Times of Trouble

by Victoria Rollison

  But mum seemed desperate for help and took him on anyway. I felt even more miserable as I read her directions to Liam about keeping the case secret from me, because I’d ‘been through a hard time recently’, and she didn’t want to 'burden me with this problem’.

  I seriously didn’t like the sound of this Liam guy. He signed his email ‘Green but keen’. How sad was that? I couldn’t help worrying that he was a complete fraud. Every word seemed too smarmy to be real. Maybe the reason he hadn’t found Sophie, and had wasted so much time on the case, was because he was completely incompetent. My mind was spinning with just how much money mum had poured into his account. I pictured him sitting by a pool in Bali, sipping cocktails, putting them on his hotel bill, and charging mum for every minute of it. And the fact that he hadn’t even had to speak to mum, or meet her face to face, just made it easier for him. My heart sank as it occurred to me we only had Liam’s word for it that Sophie was in Sydney, and still alive.

  It became clear as I read mum’s next email that she was more desperate than loser Liam. She needed to believe he would help her, because she was frantic to save Sophie, and had no other options. She gave Liam basic information about Sophie, including photos and details of the last post card we received from her. She also forwarded the email she got with the jumbled cry for help. There really wasn’t much else to tell.

  I pictured a list of things mum could write to describe her second daughter, me. She would be able to tell someone what I ate for lunch yesterday, and what I watched on TV on Tuesday nights. She could tell them when I last went to the dentist, and when my driver’s licence was due for renewal. She could tell them how big and strong my hands were from all the piano playing, and how self-conscious I was about them. And how little I cared about clothes, wearing the same old pants and jumpers for years until they fell apart. And she could tell them what dramas and triumphs I had lived through, my best and worst hours.

  I felt sad that she knew so little about Sophie; it reminded me how much we both lost in our lives. Dad disappeared, literally never heard from again from the day he went for a beer at the pub, and never came back. He left mum a note which she never brought herself to show us. If he hadn’t, we would have assumed he was missing, and mounted a search. But this was the last thing he wanted. He wasn’t missing. He knew where he was, and he knew where we were. He just didn’t want those two places to be the same. And so it would seem with Sophie, at least until three months ago. She hadn’t been missing, just absent. Some families talked to each other every day, even when they were scattered all over the world. Not us. In our family, if you chose to disappear, you were not followed. But it still hurt me and mum too much to admit to ourselves, let alone to each other, that for seven years, Sophie hadn’t needed us in her life. Not until now.

  I looked at the photo mum sent to Liam. It was Sophie’s year 12 school portrait. Even with her face unenthusiastically posing, with a smile so slight it could be mistaken for a scowl, she was just as stunning as she had always been. She was one of those people who always looked attractive. Even in her school uniform, with thickly applied makeup, and purposely tousled hair, she was more photogenic than I had ever been in my life. I wondered if she still looked like this girl in the photo. If she was still stunning, and making men fall in love with her without even speaking to them. Maybe if she had stuck around a bit longer, some of her charisma would have rubbed off on me.

  About two months after Sophie went to London, soon after we got the one and only post card from her, I asked mum if she knew her address, as I wanted to send her a letter. I had a bit of a crush on my new piano teacher, Thomas, and I wanted Sophie’s advice about it. Actually, it wasn’t a crush. I was completely and utterly in love with him, in an obsessive and devoted way that at age 17, I had no idea how to handle. He was 26, and I thought he was the most gorgeous, brilliant person I ever met. He was good at the piano, great even, but like me, never made it to a professional level. But when he was teaching me, he still believed he could make it, and his ambitious drive fuelled such a desire within me, I was probably practising mostly to impress him. I was his best, and most committed student, and since I had five lessons with him a week, he was my world. I dreamt one day he would be in love with me, and we would travel the world as famous pianists together.

  I couldn’t possibly tell mum how I felt. So I wrote a letter to Sophie to see if she had any ideas about how to explain all this to Thomas. We hadn’t been friends in the years before she left; maybe it was my attempt at an olive branch. And besides, who else could I ask? She had boyfriends for as long as I could remember: the first one when she was about 12 years old. Some of them lasted a while, others we only met once. She never seemed to get too emotional about any of them, treating them like fleeting hobbies. But I was sure she would understand how I felt when I explained the agonising pain in my heart, that wouldn’t go away until Thomas and I were wrapped in each other’s arms. With the letter written, and just in need of an address, I was upset to hear mum didn't have any idea where Sophie was living. I kept the letter in my diary and continued to build up a romance with Thomas in my mind.

  A few weeks later, drunk with hormones and frustrated at the lack of progress, I tried to kiss him during one of my lessons. I was in the middle of Chopin’s Fantasy Impromptu, which, naturally, I found terribly romantic. When he leant over to turn the page of my music, I stopped playing mid bar, turned my head, and tried to plant my lips onto his. I honestly expected him to kiss me back, and for us to live happily ever after. But he was mortified, and jerked his head back so fast that he fell off his chair. The sudden realisation at what I had done made me burst into tears, and run from the room. I never saw Thomas again. I got a new teacher, and to this day I still cringe at the scene I caused. He must have thought I was a complete nut case. I never tried kissing anyone since then. Trying to forget about Thomas, I went back to Liam’s emails.

