Says all the right things, all the stuff I needed to hear: that we’re not to worry, that Kitty is a v. responsible person. (Eyes went slightly goggly at that. Kitty’s many wonderful things but responsible is most definitely not one of them. But then given that this is her boss-man, I figure she must have put on one hell of an act in front of the guy.)
Anyway, soon as we arrived, he immediately printed us off a long, long list of all the staff, waiters, bar staff, delivery men, kitchen staff, right down to Polish guys that scrub down the loos, who were all around during that same last shift as Kitty. Way more than I’d ever have thought, but then you must need a small army of staff to run an ever-growing empire like this. Plus, as he tells us, it was the night before Christmas Eve, the place was packed out; it was a case of all hands on deck.
Jeez, scanning through it, the list runs to almost two full pages, literally dozens of names and their contact numbers. He’s even thrown in the contact details of diners who’d booked in that night and who’d left their phone numbers when making reservations. Everything we need and absolutely no stone unturned, in other words.
On the way out, we do a quick scan on each level of the restaurant, just in case there’s someone working that either of us might recognise. Place is surprisingly busy; there’s a whole clatter of young girls in Ugg boots with gel nails and too much false tan, all chattering excitedly over coffee and buns in the Food Hall Café about their Christmas sales bargains. Meanwhile the entire restaurant level is bustling with families having a post-Christmas lunch/hangover cure, or else diners who just couldn’t have been arsed cooking another big meal two days running. Simon just strides through every level confidently, me racing after him to keep up.
Only see one person we can ask though, a young part-timer who works down in the Food Hall. Francesca Sacetti is a cousin of Stephano, but then approx. fifty per cent of the staff in here all seem to be cousins of Stephano. (If you ask me, the Sacetti family are a bit like the Corleones, only legit.) We head over to where she’s busy restacking tins of olives on the shelves and ask if she’s seen Kitty at all.
No, she blinks innocently back at us. Says she’s been in Palermo for past two weeks. First day back at work today.
Should have guessed by her shagging suntan. Then she asks, wide-eyed, ‘Why, what’s the matter? Is something up with her? Is Kitty OK?’
Not off to a v. good start.
4.05 p.m.
Back at Kitty’s, stuck on our phones, the pair of us. Bit like a telesales conference in here. Lists covered in biro marks surround us, scattered all over the floor. My ears physically sore and raw red from being on the phone for the past few hours. At this stage, we’ve a system of sorts going. We’ve both crossed out the names of people we actually got to speak to but who were no help to us, then made dirty big red marks beside the names of anyone who didn’t actually answer their phone, but who we’ve left messages for, practically begging them to call us back urgently.
Net result to date? Sweet feck all.
8.20 p.m.
Still here, with my voice nearly hoarse by now from talking on phone.
On the plus side, between the pair of us we’ve at least managed to make some kind of headway and now have a good long list of people we’ve left messages for and who are to get back to us; people who might just be able to shed a bit of light on the whole thing. On the minus side, though, in spite of everyone we did actually manage to speak to, we’ve got absolutely nowhere. In cop-show-speak, no leads to talk of. No one’s seen or heard a whisper from Kitty in days, and no one’s spoken to her on the phone either. No texts even to say Happy Christmas, nothing.
As if she’s just vanished into thin air.
9.05 p.m.
Eventually, Simon slumps forward, holding his head in his hands and looking about as shattered as I feel. He has to be feeling the uselessness and futility of this, I just know. Know it without being told.
‘Listen, I’ve an idea,’ I tell him tentatively, not wanting to panic the guy, but at the same time, anxious to do more than keep on cold calling a bunch of total strangers late on Stephen’s night, when everyone we talk to would far rather be stuffing their faces with Cadbury’s Selection Boxes, while watching Mamma Mia!
He looks over to me, red-eyed with tiredness by now.
‘Don’t freak out on me,’ I say, ‘but I really think it’s time to start checking around hospitals. Just in case … Well, you know. She might have been at some party and maybe something happened to her on the way home? And say she was taken to a hospital somewhere and no one has a clue who she is?’
