Missing Molly

by Natalie Barelli

  I can feel a headache coming on. Chris makes a point that I can’t argue, not without calling even more attention to myself, so I shrug as if defeated, and say nothing. He talks about the practicalities and logistics after that, deferring to Jacob now and then.

  “We’re calling it, Finding Molly,” Chris says.

  Oh God.

  “Um,” Jacob leans across to him. “I thought we agreed on Missing Molly?”

  “Yes, that’s right, sorry. Missing Molly.”

  “I do like a good alliteration,” Perry mutters.

  “There’s going to be a website dedicated to the podcast where anyone can post tips, anonymously if they wish. Then we’ll have a phone number so people can call and leave a message, also anonymously. Old school I know, but people think phone calls are harder to trace, and some people might be reluctant to send an email or a comment,” Jacob says.

  I bite the inside of my cheek, hard, while I take notes on everything that’s being said.

  “In terms of social media, there will be the usual. A Facebook page, a page on Reddit,” Jacob continues.

  “Which is what?” Perry asks, and everybody laughs, me included, because I need to join in with the banter, try to be normal again. Vivian keeps staring at me. She knows something is wrong so I make a joke about nothing and wink at her.

  That’s the thing, when you’ve gone through what I have. You learn to become someone else, and you learn to convince anyone and everyone of that lie. It’s what you have to do when you’re me.

  If you want to stay alive.

  Three

  Rachel Holloway is my third fake identity. I’m twenty-six years old. No I’m not, I’m twenty-four, but I tell people I’m twenty-six because that’s how old Rachel Holloway is. Was.

  Twelve years ago, I ran away from home and never went back because if I did, he would kill me. I know he would. So, I hide in plain sight. It’s easier that way and safer too. If you try to be invisible, people will notice.

  My birth certificate says that I was born on June 16, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In reality, I only visited twice, to get my bearings, should anyone ask.

  I tell people my mother is dead, and that my father is in Australia, with his latest wife and brand-new kids. They live in Avalon, by the beach. We don’t get on. I don’t have anything to do with them anymore, I say.

  I looked up Avalon on Wikipedia. An idyllic beachside suburb of Sydney, it said. I had to look up the word idyllic.

  I keep glancing at Jacob who has returned to his own desk and is deep in conversation with Chris. I haven’t really paid attention to him before, so I do now. He looks about thirty but I think he’s older. He seems harmless, a bit geeky with his large glasses and his thin moustache and trimmed, pointy beard, low on his chin. He reminds me of a painting I saw in a magazine recently. Edward the First, I think.

  I’ve barely exchanged ten words with him, outside of ‘hello how are you’. Chris was thrilled when Jacob joined us because he used to be a radio producer with the BBC, and Chris is impressed by that sort of thing. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Plenty of people move away from stressful jobs to simpler ones, even with the cut in pay it implies. But now, I wonder. It does seem like a strange career move, producer at the BBC to editor at a nondescript small local paper?

  I squint at him. As if somehow that will help me see beneath the facade. What are you really doing here, Jacob?

  Because the summary he just told about the Forsters’ tragedy, as it’s come to be known, is not the real story. There are only three people left in the world who know the real story. Two of whom were there that night, and I’m one of them. And I can’t figure out whether Jacob knows something.

  When Chris walks back to his office and past my desk, I’m on my feet. I have to stop myself from grabbing his arm. I’m about to follow right behind him but Vivian stops me.

  “So? How was it?” she asks.

  I stare at her blankly.

  “Your holiday!”

  “Oh yeah! Sorry, it was brilliant. We had a really great time.”

  “So why are you so jumpy this morning?”

  “Jumpy? I’m not jumpy.”

  She narrows her eyes at me, then her face relaxes and she says, “I’m sorry about the job situation, here. But don’t worry, okay? Maybe things will work out, with this new podcast. If not, something else will turn up. You’ll see.” She brings me into her arms and hugs me. For a crazy second, I consider whispering in her ear. I need to tell you something.

