The council is recording you from your outdoor bin.
Why Sugar would have this rubbish in his forbidden room I can’t fathom. Then I turn to the back page and everything slows down. On the page is a photo of the women, the same one that’s on Sugar’s whiteboard. And it’s the same women who are marked out, this time more sinisterly; there’s a red line across each’s throat like the slash of a knife. My body freezes up.
And their names are there too, but this time there are also their surnames.
Hope Scott
Amina Musa
Sheryl Wilson
Veronica Stuart
A big red question mark is the headline. What does it mean? Is the question mark shorthand for ‘Are they missing’？ Or is it something else?
I turn to the front of the newsletter, praying there’s a date. There it is! October 1994. The same year I was born.
I whisper, ‘Hope. Amina. Sheryl. Veronica. Is one of you my mother?’
The awareness of time slips away when I open my laptop and dive online trying to find out information about the women. The disappearance of four women must have garnered some press attention. I start with the newspapers, broadsheets first and then tabloids.
Keyword search: missing women 1994 UK.
Poppy Munro. That’s the name that pops up time and time again. There’s loads of coverage about her, so many headlines.
Beauty That Never Came Home
New Tip In Student’s Disappearance
Police Divers Search River
The hell that her devastated parents must have gone through and still go through. One photo in particular of Poppy is used time and again. It’s Poppy in a light-purple bridesmaid’s dress at her older brother’s wedding. She’s blond and blue-eyed, radiantly smiling into the camera. Every part of her glows. It’s a photo that captures the attention. What a waste of a life. Her parents never gave up; they even set up a foundation in her name, to keep her story alive.
I find zero media coverage for Hope, Amina, Sheryl or Veronica. I try different searches, factoring in that the internet was very new back then so there probably won’t be heaps to read about them. Still nothing. If I can find such blanket coverage of Poppy Munro’s disappearance, why isn’t there anything about my women? I’m perplexed. It doesn’t make sense. I check again and again, using different search terms, diving headlong into the internet wormhole. Tiredness stretches the skin around my eyes so tight I can barely see.
Dejection pushes me away from my laptop. I wince with pain; my spine feels like it’s about to cleave into two and I remember it was only a few hours ago that I was attacked by an intruder. I can’t grasp why I can’t find anything about the women. The media are always red hot on reporting crime, and with four women going missing I’d expect the newspapers, the radio and local news at least to leap on the opportunity.
What about the police? Of course. They would’ve held press conferences. I hunch over again, ignoring the pain, and disappear once more into the online world. I search and search and search. Still nothing, but now I’m tired and decide to switch off. I will have to continue tomorrow using another clue. The Walsh Briefing.
Closing my laptop my eye catches its digi clock in the corner. 1:33 a.m. No way! I haven’t been searching that long. Have I? I told Joe I’d only be thirty minutes. Upstairs, exhausted, I pull off my clothes and slip into bed beside my husband. A single question weaves into my subconscious as I fall asleep. Why can’t I find any information about the women’s disappearance?
CHAPTER 15
No Name
My heart’s breaking into a million and one pieces. She’s nowhere. NOWHERE. That’s why I’ve got on my fedora with the widest brim that hides my face from people so they can’t see my tears. The tears haven’t stopped flowing since three Sundays now. The plan was that she was meant to come round to mine so I could style up her hair into two big chunky cornrows. That hairstyle makes her look da bomb! After that we were going to do a spot of chillaxin’ with some tunes before hitting the road.
’Cept she never turned up. I couldn’t go round to hers for reasons that are strictly between me and her, you get me? So, one week turns into another and another and I can’t find her. I’ve searched high ’n’ low; she isn’t anywhere to be found. I can barely keep my mind on my studies because I know some kinda badness has happened to her.
So, I go to Suzi, and thinking I’m alone my eyes filled with tears again, while I’m at the desk doing my thing. I can’t afford to mess up here because it gives me the few extra shillings in my pocket to help out at university. I’ve kept this place all hush-hush from Mummy; she wouldn’t want me to be doing this. She wants to give me some of her hard-earned money, but I’m not taking it. No. Way. The little bit she’s put aside is for herself, you get me? So when she gets on in years she can treat herself. Anyway, I can look out for myself.