Angela Clarke - Trust Me

Freddie was aggressively chewing her lip, looking at her phone. Nasreen could tell she was disappointed with her. ‘I need a piss.’

‘Right. I’ll meet you in the car park?’ Freddie had to understand Nasreen couldn’t do anything? She had to appreciate the difficult position she was in?

Freddie didn’t reply, simply picked up pace as if she wanted to shake Nasreen off. Nasreen let her go. Turning, she could see Kate, still sat at the table by the window. Her head was bowed, as if in prayer. Her face was drawn, almost pained. A saying Freddie’s gran always used came to her mind: She looked like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting here now. She blinked away the vision of the long-haired girl lying there. Looking at her. Pleading for her help. She’d failed her. No: that couldn’t happen. Did she know anyone else who might help? She wracked her brain: what was the name of PC Scott’s superior? Would he listen? She was sure her cousin Yvonne used to date a cop. Or was he in the army? He was tall, neat, he had that air about him. A man in uniform. Small teeth that grimaced when he smiled. Yvonne could put them in touch. The more Kate thought about it, the more she thought perhaps it was the army he was in. This was hopeless. She could go in person to her local station and try to speak to someone higher up? Freddie’s friend had been polite, but unable to disguise her doubt.

The video had seemed real. Sounded real. But maybe it was staged, an elaborate practical joke? Could it be taken from a film? She’d told Sergeant Cudmore she could describe the face of the man in the film, but could she really? He was fading from her memory. He’d only looked at the camera once. His features were softened in her mind, mixing with those of her students, with other young men she knew. He could have been younger than nineteen, maybe even sixteen. She rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms. This was infuriating. Why didn’t they believe her? Why didn’t they want to help? She’d seen pity in Sergeant Cudmore’s eyes at one stage. Did they think this was some attention-seeking stunt by a lonely old woman? Come on, Kate, you’re only fifty-six. Not old yet.

Perhaps the wine had played tricks on her mind that night. It had been late. Hot. She hadn’t been sleeping well. Perhaps she should do as they all kept saying: forget about it. Move on. Would someone else have given up by now? But she’d seen that girl suffer. Someone must be looking for her. Her gut twisted at the thought of her own daughter. She’d been an unexpected gift following a tryst at a teaching convention. Her father had been a kind man, funny, warm, and visiting from the States. They’d been in talks about how to make it work. He’d put in for a transfer: a swap with a teacher from a private school over here. Everything had been planned. And then Tegbee had arrived early. She’d felt the pain as she waited on the platform at Hackney Central. The hand of the woman next to her as she pointed. Blood spotting on the floor. Then her waters broke. She was three months early. Tegbee’s father had got the first plane he could, but he didn’t make it in time. Tegbee – Forever – had lived for four hours. The two of them, alone in her hospital room. She would have been at university this year, or maybe planning to go travelling. Her whole life in front of her. What if it had been Tegbee in that video? The thought was unbearable. That was someone’s daughter. Someone’s child.

The phone vibrating in her handbag jolted her back to the present. It was a number she didn’t recognise. She cleared her throat, aware tears were calling to her.

‘Hello, Kate Adiyiah speaking.’

‘Kate, this is Freddie Venton.’

‘Freddie?’ She looked up, confused: she couldn’t have been long back inside the building.

‘I’ve only got a second.’ She heard something that sounded like a flushing toilet in the background. ‘I believe you,’ Freddie said, ‘and I’ve got a plan. You got a pen handy?’

Miranda had been very clear, there were to be no more indiscretions. In return, she’d promised she would try harder. But she’d been quick to forget that. It wasn’t on. There were two people in this marriage, and she wasn’t pulling her weight. She had use of the house in London, though she preferred the estate in Chipping Campden. Her attention was always with the harridans she called friends, attending endless expensive lunches where no one ate anything. All the women had the same stretched faces, stringy bodies and fingers sharp with rings from past and present husbands. It was bad enough having to touch their cold hands at work, pressing the flesh, their rings jabbing like sharp teeth. They made him work for every single penny. All the jovial smiles and hours spent listening to their inane charity chatter.

Once, he’d thought of Miranda as different. When they’d been at university she’d seemed fresh and fun, she’d worn her hair loose past her shoulders, and laughed at his jokes. Here was someone who was as passionate as he was about his purpose, his career. Now he felt cheated. As if she’d been a mirage to lure him in, a siren, her own desires the rocks on which he crashed. She’d driven him into this intolerable position.

Young party members always looked up to him; he was used to that. Occasionally an upstart would try to win his spurs by picking an argument, but there would be no using him as a stepping stone. As if the prime minister would be able to cope without him! That’s what people failed to appreciate. If they attacked him, they attacked the cabinet. They were primed to protect Nigel, not that he couldn’t dispense with the whippersnappers himself. They always had such flimsy arguments based on nonsensical anecdotes. Too used to letting their phones and their computers think for them. Jade had been different.

