Half the World Away - [15]

‘Mrs Maddox? Mr Myers? I’m Detective Inspector Dooley.’ An Irish accent. She holds out her hand. We shake. Her hand is cool and dry, the pressure swift. I catch a trace of tobacco smoke and imagine she’s been having a smoke before meeting us. Her hair is dark and curly, salted grey. She is sharp-featured; lines furrow her brow and fan from the corners of her eyes and mouth. Her eyes are a washed-out blue. She carries a plastic folder and pen.

I’d like to pinch myself. But this is no dream.

‘I’m very sorry to hear about Lorelei,’ she says. ‘If you’ll come with me I’ll take some more details.’

She uses an electronic swipe card to release the door and takes us along a corridor to a small meeting room with four low easy chairs arranged around a coffee table. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she offers. ‘Only a vending machine, I’m afraid.’

‘Some water,’ I say. ‘That would be great, thanks, just tap water.’ Don’t drink the water – Lori’s rule number one.

‘Yes, water, please,’ Nick says.

‘Of course. Please, take a seat.’

She’s back in no time with two tumblers. Parched, I drink half of mine.

‘Let me just check I have all the details correct,’ she says, sitting down. She consults her file and goes over what we have told the receptionist. It’s all there.

‘And Lorelei is in China?’ she says.

‘In Chengdu,’ Nick says. ‘Sichuan province, the south-west.’

‘What’s she doing there?’

‘Teaching,’ I say. ‘English. She went travelling in September and ended up in China.’

‘She has a work visa,’ Nick says, ‘for a year.’

DI Dooley notes it down. ‘And when did she acquire the work visa?’

I think. ‘That would be February.’

‘And you last heard from her on the second of April?’

‘Yes,’ I say. I explain about the blog. ‘And she Skyped with her father, my ex, the day before.’

‘His name?’ she says.

‘Tom Maddox.’

‘And his date of birth?’

‘First of April 1969.’

‘Is Lorelei good at keeping in touch usually?’ DI Dooley says.

‘It can be a bit random,’ I say.

‘Have you spoken to her friends or colleagues in China?’ she says.

‘We’re not in touch with them,’ I say. ‘She had been talking about a holiday, so it might be that she’s gone off somewhere and can’t use the Internet or get a mobile-phone signal.’

‘A holiday to…’

‘She never said.’

‘On her own?’

‘Possibly,’ I say. ‘Her friend out there couldn’t get the time off.’ It all sounds so vague and imprecise.

‘Things can be quite last-minute with her,’ Nick says.

‘We’ve spoken to her friends here. We’ve emailed and phoned and texted her…’ Faltering, I reach for the water glass and take a sip.

DI Dooley says, ‘And while she was still in touch was Lorelei having any problems – health, money, relationships?’

‘No.’

‘No previous incidents of going missing?’ she says.

‘No,’ I say.

‘Any history of mental-health problems?’

I balk at this, recoiling from the scenarios that it makes me think of, but DI Dooley says calmly, ‘We have to consider every eventuality.’

‘No, nothing like that,’ I say.

‘Was Lorelei living alone?’

‘More recently, yes.’

‘And before that?’

‘She was sharing with Dawn, a friend she met in Thailand. Dawn’s Australian – she’s the one who might have been going on holiday with her. They were seeing each other.’

DI Dooley nods and adds to her notes. ‘Do you have a surname for Dawn?’

‘Sorry, no.’

She lays her pen down, lining it up so it is parallel with the top of the paper. ‘There is a limit to what we can do, given this is a foreign jurisdiction. At this point I will make some enquiries and see if there’s been any recent activity on her phone, for example, any deposits or withdrawals from her UK bank accounts and so on. Depending on the results of that, if we don’t have any news, we’ll approach the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and ask them to liaise with police in the Chengdu area who would carry out their own missing-person inquiry there. I’m going to give you a list of information I need to get the ball rolling.’

I nod, a bit stunned that she’s geared up and ready to act.

She takes a blank page from her file and writes down the things she needs from us. ‘You can get these to me some time tomorrow?’

‘Lunchtime?’ I say.

‘Fine. My shift starts at one o’clock. Shall we say half past?’

I’m feeling numb. My brain and my heart feel frozen, as though I’m absent, have slipped away from inhabiting my body.

‘There is a charity, Missing Overseas,’ DI Dooley says, as we get to our feet. ‘They have a website. You might find it useful.’

So that’s it. It’s official. Lori is missing. Those three words fill me with such anxiety that I have to stop outside and cling to Nick’s arm, my heart thumping, wild and irregular, against my ribs, my head buzzing black.

* * *

At home, Penny takes one look at us and sends the boys out to get themselves ice creams from the corner shop. She opens a bottle of wine and pours us each a glass. I tell her what the detective said, feel the pressure of tears behind my eyes and force them away.

‘Don’t tell them yet,’ I say, as we hear the boys coming back. I know we can’t keep it from them for very long, but I’m hoping DI Dooley might bring us good news and it would be awful to upset Finn and Isaac if we weren’t absolutely certain of the situation.