Missing Molly

by Natalie Barelli

  And now, Tom Sneddon, private detective, and I are having a short phone conversation. I’m desperate to ask him: who was it? Who hired you back then? But I know better than to do that over the phone. Instead, we agree on a time and a place to meet up.

  Twenty

  I’m sitting on a wooden bench in the park near our place, watching Gracie play in the sandpit. She loves coming here and it’s one of those warm autumn days where we still can. Sometimes we feed the ducks and geese and she squeals with delight at the sight of those big birds, her small hand reaching out to pat them, her little fingers opening and closing in the air. I find geese kind of scary, up-close like that, but not Gracie. She’s pint-sized and already braver than I am.

  We’re not feeding birds today. We’re just spending half an hour before I drop her off at preschool. I've arranged her hair into plaits that go all the way around her head, just the way she likes them. She’s got her little pink basket with her. She’s playing with a small dark-haired boy about the same height as her. He has a yellow rake and they seem very happy moving sand from one side of the pit to another, he with the rake, she with the pink plastic basket.

  “How old is she?”

  I turn to look at the dark-haired woman who has come to sit next to me.

  “She just turned three,” I reply. “And yours? How old?” I point my chin towards the dark-haired boy.

  She smiles. “No, he’s not mine.”

  “Oh.”

  I say nothing further, I just watch my daughter. I don’t feel like making conversation with strangers. I’ve barely slept the last two nights. We finished the second episode and it’s out there now. I can’t get Hennessy out of my mind. The things that he said about my sister. That he would use this opportunity to sully her name like this. I tried to keep the recording of their conversation out, and managed to get some of it edited out, but Chris overruled me on the substance of it. I had to sit there and listen to Hennessy say the most awful things about Grace.

  “She was disturbed you see, as we now know, although we certainly didn’t then,” Hennessy had said, his voice dripping with fake pity for her. “She even got Dennis Dawson to pay for these photos, although I don’t know why, after all her father was rather well off I thought. The family didn’t skimp on anything as far as I knew. Grace had all the things a girl her age might desire.”

  I pressed my fingernails deep into the palms of my hand, but I had to listen, it was important.

  “Dennis was a simple boy, poor chap, I wouldn’t say it wasn’t his fault but—”

  “You’re not suggesting it’s Grace’s fault that he took a cricket bat to the whole family, surely.” Vivian's voice had asked.

  “Lord no, of course not. I just meant to say that Dennis was not the brightest spark in the firmament, if you get my meaning. He was a simple boy, simple of mind. He was twenty at the time, but his mental age would have been more of a boy of twelve or so. Which is not to excuse anything of course,” he rushed to clarify. “But Dennis was in love with her, you know. To her, it was all a game,” Hennessy went on, “but Dennis kept all the photos. In some ways, it was fortunate he killed himself before it went to trial. We were able to spare the memory of that poor family.”

  Listening to that garbage, I made myself a promise. I would go after that man, and somehow, I would punish him. Not just for what he’s done, but for what he’s said.

  “Jacob is a good man.”

  I am so deep in my thoughts I forgot about the woman next to me. I turn to her, she’s still sitting there, still staring straight ahead.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Jacob Whitelaw, he’s my husband.”

  She’s strikingly beautiful. She speaks with a slight accent, suggesting she comes from somewhere exotic, somewhere I’ve never been. Somewhere that smells of aromatic spices, and that brings up images of golden embroidery and colourful scarves.

  “Jacob Whitelaw?”

  “My name is Zoya Whitelaw.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I followed you, from your house.”

  “How did you know where I lived?”

  “I followed you from your work once.”

  I stand up fast, furious and in a panic at the same time. “You followed me home, and you’ve followed me here? And my daughter?”

  I turn frantically to find Gracie. She was right there, sitting with her dark-haired little friend, working on some kind of sand structure.

  “Gracie! Honey!”

  I stare at the spot where she’d been a second ago, my heart thumping. I can see the pink plastic basket, it’s fallen over on its side, and Gracie isn’t there. The panic makes my chest hurt.

  “Gracie? Gracie!!”

  Gracie’s blond head pops up from behind one of the large rocks in the corner of the sandpit. She’s stood up quickly, her beautiful blue eyes searching mine, confusion clouding her face. Something in my tone.

  “Sit down. Please. You’ll frighten her. I just wanted to talk to you in a quiet place, that’s all,” Zoya says.

  “You’re pretty frightening, lady,” I reply, but I sit down anyway, my legs like jelly.

  “It’s okay, honey! Just stay on this side, please.” Grace’s frown dissipates, and she nods. She says something and the little boy stands up as well, then they obediently move around the rock to this side of the pit.

  “I simply wanted to tell you something, there’s no need to be afraid of me.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  Her eyes flicker towards Gracie who has resumed her games.

  “Grace is a beautiful name,” she says. “I was pregnant once. With a little girl. We were going to name her Laeticia. Jacob was driving, we were returning from a visit to his brother and his family for Sunday lunch. It happened at a crossroads, two streets from their house. The other driver went through a red light. Jacob didn’t see him coming, and even if he had, there was nothing he could have done. I was eight months pregnant. We lost Laeticia in the accident.”

