‘Anyone contacted any of them yet?’
‘Hmm, not yet.’ He scratches his chin.’ I’ve put together a list of her clients, it’s a long list.’
‘Give Kinsi the list, tell her to give them a call, she’s good at stuff like that. No mention of the recordings though, don’t want them demanding access or threatening to sue us. Tell her to inform them that we’ve just found an appointment book with their telephone numbers in.’ She leans forward, rests her elbows on her desk, rotates her neck. ‘She’ll get them to open up, hopefully. At least they’ll be able to tell us more about her.’ She moves her seat, dips towards the box. ‘Tell me more about these?’ She picks up another bagged cassette.
‘I wasn’t sure at first, after checking a few I realised that they were the same two people on them, patient number eight and someone who I think might be a psychiatrist. I compared one of the DVDs with one of the cassette recordings. The voices sound very similar. However, on the cassettes, the person is patient eight, on the DVD she’s the therapist. There’s a little difference in the accents, she’s got a bit posher over time.’ He smiles. ‘Whatever problems she had, she’d clearly got over them.’
‘Any dates on the cassettes?’
‘The couple that I listened to were recorded in 1999. Nothing noted on the actual tapes themselves though.’
‘Well, whilst we’re at it, we’d best get on with that, too. Get Jenny to transcribe them. The cassettes that is, make them a priority. Then ask her to put them on a timeline. See what turns up.’
He gets to his feet, picks up the plastic box, tucks it under his arm. ‘This case seems to be getting weirder and weirder.’
She nods her head; stifles a yawn, the lack of sleep is catching up on her. ‘Still, we’re making progress. You’ve done a good job there, Badger.’ She feels a sense of relief, the relief that her team is nothing like the one back in 1973.
A thought spins through her head, Thomasine Albright must have read every single document in the missing person’s file.
I’d be filled with anger and bitterness if it was me.
Her mobile phone vibrates across the desk.
‘Thanks, Badge, I’ve got to take this, it’s Sam – let’s see what he’s found out from Ralph and Ingrid Probisher.
44
Thomasine drags herself out of bed, her bare feet sink into the bedroom carpet, her eyes feel like they’re filled with sand. She slips on the furry pink dressing gown her mother bought her last Christmas, draws back the bedroom curtains. She’d worked well into the night, forced herself to bed at three o’clock, with a glass of whisky and two paracetamol for the pain across her shoulders. A common complaint in her line of work. Soon her dreams soured into nightmares. All the cases she’d investigated concertinaed in her head, the bagged hands, the bloated faces, the burnt bodies.
I bet I look like shit.
Late yesterday she’d rung the boss, asked to come back. After the niceties, he’d been direct.
‘Not yet, take another week,’ He wasn’t one for messing around. ‘I want you back fresh. Your head clear.’ He knew what he was talking about, his own daughter wreaked havoc on the family, drugs, stealing money. She disappeared at least once a month. Thomasine knew that if he’d thought she was up to it, he’d have her back at work in a heartbeat.
She goes through to the office, looks down at the black and white photographs strewn across her desk. The computer hums in the background. She has a name to follow up on, a new lead to follow – Jacky2422, the woman who posted the pictures, the woman who probably was there that night. Someone who might be an important witness.
Those other missing girls—what happened to them? Perhaps there could be links there too.
Thomasine picks up the photograph of Karen, and of him. Her eyes wander across the page; they settle on his face again. What did he have that attracted Karen to him? He looks older than the eighteen she said he was. He must be at least twenty. He has a beard and moustache, dark eyes, long dark eyelashes. She tries to imagine what he’d look like now. Grey hair instead of brown, a receding hairline, the skin on his face slack, his shoulders rounded; the muscle wasted from his arms and chest. That’s if he’s alive even.
The doorbell goes, she reminds herself to take out the batteries. Someone shouts through the letterbox. She tells herself she must tape it over, ring the post office to keep her mail there. Instead, she closes the office door, blocks them out.
Her eyes return to the photograph. Dozens of people surrounded them on the dance floor. It’s hard to tell how old they were, some look very young, the girls in particular. She clicks back on the website, reads through the blog postings, to see if anyone has tagged themselves in the photograph. No one has.
