Cuts Both Ways

by Solomon Carter

  “Knowing the backwards way things work, they’ll probably promote her before Rawlins,” said Eva.

  The receiver was picked up, and a chirpier female voice answered. “Did I just hear you mention my name?” said PCSO Bec Rawlins. “My ears are burning.”

  “Yes, I did, but it’s nothing to worry about,” said Eva. “I was just wishing you’d picked up before PCSO Little Miss Sunshine.”

  Rawlins snorted with laughter. “Little Miss Sunshine? That suits her down to the ground. Okay, come on then, Eva. What is it this time? Don’t tell me. You haven’t found another body on the beach?”

  “Not today,” said Eva. “I thought I’d give the Southend Tourist Office a week or so to recover. It’s nothing quite so serious, though it’s still a problem for those involved. We’ve got a missing person case. We’re looking for a woman in her early thirties. She’s a slim brunette by the name of Alma Poulter. It’s possible she might be in town under another name, but she’s quite a distinctive character. I was even hoping you might have seen her on your rounds.”

  “Distinctive characters? This town is full of them, Eva. But… Alma? That’s an unusual name… it doesn’t ring any bells so far. What does she look like?”

  “She’s a slim build, some would say bony or rangy even. From what I’ve seen she has a bit of swimmer’s body. Big bones, not much meat on them. She has a strong face but still pretty from the picture I’ve seen. But the most distinctive thing about her is her hairstyle. She’s got a fringe underneath a bouffant hair do. Kind of a sixties look, but beyond that she’s got a tattoo on her upper arm and she’s heavily into dance music and dance culture. It’s more than likely she’s been in the local clubs.

  “She likes dance music? And, I take it, everything that goes with it?” said Rawlins in a knowing tone of voice.

  “Drugs, you mean?” said Eva. “Yes, almost certainly. In fact, we’re told she could be in with some bad people alleged to have moved down from the Watford area. Drug dealers – as if the town needed any more of those.”

  “Hmmm. She’s sounding more distinctive with every word. I haven’t seen her, but I can put the word about for you.”

  “Please, Bec. I think she’s in danger.”

  “Hold on Eva – DS Palmer from CID is passing through the office. Wait a sec – I’ll see if I can grab a word…”

  Rawlins put the phone down and Eva heard her call DS Palmer’s name. Eva waited a minute before Rawlins came back on the line.

  “Sorry, Eva… Palmer’s lot haven’t got anything on this one. Sorry to say but this girl sounds like a needle in a haystack job.”

  “That’s exactly what I was worried about. Thanks for trying, Bec. Let me know if you hear anything, won’t you?”

  “Will do,” said Rawlins.

  Behind Eva, Dan stiffened as a new message arrived on his laptop screen. The email, typed in bold, was from Alice Perry’s work email address at The Record. Dan noted the paperclip symbol alongside the text. There was a file attached. As Eva ended her fruitless call to Rawlins, Dan clicked to open the email and leaned closer to his screen to read the text. He could almost hear the girl’s syrupy voice in his head.

  Hey Dan,

  Here are the pics you need. Glad to be of service. BTW you owe me – again.

  Have fun.

  Alice x

  Have fun? What the hell was she on about? Dan clicked on the first small icon beneath the email signature footer. It was like a lucky dip. The image files showed only as paperclip symbols over a photo symbol. Something to do with the virus protection, or maybe a bad Wi-Fi connection was preventing them showing an image preview. Dan clicked on the first one, hoping to see what else The Record’s photographer had seen at Maison Sol. But when the first image opened in glorious technicolour Dan’s eyes turned wide in horror. He shook his head. His eyes snapped to Eva as she put down the phone. The image was clearly a holiday shot, and the location looked deluxe. There were tall thin palm trees in the distance beside a turquoise sea, pale white sand, and Alice Perry on the beach, wearing a yellow stringy bikini with a broad smile across her face. The setting looked more like the Tropics than Torremolinos, but the stringy bikini was the most eye-catching aspect of all. It left very little to the imagination, and from the look in her eyes, Dan guessed the snap had been taken for her current beau. The poor fool. Dan ground his teeth as Eva turned to face him and caught his narrowing eyes over the top of his laptop screen. Dan clicked on the image and deleted it, post haste.