  I swallow. I see that she isn’t crying, but I figure it’s because she’s all out of tears.

  “Then we found out I could no longer bear children, also because of the accident. Jacob blamed himself. There was nothing anyone could say or do that would change his mind. You see, he’d had a couple of drinks, and he was just over the legal limit. But the accident was the other driver’s fault. It had nothing to do with Jacob's reflexes. But he wouldn’t listen to me. As far as he was concerned, he should have protected me and our child and he had failed. He was shattered. Immediately after the accident he started to drink—a lot. Anything to numb the pain, you see. He did a fine job at the BBC. You might think I’d say that anyway because I am his wife, but the truth is that the woman you spoke to—”

  I close my eyes and let my head loll back in exasperation. Bloody Chris.

  “Look, I—”

  She puts her hand up again. “Really, it’s all right. I just wanted you to understand. The woman you spoke to, she wasn’t his boss then, she was his colleague and they were both up for the same promotion. She kept a close eye on Jacob, looking for anything that would make him unsuitable.”

  I shudder. I’ve essentially done the same thing.

  “She found the bottles of vodka, in a drawer of his desk. She had her suspicions—they all did. He wasn’t hiding it very well. There was a scene, a terrible scene. I think the organisation would have helped him find a way to deal with it, but he didn’t want to. He walked out, went to the nearest bar and drank himself a little further into his grave. He stayed out all night. When he came home, he could barely walk. He was sobbing, like a child. I gave him an ultimatum that night: he would find a way back to being the man I loved, or I would leave him. I couldn’t watch him kill himself anymore. I’d already lost a child. There were many more tears, and it’s a testimony of how much we love each other that he came back to me, and he hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol since. He found a new position, as you know,
at your paper. He loved it, I think. He thought he had something to contribute. He was finding his feet again, being appreciated. He liked working with all of you.”

  She stands, pulls the strap of her handbag a little higher on her shoulder. “He is not the man you made him out to be. And that’s all I wanted you to know.”

  My cheeks are wet from tears. I quickly run a hand over them. “I’m really sorry, Zoya. I truly am.” I sigh, thinking of all the mistakes I’ve been making lately. “I am not that person either.”

  She nods. “You’re hurting, aren’t you?”

  I look up at her. “Why would you say that?”

  “Women like us, who have known pain, pain that sliced something inside that can never be closed again, we can smell it on each other. Don’t you agree? No. Maybe you’re too young. You’ll see.”

  Twenty-One

  The mood is up in the office. It’s only the second episode and listening to them you’d think we’d solved the crime. I put a brave face on, and I am cheering with the best of them, because Chris tells us the number of downloads is huge. Tens of thousands at least.

  We have a brief production meeting for the third episode this morning. Chris reminds me that I said I would come up with some good material. He wants to know what I’ve got lined up. I make up vague names.

  “Friends of Grace would be good,” Vivian suggests. “Friends of Molly would be even better,” she adds.

  What about Molly herself, would that work? I imagine myself saying.

  That’s the state of our friendship these days. She pretends to work with me, but really, she’s giving me orders. She’s punishing me. I know her.

  Back at my desk, I try to keep myself busy, but I can’t concentrate. I give up and make the call that needs to be made.

  “Jacob Whitelaw,” his voice says at the end of the line.

  “It’s Rachel Holloway.” I squeeze my eyes shut as I say it, as if to prepare for the blow. But there’s a silence that goes on for too long.

  “You still there?” I ask.

  “What do you want?”

  “To apologise.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I’m very sorry, Jacob. I behaved very badly. I know that.”

  “What brought that on?”

  “Your wife told me, and—”

  I hear his intake of breath. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean it, Jacob. I apologise. I screwed up, royally and I’m sorry.”

  “What did you say? About my wife?”

  Oh God. He didn’t know. I can’t believe it. It looks like I screwed-up, again.

  “Your wife—Zoya, isn’t it? She came to see me. She told me about… your history.”

  There’s another intake of breath. “Zoya came to see you?”

  “Yes. She wanted me to understand, that I was wrong about you. And I’m sorry, for what I did.” There’s more silence, but I figured I’ve said my piece.

  “That’s all I wanted to say, I wish you the best, Jacob.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “I heard the second episode,” he says, quickly.

  I’m not sure why he’s telling me. I’m about to ask, but he blurts out, “You’re credited as a producer.”

  Ah. I get it. He thinks I went through all this so I could have his job. “So?” I ask, my tone defiant, but his response surprises me.

  “It’s about the photos—of Grace,” he says, his voice low.

  I lean forward, hold the phone tighter. “What about them?”

  “Something’s not right, Rachel. There are no photos. There can’t be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Maybe we should have a chat.”

  My heart is racing. I don’t want to have a chat over the phone. I tell him to meet me in the park around the corner, in half an hour. I won’t have much time, I tell him. I’ll have to pick up my daughter after that. Then for the next fifteen minutes I try to do some work, but I can’t concentrate. Time doesn’t move fast enough.

