A Game of Proof

‘Whales are intelligent animals, like us!’ Jessica protested. ‘You can’t eat them!’

Trude looked amused and hurt at once. She sat down, sweeping her long fair hair back as she tried to explain. ‘Well, most Norwegians don’t kill them …’

The mobile in Terry’s pocket rang. Irritated, he answered it. ‘Yes?’

It was Sergeant Rossiter at the station. ‘Sorry to trouble you at home, sir, but there’s been a flap overnight about a missing person out your way and I thought you might want to go straight there before you come in.’

‘A misper? Aren’t uniform dealing with it?’

‘Well, yes sir, they are, but like I say it’s out your way and one of the parents is someone you know, as it happens. A Mrs Sarah Newby.’

Terry groaned. ‘All right. But I’m having breakfast with my kids first. Okay?’

‘Sir.’ It was not a thing CID officers usually said. ‘I’ll tell them you’re on your way.’

At the Newby house no one had slept.

Bob had called the police at 8.30 p.m. but at first it had been hard to get them to take him seriously. A fifteen year old girl, still early in the evening — it didn’t seem urgent. Nonetheless they would send a car round.

When the two PCs arrived Sarah and Bob were bemused by the uniforms and crackling radios in their own living room. They gave the details anxiously, submissively almost. No, Emily had no problems except her exams; no, there had been no family quarrel; yes, she was nearly sixteen; yes, she had been out at night before but always with friends; yes, she had a mobile but it was at home. Sarah gave them the number she had got from ringing 1471 and a constable wrote it down without comment. They checked Emily’s room, took a photograph that Sarah gave them, wrote down Sarah’s guess at the clothes her daughter had been wearing, and then — left.

‘They’re not bloody interested!’ she fumed after they had gone. ‘They think it’s just a family quarrel. They’re not going to do anything at all!’

Bob frowned. ‘We did say she might turn up at any time, after all.’

‘If she does I’ll kill her, the spoilt brat.’

‘Maybe that’s why she went.’

‘Oh, it’s my fault now, is it?’

‘You didn’t show her much sympathy over her exams this morning, did you?’

‘I talked to her, didn’t I? You were still semi-conscious, as you are every morning. I said I’d phone her at lunchtime and I did, too. I can’t help a person who isn’t there!’

‘Maybe she thinks you’re never there when she wants you.’

‘Oh shut up, Bob, this is no time for pop psychology. The fact is the wretched girl has vanished and you’re quite right, it is out of character and it is late and the useless plods aren’t interested.’

‘They did take her photo.’

‘Yes.’ That was the thing that had shaken Sarah. It was a school portrait in a frame, of a slightly younger Emily smiling engagingly at the camera. The sort of photo of someone posed and pretty and full of bubbling happiness which the newspapers splash on their front pages when a girl has been stripped, raped, mutilated and murdered. Look at me, the photos always seem to say. I’m a star at last!

But unlike newspaper readers, the police and lawyers get to see the real photos, of the naked strangled corpse with the wounds and swollen eyes and the purple tongue hanging out.

That’s not going to happen to Emily, Sarah thought. It can’t. It won’t. This is all a bad dream.

It might.

At 11.05 p.m. the police rang to say the phone number was from a public call box in Blossom Street, and had Sarah and Bob been in touch with Emily’s grandparents? Might she have gone there?

They hadn’t. Sarah and Bob each rang their parents, spreading the ripples of anxiety further. No, of course Emily wasn’t with them. Bob rang the police and asked testily what they were doing now? At 1.00 a second police car with a uniformed sergeant arrived to ask many of the same questions, and probe further. Which were her closest friends? When had Bob spoken to them? Had Emily ever been out longer than expected, or with someone they didn’t know? Where exactly did she like to go for walks?

The man was serious, concerned, avuncular. They would make some enquiries of her friends, he said, and if she still hadn’t turned up by morning a proper search would be considered.

‘Considered?’ Bob asked. ‘Meaning what, exactly?’

‘Well, sir, we need to know where to look, really. I mean if you said she had gone out to a particular place we could start from there, but it’s not as simple in this case, is it? But we’ll do our best. Her description’s already been circulated.’

Then he, too, left. Neither Bob nor Sarah smoked so they were reduced to pacing up and down, arguing, drinking coffee. Then at two o’clock Sarah remembered Simon! That was it of course — it had to be! Emily and Simon weren’t particularly close but surely Emily had said something about him that morning. What was it now? ‘I’ll be like Simon — he’s happy, at least!’

‘Why didn’t you mention that before?’ Bob asked, aghast.

‘I don’t know, I just … didn’t,’ she faltered.

‘Didn’t think, more like,’ said Bob angrily. ‘OK, I’ll give him a ring.’

‘No, Bob, I’ll do it. He’s my son!’

‘And she’s my daughter! You’ve done enough damage today already!’ He walked out to the phone in the hall. ‘If she is there I’ll give that boy a piece of my mind. This is the very last time he’s going to screw up our lives, I promise you that!’

Sarah sat down and thought, how could we be so stupid? Of course it must be Simon — why was I blocking it out? Is he so very distant from me as well as Bob now, that we don’t think of him at all in a situation like this? At least I know where she is now. She’s with Simon, she’s not a bloody corpse in some field somewhere. The relief was so great it flooded through her. Prize idiots we’re going to look when we tell the police!

She slumped on the sofa, listening for Bob’s voice in the hall. Why does he blame me for all this — it’s not just my fault, surely? If this is what they call a bad patch in your marriage I hope it doesn’t get any worse. Then she heard Bob talking.

‘You’re quite sure … you’re telling me the truth now, Simon … if I come round there and find she’s been with you I’ll … yes, okay … no, I don’t think you need to do that …’

He stood in the doorway with a wild expression on his face and said: ‘She’s not there.’

‘What? You’ve got to be joking.’

‘No, I’m not. Unless he’s lying, but I don’t think he is. He swears he hasn’t seen her, in fact he seemed quite upset when he got over the shock. He wanted to come over here but I said not to bother.’

‘Whyever not? He might help.’

‘I don’t see how. Anyway she’s not with him, Sarah — he hasn’t seen her.’

‘Oh God, no.’ She moaned as the full realisation hit her.

‘Yes. Yes I’m afraid so. Where the hell can she be?’

‘I don’t know. I wish I did but I don’t.’

And so the nightmare continued. When Terry Bateson arrived just before 9 a.m. Sergeant Hendry was already there. He had sent two officers along the river bank behind the house, and four more were making enquiries round the village. Bob had just come in from the riverbank wearing an anorak and rubber boots. He was pale and unshaven. He gazed bitterly at Terry.

‘And who the hell might you be?’

Terry showed his card. ‘We’ve met before, actually, Mr Newby. At the judge’s ball.’

‘Have we? Well, that doesn’t matter now. What I need is someone to find my daughter.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Terry followed him into the living room where Sarah sat, her hands clasped round a cup of coffee. To his surprise she was wearing black motorcyclist’s trousers, jacket and boots. Her face was pale, with dark bruises of sleeplessness round her eyes. She didn’t appear to notice him.

‘Hello, Sarah. I’m sorry to hear about all this.’

She looked up, startled. ‘Oh, it’s you. Hello, Terry.’

He glanced at Bob. ‘Your wife and I work together sometimes at the courts, Mr Newby.’ Where she shows the world how useless I am. Well, the boot’s on the other foot now.