Read Online The Missing Hours by Emma Kavanagh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Emma Kavanagh
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was brushing to throw me a wave. It’s always been like this with them. Twins identical in all but their reactions to the world. Georgia fearless and forthright. Tess cautious and clinging.
I finished on time. Leaving Selena Cole still missing.
I stare out at the street lights, watch them flicker. Is she walking beneath those street lights? Or is it in darkness that we will find her, her body curled in on itself like a foetus in the womb? Are you alive, Selena? Or is it already too late?
A creak of floorboards above my head makes me start, and I look up, although I know there is nothing to see. It is nearly eleven. Alex will finish work soon, will pack up for the night. Will he come down? Ask me if I’m coming to bed? Or will he simply go, allowing me to fend for myself? My stomach flips at the thought, and I wonder distantly when it all became so damn complicated.
My mobile buzzes. My brother.
Having a nice relaxing evening? Jammy cow.
I know where Finn is, or at least I imagine I know where he is, because I know how these things go. He is sitting at a desk, shuffling papers in a bright artificial light. Or he is sitting in a darkened room, surrounded by screens, watching grainy CCTV footage. It is this way with a murder. The rest of the world stops, cases coming to a grinding halt, families vanishing into a chaos of background noise. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, at least no more than a couple of hours a night. You work and you work and you work, until it is solved or until the overtime budget runs out or until something worse happens.
I type a reply, thumb moving quickly across the flat screen. Yeah. Until tomorrow.
My baby brother. People laugh, the two of us together on the same CID shift. We have been called Topsy and Tim more than once. And in truth, there seemed little hope that Finn would follow where I led. He had a good career of his own, serving his country. First Battalion, First Fusiliers, armoured infantry. A hero soldier. Then came love, a tumultuous relationship that would barely hang around long enough for him to get settled back into British life, and when the dust settled from a particularly stormy break-up, Finn had lost everything. His career. His girlfriend. His home.
I was a PC at the time, drowning in a never-ending series of night shifts, fighting the local drunks at three in the morning and growing increasingly frustrated with humanity. I had complained about it to my brother, thought I’d done a pretty good job of putting him off policing for ever.
Apparently not.
It was, as time would show, a perfect fit for him, a job that allowed him to pick up where the military left off, and fairly quickly, he leapfrogged right over my head, Finn chasing promotion whilst I was laid up, fat and pregnant.
Am I jealous? No. Yes. Mostly I’m just tired. And the jobs I have to do, they’re enough for now.
I draw the line at calling him Sarge, though.
I continue to gaze at the street lights.
I got a message on my way home from the crèche, a heads-up from the DI. Wrap up your case, you’re moving to the murder team tomorrow. The girls were sitting in the back of the car, identically tied in to their identical car seats, singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ loudly and out of key. My insides sank. I knew it was coming. You do, when you’re CID and a murder comes in. You know that it’s all hands to the pump. But I looked into the rear-view mirror at my two little girls and wanted to cry. I wouldn’t be there to put them to bed tomorrow night. In all likelihood, the night after that and the night after that. I would vanish for them, just as certainly as Selena Cole has vanished for her girls.
I set the phone down, rest my head back against the sofa, old enough and used enough that it is beginning to sag. I think about tomorrow. I think about my juggling, all of the balls that I will be setting down. Motherhood. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. Selena Cole. Alex will pick the girls up from
I finished on time. Leaving Selena Cole still missing.
I stare out at the street lights, watch them flicker. Is she walking beneath those street lights? Or is it in darkness that we will find her, her body curled in on itself like a foetus in the womb? Are you alive, Selena? Or is it already too late?
A creak of floorboards above my head makes me start, and I look up, although I know there is nothing to see. It is nearly eleven. Alex will finish work soon, will pack up for the night. Will he come down? Ask me if I’m coming to bed? Or will he simply go, allowing me to fend for myself? My stomach flips at the thought, and I wonder distantly when it all became so damn complicated.
My mobile buzzes. My brother.
Having a nice relaxing evening? Jammy cow.
I know where Finn is, or at least I imagine I know where he is, because I know how these things go. He is sitting at a desk, shuffling papers in a bright artificial light. Or he is sitting in a darkened room, surrounded by screens, watching grainy CCTV footage. It is this way with a murder. The rest of the world stops, cases coming to a grinding halt, families vanishing into a chaos of background noise. You don’t eat, you don’t sleep, at least no more than a couple of hours a night. You work and you work and you work, until it is solved or until the overtime budget runs out or until something worse happens.
I type a reply, thumb moving quickly across the flat screen. Yeah. Until tomorrow.
My baby brother. People laugh, the two of us together on the same CID shift. We have been called Topsy and Tim more than once. And in truth, there seemed little hope that Finn would follow where I led. He had a good career of his own, serving his country. First Battalion, First Fusiliers, armoured infantry. A hero soldier. Then came love, a tumultuous relationship that would barely hang around long enough for him to get settled back into British life, and when the dust settled from a particularly stormy break-up, Finn had lost everything. His career. His girlfriend. His home.
I was a PC at the time, drowning in a never-ending series of night shifts, fighting the local drunks at three in the morning and growing increasingly frustrated with humanity. I had complained about it to my brother, thought I’d done a pretty good job of putting him off policing for ever.
Apparently not.
It was, as time would show, a perfect fit for him, a job that allowed him to pick up where the military left off, and fairly quickly, he leapfrogged right over my head, Finn chasing promotion whilst I was laid up, fat and pregnant.
Am I jealous? No. Yes. Mostly I’m just tired. And the jobs I have to do, they’re enough for now.
I draw the line at calling him Sarge, though.
I continue to gaze at the street lights.
I got a message on my way home from the crèche, a heads-up from the DI. Wrap up your case, you’re moving to the murder team tomorrow. The girls were sitting in the back of the car, identically tied in to their identical car seats, singing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ loudly and out of key. My insides sank. I knew it was coming. You do, when you’re CID and a murder comes in. You know that it’s all hands to the pump. But I looked into the rear-view mirror at my two little girls and wanted to cry. I wouldn’t be there to put them to bed tomorrow night. In all likelihood, the night after that and the night after that. I would vanish for them, just as certainly as Selena Cole has vanished for her girls.
I set the phone down, rest my head back against the sofa, old enough and used enough that it is beginning to sag. I think about tomorrow. I think about my juggling, all of the balls that I will be setting down. Motherhood. Cooking. Cleaning. Laundry. Selena Cole. Alex will pick the girls up from
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