The Missing Children Case Files
Not that I have any right to comment on the thoughts, feelings and motivations of parents, as I’m not one, and because of that I probably will never truly know what it feels like to lose a child. I can listen, I can question, I can understand and I can sympathise; but I’ll never truly know until I have a child of my own to be thankful for.
It’s funny: until now I’ve never really thought about having a child of my own. It’s not that I’d be against the idea – not if the circumstances were right. With my twenty-eighth birthday only a couple of months away, I suppose I’m reaching that age where I’m questioning where I want my life to go next. With Monsters Under the Bed and Ransomed both selling well in the charts, and Isolated out for pre-order, I’ve never been in a better position financially. Maddie arranged for the mortgage on my flat in Weymouth to be paid off with the advance of Isolated, and apart from everyday bills, my outward expenditure is very small. I suppose all that’s missing now really is the certainty that I do want a child of my own one day.
At university, Rachel and I would talk about a future where her son or daughter would happily play in the park with my offspring; how we’d take them to pre-school and then head off for brunch somewhere fancy. I know that’s not really how mums behave, but we were naïve twenty-somethings who still believed life would be as easy as it had been until that point. Neither of us considered exactly how much work would be involved in just getting a child ready for school.
‘You’ve gone all quiet,’ Jack says, leaning over. ‘Is it because I mentioned Mila?’
The question throws me. ‘No, why would you think that?’
Jack shrugs nonchalantly. ‘Forget I said anything. What are you thinking about?’
‘Just about how dark a place a mind would have to go to not to react to the news that your daughter had been filmed for graphic entertainment before she was murdered.’
‘Yeah, but in light of the scars and injuries identified during the post mortem, I suppose it was fairly obvious she’d been mistreated during her disappearance. For the Hoopers, it’s probably been two years of their imaginations picturing the worst possible scenarios. I’m sure that’s why Dave Hooper was so angry at the start of the call. He wants someone to blame for the injustice, and we’ve failed to deliver the guilty parties.’
There he goes again, shouldering the responsibility for his colleagues up north, even though he had no involvement in how things turned out.
‘Why do you do that?’ I ask now, my nose scrunching involuntarily.
‘Do what?’
‘Say that you’ve failed them. There is nothing you could have personally done to change the circumstances surrounding Jemima Hooper’s abduction and death.’
‘Because I have absolutely no doubt that the men and women who worked that case gave it their all to find her. I’ve worked on missing child cases before and those in the job go above and beyond what is humanly possible to get the right result. It’s not just the hours and hours of overtime, the lack of sleep, the lack of regular breaks; it’s everything. It devours the human soul, and on those occasions when the missing child is discovered alive and well, it feels like we’ve done our job.’ He pauses, eyes focused back on the road. ‘But when it does end badly… that’s when the real torture kicks in. Every second of every passing day is spent thinking what more could I have done? As a profession, we take the wins when they come, but boy, do we also take the blows; harder than you can begin to think.’
Jack and I have never really talked about his career prior to taking on the cold case review project that saw him voluntarily relinquish his detective’s grade, just so he could play a more active role in Mila’s upbringing. I sense now that there is a lot more going on behind those soft brown eyes than I’ll ever know about; not that I’m not curious, but because Jack isn’t the sort to unburden. His experiences are his cross to bear, and he will do everything in his power not to show the strain of the weight.
‘So, are we to conclude that the girl in the video is definitely Jemima Hooper?’ I ask glumly.
‘The software said it’s a seventy-six per cent match, which is pretty strong given we never see a full frontal shot of the girl’s face. I don’t know. What do you think?’
‘I must have looked at the still shot from that video a hundred times in the last few days, as well as the image the Hoopers shared with the press during the appeal for information, but I still can’t say for certain. I don’t want it to be her, because that family have already been through so much without having to now accept more. Let’s say it is confirmed that Jemima was the girl in the video, what does that mean for the Hoopers?’
‘We’re not at that stage yet. You and I need to continue to review the case file, and speak to the original investigative teams. The tech boffins are doing what they can to sharpen the image from the video to see if there’s any way to get a greater or weaker match percentage.’
