Claudia Carroll - Me and You

Simon had to haul me back by the elbow at this point, and even had the manners to apologise to the young kid on my behalf, politely explaining that we’d both had a v. stressful day of it. At which point I went back to standing sulkily on the sidelines, arms folded, occasionally lobbing in, ‘But she never went to visit her foster mother on Christmas Day! And she stood me up on my birthday! So why aren’t you writing that down in your logbook, sonny? Unheard of for her!’

Totally wasting my breath. Child-copper told us that standard procedure is that a missing persons report can only be filed when someone’s been gone for a minimum of three days. I nearly had to be held back at that and had to resist the urge to holler, ‘So going AWOL over Christmas is no cause for immediate concern, then?’

Simon calmly pointed out that, as far as we know, the last person who actually saw Kitty was Joyce Byrne at Byrne & Sacetti, who said goodbye to her at about one in the morning on the twenty-fourth, just as she was finishing up her shift. About seventy hours ago, roughly. For God’s sake, we’re almost there, almost at magical three-day mark!

But the copper was v. insistent. If she still hasn’t surfaced by tomorrow, he told us, then we could come back and they’d take it from there. Around six in the evening is the best time, he added, as the sergeant would be back on duty then. Like we were making appointments at the hairdresser’s.

But then – And this is bit that almost made me gag – he v. coolly, almost dismissively, informed us that the vast majority of people who disappear for a while usually resurface again safe and well. Well over ninety per cent of them, in fact. Clearly it must be a well-known statistic they apparently teach you in your first year at Garda Training College, because he kept stressing it over and over again, like a broken record. Then told us to just go home and even managed to add insult to injury by calling after us, ‘And try not to worry.’

Had the strongest urge to smack him over the head with the butt end of my umbrella, but Simon clocked it in time and hauled me out of there, before I got the chance to inflict lasting damage.

11.10 p.m.

Front driveway of my parents’ house. Sleeting down v. heavily now, lashing. The two of us barely spoke the whole way here; too punch drunk by it all. Just as I’m about to clamber out of the car, Simon grabs my hand and pulls me back.

‘Thanks, Angie,’ is all he says sincerely, the green eyes focused right on me in that v. intense way he has. ‘You’re keeping me sane in all this. I just want you to know that.’

‘Ring me,’ I tell him, ‘anytime at all in the night if she turns up.’

‘You know I will.’

Am too exhausted to say what I really think.

But what happens if and when she doesn’t?

27 December, 8.20 a.m.

I’m in a deep, dead, exhausted sleep when I’m woken by the phone, beside me, ringing. And in a nanosecond, I go from early-morning grogginess to wide awake and on high alert.

Please be Simon with news … Please can the pathetic, frail little hope he was clinging to – that Kitty would just stroll through the front door during the wee small hours – have actually, miraculously come to pass …

It’s not Simon, but the next best thing! My buddy Jeff, ringing me back to say he got all my hysterical voice messages yesterday and of course now v. anxious to find out what in hell is going on with Kitty. What’s the story? Has she turned up? Quickly, I fill him in and bring him up to speed.

‘OK then,’ he says in his decisive, man-of-action way. ‘Just tell me how I can help and I’ll be there.’

Jeff’s amazing. Jeff’s a true pal. This is exactly what’s needed right now. Fresh blood. Reinforcements.

8.25 a.m.

Call Simon. The phone’s picked up after approximately half a ring, if even that.

‘Hello?’ he answers.

Shit. I just know by the overly hopeful note in his voice he was praying this might be Kitty. But Simon’s always the perfect gentleman and at least has the good grace not to sound a bit deflated, when it turns out it’s only me. My heart goes out to the guy. Am actually afraid at one point he sounds dangerously close to tears.

Please, for the love of God, don’t cry, I find myself silently praying. Don’t think I could handle it if I had to be strong one in all this, while Simon fell apart. Thank Christ he doesn’t, but the underlying tremble in his voice is nearly worse.

He says he and Kitty were meant to be leaving for their big skiing hollier in just under three hours’ time. His Xmas gift to her. He tells me that just a few short days ago, before the whole world somehow fell apart, he thought he’d be arm in arm with her right at this very moment, skipping through Duty Free with bottle of champagne tucked under his oxter and with nothing but a fab, romantic week in Austria arsing around the slopes to look forward to. Says never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d spend this morning ringing up a gangload of total strangers, in the slim hope someone, somewhere might have had even a fleeting conversation with her on that final shift and that maybe, maybe they might be able to shed a bit of light on this.

It’s a flair of mine to say the wrong thing at times like this, and true to form, Angie strikes again.

‘Simon … this is just a thought,’ I say tentatively, ‘but I don’t suppose there’s any point in turning up at the airport, just in case?’ Then in a classic Freudian slip, I manage to mumble out the single most annoying comment, the same one I was gritting my teeth down the phone over, every time I heard it yesterday.

‘I mean, you know what Kitty’s like,’ I blurt out, barely pausing to think. ‘So just say she did end up buried deep in some stranger’s house over Christmas, someone who we’ve not made contact with yet, then … well, maybe she’ll just turn up at Departures later on this morning, with a credit card in her back pocket and nothing else?’

I regret the words the very second they’re out of my mouth . Am a stupid, bloody, moronic, tactless idiot. I shouldn’t do this to the guy, when he’s going through so much! It’s downright cruel. False hope can be a v., v. dangerous thing.

Still, though. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be unprecedented carry-on for our Kitty. Can’t help thinking back to that one particular, now-famous occasion—

But Simon interrupts my train of thought, sighing exhaustedly.

‘You know, I’d sort of been hoping for that too,’ he says. ‘In fact, I was thinking almost exactly along the same lines as you. But at about four o’clock this morning, I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and started rummaging through her desk, in case there was some clue there as to what’s going on. An address of where she might be staying, a phone number, a name, maybe. Something we’ve overlooked that just might explain all this.’

‘And?’

‘Well, put it this way: she’s most definitely not going to casually turn up at the airport this morning and that’s for certain.’

‘You’re absolutely sure?’

Not meaning to contradict him so baldly, but she actually has done it before. With me, as it happened. Years ago. I thought she’d stood me up for a last-minute trip to London, and next thing she bounded into airport, no bags, no luggage, nothing, and full of the most outlandish story involving a hit-and-run driver, a sick cocker spaniel with a mashed front paw, a wailing child and a last-minute dash to the nearest vets. One of those completely mental, nutty excuses, so utterly off-the-wall that you just knew it could only be the truth. Vintage Kitty, in other words.