  “Let’s catch up at lunch, okay?” Vivian says, releasing me.

  “Of course,” I reply. “I better get back to it.” I give her a quick smile and rush over to Chris’s office. His door is open, so I step inside.

  “Can I just ask…” I say, closing the door behind me, “was it Jacob's idea? The whole podcast thing?”

  “To do a podcast? Yes. Finding Molly? I mean, Missing Molly—that was mine.” He sits down and immediately starts to make corrections on the article that is laid out in front of him. “Why?”

  “No reason. I mean I thought you would have talked to everyone, about the future of the paper. Jacob hasn’t been around that long after all.”

  The words are coming out all wrong. He’s going to think I’m put out that no one asked for my opinion, when I know they wouldn’t have anyway, it’s not my job around here.

  “I just meant the others, Perry and Mike at least, they’ve been here a long time. They’d have ideas too, how to help the paper survive. Do well even.”

  He puts his pencil down and looks up at me.

  “I didn’t intentionally talk to Jacob. He just happened to be here when I got a call from the bank, okay? He took it upon himself to come up with a solution. And the podcast is a great idea—you have to admit that. We’ve only got eight weeks. I don’t have the time to put it to a committee.”

  “Fair enough. I’m just saying that, given the opportunity, I would’ve liked to suggest topics, for podcasts. Good ones too, I think.” I’m biting my bottom lip. I can’t help it.

  “I didn’t realise you wanted to be involved on the editorial side of things, Rachel. That’s good to know. And you can submit for an editorial role next year, if we’re still around by then.”

  “Sorry, but I don’t think it’s the best we can do. Missing Molly. I think we should discuss it.” Do I really expect Chris will listen to me? No. But I’m desperate. I’ll try anything. He shakes his head, eyebrows raised, and I’m about to say something else when he dismisses me with a flick of the hand.

  “Okay, go away, I’m busy. I’ve had enough of you.” He picks up his pencil again and returns to making notes in the margins.

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Go back to work, Rachel.”

  “Okay sure,” I reply.

  Back at my desk, I do my best to look busy, get some work done even. I can’t get over the fact that the local paper I work for is going to do a podcast about finding me. But then I guess I’m still the most famous missing person case in the country. If you’re going to do a true crime podcast, finding out what happened to Little Molly is always going to be up there as a top contender.

  Still, I just don’t trust Jacob.

  I only work half a day on Monday, and then Vivian and I always have lunch together. I think it’s best to keep up the routine but I didn’t say much on the way here, I just listened to her talk about the podcast, about how exciting it all is.

  “I’m starving,” she says now, as we sit down at our usual table.

  “Me too.” I’m not. My stomach is tied up in knots and I can’t wait to get out of here and go home.

  “The usual, ladies?”

  Carla has materialised next to us, pen poised above her notepad. We do indeed order our usual, Caesar salads for both of us, and then Vivian starts chatting away. About the podcast again, the odds that the paper will close, my holiday. I do my very best to seem normal. I watch her pick up her napkin and wipe the rim of her gl
ass. We’re regulars here, and she’s done this for so long that no one gets offended anymore. It’s just one of her little quirks. Suddenly, I wonder if we’ll have to move on, Matt, Gracie and me, and leave Vivian behind. It brings a prickle of tears to my eyes.

  We were both working at Marks & Spencer when we met, Vivian and I. I was working in the bakery. My official job title was “customer assistant” but really, I served behind the counter. Vivian would come in to get her coffee every morning and eventually we got talking. She’s three years older than me, but she seemed like a real grown-up to me. She worked in the marketing department. She explained to me what she did once, but it was over my head. All I know is that it had to do with branding and social media, and bringing customers into the store. Some days she had lunch there too, which used to surprise me. I spent enough time at work already, I didn’t want to eat there too. I thought maybe she was saving her money, because we did give the staff a discount, but that wasn’t it. Vivian doesn’t need to save money. She’s already got plenty.

