Danny had spent most of the evening with Shelly’s brothers, visiting her friends. None had seen or heard from her for a couple of days at least. Now they were trying the last one that he knew of for the second time, hoping that she was now at home.
Gary leaned on the doorbell, still unconvinced that Danny knew nothing about why his sister was missing. He glared at him. 'She better be in, mate, for your sake.'
'Well, if she’s not in,' Liam gestured with his hand towards Danny, 'we can’t really blame him, can we? It’s not his fault. I mean, he can’t really be blamed if she’s not in.'
Ignoring Liam’s attempt at peacemaking, and fed up with people thinking he was a murderer, girlfriend-beater, kidnapper or whatever else, Danny snapped back, as usual without thinking it through, 'Look, I’m as sick of the whole flaming business as you are, OK? Got that?' He glared at Gary.
'Yeah…' Fist clenched, Gary moved forward, his face two inches from Danny’s. Whatever he was going to say next was cut short by the door opening.
A pretty blue-eyed girl looked enquiringly at them. She had long black hair, nose studs, eyebrow studs and at least three in her top lip. 'What do you want?' she snarled. They could all smell the alcohol on her breath.
For God’s sake, nobody light a fag up, please, or we’ll all end up in Kingdom come, Danny thought, but said, 'It’s me, Maria, love. Danny... er, Shelly’s boyfriend.' He stepped in front of Gary. 'We, er, these are Shelly’s brothers, Gary and Liam. You might have heard her mention them.'
'Get on with it,' Gary growled at his side.
'I am! I am!' Danny snapped back, gritting his teeth.
Talk about attitude!
'We… we’re looking for Shelly. Could you please tell us when was the last time you spoke to her, or saw her? Has she phoned you? Or maybes she might even be here with you now?' He raised his eyebrows hopefully.
In his pocket, Danny tightly crossed his fingers. Ever since he and Evan had left the police station, he’d been skirting around the fact that Shelly might be lying dead somewhere, murdered by the same crazy bastard who had done for Alicia. Or, if she’d been there when it happened, had she managed to escape, and was now lying in a doorway somewhere, looking like a hopeless drunk and ignored by everyone who hurried past her? He knew she always carried emergency sweets in her pocket, he’d seen her through a couple of hypos. He knew they weren’t pleasant, and what the outcome could be.
His hopes of her being with Maria were dashed a moment later, when Maria shook her head and tried to close the door in their faces. But Gary had been ready for this, and already had his foot firmly planted.
'Have yer seen her?' he practically shouted into Maria’s startled face, as he towered above her.
'No! Now go away, before I call the police.' She pushed as hard as she could on the door, but she was no match for Gary.
'We just want to know if you’ve seen her in the last few days, that’s all.' He punched the side of the door and growled his frustration. 'We need to know, for God’s sake. Do you understand?'
'No.' Fear in her eyes, her whole body starting to tremble, she kept on struggling with the door.
Liam put his hand on Gary’s shoulder. Understanding why, Gary restrained himself, knowing he wouldn’t get anything out of her if he frightened her too much. With a supreme effort, he said calmly, 'Look, we don’t mean yer any harm here, pet. We’re just worried about our sister, that’s all. We need to know where she is. If you’re her friend, you’ll know why we need to make sure she’s safe. Time is important, she could be anywhere and be needing help.'
Maria sighed, and stopped trying to close the door. Her efforts had been fruitless, anyhow. 'The last time I saw her, she was in the nightclub. I went to the bar, and when I came back with the drinks, she’d gone. I asked around, and no one had seen her go. I’ve phoned her mobile a few times, but either there’s no reception or it’s dead. And that’s everything I know.'
The three men stared at her. 'Look, honestly, that’s all I know,' she repeated, staring back at them. 'Now, if you don’t mind…' She made to close the door again. This time it was the palm of Gary’s hand that stopped her.
'If you do hear from her, tell her to get in touch. Right?'
'Yes. Now, please just go.' He took his palm off the door and it slammed shut.
Bending down, Gary opened the letterbox. 'I’m going to push my number through. If you hear from her, phone me, OK?'
Listening, he heard a faint 'Yes' from somewhere in the bowels of the house.
Hastily, he wrote his number down and posted it, as Liam said, 'Do yer think she’s telling the truth, Gary? Only she seemed a bit nervous to me, like.'
'Yeah, she was a bit off for my liking, an’ all. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s hiding something… We’ll be back though, we’re not giving up until we find our Shelly.' He turned to Danny. 'We’ll drop you at home and we’ll be back in the morning.'
They went back to the car. 'I can walk from here, you know. It’s not that far,' Danny said.
Gary started the car. 'Get in.'
Danny quickly obliged. When they reached Evan’s flat, he said, 'Er... do you think I should report Shelly missing? It’s been forty-eight hours now.'
Gary glared at Danny in disbelief. 'What? You mean to tell me that yer haven’t reported her missing yet?'
Danny licked his dry lips 'The coppers know all about her. Didn’t they think it was her who was dead?'
'It’s gotta be official, yer stupid dickhead. Don’t yer know it’s all form-filling these days?'
'Oh right, I’ll get straight onto it, then.' Danny quickly nodded his head.
'You do that. We’ll be back in the morning.' It was the look in his eyes, and what Gary didn’t say, that made Danny shudder.
He got out of the car and went up to Evan’s flat, finding the sitting room and small kitchen empty. Pleased to see that Alicia’s folks had gone, he tapped on Evan’s bedroom door. 'You in there, Evan?'
'Yes,' came a flat reply.
'You all right?'
Evan didn’t answer.
Shit. Of course he’s not all right. What the hell do I say? Sighing, he came up with the only thing he could think of. 'Want a cuppa and something to eat, Evan? Toast? Sandwich? I think there’s some corned beef in the fridge… How about a can of lager? Or I could go down to the chippy. A nice fish, eh? Some chips and mushy peas?'
He patted his back pocket. Shit, no cash.
'No.'
Relived that Evan hadn’t wanted anything from the fish shop, Danny said. 'All right, then… Do you want to talk?' Waiting for Evan to answer, he fidgeted with his belt loops, not knowing what else to say or do. Should I go in, maybes give him a man hug?
But Evan’s answer was a final, flat, 'No.'
'OK. OK.' Danny backed away from the bedroom door. There was nothing else he could do. He had never had anyone close to him die before, and was lost as to how to help Evan. He wandered around aimlessly for a few minutes, switched the kettle on, then switched it off, slouched back into the sitting room and flicked the telly on. Nothing on there again, he thought, staring at the blonde woman announcer. Something about floods further down the country. He stared at the terrible mess of people’s homes, not really taking it on board. The trouble was, everywhere he looked, all he could see was Alicia’s dead body.
It was on his third visit back from the kitchen, with a piece of cold, soggy pizza in his hand, when he noticed the red blinking light on the telephone.
'It’ll just be someone wanting to tell Evan how sorry they are,' he murmured. 'People are kind like that.' Nodding to himself, he sat down opposite the TV.
He tried to concentrate again, this time on some sort of murder mystery. But he couldn’t figure out what it was about, or what the hell the bad guy had done, or even if the bad guy was a guy. The repetitive blinking light that he could see out of the corner of his eye kept distracting him. Laying his head back, he sighed deeply. His heart weighed heavy inside him for Alicia, for Evan, and for Shelly. He looked up at the ceiling.
Where is she?
Where the hell is she?
Why don’t you phone, Shelly? For God’s sake, just phone me. You know I’ll be worried.
He starred at the blinking light again. 'Should I?' he murmured.