The Disappearance of Katy Harper
Part 2
A slideshow of pictures of Katy Harper passes across the screen, spliced with video footage of a man being led into a police station. A woman’s voiceover says, ‘It wasn’t just Katy’s ex-boyfriend who was questioned by the police, one of Katy’s university professors, Professor Ethan Travis also came under questioning as he met with Katy on the morning of her disappearance. Though Ethan Travis was released by police with no follow-up interviews taking place, Katy’s ex-boyfriend, Graham Mitchell, has since accused Professor Travis and Katy of having an inappropriate relationship.
Detective Inspector Harrison Lane takes his seat. He smiles hesitantly before taking a deep breath.
‘We spoke to Ethan Travis at the time, there were a few email exchanges between him and Katy which seemed friendly, but nothing that suggested anything more than a professional relationship between the two.’
‘What do you think about the allegations made by Graham Mitchell?’ A voice offscreen says.
‘We’re not pursuing it,’ he says definitively.
‘Do you think there’s any truth to it?’ the interviewer says.
Detective Inspector Lane shakes his head. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘Is it true that Katy went to see Professor Ethan Travis the morning she disappeared?’
‘Yes, that’s correct, it was about her dissertation.’
‘Can you be sure?’
Detective Inspector Lane looks taken back by the question.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘The meeting was arranged over email and it was in Katy’s calendar. The meeting occurred on campus grounds and she was seen going into and leaving Professor Travis’s office.’
The screen fades to black and opens on the scene of a bare office, with beige walls and a green sofa chair sitting in the middle. A man walks into the shot wearing a brown tweed jacket and light blue chinos. He has tortoiseshell glasses and light greying auburn hair with deep green eyes and soft lines under them.
A name beneath reads: Ethan Travis, Katy’s English Professor.
‘I taught various journalism classes at the university, but I specialised in news and feature writing, centred mainly around long-form pieces and investigative journalism. I joined the university when I was thirty for extra money as I was working as a freelance journalist, which’ – he gestures towards the camera, seemingly comfortable with the interviewer and his surroundings – ‘doesn’t make much money.’ He licks his lips. ‘I taught about five classes a week and worked around them at some of the local papers.’
‘What do you do now?’ the interviewer asks.
‘Now?’ He laughs slightly. ‘I don’t work in journalism anymore and I left the university.’
‘Why?’
‘There were rumours that I was inappropriate with a student. It was completely untrue. At the time I spoke to the head of the university and they said they hadn’t any formal complaints, so I went about my work.’ He crosses his legs and clasps his hands together. ‘Rumours were all they were, but when Katy went missing, it was all dredged up again.’
‘Are you aware of the allegations Katy’s ex-boyfriend has made about you two?’
He considers the question, then nods. ‘Yes, I’m aware. I’ve spoken to the police. The accusation is untrue. Katy was one of my top students, and I had high hopes for her.’
‘So you weren’t in a relationship?’
He frowns. ‘No, of course not. I spent more time with Katy because I thought she had a lot of potential. I don’t know why her ex-boyfriend thought otherwise.’
‘Maybe because of the rumours?’
‘Seems to me he was the jealous sort,’ Professor Travis says bluntly.
The screen fades to black and reopens on Graham’s living room. He shifts uncomfortably on the sofa and bites his lower lip.
‘No, I wasn’t jealous,’ he says, like he’s unsure of the question, or maybe of his answer. ‘Katy and I had problems, but it was a good relationship.’
‘Is it true Katy ended the relationship the day before she went missing?’ the interviewer asks.
Graham looks as if he expected the question. ‘We had an argument. I didn’t have any contact with her after that night, apart from the message she sent me the evening she went missing.’ He looks irritated now. ‘This is covering old ground.’
‘What makes you think Katy and her professor were close?’
‘She spoke about him a lot, and I know she met him out of university hours – she said to discuss projects, but we both knew it wasn’t that.’
The screen fades to black and returns to Professor Travis.
‘We never met unscheduled or out of hours. That’s a ludicrous suggestion.’
‘What did you and Katy speak about that morning?’
‘The day she went missing?’ Professor Travis asks, awkwardly. ‘She wanted to discuss her dissertation, which is normal.’ He looks to the side. ‘But the topic of her dissertation was an investigative report on something she’d discovered…’ He pauses. ‘I realised that she didn’t want to discuss her dissertation, she wanted advice.’
