The Disappeared

There were uncanny similarities between the two young women: like Sarah Levin before her, Anna Rose had had an Asian boyfriend, she too was very beautiful. But there were also significant differences. From what Jenny had learned of her, Anna Rose was a markedly different personality from her mentor. She was feisty and intelligent, but naive and unformed, still in search of herself. Her adoptive parents had been surprised at her gaining a place on the graduate scheme at Maybury, as if they had never conceived of her as a professional woman, as if there had to be a catch. Jenny pictured the Crosbys' faces when she'd first seen them in the morgue: their aura of dread tempered with resignation. Alive or dead, Anna Rose had already seemed lost to them.

And then it came to her. A single face among the many who had been to view the Jane Doe that day. The man was tall, lean, in his fifties, with a tanned, weathered face. She'd noticed his accent: transatlantic. He said he was a businessman whose missing stepdaughter had been travelling in Europe, last seen in Bristol. He'd not flinched as he'd stepped up to the open drawer and looked down on the dead face. She had been intrigued. A mischievous voice in her own head had said, 'He's used to death.'

Jenny flicked on the overhead light and reached for her phone and the tatty address book, spilling frayed pages, in which she had written the Crosbys' home number. She dialled it; there was no reply. She flicked forwards, dropping valuable fragments of paper into the footwell, and found Mike Stevens's number squeezed into a corner of a cardboard divider. After several rings an answer machine activated. She started to leave a message.

'Hello. Mrs Cooper?' his voice cut in abruptly. He sounded agitated.

'Yes. Don't worry, it's not bad news.'

'Right—'

'I was just calling to ask you something. It may sound irrelevant and it most probably is, but do you know if Anna Rose had anything to do with an American, an older man, in his fifties?'

He fell silent.

'Mr Stevens?'

'Do you know who this man is?'

'No ... do you?'

She heard him breathing, fast and shallow.

'Where are you calling from?'

Mike Stevens lived in a former labourer's cottage at the end of a low, stone-built terrace on the outskirts of Stroud, a gentrified south Gloucestershire market town of the sort with health-food and bespoke kitchen stores. He answered the door on the security chain, getting a clear look at Jenny's face before he would let her in. Immediately she'd crossed the threshold he double-locked it behind them.

'Are you all right?' Jenny said.

He gave a non-committal shrug and motioned her inside.

The front door opened straight onto a snug sitting room furnished with an elderly suite and tasteless patterned carpet.

'I rent the place,' he said by way of apology.

He was wearing the suit trousers and shirt he would have worn to work. Although the house was cold, beads of sweat glinted on his forehead. Jenny kept her coat on and took a seat on the sofa.

Mike sat in a hard-backed chair opposite her, his face tense and drawn. 'What can I do for you?' he said.

Jenny said, 'When you came to the mortuary ten days ago with the Crosbys, there was a man, tall, suit and tie. He was American — '

Mike closed his eyes briefly, then blinked. 'Jesus . . .' It came out in a whisper.

'What?'

He looked at her with wide, frightened eyes.

'What is it, Mike?' Jenny said insistently. 'It's important. It could be connected with an inquest I'm conducting.'

'What inquest? Who died?'

'Two Asian boys disappeared. It was eight years ago. They were both first-year students at Bristol. One of them was studying physics.'

She waited while he sat looking straight through her for a moment, processing this information. Eventually he said, 'Someone came here last night . . . I've spent all day trying to work out where I'd seen him before.'

'The American?'

He nodded and held his head in his hands, fighting off tears.

'What is it, Mike?'

'I woke up in the night... I was woken . . . with a knee in my chest and a gun at my head.'

It was Jenny's turn to fall silent.

'This man ... he had an American accent. He said, "Tell me where the fuck she is or you end up in a casket." I said I didn't know . . . He punched me hard, here.' He tugged open his shirt and revealed a violent black bruise that spread across the entire upper portion of his ribs. 'I couldn't breathe. I thought he was going to kill me.'

Jenny thanked God for her pills. A fierce heat broke out across her chest and neck, but she could still think and reason.

'What did he do then?'

'You don't want to know.'

'Tell me. Please.'

He looked away and focused on a spot on the ceiling, gathering strength. 'He held my nose . . . and he urinated in my mouth, until I choked.' His eyes were suddenly shot through with red veins. 'Then he left.'

'Did he say anything more?'

Mike shook his head.

'Have you told anyone?'

'I was going to call the police tonight but I didn't want to use the phone ... I was trying to figure it out . . . Who the hell is he?'

'I don't know. Let's talk about Anna Rose for a minute. Do you have any idea where she is?'

'No.'

'How was she behaving before she went?'

'She seemed fine, just her usual self ... a little quiet, maybe.'

'Since when?'

'About a month ago, I suppose.'

'What about this Asian guy her parents saw her with last autumn? Salim someone.'

'He was just a college friend. A post-grad of some sort.'

'You know him?'

'I've asked around.'

'Spoken to him?'

'Left a few messages on his mobile.'

'Do you know where he lives?'

'I tried calling the university. They won't give out personal information.'

'I'll talk to them.' Jenny made a note to call. 'You know I spoke to you before about whether she could have got hold of radioactive material.'

'Yes. What was that about?'

'Long story, but traces of caesium 137 turned up in an apartment in Bristol.' She gave a brief account of Mrs Jamal's struggle to achieve an inquest, and her sudden and violent death. 'It looks like the caesium could have been brought in on someone who was contaminated.'

'Anna Rose spent her entire time in an office. She wouldn't have clearance to go anywhere near anything hazardous.'

'Are you sure?'

'Completely. It's out of the question.'

'You sound angry. Why does that question make you angry?'

'I don't know . . .'

'Yes you do.'

He looked down at the ugly patterned carpet. 'It's not possible, there's so much security . . . But she was so . . .' He trailed off, unwilling to complete the thought.

'So what?'

'So . . . innocent, I suppose. And every man in the place fancied her. You couldn't not.'

'Are you saying she played up to it?'

'Occasionally.'

Jenny's mind raced ahead, putting together what he couldn't bring himself to say. 'You're frightened she could have been talked into something, used by someone?'

He shrugged. 'Of course, I've thought about it - I haven't thought about much else.'

'Any theories?'

'I've been hoping she'd call. She said she loved me, I believed her.'

'Do you think she's alive?'

It took him a moment. He said, 'She's been picking up messages, or at least her phone has ... I'd have told the police only I wanted to speak to her first.'