by Naomi Joy
An olive-skinned, green-eyed man beams from the corner of the wedges of paper, his perfect proportions distorted by the paperclip pinned over his face. It’s not a headshot, but a selfie, and I glow with the fact that I’d applied here with a selfie, too. I read through his CV, devouring the contents – a medical degree from the University of Toronto, a specialisation in plastic surgery from somewhere in Paris, a keen traveller whose life has brought him, right here, to London.
A mobile number glistens beneath his sign off and, before I know it, I’ve committed another fireable offence, his digits added to the contacts in my phone. If Caroline finds out about this, I’m dead.
Annabella
Now
Chad had left me alone in the pub with a final bill and sorry eyes, though I’m sure if I’d squinted I’d have seen the dollar signs in his pupils – he’d taken me for a ride and I was supposed to be grateful.
First the police, now him. His parting shot was to ask me out for dinner – he told me he’d been wanting to do it for a while, that part of the reason for him terminating our contract was so we could start dating.
‘I can’t ignore this spark between us any longer…’
‘Well,’ I’d replied, angling a pointed look at his wedding ring. ‘I certainly can.’
The truth was, I’d given up on dating since Tabby went missing. Her disappearance had isolated me, sent me back into the cocoon I’d inhabited before she’d come along and pulled me out of it. I’d stopped connecting with people, their questions, their problems, their lives. I just didn’t have the energy to care about anyone else the way I still cared about her.
Tabby had meant so much to me that when she vanished, I think part of me did too.
I push a soggy bag of broccoli into the microwave – the last thing left in the fridge – contemplating how I’ll deal with the forever fact that I’ve failed my friend. Coming up to five years gone, and not a single step forward.
I must start over, begin a new life, forgive myself. I begin to close the dozens of webpages I’d kept open in relation to Tabby’s case, the blue from my computer illuminating my face, the night sky twinkling through the dark kitchen windows, when an email catches my attention.
Subject: Tabitha Rice.
Dear Annabella,
I hope this finds you well. I am getting in touch with you about Tabitha Rice, your missing colleague/friend. I have followed her story over the years with interest. In fact, I was part of the team at the London Times who first reported on it. I have been putting together information on her case for the past year and I plan to launch a true-crime podcast about it. I hope it will lead to new evidence and that we might be able to help figure out what happened to her.
I’ve been digging through early media coverage and wanted to talk to you about the allegations you made against Rick Priestley in the early days.
Please contact me if you’d like to be involved. I’d be grateful for any input you’re happy to make.
Do write back or call me on the number below.
Yours sincerely,
Kay Robero+447516177089
My eyes choke over the words. Another lifeline. But this one’s different, this is public, this is the media. In the past I’d deemed it too risky, too uncertain. I search Kay’s name in Google, my brain wired, long past bedtime, and retrieve a cavern of information about her illustrious career in journalism, articles pinging back with headlines such as London’s rising star … Journalist of the year… I realise I’ve read her pieces before, all of them, dozens of times, in the weeks after Tabby went missing. Her website tells me she left traditional journalism a year ago, citing a desire to work on a new project, a true-crime podcast series that she hoped to release this year. I scan my eyes over the headshots accompanying Kay’s biography: fierce and unsmiling, plain and untouched. Kay is the kind of person who demands to be taken seriously, who doesn’t want anyone to make the mistake of complimenting her looks before her capabilities. I learn from her website that she’s part Nigerian, part Spanish, educated in Scotland, and that she’d sent a serial rapist to jail last year after she dug up a raft of new evidence against him. I begin to get excited – Kay could really reinvigorate this case. I scrape my hair from my face into a ponytail as I think about it. Perhaps it makes sense to get involved, especially if someone revered is behind this investigation, someone who’d been there from the beginning, someone with an automatic fan base and considerable resources.
Without thinking, I call her back, the dial tone ringing fanfare-like as it connects.
‘Kay speaking,’ she says as she picks up, her voice lighter than I’d imagined from her headshots.
