Long Gone

by Paul Pilkington

  Natalie looked carefully at Sir Kenneth. Was he really there? Surely not, as it had to be the reason they were wearing the headsets.

  But he looked so real.

  Sir Kenneth opened his arms. ‘I expect you’re all wondering what we have in store for you today. Well, I’ll let the lovely Tabitha explain more.’

  Tabitha nodded and smiled at her boss. ‘Thank you, Sir Kenneth. Today, guys, you will be working in teams, on a very special branding exercise. The nature of your task will be explained further when you arrive at the as-yet-undisclosed location. For security reasons, we need to keep the location and task under wraps. The teams will be as follows: the Red Team consists of Ben, Samantha, Krishna and Matthew; the Blue Team is Natalie, Susie and Penny.’

  Natalie was quite relieved not to be in Krishna or Samantha’s group. In fact, based on first impressions, she couldn’t have chosen a nicer couple of people to be teamed up with. Both Susie and Penny, whom she knew best of the two, seemed like thoroughly lovely people.

  ‘So,’ Sir Kenneth said, clasping his hands together, ‘I shan’t delay you any longer. Good luck with the day ahead, and may the best person win!’

  With that he strode out of the room.

  ‘You can now remove your headsets,’ Tabitha instructed.

  They all did so, placing them back on the tray.

  The seven looked across at each other.

  Ben was the first to vocalise what everyone else was surely thinking. ‘So, was Sir Kenneth really here, or was that…’

  ‘Augmented reality,’ Krishna interrupted. ‘The AR headsets enabled us to see the real world, but overlaid by projected images.’

  ‘So Sir Kenneth was a hologram?’ Ben said.

  ‘Similar,’ Krishna said.

  ‘They did it with Elvis,’ Susie said. ‘My dad and I went watching the show. Elvis was up on stage, in three dimensions, singing like he was still alive. It was pretty cool.’

  ‘A hologram is generated by projections, whereas AR is computer graphics,’ Krishna explained, obviously deriving great pleasure from demonstrating his knowledge to the others.

  ‘Okay,’ Tabitha said, cutting off the conversation. ‘If you’re all ready, we’ll now proceed to the waiting vehicles. You’re in for a very interesting day.’

  22

  Tabitha’s face knotted. ‘So, are you saying that Natalie is missing?’

  ‘We’ve been unable to contact her,’ Cullen replied, thinking that something Tabitha had just said didn’t really add up from what he’d been told by Amy. ‘So, Natalie won the event?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said brightly. ‘Natalie did so well.’

  Just then a group of four entered the building and milled close to them.

  ‘Would you like to come with me? Somewhere more private.’

  Cullen nodded.

  They headed for the lifts and ascended to the top floor.

  ‘Just through here, Detective,’ Tabitha directed, as they skirted past offices and out into a restaurant area. ‘This is the staff restaurant,’ she said. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Tea, if you’ve got it. Earl Grey.’

  She nodded and requested it from a passing member of staff.

  ‘They’ll bring it outside,’ she explained, leading him out through a set of doors onto a wide expansive terrace. The space wasn’t empty – about a quarter of the tables were occupied by what looked like business meetings, but it was quiet enough for them to have a more private conversation.

  They headed over to a table on the far left.

  Cullen took a few more steps onwards, admiring the view over the Thames. Off to the right was the Shard, and to the left Tower Bridge. New and old London, somehow blending together perfectly to form a cityscape that was both historic and futuristic.

  ‘Nice view, isn’t it?’ Tabitha commented at his shoulder.

  ‘Lovely.’ Cullen scanned the urban horizon and took some deep breaths.

  Natalie was out there somewhere.

  But was she in trouble?

  Was this informal investigation a waste of time, or her only chance?

  He thought he knew the answer to that. But he hoped he was wrong.

  He turned back and they took their seats. ‘So what does winning mean?’

  Tabitha went to speak but was interrupted by the arrival of the drinks. Cullen took the opportunity to check his mobile, in case he’d missed a text from Amy or Sarah. There were no messages.

  ‘Natalie has been offered a contract with Brand New, initially for a three-year term,’ Tabitha began. ‘For the first year, once she’s graduated, of course, she will be working closely with Sir Kenneth, shadowing him, learning from him. She’ll get to travel the world, be in top meetings with senior executives of some of the world’s largest and best-known companies. It will be an amazing experience. On top of that, she will also receive a golden handshake payment of fifty thousand pounds upon signature of the contract.’

  ‘Sounds like an amazing opportunity,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, yes, it really is,’ she enthused.

  ‘You must have had a lot of applicants for something like that.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Thousands.’

  ‘So even getting to the shortlisted stage was a fantastic achievement,’ he noted.

  ‘Most definitely.’

  ‘And there were eight of them, you said?’

  ‘Yes. Eight candidates at New House.’

  ‘New House?’

  ‘Our property in Mayfair. It’s where the candidates stayed over the weekend, and their base for the activities.’