  “Not much luck there,” said Eva. “The police don’t know anything about her.”

  “Not yet,” said Dan. Tense, he clicked on the next image to test it before Eva was able to join him. He was relieved the image looked to be much more what he was expecting. A truly dark image, indigo, green and black, with streaks of brightest neon light at the edges. There was a wash of human movement frozen around the central figure of a man wearing big white headphones twisted over his head. DJ Toxic. Dan ignored the DJ and scanned the less obvious faces surrounding him. He caught a glimpse of a girl with a bouffant at the edge of the shot, but her back was to camera, and her slim body was half out of the shot. No good at all. Eva left her seat and walked to Dan’s desk. Dan hesitated as his finger rolled over the third attachment icon. He opened it anyway, hoping for the best. In the next image, the woman with the bouffant was front and centre. She was dancing, and it looked like she was having the time of her life. Her eyes were closed, and she was smiling as if in ecstasy… ecstasy? Maybe she was. Bent to one side at the hip, her arms were folded up around her head, Alma Poulter had been snapped in the middle of a funky dance move. Maybe the photographer took the image to show the atmosphere the DJ was creating. It was a strangely captivating image.

  “That’s her. Looks like the girl can really dance,” said Dan.

  “She’s in her thirties? If she’s this much into dance music, she’s probably been raving and clubbing since her teens. That’s a lot of practice. Can we see who she’s with?” said Eva.

  They scanned the other shadowy faces but only saw that Alma had been given plenty of room to express herself. It was hard to tell if anyone else was with her at all.

  “Hang about. There’s one more image,” said Dan.

  “Open it,” said Eva.

  Dan frowned and rolled the mouse arrow over the final attachment icon. He clicked, and the colours zoomed out onto the screen. Darkness, but with a flash of colour and light in the centre. The girl with the bouffant appeared again, this time in a full-frontal shot. Her eyes were bright but clearly lost in the music. Her hands were held high, like a full-on church believer. Behind her, the DJ looked on, beaming. And nearby another woman was dancing, but without the same abandon. Eva leaned close by Dan’s shoulder and pointed a neat unpolished fingernail to Alma Poulter’s raised arms. She tapped the screen, then she tapped lower down, pointing to the other woman’s wrist.

  “Look at that. Do you see it? They’re wearing the same thing on their wrists. Some kind of pink bracelet… or wristband? It looks like a ribbon, don’t you think.”

  Dan shrugged. “Maybe it’s a raver thing. They all used to wear white gloves and wave glowsticks about in the old days. Could be the latest trend.”

  “White gloves, whistles and glow sticks?” said Eva. “That was way back in the nineties. I think this might be something else.”

  “Such as…?”

  Eva shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s got to be something. That’s where the detective work comes in.”

  “It’s a fashion statement, that’s what it is.”

  “We’ll check it anyway. What else have we got?”

  Dan nodded. Eva was right. “Was Rob Dawson at the station? He might know something about it.”

  Eva shook her head. “No. If PC Dawson was there, Penner would have said so. This is street culture we’re looking at. Who else might know something about street culture?”

  “Joanne,” said Dan. “She’s young and got street smart
s.”

  Mark looked around, with something of a pained expression. “She’s at the Civic Centre now. But you could always try calling her.”

  “Only if you’re sure she won’t mind,” said Eva.

  “She won’t,” said Mark. “She loves all this stuff.”

  Eva grabbed her mobile phone from her desk and scrolled down the list of contact names. She found Joanne’s number and dialled. After four rings, the call went through. The first thing Eva noticed was the rush of noise at the other end. It sounded like strong wind or maybe traffic. The more Eva heard, the more she was certain Joanne was on the road. Eva’s eyes narrowed a fraction as they flicked to the back of Mark’s head in thought.

  “Eva?” said Joanne. Her voice sounded a little different – not stressed or unhappy, just different. Guarded? Or just busy, maybe? Eva let it go.

  “Sounds like the office has let you out again.”

