CLAUDIA CARROLL
Me and You

Copyright

AVON

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright © Claudia Carroll 2013

Claudia Carroll asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781847562746

Ebook Edition © ISBN: 9780007506101

Version: 2014-11-05

Dedication

To my old* pal, Karen Nolan.

With love and thanks, always.

*though when I say old, she’s actually really young.

*(Ok, so maybe she told me to write that last bit.)

Hands trembling, heart palpitating, she recognised the handwriting instantly.

I’m fine. I’m sorry.

Please take care of him for me.

And maybe one day I’ll get to explain.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Part One: The Lady Vanishes

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Part Two: Forget Me Not …

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Part Three

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Keep Reading …

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

PART ONE

Chapter One

Christmas Eve,The Sanctuary Spa, 9.30 a.m.

My birthday. My actual birthday and I’ve just been stood up.

No hang on, keep reading, it gets worse. By my best friend. In the same week I was turfed out of a flat I really loved, (and v. annoyingly, after the landlord had finally got round to getting Sky Atlantic in). In the same month I lost a job I loved even more. In the same year I got dumped by the man I loved most of all. Bastard not even having the good grace to leave me for someone younger or thinner.

Will spare you the details. Whole other story for a whole other day.

9.44 a.m.

Maybe Kitty’s just a tiny bit delayed? Then suddenly I think, maybe it’s me? Maybe I got the day wrong?

Remind myself; it’s my birthday. Got the day right. No question.

Have to accept it; definitely in stood-up territory here.

9.52 a.m.

V., v. weird. Can’t quite get my head around the fact she’d do this to me. Today of all days. Getting a bit wobbly lipped and almost on the verge of tears now.

9.53 a.m.

Wouldn’t mind, but this whole spa day was Kitty’s idea, not mine. She booked it, made appointments, even made brekkie and lunch reservations at the Spa Café, the whole works. Not a chance in hell of my being able to afford it right now, for starters. But Kitty insisted, said it was my birthday treat. Said it was something she really wanted to do, to make it up to me for having had the single shittiest, annus horribilis anyone ever had to suffer. Kitty’s like that, though, ridiculously generous. Would gladly give away her last bean. Can’t even walk down a street without running into the nearest Starbucks to buy a sandwich and a hot drink every time she sees a homeless person. But now … is it really possible that she just hasn’t turned up? Has even forgotten?

Anyone else I know, not a chance. Absolutely none whatsoever. But reluctantly, I have to admit with Kitty? Meh. Very distinct possibility.

9.55 a.m.

This is ridiculous! I’m a complete and utter bitch for not even giving my best friend in the whole world the benefit of the doubt! Because she will get here, I just know it.

9.56 a.m.

She doesn’t, though. Kitty was supposed to meet me for a big birthday brekkie at eight this morning; she’s really, seriously late now. So late, I’m actually starting to palpitate, but then I remind myself Kitty’s done this before. Is, in fact, famous for it. Sometimes it’s not her fault, she’s just held up at the restaurant where she works and can’t get away. Genuine excuse. But I have to admit there’s been other times, and plenty of them, when she just went out on the piss night before, then slept it in. More often than not, in all her clothes and full make-up from the previous night, knowing her.

I’ve nagged her about this carry-on loads of times, but she just laughs at me, tells me to stop acting like such a designated-driver type and to get out there and start enjoying myself a bit more. Can almost hear her catchphrase ringing in my ears: ‘Sure, we’ll be a long time dead!’

So that’s why I’m not overly worried about her. Just a bit disappointed that she’d do this to me today of all days, that’s all.

Wobbly bottom lip starts to get a whole lot wobblier now, even thinking about it.

It’s akin to smashing up unwritten commandment of friendship, then dancing barefoot on it.

9.58 a.m.

Blanket ban on phones in here, there’s a big snotty sign above reception saying so, so I step out the Sanctuary door into the street outside, to try calling her. Practically immune by now to the weird looks I’m getting, in the ridiculously over-sized dressing gown and white fluffy slippers.

Icy cold air’s calming me down a bit and I’m starting to breathe a bit easier. Like a bleeding sauna back there.

10.00 a.m. on the dot

Ring Kitty’s mobile for about the twentieth time; still no answer. Ditto her landline. Ring Byrne & Sacetti’s Restaurant, where she works, and ask if she’s there. Yet again.

Same voice as before answers. Remembers me. Even with a crappy mobile phone reception and with ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ blaring away in the background, I can still hear how hassled this one sounds. Tells me, v. curtly, Kitty definitely, definitely, definitely isn’t there. She’s already checked the roster for the second time.

I’ve a strong urge to gnash my teeth and say, ‘But she just has to be! Can’t you check the roster just one more time? Then remind myself, it’s Christmas Eve. Poor girl’s probably working under conditions last seen in field hospitals, circa World War One. And after all, who in their right minds wants to be working today, when they could be out on the piss with all their mates instead?

10.02 a.m.

Try calling Simon, Kitty’s boyfriend. Maybe he’s seen her, or at least knows a bit more than I do? Impatiently, I bring up his number on my phone and dial.

No shagging answer. Voicemail. Why isn’t anyone answering their bloody phone today? Does nobody realise this could be a serious emergency?

10.03 a.m.

Seeing as I’m on the phone anyway, decide to do ring-around of all our mutual buddies, on the off chance anyone’s seen or heard from Kitty. Call the whole gang – Sarah, Jeff and Mags – but no one picks up. Now I love my friends dearly, but at this point, I’d gladly do time for the whole shower of them. Why won’t anyone answer their phone?!

