Me and You. Claudia Carroll

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СКАЧАТЬ bus stops and lampposts.

      I want total media blanket coverage. And only when all that is done, will I …

      6.35 p.m.

      Mental ramblings are suddenly interrupted by arrival of Detective Sergeant Jack Crown, who instantly surprises me by not being a senior, Inspector Morse or even a Scando detective type, but a youngish guy. Not that much older than Simon, late thirties at most, and not a bit wise or experienced-looking at all.

      Definitely not a Wallander or even a Poirot either; the guy’s sandy-haired, freckly, chunky and with sharp blue eyes and an intent, tight-jawed look about him. Thick-set build too, with hands the approximate size of shovels. Puts me in mind of Simon Pegg, for some reason. Initial reaction? Bit disappointed, actually. Was just hoping for someone with more gravitas and authority about them, that’s all. Whereas this fella looks like the type of guy who’d be far more at home in a theme bar with a big feed of chips and a few pints in front of him. Not what I was expecting and certainly not what you might call confidence-inspiring.

      Glance over to Simon, who shoots a ‘would you just give the guy a chance?’ look back at me.

      Funny; we’ve spent so much time together of late, it’s getting so we’re starting to communicate without speech.

      Det. Sgt Crown shakes hands vigorously with both of us as we introduce ourselves, but he isn’t exactly what you might call friendly or even particularly concerned for our welfare. Never says, ‘Call me Jack’, and no offers of tea from plastic cups either. Just dumps down a notepad with a thick wad of files on the desk in front of him and rolls up his sleeves, ready to write down anything we say that might, in some small way, help.

      ‘OK, firstly I’m really sorry you both had to come back,’ he starts off, efficiently whipping a Biro out of his uniform pocket. ‘But I’m taking it that at this point in time Kitty Hope has been gone for over three days now? If you’ve an accurate date and time as to when she was last seen, that would be really useful, as a starting point.’

      No chat, no ‘So where you do think she went?’ or ‘Tell me how you’ve both been coping?’ No preamble with this guy whatsoever. Just efficiently cuts to the chase, like we’ve come in about a missing passport and are now holding up a v. long queue.

      Simon starts to fill him in, aided by me shoving notes I made earlier in front of him, with exact names of who last saw Kitty, where and critically at what time. I keep on red-pencilling around stuff, so he won’t forget and impatiently tapping my biro off sheaves of paper in front of him to draw his attention to anything he’s leaving out. Driving the poor guy completely mental, in other words.

      Crown works his way through a whole list of fairly standard-sounding questions and we answer almost in unison, nearly tripping over each other to get our spake in first. It’s a long, long list, and we tell him everything: Kitty’s age, gender, height, build, hair colour, eye colour, the date she was last seen, where she was last seen, plus full details about her next of kin and, more specifically, all about poor Mrs K. and her condition.

      Then I can’t help myself butting in.

      ‘So you see, by far the weirdest thing of all here,’ I interrupt, overeager to get the story out, ‘is that we know she was most definitely planning to visit her foster mum in the nursing home on Christmas Day. So that categorically proves that something awful must have happened in the meantime … because only something really disastrous would ever have prevented her from …’

      ‘… Going to see Mrs Kennedy on Christmas Day,’ Simon butts in, finishing the sentence for me. ‘Which, of course, was when we both started to realise just how serious the situation was, because up till then, we’d thought … that is to say, we’d hoped, that maybe she’d just been out having a few Christmas drinks somewhere …’

      ‘… And maybe crashed out at friend’s house or something? So then, between the two of us, we phoned around just about everybody we knew, not to mention everyone she worked with, even random strangers who were booked into the restaurant where she was working that night …’

      ‘… And we got absolutely nowhere. Total dead end.’

      ‘OK, OK, guys,’ Crown interrupts, waving at us to quieten down. ‘Let’s just hear one voice at a time and take the whole story from the very beginning. Why don’t we start with you, Angie?’

      Strongly suspect it’s because he knows I won’t shut up or stop interrupting otherwise, but v. happy to have the floor properly opened to me.

      ‘Now, I want you to take your time and tell me in your own words exactly when you last saw Kitty and when you first became alarmed at her disappearance. Remember, don’t leave anything out. Even the most insignificant detail could prove to be vitally important to our investigation at this point. OK?’

      ‘OK.’

      I feel a bit like a star witness who’s just been ushered up to stand in front of packed courtroom. But Crown’s not making any eye contact with me at all. Which is not exactly what you might call encouraging.

      ‘So,’ he starts off, face buried deep into his blessed notes, ‘let’s take it right from the very beginning. Firstly, tell me how long exactly have you known Kitty for?’

      And so I start talking. About how she and I first met, all of seven years ago now. Remember it like it was yesterday. I was fresh out of college and because I hadn’t the first clue what I wanted to do with my life, I managed to get a part-time job working at telesales in a call centre. I can vividly see myself there on my very first day, nervously cold-calling and trying not to fluff my lines. ‘Excuse me, may I interest you in taking a market research call that could possibly end up saving you hundreds on your household bills?’ That kind of shite.

      I was only at the job for about an hour when this bright, bouncy beautiful creature with long legs as skinny as two Cadbury’s chocolate fingers, springs into the cubicle right beside me and yells an apology over to the male supervisor for being late. Roared at him, ‘Won’t say what delayed me this morning, Sean, but by the way, you can sleep easy! The gonorrhoea test was negative!’ ’Course the whole room cracked up, supervisor included.

      Right from the start, I was completely mesmerised by her; this glorious ball of energy with enough personality for two people, wearing a bright blue fleecy sweatshirt over what looked suspiciously like pyjama bottoms. I remember having to stifle giggles when I overheard her dealing with a particularly rude person she’d just cold-called. Instead of apologising and getting off the phone a.s.a.p. like we were trained to do, she just laughed and said, ‘Nah, don’t worry, I don’t blame you for telling me to feck off, love. After all, I work in a call centre, selling house insurance. So technically, that makes me the devil.’

      And when she introduced herself and dragged me off to the pub after work, that was it. She and I just bonded and it was like my whole world suddenly went from monochrome to Technicolor. I knew we’d be mates and what’s more, we’d stay that way.

      ‘So you see, that’s how I’m so certain that something really horrendous must have happened to her!’ I find myself getting more and more upset now, borderline hysteric. Part relief that we’re finally being taken seriously, part vom-making worry at what in hell’s actually unfolding.

      ‘Because I’ve known Kitty for that length of time, practically all of my twenties, she’s like my sister! We’ve shared flats together and everything … And, OK, so she may be a tiny bit unreliable and scatty at times, but I know that vanishing СКАЧАТЬ