The Girl in the Empty Room

by Neil Randall

  “True,” said Agna, falling in beside Katarina. “Only I don’t want to get lost. We must’ve walked two or three kilometeres from the town centre.”

  “Don’t worry. It was a straight road. Besides, I think it’s best to be out of the house today. That Jason, I don’t like him. I don’t like to be alone with him. He has a very nasty look in his eyes.”

  “I know I…” Agna trailed off, when seeing something strange up ahead, at the top of the track. “Hey, what’s that?” She pointed to two wooden posts, a pig’s skull, and what looked like skeletal remains, tiny pieces of bone strung together, like macabre puppets. “Very strange. And what does this say: The Boge?” She knelt and picked a few stray pieces of bone up from the ground. “What is the Boge? Who is the Boge? Like the bogeyman? Ha!”

  “Look at this place!” Katarina walked through the entranceway. “There’s one of those famous red telephone boxes, the ones they have in the great city of London. I remember them from the television when I was growing up. And look at all those gnomes, painted black and white. They’re adorable.”

  Agna pocketed the pieces of bone and followed Katarina.

  “And over there, by the caravans, are they stuffed crocodiles? What is this place?”

  They both crouched and examined the crocodiles, prodding the scaly skin with a finger.

  “Urgh!” said Agna. “Not so nice. I –” a draught of cold, icy wind gusted and swirled; a dark shadow fell over them, like a cloud obscuring the sun. Before they could turn around, rough hands clasped them both around the neck, so they could neither move nor scream nor put up any kind of resistance.

  “God forgive me for what I am about to do,” mumbled their attacker, lifting them high off the ground. “There simply is no other way.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The packed press contingent fell silent when Detective Inspector Hepworth and Jacqueline’s parents walked into the briefing room. Grave-faced, they sat at a table laid out with a jug of water and glasses. Projected on the wall behind them was a giant photograph of Jacqueline, a recent picture Hepworth had selected from her Facebook page, and which both parents had approved.

  “Sorry to have gathered you here so late in the afternoon,” said Hepworth. “But on the request of the family, we decided to make a statement regarding the missing woman now, as opposed to first thing tomorrow morning.” He shuffled through some papers. “Now you’ve all been briefed re: her disappearance, so I shall now read from a prepared statement.”

  Two cameras zoomed in on Hepworth.

  “On the twenty-ninth of October, at some time between the hours of 8.45 a.m. and approximately 3 p.m., Miss Jacqueline Franklin, a twenty-six-year-old single mother of two, went missing from her home. Last seen dropping her young children off at the infant school a few hundred yards from her front door, nothing has been seen or heard from her since.” He turned a page. “We would, therefore, encourage anybody who has any information, no matter how trivial it may seem, regarding Jacqueline’s potential whereabouts to contact Norfolk Police headquarters as soon as possible.”

  A barrage of questions, clicking and flashing cameras, quickly followed.

  “And have you got any leads, Detective Inspector, any idea why the young lady might have gone missing?”

  “Nothing concrete,” he replied. “At present, we’re interviewing people who may have seen or spoken to Jacqueline in the days leading up to her disappearance.”

  “And were there any unusual circumstances involved? Any personal problems? Anything out of the ordinary?”

  “Only one incident, a quite alarming one, that may or may not be connected to her disappearance. Her house, a council property, was broken into on the day she went missing, and most of her belongings were destroyed.”

  “So you think there might be some kind of motive, that a person or persons, as yet unknown, had some kind of grudge against Miss Franklin?”

  “At this early stage,” said Hepworth, “it’s impossible to rule anything in or out.”

  “And, presumably, the missing woman’s children are staying with her former partner? How was his relationship with Miss Franklin?”

  Ignoring the question, Hepworth told everyone gathered that Jacqueline’s father would now like to say a few words.

  Cameramen wheeled mounted cameras into position.

  With shaky hands, Henry Franklin poured himself a glass of water, and took a few considered sips before speaking.

