The Vanishing Girls by Callie Browning (great novels of all time .txt) 📗

back things he didn't know were there. That was genius. This…” He gestured to her paper-free desk, “…is just sad.”

Eileen’s face reddened. Clifford whistled as he picked up his yard broom on his way through the front door, pausing briefly to greet Holden who had just arrived. Holden didn't make eye contact as he said good morning, choosing instead to sit at his desk and make himself busy doing nothing. Eileen wondered if he felt uncomfortable after their late-night conversation. His discomfort only served to increase hers and for four hours, both of them tried to pretend the other wasn’t there. Their interactions took on the stilted, overly polite rhythms of two strangers on a bus who wouldn’t verbalize which one of them wanted the last seat.

At lunchtime, the news came on. Both Eileen and Holden listened with rapt attention as the police commissioner asked the public to remain calm and cooperate with officials as they investigated the murder of Michelle Jones who had been found over the weekend. Of course, mass panic and speculation ensued. The public’s anger was palpable on the call-in programme that aired immediately after the news. Callers blasted the police and politicians, the former for doing too little and the latter for doing too much.

“Somebody high-up killing these girls! That is why dem ain’t catch them yet.”

“All of this foolishness about amnesty! The government put way the hangman last year and since then this place gone to the dogs.”

“I got two young daughters and dem can’t even go outside. That murderer want lashing with the cat-o-nine.”

Holden’s mouth stayed in a firm line the entire time. At one point he glanced at Eileen the way a hummingbird hovers above a flower - quickly and timidly - before tapping the desk and saying, “I talked to Derricks yesterday morning. He told me he’s never seen anything like this. The only thing that lets them know it's the same person is the cut on the girls’ necks.”

Eileen thought back to the neatly stitched gash on Lydia’s neck that she had covered with make-up and a high-collared shirt. It had felt like a masquerade the way they had trotted her out so dewy fresh in a crisp black suit that still had the tags when her wailing mother handed it to Eileen.

Eileen remembered that day vividly. She had gone into the cold room and pulled back the white sheet before picking through the make-up, mixing powders and tints until she had created the perfect shade for Lydia’s pretty dark skin. After Lydia was brushed and blushed to perfection, Eileen had purposely avoided the puckered skin under the stitches until she had finished the face. She hadn’t wanted to touch it, that narrow egress through which the young woman’s life had drained and left her an empty shell. In the end, Eileen gritted her teeth and painstakingly covered the thick black thread, building and blending the make-up until it looked like no more than an old scar.

Holden had been impressed and asked if she’d be willing to do all of the make-up since she did a better job than Clifford. “He’s hit or miss. Sometimes they’re okay but, other times they look like they’re wearing Kabuki masks.”

Eileen had tried hard to forget Lydia’s gash but now her throat grew dry as she asked, “L-shaped cuts?”

“Yes. Derricks is working under the theory that the killer may have a disability like a missing thumb or something, which may stop him from holding the weapon properly.”

Eileen shuddered. “What about the brown car I mentioned outside Anna’s apartment?” My apartment, she thought anxiously. “Did that help?”

Holden bit his lip and tapped a pen on his desk before he leaned forward and cleared his throat, “It seems that lead wasn’t as concrete as he would have liked. But on the plus side, the toxicology report came back for the last victim and it’s clean.”

“What’s a toxicology report exactly?”

“The coroner takes blood, skin, hair samples, etcetera and tests them. They checked her for things like drugs or alcohol, but they didn’t find any in her system.”

“Oh,” comprehension dawned on Eileen’s face. “I had wondered why there was a bald patch at the back of her head. I didn’t realize the coroner shaved it.”

Holden stared at her. “Bald patch? Thorpe only plucks a few hairs so you’d never even notice it’s missing.”

“But I saw a bald patch at the back of Lydia’s head when I washed her hair.”

“Hmmm,” Holden mused as he stirred his tea. “Might be a bad haircut.” He shrugged.

Eileen raised an eyebrow. She doubted any teenage girl would submit to a haircut that left a shiny patch of scalp staring back at the world.

“I finished a book on serial killers this morning. Many of them take souvenirs from their victims. Do you think that’s why a patch of Lydia’s hair was missing?”

Holden considered it. “I wouldn’t doubt that. Any person that does these things repeatedly must have deep-rooted compulsions.”

Eileen was perplexed. “So after all of this time, they still don’t know who’s doing it?”

He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think they have anything to go on other than the similarity of the wounds.”

Eileen didn’t like the sound of that at all.

Traffic sounds, a tinkling bell and a gust of air signalled that Clifford was back. He closed the door behind him and side-stepped the grey partition to enter the open-plan office.

“I forgot to ask: how did it go over the weekend, Clifford?” Holden asked.

“It rained so hard I thought the mud would keep my shoes. Thorpe said if the family sends her this way that she should be ready before the end of the week.”

The preceding forty-eight hours played itself over in Eileen’s head. A dead woman who might be related to her. The police butting their heads against dead ends. The two facts boiled together and bubbled over and the urge to learn more about Michelle Jones gripped Eileen.

“Speaking of the young lady…we’ve got a busy day ahead, so I’m ready when