Emma, Disappeared

by Andrew Hughes

Genres: Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

Everyone is talking about the disappearance of Emma Harte. A high-achieving university graduate and young entrepreneur, she was last seen in the early hours of the morning on grainy CCTV footage in Dublin's city centre before vanishing into thin air. While a national debate about women's safety rages, eyes turn to Emma's boyfriend, Tom - who is nowhere to be found.

Meanwhile, archivist James Lyster is following the story with undue interest. When a comment he makes about Emma goes viral on social media, he finds himself drawn into the world of a group of idealistic university students involved in the search - and attracting the attention of the police detective in charge of Emma's case.

Then a body is discovered in shrubland near James' flat ...

As the police get closer to finding out what happened to Emma Harte, James' life begins to unravel. Is he a victim or murderer? Feminist ally or callous liar?

For it turns out that James isn't the only one with secrets ...

Release date: April 4, 2024

Publisher: Hachette Books Ireland

Print pages: 320

Sample

9 DECEMBER

FOURTEEN DAYS AFTER SHE DISAPPEARED

In weather like this the first half mile is the hardest. Outside my place the footpaths are deserted. Traffic is heavy with an early rush hour. I run past the Botanic Gardens and the Tolka House, further up Glasnevin Hill to the high entrance gates of Addison Hall, a modern apartment complex. I follow a meandering road through the blocks, catching glimpses of people in the warm light of kitchens and living rooms. At the back of the complex the road ends with a pedestrian gateway to a communal park, just a wide grassy slope that runs down to the Tolka River. Away from the flats and the streetlights it barely feels like the city at all. The grass is speckled white, and for a while the wind blows right against me.

A footbridge crosses the river. Further on, the path skirts the tall grey wall of Glasnevin Cemetery, but to the left there’s a railing almost swallowed by bushes and gorse. The other side is scrubland, an overgrown strip between the river and the graveyard and the rear wall of the Botanics.

I peer into the wilderness for more than a minute, then take a glance behind me. The park is empty except for one lone figure in the distance, her head bent against the biting wind. I grip the top of the railing, feel the cold seep through my gloves. Here in the park, I’m just a hardy jogger, out before the weather turns completely. I’ve no plausible excuse to venture beyond the railing.

Brambles scratch at my legs as I trudge through the undergrowth. I’m aware of the black flow of the Tolka somewhere on my left. My trainers leave tracks in the snow, but they won’t last long. Up ahead a clearing is surrounded by stunted trees with bare limbs dusted white. I listen to the crunch of my own footsteps, watch the clouds of my breath. Beneath the trees is a sheet of corrugated iron, rusting and bent at the corners, with snow collecting in the grooves. I stand over it for a moment, reach down to grip one side, and pull it back.

In a rectangular patch of dark earth, the body lies swaddled in bedclothes and bin liners. A deep black stain has soaked into the ground. Woodlice scurry in the sudden exposure. Wind rustles through brambles like a whispering crowd. I don’t move. I just watch flecks of pure white settle on the black plastic shroud.

28 NOVEMBER

THREE DAYS AFTER SHE DISAPPEARED

We all have a ‘missing person’ photograph of ourselves – we just don’t know it. Somewhere on our phones, or stored in the cloud, is that innocent sunlit moment that our friends and family will show the world should the worst ever happen.

Emma Harte is everywhere as I make my way to work. Her face appears again and again on lampposts and hoardings and shop windows. With the bus stuck in traffic, I wipe away some condensation for a better look. There’s that ambiguous half-smile, that serene gaze at passers-by. She’s on a night out, her skin pale in the camera flash, dark hair in a tight ponytail, a touch of red-eye. There are lines of text underneath: descriptive particulars and where she was last seen, contact details for anyone with information. And yet nobody is pausing to look at her. No one is paying any heed at all, except for me.

The bus moves off and passengers come upstairs for the last few seats. I move my bag and let it slither between my legs. A girl in an oversized scarf, bobble hat, and rucksack with a yoga mat slumps into the seat beside me. A strap from her bag falls onto my knee. She notices but doesn’t move it.

From the bag she takes a slim laptop decorated with stickers of Studio Ghibli characters, opens the lid and presses the button, then stretches her neck one way then the other. A ticket inspector has followed her up. He’s starting from the front, intruding into bubbles, making people glance up at harsh overhead lights.