  Cullen nodded as if he didn’t already know this. It was one piece of information that Amy had been able to provide with some certainty: the name and address of the venue where her friend had gone. Cullen hadn’t found out much about it, except for the revelation that it had been sold ten years ago for six million pounds. He’d looked at it on Street View; the images were just a couple of years old, and the place looked palatial from the outside.

  ‘The other seven people – I’ll need their contact details.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she said. ‘I can get you those, no problem at all.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  Cullen ran through what he could remember from Amy’s recounting of Natalie’s text message. It hadn’t resembled a message from someone who had just won the opportunity of a lifetime.

  Either something else had happened. Something bad. Something that had overshadowed the amazing triumph.

  Or maybe the text message, as Amy had suspected of the later messages, hadn’t been from Natalie at all.

  ‘Were you there over the weekend?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. I was the relationship manager.’

  ‘So you met Natalie?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Such a lovely person. To tell you the truth, I was really pleased that she won.’

  ‘And was Natalie pleased?’

  The question seemed to take her by surprise. ‘Well, yes, yes, I think so. Yes, she was pleased. Why?’

  He certainly wasn’t going to tell Tabitha about the text message’s contents. At least not yet. ‘Just trying to establish if there is any reason why Natalie might not have wanted to return home.’

  Her brow furrowed deeply. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

  Cullen shrugged, feigning an apparent lack of direction in his reasoning, trying to relax Tabitha and put her off-guard. ‘I don’t know, maybe something that upset her over the weekend?’

  ‘I don’t think there was anything,’ she replied. She thought for a moment longer. ‘No, nothing that I was aware of. She seemed happy. Really happy.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Natalie?’

  ‘Just before she left the property. It was about, oh, I’m trying to remember. I think it was about ten thirty on Sunday morning.’

  ‘You’re going to have to be more precise than that,’ he stated.

  Tabitha stiffened, sensing that the questioning was more formal than she ha
d realised. ‘I… I’ll have to think…’

  Cullen thought back to Beswick’s warnings. Yes, he would have to be careful. If he were to lay it on too heavy, there was a chance that the company would follow up his visit with a call to the police, to check what this was all about.

  And it wouldn’t take long for the news to get to Maggie Ferguson.

  But it was a chance he was willing to take. He would just have to be clever with how he did this, and keep it relatively low-key and unthreatening.

  ‘We just need to be clear about the timelines,’ he explained. ‘I need to put together a clear picture of Natalie’s movements.’

  She nodded, still thinking. ‘Yes,’ she said finally, ‘it was just after ten thirty. Definitely.’ She seemed satisfied and soothed by Cullen’s explanation of his questioning.

  ‘Could you put together a timeline of the weekend for me: what Natalie did, when, and with whom?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Do you really think something bad has happened to Natalie?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Tabitha shook her head. ‘I just don’t understand it. She was so happy. I can’t imagine there was any reason for her to disappear. It just doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘These things never make sense, until they do.’

  ‘So you’re going to speak to the other applicants?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can try and facilitate that for you, if you like. I can contact them, ask them to come and see you.’

  Cullen was going to say no, but time was precious, and if they were offering to help with the logistics of getting some potential witnesses together in one place, then that would be a help.

  ‘That would be helpful, thank you.’

  ‘I’ll get onto it now. Would you like me to ask them to come here?’

  ‘No. I’ll meet them at New House.’

  ‘Okay…’

  It could help to jog memories by conducting the questioning at the actual venue.

  ‘I’d like to visit the house first,’ he said. ‘And take a look around. I also need to talk to the staff who were on duty, so if you could prep them in advance of my arrival.’

  ‘Sure, I can do that. No problem.’

  This was going quite smoothly, but still he wasn’t sure whether Tabitha’s assistance was quite as innocent as it seemed. She seemed almost too eager to please. Although this wasn’t unusual – people often acted like that in the face of police questioning, and it was a rookie mistake to equate that with a conclusion that they had something to hide.

  ‘I also need to talk to Sir Kenneth,’ he added, returning to his original request.

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible at the moment.’ She smiled apologetically.

  ‘Won’t be possible?’

  ‘He’s on a flight to Sydney. A business trip.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘The flight left about an hour ago.’

  Cullen went to say something but stopped himself. It was a fair assumption that the millionaire businessman would be flying first class, in which case he would surely be contactable – either via a satellite phone system or the onboard wi-fi. Long gone was the time when being forty thousand feet in the air meant being out of reach.

  ‘I’d like to speak to him when he lands.’

  He was intrigued that she hadn’t suggested either of those options, but decided to let it lie. She was probably just protecting her boss, letting him make the journey undisturbed.

  ‘That’s fine, of course. I’ll check when he’s due to arrive.’

  ‘That would be great. Was Sir Kenneth at the property over the weekend?’

  ‘Yes, sort of.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He appeared to the applicants virtually.’ She noted Cullen’s bemused expression. ‘Through augmented reality. Sir Kenneth likes to use technology to make an impression, and he wanted to test out the new equipment we have at New House. It’s part of our new enhanced communication system.’

  ‘Sounds… interesting.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s quite a big thing at the moment.’

  ‘Must have missed that,’ he quipped, feeling the need to check his mobile phone again, but resisting the temptation. ‘So, is there anything else you think might be pertinent to the investigation?’

