The Rift

by Nina Allan

  Sukhanov has lived in Manchester for twenty years. She and her husband came to Britain from Berlin, some eight years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and a full eighteen months after Julie Rouane’s disappearance hit both local and national news headlines. Certainly Vanja Sukhanov knew nothing about the missing girl on the day she made her discovery at Hatchmere Lake. “I never became involved in a murder story before,” she said. “So this feels very strange.”

  Sukhanov claims it was the rucksack’s bright colour that drew her to investigate. “I saw something red, something large,” she explained. “I was a bit scared, I think, a bit worried, anyway, because this was deep in the woods. Not many people go there, and it seemed unusual.” When she finally saw the rucksack she said her immediate reaction was not to touch it, and to call the police. “It was as if something was telling me this isn’t right. It was just a rucksack, I could see that, but I didn’t like the look of it. Whenever I get these kinds of feelings I always obey. There are times when your body knows best, even before your mind. When your body speaks up it’s time to listen.”

  What Sukhanov had discovered by chance was an item the police had spent days and weeks searching for in 1994, entirely without success: the cherry-coloured backpack Julie had been wearing when she went out on that fateful Saturday and which several witnesses clearly remembered seeing her carrying later on that same afternoon. The rucksack contained books and personal items belonging to Julie, as well as library cards and a college ID card – certainly enough to convince Greater Manchester Police to undertake a new search of the area, a full two decades after their colleagues – many of whom have since retired – gave up hope of ever uncovering the key to what had happened.

  Three days after Sukhanov’s discovery of the rucksack, police investigators unearthed human remains buried in a shallow grave less than twenty metres from where the backpack was found. DNA tests indicate a 98-percent probability that the remains are Julie’s. Speculations that Julie Rouane was in fact the missing ‘fourth victim’ of Stockport serial murderer Steven Jimson remain unconfirmed, although an anonymous police source intimated that they were taking what has popularly become known as the ‘Jimson theory’ very seriously indeed.

  For Margery Rouane, the identity of the killer is less important than the positive identification of her missing daughter. The DNA tests have acted like the lifting of a curse. “Before Julie was found, I could never entirely escape the feeling that she might still be alive somewhere, in terrible trouble or pain, and with no one to help her. Now I know that my daughter is dead, that she died a long time ago, I can begin to mourn for her. Most importantly I can begin to remember her the way she was. I’ve missed her so terribly. Now I feel as if my memories are my own again.”

  Unlike many who cope with the loss of a loved one by surrounding themselves with mementoes, Margery Rouane has not up until now felt comfortable displaying so much as a single photograph of Julie in her home. “It always seemed like a mockery, somehow,” she says. Now this feeling also has changed. “It is as if I can hold her again,” Rouane adds, and when she shows me the two framed photographs on her mantelpiece, one a posed studio portrait, the other of Julie during a family holiday in the Lake District, it is impossible to mistake the love and pride she feels in her daughter, finally restored.

  [From Nadine Akoujan’s diary]

  [Sample: SG-357/21/3/16. Source: pendant with 16” chain. Visual impressions: silver, high carat, no hallmark, hand/studio manufacture, unusual stone, possibly fluorspar/chalcedony/localised outcrop.]

