‘If I had proof, you’d have no choice but to investigate?’ that’s what Sugar told Commander John Dixon.
Driven by desperation I try a different tack. ‘Ronnie, I’ve tried everything. Looking in the media, online, I can’t find out anything about four black women going missing in 1994. Women going missing is usually a big deal in the media—’
‘Only for certain women who go missing,’ Ronnie viciously cuts in, face sparking with life. ‘If Amina, Sheryl and Hope had been blond, blue-eyed, white and from a so-called respectable family they would have made the six o’clock news. Their parents would have been given a primetime spot on the telly appealing for information about their daughters’ disappearance. Their girls’ photos would have been plastered from here to kingdom come.’
Her fist screws even tighter in on itself. ‘All the media is interested in is a face that looks good for the camera. A face that can drive up the ratings of their show or rack up more sales of newspapers. And you know, no black woman or girl is ever going to pass the “she’s so photogenic” test in their eyes.’ She sneers. ‘In their books black women are never going to be pretty. Never going to be angelic-looking for their audience or their readers. That’s why you won’t find any mention of Hope, Amina and Sheryl in the media back then. And from what I see now concerning missing black women and girls not much has changed.’
I slump in my chair knocked back by her passionate insistence. I mean, really knocked back. Is she right, though? My brain recaptures the considerable news coverage about Poppy Munro’s disappearance in that same year. The bright, beautiful photo of her as a bridesmaid with her shining blond hair and glowing blue eyes. Bright and beautiful. Are those even the right words to be thinking of about a woman that’s vanished? But she is certainly blond and blue-eyed and from a middle-class family. And it’s the same photo of her that’s used all of the time. The angel in a bridesmaid dress. It’s never one of her looking like a hip 1990s young woman.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Ronnie resumes fiercely, ‘I don’t begrudge Poppy’s family taking every opportunity they get to keep her name alive, her story alive. I would do the same in their position. But during all that time have you ever seen such widespread coverage for a missing black woman? A missing black girl?’
I think hard. And hard. Ronnie’s right. I’ve never seen a missing appeal for a black woman on national TV or in the papers. Nor the sight of grieving black parents at a press conference.
Ronnie says with some pride, ‘Lately people aren’t taking that rubbish no more; they’re becoming their own broadcasters on social media. Bypassing that old-style media to get the word out about missing women.’ Her voice becomes bleak. ‘In 1994 there was no social media.’
All this time I’ve been trying to devise clever explanations for why their stories weren’t picked up by news agencies, broadcasters. As if they were abducted by a master criminal who was so clever he left no trace behind. But the truth is sickening and the worst explanation in the world; the media just didn’t care. Something deep inside me rips open.
Something hot touches my hand. It’s the tips of Ronnie’s fingers providing silent comfort. Slowly I look at her, anguished and wanting to crawl into a ball and cry.
‘Is that what you do with your hair when you’re stressed or freaked out?’
My other hand has twisted straight strands into curls. Always straight, never curly. Startled by her perception I tuck my hand in my lap where she can’t see it. Ruthlessly, I pitch this aching emotion on to the pile of pain I’ve carried with me since a child. And this time it’s not just because no one cares about Little Eva, it’s that they didn’t give two damns about Hope, Amina and Sheryl as well. Or Ronnie. I choke up and hurt thinking what happened to her when she was young. Brutalised at home and, although she won’t admit it, danger finding her in another place she should have felt safe, the Suzi Lake Centre. Ronnie bears it well, using her toughness and sheer will to shield herself in the cloak of a survivor. And she is a survivor, no doubt about that. But underneath all of that, I see it. The wreckage of what happened to her is still corroding her life.
‘Is that why you carry the knife,’ I ask, ‘to protect yourself from being abused again? Abducted again? What does this have to do with Pretty Lanes?’
‘I can’t tell you more because I won’t betray Mister Sugar,’ is the emphatic answer I get.