by A. S. French
Whatever this illness is, I don’t need a cure for it.
‘You’ve left the Agency? I thought that was impossible.’
‘I’m making the impossible possible.’
I should get that printed on a shirt.
She finished the drink and got up to leave; content he’d get Chloe back to her mother. Now she had an hour to kill before phoning the sister who hated her.
Taylor pushed a photograph across the desk towards her. ‘If you’re in the business of finding missing children, you could return the favour I’m doing for you with the Gideon kid.’
She peered at the image. Staring at her was a dark-haired teenager who was too thin, but so happy her teeth sparkled out of the picture. The girl held a placard stating NO MORE FRACKING.
Astrid picked up the photo. ‘What’s this?’
Taylor poured himself a drink, but she refused the offer of another; she’d never leave if she started on a second. There was plenty of time for that back at the hotel after speaking to Olivia.
‘That’s Alex Sanchez, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a friend of mine. She went missing a week ago.’ The colour had drained from his chiselled cheekbones. ‘I hoped you might find her for me.’
She handed him the photo and moved towards the exit. ‘Maybe she fell down a mine.’ She looked at him one last time before leaving. ‘Thanks for the help with Chloe, but you don’t need me. That’s what the police and the FBI are for.’
She’d closed the door before he replied. A female security officer escorted her out of the building, checking to make sure she didn’t leave with something she shouldn’t.
Astrid sighed as she met the Big Apple’s inky cold night. She strode past burger joints, pizza palaces, and outdoor vendors hawking hotdogs. A slight drizzle drifted across the skyline, and she gazed into it. When she was a kid, this was one of the places she’d escape to in her head, her reality constructed from black and white movies, tawdry crime thrillers, and the four-colour magnificence of a Marvel Comic; all while listening to a soundtrack of the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls mixed in with Chic and Odyssey.
She took a deep breath and wondered when she’d return to England. There was only one thing she wanted to go back for, and her sister had put a halt to that, all apart from the occasional phone call.
Astrid hailed a taxi and headed for the hotel, her mind focusing on Olivia and the conversation they’d have. She thought about that as the car moved through the city.
Talking to children was never something she’d been good at. A deficiency Astrid knew came from her childhood, her discomfort compounded by society’s rarely spoken but continually implied idea of the childless woman as a child-hating freak.
As she reached her mid-twenties, she began to feel fiercely maternal towards teenage girls when she encountered them. She understood how to speak to them and knew how to talk to the men who hassled them, but she had no desire to seek any close friendship with other women. Most of the time, she blamed that on her sister; on how Courtney had encouraged their father to hit Astrid and the way Courtney revelled in her hatred of her. Other times, she decided it was because there was something wrong with her; something broken inside her brain, which left her struggling to make an emotional connection with others.
But then she discovered she was an auntie and slowly started to change. It took five years for it to happen, for her to need to see her niece, if only once and from a distance, but she understood she wasn’t the person she’d believed herself to be. All of these thoughts consumed her as the taxi drifted through the New York night and reached her destination.
Astrid got out of the car and scanned the surroundings. Her hotel was somewhere between downmarket and further downmarket. She’d considered trying the Chelsea Hotel for the nostalgia, but ended up at the Ritz Excelsior, a name which promised extravagance and comfort, but delivered neither. It was a five-storey building claiming twenty luxury rooms on each floor, but if the place was anything to go by, then luxury had gone downhill in recent years.
A scarred lip and raised eyes greeted her as she entered the hotel. The receptionist’s eyebrows were as false as the breasts aimed at Astrid like neutron bombs. Texas Chainsaw Massacre shadows cascaded off the walls from the stuffed animal collection consuming most of the place. The carpet was an earthquake of convulsing colours vomited up from an explosion in a crayon factory. She ignored the aroma of dirty laundry and took the stairs.