  What I want to say first is that I believed Julie Rouane’s story. Or rather, I believed she believed it. She wasn’t hoaxing, she wasn’t trying to con me, or to con Vanja or whoever had sent her to Vanja, she didn’t want money, she was for real, as Danny would say, she was honest. These are not things you can prove, they are just things you get to know. From talking to people, from listening to their stories and to your own reactions to those stories. And then there was Saira, who never likes strangers, but she liked this woman, she liked Julie. She even talked about her later, after she had left. Is the lady coming back, Mummy? she said. She looked disappointed when I said probably she wasn’t, then asked if she could draw her a picture. I said yes, we could send it to her, couldn’t we, that would be nice. She drew one, too, one of her imaginary cities, and when I asked her what the city was called, she was quiet for a minute then said the city would have to have the same name as the lady, because it was where the lady had come from. What, Manchester? I said, and laughed. Not Manchester, Saira said, in that funny voice she uses when she thinks I’m being really stupid. It’s a bit like her teacher’s voice, Gwen from the nursery. I don’t think Saira is deliberately imitating her but hearing her speak like Gwen always makes me laugh. Not Manchester, silly, the other place. I didn’t question her any more because I know she doesn’t like it when I start getting too curious – she’s a very private little person, like I was at her age – but it was odd, I thought, what she said. I hadn’t left her alone with Julie Rouane, not even for a minute. Saira could have been listening in on our conversation, I suppose, that would make more sense. I haven’t noticed her doing that before, but she is growing up so quickly, too quickly maybe. Dad would say that comes from her being an only child, though what he expects me to do about that right now I have no idea.

  Believing Julie’s own belief in her story is not the same as believing the story itself. My job is to test things, to find out what they are. There is no harm in having an opinion about something, but as a scientist especially it is unwise to let opinion take the place of fact. To say this looks like silver is not the same as saying this is silver, not until you’ve tested it, not until you know for a certainty what you are talking about. Until all the appropriate tests have proved positive, the identity of the substance you have in front of you remains open-ended, a series of probabilities. The greatest probability is that the substance is silver, but this is not the only outcome on the table. It is crucial to recognise this, to understand and believe it. If you want to be good at your job, I mean. Of all the things Zahar taught me, this is the most important. Most people, scientists included, would describe themselves as open-minded, but most of them are not. Most people with an opinion prefer to hang on to it, even to the point where proof to the contrary is staring them in the face, sometimes even beyond that. This is what I mean by not being open-minded. Even now, especially now, Zahar would say, there are some things that are acceptable to believe, and some that are not. So Julie Rouane believes she was transported to an alien city, on an alien planet, that she formed attachments there and that in the case of Cally the attachment was formed even before that. She claims she knew Cally in Manchester, that they had known one another as children. As a scientist, I have no way of proving or disproving these things. I have no idea of the current whereabouts of Cally, but not knowing where Cally is does not mean that Cally doesn’t exist. All I have is the necklace, the pendant Julie says was given to her by Cally. She has given me permission to subject the metal to the appropriate tests, so that we can know for certain what it is made of. This report concerns the metallic components of the pendant only. Given the sensitivity of the material, my own ignorance as to its composition and the clear importance of the artefact to its owner I thought it unwise to attempt an analysis of the mineral component at the present time. (I didn’t want to interfere with it, if I am honest.)

  [Assay and results]

  To conduct the assay I removed a single link from the pendant’s chain, which was then melted in a crucible. Simple magnet, electro-conductivity and heat conductivity tests proved positive. The nitric acid test yielded a strong (clear red) positive result. The water displacement test, which I carried out first with the single-link sample and later with the chain in its entirety, gave a heavier than normal result, suggesting either a greater than average purity or unknown anomaly. I conducted the weight test twenty-five times in all, each time with the same or very simila
r result. A full chemical analysis and isotope scan, which I booked with MaasLab and conducted myself, assisted by Heike Scheck, revealed a 98 percent 109 Ag to 1 percent 107 Ag, with the suggestion of an additional 1 percent 108m Ag. With Ag 107 being the more common isotope (to the value of 1.85 percent naturally occurring approximately) the heavily skewed 109 to 107 ratio would be highly unusual in any case. The presence of the meta-static isotope 108 would render the sample a logical improbability. Such anomalous composition is most commonly associated with ore samples taken from the Santa Clara meteorite (Mexico, 1976, in which the recorded samples indicated an anomaly in favour of 107 Ag).

  [Conclusion]

  In the absence of more rigorous testing procedures, these results would seem to indicate that Julie Rouane’s pendant is composed of particularly high-density argent silver with a 99.9 percentage purity and anomalous composition. I would go further in stating that because this present anomaly most closely accords with meteorite (extraterrestrial) rather than native ore samples, the silver used in the manufacture of the chain (and by probability the pendant also, although it should be noted this item was not sampled and so cannot be verified) is likely to be extraterrestrial in origin.