‘Okay, but after that? What happens if we conclude that it is more likely Jemima than not?’
‘Then we will pass our findings up the line, and probably I will have to go up and visit the Hoopers and share the findings and ask them whether they can positively ID their daughter from the still. This might all take weeks or months, and the purpose of today’s call was just to notify them of the work you and I are doing. If their daughter is a part of something much wider, then they have the right to know.’
The truth is, as much as I don’t want the girl in the video to be Jemima, at the same time, I don’t want it to be any other girl either. Today’s call was hard enough without having to repeat it with some other family who have no clue what their child has been put through.
‘Right now,’ Jack continues, ‘I think there’s a strong likelihood that we have identified our first girl. I didn’t think we’d do that so quickly, but there are so many other victims in similar videos from that hard drive. This is only the beginning, Emma, and I would totally understand if you’ve had second thoughts about being civilian liaison on this project.’
I know he doesn’t mean to suggest that he doesn’t think I have the stomach for such work, but I can’t say I’m not a little offended about his tone.
‘Do you know why I accepted DCS Rawani’s invitation?’ I challenge, feeling tears pricking at my eyes.
‘Because of my sparkling personality?’ he says sardonically, maybe aware of how his last statement might have come across.
I can’t mirror his smirk. ‘It’s because I want to do something to help. That’s why I wrote Monsters under the Bed; it’s why I accepted Lord Templeton Fitzhume’s request for me to find his granddaughter; it’s why I couldn’t ignore Natalie Sullivan’s request before she jumped from that building… In twenty years I have been helpless in my quest to locate Anna, and for all I know I’ll never get any closer to discovering what really happened to her all those years ago. But right now – in this moment – there are others I can help, and I would be selfish not to try.’
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he says, resting a hand on mine. It seems weird feeling his warmth against my skin, but I don’t reject it. ‘You are a brilliant investigator, Emma, you really are. I only wish there were more selfless detectives like you in the force today.’
I’m blushing, and forced to look away.
‘I’m not blowing smoke up your arse, here, okay? I mean it. When the DCS told me you’d agreed to help, I was over the moon; not just because it allows me the opportunity to watch you in action, but it means the victims in those videos have a better chance at being identified.’
Silence descends, and I can’t bring myself to meet his stare. ‘Are you seeing Mila tonight?’ I ask, keen to lighten the mood.
‘No, not tonight,’ he sighs in resignation. ‘She’s at a schoolfriend’s birthday party, so her mum suggested I have her tomorrow night instead. That suits me fine, to be honest, as I’m not sure I’d be very good company after today. What about you? What are your plans for tonight?’
I shake my head. ‘Nothing planned as far as I’m aware. Need a good night’s sleep as my agent Maddie is taking me to meet with my publishers in the morning, so want to make sure I’m together and don’t make a bad impression.’
I look out of the window, as traffic begins to flow as we exit the A40. I miss home. I’ve been in West London for four days straight, and I long for the sound of the waves crashing against the sand, the seagulls squawking and waking me in the morning, the taste of sea salt in the air. London, with all its culture and modernisations, isn’t even in the same league as Weymouth. Life never seems to stop in the capital, and I don’t know how anyone manages to get a break from the stress and toil of a city that never sleeps. I’m supposed to be here until Friday night, and then I’m booked to board the late afternoon train from Waterloo, back along the south coast, and I can’t wait!
Jack is silent until we pull up outside Rachel’s flat, but in the window’s reflection he keeps glancing at me. I don’t know why he looks so nervous.
‘If you don’t have any plans, do you maybe think we could…’ he begins. ‘What I mean is, I know it’s still early, but neither of us ate much when we went to the café… Are you hungry?’
I’ve had no appetite since the call with the Hoopers. ‘Not really. Sorry.’
‘Okay, no worries,’ he says with forced casualness. ‘Listen, I’m sorry if I offended you by what I said. I know you’re braver than maybe I gave you credit for, but I wouldn’t think any less of you if you didn’t want to continue. It’s no easy job.’
