The Runaway. Ali Harper

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СКАЧАТЬ but what? The flats? Someone who lived in one of the flats?’

      ‘Possible.’

      ‘The statue?’

      ‘The park?’

      ‘If it was the park, you’d think she’d have killed herself in the park.’

      ‘What about the Park Killer?’ I said. I’d been unable to get him out of my thoughts since we arrived.

      ‘He’d been dead five years before Vicky got the train here.’

      ‘Maybe she wanted someone to find her,’ I said, looking up again at all the windows in front of us. ‘I mean, before she died. Maybe it was a cry for help.’

      ‘Aspirin is crying for help,’ said Jo. ‘She’s hard-core. She didn’t want to be found, not alive at any rate.’

      ‘How did she know the statue was there?’

      ‘Maybe she didn’t. Maybe the idea only struck her when she got here.’

      ‘What about the cable tie? She had to have brought that with her. Is there anything on that in the notes?’

      Jo flicked through the pages of the notebook. ‘No. Only that they’re standard issue, available in every DIY shop in the country. Black plastic.’

      ‘She chose this spot. It’s so, so,’ – I struggled to find the right word – ‘premeditated. There’s no reason to ever come here unless you were coming here.’ What little road there was stopped at the flats, the rest was trees and parkland. ‘And naked. Why would you strip to commit suicide?’

      ‘It was August,’ said Jo, as if that made any sense at all.

      I shook my head. ‘It’s another statement. Naked and tied.’

      ‘The statue’s naked.’

      ‘Why go to all this trouble to make such a statement but then not leave a note?’ I kicked at the grass. ‘It’s like she wanted to make a statement, but it’s one no one can understand.’

      ‘Maybe the message wasn’t aimed at us. Maybe it was aimed at someone else.’

      I thought about this for a moment.

      ‘Maybe it wasn’t suicide,’ said Jo.

      That was the thought that had been playing in my head since the moment I’d seen the statue. Maybe she’d been forced to ingest the strychnine. Maybe she’d been tied to the statue once she was already dead. ‘We need to know more,’ I said. ‘More about her, more about her background. Jesus. How are we going to do that if the police didn’t even manage it at the time?’

      Jo slung her backpack over her shoulders and linked arms with me. ‘Martin doesn’t think the police were trying very hard.’

      ‘Well, we’re going to try harder. Much fucking harder,’ I said.

      Jo grinned at me and I noticed she’d got lipstick on her teeth. ‘Right.’

      ‘First things first. We need to know who she was. Martin’s right. Somewhere she’s missing. We need to find out who’s missing her.’

       Chapter Seven

      When we got back to the office, I rang directory enquiries and got the number for the missing persons’ helpline. I rang them straight away and gave them the few details we had for Vicky Doe: white, female, previously given birth, aged between twenty-two and twenty-five when she died seven years ago; possibly from either Leeds or Nottingham. Not much to go on really.

      ‘I’ll check our database,’ the woman on the phone said.

      ‘The police probably checked at the time,’ I said.

      ‘You never know. We get new reports all the time – sometimes for people who’ve been missing for years.’

      ‘Why would someone not report them missing at the time?’

      ‘Sometimes it takes a while for people to realize their loved ones are actually missing, not just out of touch.’ She checked herself. ‘But you shouldn’t get your hopes up too high. Hundreds of women go missing and are never reported.’

      It makes you think, doesn’t it? Hundreds of women go missing and no one ever reports their disappearance? I glanced across at Jo and she raised her eyebrows as if to say I told you so. And of course she had. I’m not naive, I know there’s a lot goes on in this world that most people would rather not know about, but it takes a lot to have no one care – to have no one in your life that cares enough to report you as missing? These women were ghosts, drifting in and out of people’s lives, not having made enough of an impact to even be sought.

      The woman on the phone said she’d get someone to call me back, but warned it might take a few hours.

      ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said Aunt Edie, as she dropped an envelope into the out tray.

      ‘We need you to get us a plan of the flats. Either from the management company, or the fire service or something,’ I said to Aunt Edie.

      ‘Don’t forget – we’ve got to be at Old Bar at two o’clock,’ Jo reminded me. ‘Are we going to walk?’

      I glanced at the clock. It was just past one.

      ‘It’d be great if Matt just turns up,’ said Jo. ‘Easiest case ever.’

      ‘Mmm. Although Nikki’s still got the job of breaking the news to her parents.’

      ‘Poor mite,’ said Edie, coming back from the kitchen. ‘She rang this morning to see if there was any news. I told her she’d have to be patient.’

      ‘We can call in and see Tuff while we’re there – he works in the bookshop just opposite the uni. Jan seemed to think he knew something but wasn’t telling. And he needs to report the damage to Matt’s car.’

      The click of the kettle sounded and Aunt Edie made to get up, but I beat her to it.

      ‘My turn.’

      I picked up Aunt Edie’s mug.

      ‘Tenner still says he’s with a woman somewhere,’ said Jo.

      ‘He might be finishing his essay. They work very hard, these students, and no one gives them credit,’ said Aunt Edie, as I made my way through to the back.

      Which would make him difficult to find. I poured the water from the kettle. He’d be leaving the house only to buy fags and Pro-Plus tablets. I thought back to our trip to Roundhay Park and how out of the ordinary it had felt. As a general rule, Leeds 6 residents don’t travel. They might go home to see their parents once a term, but other than that they wore grooves in the pavement going from Leeds 6 to the edges of the city and back again. Chances were Matt was holed up in a house a stone’s throw from where I was standing. Didn’t make the job any easier though.

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