by Anna Wharton
When the clipping appears on her screen a few seconds later, she zooms in quickly – once, twice – and starts to read:
YESTERDAY, police revealed the search for missing Angela Rose Kyle has finally been scaled back. The four-year-old disappeared on 27 October last year, after a trip to a city park with her father Patrick Kyle.
She checks the date on the cutting – 3 May 1980. More than two decades ago. She quickly thumbs through the pile for a more recent cutting, then another; each one still talks of missing Angie and is accompanied by a school photograph of the little girl, her dark hair in two bunches, a milk-tooth smile. Chloe stares at the first cutting she picked up in her hand – this girl has been missing for twenty-five years. She continues reading:
Devastated Mr Kyle told police how he left his daughter on the swings at the deserted park for less than a minute while he went to lock his car. When he returned she was gone.
Dozens of officers combed the surrounding area, while police divers dredged the nearby river for the youngster. But despite a nationwide appeal for information about the missing girl, all leads have proved fruitless. Now, six months on from her disappearance, police have been forced to scale back their search.
Chloe pauses, her gaze shifting to his wife, Maureen. Her pain is less visible than his, worn on the inside so her face has become nothing but a shell. Chloe glances between them, from the man to his wife. His arm around her shoulders in the photograph, his knuckles white, his grip on her tight. Chloe picks up another cutting at random from her desk, this time his hand wrapped around hers. She picks up another, another, another. It’s the same in every picture. Their togetherness carrying the pair of them. Chloe only feels the pinch of envy for a second – how could she feel it for any longer when she reads on?
Detective Inspector Tom Newton, of Peterborough Constabulary, told this newspaper, ‘Over the last few months we have carried out searches of Ferry Meadows and the surrounding areas. Police divers have dredged the Nene and locals have been out in force alongside officers covering many acres of grass and woodland, but sadly there have been no sightings of Angela since the day she went missing. Like the family, we will never give up hope that Angela will be reunited with her parents, but with no new leads we’ve been forced to scale back our operations. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the public for their help in the search and remind them that an incident number will remain active in the hope of new information.’
Chloe opens up the next cutting, then the next, earlier ones before the police scaled back. Staggered across her desk, the headlines fit together like pieces of a jigsaw.
GIRL, FOUR, MISSING FROM LOCAL PARK
FEARS GROW FOR MISSING ANGIE
MOTHER’S PLEA: ‘GIVE BACK OUR ANGIE’
FOUND: CLOTH CAT – BUT WHERE IS ANGIE?
She goes back to the original cutting.
DI Newton refused to be drawn into speculation about what might have happened to Angela, although he admitted that police cannot rule out the possibility that she may have been abducted.
‘We are not closing the case, and we still hope that Angela will be returned to her parents. I’d like to reiterate that without the discovery of a body we can only assume that Angela is alive and well. I would once again urge the public to come forward with any information that may help police – however insignificant it may appear to them.’
Chloe knows the cranks who would have got in touch back then, the same people who phone the newsroom with promises of stories if only the news editor dispatches a reporter to their home. Some people are prepared to do anything for attention. Some people just want the company.
Patrick and Maureen Kyle, of 48 Chestnut Avenue, are said to be ‘inconsolable’ at the thought of the police hunt being called off. A statement from Mr Kyle released through police said, ‘Angela is our life, our love, our everything. An open wound will be here in our hearts until the day she is returned to us. We will wait for the rest of our lives for the day we are reunited.’
Anyone with any information should contact DI Newton at the city’s police station.
Chloe reads the cutting over and over, checking Angie’s age against the date, and doing the maths in her head. Angie was the same age as Chloe was in 1979, and so if she is alive, she’d be twenty-nine too. She closes her eyes and tries to picture her now. What really were the chances of her still being out there? Her mind flickers then to the worst outcome: a young girl dead in a shallow grave, never properly resting in peace. She shudders when she thinks of Nan. Is Chloe the only person right now who can imagine the pain this couple feel to this day? Instantly she feels so desperately, so sadly connected to them. Just twenty-four hours in the Kyles’ shoes has taught her something of what they’ve been through.