  ‘I don’t think so, no. Like I said, I just can’t understand why Natalie would want to disappear. She seemed so happy.’ Her face darkened. ‘But that would mean that something bad has happened to her, wouldn’t it?’

  Cullen never liked to speculate, particularly with those who were part of the investigation. Unless, of course, the speculation was a means to an end – testing out the person he was talking to, observing their reaction to different theories. You could tell a lot with this technique.

  But there was no need to do this with Tabitha.

  Not at the moment, anyway.

  ‘We’re doing our best to locate Natalie,’ he said simply.

  Except there was no ‘we’ really. Just him, without the backup of his team or the resources of the British Transport Police. It was far from ideal, and he wondered whether it might be worth testing out whether there was any appetite for putting out a missing person’s alert.

  Maybe he would contact Conner over in the Missing Persons team, test the water informally. There was always the possibility that he would sway them into doing something over and above the usual.

  ‘I hope she’s okay,’ Tabitha said.

  ‘So do I. In the meantime, if you could get me that timeline and contact the other applicants, that would be very helpful. Also let your staff know I’ll be coming over to New House within the hour.’

  THE SECOND CULLEN left the building, he was on the phone to Conner McCarthy at British Transport Police’s Missing Persons Department. Detective Inspector Conner McCarthy was head of the unit that was dedicated to responding to cases of missing persons across the national rail network. It was a particularly busy aspect of the British Transport Police’s portfolio of work, with hundreds of active cases stretching back years. Cullen had first met Conner during a secondment to the unit in his first year at HQ. It was varied and challenging work, dealing with anything from teenage runaways to abductions, and everything in between.

  ‘Conner. Paul Cullen here.’

  Conner had heard about Monday morning’s incident. News had obviously gone around HQ, where Conner and the Missing Persons Department was also based, like wild fire. He passed on his commiserations, offered support, and suggested that any investigation would surely be short-lived and would be found in the DCI’s favour.

  ‘Thanks, Conner, much appreciated.’

  Cullen relayed the details of Natalie Long, including the relationship to Amy, and how he had been drawn in to conduct some informal enquiries. Of course, the more people who knew what he was doing, the greater the risk that word would get back to the Super. But he trusted Conner, having played five a side with him after work every Thursday for the past four years. The forty-two-year-old had a great left foot and was as fit as a professional, despite a penchant for Guinness. Cullen counted the always cheerful Dubliner as a friend, rather than just a work colleague.

  ‘So I was wondering if there’s anything you could do, to get the word out.’

  There were a few moments of silence, which actually gave Cullen some hope. At least it wasn’t an instinctive, flat-out ‘no’, which he had every right to expect. After all, he knew full well the usual procedure where missing people were concerned.

  ‘I’m not sure, Paul,’ Conner said at last. ‘You know the protocol is really strict for these things.’

  Cullen was only too aware. ‘Understood. It’s why I’ve held off until now.’

  ‘You know what it’s like, with austerity biting. It’s all about protecting our limited and ever-decreasing resources – financial and human. Missing Persons have never been the best funded.’

  ‘I know.’


  ‘And with those latest cuts, we’re having to really scale things down for those lower risk cases. The bar is set pretty high these days, as you know.’

  Cullen had explained the same to Amy, but he felt now, a day on, it was worth a try. ‘I understand,’ he said, not wanting to apply pressure and misuse his position.

  ‘The trouble is, Paul, there are just too many people who go missing each and every day to throw out all the stops too soon. The good news is that most of them reappear on their own accord after a few days.’

  ‘I did say that to Amy.’

  Cullen understood that completely. Any investigation launched too soon could be a waste of precious time and money. And more seriously, too many scattergun investigations would take away public focus from those of the highest concern, those that they really wanted people to take notice of.

  ‘What’s your gut feeling about this, Paul? You’ve got a good instinct. Do you think Amy’s friend is in danger, or do you think she’s just gone to ground?’

  ‘I think she’s in trouble,’ Cullen said without hesitation. ‘That doesn’t mean she hasn’t disappeared of her own accord, but from what Amy’s told me about her, it just seems out of character.’

  ‘Well, if that’s your gut feeling, you’re probably right.’

  ‘I hope I’m wrong, believe me.’ Cullen checked the time. ‘Look, Conner, I’d better be going – got a few leads to pursue.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And sorry to bother you, but as it’s involving Amy, you know, I felt like I had to try.’

  There was another pause on the other end the line, and Cullen’s hopes rose again. ‘Well, I guess we could do something,’ Conner said at last, ‘given the fact that you suspect something is wrong here.’

  Cullen smiled. ‘That would be great if you could. Anything would be a help, as I’m on my own here. I’ve not even got Beswick for company.’

  ‘We wouldn’t be able to launch a full national alert,’ Conner cautioned. ‘There’s no way we would get authorisation for that at this stage. But we could put out information to people in a more targeted, informal way – station staff and BTP officers at Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads, for example. We could also alert the national Missing Persons charities to circulate her photo and description. It couldn’t be top of their priority list, but they could add it to their bulletins.’