach completely tied up in knots. Hearing the reporters talk about ‘Missing Bristol teenager Rebecca Watts’ made me feel sick. I imagined that to everyone else listening at home, it sounded like another silly teenager who had run away to give her parents a fright. But that was my daughter they were talking about, and she was a girl who was too scared of the outside world ever to run away from home. She would never knowingly cause us so much worry and upset. You know your own, and she was simply not that kind of girl.

  Every newspaper in the local area and some nationals, too, began picking up on the police appeal. Becky’s face was plastered all over their websites, and the appeal was being shared across Facebook. Social-media users were starting to use the hashtag #FindBecky to link to the campaign. I couldn’t help but wonder what I had done in my life to deserve this appalling, gut-wrenching despair.

  Every hour that passed felt like a lifetime. My family descended on the house, worried about Becky and also about us. My brothers Sam, Joe and Asa, my sister Sarah, my dad, John, and my stepmother, Denise, all came round wanting to help.

  I was sitting at the computer and Anjie was on the sofa when, one by one, they filed through the front door. Denise rushed straight over to give Anjie a cuddle, and Sam and Sarah crowded around me.

  ‘Right, Dar, what can we do?’ Sam asked, with a determined tone. ‘We’re here to help and we’re not leaving until we’ve done something useful.’

  ‘We’ve told all our friends, and they’ve told all their friends,’ Sarah added. ‘Everyone’s willing to get out there and look for Becky. We need to print off some leaflets and get this going properly. We need to find her.’

  That just set me off again. I began to sob as Sam and Sarah took my place at the computer and started designing leaflets and posters to put up around Bristol. They searched for a good picture of Becky, wrote the words, and, within minutes, we were printing hundreds of them. My printer didn’t stop all day long.

  Sam and Sarah handed the posters to Joe and Asa, and they took to the streets, sticking them up all over the area. They got their friends involved, and soon the whole of the city was plastered with pictures of Becky’s face. They even started giving leaflets to people in cars as they pulled up at traffic lights.

  Everyone was buzzing with nervous energy. Joe and Asa were in and out, collecting fresh batches of leaflets and posters, while Sam and Sarah kept printing more and more. Nathan and Shauna were back and forth to the house too, making sure Anjie was OK and generally keeping an eye on what was going on, and we spoke with Tanya and Danny regularly to keep in touch.

  I slumped in a chair in the garden room and lit a cigarette. Anjie followed me in there so I lit one for her too. I noticed that my hands were shaking and I clenched my fists tightly to try to stop.

  I looked at Anjie properly for the first time in days – she looked exhausted. I no doubt looked even worse.

  ‘We’re never going to see her again, are we?’ I blurted out, choking on the words.

  Anjie looked at me in shock. ‘Of course we’ll see her again,’ she cried, grabbing my hand. ‘You have to believe we will find her.’

  At that moment, I thought I heard Nathan laugh and say something in the living room. It sounded like he was mocking what we had just said, but I quickly dismissed it. I hadn’t slept in days so I was hypersensitive to everything, and my house was completely chaotic as people wandered in and out. I truly felt as if I was going mad.

  All I could think about was Becky. Was she safe? Was she freezing or hungry? The weather was bitterly cold and there had been days of relentless rain lashing down on the roof of the house. If she was out there she would be soaked to the skin by now. She might have been ill.

  Anjie squeezed my hand again. ‘Darren, don’t lose hope,’ she said. ‘You know what I think? She’s met someone and gone off with them, not realising the worry she’s putting us through. She can be very naive – you know that. She will come home. You can’t give up hope.’

  I looked at her, and then wrapped my arms around her for a hug. I didn’t believe a word she was saying, but at that moment I appreciated her saying it. Anjie had always been my rock, and it was amazing the way she could always be positive, even at desperate times like that.

  The next morning, Monday, 23 February, I logged onto Facebook again.

  ‘Still no news,’ I wrote. ‘The police have turned my house upside down looking for clues. What fresh hell will we go through today?’

  I considered what Anjie had suggested – that Becky might have gone off with somebody – but it seemed so unlike her. She was the kind of girl who couldn’t even go up to the till in a shop. An hour later, I decided to try a different approach, just in case.