She checks her phone again. Nothing. She drops the cutting onto her desk. She can’t be here, not now, when everything is a reminder to her that Nan is missing. She could have picked up any file, and yet she’d chosen that one. She checks the time – it’s nearly eight. She’s too worried about Nan to do anything here, and anyway, it feels empty, pointless while Nan is still out there somewhere. She pushes back from her desk on her swivel chair; there is still time to get to the police station and back before 9 a.m. She leaves the office the same way she came in. Only this time she feels the editor’s gaze follow her out.
FIVE
Chloe pushes open the thick heavy doors to the police station. She scans the benches that line the walls in case Nan is waiting there in reception. She can almost picture her: a puzzled face, shivering from the cold, but there, all the same. Instead a skinny man sits in a battered leather jacket and dirty jeans, and a woman in her fifties opposite clutches her handbag as though it contains precious forensic evidence.
Chloe walks up to the reception desk and presses the bell. An overweight woman slumps slowly towards the window.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m enquiring about my nan, she’s missing. I just want to know if there’s been any news?’
‘Name?’
‘My name?’
‘Your grandmother’s.’
‘Oh, Grace Hudson.’
‘Has an officer been in touch with you to say there’ve been any developments?’
‘Well, no, but—’
‘Then I think it’s fair to assume there haven’t been any sightings. Have we got your contact details in case any of our officers need to get in touch?’
‘Well, yes, but—’
‘Then we’ll be in touch if there’s any further news.’
The woman goes to walk away but Chloe taps quickly on the safety glass.
‘Please, I . . . Can I just speak to the officer I spoke with yesterday? It’s important.’
‘Do you have new information?’
‘No, I just need to know they’re doing everything they can.’
The woman rolls her eyes a little and taps something into her keyboard, then she picks up her phone to make a call.
‘He’s coming down.’
‘Thank you.’
She slopes off back to her crossword.
Chloe sits down on the benches, next to the woman clutching her handbag. The woman shuffles an inch away.
Chloe waits for twenty minutes before PC Dunn puts his head around the door.
‘Chloe? Do you want to come through?’
She follows him – too slowly it seems. He walks quickly, weaving this way and that through the corridors, through double doors – another set – and she struggles to keep up. He’s tall, well over six feet, and his straight black trousers don’t quite meet his ankles. He chooses a different interview room today and they sit down. He takes out the same tiny notepad from his top pocket and the same tiny pen.
‘I hear you have some further information for us?’
‘Well, no, I . . . I just wondered if there’s been any news?’
He sighs, shaking his head and putting the lid back on his pen. ‘Not as yet, I’m afraid, but you can rest assured
we’re doing all we can.’
Chloe can’t help but think of the woman and her crossword behind the desk.
‘We did manage to speak to the social worker, what was her name . . .?’ He flicks back a few pages in his notepad as Chloe’s hands squeeze one another in her lap.
‘Claire Sanders.’
‘Claire Sanders, yes, that’s right. She said that she’s been trying to get Mrs Hudson into a care home for some time but there’s been some resistance . . . from yourself, would that be?’
‘Well, yes, but it’s only because, well, we can manage, you see? Nan doesn’t need to be in a care home, she’s got me, and . . . and I’ve got her and—’
‘Yes . . . although with the greatest respect, Mrs Hudson is currently missing – we’ve got officers searching for her now. You’re not really managing, are you? Perhaps if she had been in a care home, this wouldn’t—’
Chloe’s phone rings in her pocket, finishing the sentence for him. She scrabbles through her coat to reach it. Even PC Dunn sits forward in his chair.
A name flashes up: Hollie. Her best friend. Chloe shows the policeman.
‘It’s just my . . . er . . . hang on, hello?’
