‘This business about telling people they have to wait twenty-four hours is rubbish. The police are able to use their discretion and any police officer knows that the first twenty-four hours are crucial. He did come back the next day and was told they would investigate it further.’
‘And then what happened? Did they do any follow up?’
Sugar doesn’t answer, instead he points to the file. ‘Read the next one.’
Amina.
My heart plummets with sickening dismay. She’s only fifteen years old.
‘A child. And it says that she had learning difficulties.’
My mind recreates Amina’s photo. The open smile. No wonder Hope and Sheryl have their arms protectively around her in the photo. Her grandmother, who she lived with, reported her missing. I stiffen with such righteous anger when I read the only two words written in the investigation section:
‘Street savvy.’
I voice my outrage. ‘How the hell can they have called a fifteen-year-old girl “street savvy”？ On top of that she was vulnerable.’
His features contort with the ugly knowledge of the type of world we live in. ‘But it’s worse than that. Because they decided this child was streetwise that’s what they used to stop any further investigation.’ His voice drips with scorn. ‘They decided that she’d be OK because she knew the streets, which her grandmother said she didn’t. Let’s not worry that she’s a kid. She’ll come home eventually when she’s finished doing her street ting. That’s what my colleagues told her grandmother. The woman who loved Amina most in the world never saw her again.’
Sugar points to the top of the file. ‘They couldn’t even spell her name correctly.’
Amina is spelt ‘Ahmeena’ and Musa, ‘Moosa’。
There’s a handwritten note to interview the manager of the Suzi Lake Centre. I check the back of the form; there’s nothing to show this proposed interview ever took place.
Hope.
It’s a single sheet, double-sided. It records her name, her mother’s name, Dorothy Scott, and a single damning word, runaway.
I’m having difficulty taking this all in. Call me naive but I assumed that the police took the disappearance of individuals seriously, regardless of colour. Especially that of a child.
‘Where’s the police missing report for Ronnie?’ I ask.
‘There isn’t one,’ Sugar replies curtly. ‘Ronnie had a messed-up background and at one stage she had a social worker. The police probably called the social worker and got the usual lowdown. Troubled. Disruptive. Broken background. So, when she went missing, why spend time and resources looking for someone like that.’
‘So, this was a conspiracy?’
Sugar looks like he wants to whack some sense into me. ‘Conspiracy? Don’t you get what I’m saying? They didn’t care. This is how it is. This is the norm in the case of missing black women.’
I recall the sections of The Walsh Briefing which made no sense.
‘It’s clear that CENSORED have gone for a cup of tea and a sandwich. CENSORED is only interested in the new Lotto results and faces that fit.’
Insert: ‘It’s clear that the police have gone for a cup of tea and a sandwich. The media is only interested in new Lotto results and faces that fit.’
Patrick Walsh isn’t so nutty after all. And Ronnie told me all about black women’s faces not being deemed ‘fit’ for TV. This terrible sorrow twists inside me.
‘But you were one of them.’ I heave all my emotional turmoil at Sugar. ‘Why didn’t you do anything? Make sure each disappearance was investigated properly?’
Sugar remains calm. ‘No one in my team was interested in the disappearance of black women and a teenage girl.’ The strength of the memory he’s about to confide to me makes the veins in his throat rise and throb. ‘Black women vanishing were seen as runaways, members of gangs, prostitutes who got what was coming to them. Their families were considered dysfunctional. And let’s not forget, they’re all streetwise.’
Breathing harshly, he tells me, ‘My superior told me that their disappearances were closed cases. But I wouldn’t stop. I kept digging and digging. I visited the Suzi Lake Centre a number of times. My boss went bonkers when he found out what I was doing. He said if I carried on he’d throw the book at me.’ He holds his head high. ‘You asked me why I resigned from the police force. I decided to hand in my warrant card, and I walked.’