by Fiona Barton
There’s a pause and I can hear Lesley O’Connor whispering to her husband: “She wants to come and see us.”
I can’t hear the reply, but seconds later Lesley says, “Okay. Have you got our address?”
* * *
• • •
Mick Murray drives. He prefers it that way. “I’ve got all my camera gear in the boot—it’s simpler if we take my car. And you’re a shit driver.”
I get into the passenger seat, edging empty Coke bottles and evidence of ancient takeaways to the side of the footwell with my shoe, and try not to notice the overflowing ashtray. But he sees me looking.
“Sorry, haven’t had it valeted this week.”
“This week! This century, more like. There are Big Mac boxes older than my kids in here.”
“Bit of a dumpster, but it’s home.” He laughs, lighting a ciggie.
“Anyway . . . Terry is determined to splash the story. It’s a bit thin, if you ask me, but it is August.”
“Picture desk is desperate, too. We’ll make it work. They’re pretty girls—there are a couple of photos of them in front of a temple on the brother’s appeal page, but there’s security on the girls’ Facebook accounts.”
“Hopefully the mum and dad will let us have more. Poor things. They sound like nice people. It’ll be a decent talk.”
Mick nods and throws his cigarette butt out of the window and fishes another one out of the packet on the dashboard. He lights it and inhales deeply.
“Bloody hell, Mick, open a window. I’m smoking that cigarette for you.”
He laughs, making himself cough as if he’s dying. “You reformed smokers are the worst. Enjoy it. It’s a free one . . .”
I open my window and think about the interview.
* * *
• • •
We pull up outside the address, one of a terrace of redbrick houses on the outskirts of the affluent market town, and as I get out of the car, my phone rings. It’s Steve but the rumble of the traffic makes it hard to hear him.
“Sorry, love, I’m standing on a pavement about to do an interview. Can we talk about this later?”
“Just wanted to remind you about tonight. We’re meeting Henry and Deepika for tapas. Remember?” he shouts.
“Yes, yes.” I’d forgotten. Steve would say it was deliberate but I’ve got a lot on my mind. And I can’t stand Henry. He may be one of Steve’s fellow consultants but he’s also an arse. He’s a man who thinks it’s funny to put his wife down in company and then crow, “I’m joking!” when people look uncomfortable. Deepika, a partner in a law firm, appears not to mind. She laughs along when he calls her “She Who Must Be Obeyed” and says his marriage is like a life sentence, but it sticks in my craw.
The last time he did it, I ordered another glass of wine despite Steve giving me the “You’ve had enough” look.
“Tell him if he channels a Neanderthal tonight, I’ll ram a scorched Padrón pepper up his nose,” I shout back.
“Katie, you will behave, won’t you?” Steve laughs but I can hear the tension in his voice.
“Might. Love you, bye.”
“Who are you going to assault with a chili?” Mick says, shouldering his bag of cameras.
“None of your business. Come on, let’s get on with it.”
SEVEN
The Reporter
FRIDAY, AUGUST 15, 2014
The O’Connors’ front room is an assault course of furniture and knickknacks and I have to negotiate an upholstered footstool, a large, trembling orchid, and a sharp-cornered coffee table to reach the armchair indicated by Lesley. Another woman is sitting on the sofa with a mug of tea already in her hand.
“This is Rosie’s mum, Jenny. We rang her to let her know you were coming and she wanted to be here,” Lesley says quickly.
But you don’t seem keen on the idea, I think. Wonder why.
Jenny nods at me wordlessly and takes a sip of tea.
“Hello, Mrs. Shaw. I’m Kate and this is Mick, my—” Mick cuts me off with a look.
“I’m the photographer working with Kate on the story,” he says.
He’s become increasingly annoyed if I forget myself and call him “my photographer.”
“I’m not your fucking monkey,” he hisses, and I’m sure Lesley O’Connor hears. She pretends not to notice.