Boys in sleeveless T-shirts, thin waistcoats, some bare-chested. Girls in short-sleeved blouses and culottes. Thomasine can’t tell whether it’s summer or winter by the clothes they’re wearing. Wherever they are it must be hot, everyone is sweating. Other than Karen, she doesn’t recognise anyone in the photograph, or in any of the photographs.
There’s one thing she does know, most of the people in them will look very different now. She wonders which one is Jacky2422. She emailed her last night, asked if she could see her tomorrow, now today. Jacky emailed her back, she was away for a few days. Would she mind waiting until she got back? She had no choice.
For a moment, she wonders why Judith had told her about the diary. She’d had plenty of time over the years. She saw no mention of the diary on file. She scribbles a reminder to ask her who interviewed her. If she can remember that is. Then she texts Paul. Lets him know that she’ll be staying at her own place for a few days.
Her eyes catch the name on the wall – Charlie Arnold, the most recent case, 1987. It had been over a year since she’d contacted Belinda Davies, her sister. She was due a visit – to show that they were still looking, still cared. Keeping the connection alive even though the case might be cold. Faces changed, parents and grandparents died, brothers and sisters grew older, sometimes moved away.
Then there were the families where the missing child was their only child. That was perhaps the hardest. The fear that when they were gone, no one would be there to keep looking. To look after them if they turned up alive or to organise the funeral if it was the other. Sudden tears prick Thomasine’s eyes.
Pull yourself together girl. Those words had been her mantra for over thirty years.
She knew Belinda Davies’ number by heart. Charlie could be in those woods, too. It rang for nearly a minute before she picked up.
‘Hi Belinda, it’s Thomasine.’
It’s clear from the moment she hears her voice; Belinda is not in a mood for a chat.
‘I thought you might ring, Thom. I don’t know why but I did.’ Her tone is clipped, brisk, her reluctance obvious. ‘I’m happy for you, truly. I want you to know that. At least you know now. At least you can bury her.’
Then she put down the phone, she didn’t slam it. She’s never been one for long conversations, she didn’t even let Thomasine get a word in. But the call was brief, even by her standards. Thomasine lets out a sigh of disappointment, pulls herself out of the chair, goes downstairs, throws some cereal in a bowl, splashes on some milk. She eats two spoonful’s and throws the rest in the bin.
She sees no point in getting upset, nevertheless she does. Belinda’s voice was like a paper cut, sharp and unexpected. She goes out into the garden, down the bottom, to sit on the bench that she had built herself. She has a cry, allows herself five minutes of wallowing, then she pulls herself back together. She stands up tall, pulls her shoulders back.
Like Mam used to say, no point in crying over spilt milk. No, I’m not giving up, I’m going to talk with her, I just need to adjust my strategy. Her sister disappeared the same way as Karen, out of the blue, that’s why I’d copied the file. There were other parallels too, same age, dark hair, hazel eyes, the same precocious personality, fourteen going on twenty-two. And yet no one ma
de a connection. Just another runaway.
She goes upstairs, showers, puts on some makeup. Pulls on a pair of fitted black trousers, they’re loose at the waist. The milk-chocolate coloured jumper looks off against her skin, she’s sleep deprived, washed out. She seizes her bag and coat and sneaks out the back way. Her car is parked down the street, out of the sight of the journos.
Belinda lives in Wickenshaw, rents a house there. It’s about thirty minutes away. As she drives through the streets she sees hundreds of young girls, layered in make-up, heads stuck in their mobile phones, in complete denial that it could happen to them. A shiver goes down her back, what if the woodland has more bodies to give up? Back then, girls were a lot more naive.
The street is run down; it’s all back to back housing, abandoned cars on the scrub ground where they knocked houses down, ready for the regeneration grants that never came. Drugs, high crime, high unemployment, too many people thrown out of decent housing that they can’t afford or don’t take care of, with no place to go but this… five rows of Victorian terraces, surrounded by a field of squalor. Two-up-two-downs, downstairs bathrooms, low rents and even lower standards.
