Lynda La Plante - Twisted

After a long lunch with Lyons Marcus had gone to meet his present girlfriend, Justine, a twenty-six-year-old, very glamorous and curvaceous blonde. She aspired to a modelling career but was working as a receptionist in a very fashionable hairdressing salon where she was also being trained by the salon’s top stylist. Justine had a list of client confirmations and cleaning up to do before she could leave with Marcus. He had been quite happy to sit in one of the comfortable chairs in the waiting area, leafing through the recent glossy magazines, with one sly eye on the other attractive stylists. They had left together just after five, and returned to her small rented flat in Pimlico. Justine shared the place with another girl who was a waitress at a restaurant, so as they arrived she was just leaving for work. They had a few glasses of wine, went to bed, had sex, and then showered together before leaving at around nine to have a curry in her local Indian restaurant. Justine was not too keen on going back to his place as she had an early start with a very important client, one they always opened specially for to give her streaks and a cut before anyone else was in the salon. Marcus dropped her off in a taxi in Pimlico and then it drove him to Mayfair. He had eaten quite a substantial lunch and then the curry, so it was no wonder he felt ill and went straight to bed.

He was still feeling hung over but not as bad as when he had first called Lena. He took a cold shower, and, intent on doing as she had asked, began to seriously try and recall who Amy might have gone to see. There had been no note or signs that she had been at the flat, but he had another look around before he went into her bedroom. It would be quite difficult for him to know if she had been there while he was not at home. Her room was, as always, a shambolic mess. Unlike his wife, he had no housekeeper or cleaner and attempted to manage the place himself. There was a small utility room with a washing machine and dryer, and what clothes he needed washing he chucked in there, but bed linen went to the laundry, along with all his good shirts and dry-cleaning. Amy often didn’t bother even straightening her bed, which irritated him, but he didn’t make a thing of it. All her clothes were left in untidy heaps, and books and DVDs were stacked beside the bed. Shoes and boots were piled outside the wardrobe, the doors of which were usually open, and on her dressing table was a jumble of makeup, perfumes, and magazines. Posters of her latest craze, the vampire movies, lined the walls, and she had a big thing for a new, very young group, and had forced him to watch them on TV. It was the floppy-haired lead singer who was the big attraction, and Justin Bieber had lost his place as her favourite.

He tried to recall his exact weekend activities. On the Saturday, as he had told Lena, he had been to a football match. It was a last-minute decision as he’d bought a single ticket from a guy in the pub who couldn’t go. He’d then gone out with friends for hamburgers, taken in a movie with Justine and stayed the night with her. He had told Lena he was at a male friend’s to avoid listening to her making cutting or flippant remarks. On the Sunday, he had nipped home to get changed, and then gone out with Justine and spent most of the day with her. He would have stayed overnight but, because of his meeting with Lena and the lawyers on the Monday, he had returned to get a good night’s sleep. At no time had Amy called, or left a message on his mobile, and he was a bit ashamed that he had not even attempted to contact her. Knowing she was spending the weekend with her friend, and would be returning to school on the Sunday evening, it had not occurred to him to double-check the arrangements. It was also obvious that Amy did not get along with Justine, not that he ever discussed it with his daughter. It was just a fact and one he refused to get into any kind of argument about as he felt it was none of her business. But when Amy came for her weekend he would not have Justine stay over. Whether or not Amy had mentioned Justine to Lena was yet another subject he had not discussed, and it was not as if Justine was the first woman he had been seeing – there had been quite a number of others over the past two years, but most of them never even got to meet his daughter.

Amy’s dressing table was heaped with cheap jewellery, perfumes and makeup, bottles of shampoos and conditioners, a matted hairbrush and comb. Marcus searched around, opening a couple of drawers, discovering creased underwear and old tights, vest tops and nightdresses. He then thumbed through all the latest magazines from the pile on top in case there was something between the pages, and tossed them aside to look under the bed, only to find old slippers and a few books covered with an accumulated level of dust. He couldn’t recall ever vacuuming beneath it and he doubted Amy bothered. The bedside table drawer was full of broken bits and pieces of necklaces and beads – no letters, no notebooks, or photo albums, nothing of any use. He next checked out the wardrobe, opening a suitcase, a couple of backpacks and a smaller vanity case. All were empty. Left plugged into a wall socket was her mobile charger, but no phone. Standing in the untidy room he could see nothing that gave any indication of where she might have gone, or who she might have been with.

He returned to the kitchen and brewed up a strong black coffee, sitting on a stool by the breakfast counter as he wondered if Lena had any news. He was about to call her when he glanced at the wall calendar pinned up beside a cork notice board. Amy had begun by circling the weekends she would be staying, but had not bothered for almost six months as she simply called him instead. The corkboard was full of receipts, dry-cleaning tickets, phone numbers for his gym and hairdresser, and invitations to dinners and cocktail parties. There was nothing connected to Amy, no old message left for him, but there was a picture cut out of a Sunday supplement of a King Charles Spaniel puppy. Amy had always wanted a dog, but it was just not possible.

Meanwhile, Lena was at Richmond Police Station, sitting in front of Detective Constable Barbara Burrows, a fresh-faced young woman with shoulder-length auburn hair. She worked on the Richmond Missing Persons Unit and was painstakingly and methodically writing down details for the ‘misper’ report. The slow procedure was beginning to frustrate Lena and she felt that someone of a higher rank should be talking to her. By now she was very concerned, and to be asked so many questions and forced to repeat herself over and over again about her marriage and separation was irritating. DC Burrows was taking care to cover every angle, as she needed to have a very detailed report to put on the Met’s missing persons database and also the National Missing Persons computer. Burrows explained to Lena there were three risk categories for missing persons – high, medium and low. Due to Amy’s age, and the circumstances, it was possible she had run away and would probably be treated as a medium risk; however, enquiries and searches to try and locate her would still be carefully orchestrated. She told Lena her unit detective inspector was due in shortly and would be checking the report and classifying Amy’s risk category. Lena had become very impatient when asked about boyfriends; to her knowledge Amy did not have any, nor had she ever mentioned she was seeing someone. Burrows had asked about whether or not her father would know, and Lena had replied rather sharply that he did not, and she had asked him to stay home and call the local hospitals.

‘And he’s doing that now, is he?’

‘Yes – do you want me to call him?’

‘I think so, as hopefully he may have already talked to your daughter.’

Lena took out her mobile, to find a message that as from a short while ago Marcus had no further news about Amy’s whereabouts. Now she was growing increasingly anxious watching Burrows making copious notes but not appearing to show any cause for alarm, and it was starting to make her lose her temper.