The day I went missing
Part 2
When I leave campus, I stop at that coffee shop I like, the one Joanna always said is pretentious and uncomfortable. She’s not wrong; the coffee is expensive, the pastries are small and dry from sitting out on black slate boards all morning, and the hard wooden stools and white walls don’t make it very inviting. But they do the best coffee, I always tell her, dragging her by the arm into the café.
I miss Joanna, but I’ve never been good at expressing my feelings. I’m stubborn like my mum. I’ve also wondered how compatible Joanna and I are anymore, if we like the same things, have the same moral values. We were childhood friends, but we’re both so different now. It always worked before, but Joanna is all about fun and excitement and the world isn’t always fun and exciting.
Things changed when I started working at NTV. I saw a grubby side of the city, but a beautiful one too. Not all news stories are bad, I’d tell Joanna, but she never wanted to speak about work. She wanted to drink and dance and laugh, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I take a seat on one of the uncomfortable wooden stools as I wait for my coffee. Have I become too serious?
Old beyond my age, Mum says, but I didn’t stop to consider if that was a good thing. I want to make a name for myself and how can I do that in bars or wasting time with boys? It’s not all me, though; Joanna met someone recently at work, a guy called Tom whom she spent every minute gushing about. I’ve met him a few times and I don’t know what’s to like, and Joanna knows it.
I settle on the fact that we didn’t fight, and maybe tomorrow when we meet for breakfast everything will be okay.
When I look up from my phone to see if my coffee is ready, I notice a man sitting across the room, directly opposite me. He has sandy blonde hair and soft features, blue eyes that search mine. He must be about fifty. I don’t recognise him, but he seems to recognise me.
He’s mirroring me, his legs crossed, his forearm resting on the table holding a phone. The phone is angled at me, not as if he could be texting, but … there’s a flash, a distinct flash. Did he just take my picture? Does he know who I am? What I know?
I rise from my seat and clumsily bump into the table, knocking over a bowl of sugar. I try and clear it up and grab my bag to leave.
‘Katy,’ a man’s voice calls.
I twist towards the man, thinking it’s him speaking to me, but he’s not there anymore. I search the rest of the café, looking towards the door, but he’s gone.
‘Flat white for Katy,’ the man says again.
I take a deep breath, trying to compose myself. ‘Yes,’ I say, swiping the coffee from the counter. ‘Thank you.’
I walk unsteadily through the busy streets already thickening with the early lunch crowd and students breaking for coffee. I’m just being paranoid. I’ll have to get used to this feeling as a journalist, rubbing people up the wrong way to break a story, wondering if I’m being watched.
I thought Professor Travis would be more helpful. Maybe there was a part of me that wanted him to push me into telling him what I was working on, just so I could share it with someone, anyone.
I sip my coffee as I near work, my pace slows and my chest tightens. I’ll have to go public with this story soon. I’ll have to relinquish my grip on it and hope I’ve done the right thing as a journalist.
A trust was placed in me, and I can’t abuse that.
* * *
When I sit down at my desk, Peter is already hovering behind me. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there, beating himself up, not knowing what to say. I swivel in my chair and look straight at him.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Do you want a coffee?’
‘I have one,’ I reply, shaking the remains of my takeaway cup.
He stays a moment longer, before disappearing out of the office and up the hallway towards the staff kitchen. The researchers, IT and producer assistants are lumped together in a central office. There are large glass windows either side, one side looking out on St Nicholas Market and the other on the long corridor.
Everyone passes along those corridors: journalists, producers, reporters. My desk faces the corridor, and I watch as people move around, going from dressing rooms to offices to the production room at the back.
I finish the dregs of my coffee and boot up my laptop just as one of the assistants, Annie, walks in. I smile at her, but she doesn’t notice, storming past me to her desk and throwing the folders down. Lowering herself slowly, her eyes never blinking. It’s just me and her in the room; everyone else is on a break during the shift change.
‘Hi,’ I call across the room, barely having to raise my voice. It’s so quiet, just the murmur of voices from down the hall in the newsroom.
‘Hi,’ she says, acknowledging my presence, but she doesn’t look at me. She blinks away tears and bites her lip, turning her attention to her own screen. I go to speak, when Peter comes back clutching two coffees and places one down on Annie’s desk.
‘There ya go,’ he says, not noticing her tears.
Annie ignores him and looks up flustered. Blowing her fringe back she barks at me, ‘Have you had a chance to look at the assault case?’
I pause. ‘Yes,’ I whisper.
‘Okay, good,’ she says, looking back at her screen.
‘Is this to do with that American diner in town?’ Peter asks. ‘I heard people talking about that in the kitchen.’
I nod, turning my back on him.
‘Do you want to get dinner tonight, Katy?’ Peter calls across the room.
Annie pretends not to hear and so I can’t ignore him. ‘Not tonight,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to submit a project. I’m nearly done,’ I add, eyeing Annie, but she doesn’t notice.
‘We could order in?’ Peter suggests.
‘No,’ I say firmly.
A figure appears in the doorway, blocking the light from the corridor, casting a shadow across the room. Rain starts to beat on the back windows and Peter is the first to speak.
‘Hi, Mark,’ he calls across the room.
‘Miserable out today,’ Mark comments.
I look up at him. He’s clutching a mug and standing with his legs apart, the other hand dug into a trouser pocket. Mark Crawley is a senior reporter at the network, and an award-winning journalist travelling across the UK to report on some of the biggest crimes. I admired him growing up, watching him conduct difficult interviews on TV and break huge stories online. He was a voice I followed and whenever he appeared in the Bristol offices, I took every opportunity I could to ask him questions.
He didn’t seem to mind, at first, happy to entertain me and help. I almost thought at one point that he might mentor me and I’d be able to follow in his footsteps. An award-winning investigative journalist.
‘I’ve got those papers for you,’ Annie says.
‘No rush,’ he replies, checking his watch.
He sips his tea and glances around the room until he finds me. He smiles.
‘Hey, Katy, it’s been a while since I saw you. How have you been?’
‘Good,’
‘You’re working on that sexual assault case, right? Let me know if you need a hand with that.’ He raises his mug.
‘No, I should be fine, thanks.’
His smile fades, his lips a straight line amid greying stubble. Dark eyes scan mine. Annie walks across the room and hands him a folder which he takes gratefully, beaming at her, a smile too wide.
He turns to me before he leaves. ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ he says.
‘I hear he’s doing a big interview in London today, some famous ex-comedian who got done for money laundering. Is that right, Annie?’ Peter says.
Annie doesn’t respond and Peter sighs, turning back to his computer and slurping his coffee. I pull my bag onto my lap and bring out my notepad, open on the page of ideas for Mum’s birthday. I smile. But my smile soon fades when I see the USB sitting at the bottom of my bag.
The slow realisation of what it means.