Bloody last-minute Christmas Eve shoppers, whole lot of them.

10.20 a.m.

Eventually, I have to admit defeat. Arrived well over two and a half hours ago and now I’ve to face up to the cold, hard fact that Kitty’s just a no-show. Shuffling uncomfortably in disposable slippers, I head back to the reception area to explain all.

Manager gives a long, exasperated sigh, then coolly points out that there’s still the matter of a last-minute cancellation fee to be coughed up.

Knees almost buckle under me. Was deeply afraid of this. Mainly because I’ve no money. Not a red cent, nothing, nada. The price of the bus fare home, that’s about it. In a wobbly voice I ask how much for exactly. For the full amount, I’m crisply told. All cancellations are charged at the full price unless they’re made at least twenty-four hours prior to your treatments. They’re very clear about that at the booking stage, apparently.

OK, as of last week, when I was propelled back onto a dole queue, I’ve no credit card. It’s in the bin at home, slashed through with scissors, so I wouldn’t be guilted into buying last-minute Christmas pressies or led astray by the January sales. And if I give her a cheque, it’ll only bounce … So what in the name of God am I supposed to do now?

Somehow, though, kindly manager must sense the blind, sweaty panic I’m now in. Tells me a little bit more politely that it’s OK, they automatically charge the credit card of whoever made the booking. Says she still has all Kitty’s card details in their system.

Oh Kitty, am so, so sorry to do this to you … All that bloody money you worked so hard for …

Then the receptionist leans in towards me and says in a low voice that seeing as this is already paid for, there’s absolutely no reason why I can’t stay to enjoy the facilities. Shame to waste it all, just because your friend is no-show, is her gist.

I just look at her, dumfounded. Out of the question, I tell her, a bit haughtily.

Mother of God, how could I ever hope to relax or enjoy myself? Something is wrong, very wrong, and this one thinks I could possibly spend a pampering day having hot stones rubbed into the small of my back, while freeloading off Kitty’s credit card?

Not a bleeding snowball’s chance.

10.30 a.m.

Mercifully I’m now out of the highly uncomfortable, disposable, G-string/dental floss knickers combo, fully dressed in my depths-of-winter coat and back out on the busy, icy-cold street again. Bloody mayhem here, like something you’d see in Stalinist Russia circa 1939. Whole place is completely thronged as Christmas shoppers with pinched, hassled expressions, laden down with overstuffed shopping bags all shove past, impatiently banging against me.

Carol singers on street corner are joyfully belting out ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’, but I’m so stressed out of my mind, I nearly want to wallop them, just for having the barefaced cheek to show Xmas cheer.

10.45 a.m.

Starts to snow lightly, that lovely stage where you think, ah look, lovely, beautiful snow, how romantic and gorgeous and Christmassy. Though in approximately an hour, when cars start piling up against each other and all the buses stop running, I’ll doubtless be snarling, ‘OK, we’ve all had enough of this mayhem! When will the bloody snow ever give up?’

Yet again, I call Kitty’s mobile and landline. Yet again, nada. Yet again I try ringing all the gang and – holy miracle of Christmas – Mags actually answers. (Mags is the proud mother of three kids, all under the age of six, so it’s almost the seventh wonder of the world whenever she can even find her phone, never mind pick up.)

‘Mags? Hi, it’s me, in a bit of a panic here …’

‘Angie! What are you doing calling? I thought you and Kitty would be lying stretched out on massage tables, getting hot aromatherapy oil rubbed into your unmentionables by now! God, I get so mad jealous every time I think of you pair of complete dossers … And here’s me, trying to defrost a turkey with one hand, while glazing a ham with the other, before eagle-eyed mother-in-law-from-hell lands in on top of me. Just so the aul bitch can do her annual Christmas Eve inspection of my kitchen …’

Jeez, am inclined to forget how hard it can be to get a word in edgeways with Mags. Like she spends so much time round kids, that whenever she gets a chance to talk to adults, she physically won’t let them off phone.

‘I deliberately didn’t call you to say happy birthday till much later on!’ she says, still not letting me talk. ‘I was sure your phone would be on silent for the whole day … God, you single people have the life! Never get married, do you hear me? And NEVER have kids, ever!’

‘Mags, will you just hear me out?’ I’m almost shouting in frustration now, purple behind the eyeballs probably, from the need to talk. ‘Kitty never showed up.’

A short, stunned silence.

‘She what?’

‘And I’ve rung just about everywhere I can think of and there’s no sign of her. So I was just wondering—’

‘That is so terrible!’

‘I know—’

‘On your birthday?’

‘Well, yeah—’

‘You’re joking me!’

‘I wish!’

‘Can’t believe she’d just leave you high and dry like that!’

‘I know, but— ’

‘But nothing!’ she says firmly. ‘Now you just listen to me, love. I know it’s unforgivable carry-on, but I really wouldn’t invest too much time worrying about Kitty, there’s bound to be some perfectly simple explanation for this. Like … maybe she just slept it out, or something? You know what she’s like.’

‘But I must have rung the girl’s landline about a dozen times so far this morning. And her phone is like a bloody foghorn! How could anyone alive possibly sleep through that?’

Remember distinctly Kitty having to get the most blaring bedside phone ever known to man installed; she’d just got the job at Byrne & Sacetti and once got so bollocked out of it once for sleeping through an early shift, that she’d no choice.