Her Windows login screen is a personal photo, not one of those Alpine vistas or sun-kissed beaches. I didn’t know you could do that. It looks like a selfie from her laptop camera. She’s sitting on the floor of a living room, backlit by the grey-blue glare of a television screen, hair draped about her face like a headscarf, her tongue sticking out. Behind her, a man’s bare foot is lounging on the carpet, cut off at the calf.

As she types, a string of asterisks sweep across the password box, but above that her name is shown for all to see: Libby Miller. I slip my hand into my pocket and take out my phone.

The ticket inspector has found a victim: a Roma woman who he says is using someone else’s Leap card. He’s demanding her ID, and she’s pretending not to understand. She’s right too, even if the card isn’t hers. He has ‘profiler’ written all over him. I might say something, but another passenger gets up to squeeze by and afterwards the inspector moves on to someone else.

Libby Miller’s desktop has a plain blue background with a neat array of folders. She opens a Word document and is scrolling past its title page: A Postmodern Perspective on Merovingian Gaul. She’s not used to the touchpad and her elbow keeps rubbing my arm. I bring my phone close, tilt it away from her and google her name. Twitter and Instagram profiles are the first two results. I choose Twitter.

Her profile pic is No-Face from Spirited Away, the banner a sweep of misty hills, stone walls and fields from somewhere in the west. Her bio merely says, Sometimes I write things. She has 236 followers, including one I know: an independent bookshop in Phibsborough. Her photos are group shots of happy student types crowded around bar tables. In a recent one she’s blowing out candles for her twenty-second birthday. I’m about to try Instagram when the screen shifts and 1 new tweet appears at the top of the page.

I glance to my right. She had opened Twitter without me noticing.

As someone who writes essays literally at the last minute and doesn’t proofread, I’m either an excellent writer or my professors don’t give a shit #gradlife #priorities

She’s swiping the touchpad to the top right, all set to minimise.

I press ‘like’, wait for the ripples in the electromagnetic field, see the tiny 1 appear on her notifications tab, watch the cursor pause, almost feel the endorphins released in her bloodstream.

She clicks, of course, and sees that James Lyster has ‘liked’ her tweet. She hovers over my name and a pop-up appears. My picture, a close-up of my face in black and white, fingers partially covering one eye. A Repealed twibbon at the bottom. My bio: Curator of photographs at the National Library of Ireland; all opinions my own and probably wrong. He/Him.

It seems rather trite looking at it now.

But I can sense her puzzlement. I don’t follow her, and she doesn’t follow me. How could I possibly have seen her tweet, unless I happened to be on her page?

‘Tickets there now.’

The inspector stands above us, brandishing a handheld scanner. Libby Miller opens a Hello Kitty wallet to show her Leap card behind a plastic window. Naturally, he doesn’t require her ID.

I place my phone screen-down on my lap. My paper ticket is in my side pocket. As I reach inside, I notice a corner of the pocket is torn, just a few threads, and a small smear of red runs along the seam. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice before. I touch the stain, look at my fingertip. A tiny pinprick of glitter reflects the light.

‘Before lunch hour if possible.’

I fish out the ticket and offer it to the inspector, move my hand at the last second so his thumb and forefinger pinches the air. He examines it like a guard on Checkpoint Charlie and hands it back.

‘Your stop is coming up,’ he says.

‘Yes, I know. Same as always.’

He moves on. I gather my bag, turn to Libby Miller and say, ‘Excuse me.’

She almost tuts but catches herself. Without a glance, she half-closes the lid of her laptop, not enough that it goes to sleep, and pivots her legs into the aisle. I brush her shoulder as I pass.

The bus makes a sharp turn into Kildare Street and I brace myself in the stairwell. I go to press the bell but hear it ting from somewhere else. Headlights sweep past the windows. I’m about to pocket the phone when I notice a notification of my own. Libby Miller is now following me. I could wish her luck with her essay but that might be pushing it. I notice something else. Emma Harte’s name is trending in Dublin. So is the word ‘Missing’. I close the app and put the phone away, follow a line of people as we trudge into the rain.

