I’m less hopeful now. ‘What cover-up?’
‘Any cover-up you like. Everything was being covered up and everyone was covering it up. Everyone from local councillors to the royal family. Then there was the media, MI5 and 6, the FBI, the KGB, the IMF and, of course, Mrs Devi, manager of the library and historical collection. I was in on it as well. Utter crank,’ she ends with complete contempt.
A smug smile suddenly transforms her expression to one of deep satisfaction. ‘He was obviously beginning to rub the right people up the wrong way. A significant number of lawyers threatened legal action on behalf of their clients and closed him down.’
I was hoping that the headlines I’d seen in The Walsh Briefing meant the author was on the eccentric side but that’s starting to look like wishful thinking.
‘Do you know where I could find Mr Walsh?’
Mrs Devi pulls her chin in. ‘No idea. I haven’t heard of him in years.’ She scoffs, ‘I’d start with prisons and lunatic asylums if I were you.’
Mumbling under her breath about ‘that nutcase’， Mrs Devi escorts me to the reference room.
I start with the photograph of Hope, Amina, Veronica and Sheryl. If there’s going to be any information about their disappearance it will be in the local archives. I don’t know how long I search but I come up with nothing, just the same as last night on the internet. I’m annoyed with myself. How can four women disappear from the face of the earth and I can’t find out a damned thing about them? The problem must be my detective skills, I decide. Basically, I’m a bit rubbish at this.
I see Mrs Devi making her way over to me, so I ask her, ‘Why can’t I find any information about these women? Am I doing something wrong?’
She raises her eyebrows once more when she notes that the women’s photos are in the despised Walsh Briefing. I’m grateful that she doesn’t allow it to stop her taking a closer look.
Quietly she remarks, ‘They are beautiful, aren’t they? Stunners. Who are they?’
The muscles in my tummy tighten. ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’ I swing round in my chair, to meet her eyes. ‘They went missing in 1994. Well, that’s what I think. Did you ever hear about four black women going missing that year?’
Mrs Devi’s face creases with thought. ‘No. I would’ve remembered if there was an investigation of that sort. That was the same year that Poppy Munro vanished.’ She fretfully clucks her tongue. ‘That was a bad business. Her poor parents.’
I couldn’t agree more. But what about the families of Hope, Amina, Sheryl and Veronica? Their stories should have been all over the TV, news and radio waves too.
Mrs Devi sits next to me. ‘I’ll never forget the day we read that book, My Mummy Is a Sunflower.’ I smile. I don’t remember because I read so many terrific books with this woman. She made learning to read such a pleasure. ‘And you pointed your little finger at the mother in the story and said, “I want one of those too.” Do you think one of the women you showed me is your birth mother? You were born in 1994.’
I struggle to breathe, taken by surprise by her perceptive questions. But then that’s why I’ve come here; Mrs Devi is the keeper of the community’s history and memories. I don’t know how she manages to store all that information in her head, including recalling the year I was born.
‘I’m not sure who these women are,’ I answer slowly. ‘What I do know is that we’re somehow connected. And part of that connection is The Walsh Briefing.’
‘You’re in luck.’ She drops two other editions beside my keyboard. ‘Walsh used to leave copies of his nasty newsletter hidden in books and magazines. These two I put in a cardboard box and told him to come and get them or it’s in the rubbish they go. Of course, he was a no-show. After that I used to destroy them on sight, but I must have forgotten these.’ She stands. ‘Scan anything you want.’
Quickly I thumb through the newsletters. Mrs Devi is right. It seems everyone is covering up everything.
Aliens left their calling card when they built the local shopping mall.
Source at No. 10 confirms: if the public learns about this, there’ll be rioting on the streets.
The local businessman, the politician and the prostitute with the snakeskin whip.
Nonsense, nonsense and more nonsense. I feel like screaming! My head is throbbing.
Only on the last page of the second edition do I find what I’m looking for. There’s the photo of the women but this time there’s another photo next to it. It’s a blurry shot of a huge, detached house. Something about the street it’s on looks like London. If that’s the case, it’s the type of house that will cost gazillions if sold today. But it’s not a residential house because there’s a sign outside it. It’s the name of an organisation. The Suzi Lake Centre. This must be somehow connected to the women.