Annie shows me to Mark’s office. She sighs when she sees the door is shut and gently raps her knuckles against it.
‘Come in,’ a voice calls.
Annie opens the door but doesn’t step in, instead she ushers me forward and closes the door behind her. Mark Crawley doesn’t look up from his desk. He’s studying a piece of paper, which he throws down, taking off his glasses and pinching the space between his eyes.
He finally looks up, surprised, and then smiles.
‘Grace,’ he says rising and holding out a hand. ‘Thanks so much for coming in.’ He eyes the door, trying to see through the thin glass pane. ‘Where did Annie run off to? Did she offer you a drink?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘And she gave you a tour of the building?’
I shake my head. ‘I just wanted to see Katy’s office.’
He nods, leaning forward. ‘Of course, I’m sorry they didn’t show you around all those years ago. I think the network were keen to distance themselves from the whole affair.’ He smiles sympathetically. ‘Not very sensitive of them.’
‘No, it wasn’t.’
He screws up the paper and throws it into the bin under his desk. The office is smaller than I imagined for someone of his title. It’s a pasty beige and the furniture is worn, tattered armchairs sitting opposite a cheap, plastic wooden desk.
‘It’s not the nicest room in the building,’ Mark says. ‘But I’m not here all that much, I travel, and I have a much nicer dressing room down the hallway.’
‘I wasn’t thinking that.’
He shrugs. ‘Well, I thought you’d prefer to talk privately rather than in one of those large glass meeting rooms the network insist installing in the middle of the open-plan office. Not much privacy,’ he adds.
Mark looks a lot older in person. The sheen of a camera is kind to him, but here he’s a shade lighter, his usual tan faded to a pallid complexion. He looks tired and his dark beard has been shaved and it’s patchy with flecks of grey.
‘I love your work,’ I say, awkwardly, but he smiles and blushes slightly.
‘I’m very honoured that I get to do what I do.’
‘How come you never spoke about Katy?’
He leans back in his chair and considers this. ‘The network really put a tight lid on it.’
‘Why? Was it because of what she was working on?’
He frowns. ‘The restaurant owner sexual assault case? No.’
‘No,’ I say steadily. ‘Was she working on something else?’
He studies me for a moment before pursing his lips and shaking his head. ‘If she was, I’m afraid all that information would be long gone, but I’m sure the police collected everything.’ He pauses. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The Disappearance of Katy Harper.’ He nods, knowingly. ‘It must have brought up a lot of old emotions.’
‘The emotions don’t really get old.’
‘Of course, I just mean, revisiting it after all these years can’t have been easy. And what with the suspects talking, it was one big soap opera, not the way her memory should have been treated.’
‘No.’
‘I’m sorry they didn’t do Katy more justice.’
‘It wasn’t justice I was looking for.’
‘No?’
‘Answers,’ I whisper.
‘Still, not a nice way to go about it. These true crime dramas can be so exploitative, can’t they? They’re not measured anymore; it’s all for thrills.’
‘Maybe not always.’
‘True, I like to think what we do here at the network is tasteful.’
‘Is that why I’m here?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Because you want to talk about Katy?’
‘I heard about how you were treated in the reception yesterday and I thought it was all very wrong. I wanted to see if you were okay?’
‘Me?’
He nods. ‘Do you not get asked that much?’
‘I don’t really talk to many people.’
He laughs slightly. ‘I talk to a lot of people, but it doesn’t stop me feeling lonely sometimes.’
‘I’m not lonely.’
He smiles. ‘I’m sorry for what happened yesterday and for how the network treated you when Katy died.’
‘That’s okay, it wasn’t your fault.’
He clasps his hands together. ‘So, I know the show is still a little fresh, but I wanted to see if you’d be interested in featuring in a documentary I’m doing on missing girls, those who have disappeared in cities, on busy streets when walking home. How women aren’t safe walking home.'
‘That’s what I always wanted it to be.’
‘Don’t think like that, they lied to you. Let me guess,’ he says. ‘They told you it could help the investigation.'
I nod.
He throws his head back. ‘Has it?’
I shake my head, then stop. ‘Well, maybe it has.’
‘How?’
I mean to tell him about the USB, but I don’t want to put that on him. He said that everything would be long gone by now and the thought deflates me.
‘I’m just trying to keep busy,’ I whisper to myself, but Mark nods.
‘It’s good to keep busy when you lose someone.’
‘Did you know her?’ I ask urgently. ‘Did you know Katy? Probably not, I know she only worked as a researcher for the news team, but she always watched your documentaries. You were one of the reasons she wanted to get into journalism, you know?’
‘Well, that’s lovely to hear, and yes, I knew Katy, not well, of course, but I saw her around the office when I was in. She sometimes worked on the documentaries, but only now and then, pulling together some information for my team. She was very talented.’
‘Yes, she was.’
‘Can I ask who do you think was involved in her disappearance? It seems, and stop me if I’m wrong, that from the documentary you suspected her boyfriend at the time?’
‘Maybe. I never liked him, or maybe I just thought they were wrong for each other.’
‘You were protective of her?’
‘I still am.’
‘Of course. Well, I’d love to talk in a more formal setting, get some producers involved. I can introduce you to other missing children’s parents. It’s nice to have that network, that support.’
I’ve thought about that before, going to support groups, and other mums of missing children have reached out to me, but I could never find the right thing to say, and they all had the expectation that I would be heartbroken and unbearably sad. What if I didn’t come across sad enough?
But the real reason is, I could never admit to belonging to a group like that. I didn’t want to hear the supportive kind words of other mums who felt the same way I did, because a dark, horrible part of myself believed they could never miss their child as much as I miss mine. And if I went and sat in a circle and spoke about Katy, it would be an admission that she’s not coming back to me.
Joanna said it might be a good thing, but I’m not ready to give up, not now I’m sitting in Katy’s offices, with all these new possibilities.
‘No, thank you. But I’ll give you my business card; it’s got my email on it,’ I say, reaching into my bag.
‘Business card?’
‘I fix things,’ I say.
‘Oh,’ he says, taking the card from me. ‘Electrical repairs, that’s really cool.’
‘Thanks.’
‘More to you than meets the eye.’ He smiles, and for the smallest moment, I feel pleased.