I finally rest my eyes on his face, and press my hand to his cheek to show there’s no lasting damage. ‘I want to help you, Jack. You’re my friend – I think – and you shouldn’t have to do this work on your own. As you said earlier, it’ll eat your soul.’
He presses his hand against mine, and then pushes a kiss into the palm of my hand. ‘We are friends,’ he confirms.
I turn my head to look for the door handle, and as I turn back to say goodbye, his lips are suddenly heading towards me, and I freeze in panic, meaning his kiss ends up on the bridge of my nose.
‘Um, sorry, I meant that to be—’
I don’t allow him to finish the sentence, pulling on the door handle, grabbing my satchel and darting from the car, racing up the stairs to the communal entrance of the converted townhouse, in through the door, and only daring to breathe again when I am inside Rachel’s flat, with my back against her closed door.
What the hell was that? Jack just tried to kiss me, I think, but why? I didn’t think he felt that way. We’re just friends, aren’t we? I know that Maddie and Rachel have said they thought Jack was interested, but until now he hasn’t let on that he sees me as anything more than a friend or co-worker.
‘Everything okay?’ Rachel calls out from the sofa, hunched over her laptop.
‘Fine,’ I lie, taking several breaths to compose myself.
‘The kettle’s just boiled if you fancy a brew,’ she adds, without looking up.
I feel like I need something a lot stronger than tea to settle my nerves, but I resist. Pushing myself away from the door, I move into the open-plan kitchen and find my mug on the draining board, the adrenaline finally starting to dissipate, leaving me with a sense of regret; not because Jack just tried to kiss me, but because I didn’t kiss him back.
Chapter Six
Now
Ealing, London
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Rachel asks, finally sitting back from the laptop when I’ve joined her in the living room-cum-bedroom for the night.
I can still see Jack leaning in towards me, puckering up, his eyes closed. If he’d offered even a hint of what he was going to do, at least I would have been prepared, but the lurch caught me totally off-guard. How long has he been harbouring these feelings?
‘I’m fine,’ I lie, trying to mask how flustered I really feel. ‘What are you working on? Big story?’
She tilts her head. ‘Kind of; it’s about these two women who agreed to act as trustees for a charitable foundation, funded by an eccentric billionaire. Only, one of the women seems to be spearheading the bulk of the work.’
My cheeks redden instantly. For Rachel to confront me directly about my lack of effort with the foundation’s recent workload means that she’s unhappy, and probably has been for some time.
The Anna Hunter Foundation, a charitable organisation we set up to support the families of runaways, has been in place since Lord Templeton Fitzhume offered to fund it in an effort to buy my silence about what really happened with his missing granddaughter. By the time he realised I was going to share the truth with the world, it was too late for him to wind up the foundation’s activities. The purpose of the foundation is to provide support and guidance to those families suffering the sudden disappearance of a loved one. We have a website which contains links to a variety of sources of useful information about police protocols, dealing with social media trolls, and coping strategies. But in addition to that, families who are struggling financially – for example, a mother unable to work because of the effort required to keep searching, and keeping the home ticking – can submit a request for financial support. There isn’t an unlimited pot of money to accept every request – and we’ve had a few chancers too – so we can’t agree all requests, but we try where we can.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say quickly, wracking my mind for any kind of justification for why I haven’t been pulling my weight, but the truth is I have no excuse. ‘I know,’ I say in surrender, ‘and you’re right.’
Rachel looks away. ‘Oh look, I’m sorry too. That wasn’t fair; I know you’re busy with work too, but I’m worried that the two of us running things part-time just isn’t working. Maintenance of the website alone is taking the best part of a day per week. My IT skills are pretty average, and maybe if one of us understood html it would be swifter, but I haven’t the time to learn a new language. Then there’s the emails received through the website. Some are sweet messages of thanks, but even they need to be acknowledged. This week we’ve received forty emails; maybe a quarter of those were in gratitude, half were requests for funding and the rest a combination of requests for information already on the site.