‘I know,’ Mags persists, ‘but then, this is Kitty we’re talking about. Look, I know we’re kind of clutching at straws here, but she’s nowhere else to be found, so why don’t you just call round to her house and keep hammering on her front door, in case she’s there? Or … I dunno … maybe pelt her bedroom window with stones till she eventually hauls her lazy arse out of bed? Why not, Ang? I mean, where else could she possibly be?’

11.05 a.m.

I’ve a good twenty-minute wait at a freezing bus stop, before a number ten that miraculously isn’t stuffed pulls over and I squeeze my way in. Traffic’s dire; Christmas Eve – I’m inclined to keep blanking it out. And nearly an hour later, I’m puffing and wheezing my way down Berkeley Street off the South Circular Road, where Kitty’s been renting a gorgeous, cosy, two-up-two-down for about two years now, only about a ten-minute walk from restaurant on Camden Street, where she works. One of those recently renovated Corpo redbricks in a neat row of terraced houses, all just like it. Bit like Coronation Street, minus the Rovers and The Kabin and neighbours having bust-ups in public.

Mags is right, and thank God at least one of us is thinking clearly. I mean, where else could Kitty possibly be if not at home and still crashed out in bed? In fact, the more I think about it, the more I see how easy it would have been for her to go out on the batter, with a gang from the restaurant after work last night, for a few Christmas drinks, which somehow turned into about fifteen Christmas drinks, knowing her. Highly probable. With Kitty more than likely the ringleader, but then she’s a divil for dragging everyone off to the pub, ‘just for the one!’ And where Kitty leads, the party invariably follows. Then five hours later, of course, everyone’s still there.

So the chances are v. high she could well be lying under the duvet now, sleeping it off and totally dead to the world. Aren’t they? Admittedly, I’m still a tiny bit snippy with her for whole birthday standing-up thing, but still … It’s the season of goodwill; I’m prepared to forgive this one, tiny blip.

And, yeeessssss! That’s when I see it! Her car, her pride and joy, an ancient, battered little banger of a run-around Mazda that she insists on calling Doris, neatly parked right outside her house. It’s the miracle of Christmas! She is home and all is well! Wait till you see, I’ll knock her up out of bed now and everything will be fine, the birthday will be salvaged and we’ll still have a lovely Christmas Eve together. Just wait till you see. How could I ever have doubted her? Jubilantly, I hammer on her door.

But there’s no answer. Knock again, wait. Ring the doorbell, wait some more. Knock again, ring again, nothing.

On cue, worry sweat restarts.

‘Kitty?’ I yell through the letterbox. ‘It’s me. You awake? Come on, love, get your lazy arse out of bed and let me in, will you? It’s bloody freezing out here!’

Silence.

OK then, hope you’re decent girlfriend, ’cos I’m coming in …

Kitty’s due to go away with Simon on Stephen’s Day and – thank you, God! – she gave me a spare key to her house when I saw her last, so I could nip in and feed the stray cat who drops in from time to time, while she’s away. I fish her keys out from the bowels of my handbag and just as I’m letting myself in, out of nowhere fresh worry suddenly strikes.

Supposing she was broken into last night? And suppose she was in some way hurt and is now lying unconscious in a heap on the floor inside?

Another wave of panic, as yet more worry sweat starts pumping out of me with a vengeance. Must smell like bin day at a meat factory by now.

Fling the hall door open, calling out her name. But the alarm is on, beep-beeping away at me. So, no break-in then. Which is good news. I mean, ’course it’s good news; obviously no burglars have been here, for one thing. But if the alarm is on, it means Kitty’s not here, simple as. She only ever switches it on when she goes out; know this for a fact.

I punch in the code she gave me to silence shagging thing, then look around, taking v. deep breaths and trying my level best to stay nice and calm. The whole house is worryingly quiet. Don’t think I’ve ever been in this house when it’s so scarily silent before.

‘Kitty? Are you here? It’s me!’ I call out, but I know it’s a useless waste of time. Wherever she is, it’s not here.

Place is so, so silent, a bit like the Marie Celeste. I head down the tiny hallway and into her cosy little galley kitchen-cum-living room, straight ahead. And as you’d expect from Kitty, and probably on account of the mentally long shifts she works, the place is complete, Cath Kidston chaos. Even when she claims to have tidied up a bit, the house still looks identical. Not a hit-by-a-bomb mess, more like general disorganisation, but in way that’s somehow full of charm, if that makes any sense. Books she’s been studying for her evening classes are abandoned on the ironing board and a mountain of dirty washing is dumped beside the machine, that kind of thing.

V., v. weird and a bit spooky. Like Kitty’s presence is somehow everywhere even though she’s not. There’s a pile of dirty dishes still on the kitchen table, but with Kitty you can never tell if it’s breakfast dishes or late-night supper. Often both are the same thing in this house, pizza being a case in point. (Leftover pizza is a big staple of any waitress’s diet, I’m reliably informed. Can’t blame them either, the hours they work to support themselves, let’s face it, they need the carbs.)

Starting to feel bit shifty now for snooping. Remind myself that if you were to go into my flat whenever I’m not expecting anyone, I’m not sure quite how tip-like place would be, but knickers lying strewn around the floor and knackered greying bras shoved down the backs of radiators, would be a v. definite given.

Sorry. Meant to say my ex-flat.

Keep forgetting.