In her room, she grabbed a towel that had seen better days and ran it through her hair. She kicked her shoes off, pulled her brand new Levis from her legs and dropped them with her jacket and top onto the floor. Once she was dry, she climbed under the covers to get warm. The pitiful-looking radiator hanging off the wall was a redundant artefact.
Astrid scanned the news on her phone. There was no mention of Gideon and the troubles at his building. She wondered if she’d scared him enough not to do anything stupid. An image of Chloe smiling on those stairs, when she knew she was leaving the man she’d never view as her father, settled the pain in Astrid’s stomach. Then she saw the clock on the digital screen and it was time.
She wiped the webpage from the screen and dialled the number in the UK. She listened to the tone connecting across the ocean, the constant hum vibrating inside her heart, and sucked in her breath. When no one picked up after a dozen rings, she stopped and tried again. She went through the same process for fifteen minutes before giving up.
Perhaps they’re out. But this is when Courtney told me to call.
Her sister might have gotten confused by the time difference between the countries. She decided to leave it and try again in an hour, reached for the remote and turned on the small TV.
I guess not everything is big in America.
She checked the internet on her phone, set up a 10,000 Maniacs playlist on YouTube and did a Google search for Alex Sanchez. First, she found the accounts of her disappearance; nothing national, only local media stating the basics: the last sight of her was leaving a community venue in her home town of Angel Springs a week ago. There had been no reports or sightings since. The police investigation was ongoing.
They’ve likely given up on her, but why is Roger Taylor so interested? Does he have a thing with the mother?
Astrid assumed that’s what it was. His reputation as a ladies’ man had preceded his arrival at MI6. She’d worked with him once on a joint operation between the Agency and MI6, and made it clear from the start she’d tolerate no shenanigans from him. He’d been the perfect gent throughout their assignment.
She dug through Alex’s media posts, discovering this wasn’t a typical teenage girl posting about clothes or makeup; she was an activist, and a vocal one. The kid talked about gun control, voting rights, social inequality, and feminism. There were photos of her wearing anti-fascism t-shirts and animal rights logos. Alex attracted her fair share of trolls, harassing her online, and some of the comments made Astrid clench her hands into fists.
She switched from her playlist, found Alex’s YouTube channel, and watched the latest Sanchez video: Alex on a march against war in the Middle East. Not only was the kid vocal, but she was also intelligent and erudite. When her speech finished, the camera cut to her and other protestors sitting outside a town hall as the police arrived to drag them away.
Astrid scrolled through the other videos, her curiosity engaging with the one titled 21st Century Feminist. She increased the volume and hit play: it was impossible to tell where it was filmed, but Alex was inside with a blank wall behind her, no sign of an audience as she spoke.
“When I was a girl, I was sold a lie. I was told the women’s movement had achieved rights and equality for us. I was told that through education, I could achieve anything, be free to be me no matter how different I might be from everyone else. There was nothing I couldn’t achieve as long as I had drive and ambition; opportunities once inaccessible to women and girls were now available to me. Yet, I noticed the world didn’t fit this st
ory. It was dangerous to go out at night on my own as a girl, but boys could go and do as they pleased; if I kissed boys, I’d be condemned, whereas their mates would praise them; and if I kissed girls, I’d be hated or ridiculed. I was told girls should be careful how they dressed, not to be thought easy, but that porn and topless photos were empowering. That what happened to boys was anyone else’s fault but their own, but what happened to girls was always a girl’s fault. I couldn’t even find safety in my home because online harassment of women and girls is a pandemic of abuse and hostility. Remember, my friends, we still have a long way to go to achieve true equality in this world.”
Then the video finished. It was at that point Astrid knew she wouldn’t be leaving America anytime soon. She forgot about her deadline for calling Olivia and searched through everything she could find about Alex Sanchez. There was an Instagram post of her singing Back in the USSR by the Beatles, tweets about her looking forward to a trip to Washington, and a review of the latest Jennifer Lawrence movie. Plus, a single blog entry about her favourite recipes: fish and chips came top. She couldn’t wait to go to Britain to taste the real thing.
