‘That’s why she became a special constable,’ adds Mr Hopewell. ‘She said it was a stepping stone. The next best thing.’
They both fall silent. I wait.
He begins again. ‘That all changed when she found Angel Face. It made her famous for a while. Everybody wanted to talk to her – the newspapers, TV shows, magazines. She thought it might help her career, but it caused her nothing but grief.’
‘Why?’
‘It never stopped – the late-night phone calls and the people following her.’
‘Are you talking about reporters?’
‘At first, yes, but then other people came calling. Some wouldn’t take no for an answer. We had two burglaries and her car was vandalised.’
‘When you say “they” – who did these things?’
Mrs Hopewell erupts. ‘You tell us!’
I can’t answer her.
‘Where is Sacha now?’
‘Travelling.’
‘Can you be more specific?’
‘Last week she was in France. A month ago it was Germany. Before that we got postcards from Scotland, Italy and Ireland.’
Mr Hopewell motions to the fridge, which is entirely covered in cards. ‘She never stays in the same place more than a few days. That’s why they can’t find her.’
‘Who?’ I ask.
‘The people who are looking for her.’ He makes it sound so obvious.
‘Have you ever met these people?’
‘No.’
‘Does Sacha know their names?’
‘No.’
‘Was she ever threatened?’ I ask.
‘Everything was a threat,’ says her father.
We’re going around in circles.
‘They weren’t reporters,’ says Mr Hopewell. ‘They didn’t leave their names. Sometimes they watched the house or they followed Sacha to work, or when she went to the shops. They thought she could lead them to Angel Face.’
‘Did Sacha tell the police?’
‘Nobody believed her. They thought she was being paranoid. That’s why they wouldn’t let her join the Met, they labelled her as too unstable.’
‘Can I phone her?’ I ask.
‘She doesn’t have a phone.’
The irony isn’t lost on me.
‘She rings us,’ says Mr Hopewell. ‘We never know when she’ll call. Sometimes she contacts her brother, or her aunt.’
She’s covering her tracks.
‘Can you bring Sacha back?’ asks his wife. She’s holding his hand beneath the table.
What do I say? I don’t understand why she’s gone.
Mr Hopewell turns to me and struggles to speak.
‘You want to know the worst thing . . . I’m angry with Sacha. I wish she had never grown up. I wish we could have locked her in a room and stopped her leaving home.
‘We sit here, waiting for the phone to ring or hoping for a postcard. That’s our future. That’s what we look forward to when we wake up every morning. Each day begins and ends with her.’
On the drive back to Nottingham, the rain arrives, sweeping in from the west in sheets that blur the landscape of fields and forests. My wipers struggle, slapping against the side of the windscreen like a soggy metronome.
I go over my visit to the Hopewells. A part of me wants to dismiss their suspicions as paranoia, but neither of them had been looking for confirmation or justification. Paranoid people believe the world is conspiring against them and that mistakes are never their fault. Paranoid people focus on what they want to see.
At the same time, I don’t buy into conspiracies. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but too many people are drawn to complicated answers, rather than obvious ones. They want to believe that arch-villains, or shady organisations or the ‘deep state’ are manipulating society, pulling the strings.
In reality, there isn’t some shooter in the grassy knoll or child sex ring in the pizza shop or secret group controlling the world. To misquote Mark Twain: ‘It isn’t what we don’t know that gets us into trouble. It’s what we know for sure that just isn’t so.’
16
Angel Face
The minibus is supposed to leave at noon. I stand back while the others jostle to get on board, calling ‘shotgun’ on certain seats or demanding to sit next to the window.
‘Will you get on the sodding bus,’ says Miss McCredie, pinching Nat on the forearm.
‘Ow! What did I do?’
‘You’re being a twat,’ she says under her breath, but loud enough for me to hear.
Miss McCredie’s partner, Judy, is driving the bus. She looks like a nightclub bouncer, or a rugby manager, with her square head, boxy clothes and tightly cropped hair.
‘I know who wears the pants in that relationship,’ whispers Chloe.
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘She’s the butch one. She goes on top.’
Do lesbians worry about tops and bottoms, I wonder.
Chloe considers herself an expert on sex, having boasted about giving blowjobs to her older brother’s friends and her biology teacher, who got sacked when he texted her a picture of his dick. He thought it was anonymous, but he forgot to crop the image, which included a coffee cup that said: ‘Old teachers never die, they just lose their class.’ Irony 101.
I take a seat near the front where I’m less likely to be hassled. I plug in my music but can still hear Chloe commandeering the back seat and choosing who gets to sit next to her.
Miss McCredie does a head count and tells everybody of the penalties that await anyone who misbehaves. She’s almost finished when Reno steps on the bus. A cheer goes up because Reno is one of the most popular members of staff. He’s young and into music and he likes discussing last night’s episode of Love Island. He also plays keyboards in a pub band called Roadkill. They once came to Langford Hall and did a gig, which was the most fun anyone could remember – unless you ask the neighbours.
Reno sits next to me and holds out his fist for a bump. I do it reluctantly, glancing at him quickly before looking away again, seeing the stubble on his cheeks and the stud in his earlobe. Some of the boys’ wolf-whistle and chorus, ‘Oooooh.’ I don’t react, but I’ll get them later.
Reno is just back from his honeymoon in Sri Lanka. He showed me where that was on a map, but I couldn’t tell if it was a long way away because I have no sense of distance.
The bus pulls out of the driveway and heads through the streets until the houses give way to pound stores and pawnshops. We pass an Islamic bookshop, a kosher butcher, an Arab grocer and an Asian supermarket. People call it the great melting pot, but nothing is melting, or blending. I like it that way – with everybody being different.
What I don’t like are the old people, who keep complaining about stuff – the noise and the traffic and the cost of living. Grey and puffy as dumplings, they hobble along footpaths and wait at bus stops and count out their change at supermarket checkouts, humming with disapproval every time a young person speaks too loudly, or moves too quickly, or simply breathes. Don’t ride your skateboard. Don’t play your music. Don’t wear those clothes.
The minibus stops at a red light. Reno is reading a story on his phone. It’s about a schoolgirl who was raped and murdered in Nottingham.