Page 12 of Just Another Missing Person

And so the decision is made. Until she can find Olivia: dead or alive. Corruption. Just like that. Like jumping off a cliff, only what Julia didn’t realize is that she had been walking steadily toward it since that night in the car park last year. It took one more step.

The night is sharp with cold, almost painful against her skin. There are a few sleety flakes in the air, little currents of snow being tossed around the haze of the streetlamps. The weather feels suddenly inevitable, some kind of warning sign: no spring should be this chilly.

“All right,” she says to the PCSO on watch, Harry. She doesn’t know what else to say. He’s young, twentyish. Tall, angular, handsome. Julia is reminded of Art-at-eighteen. She’s been married to him for so long, she hardly remembers life before. But she remembers him at their wedding, shirt unironed even though he swore he had pressed it, his eyes on hers.

She stops, ignoring the burn of this man’s gaze behind her, and looks up at the house. Olivia’s house. Blue front door, brass knocker. No Ring doorbell so unfortunately no amateur residential CCTV here, or on the two terraces that flank it.

“Going to get a look inside,” she says woodenly to Harry.

“’Course,” he says. One syllable. A complete beat of faith, of trust in Julia, which makes her blush with ignominy. She signs the crime scene log.

Every police officer, in a big city or a sleepy town, has had the opportunity to become corrupt. Julia could have madethousands of pounds. A nod here, a wink there, failing to stop and search. Passing criminals information. Weapons trading. The lot. It would’ve been easy for her; it is for any copper. And she never has. Has never even thought for even a second about it. Has only ever known one corrupt colleague, who siphoned off seized drugs and was sacked ten years ago.

She reaches for a stack of the protective outerwear and covers for shoes and pulls them on.

Already, she’s thinking about how she can do it. Is this how it goes? Is this how every corrupt officer begins? First, they refuse. Then they need something. Then they start to plot how they can get away with it. Her upper lip begins to sweat. This isn’t her, it isn’t her, it isn’t her.

Beyond the PCSO sits a typical student house. No familial touches, the stairs and hallway blank and communal in feel: no photographs, a tired gray carpet, a pizza leaflet the only thing on the entry table. Julia gets the same feeling she always gets when entering where somebody was last known to reside: she wants everybody out. Wants to walk around it herself, have it be preserved for her eyes only.

She catches sight of her reflection as she walks inside, past the hallway mirror that Olivia must have looked at herself in right before she left. Or before she was taken, by the man in her car. Julia doesn’t look in the mirror; she looks at the frame. Clean of dust. Interesting: houses with multiple occupants are not often spotless in the communal areas. She looks behind it—searching for hidden drugs—a credible reason to go missing or to be abducted. She once checked for this in a show home, and Art had rolled his eyes and laughed.

She replaces it on the nail. As she does so, she can’t help but meet her own eyes, but tonight she sees only Genevieve.

Olivia deserves better. Her parents, her family, a boyfriend, whoever her loved ones are. Julia will have to tell them. She’ll have to tell them they have a suspect. For murder, for a murder that might not have even happened: there is no body yet.

Just as she starts ascending the stairs—bare wood, no carpet, two nails protruding—her phone rings.

“Hi,” she says. It’s Jonathan, who Julia knows will have been diligently working away.

“O2 have released the phone records,” he says, sure enough. “Brian is about to dig in.” Julia checks her watch. It’s after eleven forty, but this is how it is. Any detective who gets the phone records of a missing person and leaves them until the morning shouldn’t be looking for a missing person.

“But so far,” he continues, “the phone was turned off at half past one in the morning—could be the battery, could be intentional. The last ping was by three roads—Glasgow Place, Patterdale Avenue and Selby Close, all by the alley. So we need to do door-knocking there.”

Glasgow Place. Matthew James’s address. Julia’s mind spins, trying to work it out. Is he merely an easy target, then? Someone who lives in the vicinity, or what?

“I’ll send some people,” Julia says. “Thanks.” She’s reached the top of the stairs. The landing is cold, the front door left open. Wind blows through the crime scene, both Olivia’s and now Julia’s. The housemates are gone, interviewed by Julia’s team. “Anything else?” she says, scanning around. There’s a felt-tip sign up on the wall saying GO AVA GO!!! With a car drawn underneath it in pink. A record player with a Pink Floyd record in it sits on the floor by a plug. Fairy lights made of white fake flowers are Blu-Tacked to the ceiling.

“Well. She upgraded her phone right before she moved, switched networks. There’s a call to an 01275 number whichmatches Reflections, which is the marketing company—I’ve asked to see the correspondence inviting her for interview.”

“New house, new phone on a new network,” Julia says, almost relieved to find she still has her detective instincts, still there burning bright like a lighthouse that points toward home. “Isn’t that strange? Then missing.”

“It is strange,” Jonathan agrees. “Suspicious. In a good way, though. A runaway, maybe? Though the dad doesn’t think so.”

“Exactly,” Julia says, their theories bouncing off each other the way they always have. Julia thinks sometimes you become closer to colleagues than to anybody else. She could finish Jonathan’s sentences more easily than she could most people’s. Only this time, Jonathan has no idea what Julia is thinking, or about to do, either.

She hangs up and hesitates outside the bedrooms. It’s clear which is Olivia’s: all of the doors are open except one, the one at the end of the hall. She hears movement in there, and then Erin, the SOCO and one of her oldest friends, appears.

Her colleague of a decade is wearing a white suit and blue boots, and all Julia can think is that she is, unknown to Erin, clutching a metal box inside her coat that contains forged evidence. She meets Erin’s eyes, and Julia can’t believe she doesn’t know, doesn’t guess, that she’s about to plant it here. “We haven’t started yet. Wanted to do the photo in the daylight. So feel free to go on in,” Erin says, gesturing to the door, to Julia’s dual relief and shame.

Julia’s hands are trembling, the metal box clutched tight. Erin is one of life’s misanthropes, but she tells Julia almost everything. Julia knows how overdrawn Erin is—she has lots of children, which sucks her finances—and how often she has sex with her husband—not as much as he’d like. Julialooks at her and thinks she’s never felt this ashamed and guilty in her entire life. “Good, I will,” she says softly.

“Not much in there,” Erin says with a shrug, the white material crinkling up around her shoulders. “She’s unpacked, sort of. Half and half. No keys, no mobile phone, no purse. Left her ID. I guess the rest are with her.”

“As you’d expect for someone who left willingly.”

“Right. But most likely, anyway, that some man’s murdered her,” Erin says with another shrug. She has good instincts, usually, if erring a little on the pessimistic side, and Julia can’t help but look at her curiously. Erin folds her arms, tilts her head to the side. “You know, her housemates didn’t actually see her leave,” she says. “You’re going to want to interview them. I spoke to them briefly.” She indicates the other rooms, though her housemates won’t be allowed back in them, will be housed elsewhere for now. “They’re not much help. She only moved in two nights ago. But, I mean... it’s weird. That she texted them, out of everyone. Implies she was very nearby, perhaps?”

Julia nods quickly: the housemates can’t know what happened when Olivia left, and texted them. Besides, they might be lying. Therefore, they are under suspicion. She winces as she thinks it. They won’t get arrested, not by her. Even if they did it.

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