Within seconds of being out of the car, her body is covered in a freezing cold drizzle that turns her hair into springy black curls that stick to her head and soaks through the heavy black coat that she’d slung on earlier. Hidden in her bag lies a bottle of prosecco. Picked up from the Tesco’s around the corner. Belinda’s favourite tipple. As she gets nearer, she sees that the curtains are half-drawn, there’s a light on. Someone must be home. Outside the front door is a large green recycling bin overflowing with bottles and tins.
She knocks, she hears a dog bark. Why is it they always have dogs?
Belinda shouts through the half-glazed door. ‘What do you want? Didn’t you get my message?’
It must be a bad day. Thomasine wonders how she knows it is her. Belinda unlocks the door. Her leg holds back the brown and white Jack Russell that’s trying to escape. She points towards her watch.
‘I’ve not got long.’ Her mouth twists in a sour expression. ‘I’ve got to go out.’
Her face is puffy through God knows what. Lack of sleep, too much alcohol. Thomasine tries not to hazard a guess. The skin on her neck is losing its tightness, her eyes are lined with kohl, her lips covered in a thick layer of lip-gloss. Her long brown curly hair pulled into a top-knot on the crown of her head.
‘I brought a gift.’ Thomasine holds out the prosecco.
‘You’d best come in.’ She takes the bottle from her hand without even a thank you.
Thomasine follows Belinda through to the back room, her dark grey slippers flip-flop on the laminate floor, there’s a sickly-sweet aroma of Chinese food, the kitchen table is covered in half-empty takeaway cartons.
‘You’ll have to take me as you find me.’ There is no warmth in her voice, the dog rushes around her feet, she picks it up, nestles it under her arm. It bares its teeth. Thomasine smiles back at it.
Belinda lets out a sigh, ‘What do you want anyway?’
‘I’ll be honest. I reviewed your sister’s file recently. I remember looking at Charlie’s picture and thinking how alike she and Karen were. Now we know that Karen didn’t run away, I thought perhaps that Charlie didn’t either.’
The silence hangs between them. That same cold smile spreads across Belinda’s face again. When they’d first met, Belinda had been pretty in that clean, wholesome way that hadn’t fitted with the current fashion. There was a softness to her. Now, her clothes are too small, the bright red blouse she’s wearing looks like the buttons are about to burst off. Her skirt creased – it’s not been ironed, and there’s what looks like a long smear of sweet and sour sauce across the hem. All in all, there’s been quite a change in Belinda.
Her eyes zoom in on Thomasine, her words to the point. ‘I bet no one is looking for Charlie’s body up in those woods, are they?’
Thomasine coughs, clears her throat. ‘They’re still excavating, but sorry, I don’t know for sure, I’m off work at the moment.’ She feels a sudden flush of embarrassment, of helplessness that she doesn’t want to explain.
Belinda walks out of the room without a word. Thomasine’s stomach plummets.
I’ve probably said the wrong thing. She hears her feet tread on the stairs, then a door open and shut, the dog barks voraciously, she must have shut it in. Moments later Belinda saunters into the room, her slippers making the same slow flip-flop sound.
‘Do you want one?’ She picks up the bottle of wine, takes off the top.
Thomasine nods. ‘Why not?’
Belinda takes two glasses off the side of the sink and washes them thoroughly, dries them off. At least she understands the need for some basic hygiene. Thomasine looks around the room, it’s tidy and clean. She’d not noticed that at first. The overflowing bin outside and the food cartons on the table had switched her other senses off. Belinda appears to have read her mind.
‘Patricia, my sister, it was her twenty-first yesterday, last night… just family. I was just finishing clearing up.’
‘How is everyone?’
Her eyes soften momentarily. ‘We still feel guilty whenever we allow ourselves to have a celebration. But then you know all about that, don’t you? Dad, he tries to be strong, Mum… she’s not well, hasn’t been for years. I don’t see her much these days.’
Thomasine nods her head; she knows only too well how families fair in that direction.
‘Take a seat.’ With intense concentration, Belinda fills one glass, then the other. There’s an irony about the occasion. The bubbles give a sense of celebration where there is none. She hands Thomasine a glass. Takes a quick sip of her own. ‘I still worry to death about her.’ Her eyes settle on a photograph hung on the wall, a school photograph. ‘Our Pat’s like Charlie. Out all hours, real party girl, hard to keep a track of. Thank God for mobile phones.’