Over in the corner, a Christmas tree is up; a proper real one, none of your fake, tinselly crap for our Kitty. A beautiful, perfectly symmetrical tree that smells like pine toilet freshener, but in a nice way. She told me she and Simon chose it together last weekend; apparently he insisted. Presents are littered round underneath it, some still in the bags and waiting to be wrapped. I’m well impressed; still haven’t even got round to buying half my presents yet, but then being smashed broke and unemployed tends to be something of a major impediment to Christmas shopping.

Next thing, there’s a sharp banging noise from behind me and I let out an involuntary yelp. Jump round to see who or what the hell it is, but it’s OK, it’s not an axe-wielding psycho, only Magic, the adorable tabby cat Kitty found on street outside starving and sick, so she took her in and nursed her back to full health. But then, Kitty’s v. like that: a natural magnet for waifs and strays.

Magic lets herself in through a cat flap at the back door and immediately heads over to me, curling herself round my ankles.

I pick her up and pet her gently.

‘Hey, Magic! Where is she? Where’s your mommy? Have you seen her? Any ideas?’

The cat just licks her lips at me and jumps down, strutting over to the cupboard under the sink where I know Kitty keeps tins of Whiskas, then glares imperiously at me as much as to say, ‘Haven’t the first clue, love. Now would you stop talking to a mute animal like a complete moron and just feed me?’

So I do, and while Magic’s wolfing down a bowlful of cat food, I take a good nose around the house. Just in case there’s something, anything that might give me some idea of where Kitty could be. I head into her tiny study, the only other room downstairs and have a good gander at the noticeboard on the wall, littered with Post-it notes. Maybe some really important appointment she had this morning that she forgot all about till the very last minute, then had to rush off to?

Nothing out of the ordinary, though. Just row upon row of yellow stickers all covered in her scrawly handwriting with hastily scribbled reminders like, ‘Collect dry-cleaning.’ ‘Root out passport and check expiration date.’ ‘Pay phone bill or will get cut off.’ ‘Cancel papers.’ ‘Put out bins!!’ No indication she’d anything urgent on at all today, not a single thing.

So then I check upstairs, but it’s exactly the same thing: absolutely nothing strikes me as odd. Hard to tell if the bed has been slept in or not. It’s unmade, but then Kitty’s not really the bed-making type. There’s a big pile of her clothes carelessly flung across a chair by the wardrobe; a bright red plastic mac, pink flowery leggings and a load of T-shirts. December, I know, sub-zero outside, I know, but this is honestly the kind of thing Kitty would go out in without giving it a second thought. She’s by a mile the nuttiest dresser I’ve ever seen. Like she just falls out of the bed first thing every morning and does a wardrobe lucky dip, grabbing whatever comes to hand without, God forbid, doing anything as conventional as colour co-ordinating. And still, by the way, managing to look stunningly fab in an artless, couldn’t-particularly-be-bothered kind of way, not like a candidate for care in the community, as someone like me surely would.

‘Kitty, where the hell are you?’ I say aloud, then slump down onto the bed, so I can have a good think. Nowhere that she’s supposed to be, and yet her car is here. So if Kitty did stay here last night, then got up as normal this morning … why didn’t she just drive to the Sanctuary to meet me? She always drives everywhere around Dublin, except to work, because she reckons it would physically choke her to have to pay for the shagging parking.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Unless something happened to her on her way home from work late last night? But what? Image after image floods my worried mind: a hit and run accident? Mugging?

Right, that’s it, then. Sod this, am done with all this bloody agonising and trying to second-guess what has or hasn’t gone on. I’ll just have to call the police, right now, I’ve got no choice. And yes, they’ll probably have a right laugh at me or threaten to arrest me for wasting police time, but I can’t help it. Just have to know if something, anything’s been reported.

I call directory enquiries and get connected to the right number. A copper at the local station answers. So I tell him whole works: that my friend’s just disappeared off the face of the earth, isn’t answering her phone and isn’t in work either. And that I’m in her house now, and still no sign.

Just hope he doesn’t ask about her next of kin. There isn’t time.

‘And how long has your friend been gone for?’ he says flatly, in a disinterested monotone.

‘Well, we were to meet this morning at eight, but she never showed, so of course I panicked …’

OK, now I swear can almost hear him trying to suppress a dismissive snort.

‘Eight this morning was barely four hours ago. She’ll turn up, trust me. Besides, I’m not authorised to open up a missing persons report until a subject has been gone for a minimum of seventy-two hours. And, of course, assuming they’ve actually gone missing and aren’t just out doing a bit of Christmas shopping.’

‘But supposing there’s been some kind of accident?’

Why isn’t he taking this seriously? I thought he’d at very least put out APBs or whatever it is you call them, like they do on CSI the minute someone vanishes. But no, the subtext is v. clear: get off the phone now, you bloody lunatic time-waster.

‘If there had been,’ the copper tells me, talking down to me like I’m a bit soft in head, ‘I can assure you that we’d know all about it. But I can tell you we’ve had no incidents or disturbances reported in the South Circular Road area so far today.’ And with that, doing a mean hand-washing impression of Pontius Pilate, he adds, ‘Well, if that’ll be all then?’

Useless! Bloody useless! I want to snarl down the phone, ‘Is this what I pay taxes for?’ then remember: I’ve no job. I’m no longer an upstanding taxpayer at all. So I just keep my mouth shut and hang up instead.

