by Helen Fields
He was lucky. He’d found himself dating a woman he could talk to about what he was experiencing and who had been able to respond in a calm, open manner. She had even been honest about her own needs and desires, which he found refreshing and attractive. But still, as they lay together, exploring their bodies, familiarising himself with her likes and dislikes, he couldn’t help wondering if this was all there would ever be. If he would ever be able to have sex again.
Chapter Twenty-One
There was a storm raging to match Ava’s mood as Natasha knocked on her office door and entered.
‘Hey,’ Ava said. ‘I thought the front desk had made a mistake when they said you were here. Have you ever been to the station before?’
‘Only once before, to give a statement when you were … Let’s not talk about that again. It still gives me the chills,’ Natasha said. ‘Otherwise, getting arrested is on my bucket list, but I think I’ll do it somewhere you’re not in charge. Seems like cheating if my best friend can bail me out.’ She looked around. ‘I love what you obviously haven’t done with the place. Very authentic, and strangely reminiscent of an ancient BBC police drama.’
‘Sit down,’ Ava said. ‘I’d get you coffee, only …’
‘Too busy. I know. I saw your press conference yesterday. I’m sorry about Zoey and Lorna. I wanted to talk to you about it.’
‘You don’t have to worry about me. I know I went off on one with that reporter, and I should have controlled myself better, but I’m doing all right,’ Ava reassured her.
‘Actually, it wasn’t that,’ Natasha said. ‘I’m probably being paranoid but there’s a student I can’t get hold of at the University. She’s in her third year, studying modern languages, and she missed a meeting we were supposed to have last night.’
‘You’re head of the philosophy department, Natasha. I don’t understand.’
‘I’m sure I’m overreacting, but I run a help group. We’re more there to listen than anything else. If I tell you this, it’s in confidence. I know you’ll be careful but the information I have is very sensitive. Most of the students who talk to us come on a first-name basis only, but obviously I see some of them around and I know who they are anyway.’
‘Sure,’ Ava said. ‘But if this girl’s a degree student, I really can’t see that she matches the profile for the sort of young woman the killer is targeting.’
‘It depends how much he knows about Kate. The help group I run is very specific. We don’t even have funding yet. It’s too controversial. There are a few of us involved – some academic staff, counsellors, doctors. Have you heard of the websites that set up young people, predominantly women, with so-called sugar daddies?’
‘I saw a news report about it a while ago. It’s not something I’ve come into contact with professionally though,’ Ava said.
‘Well, whoever saw that little marketplace opportunity is making serious inroads into the student population. Student debt is at an all-time high. Some non-Scottish students pay full tuition fees, so they’re particularly vulnerable. Even with loans, who wants to start their twenties owing several thousand pounds? So the websites offer to hook you up with a wealthy older person. They might buy you clothes, pay your car insurance, help with your rent, but the websites pretend you’re not obliged to do anything in return,’ Natasha said.
‘Except there’s no such thing as something for nothing.’ Ava picked up a pen and began to take notes. ‘What’s your part in all this?’
‘We’re just there as a sounding board, really. The girls who’re doing this don’t want it on their medical records, so they’re not asking the right questions about contraception, sexually transmitted diseases, you name it. Some of them are finding themselves trapped. What the site doesn’t publicise is that once you’re in this, it’s hard to get out. A couple of our girls have found themselves under pressure to continue bad relationships or do things they don’t feel comfortable with. The older men have rather an “I’ve paid for you, now you’re mine” attitude. There have been threats to do with social media shaming, even contacting the girls’ parents.’
‘So it’s just prostitution without the street corners,’ Ava said.
‘It’s complex because it’s being sold to these young people as exercising their right to choose, a control-your-own-body scenario, but they’re doing it to avoid financial problems or restrictions. We offer medical advice with no questions asked. We tell them what their legal options are if they’re scared. We talk about issues like never having their photo taken, always using a false name, never letting a so-called sugar daddy pick them up from their home address, and basic safety, like carrying rape alarms. Very few of them listen until it’s too late. Same old story.’