  ‘Bex, if you can see this, please come home,’ I wrote on my Facebook wall. ‘We’re heartbroken. We need you in our lives. You won’t be told off and you can make as much mess as you want. I won’t say a word, I promise.’

  As I posted it, I sighed. It was worth a shot – anything was.

  Later that day, the police told me that they wanted to hold a press conference so we could appeal directly to Becky to come forward. They wanted me to speak, as well as Pat, Becky’s grandmother on her mother’s side.

  Even though I didn’t really believe that Becky had gone off of her own accord, I agreed to do the conference, as it gave me a sense of actually doing something to help the police with their investigations.

  Russ and Jo took us to a police station in the St Philips area of Bristol, where we met Detective Inspector Richard Ocone, the officer leading the investigation. We were taken into a cramped room, where there were about fifteen journalists and lots of photographers and TV cameramen. We were told to sit down, and to speak directly to the camera while reading the statement we had prepared with help from the police.

  I took a deep breath, and started to read from the sheet in front of me, feeling very nervous.

  ‘Bex, if you’re watching this, please come home,’ I started. ‘We love you so much, and whatever you think, we can sort anything out, it doesn’t matter. Just come home. And if any of her friends are hiding her – you’re not doing her any favours. Just tell the police. Just tell the police and bring her home safe.’

  I glanced down at my statement to read the next part, but the words started to go blurry.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t,’ I said, my voice cracking. I tried my best to regain my composure, but it was no good. I stared hard at the table before admitting defeat.

  ‘You’re going to have to do it, Pat,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Pat nodded and swiftly took over.

  ‘Hiya Bex, it’s Nan,’ she said. ‘You can see your dad is a broken man. Please, if you don’t want to come home yet just let someone else ring or text. And if you’re a bit worried about coming back because of all this hullabaloo, come and stay with me for a few days. You know I have a spare room. You’re so loved, and I don’t think you believe it, but you really are.’

  Pat paused for a second, looking over at me. I was trying my hardest not to cry.

  ‘Look at your poor dad,’ she added. ‘Please come home. Or whoever is sheltering her – do the right thing. Thank you.’

  DI Ocone said, ‘Firstly, I want to say directly to Rebecca – you are in no trouble. All we are concerned about is your wellbeing, and we just want to make sure you are OK. If you can just call home, call one of your friends or call us, we can work with you to help work through any issues you are facing.

  ‘I would al
so ask anyone who might know where Rebecca is to come forward and let us know. This is completely out of character for Rebecca, to leave without telling her family or friends – especially if she is not planning on coming home.’

  As we drove back to the house, I allowed myself a faint hope that whoever had my girl would find it in their heart to let her go after seeing the state I was in. I knew Becky would never disappear on purpose. Somebody had to have her. Somebody out there knew where my daughter was. And when I discovered who that was, I was coming for them.

  The next day, police began searching the local area and speaking to residents in the surrounding streets. They also started combing the woodland and open spaces nearby – the places I used to take Becky when she was a little girl. They carried out searches of neighbours’ gardens, outhouses and the local nature reserve.

  Meanwhile, I did a telephone interview with Jack FM, a Bristol radio station, about Becky’s disappearance and the toll it had taken on our family. The police said it would be a good idea to talk to various different media outlets because the more people who knew about Becky, the better. As the presenter started asking me about my daughter, I tried to hold back the tears which had already started to fill my eyes. More than anything, I wanted to drum home how shy Becky was, and that what had happened was completely out of the ordinary for her.

  ‘She’s very shy and timid,’ I told him. ‘Not around us and her closest friends, but anyone outside of that and she wouldn’t be able to talk to them. As I have told the police, she can’t even go up to a till in a shop.

  ‘She couldn’t even ask for a bus ticket. She would rather walk than get on a bus and ask the driver for a ticket. This is how shy and reserved she is. So this just doesn’t add up. None of her clothes are missing, her wash bag is here, her toothbrush is here, her make-up’s still here. She would not leave the house without all her make-up on, looking nice.’

  When he asked me how I was feeling, my voice cracked as I tried to reply.