One last, final look at the photos dotted all over the bedside table. Lovely one of Kitty and Simon when they went on a big, splash-out hollier to France last year. Kind of thing you only ever do when in the first stages of love. Whereas buying Christmas trees together clearly indicates they’ve reached the tenth stages. Said as much to her and can still remember her laughing, saying yeah, in two years time, they’d probably be screeching at each other, ‘But I went out and got the shagging tree last year! Now it’s your turn!’

Both of them in the photo look like something out of a Tommy Hilfiger ad. Clear-skinned, lightly tanned, athletic, long-limbed, skinny, totally gorgeous. Kitty, as always in photos, turning her head slightly sideways, the wild, abandoned tangle of Rebekah Brooks curls falling over her face to hide a kink in her nose she hates so much. Really has issues with it; she claims that if she ever won the Lotto, first thing she’d do would be to straighten it out once and for all. Says it gives her the look of a young Barbra Streisand; the Yentl years.

Major source of debate between us; mainly because if I had plastic surgery funds, the first thing I’d do would be to get my lardy arse sorted, once and for all. (As an aside, this is entirely possible; I’ve read about far worse cases than mine on back pages of Marie Claire.) Though I have to say, the only one who even notices Kitty’s bumpy nose at this stage is her; if you ask me, it gives her even more character. Couldn’t imagine her without it. Even blokes say it makes her look sexier and more appealing. (Curse my straight nose, curse it!)

Anyway, she and Simon are like Mr and Mrs Perfect Couple in the picture; they somehow even look a bit alike. Glowing, pictures of health and vitality, like Darwin’s natural selection in progress. Made for each other, everyone says so.

Behind that, I spot a photo of Kitty and me. Bless her, she even went to the bother of framing my skinny photo. Ashamed to say, taken so long ago, I’m wearing jeans I haven’t fitted into in a minimum of three years, in spite of all my best efforts plus a serious amount of yo-yo dieting. Also I’ve a v. unfortunate over-heavy fringe that I got talked into by a hairdresser when I was feeling a bit vulnerable and which turned out to be a BIG mistake that’s taken ever since then to grow out. (Not really my fault; I was going for a Zooey Deschanel look, but ended up more like Kathy Burke (appearing as Waynetta Slob on Harry Enfield, that is).

Check the boxroom beside Kitty’s bedroom, just in case. Nothing out of ordinary, just piles of cardboard boxes and bags of clothes, which I’m guessing must belong to Simon, who’s due to move in with Kitty after the holidays. Guy spends ninety per cent of his time here anyway, so both of them figured it was easier and cheaper just to go whole hog and live together.

So now what? Then, a sudden light bulb moment. The restaurant where she works is only about a ten-minute walk from here. I could maybe call in and try to furrow out some of Kitty’s waiter pals? Maybe they know something I don’t? Better yet, maybe Kitty’s been there all this time and whoever answered phone to me earlier is either a complete dope, or else operating on a severe hangover and got it arseways about Kitty being off duty?

Check Magic is OK, and has enough food, milk, water, etc. Even try to cuddle her before leaving but the cat knows I’m not her mammy, leaps out of my arms like she’s been electrocuted, and struts haughtily out the cat flap again, away on her travels. Kitty’s a terrific cat person; me, not so much.

Snow’s getting far heavier outside now; it’s bloody freezing and slippy, with old ladies skidding and sliding all around me. Seriously starting to regret wearing totally inappropriate shoes – they’re as good as destroyed after approx five minutes out in this.

My feet are now soaked and even my heavy-duty winter coat is getting a right battering.

Least of my worries.

12.05 p.m.

Eventually I batter my way through the elements to Byrne & Sacetti’s Italian Bar and Restaurant to give it its proper title, right slap in the middle of busy, packed Camden Street.

It’s a massive, sprawling place, set over four storeys, a bit like a family-run mini-empire. The entire ground floor is a food hall-cum-coffee-shop; first floor is the main restaurant, second floor is for private functions, weddings, fiftieth birthday piss-ups, etc., while the basement level is a wine bar, much favoured by single women, on account of its deserved reputation for being a high-end place to bump into eligible guys.

Many, many romances, according to Kitty, have started over chat-up lines such as, ‘Excuse me, by any chance do you know where the charcuterie counter is? I hear there’s thirty per cent off Parma ham and slabs of parmesan this week! And by the way, if you could possibly recommend a decent white wine to go with them, I’d be so grateful. Hope you don’t mind my asking! Oh and … by any chance is that seat taken?’

Byrne & Sacetti is one of those Italian eateries that never seem to close, ever. They start with brekkie at dawn, lunch from twelve, afternoon teas, coffees, cakes, etc. in the food hall throughout the rest of the day, the evening restaurant proper opens at six, while wine is available downstairs in cellar bar till closing time. Gold mine, in other words. Even in the depths of recession, this place is still pulling ’em in.

Kitty’s been working here for close to two years now, but still, in all the many, many times I’ve met her here after her shift before she’d drag me off for a night out, I’ve never seen it quite this jammed. Like the bleeding last days of Rome in here. Christmas revellers, already half-cut from too much daytime boozing, are staggering and clattering downstairs from the restaurant, while in the food hall section, last-minute shoppers panicking about tomorrow’s dinner are nearly arm-wrestling each other over the last of the Panettones.

Gonna get ugly before too long, I can just feel it in the air.

12.22 p.m.