“Tea?” She speaks into the sudden silence. I nod gratefully.
“Two more teas, Malcolm,” she calls through the door. Lesley’s about the same age as me, early fifties, I’d guess. She’s wearing supermarket-mum jeans, sandals the color of sticking plasters, and a long T-shirt. No makeup. No earrings. Just her.
I unbutton the jacket of my suit and quickly slip it off. I don’t want to look like an official.
“Lesley,” I start, but she breaks in with, “Did you find us all right?”
She’s putting off the evil moment. Of having to talk about it.
“Fine. No problems. Thank you so much for seeing us.”
I lean forward in my chair to make eye contact.
“Why don’t you tell me about Alex, Lesley? She must have been so excited about going on this trip.”
Lesley gives me a grateful smile. Remembering the happy times before this last week is where she wants to be.
“She was. They both were, weren’t they, Jenny?”
Jenny Shaw doesn’t look up from her mug of tea. And I feel the tension in the room ratchet up a notch. But Lesley carries on, apparently oblivious.
“She couldn’t talk about anything else. She was going with her best friend, Mags, to begin with, but that all fell through and Rosie stepped in. Alex spent hours on the Internet, looking at the islands, how to get there—you know, bus routes, ferries—and where to stay. She had it all planned. They were going for three months and then they’d see, they said. They thought they might go on to Australia if they could find some work.”
“It was quite a trip, then. Had they been traveling before?”
“No,” Jenny Shaw says. Her first word.
“No, that’s right,” Lesley adds quickly. “First time away from home like this for both of them. But they are sensible girls and they had everything planned. Alex did a spreadsheet.”
I hear what sounds like a snort from Jenny Shaw. “Sorry, Jenny, I missed that.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Jenny’s very upset,” Lesley offers. “We all are.”
Malcolm O’Connor puts down the tray he’s dressed with milk jug, sugar bowl, chocolate digestives, and a teapot with cozy. Standards not being allowed to slip, I note.
“We are, yes,” he says, sitting down between his wife and Jenny.
“We need to find them,” Lesley says and takes her husband’s hand. “We are desperate. Not sleeping, imagining the worst.”
“Why did you sound the alarm, Lesley? Had Alex said something to worry you?”
“No. Nothing like that. That’s just it. They were having a great time. But we’ve heard nothing for days. There was an arrangement for the girls to contact us every other day. Facebook, a text, or an e-mail if they had time. And their A Level results came out yesterday. I haven’t opened the envelope yet because we wanted to do it with Alex. She knew it was August the fourteenth—she e-mailed to say what time she’d ring. She knew we’d be waiting to hear from her, didn’t she, Mal?”
He nods and lets go of her hand to pour the tea.
“Would it be possible to see the e-mails, Lesley? I’d like to use some of the girls’ own words if I can.”
“Why?” Jenny says.
To make the story sing is not what they will want to hear.
“To give them a voice in the story,” I say instead. “It is about them, after all.”
She looks dubious so I move on. “Who have you spoken to in Thailand, Lesley
?”
“We’ve been in touch with the embassy out there. They’ve been very nice but they say it’s early days. That this happens a lot. They had more than four hundred tourists reported missing last year. That people turn up again quickly. That we shouldn’t panic. And we’re trying not to.”
Lesley gulps the last word of the sentence and stops. I keep eye contact, nodding encouragement, and she takes a breath and goes on.
“She’d have been in touch. Alex is a lovely girl. She wouldn’t want us to suffer like this. We know she’d booked a hostel in Bangkok—the Green Paradise Guesthouse—but when we rang they said she hadn’t turned up. We don’t know which one she went to—she called it Bates Motel on Facebook, like it was a joke. I didn’t know they’d changed hostels—she didn’t mention it when she phoned the first time—there was so much else to talk about. She was buzzing with it all. So excited. They were loving Bangkok. And she told us all about the temples and the new friends she was making. Then nothing. No one has heard from her. None of her friends—we’ve rung them all. Her phone is switched off. We just don’t know.”