  Something lurking at the back of my mind resurfaced as I read on. Mum never mentioned anything about going to the police. Why didn’t she try that first? Just as I wondered about police involvement, so had Liam. Mum told him she tried contacting police here, and in London, and had got nowhere. They weren’t interested in a 27 year old runaway.

  Mum’s next few emails were panicky requests for an update. I felt irritated. Why hadn’t he stayed in regular contact as he promised? Maybe mum thought it would take just a couple of days to locate her, and was surprised that, after a week, she had no news at all. It was like when you expected someone to be on time, and then you realised they were running late, and you started to wonder whether they were coming at all. If Liam couldn’t find her in a few days, was he ever going to be able to find her? He still hadn’t after three months.

  Liam’s responses were full of apologies. He had organised for a friend who worked in IT to track the email Sophie sent, to see whether he could locate the computer it was sent from. He also contacted the Australian Embassy in London. Someone there was able to confirm that Sophie entered the UK on the 13th December 2002. Big whoop. We knew that. But he did add that her two year working visa had expired, and they had no record of her applying for another one. There was no record of her leaving, either. Since she had presumably been living in the UK as an illegal immigrant, he expected she would have kept a low profile, and not applied for credit cards, paid tax ,or done any of the other activities which would make her easier to find. This was bad news.

  The IT guy worked out the email was sent from a computer that didn’t have a fixed IP address. It was all gobbledygook to me. Apparently the internet service provider was able to track down a group of computers that were using this IP address; they were in an internet cafe in Lambeth, London. And guess what? Liam decided he needed to go there to continue investigating! And guess who paid for his flight? And his hotel, and other expenses? Eating up the cash as much as he could, no doubt. He said he wanted to have a look around Whitechapel, where Sophie sent the postcard from... seven years ago! As if
she would still be there! What did he expect? That she visited the same post box every day for seven years? No wonder mum had to get the mortgage. She would never have afforded all this expense otherwise.

  I was getting more and more angry as I read through the next few emails, sent as updates from London, with less progress made every day. He visited the internet café, and showed the people who worked there the photo of Sophie. Someone thought they might have seen her, but had no idea where she lived. What use was that? We knew she had sent the email from there, so of course she had been there. He also canvassed the surrounding area, asking as many people as possible if they had ever seen her, again to no avail. There seemed to be so many wasted hours of work, with each dead end costing mum literally hundreds of dollars. Some of his emails didn’t even tell mum anything, other than that he hadn’t found Sophie yet. Some explained the work he was doing, expressing the view that he felt it was all useful, but not yet fruitful. How could it be useful but not fruitful? That didn’t make any sense.

  He was basically trying two avenues – one her present whereabouts, the other her past. He tried all the hospitals in case she had been bashed up. He tried all the missing person agencies. He tried the cafés in the area where the email was sent from. He also tried to trace her from when she first arrived. He went to all the theatrical agencies, to see if she was ever on their books. This was especially time consuming, as there were many agents, and most didn’t keep good records. But eventually he found one that did have a record of her. They even had a glamorous publicity photo on file. The agent told him she had a few auditions, and did some work as an extra, but he said he’d told her she should use her looks for modelling, rather than acting. Liam then went to the film studios to see if any of the camera crew remembered her.

  It was becoming clear I was wrong about Liam not working on the case. And I had to concede his perseverance did pay off in the end. One of the cameramen was very chatty, and suggested that if Sophie was interested in acting, she might have hung out with a lot of other aspiring actors in a café in Soho called Backstage. When Liam showed her photo there, most people didn’t remember anyone from that long ago. But finally the girl behind the counter suggested he speak to the previous owner, an old Greek guy, who sold the café four years ago, but worked there during 2002.

  Apparently he was quite difficult to track down. But when Liam eventually found him, he recognised the photo of Sophie at once. Not because she came into the café a lot, but because she worked for him for six months. She started off hanging out there, trying to find out when auditions were on, and to meet other actors. When a job at the café came up, she took it. The old Greek said she didn’t turn up to work one day, and he never saw her again. But he heard rumours about what she was up to. Apparently this information was enough to help Liam narrow down where Sophie might be. He told mum she was probably living somewhere in Lambeth – which was where the internet café was.

  I had to admit Liam had done quite well to get that far, but wasn't it was mostly just luck? Ask enough people, and eventually someone would be of some use, even after all this time. And this particular email puzzled me. It started with a complete gush of enthusiasm, but by the end, the details were so thin, it didn’t even explain what Liam found out. Just that he would keep looking in this area, back where he started. Why fill mum in on every single piece of information he used to get to the café owner, and then not explain what the information was that he got out of him?