‘How does your student – Kate – fit into this picture?’ Ava asked.
‘She’d been using a website – SugarPa, I think – but she was struggling with the emotional backlash of sleeping with older men. There’d been an incident where a man had bought her what amounted to a fast food dinner and thought he was entitled to sex. When she refused he became verbally abusive, used every derogatory term he could to describe her as a sex worker, then grabbed her, intimately, and she had to fight him off. Since then she’d carried on using the site, which just goes to show the desperation that’s being taken advantage of, but she was traumatised. She’s been meeting me once a week to talk it through and so I could keep an eye on her safety. Last night was the first session she’s missed and she’s not answering her phone. I checked with her faculty. She didn’t attend any lectures or seminars there today, and she’s not in the student halls. I knocked her door and got no response.’
‘I understand it’s out of character and that you’re concerned, but you know what I’m going to say, right?’ Ava asked.
‘Yup. She could be with a client. She could have decided enough was enough and gone home. It’s possible that she got a boyfriend and decided to stay at his house for a few days. In any event, I’m not giving you enough to open a missing person report. Does that sum it up?’
‘Maybe we should swap jobs,’ Ava said.
‘Not for all the tea in China. You’d terrify every member of my faculty and persuade all the students to swap discipline to something more real world,’ Natasha said. ‘Seriously, Ava, Kate would have phoned me or texted. She has my number and she knows I’ll be worried.’
‘I believe you, and I’ll do what I can to help, but with two young women dead and the press all over it, every female teenager who doesn’t get home on time is currently being reported as missing. Let me take some details. Full name and age?’ Ava asked.
‘Kate Bailey. Nineteen. Five foot six and pretty. I can pull her photo from the student database if you need it,’ Natasha said.
‘If it becomes necessary, that would be great,’ Ava said. ‘Does she drive?’
‘I don’t know if she has a licence or not, but she doesn’t have a car at the Uni that I know of. Is there nothing you can do? Kate’s vulnerable, Ava. She would never have gone through that bloody website if she hadn’t been.’
Ava looked at her watch. ‘All right. I have a meeting in an hour, but after that we’ll go to her halls and check it out. Will security open her room if I have my ID and you vouch for me?’
‘I’ll make sure they do. Thanks, Ava. I’m sorry to call in a favour.’
‘You’re not calling in a favour, you idiot. You’re concerned about a potential missing person. Calling in a favour is making me listen to you singing the same song a hundred times when you’re drunk.’
‘That was the Proclaimers. Everyone sings that song over and over again when they’re pissed,’ Natasha said. ‘Honestly, sometimes it’s as if you’re not Scottish at all.’
The halls offered a variety of student accommodation, some shared rooms, some singles. The majority were occupied by first-year students but a few were taken by second or third years. Kate’s room was on the third floor, at the end of the corridor. It was quiet when they arri
ved. The communal kitchen, Ava noted, was remarkably clean and tidy. In her university days there was an atmosphere of constant chaos. Natasha caught the look of disbelief on her face.
‘It’s a females-only floor,’ Natasha said. ‘Not that it’s always the case that the males of the species are messy and disorganised, but …’
‘A young woman who chose to live on a female-only floor decided to make money through a sugar daddy website? Couldn’t she just get bar work?’ Ava asked.
‘On minimum wage, when she has to study? That’s the problem with this sort of camouflaged prostitution. It’s fast, immediate. There’s no tax and it’s based on socialising. That’s how they sell it, anyway. Personally, I’d like to see the people who run these sites jailed for pimping. They’re making money out of membership fees. It shouldn’t be legal.’
‘You won’t get any argument from me,’ Ava said. A security guard wandered down the hall towards them, whistling as he unlocked the door with only the briefest glance at Ava’s ID.
‘Does he know you?’ she asked Natasha after the guard had walked away.
‘No, but I phoned ahead to say I’d be here with you,’ Natasha replied. ‘All the external doors work with electronic keys, so it’s a safe building.’