I take a second to compose myself.
‘Hi, Kay, this is Annabella. I just got your email.’
‘Annabella,’ she says brightly. ‘Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.’
I hear her take a sip from something and imagine a vat of coffee in her hand. She’d be the kind of person that drinks it right up to bedtime, caffeinated to the hilt from dusk till dawn.
‘I’m so happy you want to help,’ I tell her, heady on the thought I might not fail Tabby after all.
‘No problem,’ she replies, composed. ‘Tabitha’s case is absolutely fascinating.’
I cringe at her choice of words but, though I wouldn’t choose to describe Tabby going missing as fascinating, I understand what she means.
‘Why now?’ I ask, wondering what’s taken her so long.
‘Tabitha’s case, it’s stayed with me. It had seemed so straightforward in the beginning, suspicious husband, shouldn’t take long to convict him, and then the investigation just… flopped. I want to find out why.’
As she speaks, I type Rick Priestley’s name into Google. My search brings up a raft of news articles relating to Tabby’s disappearance – still top of the results after all these years – and I scan a few of them to refresh my memory of the time, the mood of the reporting, the cut and thrust of the blame.
‘Do you remember Rick’s statement?’ I ask, rolling my eyes across it on the screen in front of me as though no time had passed between then and now. I read it down the phone.
‘When I woke up on the 22nd of August my wife was missing. We’d gone to bed, as normal, the night before… I am extremely concerned for her safety. Tabby, if you can see this, hear this, please get in touch. I want to talk, I want to help you. Please don’t hurt yourself. Remember that I’m here for you, at home, if you need me. Please just come back.’
‘To me,’ Kay says, ‘it sounded desperate at the time, contrived.’
‘Just reading those words again made my skin itch,’ I tell her. ‘Tabby and Rick hadn’t spent a normal night in together for weeks; he was cheating, she was unhappy. They were barely living together, let alone sleeping in the same bed.’ I pause. ‘I must admit, though, that the “crazy” card was a clever red herring, it delayed the investigation, set it off in the wrong direction, positioned Rick as a long-suffering, but caring, partner who was guilty of nothing besides supporting his damaged wife.’
I hear Kay taking notes down the line.
‘He knew what he was doing,’ I continue. ‘The way he orchestrated that statement wasn’t an accident. It was premeditated.’
I think back. During those first few days, the early-early days, people hadn’t paid any attention to Tabby’s story, a crazy woman running from her loving husband wasn’t a narrative they cared about. Then, when the focus shifted to Rick and it was rumoured he’d kidnapped and murdered her, reported by a blogger that he’d cut her body into quarters and sunk her in the deepest part of the Thames, then by a gossip site in the US that he’d strangled and defiled her, buried her corpse in the woods somewhere near his family home in Norwich, people began to get excited. Stories started to stir. He’d been seen leaving the property in his pyjamas by a neighbour in the early hours a few weeks prior. An ex-colleague said he’d once taken a very angry telephone call and had slammed the device onto the ground
afterwards. His school-days girlfriend came out to say he was into bondage, the paper she’d sold her story to somehow able to convince her to dress in lingerie and handcuffs for the accompanying image. I could just imagine the paper’s gruff editor barking that the picture would ‘really bring the piece to life,’ rubbing his greedy fingers together as he thought about the copies he would sell if she agreed.
‘Million-dollar question, then,’ Kay says. ‘What do you think happened on the night of the 21st of August?’
I take a breath. ‘Honestly, I don’t know.’
‘Speculate, please, be my guest.’
I want to reply straight away, to tell her that Rick is guilty as sin, that he has so much to answer for that he’s never once had to justify… but I’m aware of coming on too strong. I don’t want to put her off, I don’t want her to think I’m as biased as I am.
‘Like I said, Tabby wanted to leave Rick. She was desperate, she was even talking about moving abroad to get away from him. He was having an affair and… I don’t believe in coincidences as big as that. I have no doubt that he was involved.’