‘Oh my God, Chloe, I just picked up your text. Are you OK? Have they found her?’
She quickly tells Hollie she’s at the police station, there’s been no news. The two arrange to meet at a local coffee shop. She puts the phone down and PC Dunn closes his notepad.
‘Chloe,’ he says, ‘I know you’re worried, but I can assure you we’re doing everything we can. Seventy-nine per cent of missing people are found within twenty-four hours.’
She thinks of the girl in the cuttings. ‘And the rest?’
‘Let’s be positive, eh?’
He leads her out of the station. There’s nothing she can do but follow.
In the coffee shop, Hollie wraps her in a big winter-coat hug.
‘Oh hun, I can’t believe this is happening.’
‘Me neither,’ Chloe says as she pulls out a chair and sits down. She looks over the menu, but she’s not hungry. Instead they order coffees to help them thaw while Chloe quickly fills her in. Hollie reaches her hand across the table towards Chloe, and she stares at it lying limp on top of her own. Chloe feels the gratitude swell inside her for Hollie’s unswerving loyalty.
‘Listen, it’s not your fault, you know that, don’t you?’ Hollie says.
Chloe shrugs.
‘They’ll find her, just you wait and see. I bet loads of people go missing like this and, well . . . I’m sure it’s all going to be fine.’
Chloe stirs her coffee.
‘I know, it’s just . . . she’s all I’ve got.’
Hollie pushes her long blonde hair back behind her shoulders and stirs more sugar into her coffee. Chloe sees how she glances up at her every now and then as she turns the teaspoon round and round inside her mug. Chloe shuffles in her seat.
‘Your nails are nice,’ Chloe says.
Hollie stops stirring to admire them. She has these gels done, long nails that curl slightly at the top. They’re always painted like miniature portraits, with little flowers or glittery tips. Hollie calls it her guilty pleasure, though Chloe isn’t sure what she has to feel guilty about and has never asked. She wouldn’t have them done herself, though she has walked past the kind of nail salons that Hollie visits. Chloe has never so much as put nail polish on her own fingers. She knows they must look odd sitting here in this cafe together. From the outside they are a mismatch, Chloe knows this. She’s always felt like the fat, ugly friend next to Hollie. But Chloe can honestly say she’s never resented her for it, perhaps because Hollie is the most loyal person she knows. Most people aren’t to be trusted; they always break promises in the end. But not Hollie. Chloe can’t remember a single time she’s ever let her down. And it wasn’t Hollie’s fault their lives turned out so differently. It could easily have been Chloe sitting across the table now, her nails perfectly manicured, her hair freshly blow-dried. She often thinks about this when she walks past happy dogs and their owners in the street, how easily someone might have stopped at the next kennel along. At the end of the day, it all comes down to fate. Which is why Chloe tends to take it into her own hands these days.
‘Hello? Earth to Chloe?’ Hollie laughs.
‘Oh, sorry, I was miles away.’
Hollie drops her hands back on top of her friend’s.
‘You’re bound to be,’ she says. ‘It would be a shock for anyone. Is there no one else you could—’
Chloe looks up quickly, and Hollie stops herself.
‘No, of course there isn’t,’ Hollie says.
Now it’s Chloe’s turn to look down into her drink.
The good thing about Hollie is she knows not to probe; perhaps that is why their friendship has endured. Hollie understands there’s a time to speak in clichés, that there’s safety to be found there for both of them. Chloe has seen it in other friendships she has observed, this dance two women can become accustomed to, a way of keeping their shared history preserved in politeness. Not that she can call to mind any other female friendships she’s enjoyed.
Hollie takes a breath. ‘Do the police have any leads?’
Chloe shakes her head, and as she does a tiny twig drops onto the table. Hollie collects it and holds it up like a question mark between them.
‘I searched a copse near the cemetery when I found she was missing, it must be from then.’
Hollie looks concerned.
