Clements knows it is true. ‘But, sir, if we go into lockdown like the Europeans, any leads we have will go cold.’
‘What leads do you have, Clements?’ he asks impatiently. Clements doesn’t reply. He answers for her. ‘None, just hunches. What’s your plan? Knocking on every door in London and asking if they’ve seen her? Stop wasting police time. You know that’s an offence, right?’ Her boss chuckles at his own joke, trying to show her he isn’t entirely unsympathetic to her, one of his key team members, just pushed for resources: time, man-power, funding. ‘Look, when lockdown begins, we’re going to have more than enough on our plates without chasing around looking for a grown woman who doesn’t want to be found. Conversation over.’
Non-religious bigamy cases are rare. Clements has come across just two in her career, in both instances the men had more than one wife; her online research last night suggested that was the pattern. The jokes those cases spawned when being investigated were along the lines of, ‘He wants to plead insanity,’ or, ‘What is he going down for? Didn’t realise sadomasochism was a criminal offence.’ Had a female bigamist created an unarticulated but tangible sense of resentment? It annoys Clements that sexism drips into every part of her world. She wonders whether her boss’s reluctance to invest any time in this missing persons case was a misplaced sense of indignation against a woman who had dared to break not just the law, but the rules too. How dare Kylie Gillingham dupe men?
Clements returns to her desk and starts to fill out a Section 28 Data Protection form that would give her access to the bank records. Morgan comes to find her and takes it upon himself to offer an uninvited opinion. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’
‘She was no longer able to maintain the deception. Perhaps she was even bored of it.’
‘Bored?’ It just doesn’t sit right. Clements can’t imagine getting bored of either man, let alone a situation where you had access to both. She is slightly annoyed with herself for having this thought, it is shallow, slick, borderline silly. Yet it came from her gut and Clements has learnt to trust her gut. The life Kylie had constructed was many things: illegal, complex, dangerous, challenging but it was not boring.
Only young Tanner has a differing view. ‘Which one of them do you think did it?’ he asks, not quite able to hide his excitement. ‘The frazzled dad or the hot he-man?’
‘Do you operate exclusively in stereotypes, Tanner?’
‘I try to,’ Tanner affirms with an unselfconscious grin.
Clements huffs irritably, even though she has been asking herself a variation on that same question. Did either of them know more about her disappearance than they were letting on? Were either of them responsible? If they had discovered her betrayal, there would be motivation. Humiliation, fury and desolation fuelled many crimes of passion. Jealousy was a poison.
Both men were insistent that they had no clue that she was betraying them. But that in itself blew Clements’ mind. How was it possible that they had no clue? She thinks perhaps the issue is that healthy, rich, white men are dangerous because they are disinterested in everything other than themselves. Women, people of colour, poorer men are still trying to work out the world. They are still asking why it is unfair. What can I do to make it fair? How do I ask for a pay rise? How do I get heard? Or believed? The people still asking themselves these questions observe what is going on around them, because everything around them is a potential threat. Clements has a theory that handsome, rich white men have nothing to work out and so they rarely bother with introspection, let alone inspection. The husbands assumed she was fine: busy, happy, trustworthy. And in this instance the self-absorption of the handsome, rich white man worked in Kylie’s favour.
Until of course it didn’t.
Everyone in the station is playing a waiting game. The air is electric, like it is just before a storm. Despite orders to drop the case, Clements decides to make some more phone calls. She calls Kylie’s mother in Australia, who says she last saw her daughter last year, they had a three-day break in Dubai. Kylie paid for it. ‘I wanted it to be longer. It was a long way to travel for just a few days,’ the mother complained. Clements – who was guilty as charged and did operate on hunches, although not instead of facts but as well as – thought the mother was self-involved, hard work. If Kylie wanted a sanctuary, somewhere to escape to and cut free of the mess she has created, Clements doubted her mother would offer that. ‘You’ll get in touch if you hear from your daughter? It’s important.’
‘Of course, poor Mark. How could she do this to him? And those boys. They’ve always been like grandsons to me. She’s an ungrateful girl.’
Another couple of calls unearth the fact that Kylie did not have a high-powered job as a management consultant. She had done until four years ago, when she resigned. ‘We were surprised when she resigned, sad, you know. She was really good at her job. Great team member,’ explains her old boss.
‘Did she give any explanation?’
‘She said she wanted to spend more time with her family. Said it was getting too much for her. There is a lot of travelling. Women with families often find it hard to strike the balance.’ Clements bites her tongue to avoid asking if men with families also struggled to find the work/life balance. She considers her jab is less likely to score considering Kylie had two lives to
