The Disappeared

'I don't know. Let's talk about Anna Rose for a minute. Do you have any idea where she is?'

'No.'

'How was she behaving before she went?'

'She seemed fine, just her usual self ... a little quiet, maybe.'

'Since when?'

'About a month ago, I suppose.'

'What about this Asian guy her parents saw her with last autumn? Salim someone.'

'He was just a college friend. A post-grad of some sort.'

'You know him?'

'I've asked around.'

'Spoken to him?'

'Left a few messages on his mobile.'

'Do you know where he lives?'

'I tried calling the university. They won't give out personal information.'

'I'll talk to them.' Jenny made a note to call. 'You know I spoke to you before about whether she could have got hold of radioactive material.'

'Yes. What was that about?'

'Long story, but traces of caesium 137 turned up in an apartment in Bristol.' She gave a brief account of Mrs Jamal's struggle to achieve an inquest, and her sudden and violent death. 'It looks like the caesium could have been brought in on someone who was contaminated.'

'Anna Rose spent her entire time in an office. She wouldn't have clearance to go anywhere near anything hazardous.'

'Are you sure?'

'Completely. It's out of the question.'

'You sound angry. Why does that question make you angry?'

'I don't know . . .'

'Yes you do.'

He looked down at the ugly patterned carpet. 'It's not possible, there's so much security . . . But she was so . . .' He trailed off, unwilling to complete the thought.

'So what?'

'So . . . innocent, I suppose. And every man in the place fancied her. You couldn't not.'

'Are you saying she played up to it?'

'Occasionally.'

Jenny's mind raced ahead, putting together what he couldn't bring himself to say. 'You're frightened she could have been talked into something, used by someone?'

He shrugged. 'Of course, I've thought about it - I haven't thought about much else.'

'Any theories?'

'I've been hoping she'd call. She said she loved me, I believed her.'

'Do you think she's alive?'

It took him a moment. He said, 'She's been picking up messages, or at least her phone has ... I'd have told the police only I wanted to speak to her first.'

'Do her parents know?'

A pause. He shook his head.

'Can I have the number?' She rummaged in her bag for her address book. 'Who else has got it?'

'I don't know. It's a phone I gave her on my contract - so we could keep in touch.'

She handed him the pen and watched him print the numbers in an even, meticulous hand. He was dependable, not bad-looking but no prize. She pictured his family as teachers or civil servants, people who lived within tightly drawn, reassuring boundaries. She could understand why Anna Rose might have been attracted to him - he was safe - but the young woman he'd described wouldn't stay for long and he knew it. He'd ridden his luck, even splashed out on an extra phone, but this was the moment at which he was finally being forced to let the fantasy go. Wherever she was, Anna Rose wasn't coming back to him.

Jenny glanced over at a framed photograph hanging on the wall above the television: Mike in lab coat posing with a glass trophy, Graduate Trainee of the Year 2004, written at the bottom in gold type. She noticed a now familiar object clipped to his breast pocket.

Jenny said, 'You wouldn't happen to have a dosimeter in the house?'

He looked up abruptly. She saw the alarm in his eyes and knew that she had assumed correctly: he hadn't been to work today. The fustiness in the room was the smell of prolonged confinement.

'You noticed it before you left this morning?' she said. 'He was contaminated . . . and you couldn't go to work because it would have been detected on you. There are radiation monitors everywhere, right?'

He nodded dumbly.

'How bad is it?' Jenny said, feeling a return of the panic she'd experienced in court earlier that day.

'Two hundred milliSieverts ... it was in his urine.'

Jenny said, 'Should we be here?'

Mike said, 'Downstairs is safe enough. I wouldn't go upstairs ... I don't know what to do.'

'You've no idea what connection this man might have with Anna Rose?' she said. 'No.'

'You'll have to call the police.'

'I should have done it this morning.'

'You've done nothing wrong. You'll be fine.' She attempted a smile. 'Just do one thing for me - leave it an hour before you make the call. I need to go somewhere and I don't want to be snagged up with the police all night.'

His eyes darted to the telephone sitting on the sideboard. 'An hour?'

Jenny said, 'Please, Mike. I'm going to try to find Anna Rose, OK? I'd like to talk to her before they do.'

'How? Where are you going to go?'

'Do you want to come with me?'

He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head.

'If I get anywhere I'll call you.'

He nodded, seeming a little more confident now he'd settled on a course of action. Jenny knew she had half an hour at the most. He'd last ten minutes before picking up the phone and telling the police everything.

Jenny drove in the direction of the Severn Bridge along minor roads, checking her mirror for phantom pursuers. Heavy rain flecked with sleet pounded the windscreen. She dialled McAvoy's number repeatedly without success. He was switched off. Beyond her reach. She toyed with contacting Alison and asking her to take another statement from Sarah Levin, but an instinct told her it would be futile, that whatever story Sarah had yet to tell would remain locked down until something far bigger gave way.

She waited fifteen minutes in the empty reception area of Chepstow police station for Detective Sergeant Owen Williams to make his way from the pub, from where she had dislodged him with her enigmatic call. He greeted her with a fond, resigned smile as he peeled off his wet coat.

'Mrs Cooper. Never a dull moment with you, is there?'

'I'm sorry. It's just one of those I can't trust with the boys across the water.'

'I can only help if it's on my patch.'

'Elements are.'

'Just so long as I can tick the box.' He checked the time. 'Not going to take long, is it? I haven't stood my round yet.'

'I'll talk quickly.'

She followed him through the security door to his office, a ten-by-ten cubicle lined with steel shelves laden with dusty box files. His computer sat on a separate desk protected by a plastic cover. The machine had the feel of an object which was unveiled on special occasions only. While Williams spread his coat carefully along the radiator, Jenny gave him a potted history of recent developments in her investigation. He hadn't heard about Mrs Jamal's