  One day, it was a Friday, I finished a bit later than usual and when I came out I almost bumped into her. She was standing alone, watching both sides of the street.

  “I think I’ve been stood up,” she said when she saw me. “I was supposed to go on a date, and he’s not here.”

  “Maybe he’s late?”

  “Half an hour late. Do you think that’s long enough to wait?”

  “Oh yes. I don’t think anyone should keep you waiting for that long. He hasn’t called?”

  “No.” She waved her mobile in my direction. “And I tried to call him but there’s no reply. Oh well.” She sighed, then she turned to me, her face brightening. “Would you like to go for a drink?”

  “Now?”

  “Yes! We could go to the pub, or do you have other plans?”

  I didn’t have other plans. I didn’t have a lot of friends either. I was pretty shy, back then, and I didn’t—and still don’t—make friends easily.

  “Okay.”

  That’s how our friendship started, and we’ve been friends ever since. It’s funny really, because we’re a bit like chalk and cheese. We’re very different people, from very different backgrounds. I used to think it strange that we became close, but as I got to know her over the last few years, I realised we are much more alike than I’d thought. We’re both lonely. We’re both abandoned, really. Her parents don’t seem to give a shit about her, which I just don’t understand. She’s a grown woman, but still. Sometimes I don’t know which one of us has it worse.

  Back then, I didn’t really care what I did for a living. I just wanted to stay alive. Everything else was a bonus. But when I got pregnant with my daughter Gracie, I decided I didn’t want to serve food behind a counter for the rest of my life after all, so I started doing night classes in bookkeeping.

  “Why bookkeeping?” Vivian had asked.

  “Because I figured I would always have stable and steady work.”

  “You’re so practical, Rach, I love that about you. You know what I really want to do?”

  “What?”

  “Journalism. I always wanted to be a journalist.”

  “You never told me that. Like the Daily Mail?”

  “Maybe, I was thinking politics, or investigative journalism. TV anchoring even, who knows?”

  She was beside herself when she got a job at the South Hackney Herald.

  “I’ll be reviewing art and culture to start with,” she’d said, proudly, “which sounds awfully grand but really, it’s about flower shows and local music gigs. But I want to write a lifestyle column someday. Once I prove myself there, I’m sure, I hope, they’ll let me have a go.”

  She was so excited, and I was pleased for her, but sorry for myself as well. I missed having her at work. But two months later, just when I got my diploma, Vivian said her newspaper was looking for someone to do the bookkeeping. She’d already told them she knew the perfect person.

  “We’ll be working together again!”

  I hugged her when she told me. I was so happy, not just that she got me a job, but that she wanted us to work together.

  Now I can’t help but think it was a huge mistake, to work at a newspaper. Even a small local one. I go back over my conversation with Chris. He said Missing Molly was his idea, but the true crime podcast was Jacob’s. But how hard would it be to nudge Chris in the direction of Molly Forster as a topic? And then make it seem like Chris thought of it himself?

  I can’t stop wondering if Jacob just happened to be here by accident.

  Four

  There are some things I never do on my home computer. Like look up anything remotely related to Molly Forster. Just a habit I picked up and have no reason to drop. So when I leave the cafe, I don’t go straight back to our flat. Instead, I stop at a place around the corner that still rents out PCs to use the Internet.

  This place is aimed at students and gamers. The front of the shop is a small convenience store that sells mostly junk food and soft drinks. The computers are at the back, behind tall black panels. It’s dark in there but you can make out the users. They look like teenagers, hunched over, often they’ve got their hoodie up and some of them use some kind of console.

  “Can I get thirty minutes, please?” That’s the maximum time I can spend before I have to go and pick up Gracie from preschool.

  The man behind the counter is always friendly. I get my ticket and find a spot out the back. I type in Jacob's name in the search bar. The first results that come up are all from the BBC. What I want to see is a photo of him. There’s a link to his LinkedIn profile, which I am pleased to see isn’t set to private, since I never signed up.

