Dead Like You

so we’ve been trying to prise out of them everything about Rachael’s life. Did she have any friends or close work colleagues we haven’t already talked to? Had anything like this ever happened before? We tried to build up a picture of her habits.’
    ‘What were her habits?’
    ‘Phoning her parents every day, without fail. That’s the most significant one.’
    ‘And now she hasn’t phoned them for ten days?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Is she dead, do you think?’
    ‘We’ve checked her bank accounts to see if any money’s been withdrawn and it hasn’t. She has a credit card and debit card, and no transactions have taken place since the day before Christmas Eve.’
    He drank some more whisky and was surprised to find that he’d emptied the glass. Ice cubes tumbled against his lips as he drained the last drops.
    ‘She’s either being held against her will or she’s dead,’ Sandy said flatly. ‘People don’t just vanish off the face of the earth.’
    ‘They do,’ he said. ‘Every day. Thousands of people every year.’
    ‘But if she had that close connection to her parents, she wouldn’t want to hurt them deliberately, like this, surely?’
    He shrugged.
    ‘What does your copper’s nose tell you?’
    ‘That it doesn’t smell good.’
    ‘What happens next?’
    ‘We’re widening the search, the house-to-house enquiries are expanding to cover a bigger area, we’re drafting in more officers. We’re searching the parks, the waste dumps, the surrounding countryside. CCTV footage is being examined. Checks are being made at all stations, harbours and airports. Her friends are being questioned and her ex-fiancé. And we’re using a criminal psychologist – a profiler – to help.’
    After some moments Sandy asked, ‘Is this the shoe rapist again, do you think? The Shoe Man?’
    ‘She’s mad about shoes, apparently. But this is not his MO. He’s never taken one of his victims.’
    ‘Didn’t you once tell me that criminals get bolder and more violent – that it’s an escalating thing?’
    ‘That’s true. The guy who starts out as a harmless flasher can turn into a violent rapist. So can a burglar, as he gets bolder.’
    Sandy sipped her wine. ‘I hope you find her quickly and that she’s OK.’
    Grace nodded. ‘Yup,’ he said quietly. ‘I hope so too.’
    ‘Will you?’
    He had no answer. Not, at least, the one she wanted to hear.

NOW

43
    Saturday 10 January
    Yac did not like drunk people, especially drunk slappers, especially drunk slappers who got into his taxi. Especially this early on a Saturday night, when he was busy reading the latest on the Shoe Man in the Argus .
    There were five drunk girls, all without coats, all in skimpy dresses, all legs and flesh, displaying their breasts and tattoos and pierced belly buttons. It was January! Didn’t they feel the cold?
    He was only licensed to carry four of them. He’d told them that, but they’d been too drunk to listen, all piling in at the rank on East Street, shouting, chattering, giggling, telling him to take them to the pier.
    The taxi was full of their scents: Rock ’n Rose, Fuel for Life, Red Jeans, Sweetheart, Shalimar. He recognized them all. Uh-huh. In particular, he recognized the Shalimar.
    His mother’s perfume.
    He told them it was only a short walk, that with the Saturday-night traffic they’d be quicker to walk. But they insisted he take them.
    ‘It’s bleedin’ freezing, for Christ’s sake!’ one of them said.
    She was a plump little thing, wearing the Shalimar, with a mass of fair hair and half-bared breasts that looked like they’d been inflated with a bicycle pump. She reminded him a little of his mother. Something in the coarseness, the shape of her figure and the colour of her hair.
    ‘Yeah,’ said another. ‘Sodding bleedin’ freezing!’
    One of them lit a cigarette. He could smell the acrid smoke. That was against the law too, he told her, staring at her crossly in the mirror.
    ‘Want a drag, gorgeous?’ she said, pouting, holding out the cigarette to him.
    ‘I don’t smoke,’ he said.
    ‘Too young, are you?’ said another, and they broke into peals of squeaky laughter.
    He nearly took them to the skeletal remains of the West Pier, half a mile further along the coast, just to teach them a lesson not to risk a taxi driver’s livelihood. But he didn’t, for one reason only.
    The shoes and the perfume the plump one was wearing.
    Shoes that he particularly liked. Black and