Malcolm puts his arm round her. Jenny Shaw looks completely isolated, perched at the end of the sofa, and I reach over and touch her arm to bring her into the interview.
“What about you, Jenny? How are you and your husband coping?”
“Ex-husband.”
Shit. “Right, sorry. It must be a very difficult time for you.”
Jenny Shaw takes a deep breath. She looks so brittle she might break at any moment.
“Yes,” she says. “Very difficult. She is my only one. She shouldn’t even be in Thailand. She should be starting her course. A degree in midwifery. But she decided to defer for a year.”
“To go traveling?” I prompt.
“Yes. Well, it was Alex’s idea, but she persuaded Rosie to go.”
Lesley shoots her what looks like a warning glance.
“They’re best friends, then?” I plow on into troubled waters.
“Not really. They’ve only known each other a couple of years, since we moved in down the road. We’ve had to downsize since the divorce.”
I nod sympathetically. “That must have been tough.”
“We managed,” Jenny says tartly. “I was very surprised when Rosie said she wanted to go. The girls went to the same sixth-form school but they didn’t spend that much time together. And they’ll be going to different universities when they come back.”
There is a beat of silence in the room. When.
“Did Rosie do well on her exams?” I say.
“I haven’t opened the results either but I’m sure she’ll have done fine.”
“What sort of girl is Rosie?”
“She’s a bright girl.” Jenny’s voice is getting tighter and she sounds breathless. “But she’s young and sometimes can get caught up in things. Not bad things but just lately, she gets an idea in her head and you can’t shift it.”
“Like going traveling?”
“Yes. Like going traveling. I thought she should start her degree like she’d planned. But she wouldn’t listen and then her father loaned her the money so she could go.”
She speaks carefully, checking each statement with a small, self-referential nod. She reminds me of a bird in a cage. That bobbing movement of the head.
“Is your husband—sorry, ex-husband—involved in the campaign to find her?”
“No. His new wife needs him at home. She’s had a baby.”
The subtext of blame and a family reconfigured by divorce go unspoken. For the moment. But I can feel it simmering and I wonder how long it will be before it boils over.
Won’t be long if Rosie isn’t found. Jenny will need someone to point the finger at.
“The police say the girls might have gone on a trip for a few days where there’s no Wi-Fi or phone signal,” Malcolm O’Connor says and shakes his head.
Lesley looks at her husband. “Why does everyone keep saying that? We think they were still in Bangkok when they last messaged. Alex said she’d booked a thing to see some elephants last Sunday. They were having a wonderful time.”
She stops. The past tense has slipped past her guard.
“I’m so frightened we’ve lost her. I keep thinking about her at the airport, waving to us from the security queue. Off on her big adventure.”
Tears slide down her face, dripping off her chin onto her husband’s bare arm.
“Sorry,” she mutters, wiping them away with her sleeve, and makes to get up.
“Give yourself a moment, Lesley,” I say quietly, fishing a tissue out of my bag. “Of course you’re frightened. What parent wouldn’t be? Have you got a picture of them at the airport?”
Jenny gets up and squeezes past their knees. She’s crying, too.
“I need a minute,” she says.
“Oh, Jenny, stay,” Lesley says, sobbing, but her neighbor disappears into the hall. She turns to me: “We feel so out of control. You will help us, won’t you?”
I go and sit beside her and squeeze her hand. “Of course I will. I’ll write a story as soon as we have finished talking, to keep people looking. The Post is read online all over the world.”
Lesley looks suddenly wary. She’s just remembered I’m a reporter.
“What will you write?”
“That you are desperate to find Alex and Rosie and frightened for them. I’ll write about the girls and the last information you have about their movements. We’ll need photographs of them—and you. We want other parents to understand what you are going through.”
