Anyway, he collects me in his little runaround Skoda, typical Jeff, dressed like he’s on his way to a gym. Bit too tight Lycra gym leggings with trainers and a v. clingy sweatshirt, with suspicious overtones of a recent spray tan, just a shade too mahogany for it to be natural. In December. When it’s freezing.
To his great annoyance, Jeff’s often mistaken for gay, reinforced by the fact he works as a freelance make-up artist, hence the addiction to spray tans. But he’s not; he’s straight as they come and actively seeking a GF. And he really is a total sweetheart, inordinately generous, the kind of bloke who’d gladly do anything for you. If he was in a movie, he’d most likely be cast as the reliable-best-buddy-of-leading-man. You know, the sort of roles Paul Rudd makes a v. healthy living out of. Such a lovely guy, Kitty often says, that it’s almost a racing certainty he’ll ultimately end up with a complete bitch. Always the way; the sweeter and more genuine they are, the more horrendous the girlfriend. Sad fact.
‘I just can’t believe Kitty would pull a disappearing trick like this!’ he tells me after a quick peck on the cheek, as I clamber into the car beside him. ‘It just doesn’t seem possible, not even for her!’
I nod mutely back at him in agreement.
‘So that’s not only Christmas that she’s missed,’ he goes on, ‘on top of your birthday, but now the chance to head off on a holiday with Simon, too? Jeez … Dunno about you, honey, but I’m now working on the definite possibility that something serious must have happened to her on her way home from work. I’m thinking … maybe some axe-wielding psycho now has her locked up in a cellar somewhere in the bowels of the South Circular Road?’
He has the tact to shut up instantly when he catches me doing an involuntary shudder and offers me a bottle of ayurvedic water. (Still water, by the way. Jeff’s theory is that carbonated bubbles are an indirect cause of male cellulite. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy dearly, but he can be tiny bit image-conscious like that.)
‘Congratulations,’ I tell him, gratefully snapping open water bottle and taking a big slug. ‘You’ve now arrived at stage one. Disbelief combined with a willing acceptance that whatever happened to her must be gruesome beyond belief. I’d a full day of that yesterday, thanks very much, while you were hauling your skinny arse up the side of a mountain.’
‘So, dare I ask what stage you’re now at, hon?’
‘Since early this morning? I’m officially at stage two.’
‘Which is?’
‘Bizarrely, it’s ridiculous belief that everything’s going to be OK, in the face of almost overwhelming odds. Which is why I’m about to suggest you and I take a quick detour on the way to Kitty’s.’
10.01 a.m.
Vincent’s Hospital, the biggest one over my end of town. Jeff pulls into the car park and we stomp our way through the icy grounds towards the A&E department.
‘Simon thinks this is a total waste of time,’ I explain briskly on the way, ‘but I’m saying, let’s just rule out all possibilities, that’s all.’
‘Quite right.’ Jeff pats my arm a bit patronisingly, like I’m some hysterical old dear who needs agreeing with at all times, else she’s likely to get a fit of the vapours. Truth is, though, I’m not particularly bothered whether Jeff understands or not. Just need to be doing something. Need to keep being proactive.
Keep telling myself over and over again: if it was the other way round, Kitty would probably have SWAT teams out patrolling the streets, searching for me by now.
10.17 a.m.
A&E unit is v. quiet. Miracle. Was half expecting it to be like a field hospital at the Battle of the Somme given that it’s the Christmas holidays. Head to the main desk and speak to a v. helpful receptionist. A lovely young one who must be able to sense waves of urgency practically pinging off the pair of us, as she goes out of her way to be helpful.
‘We’re looking for a patient who may possibly have been admitted early on the morning of Christmas Eve, thirty-one years old, five feet ten … em … really skinny … Oh yeah, hazel eyes and waist-length long, black, curly hair. Name of Kitty Hope. Might they have anyone who even comes close to fitting that description?’ is our not v. well-thought-out opener.
But no joy. Receptionist is nothing if not persevering, though, and as soon as she’s checked on her system that no one of that name’s been admitted, she then volunteers to ask around for us, just in case. Even disappears off into the A&E to double check; really goes the extra mile for us. Then comes back through double doors where we’re sitting tensely on plastic seats in the waiting area and shakes her head sadly at us.