He looks worriedly into space for a second, then nods his head.
‘I’m only praying you’re wrong,’ he says, jaw clamped tightly, ‘but it’s certainly worth a shot.’
Sick with nerves now, I get back onto the phone, go online, look up the number for Vincent’s Hospital and dial.
9.20 p.m.
Bloody waste of time! Hospitals turn out to be a total dead end. Didn’t take me long to ring every single one with an A&E unit in the greater Dublin area as there’s not that many. And once I navigated my way past ‘Are-you-next-of kin?’ type questions and explained the situation, I pretty much got the same response from all of them.
V. sorry for my trouble, but it’s impossible to give that information over the phone. Have I tried contacting the police, is all I’m asked, over and over.
Right then. Nothing for it but to call into each and every hospital we can think of, first light tomorrow, as they say in search-and-rescue TV shows. Better than sitting round here ringing a total bunch of strangers who know absolutely nothing, feeling useless and with all confidence fast draining from me.
Anything’s better than that.
9.35 p.m.
Agree we need to call it a night. As Simon v. wisely points out, calling people we don’t know at this hour just isn’t a good plan. He offers to drive me home and promises to call during the night if she turns up.
Which I just know by him, he’s still secretly holding out for. All night long, whenever he hears a car door slamming or fast footsteps pounding down street outside, he’ll jump up a bit, then look confidently towards the front door like a lost puppy, silently praying she’ll slide her key into lock and bounce in like nothing happened. Honest to God, the hope in his eyes would nearly kill you.
Am wall-falling with tiredness by now. Gratefully accept his offer.
9.45 p.m.
On the way to my parents’ house, we pass by the local cop shop on Harcourt Terrace.
I catch sight of a copper striding out of there, which means at least they’re still open. It’s a sign. Right then, in a flash, the decision is made.
‘Simon, pull over the car,’ I tell him firmly, when we’re stopped at traffic lights.
‘What did you say?’ he asks, looking at me like I’ve finally lost it.
‘I know this is the last thing either of us wants to do right now,’ I say, whipping off my seat belt and getting ready to jump out, now that we’ve stopped. ‘But I just think there’s no harm in calling in and telling the cops everything that’s happened to date, that’s all. Let’s just bring them up to speed and keep them informed. I mean, they’ve got access to all sorts of resources that we don’t, so …’
I trail off a bit here and it would melt a heart of stone to see just how crushed the poor guy’s starting to look. Can practically hear him thinking: bringing in the coppers now means Kitty’s really, really gone and isn’t coming back.
He parks the car and I reach over to pat his arm sympathetically.
‘Look, I know how sick with worry you are,’ I tell him a bit more gently. ‘And I know how much you were looking forward to your skiing trip tomorrow and that you’re secretly hoping against hope that she might yet do some kind of eleventh-hour resurfacing act in the middle of the night. Don’t get me wrong, I’m praying for that too. But we’re here, is all I’m saying. And we have spent all afternoon and evening pretty much doin
g their bloody job for them. So let’s just see if they can help us out! Just humourise me, Simon. Come on, what’s wrong with that?’
Long pause, and I swear I can physically see the eternal optimist in him wrestle with his inner realist.
Astonishingly, the realist wins out.
‘You’re right,’ he sighs, for first time all day sounding defeated. ‘We’re here. For what it’s worth, let’s do it.’
10.35 p.m.
Police are useless! Total and utter waste of time! I storm out of there fuming, and even calm, level-headed Simon’s pissed off at just how lackadaisical they were. Now I know it’s Christmas, etc., I know the sixteen-year-old copper on duty would far rather be home in front of a computer screen chatting up girls on Facebook, rather than listening to a borderline hysteric and the shell-shocked boyfriend of a missing woman, demanding that something be done immediately to track her down.