Still wandering round Byrne & Sacetti, one level at a time. I’m snooping round the basement wine bar now, weaving round stuffed-to-the-gills tables of Xmas boozers, trying not to trip over their abandoned shopping bags. There’s a big gang of the ladies-who-lunch brigade in, all dressed in fashionable nude colours with nude, Kate Middleton heels to match and all looking like human Elastoplasts, if you ask me. All of them unanimously shoot irritated looks at me, as I almost stumble over expensive-looking handbags, abandoned carelessly at well-heeled feet.

Apologise, but don’t really mean it. I’m only here on the off-chance I get lucky and chance on some waiter pal of Kitty’s who might know something; anything. I would have met a good selection of her buddies from work, including a lot of the Sacetti family, from a few nights on the razz that Kitty’s dragged me along to over the past few years. With karaoke nights featuring v. large; the Irish-Italians are very fond of their karaoke, it seems.

No joy, though. Can only see Xmas revellers starting the celebrations early, laying into their celebratory glasses of Prosecco and antipasti platters.

Mine is the only stressed-looking face; everyone else is having a rare old time, like the whole world has clocked off for the holidays.

Even Kitty.

12.45 p.m.

Finally … success!

I’m just nosing around the packed function room on the very top floor now, weaving in and out of groups of invitees clutching champagne flutes and trying not to look like I’m out to gatecrash a private Christmas party, when suddenly I hear my own name being yelled out loud and clear.

‘Angie? Angie Blennerhasset? That you?’

Delighted, I turn round to see Joyce Byrne, part-owner here and a good pal of Kitty’s. Married to Stephano Sacetti, other half of the Business Empire. Hardest working couple I think I’ve ever met in my entire life. Lovely, perpetually smiley, happy Joyce, still radiating Xmasy good cheer in spite of the fact she’s probably been slaving away and on her feet since sometime before I went to bed last night.

I give her a big hug and fill her in.

‘You mean Kitty just never turned up at the Sanctuary this morning?’ says Joyce, horrified, and, I swear, the shock in her voice is almost reassuring. See? Proves I’m not mad, for one thing. I’m on the right track. Something awful must have happened.

‘You’re kidding me! She was so looking forward to it! She was full of chat about the whole thing; you should have seen the girl! She was all excited …’

‘You mean … Kitty’s definitely not here now, then? Hasn’t been moved to work in the kitchen or anything?’

‘No, definitely not. If she were, I’d know. Been here since the crack of dawn. Besides, I was only just thinking how quiet the staff room was without her.’

‘And the last time you saw her was …?’

Starting to feel v. Hercule Poirot-ish now.

‘God, let me think. It was definitely last night, seriously late, I think it must have been well after one in the morning. She was just finishing up after a party in the restaurant and I was doing the till. She gave me a lovely bottle of wine for Christmas, said she’d see me soon, then bounced out of here, all excited about seeing you. And, of course, going off on holidays with gorgeous fella of hers.’

Hard to put into words the feeling of total deflation. I was so hopeful Kitty might have been here all along and just through some complete fluke, I hadn’t spotted her yet.

‘So where do you think she might be?’ Joyce asks me, worriedly.

‘Well, let’s work it out. You last saw her at around one o’clock this morning. And she’s definitely not at home now, but her car is there …’

‘Yeah …’

‘So wherever she is, chances are she hasn’t gone too far …’

Oh God. Sudden shock goes through me like I’ve just been electrocuted. Suppose Kitty was on her way home from work, and then got abducted by some sick, pervy sociopath who now has her locked up in a cellar somewhere?

Joyce really must be a mind-reader. She immediately grips my arm, quickly grabs a glass of still water from a passing waiter and makes me gulp down a few mouthfuls.

‘Angie, the worst thing you can do is let your imagination run away with you. Trust me, there’s some perfectly innocent explanation for all this. Have you spoken to her boyfriend?’

‘No, he’s not answering his mobile either. I can’t get a hold of him at all …’

‘Oh, that’s right, of course. Kitty told me he’s gone home to his folks down the country for Christmas and that she wouldn’t be seeing him till Stephen’s Day.’

‘Unless …’

‘Unless what?’

And there it is, the simple bloody answer to all this! Been staring me in the face all this time. Why didn’t I think of it before now?

‘Maybe there was some emergency with … well, with her foster mother? Something so urgent that Kitty just had to drop everything and run?’

The sudden relief at saying it aloud is almost overwhelming. Of course that’s what must have happened. Explains away everything, doesn’t it? I was an utter gobshite not to have guessed earlier!

It’s a v., v. long and complex story, but the brief potted summary is that Kitty has no family to speak of, never even knew her dad, and her birth mother passed away when she was just a baby. She grew up in one foster home after another but says none of them ever really worked out and she just drifted around from Billy to Jack, rootless. Then when she was about fifteen, she was placed with an older, widowed lady called Mrs Kennedy and the pair of them just idolised and adored each other right from the word go. To this day, Kitty considers Mrs K., as she affectionately calls her, to be the only real family she ever had, even though she was only homed with her for over a year.

But when Kitty was only about sixteen, the poor woman started to become seriously ill with Alzheimer’s, followed by a series of strokes. Awful for her and just as bad for Kitty too, though she never let on. Instead, she just did what Kitty always does: tried to keep the show on the road single-handedly for as long as she could.

Anyway, it got to stage when authorities decided Mrs K. couldn’t care for herself any more, never mind a sixteen-year-old, so on what Kitty calls the most Dickensian day of her life, they broke them up and packed Mrs K. off to the best-equipped care home going, for someone with her condition. Meanwhile, Kitty was sent off to yet another foster family, and from that point on, she just completely clams up whenever I gently probe her for more about her back-story.