For a moment I think her face is displayed on the advertising screen in the bus stop shelter, but it’s just a model, not unlike her, smiling broadly with I’m Living Proof printed in large letters. The screen flickers and scrolls and now she’s winking. Anyone Can Quit. I cross the street in the wake of a truck, step over a puddle where small waves are breaking on the kerb. As I approach the library, I feel uneasy that I’ve forgotten my key card. I go to pat my pockets, but there’s a homeless man bundled in a green-and-blue sleeping bag in an unused museum doorway, a sign above his head saying, The Bog Bodies – A New Theory in Sacrifice. I wait until I’m passed in case I get his hopes up.

I always like the library in the hour before it opens. The rotunda is hushed and dim, only the shuffled footsteps of staff as they go to their offices. I pass through the exhibition room displaying the love letters of Constance Markievicz, a blown-up picture of her by the door, and her quote to Irish women: Leave your jewels and gold wands in the bank and buy a revolver. I reach a side door, wave my card at the pad. A high-pitched beep and then a loud wooden creak.

The office that I share with two others is on the second floor. It’s a wide space with old Georgian windows looking out over Leinster House, a marble fireplace with an electric fan heater in the hearth, three filing cabinets, framed prints from Audubon’s Birds of America. Helena, Bridget and I have a large work table each, all facing different walls so we have our backs to each other. On my desk is a box of calotype photographs from the 1860s left out from before the weekend. Beside that, some sharpened pencils sitting upright in a grubby cup, three erasers of different coarseness, acid-free folders, a hardback copybook, my work laptop, a Thom’s Dublin Directory for 1865. I turn on the computer and then go into the small kitchenette to make tea.

Helena comes in just as the water boils. I see her from the doorway unwrapping a long scarf. She’s young, only a few years out of the library course. She likes vintage clothes, floral dresses and bright-coloured tights. She’s smart and funny, but strangely lacking in confidence, affecting a kind of babyish voice when speaking on the phone, which grates after a while, and laughing loudly whenever she’s nervous.

I call out ‘Tea?’ to her and she says, ‘Please.’

Her mug has a picture of Betty Boop blowing a kiss. I rinse it out, re-use my own teabag because she prefers hers weak.

She’s sitting by her desk when I come in, donning white cotton gloves, her computer whirring to life. I put the tea beside her. She smiles and says thanks and asks about my weekend.

‘Quiet enough,’ I say. ‘You?’

‘I was smothered with a cold.’

‘Wonderful, now we’ll all get it.’

‘Did you see the news?’

I go to the fireplace, flick the switch on the heater with my foot. ‘About what?’

‘Storm Lauren is coming. Snowmageddon. The Beast from the East. The whole city will be shut down.’

‘Oh,’ I say, taking my seat. ‘Something to look forward to.’

I remove the lid on the box and take out the picture on top. The collection comes from a studio in Dame Street, one that took after-death photos of families posing with loved ones who are propped up and dressed as though they are still alive – a child leaning against her deceased mother, or a father cradling his stillborn, or a sleeping toddler surrounded by toy soldiers. Often the poses are so natural that it’s hard to say which one is the corpse. But there’s always a tell. The long exposures of early photographs meant the tiniest movements of people resulted in a slight blurring of their image. The dead are always crystal clear.

In this picture, a middle-aged couple sit on either side of a single bed, a young woman reclining between them, her hands clasped on top of the sheets, rosary beads laced in her fingers. Her head is tilted and her gaze is off to the left. One side of her mouth curls up in what looks like a half-smile. Her grieving parents are stony-faced.

With a scalpel, I carefully remove the mottled card frame and begin to brush dried glue from the edge. The studio often noted on the reverse a few details in pencil, and I have to identify the sitters from the clues, match names to addresses, trawl through death records to confirm the date. People shudder when I tell them about the collection, and I’ve stopped trying to explain that the images are poignant and beautiful, that people needed something to blunt their grief, and what could be a better memento mori than this, literally to remember death.

No writing on the back of this one. I look at the young woman again, her tranquil gaze and crooked smile. Likely to remain unnamed forever. I rehouse her in a clear envelope of uncoated cellulose triacetate, place her in an acid-free folder, assign her a number, and lay her to rest in a fresh archival box.

The brass doorknob scrapes and turns and Bridget comes in saying, ‘Fucking weather.’ She shakes water from her umbrella – a stray drop blots one of my folders – and hangs it on the coatrack. She flicks her blue fringe away from her eyes and puts a Costa cup on her desk. A wisp of steam escapes the lid. ‘The queue was mental, that’s why I’m late.’