Thomasine lifts her glass.
‘To Charlie… wherever she may be.’
‘To our Charlie.’
‘Tell me more about her?’
Her eyes widen. ‘Who? Our Charlie? Haven’t you heard everything there is to hear?’
Thomasine hesitates for a moment, then throws caution to the wind. It’ll get out eventually anyway. ‘What I’m going to tell you I want you to keep to yourself. You can’t tell anyone else. Are we clear about that?’
Belinda takes in a quick breath, goes to speak but closes her mouth.
Thomasine holds gaze, leans forward. ‘I need you to promise me you won’t share what I’m going to tell you with anyone else.’
The woman lets out a sigh, gives Thomasine a look that says you must be joking.
Thomasine puts an edge on her voice. ‘I’m being completely serious.’
‘Alright, I won’t blab. I promise.’ She offers her hand to shake on it, Thomasine takes it in her own, Belinda’s skin is dry and soft.
Thomasine leans back into her seat. ‘Okay, I’ve found something out. About Karen. A boyfriend, one we didn’t know existed. Someone older, he bought her things, clothes, makeup and the like. I wondered if the same was happening to Charlie before she disappeared. There’s no mention of it in the notes.’
‘The same man?’ Confusion crosses Belinda’s face. ‘There’s twelve years’ difference. Surely there can’t be a connection between the two of them?’
‘Men like that don’t change their preferences. They have a type, they invest a lot of time and effort into getting to know the girls, spend a lot of money.’
‘I find it hard to believe our Charlie would have gone for an older bloke.’
‘She might not have seen him as a boyfriend, could’ve been a friend. Men like that worm their way into teenage girls’ lives in all sorts of ways.’ The word grooming looms large at the front of Thomasine’s mind, she doesn’t say it. ‘He was very generous; girls can be swayed by that. Karen certainly was. It had been going on for months. We had no idea at all. I think he
might have been about twenty at the time Karen went missing.’
Thomasine can see Belinda mulling things over in her head, she takes in a breath, a look of distaste flashes in her eyes.
‘Let me clear this away first.’ She takes a black plastic bag out of a drawer. ‘I can’t think with this mess.’ She throws the half-eaten cartoons of food in it, takes it outside. She opens a window to let out the smell, wipes the table top down with a cloth, then drops it in the sink.
‘That’s better.’ She sits back down opposite Thomasine, takes another mouthful of prosecco, holds it in her mouth a moment before swallowing it. ‘I can’t remember much. I was just tiny back then, only three.’ Absentmindedly, she rubs her forefinger around the rim of the glass. ‘She was always out at some club or another, that’s what Dad says. She was just thirteen when it first started, she’d be gone for hours, not tell Mum and Dad where she’d been. They had huge arguments about it. She started wearing makeup, making herself look older. Mum and Dad couldn’t stop her, they tried but she wouldn’t listen, she kept sneaking out. Then she went missing. Mum said that the police looked all over the place for her, couldn’t find her. Her friends said they’d only seen her at school, that they thought she was hanging out with someone new, they didn’t know who it was. No one had seen her with a stranger. Whoever she was spending time with they must have taken her somewhere private.’
‘Did she have any boyfriends?’
‘Probably, we never met any of them, though. She was really pretty, dark hair, brown eyes, skinny as a rake.’ Her eyes go to another photo on the wall, Charlie in her school uniform, next to pictures of Pat and Belinda. The similarities between the three girls less obvious, their heads tilted to the right, broad smiles, full lips. Hair colour, skin tone, facial features, in that there is no apparent resemblance.
She carries on. ‘She used to buy her own clothes, she got a paper round when she was about eleven. Dad said she was very enterprising, always wanting stuff that they couldn’t afford. Always trying to look older than she was.’ A look of sadness crosses her face. ‘Mam and Dad argued like cat and dog when she didn’t come back. Mum blamed Dad for not being harder on her, she said he was too soft. That was the end of their marriage really, they’ve not divorced but…’
She Lies Hidden: a spell-binding psychological suspense thriller Page 20