Anna could see that Sally was distraught and still believed that one day her daughter would be back. ‘Thank you very much, a coffee would be lovely.’
Anna smiled at Sally sympathetically, knowing with reasonable certainty that Mandy would never again return to the house.
Mandy’s room was large and decorated with colour co-ordinated pinks. Anna smiled as she recalled her own room when she was a little girl, a princess’s abode and the castle where she was safe and could be whoever she wanted to be. The bed had a soft pink quilt and pillowcases; the curtains were white with little pink rosebuds that matched the wallpaper. A silver-framed photograph of Mandy in her choir robes was on the bedside table. Anna recognized it as the same picture in the case file. She opened the white wooden wardrobe and saw stacked in one corner a pile of unopened presents, some covered in ‘Sweet Sixteen’ gift wrap, reminding her that Mandy disappeared a few days before her sixteenth birthday.
Anna sat on the small white stool in front of the pink, Cinderella-style dressing table on which were stacked about twenty birthday cards. She noticed that the envelopes were sealed but each one was the same pink colour. She thought this unusual and knew that it should be standard procedure for an investigating officer to check who sent every card and see if there were any from someone unknown to the parents. She wondered if this had been the case and Sally Anderson had then resealed all the cards.
In the dressing-table drawer, Anna found a small 2011 diary, which she opened and turned to the 21 May, to find that it had CHOIR PRACTICE 3 P.M. written in it, but recalled the case file said that there was no prearranged choir practice on that day. Anna was surprised the original investigation had missed the significance of this entry. There was the possibility they thought it was an error by Mandy but she wondered why Mandy would write something in her diary that was not true – was choir practice an entry to cover a secret meeting? Anna also considered it could have been cancelled or simply Mandy making a mistake. She flicked through page after page, wondering if any of the other choir practice entries might be false and if the church would still have a record of the practice times so she could compare them against the diary.
Anna went downstairs and joined Sally in the living room. She had made a pot of fresh ground coffee and laid out some cupcakes.
‘The birthday cards and presents, I noticed, are still all sealed and wrapped,’ Anna remarked. ‘Did the investigating officers look through them?’
‘Yes, they were all from friends and relatives. I resealed them all and rewrapped the presents,’ Sally said with a sad look.
‘Do you mind if I take the cards and Mandy’s diary with me?’
‘No, not at all. Is there something in the diary – a clue maybe?’
‘I don’t know yet, I need to look at it in more detail,’ Anna told her.
Sally began talking about Mandy’s prowess on the piano and had just moved on to her singing in the choir when Peter Anderson arrived home. He was smartly dressed in a blue shirt and pleated trousers but looked aged beyond his years, no doubt from the stress caused by the disappearance of his daughter. Peter sat next to his wife on the sofa.
‘From the moment we reported our daughter missing, we assisted the local Sheriff’s Office in every way we could,’ he explained. ‘We were initially treated with sympathy and respect. After four weeks with no sightings or clues as to Mandy’s whereabouts the Sheriff asked for the assistance of the FBI. Overnight, things changed dramatically, all because of the opinion and recommendations of one of their behavioural profilers.’
Anna could sense the increasing anger in Mr Anderson’s voice as he went on to explain that the profiler had said that Mandy was either abducted off the street or more likely had returned home, where something untoward had happened to her. Anna, realizing he didn’t know the name of the profiler, nodded and let him continue.
‘The sole basis for this was that statistically parents or other family members of the victim’s commit the largest percentage of child homicides,’ he said, pursing his lips. ‘The FBI came to OUR HOUSE, ripped it apart and desecrated OUR DAUGHTER’S bedroom, searching for supposed clues that I was her killer. I was arrested and questioned for two days.’
‘We felt so low,’ Sally added, and started to cry.
‘Don Blane stood by us all the way. He protested my innocence in church and told the congregation the vicious hate campaign against us had to stop. I can honestly say if it wasn’t for him, Sally and I would have moved away ages ago.’
Blane’s personal involvement was way beyond what Anna had imagined and she felt humbled that he had asked her to look at the case.
‘Will you find Mandy?’ Sally asked.
It was a familiar question for Anna in missing persons cases, but still one she dreaded and always found difficult to answer.
‘I wish I could say, yes, Sally, but I can’t. I can promise you that during my time at Quantico I will work with Don and do everything in my power to find out what happened to her,’ Anna said quietly and sincerely. Before leaving, she asked Sally who she thought were Mandy’s closest friends. The woman told her that Julie Collins was her best friend and lived at 58 Lincoln Avenue, the same street as the church.
Walking slowly along the pavement, taking in the peaceful sunny surroundings, Anna couldn’t get over how pleasant the area was. Nice homes, children in the street riding bikes and playing on front lawns. Anna thought about Mandy’s room and what it had revealed about her. Nothing suggested she was in any way promiscuous – if anything the decorations were childish for a girl who was nearly sixteen. Everything about her was angelic, apart from the blip when she discovered she was adopted, but that did not seem to have been a lasting problem after Don became involved.
Ahead of her was a distinctive building with a large sign saying ST COLUMBA’S CATHOLIC CHURCH. It was different from what Anna was expecting – brick built and very modern, no steeple or cross but a large glass entrance in the shape of the cross. It had a stark look to it and stood on a large plot of land alongside the priest’s house and a separate community hall, with woodland at the rear. Anna could hear the sound of a piano playing ‘Rock of Ages’ coming from the hall next door, so thought it might be the resident priest.
As she walked over to the door the music stopped and on entering she saw a raised stage at the far end with a grand piano on it.
‘Hello, Father, are you there?’
A tall freckle-faced young man with ice-blue eyes, pale skin and red hair that was gelled and sticking up came out of the backstage darkness. He looked to be around eighteen and was about six feet tall.
‘I heard the piano and thought it was the priest playing,’ Anna said.
‘That was me; did you like it?’ he asked brusquely, and sat back down on the piano stool.
‘Yes, it was very accomplished indeed. Is the priest about?’ Anna asked as she stepped up onto the stage.
‘No, Father O’Reilly’s out on parishioner visits. I’m keeping an eye on things till he’s back. I’m Jack Brennan. You’re not from round here, are you?’
Anna couldn’t help but notice that Jack spoke in a machine-gun staccato manner and showed little facial expression, though he seemed very pleasant. His surname sounded familiar but she wasn’t sure if she had seen it in the case file.
‘I’m Anna Travis and I come from England.’ She smiled.
‘England, wow, I’ve always wanted to go there. I’d like to see the Tower of London and go to the Royal Opera House. Have you been to them?’ he asked, suddenly full of enthusiasm. His eyes lit up when Anna said she had.
‘Do you know when Father O’Reilly will be back?’ she asked.
‘Before five, ’cause he has a vigil mass then. Have you seen Manchester United play soccer?’ he said, the tone of his voice again changing when he asked about something he was interested in.