Bridget and I did the UCD archives course together three years ago, were part of a fairly tight clique that would go drinking and dancing. We even kissed once at the end of a night out, but agreed the next day not to speak of it again. After graduation, we began working in the library at the same time and have always shared an office. Six months ago, I was promoted ahead of her, and ever since she has made a point of reporting every slip and small transgression, as if daring me to reprimand her.

‘Yeah, that’s fine.’

She sits down and begins moving things on her desk. To Helena, she says, ‘Did you see the posters?’

‘Hard to miss.’

‘You’d be fucking sick of it all the same.’

‘Maybe she’ll turn up.’

‘She won’t. Not alive anyway.’ Bridget pushes the button on her computer a few times. When nothing happens, she rummages under her desk to plug it in. ‘It’s time men were put under a curfew. Home by eight to watch the football like good little boys, and leave the rest of us in peace.’

I can feel Helena glance over her shoulder. She adopts a lighter tone. ‘Well, that would hardly be fair on James. I know you shouldn’t say, “Not all men”, but there’s some truth to it.’

Should I be lending my voice to demonstrate empathy? Or is this a moment to listen and be educated? I remember a good line I saw this morning in a comment section and try it out: ‘Bridget’s right. If men had to worry about walking home the same way you do, we’d be living in a police state within a week.’

But I must have gotten the inflection wrong, or perhaps they sense a lack of sincerity, for my contribution brings the discussion to a close. For a hushed hour the only sounds are the whir of the heater, the rain on the window, the soft tap of computer keys, and a tinny strain of Julian Cope coming from Bridget’s headphones.

I jump when my phone pings. Two missed calls. Reception is sketchy in older parts of the building, and calls often go to voicemail. The lady with the automated voice tells me I have two new messages, one left half an hour ago.

Jim, buddy. Any chance you can collect Lolo from Loreto tomorrow? Looks like I’ll be stuck in Chancery. Just put her in a taxi, or come over if you like. There’s Hop House in the fridge and I’m sure Danni will feed you. Let us know, will you? My brother Colin. He’s talking to someone else as he’s hanging up. No not that one …

The Vodafone lady speaks again in her strange staccato rhythm. A message was left three nights ago, at 2.17.

A few seconds of rustling static like white noise on an old TV settles into footsteps and a guttering breeze. A siren sounds faintly in the distance. Just at the edge of hearing there’s a person’s voice, though it’s hard to tell if it’s a man or a woman. The message cuts out.

I wait in case there’s more, but it’s just the automated, To return a call to this person, press six.

Why hadn’t I heard it before? I open the phone log, scroll back three nights. There’s the call from Arthur early in the evening asking if I wanted to meet in Fagan’s pub. After that another red arrow for a missed call: 26 Nov, 02.17. It’s an 089 mobile number, one of those Tesco pay-as-you-go jobs. Definitely not a contact. I hit Options. Save number? Return call? Delete?

‘James.’

I drop the phone and it skitters on the table. I grab it and look in case the number dialled by accident.

Bridget says, ‘We’re going for a smoke. Looks like you could do with one.’ She has her John Players in hand. Helena is holding a vape cartridge.

‘No, I’m fine. You go ahead.’

They file out and I wait for the door to click shut. I swipe out of the phone log. No point in deleting it now. It’ll stay in the records forever. I make more tea, return to my desk and try in vain to concentrate on work. I type 089 into Google and then stop myself. Assume that every keystroke and search can be retrieved and pieced together. I open a new private window to be met with the message: Remember, private browsing doesn’t make you anonymous on the internet! Your employer or Internet Service Provider can still know what page you visit. I close it quickly and am left with the original Google white screen, the cursor blinking in the search box.

I move to Helena’s desk and open the lid of her laptop. She’d been composing a message to a friend in her personal Gmail. It’s littered with exclamation points. In a private window I search for the 089 number in quotation marks and get two returns. One looks like a malware site that’s listing dozens of numbers. The other is a pdf from Irish Revenue, a list of tax defaulters, the mobile number attached to a company name – re:Thread Limited.

In the corridor outside I hear Bridget’s voice, her broad Dublin accent like a Sean O’Casey heroine. I close the private tab, try to remember if Helena’s Gmail was minimised or not. The door opens as I close the lid.