  “I would just like to say, if you’re watching this Jacqueline, then contact me or your mum as soon as possible. We love you dearly, and are both worried sick. If anyone out there knows anything about Jacqueline’s disappearance, or where she is now, please, please, contact the police. My daughter is mother to twins, Liam and Pippa, who desperately want her home safe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Two Days Earlier: The Saturday Morning

  “Hold on,” said Jacqueline, glancing over her shoulder, catching disapproving stares from the other customers queued behind her. “What do you mean, that there’s, erm” – and this she whispered – “a charge for the morning after pill now?”

  “Afraid so,” the pretty young girl behind the counter replied. “Due to costing issues, we now have to charge thirty pounds for the provision of the contraceptive pill.”

  Jacqueline gulped back some saliva. Despite brushing her teeth twice this morning, all she could taste was tobacco, weed and last night’s red wine.

  “Thirty pounds?” She could feel her anger rise, but desperately wanted to avoid a scene, to avoid looking like a cheap small town tart who couldn’t keep her legs shut. “But where am I supposed to get thirty pounds from? I’m a single mum.”

  “I really am sorry. But maybe if you popped into the surgery first thing Monday morning, they could give you the seventy-two-hour alternative, which, I believe, is pretty much as effective as the morning after pill.”

  “Seventy-two hours?” Jacqueline did some mental calculations, which, if nothing else, neutralized her anger. “Oh right. I’ll, erm…do that, then.”

  ***

  At first, Jacqueline didn’t pay any attention to the muffled sobs, she was too busy lighting a cigarette, still seething inside, pissed off that things never ran smoothly for her. Only the sobbing got louder, more pitiful, as if someone was really balling their eyes out.

  She turned her head.

  Behind the surgery, face pressed up against a red-bricked wall, a young woman with long blonde hair, dressed in loose-fitting sweat bottoms and a winter coat, was crying, shoulders shaking, coughing and spluttering, as if choking on her upset.

  “Are you all right?” Jacqueline walked over.

  The girl, red-eyed, hair all tangled and stuck to her face, turned around.

  “I – I have big problem,” she said in a shaky, heavily-accented voice. “But doctor, he cannot see me because I cannot show passport. And girl in pharmacy cannot give me medicine because I have no prescription, even if I pay for myself, even if –”

  “Wait. Why can’t you show your passport? Aren’t you supposed to be here? Are you an illegal immigrant or something?”

  “No, no,” said the girl, as if offended by that. “I work. I work in food factory. I pay taxes and national insurance. I work hard. But boss, he look after all paperwork, our documents, our passports.”

  “Your boss?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, very animated now. “He arrange for me to come here, he organise house and job, but I – I cannot go to see him about this, because horrible man, the man that runs house, the boss’ friend, he did this to me.”

  “Which man? Who? Did what to you?”

  “That bastard Jason, he get me alone, he tell me he can get me better job, that he really like me, he force himself on me, and now I have this rash, this disease, he give it to me.”

  Jacqueline could barely contain herself. For as soon as she heard Jason’s name (and she knew it was her Jason, she’d been told about his new job), she was
determined to do whatever she could to help this poor young woman.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Christina.”

  “Okay. Come on, Christina.” She took her arm. “Come back to my house. I’ll take a look. Maybe I’ve got some creams or something that might help.”

  ***

  When Jacqueline saw the extent of the rash, she nearly burst into tears. It was so severe, like third-degree burns, like something out of a horror film – a dark red and purple breakout (it had even started to go black in places), covered all her genital region, spreading out to the groins and the top of her thighs.

  “How – How long has it been like that?”

  “A long time, nearly a week, but I was too ashamed to tell anyone. I try and scrub it in bath but it only get worse. I try everything to make go away, but…”

  Jacqueline perched herself on the edge of the bath, next to Christina.