Mrs K. is being well looked after, though, and to this day, Kitty still visits her at the care home every chance she gets. Only trouble is, it’s just outside Limerick, a bloody two-and-a-half-hour journey from here. Kitty’s amazing though; drives down to see her every day off that she can. I’ve even gone with her a few times, but find it all just sad beyond belief. There are days when Mrs K. doesn’t even recognise Kitty; confuses her with one of staff nurses in care home and for some reason keeps calling her Jean.

Also, I’m just not a born natural round ill people, like Kitty is. Kitty will laugh and joke and even bounce round other wards to visit all Mrs K.’s pals; you can always tell what room she’s in by the loud sound of guffaws that follow her about everywhere. Like a one-woman Broadway show. Whereas I never know what to say or do, just sit tongue-tied in corner, then end up coming out with weak, useless crap along the lines of, ‘Well, she’s certainly looking a whole lot better, isn’t she?’

Even worse, the days when Mrs K. doesn’t know us are lately becoming the good days; sometimes she won’t talk to us at all, just sits rocking away to self and singing theme tunes from TV shows, bird-happy, away in own little world. Keeps confusing me with one of the tea ladies called Maureen, and every now and then will screech at me, ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Maureen? I hate bloody egg and onion sandwiches!’

Heartbreaking. My own family may not exactly be the Waltons, but Kitty’s story at least makes me appreciate what I have that bit more.

So maybe I’m finally on the money here. Because if something did happen to Mrs K., I just know in my waters Kitty wouldn’t think twice about hotfooting it all way to Limerick, would she? And she couldn’t phone me to explain on account of … well, maybe there being no mobile signal down there?

Has to have been what happened. And the only reason it didn’t occur to me before now is that for past few years, although Mrs K.’s mental state is deteriorating fast, she’s been so physically strong that not even Kitty was worried about her for the longest time.

‘Joyce, I think I should call the care home. Now.’

‘Of course,’ she says firmly. ‘You can use the phone from my office; you’ll have a bit more privacy. It’s just off the kitchens. Come on, I’ll show you.’

Obediently I follow her and the pair of us weave our way through the Christmas boozers, worry now vom-making in my throat. Don’t know what Kitty will do if anything’s happened to Mrs K. Especially not now, at Christmas. She’s the only person in the whole world that Kitty considers family; it would just be too bloody unfair by far.

Joyce efficiently brings up number of Foxborough House care home on her computer and even dials for me. Hands trembling nervously now as the number starts to ring.

‘Foxborough House, how may I help you?’ comes a polite, breezy, unstressed voice.

‘Hi, there, I was wondering if I could enquire after Mrs Kathleen Kennedy? She’s in room three eleven on the ground floor.’

‘May I ask if you’re a family member?’

Gulp to myself, stomach clenched, somehow sensing bad news. The worst.

‘Family friend.’

‘Well, I’m happy to tell you that Mrs Kennedy is absolutely fine, just ate a hearty dinner, in fact.’

‘Sorry, you mean … She’s OK then? There’s no emergency with her?’

‘No, none at all.’

‘And, well … I was just wondering if Kitty Hope had been to see her at all today? She’s my best friend and—’

Receptionist’s voice instantly brightens tenfold at the very mention of Kitty’s name.

‘Oh, yes, I know Kitty well! Such a fantastic, lively girl, isn’t she? We all love it so much when she comes to visit, she really cheers up everyone’s day round here. But you know, the last time I saw her was about a week ago. I remember distinctly, because she mentioned that she’d be away for Christmas, but that she’d be in to see her mum as soon as she got back. At New Year, I think she told us.’

Joyce looks hopefully at me and I shake my head. So, no emergency, then.

Kitty’s still gone AWOL.

1.05 p.m.

Right then. I’ve been in Byrne & Sacetti for ages now, can’t loiter round any longer. Also, it’s not fair to delay poor old Joyce any more, not when it’s like Armageddon in here. So I hug her goodbye and she smiles her warm, confident smile and tells me not to worry a bit. That Kitty will turn up safe and well and we’ll all look back on this and have a good laugh.

Attempt to give watery grin back at her, but I’m an appallingly unconvincing actress.

1.08 p.m.

Then, just as I’m facing back out into the snowy street outside, my mobile suddenly rings.

Check to see who it is, hoping against hope … Not it’s not Kitty, but it’s the next best thing! Her boyfriend, Simon! He HAS to have news, just has to …

I dip into the doorway of a fairly quiet pub, away from the noisy street and the blaring sound of Christmas Eve traffic before answering.

‘Simon! Can you hear me?’

‘Hey, Angie, how are you?! I’m sorry about the delay in getting back to you, but I’m back at home, plus I’d to take a whole clatter of nieces and nephews to see Santa today and to buy all their Xmas presents. Bloody mayhem in Smyth’s toy store, there were near riots over the last of the Lalaloopsy Silly Hair Dolls. Tell you something, I’ve never needed a stiff drink so badly in my life!’

Such a relief to hear his soft Galway accent. Strong. Reassuring. Bit like a pilot making an announcement on an Aer Lingus flight. For first time today, I feel safe. Calm. Somehow, it’s all going to be OK. I’m far too stressed out to cop why he’s on about Lalaloopsy Dolls, then remind myself: Simon comes from a massive family with approximately fifteen nieces and nephews, or whatever it was at last count.