Helena is first through, and she pauses when she sees me at her chair.

‘Everything okay?’

‘I’ve lost my staple remover. Any chance I could borrow yours?’ ‘Of course,’ she says, coming closer. She moves a sheaf of papers and gives me the little fanged device. The fan in her laptop is still whirring. ‘I think it’s yours,’ she says. ‘I nicked it a few weeks ago. Sorry.’

She flashes a smile and I say that she’s forgiven. Bridget goes into the kitchenette. I haven’t moved and Helena is looking up at me, her eyes round, questioning.

‘Actually,’ I say, ‘I might go for a smoke after all.’

While preparing for her trip, Sarah had taken her few changes of clothes from the wardrobe, the books she claimed were hers from the shelves, but she’d left the bottom drawer of the bedside locker untouched. I never emptied it. Not much to look through really – a few hair-ties and pins, a can of Impulse True Love body spray. I pop the pink lid, hold the nozzle to my nose and feel a pang, but only briefly. There’s an empty wrapper of a Galaxy bar, and the book she was reading, Northanger Abbey. An old, tattered copy, probably one she’d had for years. From the pages, a bookmark slips and tumbles to the carpet – the cinema stub from our third date, Phantom Thread at the Light House. I pick it up, look at the date and time, the barcode, the torn perforated edge, see her standing again in the bright lights of the foyer, the large popcorn she regretted buying. She thought the movie boring and didn’t like Jonny Greenwood’s score. That should have been the first warning.

I’m searching for some manner of heavy-duty make-up cleaner but all I can find is nail polish remover. Acetone-free, it says. Gentle on nails; kinder to skin. I read that again and try to fathom its meaning. Would that work? I’d ask Alexa but the problem is she never forgets.

In the kitchen, the Marks & Spencer beef bourguignon is simmering in the pot. Steam coats the dark sash windows above the sink. I fetch a bottle of Nero D’Avola from the rack. On the counter is an elaborate wine opener that Colin gave me last Christmas; at least, he paid for it, no doubt Danni picked it out. It grips the bottle by the neck. A large handle plunges the screw into the cork and whips it out in one smooth movement.

After dinner in the living room, the wine is already past the bottom of the label, a fire glows in the hearth, Phantom Thread is playing on Netflix, and my coat is spread over the coffee table, the sleeves hanging and brushing the tasselled rug.

I look again at the stain by the torn coat pocket, apply a mixture of nail polish remover and spray-on bleach, and carefully dab at it with round cotton pads. It seems to do the trick. At least it’s no longer visible to the naked eye. The time may have come for a new winter coat.

On the TV, Day Lewis’s character Reynolds is measuring – I don’t know the actress’s name – Alma in her shift at the end of their first date, while his spinster sister jots the girl’s particulars with pursed lips and sharp strokes of her pencil. Alma squirms beneath the tape, and Reynolds scolds her to stand naturally. It’s so wonderfully possessive, inappropriate, I remember laughing in the cinema. Sarah didn’t like that part.

Perhaps she was right, though, that the third act drags. My iPad is half hidden beside me. I turn it on and begin to browse, read stories of populism and prejudice until my mood sours. Out of habit I type Instagram into the browser, and it autocompletes to Sarah’s account: SarahSibthorpe_16. Her latest post is a bazaar in Istanbul, a close-up of a porcelain cup on a table, mounds of different-coloured tea leaves on a stall in the background. The caption: I was recommended the Love Tea! Organic chamomile, elderflower, lavender, and liquorice … can’t hurt to try I guess! and then a wink emoji.

She only has a dozen followers, and only one has deigned to like this post – her oldest friend Polly. But Sarah was never in it for the ‘likes’. She looked at Instagram as her own digital photo album, something to remember in her old age. I scroll through stages of a round-the-world trip seen in reverse: a walled city in Montenegro, an Alpine lake in Switzerland, her browsing books outside Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and from a month ago, a close-up of the departures screen in Dublin Airport, the 18.42 to Charles de Gaulle circled.

The post before that shows the two of us together. It was during the summer, outside a small Italian restaurant on Capel Street. I remember squinting up at the waiter who took the picture, the low sun a glaring halo around his head. I’m never good in photos. Sarah would tell me I just have to smile with my eyes, but whenever I tried I ended up looking deranged.

I close her Instagram and open. . .