  “You know me, I like to get away from the desk whenever I can.”

  Eva paused before she went on. At the desk in front she could feel Mark listening in as his typing slowed to a halt.

  “Listen,” said Eva. “We’re looking at some newspaper images of the missing person, Amy Poulter. It looks like she was in town, but we’re trying to work out where she’s got to now. In the images, the missing person and another woman are wearing some kind of pink ribbon wrist bands. We don’t know what they might be, but seeing as you get around a bit, we wondered if you might.”

  “Um. Pink ribbons…?” said Joanne as the traffic sounds filled the gaps.

  “Yes. On their wrists.”

  “I don’t know if that means anything, but I could ask…”

  “At the council offices…?” said Eva.

  Joanne acted as if she hadn’t heard Eva’s last comment. “Just a minute, Eva. I could ask someone now.”

  A hand was placed over the handset at the other end, blotting out the sound of traffic and wind. Twenty or thirty seconds later, and the sound cleared again to reveal the rush of traffic and the sound of Joanne taking a breath before she spoke.

  “I’ve asked around and we think those bands belong to a place called The Albany Centre.”

  Eva bit her lip. The more Joanne said, the more questions came to her mind. Colleagues? Asked around – in a car? The phrase itself didn’t fit the scenario. People didn’t ask around in a car. They just asked. Then there was the sound of traffic… no, it didn’t make sense. But Eva let it go.

  “The Albany Centre,” she said.

  “Yeah. It’s funded by Reset, the mental health charity. The Albany is a mental health rehab – but specifically it deals with drug addicts who are suffering with depression and the rest.”

  “Your colleagues… told you that?”

  “Yes. You know, the council is at the heart of all these things. They probably fund it too.”

  “It’s amazing what you can find out by asking around. So the people who use the Albany have to wear these ribbons.”

  “Yes, that’s it. It shows they’re on the programme. It’s about a sense of identity and belonging. It’s also about saying, ‘I’m in recovery, so don’t lead me astray’.”

  “Then maybe our Alma is in better shape than we’d hoped. Maybe we’ll be able to give her brother some good news after all.”

  “I’m glad it’s going well,” said Joanne.

  Eva smiled. “Here’s hoping. Say thanks to your colleagues for me.”

  “Will do,” said Joanne before the call was quickly cut off.

  Mark turned in his chair.

  “So, she wasn’t at the office?” he said.

  “No. I think she was on a tea break or something,” Eva lied. “But her colleagues still came through with the goods.” She turned back in her seat to face Dan. “The pink ribbon bands are from The Albany Centre. When those snaps were taken Alma Poulter must have been on their recovery programme.”

  “Recovery programme? Like in Carl Renton’s rehab centres?”

  “Yes, except this one is dedicated to mental health recovery,” said Eva. “If she’s still on the Albany program, tracking her down shouldn’t be too hard. Who knows, she might even be better for her time off grid.”

  Mark coughed and got Eva’s attention. She looked at him and found his eyes flitting between them, serious and depressed.

  “Joanne’s really coming through for you lately, isn’t she?” said Mark.

  Eva noted the faint melancholy in his voice.

  “We’re a team, Mark. Everyone has their part to play, including you. Speaking of which, can you find me an address for The Albany Centre? It’s a recovery or rehab centre.”

  “Yes,” said Mark, turning away. “I think I can just about manage that.”

  Dan and Eva exchanged a glance. As Mark began typing to search for the address, Eva nodded to the kitchen door at the back of the office. She stood up and nudged Dan’s shoulder. Dan took the hint. He waited a second before he followed her to the kitchen door. Eva folded her arms and watched Mark as he worked before she slid the door halfway across their bodies.

  “It’s Joanne,” said Eva quietly.

  “What? He’s jealous of his own girlfriend? Well, we can’t deny she’s doing the business right now. If we had the money, it’d be a no-brainer taking her on…”

  Eva pursed her lips and shook her head once.

  “That’s not it. There’s something she’s not telling us. From the look of it, not any of us…”

  “Eva,” muttered Dan. “Do we ever know everything about these two? Mark was never one hundred per cent honest with us, especially at the start. He got his arm broken over that, remember? And Joanne has always come through. Even when I doubted her, she still came through in the end.”