Astrid picked up her phone, Courtney’s number staring at her from the screen. She cleared it and called Taylor. He answered immediately, sounding distracted on the other end until he realised it was her.
‘What’s your connection to the Sanchez girl?’
He struggled for words, and she imagined him straightening his tie and reaching for the martini somewhere near him.
‘I met her mother, Christina, when she was a migrant trying for asylum into the States. I was there as an observer for the British Government, and I helped her and Alex get citizenship. I’ve felt responsible for them ever since.’ He paused, and she heard him take that drink. There was a woman’s voice in the background, and then he continued. ‘Christina is in a terrible state. I’m worried what she might do, and the local police appear to have pushed it to the bottom of the pile.’
‘What can you tell me about the family and the girl?’
He hesitated for a second before clearing his throat. ‘They emigrated from Ecuador three years ago. I think the father died there, so there’s only the two of them. Christina was a veterinarian, but she’s struggled to find work in the US.’ She heard him refill his glass and the female laugh in the background. ‘Does this mean you’ll look for her?’ There was a cocktail of desperation and hope mixed into his voice.
‘Text me the family address and a phone number if you have one. I’ll speak to you once I’ve seen the mother.’ With that, she hung up.
Astrid listened to the rain battering the window and turned on the TV; there was little chance of her getting any sleep now. She’d hire a car and leave early in the morning. She flicked through the channels and settled on an old episode of the Outer Limits. The low hum of the minibar slipped into her brain.
‘We have control of the vertical,’ the screen said as she turned off the light and welcomed the embrace of the gloom around her.
3 Road to Ruin
She woke with a lethargic moan, her throbbing head breaking the silence of the room. Astrid’s fingers slipped through spilt bourbon and floating dead ants. Her teeth were like a ticket someone forgot to remove from a vending machine, and there was something stuck between her lips. She pulled it out and stared at a stub for a free packet of wine gums from the local shop, not even a lottery ticket. She had no idea how it had got there. Then she glanced at the empty minibar and recalled a late-night stagger from the hotel to the nearest convenience store.
As hangovers went, it wasn’t the worst she’d had. The aching in her skull ebbed and flowed like a low tide; there was a balloon covering her brain, inflating slowly and increasing the pressure. She stepped into the bathroom and threw up, her throat feeling as if a ten-tonne truck was speeding through it. A quick cold shower helped wake her up.
Astrid gathered her things and shuffled downstairs to pay her bill. The hire car she’d booked online arrived ten minutes later. She dumped her bag, with a single change of clothes, into the back seat. It was a budget rental, no-frills and compact. She cranked the radio up, skipped past the stations featuring Shock Jocks, fire and brimstone evangelists, and sleazy politicians to find one blasting out non-stop sixties rock.
New York to Angel Springs took her five hours, her thoughts full of missing and kidnapped girls. She tried not to focus on Olivia too much, promising herself to call Courtney again when she reached her destination.
On approaching the town, she drove alongside a long stretch of water as cars hissed by her window. On the radio, David Bowie sang about Robert Zimmerman as she focused on the research she’d found regarding where Alex and her mother lived, discovering they had a motorhome in a trailer park.
She knew trailer parks were big business in America, especially for those who owned the land, and was curious to see how Alex’s mother viewed her new life compared to what they’d left behind.
Billboards lined the ride into town, promoting Angel Springs’s religious institutions and services: one proclaimed Hell was real, while another claimed you couldn’t hold hands with God if you were masturbating. The thought of sex sent a nostalgic tingle through her body as she tried to remember the last time she was intimate with someone. A large image of a sad-looking Jesus cradling an aborted foetus shook the feeling from her.
