Page 48 of Good Bad Girl

The police station is old, with exposed brick walls and wooden fixtures and fittings. Her footsteps echo on the tiled floor. There is a desk behind a plastic screen in reception, with a police officer sitting at it reading a newspaper. His hair is receding, and his stomach is overflowing his belt. There is a shadow of stubble on his chin along with a dollop of mustard. He looks like an old man trapped in a slightly younger man’s body.

“I want to see DCI Chapman,” Frankie says, and is flabbergasted when the officer doesn’t even look up. “About a missinggirl,” she adds. When he still doesn’t acknowledge her existence, she tries something else to get his attention. “A missing girlanda murder.”

“Sounds like a novel,” he says, raising an eyebrow but continuing to read.

“I have something I need to confess.”

“Have you tried talking to your priest?”

“This is serious.”

“So am I. Do you know what time it is? The only people who come in here wanting to confess to something at this time of night are either high or crazy. Which one are you?” he asks, finally putting down the newspaper. He leaves it open as though planning to return to the page he was reading as soon as possible.

“I’m not sure how the time is relevant. Or do the police only solve crimes during office hours these days?” Frankie replies. She can only tolerate rudeness from strangers if she doesn’t believe them to be dim-witted or lazy, and he is clearly both.

“DCI Chapman isn’t here. Would you like to leave a message?” he asks, glancing down at the open newspaper again.

Frankie stares at the man, unable to process his words or his lack of urgency.

“This cannot wait. You have arrested an innocent person,” she tries to explain.

“I haven’t arrested anyone. I’ve been on desk duty since January.”

“Which is why I need to speak to the detective or someone in charge.”

He sighs and stares at the computer on his desk. “Name?”

“My name, the person who was murdered, or the person who was wrongly arrested?”

“What a lucky dip. Let’s try the person who you think has been arrested first, shall we?” he says. His thin long fingers hover over the keyboard.

“Nellie Fletcher,” Frankie says. She watches while he types each individual letter of her daughter’s name with his pale stubby index finger.

He shakes his head. “Nope.”

“No, what?”

“Nobody by that name has been arrested here today.”

“Are you sure you spelled her name correctly?”

“Do I look stupid?” he asks, and she thinks it best not to answer the question.

“This really is quite urgent. Is there no way I can speak to DCI Chapman?”

“Of course you can. Come back tomorrow,” he replies, then returns to his newspaper. Frankie wonders why so many men have the attention span of a gnat. If she is going to tell the truth about what happened, she isn’t going to waste her confession on a man-child.

She mutters to herself all the way back to the van and is about to drive away when something catches her eye.

Someone else is walking up the steps to the police station at this late hour.

Somebody she recognizes.

The last person she would have expected to see here.

The End

Mother’s Day, twenty years earlier

---