‘Do you think he killed her?’
‘That’s what I’ve always wondered.’
‘Do you know anything about Rick’s other woman?’ she asks.
‘No.’ I curse Chad Cummings for his failure to deliver on that front.
‘Rick’s living with someone else now. Her name is Mandy,’ Kay says, dropping the bombshell I’d spent so long trying to find. ‘But, we’re five years down the line, so I’m not suggesting Mandy’s the same woman. And I don’t know how long they’ve been together.’
My hand trembles as it reaches my mouth. ‘Mandy,’ I repeat quietly, trying to remember if I’d heard that name before.
‘Do you know when this alleged affair started?’
I gather my thoughts, try to keep the nerves from my voice. ‘It had been going on for a while before Tabby vanished, but I don’t have an exact date.’
‘I can’t believe the police didn’t dig it up. Why do you think that was?’ she asks. ‘I mean, I certainly didn’t find any evidence of it when I was reporting the story for the London Times.’
I settle into her questioning, my guard down. ‘Laziness, incompetence, bribery… take your pick.’
‘Do you have anything to support your theory?’
‘No,’ I reply, a bit defensive. ‘I hired an investigator, but he was a waste, trailed Rick for years and found precious nothing. I’ve heard nothing about this Mandy woman until now.’
She pauses. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Is it?’
‘Do you know what kind of an investigator finds nothing?’
A shit one?
‘The kind that’s gone to the other side and asked for more money to keep their secrets hidden.’
Blood rushes to my ears.
‘Did he tell you anything at all? He might have told you some information that Rick wanted you to hear.’
‘Err,’ I stutter, my mind reeling, the thought of how much money I’ve wasted on Chad piercing me. Had there been signs Chad was playing both sides? What had I missed at our last meeting? Had he even been following Rick at all? I shake my head, thinking back. ‘He showed me logs of Rick’s activity, examples of how accommodating Rick had been in helping the police investigation. And there was a photo… it was of a woman getting into a Polish car.’
‘The CCTV shot?’
‘Yes,’ I breathe.
‘I’ve seen it. Do you think it’s Tabby?’
‘Impossible to tell,’ I reply. Then, ‘What do you think happened?’
There’s a slight hesitation before she speaks.
‘The police have left a lot unsaid,’ Kay sighs. ‘And I pride myself on fighting for the people that others have forgotten about. In this case, I tend to agree with you: Rick’s story just doesn’t add up. His statement was so cold, his lack of caring… You know they only searched his place once? Just once.’
Her words play in my ears like nostalgic music, but the melody is melancholic and I don’t know if I want to keep listening. I am so used, too used, to being the only one who cares about Tabby that now there’s someone else, someone with the resources to make a difference, it makes me double-take. Do I really want to dive back into this? Tabby’s case has dominated every decision I’ve made for the better part of five years, do I really want to do it for another five? Could I cope if another attempt to find her ends in failure?
‘If you’re interested,’ Kay says, ‘I’d love you to work with me. I always find these things go easier if the people who truly knew the victim are close to the investigation… they tend to see the connections I miss.’ She pauses, picking up on my reluctance. ‘You could really make all the difference, Annabella.’
I keep quiet, weighing it up as she continues to talk.
‘If there was a way of getting into his home,’ Kay pressed, ‘we’d find something. I know we would. Killers, or kidnappers, always leave mementos, little trophies reminding them of what they’ve done and of how clever they’ve been. Mark my words, if he did it, there’ll be something in that house. We just need to figure out a way of getting in there. What do you say?’ she finishes up. ‘Are you in? Do you want to help?’
And with that, I know I have to agree. Not for me, but for my friend whom I’ve spent too long letting down. At least I have a life. Giving up five years of it is the least Tabby deserves.
‘I’m in.’
‘Brilliant,’ Kay says. ‘Pleasure to have you on board.’