  A relaxed and younger Jacob smiles at me from his profile picture. I peer at it, but there’s no need to study it. It’s obviously him.

  His summary is generic. “I’m a dynamic, creative, talented and experienced audio content producer etc etc” so I skip to his experience section. Producer, it reads, along with the relevant dates. He mentions a couple of programmes I’ve never heard of, a breakfast music show Up Beat and more recently a religious programme called The Spirit. He’s listed skills like multi-platform and agile and some podcasting but even I know anyone could build a LinkedIn page and write whatever they like.

  I check the BBC website next, and find the pages related to the radio programmes he worked on, but there’s no mention of Jacob Whitelaw. There’s no mention of any producer, so maybe it’s no big deal, but it still makes me nervous and I write the phone number of the programme on my hand.

  “Excuse me?”

  I instinctively close the browser window, and then I turn around and look up at a young woman with heavy black eye makeup.

  “Yes?”

  She glances briefly at the screen and raises her eyebrows. She must be wondering what I’m so keen to hide. I mentally chide myself for being so obvious.

  “Yeah, sorry,” she says. “I was sitting here before and I lost a glove.” She lifts her hand to show me. “Would you mind?” she points to the floor.

  “Oh sure.” I push against the desk to roll my chair back, then stand as she bends down.

  “Got it!” she says, brandishing the other glove. I hadn’t seen it there. I’m not even sure it was there to begin with, but maybe I’m just being paranoid. Nothing new here.

  “Thanks,” she says. “See ya.”

  I nod briefly. I don’t know what else I can find out here anyway, so I grab my bag and go to pick up Gracie.

  My daughter is almost three years old. Sometimes when I’m at work, I catch myself picturing what she might be doing in that instant. I imagine the feel of her little feet in my hand, the sweet plumpness of her legs.

  I see traces of my sister in Gracie’s face, but she has hair like mine. Fair and fuzzy, like pale yellow fairy floss that frizzles in the rain. Mine is more the colour of light copper, somewhere between blonde and red, and I suspect Gracie’s will be the same in a few years.

  I used to
colour my hair. All part of my disguise. Clairol Chestnut. I styled it straight too. I even darkened my eyebrows. But when Gracie was little, the sight of her angelic pale curls gave me a pang of nostalgia for my own early childhood. Or that’s what I told myself because deep down I suspect it’s just that I’ve relaxed a little too much. First, I forgot to be scared and then I forgot to be careful. So a couple of years ago I got it cut really short and let the colour grow out. Now it’s down to the base of my neck, thick and wavy.

  “I love you like this,” Matt said once, caressing my newly styled blonde hair. “It’s like you’re a different person, Rach.”

  “Not that different, I hope.”

  “You look beautiful. Why would you colour it?”

  “Oh you know me, slave to fashion,” I said. Which was funny because I’m not that at all. I’m more the jeans and sneakers variety unless I have to go to work, in which case I’ll wear a pencil skirt and a white shirt, the office uniform for women all over the world.

  I touch Gracie’s soft curls and pull myself out of my memories. As we walk home, she chatters about her day, her friends, her little life, already so full. I stop myself from thinking about what’s going to happen to us if this podcast goes ahead. I just want to be in the moment with her.

  In the kitchen I peel an orange and set its quarters on a small plastic plate shaped like a flower. Gracie is standing next to me on her toes, holding onto the worktop with the tips of her fingers, her arms stretched up and her face upturned. I smile on one side of my mouth.

  “I love you,” I say, handing her the plate.

  “I love you more,” she replies, in a sing song voice.

  That’s not possible, I whisper to myself.

  I clean up and make myself a cup of tea, turning over the Jacob situation in my mind. He started at the paper a month ago. Chris had advertised the position on a couple of jobs websites. I’d posted the ad for him. Then Chris interviewed four people and picked Jacob. “Heads above the rest,” he’d said to Vivian and me.