  [NB] Just because a metal is extraterrestrial in origin, we cannot assume an extraterrestrial manufacture and it would be misleading and possibly harmful to do so in this case.

  I was worried that Heike might give me aggro about the results – they were so unusual – but her mind must have been on something else that day because she disappeared as soon as we’d finished, more or less, and without a word. I thought about scrubbing the results from the system hard drive, then thought again. No one was going to give a shit about someone else’s random isotope test. Any kind of data-scrubbing would be picked up immediately though, I knew that. If you’re recruiting for a spying outfit you’d pick techies over chemists any time. Then I called up Julie Rouane and told her the pendant was alien. Probably alien. As close to one hundred percent as we can come without a provenance, I said. Or a photograph of the source site, I thought but didn’t say. Things seemed weird enough without that. I thought Julie would sound excited but she barely reacted. I waited for her to say I told you so, but she didn’t. What she said was, what do I do now? I couldn’t think what to say to her. Whenever something like this happens, which isn’t often, thank God, I always find myself wanting to check on Saira, to hold her tight and take her somewhere safe. There’s nowhere to take her of course, and she hates it when I hug her too tight, she wriggles to get free, which only upsets me more, so I try not to do it. I ask Julie if she wants to come and collect the pendant or if FedEx is OK this time. She says FedEx is fine. But only if you take it in yourself, she adds, which of course I will. I feel she’s still expecting something. Sympathy? Advice? I don’t really understand any of this, I say in the end. I’m just a metallurgist. She breathes in, sharply, I hear it clearly even at the end of the telephone line and it’s as if I’ve punched her in the stomach. I got Saira’s drawing, she says in the end. I’d like to send her some new colouring pencils, if that’s all right. She’d like that, I say. I don’t really want her near Saira, but I know Saira likes her. I add that she should come and see us, if she’s in London. I spend the rest of the day worrying I’ve done the wrong thing, but what the heck, I like her too, and she seems so alone.

  9

  “Where have you been?” Selena said.

  She had half expected Julie not to let her in. The flat was a mess. Books and papers covered the table under the window and there were more on the floor underneath. Three empty coffee cups on the windowsill and an air of general untidiness. Not dirty, just dishevelled, like a child that had been left too long to its own devices. It reminded her of Dad’s place – because of course it did.

  Julie’s laptop was open and there was a video playing: images of outer space, covered with pulsing circles and darting red arrows. Julie was wearing black jeans and a baggy grey jumper. Her hair was snatched back off her face in an elastic band, to hide the fact that it needed washing, probably. Other than that she looked all right, which at least was something.

  “Why didn’t you answer your phone?” she added. Now that she knew Julie was safe, she was surprised by how angry she felt.

  Julie looked at the ground. “I kept forgetting to charge it,” she said. “And I’ve been out a lot. I probably wasn’t here when you called.”

  “Yeah right. You didn’t think I might be worried?”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want to see me any more. I read what was in the papers. I kept expecting the police to show up.”

  “You thought I was going to call the police on you?”

  “Not you. Mum.”

  “Mum wouldn’t do that.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know what she might do.”

  “What is all this mess, anyway? You’re not blaming Mum for that too, are you?”

  Julie glanced at the overflowing table. “Nothing. Just some stuff I’ve been reading.”

  “Let’s go and get something to eat.”

  “I don’t feel like going out. What if someone recognises me, from the papers?”

  “You seriously believe anyone’s going to recognise you from an old school photo?”

  “I don’t know. They might.”

  “I hardly think so. Come on, Julie. You can’t stay holed up in here forever. You’ll go nuts. And you’ll get fired.”

  “Is it cold out?”

  “It’s Manchester and it’s March. What do you think?”

  “I’ll get my coat, then.”