She doesn’t even need to open her mouth. The look on her disappointed face tells us all we need to know.
10.32 a.m.
Back in the car when Simon calls wondering where I am. Sounding agitated and panicky. V. worrying. And now I’m starting to feel a bit shitty about leaving poor guy alone this morning, to deal with all this by himself. Just doesn’t sit right with me, somehow.
Suddenly I’m concerned that he and I seem to have switched personalities: whereas he was the pillar of confidence and strength yesterday and I was the screw-up, today we’re in near-perfect role reversal. He seems to be falling apart, so it’s up to me to be Miss Bossypants Assertiveness. I tell him that we’re on our way back, then saintly Jeff v. kindly offers to drop me off at Kitty’s and continue doing the trawl of hospitals on his own.
I thank him warmly. So fab to be able to delegate. Then I’ve a brainwave. I suggest to Jeff that we should start rooting out photos of Kitty from her house, so we have something to show to the world, and in particular, to the hospitals. Not to mention the coppers, who are bound to want decent headshots of her later on, if it comes to that. I’m now working along the lines that Kitty could be lying in a ward somewhere, suffering from deep concussion and not knowing who she is or how she got there.
Then, of course, my imagination totally runs away with me and I get an immediate vision of her bandaged from head to foot with just tiny slit holes for her eyes, so no one can even see who she is, never mind what she looks like. Bit far-fetched, maybe, but as I said to Jeff, quoting Basil Rathbone in the old Sherlock Holmes movies, once you’ve eliminated the impossible, then whatever you’re left with, however improbable, must be the truth.
Makes sense. Doesn’t it?
When the pair of us arrive at Kitty’s, Simon answers the door. Soon as I catch the state he’s in, the sudden urge I get to cradle him tight and tell him everything will be OK, even though it clearly isn’t, is almost overpowering. He actually looks like a lost little boy. The dark circles under his eyes have now gone even darker; poor guy looks like he never even got to bed last night, never mind slept and, unusually for him, he’s still streeling around in yesterday’s clothes. He gives me a hug and I instantly feel the roughness of his face against mine. Unheard of for a man like this, I think distractedly. Simon’s normally all smooth and lotion-y with a lovely, lemony smell of expensive aftershave off him. Well turned out, as Mother Blennerhasset would be wont to remark. Heartbreaking to see.
Even Jeff gets bit of a shock at just how badly Simon’s taking it.
Soon as we head inside, Jeff skites off to Kitty’s study to whip a few decent photos off the wall and Simon automatically goes to stick on the kettle, offering us both coffee.
‘I feel daft even asking you this,’ I say gently to him, ‘but how are you feeling right now?’
He gives a weak, watery smile back at me. ‘You know what I’ve spent the last hour doing?’ he says hoarsely. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the hotel in Austria where Kitty and I were due to be checking in around now.’
‘Cancelling the booking?’
‘Cancelling everything. The reservation, the candlelit dinner for two I’d booked for tonight, the …’ He breaks off here a bit. ‘Well … let’s just say, I had a surprise arranged for her, a very special surprise, but now I guess that’s all gone by the wayside too.’
‘Oh, Simon, I don’t know
what to say,’ I tell him gently. ‘I hope at least that the hotel were OK about it?’
‘Oh, yeah, very sympathetic. The reservations manager spoke fluent English and she was incredibly understanding. She wanted to know …’ but he trails off again, like the end of that sentence is too painful to even articulate. I instinctively move a step closer to him, but he focuses on putting Nescafé into mugs and composes himself in time.
‘She said she was sorry if my girlfriend and I had broken up. And I just couldn’t find it in me to get the right words out, so instead I hung up the phone.’
Then Jeff sticks his head around the door, with a stack of photos for us all to check. V. hard to find one of Kitty without a drink in her hand, or where you can actually see her nose full-on (she was expert at turning her head in photos, as she’d say, to minimise general Barbra Streisand-ness of it), but eventually we settle on about a half a dozen that’ll have do.