At that moment, the line drops, and I realise Kay’s hung up on me, as though our conversation has come to its natural conclusion and she doesn’t have enough time to finish it with a run of pleasantries. I put Kay’s quirk to the back of my mind and replay our conversation. Though part of me is sceptical about starting again, I want to believe that this is it, that this is my chance to redeem myself, to honour Tabitha’s memory and bring Rick Priestley to justice.
Tabby
Five Years Ago
‘I’m sorry,’ I say through a yawn, pulling up a seat at Annabella’s clutter-free desk. It’s gone eight and I’ve been at work for twelve hours now, bleary from my lack of sleep the night before, exhausted by the new responsibilities Caroline’s assigned to me as Bella’s lackey. It’s not Bella’s fault, of course, and I do want to take advantage of this opportunity, to learn from her. It was never my intention to be a receptionist forever.
‘So,’ she begins, clicking away at the white mouse under her grip. ‘These are the latest rounds of before-and-after photos. I take them at each patient’s initial consultation and again after treatment, then put them up on the website.’
She clicks through the process, showing me how it’s done. It all seems straightforward enough.
I nod, agreeing. ‘No problem.’
Bella smiles and gets up from her seat, a cloud of sharp citrus and cotton-fresh washing-powder in her wake. She picks up the camera she uses for these pictures, about to give me a tutorial in point-and-click no less, and clocks me looking up at the time.
‘What does Rick make of your longer hours?’ she asks.
I roll my eyes. ‘He hasn’t noticed, to be honest. That man is so wrapped up in himself that I honestly think it would take him a week to realise if I died in my sleep.’
Bella laughs, her water-blue eyes shining. We’re closer than ever at the moment, which is why I feel terrible when my phone shudders on the desk and my first instinct is to hide it from her. It’s him. Bella switches off the lights, then hands me the camera.
‘For the sake of continuity—’ Bella is nothing if not a perfectionist ‘—you want to stand five steps back from the patient, and to make sure their face fits perfectly into the guidelines on the screen.’ She positions herself in front of the white surgery door, ready to be my model. ‘And check that the flash is on.’
I set up the shot.
‘Say cheese!’ I joke, made funnier when Bella’s expressi
on remains completely unchanged. The flash shoots up from the camera, the click loud in my ear, freezing Bella on the tiny screen in my hands.
‘Well, you don’t look exactly… ecstatic about your upcoming procedure,’ I observe, laughing, passing her the shot, reaching behind her to switch the lights back on.
Bella shrieks from behind me, covering her mouth with her hand, howling with disbelief. ‘Take another one, right now, and delete that.’
I can barely hear her through my own laughter, stronger now that Bella’s so horrified by the image. I look again at the picture and deduce it’s something about the ferocity of her straight-face, the slight flare of her usually slender nostrils, the blur of her right eyelid, the camera capturing the very beginning of a blink, that’s floored us both and I can barely keep the camera straight to take another shot.
‘Tabby!’ she pleads, and I gather myself together, taking a series of natural pictures that capture a more realistic image of my friend. Her high cheekbones and piercing eyes shine through, her naturally thick lashes and glossy ombre hair.
‘Much better,’ I say as I click through the pictures I’ve just taken, depressing the right-arrow button with the cracked tip of my fingernail, trying not to be envious.
I chastise myself even as the thought floats into my head; our relationship isn’t like that, I should know better.
I pass her the camera and she hums a sound of approval. ‘I was worried for a moment, but you’re a quick learner,’ she quips, glancing up from the camera. ‘Just as well.’
‘I’ll finish up here,’ I tell her. ‘You should go home.’
She looks up at me. ‘Are you sure?’ she asks.
‘Of course,’ I insist, and watch her pack her things, observing her methodical approach to leaving the office. Everything in its place, everything tidied and put away. I expect my mere presence in her room is giving her a bit of anxiety, but she doesn’t let on. She’s been better recently, especially since we started doing CBT together. I don’t need it, but I knew Bella wouldn’t go alone.