Kylie was last seen on Monday the sixteenth. It is Sunday the twenty-second. A week. Clements feels the pressure of the days dissolving in front of her. She feels cheated that they weren’t alerted to Kylie’s disappearance until four days after she’d vanished. A handicap. Clements and Tanner sit in the almost deserted station, poring over the facts, files, information and hunches; determined to wring every moment out of the time they have left on this investigation.
There isn’t a reward for information, which doesn’t help. Daan Janssen hasn’t offered to fund one, even though he is in a position to do so. Nor has Mark Fletcher, although coming up with the cash would presumably be more of a struggle for him. That said, Clements knows of cases where people have taken loans, mortgaged their houses, sold their cars to be able to offer rewards for information on their loved ones. Not that the police unilaterally encourage this, it can lead to all sorts of confusion and attract the wrong type of person coming forward with inaccurate information. Normally, the police have to spend time discussing the pros and cons of offering a reward. Normally, relatives are desperate and willing to try anything to bring their missing home. Even missing people that left mid-fight, mid-crisis, mid-trauma.
Normally.
Neither man has made posters to pin on notice boards of cafés, libraries or community centres. There are no laminated photocopies of a favoured photo of Leigh or Kai zip-tied to lampposts. Posters that beg passers-by for attention and help. Posters that rip at hearts, and as often or not, fade in the sun or smudge in the rain before they yield results. Neither man has nagged for a press conference, a radio appeal. As far as she is aware, they have not spent hours walking the streets in hope of spotting Kylie. It puzzles and bothers Clements that neither husband seems interested in following the usual patterns or protocols to help find the woman. Clements has known cats that have gone astray to cause more concern. Yes, the circumstances are unusual, and Kylie has clearly fallen from grace in both their eyes, but shouldn’t they care more? Frustrated, Clements voices her thoughts to Tanner. ‘Shouldn’t what they once had inflame if not concern, then at least curiosity as to her whereabouts? Shouldn’t they want to fight for her, to fight with her? If they loved her a week ago how could it all have vanished so instantly, so completely?’
‘Well, obviously their indifference indicates guilt, an involvement in her disappearance. Maybe they are not niggling for a thorough search because they don’t want it to be fruitful. Maybe they already know what happened to her.’
‘What – both of them?’
Tanner shrugs and grins, ‘You’re the one always saying keep an open mind, boss.’
So far, Clements has considered a number of theories including one or the other husband discovering the truth, perhaps threatening Kylie with exposure, with violence, and her running away afraid. Or, one or the other husband discovering the truth and hurting her, perhaps in a moment of fury, perhaps something planned.
She could have fled.
She could be dead.
It depends on how far either man might be prepared to go. Marital homicide is frighteningly common. Every week, two women in Britain die because of violence in their home. Every week. The person these women presumably loved and trusted most in the world – once upon a time – kills them. It is hard to believe in fairy tales in Clements’ line of work. There ought to be protests, banners, placards, marches, even riots. She’d understand riots, venting anger and frustration at that statistic. There are none of these things; there is silence and sometimes it feels like indifference.
Clements sighs and rubs the back of her neck. Rolls her head from left to right and back again to release tension; her neck cracks out a tune like a glockenspiel. She shouldn’t let herself think this way. She gets carried away. Frustrated by the enormity of the all-pervasive problems when really, she ought to concentrate on the micro level. Finding Kylie Gillingham won’t stop the relentless march of fear, or violence, or misogyny, but she might help one woman see her kids again.
‘I suppose, since there have been no sightings, no leads, we have to consider the theory most favoured within the station,’ says Tanner. He can’t hide his disappointment.
‘What, that neither of the husbands has hurt her, that neither of them was aware of her bigamy?’
‘Yup, that she has simply run away.’
‘Well, the stress and impossibility of carrying on two lives concurrently must be enormous,’ Clements admits. ‘Still, even if that is the case, it doesn’t mean she’s safe,’ she adds grimly. ‘What’s not to say someone else out there might not have brought her to harm? The world is full of violent, unstable, cruel men.’ For generations, since time began, men have picked up arms and picked a fight. They’ve chosen land, women, resources and various illusions of power that they’ve deemed excuse enough to savagely battle for. Clements wonders, is it in their DNA or an environment thing that leads to this constant vehement
