Human Remains

friend. She’d been reluctant to talk, having only just been interviewed by someone from Major Crime – which was a great comfort to me. It meant they were taking Audrey’s disappearance seriously, at least. She had left Audrey around midnight in the town centre. Audrey lived just up the hill, about a mile away, and she hadn’t wanted to wait to share Cheryl’s taxi. So she had taken herself off up the Baysbury Road, protesting that she always walked home, it wasn’t far, and what was going to happen on a brightly lit main road? And that was the last time Cheryl had seen her.
    In return, I told him about the ANPR results. I should have kept quiet about it, probably.
    ‘You know Colin works for the council?’ Sam said.
    ‘I didn’t know that.’
    ‘I guess it might have been a convenient place for him to steal numberplates.’
    We sat in silence for a moment. My head was starting to ache.
    ‘Did Audrey seem OK, when Cheryl said goodbye to her?’ I asked at last.
    ‘Apparently. She was a bit drunk, but they all were. Not staggering, Cheryl said. A bit tipsy. Anyway, after that I went to see Audrey’s ex.’
    ‘You went to see Vaughn Bradstock?’ I asked. ‘And?’
    ‘He wasn’t there. The receptionist told me your lot came and asked him a load of questions, and after that he was all upset and went home. I went to his house but there was no answer. No car outside.’
    We stared in silence at the road ahead, a mother with a pushchair and a toddler making slow progress past Colin’s house and towards the town.
    ‘He’s got her,’ I said.
    ‘Who? Vaughn?’
    ‘No. Colin.’
    ‘We don’t know that for certain,’ he replied.
    ‘I just feel it,’ I said. ‘And you know he won’t be giving her access to any food or water. How long do you think she’ll last, Sam?’
    He looked at me. This wasn’t exciting any more. ‘She wasn’t depressed, or lonely. You heard her friend, this morning. She was happy, looking forward to going on a night out. He’s only ever gone for – well. You know.’
    ‘I just think the fact that he knew her is too much of a coincidence, don’t you? I think he’s got her somewhere. He’s waiting for her to die.’
    I’d been thinking about telling Sam what I’d found out this morning, about Colin’s apparent visit to Grayswood Lane on Saturday, but that would have been crossing a whole new line beyond the one I’d already crossed by performing unauthorised searches on the system. Besides that, Sam had just given me an idea. Audrey wasn’t depressed, not the way I had been – without even fully realising that I was that bad, without even giving it that name. It had been the shock, really, but also the loneliness and the frustration at work and the feeling that I was slipping away, beginning to disappear. It had been like evaporating, as though I was going to cease to exist and nobody would even notice. And seeing Colin, outside his house, had brought back memories of things he had said to me. The words he’d used –
release – choice – acceptance
. It had been my decision. He’d not made me do anything I hadn’t already considered, already wanted to do. I had wanted it all to go away, and he had said that was alright, it was a decision I could make. He gave me the guts to do it, I think. Permission, if such a thing was needed. And he told me it wouldn’t hurt; it would be peaceful, quiet, on my terms. He told me I could sleep and wait for it to happen and that I would not be afraid.
    If anything, Sam had been the one in the wrong. He’d hauled me back from a place I’d gone to willingly. But now, of course, I knew he’d been right to do it. There were still moments, though, when I thought of being alone, of closing the door, and waiting for the quiet and the stillness and the word he used a lot –
transformation
. Becoming something better, more beautiful, with no striving or effort. Just peace.
    It still crossed my mind that maybe he was an angel after all.
    The only thing that really made a difference was the thought of all those other people he’d done it to. They couldn’t all have been suicidal. And, by the sound of it, Audrey wasn’t – she hadn’t chosen his path, had she? He’d taken it upon himself to shove her down it, for whatever private gratification he was going to get. And how had he felt, when he’d realised I hadn’t transformed at all? When there hadn’t been a news report about me? When he’d realised that I’d escaped?