  I quickly read on to the next email, to find out what this man had told Liam. But surprisingly, although he said the man was correct, he didn’t say anything else. What were these ‘rumours’ and where did they lead him? I expected to see an email from mum asking for more information, but strangely there wasn’t one. She just wrote back that she was glad he was getting somewhere, and to keep up the good work. And even more strangely, there wasn’t another email from Liam for a whole week, even after mum sent a couple checking he was still on track. I needed to keep reminding myself that mum still trusted Liam, and I hadn’t finished reading everything yet. But I found his next email even more mysterious than the one before.

  Liam told mum that, by knocking on doors, he had managed to find someone else who’d employed Sophie. This woman didn’t trust Liam to start with, wanting him to explain why he was looking for Sophie. He said it was as if she knew Sophie’s whereabouts was valuable information. She said she could help him, but only if he paid for the information. And not at a cheap price. £5,000! I was stunned. That’s about $10,000! And to make things worse, Liam chose this moment to ask for payment for himself, which amounted to over $15,000 including expenses. This was so much further out of control than I ever thought it could be. Mum obviously didn’t hesitate to do what Liam asked, taking out the extra $30,000 on the mortgage. What a complete sham! How did mum know this woman even existed? How did she know Liam wasn’t keeping the money for himself?

  Since Liam still hadn’t found Sophie, I already knew if this woman did exist, whatever she told Liam hadn’t led him to her. When Liam worked this out for himself, his emails became even more uninformative. There were two possibilities that could account for this, neither of which filled me with any hope for Sophie. The first was that he hadn’t actually found out anything, hadn’t even been trying, and had taken the $10,000 extra for himself, so he could have a relaxing holiday in the UK. The second was that he was working hard to do whatever it took to find Sophie, but was incompetent, and didn’t know nearly as much as he was suggesting.

  There were only a handful of emails still to read, which worried me even more, as these were spread out over the last two months. What the hell was he doing all this time that made it impossible for him to keep mum updated? He hadn’t even confirmed what sort of trouble Sophie might be in, or suggested any reason why she sent the email.

  Chapter 6

  Much to my dismay, the remaining emails were just as uninformative. And not long after he handed over a huge chunk of cash to some unknown woman, he wanted more! He obviously realised he wasn’t revealing enough, so he made up some dodgy excuse like he couldn’t say too much in case it put mum in danger. What sort of danger could he put mum in? He said he used the information from his paid informant to locate another person, who also wanted money for information. This person claimed to know exactly where Sophie was living, having helped her get to Sydney. But Liam hadn’t found Sophie in Sydney yet, so how much use was this information? And the worst part; he gave this person £15,000!

  Unbelievable. I was now more sure than ever that Liam was conning mum. Was he just keeping all this money for himself? Whenever I felt frustrated, I usually bashed something out on Picasso, playing as fast and as furiously as I could. But it was too late at night to do that. And anyway, I would have to get used to living without that escape.

  Like clockwork, mum did as Liam asked and sent the extra money, which was then handed over to this ‘mystery person’. I cross checked with the mortgage payments, and could see mum had increased the mortgage by $30,000 at this time. Once mum had written back with news of the money transfer, Liam sent an email saying he was flying back to Australia, straight to Sydney. If Sophie was where he had been told she was, why hadn’t he be able to give mum a phone number? Or even a postal address, so she could write a letter? Mum hadn’t asked for either of these things when she replied, just saying she was pleased Liam was now so close. I guess she thought she had been patient for so long, it was worth waiting a couple more days to hear that Sophie was safe. But I felt no surprise whatsoever when I read the final email Liam had sent, exactly two weeks ago, explaining that Sophie wasn’t at the address he’d been given. I felt so out of my depth. I just couldn’t understand what Liam was thinking. How could he take all of mum's money, and still pretend he was working on the case?

  Before I went to bed, I checked on the result of Picasso’s auction. I had raised $6,200. It seemed like nothing compared to the $80,000 already spent. No doubt a bill would come from
Liam soon, asking for thousands more dollars for his fee. I felt so sorry for mum; did she suspect he was cheating her? I can't imagine she would have sent all that money if she had? She never even asked for proof these people who demanded money existed, or proof they knew Sophie. Mum’s worry was clouding her judgement, but it wasn’t clouding mine. After tossing and turning for hours, fantasising about taking revenge on Liam, I finally fell asleep.

  I could hear mum in the kitchen when I woke up, busying herself making breakfast. My distraction device was Picasso; hers was household chores.

  ‘Mum, I finished reading all the emails last night. I’m really worried about Liam, I think he might...’

  Mum spun around to face me, with a look of disappointment and anger that I wasn’t expecting. I also wasn’t expecting a raised voice.

  ‘You always look for the worst in people. Can’t you see how hard he’s been working?’

  It wasn’t like mum to attack me like this, and it left me feeling even more worried about her state of mind. The last thing I wanted was an argument, so I ignored her comment and forged ahead, keeping my voice even.

  ‘I know you must be worried about Sophie, but he’s taken so much money, and still hasn’t found her.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he won’t.’

  ‘Haven’t you even considered he might be a con man?’

  ‘A con man? Whatever gave you that idea?’

  Mum slumped down on the kitchen chair, exhausted by this small amount of confrontation.

  ‘It’s a lot of money mum, and nothing in the emails proves he has done any of the things he says he has.’