Page 23 of Just Another Missing Person

“Same as me. I wouldn’t wear a fourteen,” Genevieve says. “Not even if I wanted it a bit big.”

“That’s what I thought,” Julia says, her gaze scanning over the clothes. Something about them isn’t quite right, somehow...

They ring off.

There’s nothing else of note in the evidence boxes. A few scant possessions, an old-fashioned alarm clock, a notebook with nothing in it but a few pages torn out. A pillow spray. A passport, clear photo.

Julia surveys the clothes, thinking. There are several odd things about this case. The new job, the new house. She noticed something on Facebook, too: that Doug Adams madethat comment on Olivia’s status about foodie nights almost a year after she posted. All things that could be something and nothing, but...

Maybe the man in the balaclava has been sent by Olivia herself, Julia thinks, folding the clothes and putting them back. She usually enjoys this sort of expansive thought that lands as if from nowhere.What if...

Would that make any sense? She works it through, standing there, alone, without a team to turn to.

Or, if somebody else has taken or killed her, why have they nominated Matthew, specifically, to be framed?

Maybe the housemates will hold some answers, about the clothes and other things. They’re new to Olivia, but even so: they’re witnesses. Interviewed once already by the team, but not by Julia. It feels good to be doing something that isn’t failing to find the blackmailer.

Julia lets herself out of the evidence room, intent on visiting Olivia’s house again. Jonathan is walking toward her along the corridor.

“Spoken to the boyfriend,” he says. He’s carrying a hefty evidence box himself, Olivia’s personal items, paperwork, jewelry.

“And?” Julia says, not expecting to see him, or for him to be discussing the problematic boyfriend. She can hear a tremor in her voice.

“He has got one of the best alibis I’ve ever seen,” Jonathan says dispassionately. “He was out of the country. Passport moved through two airports either side of her disappearance. There’s no way he was anywhere else that night, sorry to say.”

Julia’s shoulders sag in relief. Jonathan might be sorry, but she isn’t. “Well, onwards,” she says.

“Indeed.” Jonathan pushes open the door of the evidence room with his hip, but turns to her, his gaze lingering. Ordinarily, Julia would want to know every detail of this alibi. What, why, where? But today, she doesn’t.

“Have you looked into her former housemates yet?” he asks.

“It’s on my list,” Julia says. Like many things, but she doesn’t usually completely fail to get to them. She’s got too much on, trying to find Olivia, trying to find her blackmailer, trying to protect Genevieve.

Jonathan turns away from her.

“What’s he like?” Julia can’t resist asking, just before he heads inside the room. “The boyfriend?”

“Normal. Reserved.”

“Panicked?”

Jonathan turns his mouth down. “Hard to say. Stiff-upper-lip type.”

“Right,” she says lightly.

“I mean—we could go further on him—surveillance, and all that, if you wanted—”

“No, no need,” Julia says sharply.

“All right?” Alfie, the Super, says to them, emerging around a corner, ostensibly drifting by, but perhaps keeping an eye on her, too. Julia has no idea how long he’s been there.

“’Course,” she says.

“Not going to look into that boyfriend further?”

“No need,” she says. “Cast-iron alibi. Right?” She looks at Jonathan.

“Right,” he says softly. They stand there in a small triangle, the three of them, in a barely used corridor.

---