First question: did Kitty have a history of drug or alcohol abuse? I gave him an adamant no. Almost snapped the face off him. I mean, sure Kitty likes a drink the way we all do, but drugs? Never once, in all the long years I’ve known her! And that is a long, long, time, probably since well before you were toilet trained, I stressed to the acne-faced copper.
Second question: did she have a history of depression, or was she in any way prone to suicidal tendencies? Almost guffawed in his face, and Simon was at pains to point out that she’s a respectable student, waitressing her way through night school; the jolliest, most positive, outgoing type you could ever meet, who’d probably never once in the whole course of her life entertained a solitary dark thought. ’Course, I was nearly thumping on the table by then and kept demanding to talk to someone – anyone – more senior, who might see the severity of the situation and take it that bit more seriously.
Simon had to haul me back by the elbow at this point, and even had the manners to apologise to the young kid on my behalf, politely explaining that we’d both had a v. stressful day of it. At which point I went back to standing sulkily on the sidelines, arms folded, occasionally lobbing in, ‘But she never went to visit her foster mother on Christmas Day! And she stood me up on my birthday! So why aren’t you writing that down in your logbook, sonny? Unheard of for her!’
Totally wasting my breath. Child-copper told us that standard procedure is that a missing persons report can only be filed when someone’s been gone for a minimum of three days. I nearly had to be held back at that and had to resist the urge to holler, ‘So going AWOL over Christmas is no cause for immediate concern, then?’
Simon calmly pointed out that, as far as we know, the last person who actually saw Kitty was Joyce Byrne at Byrne & Sacetti, who said goodbye to her at about one in the morning on the twenty-fourth, just as she was finishing up her shift. About seventy hours ago, roughly. For God’s sake, we’re almost there, almost at magical three-day mark!
But the copper was v. insistent. If she still hasn’t surfaced by tomorrow, he told us, then we could come back and they’d take it from there. Around six in the evening is the best time, he added, as the sergeant would be back on duty then. Like we were making appointments at the hairdresser’s.
But then – And this is bit that almost made me gag – he v. coolly, almost dismissively, informed us that the vast majority of people who disappear for a while usually resurface again safe and well. Well over ninety per cent of them, in fact. Clearly it must be a well-known statistic they apparently teach you in your first year at Garda Training College, because he kept stressing it over and over again, like a broken record. Then told us to just go home and even managed to add insult to injury by calling after us, ‘And try not to worry.’
Had the strongest urge to smack him over the head with the butt end of my umbrella, but Simon clocked it in time and hauled me out of there, before I got the chance to inflict lasting damage.
11.10 p.m.
Front driveway of my parents’ house. Sleeting down v. heavily now, lashing. The two of us barely spoke the whole way here; too punch drunk by it all. Just as I’m about to clamber out of the car, Simon grabs my hand and pulls me back.
‘Thanks, Angie,’ is all he says sincerely, the green eyes focused right on me in that v. intense way he has. ‘You’re keeping me sane in all this. I just want you to know that.’
‘Ring me,’ I tell him, ‘anytime at all in the night if she turns up.’
‘You know I will.’
Am too exhausted to say what I really think.
But what happens if and when she doesn’t?
Chapter Four
27 December, 8.20 a.m.
I’m in a deep, dead, exhausted sleep when I’m woken by the phone, beside me, ringing. And in a nanosecond, I go from early-morning grogginess to wide awake and on high alert.
Please be Simon with news … Please can the pathetic, frail little hope he was clinging to – that Kitty would just stroll through the front door during the wee small hours – have actually, miraculously come to pass …
It’s not Simon, but the next best thing! My buddy Jeff, ringing me back to say he got all my hysterical voice messages yesterday and of course now v. anxious to find out what in hell is going on with Kitty. What’s the story? Has she turned up? Quickly, I fill him in and bring him up to speed.
‘OK then,’ he says in his decisive, man-of-action way. ‘Just tell me how I can help and I’ll be there.’
Jeff’s amazing. Jeff’s a true pal. This is exactly what’s needed right now. Fresh blood. Reinforcements.
8.25 a.m.