Right then. Jeff sets off on his mission and Simon and I get back to manning the phones, picking up exactly where we left off yesterday.
12.45 p.m.
Getting on bit better today. Spoke to one junior chef who distinctly remembered seeing Kitty on that last shift and having a long chat with her. Apparently about how much she was looking forward to her skiing trip.
V. strange look from Simon at hearing that. Would nearly break a heart of stone.
2.20 p.m.
Our buddy Sarah arrives, fresh from doing an early shift at her family’s sandwich bar where she practically runs the place single-handedly; doing everything from PR to sales and marketing to working on the tills, if she has to. Bless her, she strides in laden down with basket of fresh sambos, croissants, muffins, etc.
Carb hit, just what we need. Sarah’s completely amazing, like a ray of light round here, positive energy beaming all round her. Great ‘can-do’ attitude, v. Dunkirk spirit. If you were casting Sarah in a biopic of her life, you’d go for an efficient Women’s Institute/ICA type, as played by a young Penelope Keith.
Kitty and I know her all way back to her post-grad college days, when Sarah used to trawl round the place in Doc Martens and denim overalls, famous for never shaving under her arms. Then, the minute she graduated and went to work in her family’s catering company, overnight she suddenly morphed into a female Alan Sugar, crossed with a Karren Brady-businesswoman-type, dressed in stilettos and scarily smart black pantsuits, and living off a combination of fags and nerves. It’s in the blood and genes will always out, as Kitty used to shrug.
Really delighted to see her now, though. Like a burst of vitally needed energy.
3.45 p.m.
It was exhausting, it nearly bloody killed us, but somehow between us, Simon, Sarah and I, we’ve now managed to work our weary way through to the v. last name and get to speak to everyone we could on that everlastingly long contact list. Don’t know how we did it, but between Sarah’s Prussian efficiency and my insane, misguided optimism in the face of overwhelming odds, somehow we get there.
Absolutely nowhere, that is. No one has seen or heard from Kitty since her last shift in work, no one knew of any late-night parties she might have pitched up at, not a bleeding sausage. Just dead ends everywhere we turn.
Poor Simon’s really worrying me now. Like a shadow of the same guy I knew from only a few days ago. He’s jumpy, tense, even a bit irritable, so unlike his usual über-gentlemanly self. Has already asked me about five times to come with him to police station later on this evening.
‘I really need you there with me, Angie,’ is all he says, with a pleading look, like a lost little puppy.
He’s actually starting to treat me like I’m his lifeline. Even Sarah noticed.
5.10 p.m.
Fast approaching the 6.00 p.m. deadline to get back to the cop shop, and Simon and I are about as organised as we’ll ever be to finally file a report. We’ve covered absolutely everything; we even rang up Foxborough House care home again, in vain hopes Kitty may somehow have surfaced there. But nothing.
Weird just how quickly you become inured to disappointment.
Between the whole lot of us though, I think we’re fully prepped for all eventualities. Sarah, being Sarah (bit ghoulishly I thought), even went and unearthed a whole missing persons website and saw that the first thing police apparently look for are mobile phone details, as well as bank account and credit card statements. So after a fair bit of rummaging through Kitty’s desk, the pair of us stumbled on a few old bank statements as well as a mobile phone bill (Kitty’s never a great one for clearing out her desk, it seems). Felt a bit like tempting fate even taking all this stuff with me, but as Sarah kept reminding me, far better to arrive fully prepared.
All in all, getting organised for this was relatively easy.
So now for the hard part.
Harcourt Street Police Station, 6.00 p.m. on the nail
Utterly mental in the cop shop tonight. Like a riot just broke out before we arrived and Simon and I had the bad luck to walk right into the aftermath. Place is packed with underage-looking yobbos with buzz cuts and v. scary-looking ‘body art’, all out of their heads on meths or God knows what. I’m not kidding, every single one of them looks fully ready to start fisticuffs with his own shadow. Bloody terrifying.
I shuffle over to stand v. close to Simon, who instinctively grips my hand. Grip it back, tight. Grateful.