‘Unless some helpful outgoing student holds the door for you,’ Ava said.
Kate’s room was tidy. It consisted of a bedroom area with an en suite, in which there was a shower, sink and toilet. The bedroom had a built-in wardrobe, a single bed, bookshelves and a desk. No matter where you went in the world, student rooms were all the same, Ava thought. A stuffed dog was flopped across her pillow, and photos of friends and parents were pinned to a board on the wall. A phone charger snaked unattached from a power socket and her laptop sat, lid open, on the desk.
Ava ran one finger over the touchpad. The screen sprang to life, offering a woodland scene with a lake in the foreground. There was no request for a password to be entered.
‘Kate’s still logged in,’ Ava said. ‘She really should have better security than this.’
‘Can you get into her emails?’ Natasha asked.
‘I didn’t think you’d want me to,’ Ava said. ‘Didn’t you once write a paper on the police overstepping their powers?’
‘I’m not suggesting we actually read any of her emails. I’d just like to see when she last sent an email or replied to one. If it was in the last couple of hours then we know she’s okay.’
Ava moved the cursor down to the bottom of the screen and clicked on the email icon.
‘Her email is password protected, which is slightly reassuring, but it means I can’t see when she was last active. What was the name of the website you said she was using?’
‘SugarPa.’
Ava typed again. ‘Got it, and Kate’s got the password autofilled. Let’s see.’ She clicked and scrolled down as Natasha bent over her shoulder to look. ‘How do the girls tolerate it? These men are mostly old enough to be their fathers. Some would pass more convincingly as their grandfathers. A month’s rent doesn’t seem enough to let these leeches touch them.’
‘Desperate situations breed desperate solutions. Some of these young women take the view that if they sleep with a guy they hook up with in a nightclub, they might as well throw in a couple of older men and get something in return.’
‘Her “dating history” is here,’ Ava said. ‘How’s that for a euphemism? There’s a messaging system for them to make arrangements, too.’ As Ava clicked on the dating history timeline, a picture popped up of a young woman dressed in a tight white t-shirt and shorts. She was smiling sweetly at the camera, her long blonde hair shining like silk, loose over her shoulders. Ava experienced a moment of nausea. It wasn’t hard to imagine their rapist-cum-murderer seeing that particular photograph and becoming fixated. ‘Can you confirm that this is Kate?’ she asked.
‘It is,’ Natasha confirmed.
‘You’re right. She is pretty. Judging by the amount of messages she’s received, she was popular on this website. Here, this is her last message thread.’
A new window opened on the screen and Ava scanned the communication.
‘She did have a meeting yesterday,’ Natasha said.
‘With a new man,’ Ava noted. ‘He gave her instructions on how to recognise him. Carrying a red umbrella. No description of his physical appearance though.’
‘Can you get into his profile?’
‘Here you go. It says he’s forty-two years old, unmarried, likes going to the gym, works in the travel industry. Looking for someone to spoil, apparently. The photo’s blurred though. How many years do you think he knocked off his real age?’
‘I’m guessing the average on this website is a decade,’ Natasha said. ‘That photo’s useless.’
‘It could be one he just found on the internet and copied, so I wouldn’t rely on it anyway. We do have an answer though. She went to meet someone yesterday and took her phone with her. Left the laptop here. It’s possible she decided to stay the night at his and he offered to take her out somewhere today.’
‘Perhaps,’ Natasha said. ‘I do feel a bit better knowing this was set up through SugarPa. They must have some sort of vetting facility. Members have to pay a monthly fee, so there’ll be a record of who she was meeting. I’m sorry, Ava. I wasted your time.’
‘You didn’t, and I’m glad there’s no indication that Kate was panicked when she left here. The room hasn’t been disturbed by anyone.’
‘She could still have let me know she was going to miss our meeting,’ Natasha said. ‘And it’s not like her to miss lectures. Her whole rationale for using the SugarPa site was to save some money and ensure she could afford her education. She wants to be a journalist.’
