Amy dialled 999.
“Emergency. Which service?” It was a woman’s voice.
“Police.”
“Putting you through.”
The next speaker was a man. “Where are you?”
Amy gave her address.
“What is the emergency?”
“It’s my flatmate – she’s vanished.” Amy’s voice trembled.
“How old is she?”
“Twenty four.”
“Does she have mental health issues; suicidal at all?”
“No.”
“This number is for emergencies only, my dear. You need to call 101.”
Amy was indignant. Why was a young woman’s disappearance so unimportant? It was the first thing she asked when she rang the non-emergency line.
“She’s an adult and free to come and go,” the male operator explained. “Do you still want to report this?”
Amy said she did, and they went through all his scripted questions. “She wouldn’t just go away for two days without telling me,” Amy said, “and she’d reply to my texts.” As she spoke the words, she asked herself if they were true. She had lodged in Fitzrovia for a mere two months. Did she really know Kat? They had shared late night wine and laughter, sipped coffee together to ward off weekend hangovers, partied at the glamorous events to which Kat somehow secured invitations. Despite that, Kat had told her very little about herself. Her childhood and family were almost a closed book. An aunt in Birmingham had been mentioned in passing, as had a father in the drinks trade. Even Jeb, who had visited the flat most weeks to take Kat out for cocktails, was a man of mystery.
She finished the call and was given an incident number. “You need to quote that to the police,” she was told. The operator gave no assurances that the police would be in touch. In the circumstances, Amy was relieved when they visited next morning, although she would have preferred not to be woken at six.
The doorbell, strident as a siren, wormed its way into her dream until it could no longer be ignored. There was a spyhole in the front door through which she noted the uniformed man and woman. She opened the door.
“Miss Amy Satterthwaite?”
“Yes.”
Once they’d introduced themselves as PCs James Burnett and Saffron Cole from the local police station, Amy ushered them inside, to Kat’s room. Here, the visitors could sit on Kat’s sofa bed and she on one of the two folding dining chairs. In Amy’s bedroom, by contrast, there was barely clearance to walk past her single bed, and no seating save the bed itself. “This is Kat’s room,” she explained.
“Kat would be your flatmate?” PC Cole asked. “Does Bronwen Jones live here too?”
“Bronwen moved out two months ago, when I moved in. It’s just Kat and me.”
“Where’s Kat at the moment?” Cole wanted to know.
“You tell me.” This was quite extraordinary. Amy had reported Kat as missing. Didn’t they understand that? She hadn’t even mentioned Bronwen, and why should she when they’d never met? “Wait,” Amy said, “I’ll fetch the incident number. I have it written down in my room.” She would make them tea as well. That was what witnesses did for the police in crime dramas, wasn’t it? Perhaps they would prefer coffee; she must ask.
The two officers exchanged glances. “I’ll come with you,” Cole said.
“Good. You can help me carry the tea.” Amy’s brain really wasn’t functioning well. She was used to rising half an hour later, which in itself was early enough.
They walked through the narrow corridor together, stopping briefly for Amy to open the door of the kitchenette and switch on the kettle. “What would you prefer – tea or coffee?” she asked.
“Tea for me and a coffee for Jamie, both white,” Cole replied.
Amy left the kettle to boil, and obtained the scribbled-down number from her room.
“It’s cosy in here, isn’t it?” Cole said, her eyes on the small, barely accessible window a metre above the bedhead. For the first time, she smiled at Amy. “Shall I help you make the drinks? Jamie just takes a spot of milk in his. I know exactly how he likes it.”
Amy put two teaspoons of instant coffee in her own mug. She saw that Cole had noticed, although the other woman remained silent. Obviously, the police were trained to spot every detail. “Please help yourself,” she said, placing mugs, teabags, coffee and milk in front of the officer.
They took the drinks into Kat’s room. Amy unfolded the small black dining table. “Now,” she said, “What do you need from me? I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“Thank you,” PC Burnett said. He took a photograph from his pocket. “Do you recognise this man?”
It was a dark-skinned young man of south Asian appearance, perhaps from India but more likely one of the millions of Englishmen whose parents and grandparents had emigrated from the subcontinent. “No,” Amy said.
“That’s strange,” Cole said, “because you married him a fortnight ago.”
Amy felt giddy. The world blurred before her eyes. She clutched at her seat, willing herself to stay upright. “That’s impossible,” she said. “I’ve never been married. I don’t even have a boyfriend.”
“This is Ahmed Khan,” Burnett said. “He came to London from Bangladesh on a student visa, to learn English. That’s quite common. The majority of students complete their studies and go home. Ahmed didn’t. He had a job as a chef. Whether he was a diligent student too, I don’t know. Most visa over-stayers learn enough English to tell me to F myself. I haven’t spoken to Ahmed himself – yet – but his boss tells me Ahmed was deeply in love with you and decided to stay in London to marry you. The records of St Edyth’s church in the East End show that he did so this year on July the first. The vicar’s confirmed it. He remembers you well. After all, you and Ahmed went to marriage classes at which he presided before the happy day.”
“Perhaps it was another Amy Satterthwaite?”
“With the same address?” Burnett said warily.
“We are investigating this, and a number of other weddings at St Edyth’s,” Cole said. “We suspect they’re sham marriages and criminal offences have been committed. We’d like you to come to the station to make a statement.”
Amy took a deep breath. Suspicion was growing within her; the fear that her flatmate and friend had stolen her identity to marry Ahmed Khan. It all made sense: Kat’s intense interest in Amy’s background, borrowing her passport and birth certificate to ‘show the landlord’, even Kat’s cheerful admission that she was about to make a short-term marriage. Had that been on the first of July? Amy struggled to remember.
“Are you all right?” Cole asked, her voice sympathetic.
“Not really,” Amy said, tears beginning to well. “This is all tied in with Kat’s disappearance, isn’t it? She’s stolen my identity to marry this man, Ahmed Khan. Why would she do that?”
Burnett rubbed a thumb and forefinger together. “Money,” he said. “The Ahmeds of this world believe they’ll have the right to remain in the UK if they marry a British citizen. They’ll pay handsomely for that.”
“We can’t really comment until we’ve checked our records on your flatmate,” Cole said, soothingly. “Listen, you gave us the reference number, so Jamie and I will read the incident report back at the station. We’ll be in touch to arrange for you to see us there to make your statement.” She turned to her colleague. “I don’t think we need to ask her to do that straight away.”
“Are you sure?” Burnett was more sceptical.
“I’m thinking about the descriptions we were given,” Cole said cryptically.
“Fine,” he shrugged. “We’ll be leaving in a moment, then. Before we go, do you have a forwarding address for Bronwen Jones, by any chance?”
“No.” Amy struggled to recall whether she even knew where Bronwen worked, or why she’d moved. Kat hadn’t said a great deal about her.
“Please tell us if you find one,” Burnett said. “Thanks for the coffee, by the way. Absolutely perfect.”
Cole winked at Amy. “I’ve given you our telephone numbers. Just ring if you have any questions, all right? Or if you come across any information about Bronwen.”
Once they’d left, Amy hit the speed dial on her phone. Her call to Kat went straight to voicemail, as had all the others she’d made in the past forty eight hours. She sent a text, with little hope of a reply, and began to get ready for work.