Call Simon. The phone’s picked up after approximately half a ring, if even that.
‘Hello?’ he answers.
Shit. I just know by the overly hopeful note in his voice he was praying this might be Kitty. But Simon’s always the perfect gentleman and at least has the good grace not to sound a bit deflated, when it turns out it’s only me. My heart goes out to the guy. Am actually afraid at one point he sounds dangerously close to tears.
Please, for the love of God, don’t cry, I find myself silently praying. Don’t think I could handle it if I had to be strong one in all this, while Simon fell apart. Thank Christ he doesn’t, but the underlying tremble in his voice is nearly worse.
He says he and Kitty were meant to be leaving for their big skiing hollier in just under three hours’ time. His Xmas gift to her. He tells me that just a few short days ago, before the whole world somehow fell apart, he thought he’d be arm in arm with her right at this very moment, skipping through Duty Free with bottle of champagne tucked under his oxter and with nothing but a fab, romantic week in Austria arsing around the slopes to look forward to. Says never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d spend this morning ringing up a gangload of total strangers, in the slim hope someone, somewhere might have had even a fleeting conversation with her on that final shift and that maybe, maybe they might be able to shed a bit of light on this.
It’s a flair of mine to say the wrong thing at times like this, and true to form, Angie strikes again.
‘Simon … this is just a thought,’ I say tentatively, ‘but I don’t suppose there’s any point in turning up at the airport, just in case?’ Then in a classic Freudian slip, I manage to mumble out the single most annoying comment, the same one I was gritting my teeth down the phone over, every time I heard it yesterday.
‘I mean, you know what Kitty’s like,’ I blurt out, barely pausing to think. ‘So just say she did end up buried deep in some stranger’s house over Christmas, someone who we’ve not made contact with yet, then … well, maybe she’ll just turn up at Departures later on this morning, with a credit card in her back pocket and nothing else?’
I regret the words the very second they’re out of my mouth. Am a stupid, bloody, moronic, tactless idiot. I shouldn’t do this to the guy, when he’s going through so much! It’s downright cruel. False hope can be a v., v. dangerous thing.
Still, though. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be unprecedented carry-on for our Kitty. Can’t help th
inking back to that one particular, now-famous occasion—
But Simon interrupts my train of thought, sighing exhaustedly.
‘You know, I’d sort of been hoping for that too,’ he says. ‘In fact, I was thinking almost exactly along the same lines as you. But at about four o’clock this morning, I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and started rummaging through her desk, in case there was some clue there as to what’s going on. An address of where she might be staying, a phone number, a name, maybe. Something we’ve overlooked that just might explain all this.’
‘And?’
‘Well, put it this way: she’s most definitely not going to casually turn up at the airport this morning and that’s for certain.’
‘You’re absolutely sure?’
Not meaning to contradict him so baldly, but she actually has done it before. With me, as it happened. Years ago. I thought she’d stood me up for a last-minute trip to London, and next thing she bounded into airport, no bags, no luggage, nothing, and full of the most outlandish story involving a hit-and-run driver, a sick cocker spaniel with a mashed front paw, a wailing child and a last-minute dash to the nearest vets. One of those completely mental, nutty excuses, so utterly off-the-wall that you just knew it could only be the truth. Vintage Kitty, in other words.
‘Yeah, I’m pretty certain,’ Simon is saying, ‘because when I was rummaging through her desk at stupid o’clock this morning, I came across a couple of things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like a list of restaurants in the resort that we were meant to go to. A German phrase book I’d bought her for the trip, as a joke. And right beside all of that, I found her passport.’
9.25 a.m.
Jeff picks me up and v. kindly says he’ll drive me to Kitty’s house, then help to give Simon and me a dig-out for the rest of the entire day. Says he’ll do whatever he can to help, bless him. Claims he’s prepared do anything to find our gal, even if it’s only running around distributing milky mugs of sugary tea, patting shoulders and saying, ‘There, there, dear,’ at regular intervals. A true friend, in other words.
Me and You Page 6