He loved how her fat breasts and bottom shook when he made her laugh. She’d taught him that LOL meant ‘laugh out loud’ and not ‘lots of love’. It had been natural to progress things. Tempting. She was there every day in the campaign office, touching his arm, fluttering her eyelashes at him. But he hadn’t succumbed. He’d done the decent thing. That’s what Miranda failed to grasp. He had never, in person, acted in an ungentlemanly manner. They had merely exchanged words. Some naughty little messages. It was all a bit of harmless fun. But Miranda would not be reasoned with. It was she who’d put him in this ludicrous situation. How was he supposed to do his job if he wasn’t allowed online? Not everyone sent handwritten note cards like her cronies. Many of his constituents reached him via Twitter. Support for policy announcements was more easily achieved with a click. Besides, it was damning to suddenly disappear. One couldn’t simply close one’s accounts unnoticed. People would assume, wrongly, that he had something to hide. The vultures would be on him within seconds. So he’d elected to do what was best for them as a couple. Miranda’s comprehension of these things was weak at best. He’d requested Quentin change all the passwords in front of her. Told Miranda it was a direct order from Number 10. She’d believed it was a security issue, and those accounts would only be used for work from now on.

Switching service providers was straightforward. The internet really did make everything much more readily available. He was shrewd, he stayed away from anything too obviously titled; he didn’t want any stray hacks getting hold of his cookies and whatnot. Besides, it was easy enough to find what he wanted on more mainstream applications. The promise had been there tonight, but it wasn’t at all what he’d hoped for. Utterly repulsive viewing. People actually enjoyed this filth? He had suggested to himself that he had imagined it; it had, in truth, been a long day. It was now the early hours of the morning, and he was onto his third scotch. But his mind couldn’t conjure something as repugnant as that. Boys at the club joked about a bit of slap and tickle, but this went far beyond a touch of the whip. He felt quite sickened that someone would even make a film like that. And it was certainly film. Wasn’t it? Staged. Special effects and all that. He’d stumbled into some nightmare vision of a sick man’s imagination. Because if you were going to attack someone, it made no sense to do it on camera. He took another sip of scotch, the ice dripping away slowly into nothing. It had been strikingly real. He poured himself another two fingers. Unnerving in its brutality. But it couldn’t actually be real. Because that would be unimaginable.

‘I made some calls while I was waiting,’ Nasreen said. She had the engine running as Freddie slid into the car. She wanted to forget about Kate and the film she had seen. And she didn’t want to row with Freddie about it.

‘I found Amber’s Facebook account – she hasn’t posted since the night before they disappeared. It looks like a goodbye – she says she’s sorry and loves them all,’ Freddie said, a pen tucked behind her ear.

Could Amber have known they were running away? ‘I spoke to the head teacher at her school,’ Nasreen said. ‘He confirmed she didn’t show up the day her dad disappeared, and they received no telephone call or letter in relation to her absence.’ Amber’s former teacher had obviously run through this before, and had given an emotion-free, inclusive account of what had happened. ‘They tried to contact both Paul Robertson and Amber, but both phones had been switched off, as we know.’

‘There’s a load of comments under her last post – the friends on here didn’t look like they knew it was coming,’ Freddie said, lowering her window as they drove through Westminster.

Nasreen wanted to look at the posts, but she knew she’d feel sick in the car. ‘All the statements taken from her friends at the time suggest they were surprised.’

‘They could be lying – you know what teens are like,’ Freddie said.

Nasreen didn’t like to think about lying teens; it reminded her of what she and Freddie had done when they were that age. The lasting pain they’d caused. Nasreen indicated and pulled onto Lower Thames Street. The river twinkled next to them in the sunshine, the pavements clogged with groups of lacklustre tourists licking ice-creams.

Freddie shifted in her seat. ‘Some of them have written RIP under her message.’

Rest in peace – why would they do that? ‘Probably just a teen thing.’

‘You don’t think they know something we don’t?’ Freddie said.

‘Make a list of everyone on there – see if we can find out who they are, and if they were close to Amber. Could just be randoms,’ she said.

‘Or trolls.’ Freddie leant back and rested her flip-flopped feet on the glove compartment.

‘Feet down, please. This is police property.’

‘You need to chill out, Nas.’ Freddie left her feet where they were.

Was this about not being able to help her friend Kate? ‘You okay?’

Freddie kept her eyes fixed on the road. ‘Why didn’t you say congrats about my promotion?’

Oh God: she’d been so preoccupied with what it meant that Burgone had promoted Freddie whilst dumping her training on her that she hadn’t thought about Freddie at all. She winced. ‘I’m sure I did.’

‘You agree with Saunders then?’ Freddie shifted in her seat so she was facing her accusingly, all bare legs and arms.

What had Saunders said? ‘Of course not,’ she said, flustered.