  “Look. This is serious. I think you might have to go to the hospital to have it properly treated – but, please, don’t look so worried.” She smiled warmly and gave Christina a towel to cover herself. “The doctors and nurses over here are really understanding, they’ll give you the right medicines to help make you better. But first, you better tell me everything.” She shifted position so she was facing Christina now. “Tell me what’s been going on in that house. Has Jason been sleeping with other girls?”

  Christina nodded. “He try and act like Mr Nice Guy, like he want to help us all to settle in. He offer to show us around town, drive us out to the country in van. He try and get us drunk all the time. He always creeping into the rooms at night. At first, I really like him, he ask me lots of questions about my country and my family, the things I miss most, and he always listen very carefully, and he always helped out, filling in forms, that type of thing, he always take an interest in our lives.”

  As Christina relayed all this, Jacqueline couldn’t help thinking back to her relationship with Jason, how he made her feel so comfortable, asking questions about her kids, what she got up to at weekends, her interests, until she was telling him her life story: her parents’ messy divorce, the post-natal depression, the way pregnancy had twisted her body out of shape, her money problems. Only now, looking back, it was as if he’d teased all this information out of her so he could use it against her in the future, so he could undermine her confidence, making her feel worthless and ugly, completely under his control

  “But your real boss, the one at the factory, is Michael, Michael Babb, isn’t it?”

  “I think so, yes,” Christina replied. “I hear his name a lot, very big man, huge muscles, everybody afraid of him. When two of my friends, from the same house, go missing a few days ago, we get Jason to call Michael, but he say we cannot report to police. He say we have to keep secret, that they might send us home because we do not have proper visa, even though our families pay good money for us to come here. Then he say that we should not worry, that my friends probably ran away, that they did not like work at factory, and hitchhiked to London. But I know Katarina and Agna, and they would never have gone without saying goodbye to me.”

  Jacqueline couldn’t believe what she was hearing – they’ve got away with it again! Despite her plans, that bastard Jason was taking advantage of a houseful of young women now, like an endless supply, on tap. And as for Michael, he was capable of anything. If two young women have gone missing and he was involved, then you could only fear the worst.

  “Look.” She took hold of Christina’s hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll call a friend, get you taken to the main hospital, try and get you seen to straight away. Then – Then we’ll try and find out about your friends. Then – Then I’ll have a word with Michael fucking Babb.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  From the Front Page of the Coastal Courier’s Website, 2nd November 2014

  WOMAN FOUND DEAD, WASHED-UP ON BEACH – POLICE FEAR IT MAY BE MISSING MOTHER OF TWO, JACQUELINE FRANKLIN

  In the early hours of the morning, a body was found washed up on the town’s east beach. Early reports, which, at this stage, have not been verified, suggest the corpse belonged to a female in her mid- to late twenties. Unsurprisingly, with an official investigation into the disappearance of local mother of two, Jacqueline Franklin, currently ongoing, police fear that the body could well be hers.

  Veteran crab fisherman, Wilber Davies, who discovered the corpse, said, “Well, it’s not the sort of thing you expect to find first thing of a morning – a dead body on the beach. Hell of a mess, she were, crabs crawling out of her eyes and mouth, skin all green and mottled, half the back of her head hanging off, like she’d been scalped or something.”

  Only when a full autopsy is conducted (which, as the Courier understands, is a matter of utmost priority) will a positive identification be confirmed. All we, Miss Franklin’s family and friends, and the rest of the local community can do is hope and pray that she was not the poor unfortunate washed up on the beach today.

  Anyone with any information, please contact the police immediately.

  Steven Bland (Deputy-Editor)

  “Any word back from the coroner yet?” Hepworth asked Priestly, as they strolled through the blustery, overcast town centre.

  “Not as yet.” She moved aside to make way for a cavalcade of teenage mothers pushing prams. “But we’re hoping to have a positive identification before the end of the day.”

  “Okay. Good,” said Hepworth. “And what about the other men you mentioned in your email last night?”

