Page 65 of Just Another Missing Person

“I told you. Transfer,” she says, thinking how the corruption of old—framing him, covering it up, interviewing Olivia’s housemates off the record—felt wrong, but how very right this feels. She’s chasing it down; it’s animalistic. Julia is a lion, stalking a deer, out in the wild. She knows the truth is here, somewhere, among the closed shops and street silence. Sheknowsit.

“If you don’t take me back—I’ll alert the—”

“The who?”

“I’ll say you took me on a walk and asked me questions you shouldn’t have.”

“I’ll deny it. I have your transfer form right here,” Julia says, patting a pocket that contains nothing. “The media interest in this case is too much. You needed to be moved,” Julia lies.

Matthew turns to look at her just as the interior light goes off. The car is a dark snow globe, alone on the street, nobody aware they’re here, nobody looking. Julia regrets that he will be frightened.

“What fucking media interest?”

“Why did you change your name?”

“No comment.”

“What’s the QR code? Who’s Prudence Jones?”

“No comment.”

“What involvement did you have in Sadie Owen’s disappearance?” she says, her tone angry. She knows this is illegal. She knows she’s so close to the wire here. Over it. But she needs—like an addict—to reach out to the universe and find Sadie, find her killer, find the answer for Lewis, and heal his heart, just as much as she can. This urge is shot throughher. Whatever Lewis did to her, whatever Julia’s predicament, this—that—is her job, something she does even when it compromises her ethics, her family, her self.

Julia guns the engine and they set off, the same as she had that night—somehow?—only a handful of days ago. She drives them aimlessly, happy for Matthew to realize this is a trip to nowhere in his own time.

It takes forty minutes before he speaks. He has more willpower than even the lowest gang members who would be murdered for talking. You don’t need coerced confessions or violence to be an effective police officer. You never did. You only need this: an awkward silence.

The sun begins to rise. In six weeks they will be at the solstice, twilight and dawn as close together as a pinch between finger and thumb. The tallest buildings catch the first rays, like they know something the others don’t, their tips just slightly golden, so subtle you could easily miss them.

Matthew’s feet are stretched out in front of him in the footwell, but it’s the only element of his body language that is relaxed. His shoulders are tensed, he’s sitting forward, perhaps eager, perhaps nervous, maybe both. Dark hair the color of a black cat in the sun.

“I don’t know where Sadie went. I don’t know what the QR code is. No comment, no comment, no comment,” he says, his eyes meeting hers. And then he says something else, something that piques Julia’s interest in a way she can’t explain, but doesn’t miss, regardless: “If I knew anything, anyway, the police would be the last people I’d tell.”

***

Five thirty, now. A text from Genevieve:I got up to use the bathroom and you’re doing an all-nighter?!

Matthew’s back in his cell—an admin error, she told the custody sergeant: no space at the new place—and Jonathan’s in early, before six. His morning, Julia’s nighttime. He’s holding his Pret cup of coffee and one for her, too.

Julia takes it gratefully, either her third or her first cup of the day, depending on how you look at it. She boots up her computer and rubs her arms. Her skin feels raw from the shame of her failed exchange with Matthew. She didn’t unearth anything useful from him whatsoever. No midnight-hour confession, no truth extracted painfully, through tears. Nothing. She was so sure there would be. What was she thinking?

And so now she’s wide open, vulnerable, corrupt in every direction, waiting for Matthew to tell somebody.

“What’s new?” Jonathan says, leaning against the doorframe.

Julia lets out a grim smile. “Quite a lot,” she says to him. Immediately, he comes inside. “Are Pret even open?”

“Always.”

“Did you pay for mine?”

“Got two free,” he says, and Julia isn’t surprised. He once set up a business on the side selling records on eBay that nearly got him sacked for wasting (his own) police time. Jonathan can’t resist anything free, anything he got for nothing.

“Er, guess what?” Julia says.

“What?”

“Olivia Johnson presented herself last night. Happened at one o’clock,” she says.

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