‘Advice on what?’ the interviewer asks.
‘On how to proceed, I guess, with what she’d found.’
‘She was reporting on a real story?’
He nods. ‘She wanted to, but it would have been her first story, and it seemed like it meant a lot to her, so she wanted to get it right.’
‘What was the story about?’
‘She didn’t say,’ Professor Travis says wistfully. ‘I did ask her, but she told me she had to keep the story close to her chest. She had sources, but not any evidence.’
‘You don’t know the sources?’
‘No, I do not.’
The screen now shows Detective Inspector Lane, who nods, making a low hum to confirm he knew all of this information at the time.
‘Yes, we spoke to Professor Travis about this conversation with Katy. He told us she was working on a story and wanted advice about how to protect sources and whether she had enough evidence to go to press. The meeting suggests she wanted advice on how to approach a breaking story.’
‘But you don’t know what the story was?’
He sighs and looks away, not out of frustration, but he’s worried about how this looks.
‘It was something she was working on for her work experience job at NTV. We asked the company about it and they produced all the necessary materials. It was nothing we could link to her disappearance.’
The screen switches back to Professor Travis. He fiddles with the microphone on his collar and tries to relax, but his shoulders are tense and it shows.
‘I wasn’t involved in what happened to Katy, but those rumours ruined my life. I left teaching.’ He sighs. ‘It was very difficult.’
The shot cuts to Grace Harper sitting at her dining table. The cat has disappeared and she’s looking away from the camera, sorting through piles of paperwork and pulling folders out of boxes.
‘I kept everything,’ she says. ‘Hoping one day it’d all make sense.’
She looks at the camera as the interviewer asks her a question that can’t be made out. Subtitles pick it up. It isn’t a question. It’s a statement. ‘Katy’s disappearance ruined a lot of lives.’
Grace frowns. ‘It did,’ she says quietly. She points to the boxes and leans over and picks something up. An over the shoulder shot shows it’s a lined scrap of paper, ripped from a notepad. It reads:
- Mum’s birthday ideas:
- Snow globe
- Snoopy mug
- Funko Pop
‘My birthday was coming up, and she’d obviously been writing down ideas for me. It was the first thing I found when I started going through her things.’ She points at the list. ‘I got Katy a snow globe for Christmas when we went to Disneyland. She was very young, I think about five, and she adored it, kept it for all these years, even though she was never that sentimental. I’m the hoarder,’ she says, trying to smile. Then she laughs, freely, but her eyes glisten with tears. ‘I don’t know about the snoopy mug or the Funko Pop. I had to Google what a Funko Pop was.’ She sniffs. ‘I would have loved whatever she got me.’
‘What do you think happened to your daughter?’ the interviewer asks.
‘I don’t know,’ Grace says, sincerely.
‘Did you think Katy’s English professor was involved?’
She shakes her head, frowning. ‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Do you think Graham was a jealous person?’
She looks up at the interviewer away from the piece of paper and chews her lip. ‘Yes.’
‘Is there anyone else he could have been jealous of?’
Grace doesn’t respond, but her lips part. The screen snaps to Graham who’s leant forward, his forearms pressed against his thighs.
‘Was there anyone else you thought Katy was involved with?’ the interviewer asks.
‘No.’ He stops. ‘Maybe, but I don’t think she was involved, it was definitely one-way.’
‘Who?’
‘This guy she worked with, Peter, he was very intense towards her, sending her messages late at night, always asking if she was okay and if she wanted to hang out. He was very forward. She told me she wasn’t interested in him, but that he was clingy, that he obviously liked her. I don’t know’ – he shrugs – ‘I called him out on it once when I was picking Katy up from work. They came out together and Katy was one step ahead. I got out the car and told him to back off. It was clear Katy was distressed. When she got in the car, I asked what they spoke about and she wouldn’t tell me, but I saw her phone later that evening and he’d sent her a message begging her to talk to him. She ignored it and I didn’t press it, but I don’t know, he seemed like a very obsessive person. Not someone she trusted and not someone I trusted her around.’
‘What do you mean, trusted her around?’
‘You know, he was quite small, but I was worried he might try something.’
‘Like what?’
He sucks in his lips and shrugs again. ‘Something bad,’ he says.
The screen fades to black.