  Selena waited, wondering how it was possible for them to be having this conversation, how it was possible for them to be together in the same space even, arguing over the weather and with all the deeper questions left unspoken.

  It’s because we’re sisters, she thought. That’s how sisters go on.

  “Did you mean what you said on my voicemail?” Julie asked later, when they were in the restaurant. “About not caring what the police said, about that girl they found. Did you mean that?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?”

  “Who do you reckon she is, then? The woman they dug up, I mean?”

  “How would I know? Someone else. Someone who died.” It was strange, Selena thought, how little this question honestly bothered her. She cared that a woman had died, had been murdered, but that was all. Asking questions about who she had been felt risky to her, like prodding dynamite. She wasn’t going to do it – she had decided not to. “I’ve been wondering what we should do about your name,” she said instead. “I mean for work and everything.”

  What happens to a person officially, after they die? How long does it take for their existence to be scrubbed from the system? Selena recalled news stories about the families of pensioners who had died, and yet who still kept receiving telephone bills and council tax demands, months and sometimes years after the funeral. You couldn’t stop these letters coming, not even if you produced a valid death certificate. It was harder to expunge an identity, apparently, than it was to create one.

  The tax man cometh, Selena thought. Even unto the hereafter. Julie was different though, she’d been in the news. What would she do if the pen-pushers at the tax office tried to wipe her?

  How can you prove you’re alive once you’re legally dead?

  “That’s one thing that isn’t a problem, actually,” Julie said. For the first time that evening she laughed. “I changed my surname to Mum’s maiden name. I did it years ago. It just seemed safer. In case anyone came asking questions, I mean.”

  “So you’re Julie Hillson?”

  Julie nodded.

  “Suits you.”

  They carried on eating. People came and went at the front of the restaurant, collecting takeaways.

  “I need to know what you’re thinking, Selena,” Julie said in the end. “What you’re really thinking, I mean.”

  She seems calm, Selena thought. Calmer than when we first arrived
here, anyway. She’s ventured out of her hole and the world is still turning.

  “I don’t know.” Selena sighed. “I don’t think I’ll ever know, to be honest. I don’t understand any of it. All I know is that I believe you’re my sister. You remembered Mr Rustbucket. The only person who would remember Mr Rustbucket is my sister Julie.”

  * * *

  The police kept Selena updated on everything that was happening with Julie’s remains. That was how the police worked these days, Selena supposed. Civilians were problem clients, liable to sue at the least provocation. Best to keep them onside.

  The first police visit had been a shock, but only because she hadn’t expected them to put the pieces together so quickly: twenty-four hours or even less, that was really quite something. The follow-up was more routine. DCI Schechter was nice: a courteous, rather reticent man who said he’d been on the force at the time Julie went missing, that he remembered the case well. I was just a DCI then, he said. Green as pea soup. When he asked Selena if she’d like him to put her in touch with a victims’ support counsellor, Selena said no.

  I’m fine, she said. Honestly. She didn’t say much else. Things seemed safer that way. She made DCI Schechter a cup of coffee and hoped that would be the end of it. I want to thank you for everything you’re doing, she added.

  I feel lucky to be working on this, to be honest, Schechter said. It’s good to get closure on a case. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes. He stopped speaking abruptly. Clearly he thought he’d gone too far, been too candid. Selena smiled.

  That’s all right, she said. I understand. I’m glad it was you, she almost added, and then didn’t. It seemed wrong somehow, disingenuous. She liked DCI Schechter and didn’t want to lie to him any more than was necessary. It was all too easy to imagine him paging through Julie’s back file, trying to work out where they’d gone wrong before, why their searching had failed to turn up anything of substance when presumably the evidence had been there all along. Had their methods fallen short somehow, or had the body simply been hidden somewhere else and then dumped back in the woods at a later date, after the search teams had given up and gone home? Selena guessed that Schechter was banking on it being the latter. She could almost hear the hum of his thoughts: the girl had been abducted and murdered, the killer must have decided to get rid of her rucksack along with the body.