Where the Missing Go(45)

‘Mrs Harlow, this is DI Nicholls. Please could you give me a call back—’

I’m across the room and seize the handset before he can finish. ‘Hello? I’m here.’

He tells me he’s got some news that would be better explained in person.

‘Have you found her?’ I hear myself saying, pitched too high.

‘No. No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. Are you free now? I tried your mobile.’ I glance at it on the table – I’ve let it run out of battery once more.

‘Yes, of course. Should I come to the station again?’

‘No need for that. I’m in the area now and I’ll explain face to face.’

After I hang up, I bend to pick up the cat, burying my face in his fur. He mews in protest.

‘Another visitor. It’s quite the social whirl in here,’ I tell Tom.

But I’m nervous. Doubly so. Because sleeping on it hasn’t offered any flash of inspiration to getting into Sophie’s other email. I’m going to turn it over to the police.

Yet first I’ve got to make them understand how important this could be.

‘Turns out we’re not the only ones who’ve been interested in the charity’s phone records. The Message in a Bottle helpline has had a bit of a pest problem. One caller in particular had been very nasty. Sexual stuff, whenever he got a woman on the phone. Threats. And he was persistent.’

‘Oh, right. You mean a pest caller.’ Nicholls has turned up, refused a cup of tea – ‘water, please’ – and started talking. For a moment, I let myself feel the oddness of my life now: the suited detective sitting opposite me at my kitchen table, as I wait for him to get to the point. He’s very calm, unhurried.

And what he’s saying is true. Heavy breathers are the secret bane of helplines, but they don’t like to publicise it – it might encourage more of them. But annoy the volunteers too often and the powers that be can, after a lot of soul-searching, block you. I just don’t yet see what this has to do with me.

‘So,’ he begins, ‘it turns out that the charity had actually made a police complaint about one caller in particular, via its headquarters in London. And they’d agreed police could access the helpline’s caller records for the last couple of months, to find him. They were prepared for him to be charged.’

I feel a little leap of hope. Could this be good news? He’s got Sophie’s call details this way?

He continues: ‘My colleagues in the Met started looking at the phone numbers that had been used to make repeated calls to the helpline. It wasn’t hard to find their guy: he didn’t understand that the confidentiality policy wouldn’t cover a telecommunications offence. This guy was making hundreds of calls from his house landline – somewhere in the West Midlands – when his wife went to work in the daytime.’

So that’s why I wouldn’t have heard from this creep: I only do nights.

‘And we don’t get a lot of repeat callers,’ I add. Not legitimate ones. We get messages to loved ones, and we’re supposed to refer people elsewhere for longer-term support. ‘But I’m sorry, how’s this going to help in my situation? Sophie only rang me once.’

‘I do have a point,’ he says mildly. ‘Now, the charity wouldn’t agree to release the details of Sophie’s call.’ So he did ask. ‘And there wasn’t any reason for us to try to force it.’ I nod. I don’t agree with it, but I understand. ‘So when I heard about this other investigation, I took a look at the info they’d collected on the repeat caller numbers – call it professional curiosity – and I found something a little unusual.’

For a second I feel like he’s waiting for me to say something, then he goes on: ‘There were dozens of calls made to the helpline from a number local to this area.’

I’m confused. ‘Well, it’s a national helpline – but anyone can ring in.’

‘Yes, anyone can ring in. And with this one phone number, there wasn’t any abuse, nothing like that. There was just a pattern: the caller rings, then hangs up a few moments after connection. We could see from the length of the call. My colleagues had already traced it, to a telephone box.’ He looks at me expectantly. ‘It’s the telephone box at the end of Park Road. This road.’

The one near the crossroads, not a hundred metres from my house, if that.

He rubs his chin. ‘Could you tell me why that might be, Mrs Harlow?’

‘No,’ I say, bewildered.

‘Have you seen anyone hanging around that phone box, perhaps?’

‘I can’t see it from here.’ That’s obvious. ‘You could try the people on the other side of the road, they’re slightly nearer.’

‘Right.’ He’s frowning slightly.

‘I might have a mobile number for them if you want, there’s an old neighbourhood list somewhere that we were given when we moved in—’ I start to get up.

‘No, no, don’t worry about that.’ But he’s not moving from the table. ‘You must’ve been under an enormous amount of strain since she ran away,’ he says carefully.

‘I’m fine.’ I’m not. But I can feel this going somewhere I don’t like.

He rubs the back of his head, a small gesture of discomfort. ‘I understand that there was an episode in your past. Mental health issues.’ I stare at him, my mouth a hard line. ‘An overdose. Benzodiazepines,’ he says it carefully, ‘and alcohol.’