We wait meekly at the back of a tiny reception area, either till the yob-heads all get arrested or else someone notices us, but by a stroke of pure luck, the very same adolescent copper who was on duty last night chances to walk right by us with a tray of coffee. He sees us and immediately stops.
‘You two must be back about your missing friend then, yeah?’ he asks.
Pair of us nod.
‘I take it she still hasn’t turned up, then?’
It’s all I can do to fire him an impatient look and stop myself from snapping, ‘Eh, no, sonny, she’s actually at home with the feet up watching tonight’s Christmas movie, which I believe is Avatar. Sure, we just thought we’d swing by to drink in the homely atmosphere.’
But Simon, as always, is that bit more tactful than I am.
‘Still nothing to report, I’m afraid,’ he says politely. ‘Can you tell me who’s the most senior person on duty here tonight?’
‘That’d be Detective Sergeant Jack Crown. If you just follow me, I’ll get him for you now. He said if there was still no news about your friend this evening, then he’d like to interview you both together.’
Sudden surge of elation. The sergeant wants to interview us! You see? Finally, finally, finally this is being taken seriously! Jubilantly we follow the pimply adolescent Garda, as he leads us out of the packed waiting area and down a long, snaking corridor to a tiny interview room right at the very end.
A gloomy, depressing, dismal-looking kip of a place. Overly bright fluorescent light that’d nearly give you a migraine, walls painted hospital green, with the paint peeling off them, and only one tiny window with bars on it, about seven feet above us. Bit like a prison cell. Underage Garda leaves us there and says that the sergeant will be along shortly.
The door slams shut and Simon shoots me a concerned look.
‘Don’t be nervous, Ange,’ he tells me gently. ‘Remember we’ve got all the facts in front of us and all we have to do now is tell the truth and nothing but.’
‘To be honest,’ I answer, ‘right now I’m mostly just relieved that maybe now they’ll get up off their arses and finally start to do something to help. Think about it: we’ve spent all of yesterday and most of today essentially doing the police’s work for them! It’s a complete disgrace, that’s what it is! Don’t know about you, but I’ve no intentions of leaving here without them promising to do what they’re being paid to do and get the bloody finger out.’
Because I want this sergeant, whoever he is, to be an elder statesman, Inspector Morse type, who’ll have this solved in a mere matter of hours. Or else a wise, elderly Miss Marple sort
, as played by Margaret Rutherford, who’ll offer us pots of tea and scones, ask questions that initially seem totally irrelevant, like, ‘What was Kitty’s mother’s maiden name?’ Or, ‘Had she ever visited Bologna in springtime?’ And yet still manage to trace Kitty by morning.
Failing that, I want Kenneth Branagh as Wallander to stride confidently in here, or better yet, David Suchet as Poirot, who’ll waddle around, charm the arses off us, ask insightful questions, then whisk off and have Kitty back to us with nothing more than a funny tale to dine out on. I want someone who’ll walk in here and immediately inspire confidence. I want to just look at him and know that if this guy can’t track down Kitty, no one can.
What’s more, I want whoever this guy is to give us his solemn word that highly trained SWAT teams are, as we speak, being deployed to come in and help. I want helicopters patrolling the area where Kitty was last seen, I want everyone she ever met in her entire life from the age of three upwards to be hauled in for a full police interview; I want her story to be on one of those ‘live police enactments’ that you see on TV shows like Crimewatch (except with somebody thinner playing me, obviously).
I want whole entire units of coppers with trained Alsatians pounding on every hall door between here and West Belfast, asking questions and demanding answers. I want to paper-blitz whole country with a full poster and flyer campaign, so no one can possibly avoid seeing Kitty’s unforgettable face staring out at them from billboards, bus stops and lampposts.
I want total media blanket coverage. And only when all that is done, will I …
6.35 p.m.
Mental ramblings are suddenly interrupted by arrival of Detective Sergeant Jack Crown, who instantly surprises me by not being a senior, Inspector Morse or even a Scando detective type, but a youngish guy. Not that much older than Simon, late thirties at most, and not a bit wise or experienced-looking at all.
Me and You Page 7