‘The thing is, Emma, I have a full-time job too, and whilst I really do believe in the work of the foundation, I can’t give any more of myself, and the part I can give just isn’t enough.’
I can see she’s struggling to talk about her true feelings, and it wouldn’t surprise me if things are a lot worse than she’s letting on. When Fitzhume first mooted the idea of the foundation, I thought it was a brilliant idea: a resource that I wish had been around when Anna first went missing. I wish I’d known how the police would respond, what tactics they would deploy, and that there are other people experiencing a similar situation. Naively, I hadn’t realised exactly how much work would be required to make the foundation work.
It isn’t that I’ve been avoiding my share of the responsibility, but between writing, supporting Jack in an effort to find connections to Anna, and dealing with my own mother’s rapidly deteriorating Alzheimer’s, there just hasn’t been the time to do more than refresh the inbox occasionally. It doesn’t help that every request we receive for financial support sounds more believable than the last, and had Rachel not suggested we retain a private investigator to scrutinise each requestor, I probably would have agreed to all of them, and the foundation would be close to wrapping up.
‘You’re right,’ I tell her, reaching out and taking her hand in mine. ‘I need to do more, and I will, I promise.’
She turns her head to meet my gaze. ‘I don’t think even that is enough.’ Her other hand wraps around mine. ‘I’ve been thinking long and hard about this all day, and what I think we need to do is hire an administrative assistant. I know the money will have to come out of the foundation’s coffers, but I think it would be an investment in the future.’
Rachel knows how I feel about using the foundation’s money on anything but the families it was set up to support. Initially, I was reluctant to pay an annual subscription for web hosting, until she convinced me that we needed a place where people could find us. Neither Rachel nor I have taken a penny for the work we’ve done in the last six months, but we would have to pay an administrative assistant, and I can already feel myself squirming at the prospect.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Rachel says reassuringly, ‘and that’s why I did some research before pitching the idea to you. Realistically, hiring someone is likely to cost between twenty-five and thirty thousand per year—’
My eyes widen at the figure.
‘—but it will be money very well spent,’ she concludes, her voice rising to counter any argument I might offer. ‘At the moment, it’s impossible to see the wood for the trees. Let me ask you a question: when the foundation started, what was your priority?’
I open my mouth to speak, before stopping and allowing the time to truly consider the question. ‘To help those families most in need.’
‘Exactly! If I told you the foundation currently has forty-three requests for financial support, which of those would you say is the priority?’
She knows I can’t answer, so I shrug. ‘That’s why we hired Derek – to investigate each of them.’
‘Derek is just one man, and what if I told you he has only managed to file reports on eight of the forty-three, but that all eight came back as legitimate enquiries? Which of the eight should be the priority?’
‘I don’t know without reviewing them.’
‘Exactly! Have you really got the free time to review those eight? Maybe you would over the next three to four days, but their need is only going to worsen in that time. If we had someone who could handle the emails, liaise with Derek and only bring high-priority situations to our attention, think how much smoother things would run. He or she would act as a filter to all the noise, allowing us as trustees to focus on the important decisions.’ She pauses, reaches for a printed sheet on the coffee table and slides it across to me. ‘I drafted this, this afternoon. It’s a job advert, detailing the skills I think we’d be looking for. Give me the nod, and I’ll upload it to a recruitment website.’
I read the sheet of paper, but I can’t escape the feeling that I’m losing control. Rachel has every right to make such a suggestion, and I know that as co-trustee – and my best friend – she has the best interests of the foundation at heart. Even with the best will in the world, I know I can’t commit to any more than a couple of days a week, and even those would be snatched moments between publicising Isolated, meeting with Pam Ratchett at Mum’s home and continuing to investigate Jemima Hooper’s possible appearance in that video.
‘You really think this will help?’ I ask, handing the page back to her.