‘Could she not ask her parents for additional support, rather than use SugarPa?’
‘No,’ Natasha said. ‘Her father’s ill, although Kate didn’t want to discuss it in detail with me. Her mother is providing twenty-four-hour care. All I know is they live in Durham. Most of the students we help struggle to talk about their home lives. I think part of it is knowing how much their parents would hate it if they knew what they were doing for money.’
‘Understandable. I think at this stage, where there’s no evidence that anything’s definitely wrong, the best you can do is ascertain who her closest friends are and approach them carefully to see if anyone’s heard from her. Leave my number with them in case they have any relevant information. You’ll have to make up an excuse, but that won’t be difficult.’
‘Okay,’ Natasha said. ‘You can’t trace her phone, can you?’
‘I’d need an official investigation in progress to do that, which would mean notifying her next of kin, if for no other reason than to check she hasn’t gone home to Durham.’
‘Don’t do that. Kate would never forgive me,’ Natasha said. ‘I’ll find out who she was friendly with. Her personal tutor should be able to help with that.’
‘I’ll check she hasn’t been admitted to a hospital, or even arrested. Can you email me the photo of Kate the university has on file? I’ll circulate it with the city’s beat officers immediately so we’re actively on the lookout for her tonight. I’ll phone you if anything turns up and in the meantime you keep trying her mobile number. If Kate’s still not been in contact first thing tomorrow morning, we’ll make a decision about moving this forward.’ Ava walked to Kate’s bed and turned back a corner of the duvet to form a neat triangle.
‘Thank you,’ Natasha said. ‘I feel better already.’
‘No problem,’ Ava said, giving her friend a reassuring smile and hoping it was convincing. Natasha might feel better, but she didn’t. As certain as she had initially been that Kate’s disappearance was just another misunderstanding among the hundreds that Police Scotland were currently sifting through, being in the student’s empty room had given her the creeps. That was just tiredness and paranoia, Ava told herself. There was no evidence at all of foul play. Not yet, her brain auto-correc
ted her. Just not yet. Natasha closed the website and shut the lid on Kate’s computer.
Chapter Twenty-Two
When the call had come for Ava to attend a crime scene, she’d been fighting one of those dreams that pulled you deeper and deeper into its weirdness, inducing panic as she tried to find someone but had forgotten who it was. The shrill ringtone had saved her, leaving her panting breathlessly into the receiver. If the control room officer had noticed anything strange about her demeanour, he had been either too sensible or too professional to comment.
Ten minutes later a patrol car picked her up, dropping her some minutes later in George Street. All Ava knew was that Dr Jonty Spurr had asked for her personally and that the road was cordoned off from traffic and pedestrians. She had asked only one question on her way to the scene.
‘Is it a young woman?’
‘It is,’ the officer driving her had confirmed. ‘That’s all I know, I’m afraid.’
Kate Bailey, Ava thought. Natasha’s instincts had been right. Somehow, Ava had felt it too, as they’d looked through Kate’s room and nosed into the details of her private life, secreted in the impersonal container of her laptop.
The pathologist was taking photos when she arrived. The multi-storey nature of the buildings in the street had necessitated the erection of a tent to spare local people from trauma, and to spare the dead young woman from prying eyes. At the top of the road, a bus was stationed outside a hotel. There were police officers everywhere, keeping concerned citizens inside their apartments and keeping the area clean for the Scenes of Crime officers. It was a busy month for the SOCOs, Ava thought absently, ducking under the crime scene tape to get closer to the manic activity beneath the awning. A couple of pedestrians were deeply engaged in describing events to the officers who were taking statements. One was gesticulating angrily, another was crying, shaking, arms wrapped around himself. Ava felt for them. Witnesses were often the forgotten victims at crime scenes, pumped for information then moved along so that the investigation could progress. No one intended it, but priorities had to be made. Ava called a police officer over, handing him a bundle of notes.