  “Then let’s hope she comes through again, because the one thing we need above anything else in this place is trust. Trust is essential. Without that, what else have we got?”

  Eva turned to look into Dan’s eyes as he thought about the meeting at the Slug and Lettuce. The expensive drink. The green cocktail. The gleaming eyes. The bikini shot attached to the email.

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “Trust is the only way.”

  “Then I think we’d better keep an eye on her. Let’s give her enough rope to keep going with whatever she’s doing and then hope she doesn’t hang herself with it,” said Eva.

  “Or anybody else,” said Dan. Eva slid the kitchen door back, and they stood and watched Mark typing for a moment more. Sensing something, Mark turned around to find them watching him. Their joint gaze jarred the faint smile from his face.

  “Err… I think I’ve found it. The Albany Centre. Yes, here it is. Looks like it’s on Nelson Road, right at the back of Westcliff. Near where that big old pub used to be.” He looked at them standing side by side, watching him. “So…then… why are you two looking at me like that?”

  “No reason,” said Eva.

  Mark looked doubtful but he slowly nodded his head.

  “Nelson Road, you say?” said Dan. “Good work.”

  Mark shrugged. “It was a Google search. Hardly rocket science.”

  Eva offered Mark an encouraging nod. Was Mark dynamic? Not really. Not until he was forced into action. But was he safe and reliable? Yes – and in spades. And in all the unending chaos of the business, reliable had to count for something. If nothing else, Mark had become the ballast in the hot air balloon of their lives. Sure, Mark wouldn’t have liked the analogy. But in their crazy world, ballast was a much-needed commodity.

  Eva’s phone buzzed and she moved to her desk to pick it up. Dan noticed Eva’s face regaining the same tight look as before when she read the text on screen. As soon as she’d finished reading, she turned to Dan. Her calm demeanour was gone.

  “Okay. I’ve got to go. You’ve got an address to try – I’m afraid the rest is up to you. I need to get back to Lauren before anything bad happens.”

  “Why? What’s she said now?”

  “She’s really worried he mi
ght do something. He’s acting odd. I can’t leave her for any time at all until this thing is done,” she said. “And why don’t you take Mark with you on this one? I think he could do with a break.”

  Dan smiled and sighed at the same time, doing little to hide his reluctance. Thanks for that, Eva, he thought. Thanks.

  “Yeah. Why not? What do you say, kid? How about some proper PI work – out in the field?”

  Proper PI work? Mark raised his eyebrow. The comment made both Mark and Eva wince at the very same time.

  “Sure. Why not,” Mark said with a shrug.

  “Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” said Dan.

  Mark stood up from the front desk and picked up his jacket. Eva couldn’t spare the time to smooth things out between them. Dan’s mouth was like a blunderbuss, but for better or worse, Mark would have to be left in his hands until she got back.

  “I’ll call you later,” said Eva as she grabbed her things.

  “Just make sure you stay safe,” said Dan. “If it looks like things are going south, call me. I’ll be right there,” he added. Eva nodded, but Dan knew her too well. He doubted she would call him for help until she’d done all she could herself, and by then it might be too late. An uneasy feeling gnawed at him, but Dan tried to push it aside. They both watched her rush out of the front door, moving away from the office window as she made towards her car. Mark and Dan were left alone, side by side, arms folded.

  “You ready?” said Dan.

  Mark hesitated before answering, but Dan wasn’t in the mood for deeply thought out answers. Before Mark had the chance to reply, Dan picked up his leather jacket and his phone. He glanced at the screen and noticed the battery was low. He figured it didn’t matter too much. The Albany wasn’t too far.

  “I think—” said Mark.

  “Good. Then let’s go.”

  Dan looked up from his phone screen and headed for the door.

  Mark watched Dan make his getaway and sighed. He picked up his jacket, grabbed the door keys and followed after him. Beneath his desk, his rucksack lay open, unzipped. Tucked beneath the zip, Mark’s mobile phone screen reflected a hint of light from the world beyond.