Her anxiety breaks into a wide smile. ‘I really do. You shouldn’t feel bad about it either. When we agreed to act as trustees, we never had any idea just how wide an audience it would reach; we couldn’t have predicted we’d be inundated with this level of contact, but what it means is that the foundation is doing what you intended. Hiring some support is the natural next step in the evolution of the foundation.’
I don’t want to argue, and if hiring an administrator will improve the support that can be offered to those families, then who am I to stand in the way of progress?
‘Okay,’ I say, returning her smile. ‘Do it, but I will help you with interviewing prospective clients; you shouldn’t have to do all of this on your own.’
She thrusts out her hand. ‘Deal! And I am sorry about snapping at you when you got in; I was frustrated at my editor, and shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’
I reach for my tea. ‘What’s your editor done now?’
‘He wanted me to go down to Poole to follow up on that woman who appeared at one of the hospitals down there.’
My brow furrows.
‘Haven’t you seen? It was trending on Twitter briefly overnight. They reckon she stumbled in, bruised and beaten, with no identification, and not speaking a word of English.’
‘Who is she?’
Rachel shrugs. ‘Nobody knows, but with the next round of trade agreement talks with the EU imminent, I don’t need to be following up on a human interest story. I told him to send one of the junior reporters.’
Rachel looks tired, and I don’t want to point out the dark circles beneath her eyes. Although she might be blaming her frustration on her editor, I know there is something else on her mind she’s not so keen to talk about.
‘Have you heard from Daniella?’ I ask as casually as I can.
Rachel glowers silently on the sofa. ‘No.’
Daniella broke up with Rachel right before Christmas, and although Rachel vowed she would do her best to move on with her life, I’ve seen the alerts pop up on her phone whenever Daniella tweets, or her name is mentioned in the news. It worries me that Rachel is getting dangerously close to cyber-stalking her ex, but what’s worse is that we both saw the tweet that Daniella would be back in the UK for a few weeks in the run-up to London Fashion Week in September.
‘Oh, well, I’m sure she’s just been busy catching up with family and friends… It doesn’t mean she won’t ask to see you.’
I’m reaching, but I’m really not sure what else to say.
Chapter Seven
Then
Poole, Dorset
Four belched as she swallowed the last of the cheese sandwich, and washed it down with more warm water from the straw and beaker. She had been propped up in the bed now, and the tube in her arm had been removed, which had meant she could now feel the weight of the plaster cast around her right wrist. The sensation was uncomfortable rather than unpleasant; certainly not as painful as other trauma she’d experienced beneath the ground.
The French doctor – Mr Truffaut – had spoken to her in her mother tongue, and she’d managed to understand most of what he’d said, but it had been difficult to respond to several of his questions; as if someone had reached in and cut out her tongue. He’d disappeared, promising to return and assuring her that no bad men would be allowed access to the hospital, let alone to her room.
It wasn’t men she was afraid of; just one man who would be out looking for her now.
He’d warned her what would happen if she ever got out, that she wouldn’t understand the world she’d been away from for so long, and for the first time she could understand what he meant. This room alone was so alien to her. So bright. Was the whole world this infused with light? Despite longing to be free for so long, she now missed the darkness.
It hadn’t all been bad; there had been splintered moments of enjoyment. He’d patiently taught her to understand his language; had given her the benefit of language tapes; he’d read to her from magazines with shiny pictures. But then the darkness would swell in his eyes, and that’s when it was at its worst.
She rested the plate of breadcrumbs on the weird table on wheels that they had slid over her, and pushed it away. A small television screen blinked and flashed numbers beside her, but despite her best efforts she couldn’t make it actually play anything resembling a show. Either it was broken or the technology was beyond her. And that just left her alone with her thoughts.
She didn’t want to be alone; not any more.
Pushing back the bed sheet, she swung her legs over the side and daintily pressed her toes onto the ice-cold floor, keeping a tight grip of the mattress with her left hand. She lowered her weight onto one leg at a time, desperately hoping they would be able to support her, and relieved when they didn’t turn to jelly. The nurse had showed her a small toilet and basin just beyond the door beside the bed, and as she opened it, she gasped at the figure staring back at her.