  “Well, yesterday, early evening, Ray MacArthur, a local journalist of some sort, contacted the helpline. By all accounts, he saw the public appeal on television, and recognised Miss Franklin as a woman he’d had a one-night stand with a couple of weeks prior to her disappearance.”

  “Right. And did he mention any kind of sexual infection?”

  “No. No he didn’t. But he left his contact details, so we can get hold of him as and when. He said he was freelance, worked from home most days, and was happy to answer any questions anytime.”

  “Excellent. We’ll try and see him later this morning, then. And what about this Jonathan Reynolds character? – you’ve tracked him down too, right?”

  “That’s correct. Although” – she hesitated – “it would appear that Mr Reynolds is married, so he may not be as, erm…forthcoming as our journalist friend.”

  “Understood.” Hepworth came to a stop and glanced at the two dishevelled, bleary-eyed men standing outside the bookmaker’s, puffing on roll-up cigarettes. “We’ll call him later, too,” he said to Priestly. “For now, let’s go and have a chat with Mr Little, shall we?”

  ***

  “Look,” said Kevin Little. “I know why you’re here. I saw the public appeal last night. And I know I wrote that stupid message on Facebook, but I was pissed up, angry. I didn’t have nothing to do with that young bird going missing.”

  “Okay, Mr Little, calm down.” Hepworth raised his hands, palms upturned. “We’re just here to ask a few related questions, that’s all. Now, where were you on the twenty-ninth of October between the hours of, say half-past eight in the morning to three o’clock in the afternoon?”

  “Here, at work.” He slid a timesheet across the desk. “That proves it. And I’ve got witnesses, my work colleagues, people on the same shift.”

  Hepworth studied the relevant column: 29th of October. In: 08:30. Out: 17:30.

  “Okay.” He lifted his head. “Now, presumably, bearing in mind the content of the message you posted on Miss Franklin’s Facebook page, the two of you were intimate at one time.”

  “Yeah – one time and one time only. A Friday or Saturday night, can’t remember which now, we met in town, she was all over me, wanted to go back to my place for a smoke. So we finished our drinks, walked to mine, had a few joints, spun a few tunes, and ended up in the sack.”

  “And a little while afterwards you realised that you’d contracted a sexual infection of some kind?”

&nbs
p; “That’s right.” He lowered his head, as if ashamed. “I – I couldn’t believe it, ’cause that Jacqueline is a proper looker, and only young, not the sort of bird you’d think would be dosed up with some sexual disease.”

  “And other than the message you posted have you had any further contact with Miss Franklin?”

  “No, I swear. I haven’t seen or spoken to her since.”

  ***

  “From what I gather, Mr MacArthur,” said Hepworth, “you spent the night with Miss Franklin a couple of weeks prior to her disappearance. But in your original phone call, you made no mention as to any ramifications following the night in question.”

  The still handsome, middle-aged journalist gave a visible start.

  “So you know, then, about the infection?”

  “Information found at Miss Franklin’s house suggested she might’ve been carrying a S.T.I. of some kind,” Hepworth lied, not wanting to give anything away to a member of the press. He moved quickly on. “Did anything unusual happen during the time you spent with Miss Franklin?”

  “Erm, not really, not until the next morning, when I woke up in her bed. I tried to sneak out, you see, without waking her. I knew it was only a one-night thing, and didn’t want to go through all the awkward formalities. But I must’ve disturbed her and she – she, well, she seemed really offended, like I was the typical male bastard, got what I’d wanted and now didn’t want anything more to do with her.”

  “And why do you think that?”

  “I don’t know, really,” he replied. “But from some of the things she said, you know, unguarded comments, drunken slips, she did seem to have a huge chip on her shoulder, especially where men were concerned, like she’d had some really bad experiences, and hated being taken advantage of in any way.”

  “I see,” said Hepworth. “And where were you on the twenty-ninth of October between the time of half past eight in the morning, and three o’clock in the afternoon?”