“Well, if you think it will do some good.” Lesley falters. Jenny has reappeared, standing in the doorway and dabbing at her eyes.
“What do you think, Jenny?” Lesley says.
Jenny stares at the carpet.
“Okay,” she says.
BANGKOK DAY 2
(MONDAY, JULY 28, 2014)
https://www.facebook.com/alexoconnor.333
Alex O’Connor
July 28 at 0630
. . . is really here. Never. Stop. Believing . . .
She’d been about to cancel the whole trip a month ago when her best friend, Mags, dropped out. It’d been the day they’d been due to buy the plane tickets and Mags had turned up at the house to tell her she’d changed her mind. She just didn’t have enough money; she was so sorry. Alex had been too stunned to have a row. Afterward, she wondered if her friend had ever really intended to go.
And then Rosie had begged to come with her. Alex had been amazed. For a start, they weren’t really friends friends. They hadn’t grown up together like her and Mags. Rosie had moved into Alex’s street only at the start of sixth form, and they were doing different subjects. It had been Alex’s mum who’d suggested she walk with Rosie to school at the beginning of their first term and introduce her to her friends, that kind of thing.
“She’s new, Alex. Be nice.”
The first time they’d met had been when Rosie and her mum—no dad—had come round for an excruciating welcome lunch.
Alex had opened the door to the guests. The girl on the doorstep was smaller than her, had a perky blond ponytail and a short flowery playsuit and high wedges to match. Alex had tugged her Hogwarts T-shirt out of her jeans self-consciously and waved her in.
“Didn’t realize we were dressing up,” she’d muttered to her mother as they processed into the living room.
They’d had an awkward “What subjects are you taking for A Level?” moment before her mum called them in to eat. Rosie had brightened when Dan, Alex’s big brother, appeared, and she’d taken the chair beside him at the table, monopolizing him with her dimples and big-eyed questions. Alex had slumped into moody silence. They’d endured the meal until after the apple charlotte—“Lesley’s signature dish,” her dad had announced, and Alex had wanted to die. If that w
asn’t bad enough, the parental one-upmanship had swiftly followed.
“Rosie is going to study midwifery at university,” her mother, Jenny, had said. “It’s what she’s always wanted to do. She’ll need good grades to do it, but she’s very bright.”
Alex’s mum had put on her tight smile and said, “That sounds lovely. Alex wants to do an academic subject—don’t you, love?”
The girls had risen as one and headed for the patio.
“Sorry about that. She goes on a bit about the nursing thing,” Rosie had said. “I’m not sure I’ll get the grades, but she’s desperate for me to do it.”
“Mine’s as bad.” Alex had smiled. “Tiger mothers, eh?”
It had felt like a bonding moment, but somehow they hadn’t been able to build on it. Alex had never been sure why. Normally, she was the go-to person for problems and advice in her group. The Head Girl, her friends joked. But, on their walks to school, when Alex had tried, chatting about books she’d read (Rosie read only assigned books and Heat magazine) and films she wanted to see (brainless rom-coms were her new friend’s pick), it turned out she was all about boys. That’s all. She wanted boys to look at her, tell her she was pretty, admire her outfit. She didn’t give a stuff about anything else. Alex had tried some “me, toos,” telling Rosie about a boy she was seeing, and there was a spark of interest. It became their default subject, and when Alex broke up with him, she’d cried a bit and Rosie had given her a tissue and said she’d get over him. But the truth was that they never got beyond the social-media-chatter stage.
“We’re like Facebook friends,” she’d told her mother, who looked blank. “We talk but don’t really connect.”
“Right,” her mum had said. “Well, you tried.”
At the start of the winter term, when Rosie had begun taking the bus to class—“It’s cold and I get an extra twenty minutes in bed”—Alex had shrugged and left her to it. They still stopped to say hello when they ran into each other—and had gone to each other’s birthday parties—but Alex had long been relieved of big-sister duties.
