She started with the basic details, before moving through the various letters and reports, summarising for herself as she went along: Miss Isobel Semple, 5’ 3”, hair short, bobbed and blonde, though lately coloured different shades. Several small piercings, no tattoos as far as anyone knew, no other distinguishing marks. Seventeen at time of disappearance (so twenty now), only child of Douglas, a worker at Aubrey Electricals, and Christine Semple, homemaker and former office worker. Residents of the Hills estate, a fact Cori let speak for itself. No great shakes at Southney Comprehensive, but she had gotten onto a Caring Skills Development course in their sixth form; which, though hardly the most academically rigorous qualification on the College’s books Cori imagined, Isobel was still managing to flunk. This was confirmed by her term report cards, and in a letter from her teacher who believed she would have failed had the term played out.
No criminal record as such, but she had been spoken to at least once for loitering after dark, public nuisance, and suspected underage drinking (on that last occasion she and her friends had had no actual drink found on them when met by officers, despite appearing intoxicated, and so were simply taken home to their parents). There was a note attached to the file to say that on at least one of these occasions she had made her displeasure at being met by the police known with force and verbosity. Friends described her as being fun though flighty, falling in and out with other girls, and sometimes getting into fights with them. As for boys her friends knew little; bar the girl Connie — as mentioned by Chad Glazier at the record store, and who came across from the files as the closest she had to a best friend — who had, after a couple of days of secret-keeping for her absent pal, finally broke and spilt the beans about Isobel’s dalliance with someone called ‘Scar’, even Connie apparently not knowing his real name.
Cori wondered: could Isobel still be living with her teenage love? Her instinct was yes, that though the girl was in and out of friendships, she might show fidelity in relationships, albeit fidelity to a alleged drug dealer on an ego-trip. If only, Cori mused, after reading Connie’s statement, Isobel had been as judicious in her choice of men as she had been in her choice of best friend. That might have been the making of her, she lamented. Cori knew of kids who rebelled, played up, caused trouble, but deep down longed for nothing but the most conservative of lives: to love and be loved, to have the cosy home they perhaps had never known. Especially the girls, who often wanted only boyfriends and babies — it was the boys who had daft dreams beyond their scale.
But not Thomas Long: there was a boy who, if he had dreams at all didn’t seem to have ever shared them with anyone; and who seemed content in the narrowest of lives. At least, Cori shaking her head as she thought of it, until the night he dashes off without telling anyone to hang around in hotel carparks. Was he there waiting for someone? His story made as little sense with the Carman/Isobel connection as without it — just as confusing but in a different way. And still no sighting since… Cori wondered, were he, God forbid, to remain unfound, what might his missing persons file look like?
Mr Thomas Long, 6’ wouldn’t you say, hair short and very dark brown. No piercings or tattoos or any other marks. Twenty-four at time of disappearance, single child to Philip and Lilian Long, married for… Cori had no idea how long for, but it must have been a similar length of time. Residents of the Southney suburban/rural fringe. Cori found the school records they had requested and fished them out from the papers on the desk: no prized performer in classes, but good in logical subjects, in both the school and sixth form. Went on to a job his father found him in the Aubrey’s office. That was six years ago, a position he still occupied.
No criminal record at all, nor trace of high jinks: no public nuisance for Thomas, no loitering after dark. Friends… would colleagues count? They were as good as she could find. They worked beside him all the time he wasn’t with his family or travelling between the two. They described him as a good lad, didn’t they? Occasionally tetchy, but utterly reliable; the sort we’d all like to work alongside, to know he’d be in on time and that our lunches would be covered. But had they mentioned fun at all, had he any life in him? And as for girls? Well, Cori wondered, between the hours spent at home and the office, when would he have the time? Or rather, the time was there whenever he wanted it, but he never seemed to take it. How thrilled his family might have been at first on that Tuesday night, that their boy might have actually been out there doing something!
Since the breakfast news, its message repeated in subsequent bulletins, maybe tens of thousand of television viewers in the region had been informed that Thomas Long had been missing now for nearly two whole days. As these things went, it had not been as hopeless an appeal as some, in large part down to the regard Tom was still remembered with by those who had known him as a boy or teenager — many calling to offer sympathy as much as anything else. Filter sentiment away though — and the perhaps half a dozen possible sightings, being chased up by those at the desks around her — and there was not one lad call to say he knew him from the pub, no girl to say the pair of them had dated once. Cori found these last facts ineffably sad.
Her missing person’s report for Tom was all in past tense she noticed; but then why wouldn’t it be, when it described the life he had been living? Was this life over for him now though? Could he ever go back to being who he was, even if he turned up at the door tomorrow morning?
Even now, with all the likelihood of uncertainty, if not disaster, that hung over his situation, Cori couldn’t help hoping his disappearance might involve some aspect of transformation in his life, the widening of horizons — Thomas Long may yet return, may even look and sound the same, but surely this whole experience, however it played out, wouldn’t leave him unaffected, wouldn’t leave him not wanting to go somewhere else, do something else, break out of his stifling existence? It was impossible, she thought, that he could come back and want to be the same?
Chapter 14 — Chief Inspector Nash
The phone call with the Nottingham detective, who had left his details for Inspector Rase upon his return to the station, went well, or as well as Grey would consider afterwards as any conversation begun on such crossed purposes could be expected to.
With Sergeant Smith there with them, Grey called the number on Superintendent Rose’s phone and placed it on speaker. The room filled with the metallic clatter of the far phone being lifted from its cradle, before the sounds became a voice which issued words to greet them,
‘Inspector Rase, thank you for calling. I’m Chief Inspector Nash.’ After greetings all around, the Chief Inspector, though ever amiable, cut right to the chase, ‘Now, perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me why you’re making enquiries after Stephen Carman? Is it related to our prior request for information relating to a phone call?’
‘Thank you, Chief Inspector,’ began Grey. ‘Yes it is. We asked at the Havahostel this morning: your call was placed from a room booked in the name of Smith. The receptionist who dealt with the tenant is uncontactable till the morning. We will of course pass on anything she can tell us.’
‘Then thank you, Inspector. But you also made your own enquiries into Stephen Carman? We have a flag against his name on the Police National Computer,’ explained Nash. ‘It reports when anyone views his file.’
‘Yes. Well, I don’t really know where to start. The thing is, there could be links with two of our open cases.’
‘Just the two?’ Nash chuckled.
‘Well, neither link might prove to mean very much,’ offered Grey apologetically.
‘I’d still be glad to know as much about them as you’re able to share. However, I must say this before we go on, if you’ll permit me to offer just a few words of caution.’ At this point Nash’s jovial manner fell away like a passing fancy,
‘It might be taken as read, but worth stating nonetheless, that for Stephen Carman to have been flagged in this way means he is an active suspect in our own investigations. Very active, if you catch my meaning. Of what he is suspected, I would rather say as little as possible — suffice it to say that if you have looked up his record, then you will know that Carman has some slight convictions for drug offences; so it shouldn’t be too much of a stretch for you to deduce what we might be tracking him in relation to.
‘Please let me reiterate just how very important he is to our enquiries. These may very well be undercover enquiries, and so you’ll appreciate how keen I was to get in touch with you and set our relationship off on the right foot; nip things in the bud, so to speak, before anything gets jeopardised.
‘Which isn’t to say that we won’t do everything we can to help you; indeed we would welcome an honest exchange of whatever information we each can share. I must insist though, that the extent of any actions resulting from our exchange be dictated by the needs of our investigation. Is that amenable?’
