Helen Callaghan - Dear Amy

I blinked. Had they? ‘I spoke to a man, an academic, who took them away to be analysed…’

‘Yes, Dr Forrester, we know,’ he said, and smiled, a brisk professional expression, designed solely to reassure the fretful. ‘We don’t want to alarm you, but this is now quite a serious matter. We know there’s a limit to how much you can help us and that you’ve already spoken to our colleagues at the station a couple of times now, but we just need to get a statement from you about these letters.’

The woman nodded, watching me, ‘And there are things we’d like you to do if you receive any more of them.’

‘What? Oh, yes, of course, whatever you need. What do you want to know?’

The man, the detective inspector, did the talking, asking me once again to tell the story of how I’d received the letters, what my job at the paper was, who I had spoken to about them, whether I had any idea where they had come from or why they were addressed to me. As he’d predicted, it was all material I’d covered before, but I didn’t have the same undivided attention focused on me then as I seemed to merit now. The man’s pen scratched quickly over the pad, while both of them kept nodding encouragement at me.

‘So,’ I said, once they seemed to finally be satisfied. ‘I suppose the letters must have turned out to be real?’

They exchanged swift looks. ‘I’m afraid I really can’t tell you anything about that, Mrs Lewis,’ he said.

‘Are they going to reopen the cold case on Bethan Avery?’

‘I’m sorry…’ he said. ‘I just can’t…’ He paused, as though reconsidering. ‘The investigation you’re referring to was never closed, because of the serious nature of the crime.’

I frowned. ‘But if Bethan Avery is alive, how is it…’

‘But Peggy Avery isn’t,’ interjected the woman gently. ‘And we suspect this crime might be linked to others.’

The man nodded, as though in agreement.

Of course. Of course. There were other girls.

Possibly even Katie Browne. Katie who had been missing for nearly five weeks now.

‘Mrs Lewis, are you all right? You look a little pale,’ asked the man. ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’

The woman was peering at me with concern, as though I might faint.

‘Me? No, no, I’m fine. I’m just – I’m just a little shocked at how everything has accelerated.’ I was shaking, I realized. ‘So what do I do if I receive any more of them?’

The man put his pen back in his jacket, secreted the notebook into his coat. ‘If you get another letter like this, we’d like you to let us know and we’ll come down to get it. Even if you’re not sure, but think it might be from the same person, still tell us. We’d rather a wasted trip than see evidence be impaired. If you see one in your post, try not to touch it, and just let us know.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’

Wendy will be beside herself with all of this drama, I thought. I’ll never live it down.

‘Thanks for your time,’ he said, rising.

‘Enjoy your dinner,’ added the woman with a quick grin. ‘God, the smell alone is making me starving.’

I closed the door after them and returned to the kitchen.

I considered switching the heat back on under the pan for a long minute, the knife clutched in my hand once more.

Instead, I picked up the phone.

‘Hello,’ I said.

‘Hullo, Margot,’ Martin Forrester sounded a little breathless, as though he’d just come in. ‘I was about to call you.’

‘The police were here.’

‘Were they now? Who came?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember their names, I was stunned that they showed up at all. I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Well, this is a bit of an emergency,’ said Forrester. He sounded brusque, distracted, as though he were talking to me but paying attention to something else. ‘Are you free this weekend?’

I blinked. For a ridiculous moment I thought he was trying to proposition me. I pulled up one of the pine chairs and lowered myself into it.

‘What?’

‘Listen to this, it’s what Mo Khan sent back: “It is my opinion that Bethan Avery’s journals and the letters submitted to me by Margot Lewis were written by one and the same person.”’

‘One and the same? Are you sure? There’s no mistake?’

‘Oh, there might be a mistake… at the end of the day it’s just his opinion. None of this stuff is cut and dried. But it’s an opinion that carries more weight than mine does.’

‘Jesus,’ I said. I was lighter than air. ‘Where are we going?’

‘If you can get away there’s a DS who worked on the Avery case when it happened. He lives in London. He was running the review of the cold case.’

‘The what?’

‘The cold case – well, not so cold any more – I told you this. He can tell you about the other girls. He might be able to offer us some help in tracking down our mystery correspondent.’

At these words a cold thrill shot through me, numbing my hand as it curled loosely around the telephone receiver.

‘Can you make it this weekend?’ he repeated.

‘I… I don’t know. I think so. I’m involved in rehearsals for a school play but I’m pretty sure I can wrangle something.’ I trapped the phone under my chin. ‘Listen. I’m thinking of putting an appeal to whoever is writing the letters in the Examiner tomorrow.’

‘An appeal? What sort of an appeal?’ he asked sharply. I could almost see his dark brows drawing together.

‘Nothing very exciting. Just a line inviting Bethan to get in touch.’

‘A line?’ he asked. ‘Just that?’

‘Yeah, along the bottom of the column. In caps, usually. I do it when I think someone is in danger – the last time, someone wrote to me in the midst of planning their suicide and we got him to speak to the Samaritans. Runaways get in touch sometimes, wanting to pass on messages to their family…’ I tailed off, uneasy with this line of questioning. ‘When we can’t contact someone directly we use it. We never get specific about their issues, though, to preserve their confidentiality. Nine times out of ten, the reaction of the people around them to their problem is ten times more worrying to them than the problem itself.’

‘You couldn’t make this appeal bigger?’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, puzzled. ‘Bigger how?’

‘I… look, I think this is a great idea, but I need to check in with a few people. Let me call you back.’

‘OK, take care.’

‘I will. You too.’

He hung up.

The next day at school, when I came out into the corridor, buried beneath a massive stack of grammar textbooks I was trying to hold steady with my chin, someone was waiting for me.

Sorcha Malone was standing in the corridor, her freckled face pale and her wiry red hair twisted up untidily at the back. Her nails were in her mouth, her white teeth worrying at their tips. Nail polish is forbidden at St Hilda’s but the girls get around this by having meticulously buffed and shaped nails.

If Sorcha was chewing hers there must have been a serious problem.

She straightened up quickly when she saw me and dropped her hand, as though she’d read my thoughts.

‘Sorcha – what can I do for you?’ I peered at her around my bulky burden.

She darted a quick glance at me, before turning her face to the floor. ‘Can I talk to you, Miss?’

‘Yeah, sure, of course.’ I had a sinking feeling. This must be about her own role in the debacle with Amber and her Facebook meltdown. To be truthful, I had been expecting Sorcha to turn up at some point. ‘Let’s go to my office. Take some of these.’

I handed her half of my enormous pile of books, in case any of her friends, or others, should see her. This way she would appear to have been drafted in to help me, rather than seeking my advice. She received them gratefully. Appearances are of vital importance when you’re that age – my personal conviction is that this is something we are all supposed to grow out of, and yet so few of us do.