When she got to Angel Springs, she headed for the motel she’d found online. She paid for a week, noticing the curious looks she received for her accent, and watched another guest lower his eyes when she peered his way. Then she took her flimsy bag of possessions to her room. It was contemporary and up to date if your idea of a modern hotel was from the 1970s. The bed was too short for her frame, and the furniture was all plastic and ready to end its days on a beach on the other side of the world. Kitsch replicas of Warhol prints and Lichtenstein rip-offs adorned the walls. At least it had free Wi-Fi, and the air conditioning worked.
She threw water on her face, tried to do something with the mess that was her hair and failed, then checked the Sanchez family’s residence on her phone. There were a few knowing looks from the staff as she left and climbed into the car.
Then it was time to explore Angel Springs. She drove past bagel shops, museums, theatres, clubs, bars, and at least a dozen churches, two synagogues and a mosque. Outside a church, she observed people singing and dancing while being showered with water from several hoses. It confused her, at first until she realised it was a communal baptism.
Thirty minutes later, after getting lost twice, she found a parking spot and began her search for Christina Sanchez by asking the mailman for directions. Once he’d deciphered Astrid’s accent, he pointed her in the right direction. She zipped up her jacket and strode towards it.
Smoke drifted out of a clutch of motorhomes. Outside one of them, someone had set up an antique boom-blaster music player throwing out the tortured tawdry tales of romances gone wrong. Next to that, a grill blazed out fumes of burnt meat and onions on the point of blackened disintegration. A group of women milled around, watching as children kicked stones at each other as if it was the newest Olympic sport. Tiny patches of grass sprouted out through cracked concrete and plastic sheets tossed to the ground in carefree abandonment. Astrid couldn’t imagine the stuck-up snobbery of Roger Taylor feeling comfortable in this environment.
She checked the address he’d given her: number sixty-six, Grace Cathedral Square. When she’d ambled through the rusted gateway, there’d been no obvious numbering system on the vehicles, and she’d spent a fruitless ten minutes getting her bearings. Then she saw it scrawled onto a makeshift post box nestling in front of a Winnebago. Sitting on the steps was a young boy with a drawn-on pencil-thin moustache, wearing a baseball cap the wrong way round. Astrid stood close enough for her shadow to swallow him whole.
‘Does Mrs Sanchez live here?’
He peered at her as if staring into an eclipse, scrawny hands flapping at his face. ‘What sort of acc
ent is that, lady?’ The cigarette in his mouth belched out smoke at a frantic rate.
‘I’m English.’
His eyes lit up like fireworks. In her short time in America, she’d found the knowledge of her Englishness elicited one of two responses: irrational anger or unusual admiration. She wasn’t sure how this kid was going to respond until he did.
‘Have you done the Whitechapel Murder Tour? Do you know Alan Moore? Do you like Orange Juice, the band, not the drink? Do you have Keira Knightley’s number?’
He spoke as if words were bullets and his mouth was a machine gun. His excitement drew several others to them, both kids and adults, staring at the visitor in their community.
A young girl glared at her. ‘Are you the police?’
‘I’m looking for Christina Sanchez,’ she repeated. ‘To help find her daughter.’
A hush went around the group, soon replaced by heated chatter.
‘Send her in,’ a voice from the motorhome said.
The people parted and the kid gave her a knowing nod. Astrid stepped into the vehicle. It seemed bigger on the inside, like a modern Tardis where the walls appeared to consume less space than they should. A dull sheen of faded red engulfed most of the interior apart from the odd splash of paper covered in roses.
‘Who are you?’
Christina Sanchez sat in a velvet armchair which wouldn’t have looked out of place in a stately home. A built-in sofa was at her side, resplendent in little cushions adorned with the faces of grinning cats. Rose-hued curtains hung at the windows, and a luxurious carpet filled the floor. Everywhere smelt of fresh peaches and cigarette smoke.
‘My name is Astrid Snow, Mrs Sanchez. Roger Taylor asked me to find your daughter, Alex. Didn’t he contact you?’
‘I haven’t seen him for a long time. Are you an English cop?’