  When I get there, he’s already waiting for me. I think he’s thinner than he was, if that’s even possible. It’s awkward at first, as we sit on the bench near the entrance of the park, then I wonder if he really has something so important to say. I look into his eyes and find that they are swimming behind curtains of sadness. I can’t believe I have never noticed this before, but then again, I didn’t know to look. I was too busy suspecting him of trying to have me killed.

  “Tell me again,” I ask. “What did you say before? About the photos?”

  “I’m trying to explain to you that there couldn’t have been any photos. I researched this case, when I was, before I—”

  “Before I got you fired.”

  “I didn’t get fired, Rachel. I left.”

  “Why did you leave? Since we’re on the subject. Chris said the same thing, that he didn’t fire you. So why didn’t you stay?”

  He pauses as if searching for words, and sighs. “I don’t know how much Zoya told you.” He turns to me, and his eyes search mine.

  “You should ask her that, not me,” I say.

  He nods.

  “They caught me out drinking on the job, last time. I didn’t want to go through it all again. All the disappointment, and the distrust.”

  “You were a radio producer, Jacob. Not a brain surgeon.”

  That makes him smile. Just.

  “That didn’t stop people from looking over my shoulder all the time. The glances, the whispers. The knowing looks if I happened to stutter over a word. I just wanted to do my job, and a good one. But if my co-workers were going to be suspicious of my motives, well, screw them. It wasn’t worth it.”

  I feel myself going crimson. “Did you get another job?” I ask. Please God. Let him have another job. A fantastically well-paid, fun, radio producing job.

  “Not yet.”

  I don’t have any appropriate response to that, and I don’t think one was expected, so I move on.

  “You said that before you left, you did some research on the podcast. Where is that research by the way?”

  It’s his turn to blush.

  “It was at my place. I didn’t see the point of coming back to return it.”

  “You took it, didn’t you? Out of spite.”

  “Maybe.”

  I wonder what he had, but I can’t think any of it relates to me. Still, it would be good to get my hands on it.

  “Tell me what you know about the photos,” I say.

  “Dawson was arrested for multiple murders. He was taken into custody and he pleaded not guilty in the Magistrate’s court.”

  “Okay, this is before the trial even started, correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  I glance at my watch, and he catches me. “Sorry, it’s just that like I said, I have to pick up Gracie soon.”

  He nods. “I’ll cut to the chase. The point is that the evidence was recorded right down to the minutiae. This was a big criminal case, one of the most violent criminal cases in the country for a long time. They had their guy, and he pleaded not guilty. They were not going to let him get off on a technicality. They threw everything they had at it, they crossed the Ts and dotted the Is. I have a copy of the pre-trial submissions and it includes an exhaustive list of the evidence that was gathered. Both at the scene, and his house. There’s no mention of photographs of Grace Forster. Naked or otherwise. There are no references to any photographs of any kind.”

  “Is it possible they were found after the pre-trial submission was completed?”

  I am playing devil’s advocate here. I know there are no photographs. My sister has never been promiscuous. She was not easy with the boys. But I need to think like someone who didn’t know her.

  “I thought of that too. I made some calls this morning after I heard the episode, because frankly it made no sense. I’m still waiting to hear about what the local police might have on file, but whatever they have, I can guarantee you it doesn’t include photograp
hs of the victim.”

  I have nothing to say to that. It’s nothing new to me. But it’s so wonderful to hear it from someone else that it brings tears to my eyes.

  “You know what I’d do, if I were you?” he says.

  “What?”

  “I’d go there and ask the people who were around then. I would try to find one person who could corroborate that claim. But I’ll put my money on not finding anyone.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I’d look into why Hennessy would make such a blatant, easily exposed lie.”

  I sigh. “You must be joking. It’s not just that he was the Chief Constable back then, he’s the Mayor now. It’s not that easy.”

  “Something worthwhile never is. There’s something there, Rachel. I can smell it. I have a nose for this stuff. Something isn’t right.”

  His words sink in and for the first time in my life, I hear someone inching close to the truth. I hear someone doubting Edward Hennessy. Someone who dug deep enough to see more than the story that’s already been told.

  He stands up. “You should go to your daughter. I don’t want to make you late.”

  We walk out of the park together. Before Jacob goes off to the station, he says,

  “There’s another thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You never changed the podcast website. My mobile number is still there, listed as the producer.”

  “Okay, so? I’ll take it down today if it bothers you so much.”

  “Mrs Dawson called me.”

  “Mrs Dawson?”

  “She’s the mother of Dennis Dawson.”

  “Right.”

  “The man who was arrested for the murders.”

  “I know that. Why would she call you? Why wouldn’t she call the hotline?”

  He shrugs. “I’d say she wanted to speak to someone real, and she found my number, does it matter?”

  “No, of course, you’re right.” My mouth is dry. “What did she say?” I ask.

  “She said she has proof, that Dennis couldn’t have done it.”