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Authors: Colette McBeth
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it too. But it kept on finding me.
Sarah took her coat from behind the chair and picked up her bag. I had finished my coffee but waited for her to leave. We didn’t have enough conversation to get us to the door.
‘Let’s keep in touch, you know, if we hear anything,’ I said and she nodded. ‘I’m sure they’ll find her soon.’ But my words were lost in the hum of the coffee machine. She was already walking to the door.
I went back on to the seafront and followed the road round to the pier. Against the sea, so dark and endless, I felt small and insignificant and wondered if I was making too much of the situation. Next week, when you’d reappeared, I would see this for what it was – an insignificant little drama. Clinging to that thought I carried on walking up towards the Old Steine, and then I saw it: the headline gracing the
Brighton Argus
billboard outside the newsagent’s – F EARS FOR M ISSING B RIGHTON W OMAN. You were nowhere and everywhere.
I ran and ran until I got to the bandstand where there were no shops and posters and no pictures of you. I took out my BlackBerry and dialled.
‘It’s Rachel at NNN,’ I said when he answered. There was a pause.
‘Rachel, sorry, my hands are tied on this one. And we don’t have much to go on. I promise you’ll be the first to know when we do.’
‘She’s a friend,’ I said and listened to a deep breath being sucked in through teeth.
‘Is she now?’ The emphasis was on the ‘now’. I thought he would be more surprised.
‘An old one,’ I replied.
‘When can you come in?’ he asked.
‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
Your face was hanging on the wall in the police station, your deep brown hair that fell down in waves, your tanned skin and those eyes, the sharpest, crystal blue. Everyone always said you should have had brown eyes with your colouring; the fact you didn’t made them all the more hypnotic. You looked as if you were peering down into the room and smiling in satisfaction at what you could see. Because in that airless office there must have been fifteen or twenty people, and every one of them was searching for you.
Underneath your photo, on a whiteboard, was a timeline with locations. Brunswick Place, Marine Parade, Cantina Latina, King’s Road. And then nothing. The point at which you had vanished into the cold night air.
I stood in the middle of the room waiting for DCI Gunn to finish his conversation with a youngish blond woman in jeans and a pink shirt. She must have been all of five foot next to his six foot five. I tried to eavesdrop, picking up enough to work out what she was doing; trawling the CCTV cameras on Friday night to see if you had made an appearance.
A phone ringing on the empty desk next to me disturbed my thoughts. I looked around to see if anyone was going to answer it. No one made a move. On and on it went. Each ring amplified in my head. Couldn’t they see it mattered? What if it was someone with information? Or you. And then it stopped.
Finally DCI Gunn led me to through the room to his office. Until now our meetings had taken place in an old boozer in Hove just off Church Road. I’d call him Roger and order him a pint of Poacher’s Choice and a Diet Coke for me. By the third pint, when his cheeks blushed from the alcohol, he would be more amenable to sharing information. Not that he was alone in that. How else do you think we got our stories? Coppers, criminals who liked to talk, there wasn’t a whole lot of difference in the way you wooed them. Flattery and booze (and the occasional backhander) and before you knew it the exclusives and the tip-offs would be coming your way. It was all part of the game we played to stay ahead of the pack. And getting the senior officers on side meant that when a big story came up you could bypass the press officers and the ‘no comment’ lines they peddled.
But this inner sanctum was unfamiliar territory for me. I realised my eye was twitching and my eye
Sarah took her coat from behind the chair and picked up her bag. I had finished my coffee but waited for her to leave. We didn’t have enough conversation to get us to the door.
‘Let’s keep in touch, you know, if we hear anything,’ I said and she nodded. ‘I’m sure they’ll find her soon.’ But my words were lost in the hum of the coffee machine. She was already walking to the door.
I went back on to the seafront and followed the road round to the pier. Against the sea, so dark and endless, I felt small and insignificant and wondered if I was making too much of the situation. Next week, when you’d reappeared, I would see this for what it was – an insignificant little drama. Clinging to that thought I carried on walking up towards the Old Steine, and then I saw it: the headline gracing the
Brighton Argus
billboard outside the newsagent’s – F EARS FOR M ISSING B RIGHTON W OMAN. You were nowhere and everywhere.
I ran and ran until I got to the bandstand where there were no shops and posters and no pictures of you. I took out my BlackBerry and dialled.
‘It’s Rachel at NNN,’ I said when he answered. There was a pause.
‘Rachel, sorry, my hands are tied on this one. And we don’t have much to go on. I promise you’ll be the first to know when we do.’
‘She’s a friend,’ I said and listened to a deep breath being sucked in through teeth.
‘Is she now?’ The emphasis was on the ‘now’. I thought he would be more surprised.
‘An old one,’ I replied.
‘When can you come in?’ he asked.
‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
Your face was hanging on the wall in the police station, your deep brown hair that fell down in waves, your tanned skin and those eyes, the sharpest, crystal blue. Everyone always said you should have had brown eyes with your colouring; the fact you didn’t made them all the more hypnotic. You looked as if you were peering down into the room and smiling in satisfaction at what you could see. Because in that airless office there must have been fifteen or twenty people, and every one of them was searching for you.
Underneath your photo, on a whiteboard, was a timeline with locations. Brunswick Place, Marine Parade, Cantina Latina, King’s Road. And then nothing. The point at which you had vanished into the cold night air.
I stood in the middle of the room waiting for DCI Gunn to finish his conversation with a youngish blond woman in jeans and a pink shirt. She must have been all of five foot next to his six foot five. I tried to eavesdrop, picking up enough to work out what she was doing; trawling the CCTV cameras on Friday night to see if you had made an appearance.
A phone ringing on the empty desk next to me disturbed my thoughts. I looked around to see if anyone was going to answer it. No one made a move. On and on it went. Each ring amplified in my head. Couldn’t they see it mattered? What if it was someone with information? Or you. And then it stopped.
Finally DCI Gunn led me to through the room to his office. Until now our meetings had taken place in an old boozer in Hove just off Church Road. I’d call him Roger and order him a pint of Poacher’s Choice and a Diet Coke for me. By the third pint, when his cheeks blushed from the alcohol, he would be more amenable to sharing information. Not that he was alone in that. How else do you think we got our stories? Coppers, criminals who liked to talk, there wasn’t a whole lot of difference in the way you wooed them. Flattery and booze (and the occasional backhander) and before you knew it the exclusives and the tip-offs would be coming your way. It was all part of the game we played to stay ahead of the pack. And getting the senior officers on side meant that when a big story came up you could bypass the press officers and the ‘no comment’ lines they peddled.
But this inner sanctum was unfamiliar territory for me. I realised my eye was twitching and my eye
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