‘But I feel helpless, just waiting for news,’ Chloe says. ‘I keep thinking, what if I missed something? Maybe I should go back for another—’
‘Chloe, you must leave it to the police, they know what they’re doing.’
Chloe nods.
‘But if there’s anything I can do, even if you just need company. You know you could always come over to us, Phil wouldn’t mind you staying for a few—’
‘I’m fine,’ Chloe says quickly.
Hollie looks away, scolded.
Chloe’s voice softens then. She never means to hurt her friend. ‘Honestly, you’re right, they’ll find her.’
‘They will,’ Hollie says. ‘And you’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do to help?’
Chloe nods, relieved her best friend has heard, as always, what was left unspoken.
‘Of course,’ she says.
Then Hollie dips her eyes, and with a whisper she says, ‘But when this is all over, we should . . .’ Her voice trails off.
It’s times like these when something ugly stirs inside Chloe. She knows it’s all right for Hollie, she had a family to call her own, she didn’t have the same chopping and changing that Chloe had. And now she has Phil, a new build on an estate and – Chloe notices – a new ring on her finger.
‘Is that a . . .?’ she says, grateful for a reason to change the subject.
Hollie twiddles the gold band of tiny navy stones around her ring finger.
‘Oh, no, not an . . . no, it’s an eternity ring. Phil gave it to me for our eighteen-month anniversary.’
‘I didn’t know people celebrated an eighteen-month anniversary,’ Chloe says.
Hollie shrugs. ‘We do.’
Phil works on an insurance helpdesk, like a lot of people in this city. He has the same small-town haircut, wears the same small-town uniform. Chloe used to see a lot more of Hollie before she met Phil; now she makes excuses so she doesn’t have to go round to their house for spaghetti carbonara and stand in their kitchen admiring their matching kettle, toaster and bread bin. Something about it makes Chloe feel claustrophobic.
Chloe starts playing with the tiny sachets of sugar and sweetener on the table. She empties them from their tub, separating them into white and brown sugar and sweetener and stacking them in piles.
‘I’m so worried about Nan out there, all alone.’
Hollie picks up her spoon and stirs her coffee.
‘I’m all she’s got in the world.’
&nb
sp; Hollie shuffles in her chair and looks around the cafe. She sticks out her hand across the table. ‘These are actually sapphires, and these’ – she points to two barely there white dots – ‘these are diamonds.’
‘Nan has a ring just like it.’
‘Phil got it from that new place in town, by the market. He chose it.’
She blushes when she says that. Hollie and Phil share the same birthday. Chloe has always thought that makes them more like brother and sister. Hollie is besotted by him. Chloe finds him the dullest person she’s ever met. She’s often wondered how Hollie can find their life together enough, their weekend visits to garden centres or Saturdays spent looking for matching tea, coffee and sugar caddies. But then it depends on what you came from. They say you can go either way.
‘Hey, do you remember a story of a kid going missing when we were growing up? Angela Kyle?’
Hollie thinks for a moment, then shakes her head. ‘No, not that I . . . no,’ she says, dismantling Chloe’s sugar archive to take more for her coffee. ‘Oh, hang on, the little girl at the swings? I have a vague memory of people talking about it when we were kids. Hasn’t it been in the papers too?’
‘Yes, Angela – well, the papers called her Angie.’
‘Yeah, sort of. I remember her parents doing interviews about it, pleading for information and stuff. God, haven’t thought about that in years. She’d be about our age now, wouldn’t she?’
‘Yeah, she would.’
‘What made you ask?’
‘Oh, nothing, just a story I’m working on. I was just surprised I’d never heard about her disappearance before, you know, being the same age. She was never found, you know. There can’t have been many girls our age who went missing when we were growing up. It must have made people nervous for years afterwards, that’s probably why you remember it.’
‘Yeah, well I know what you’re thinking, and remember, it’s in the papers because it’s rare that people aren’t found,’ Hollie says, and she taps Chloe’s hand as she says it as if trying to reassure her.