‘Simon,’ I interrupt, a bit rudely, ‘is Kitty with you?’

‘With me? What are you talking about?’

Stomach instantly shrivels to the size of a sultana.

‘You mean … you don’t know where she is then?’

‘No, isn’t she with you? I thought you pair were having your lovely, relaxing, girlie treat day today? That I’ve been explicitly banned from, and told not to even call till hours later, when you’re both roaring drunk on champagne?’

Fill him in. On everything, on how I’ve been everywhere and phoned just about everyone, looking for her. I even tell him bit about cops, who all but laughed at me and politely told me to bugger off the phone.

Long, long silence. Not a good sign. Starting to get weak-kneed and a bit nauseous now.

‘Last time I saw her,’ he says slowly, ‘was yesterday morning, just as I was leaving the house to get on the road to Galway …’

‘Yesterday morning?’

No, no, no, no, no. This not good news. Not good at all.

‘Yeah. I came down here as early as I could, to try and beat the holiday traffic. Then I called her at about lunchtime to say I’d arrived safely and that both my parents were asking after her and are dying to see her as soon as we get back from holidays.’

No surprise here. For some reason, people don’t just idolise Kitty: they want to carry her shoulder high through villages. Simon always says from very first time he took her to the West to meet his folks, they instantly preferred her to him. She’s just one of those people that absolutely everyone adores, even people she’s only met for five minutes, like barmen, taxi drivers, etc. You even see hard-nosed, intransigent dole officers eating out of her hand, after just a few minutes in her company. V. hard not to. Kitty’s the mad, bad, dangerous-to-know type, totally magnetic and just the best fun you can possibly imagine. Kinda gal you meet for a few drinks, then end up the following morning in Holyhead. (Actual true story. Happened to us the night of her thirtieth birthday.)

‘She was on her way into work,’ Simon goes on, ‘and couldn’t really talk, so I told her I’d call her back later on. But when I did, she didn’t answer her phone. I wasn’t particularly worried, though; there wouldn’t be anything unusual in that if she was working late. So I just left a message and said we’d catch up this evening, after her spa day with you.’

‘So where do you think she’s got to?’ I ask, voice now sounding weak as a kitten’s. The image of a sick perv locking her up in cellar suddenly now very real in my mind’s eye.

‘Well, she can’t just have vanished into thin air,’ says Simon confidently. ‘Leave it with me, will you? Let me make a few phone calls. Maybe she just crashed out in another pal’s house last night after a few Christmas drinks? I mean, you know what she’s like!’

‘OK then,’ I tell him, trying my v., v. best to sound reassured. ‘Well, you know I’m back living with my parents now, so you’ll know where to find me if there’s any news.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll call you the minute I hear from her.’

Am just about to hang up when he says, ‘Oh, and by the way, Angie?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Happy birthday!’

My birthday.

It had totally gone out of my head.

Chapter Two

Christmas Day, 9.30 a.m.

Hardly slept a wink. Keep waking in the middle of the night to check my phone, in case there might be some message from Kitty. But nothing, still absolutely nada. Tried doing an early morning ring-round of all our mutual buddies yet again, but of course, the morning that’s in it no one’s even thinking about answering their phone. Course they’re not; what was I thinking? My married pal is doing Santa Claus stuff with the kids, my single pals are all still in bed.

On the plus side, I’ve had three texts from Simon so far. One to tell me there’s no news as of yet, but that I’m still to relax and try to enjoy a family Christmas. (Yeah, right. Only someone who hasn’t actually met my family could ever possibly come out with a statement like that.) Second text is to say he’s still with a big gangload of his relations now, and can’t talk, but will call soon as he can. Third says if there’s still no sight or sign of Kitty by tonight, he’s coming straight back to Dublin, as soon as he can reasonably get away.

All three messages stress that I’m to keep nice and calm, that she’ll turn up safe and well. This he promises.

’Course, that doesn’t do anything to stop the sickening worry, but still, v. reassuring to know someone else is taking the whole thing as seriously as I am. Plus, I keep reminding myself Simon works as a trend forecaster. Which is a bit like weather forecasting, according to Kitty, except it’s all about economic projections, ERSI figures, etc. He’s part of the team that waved red flags, wagged fingers and warned us we’d all end up broke, and stay broke, barefoot and living off tins of Heinz beans, till sometime after our great-great-grandchildren all end up emigrating in coffin ships.

(Apparently there’s v. big money in predicting bad news, but then, unlike horoscopes that say you’ll have an utterly magical day, people are far more likely to believe you if you tell them that nothing but horrors and destitution await. Myself included.)

So Simon’s basic job is telling the future.

So if he says Kitty will turn up and all will be well, then somehow, I trust him.

I’ve no choice.

11.35 a.m.

Right then, time to meet the Kardashians. Namely, the annual Xmas Day ordeal chez la famille Blennerhasset. My usual survival plan involves turning up as late as possible without incurring the wrath of Mother Blennerhasset, busying myself in the kitchen under the guise of ‘helping’, then skedaddling the minute the last Quality Street has been gulped down, to get back home in time for a nice juicy Xmas blockbuster movie. (So I’m free to watch it in the comfort and peace of my own flat.)

Except not this year. My usual escape hatch has now been totally sealed off. The official story to the rest of my extended family is that I’m ‘temporarily crashing out with my parents, as I’m in between leases on two apartments.’ Which I thought made me sound like a reasonably together person, not a twenty-eight-year-old no-hoper, newly unemployed, broke and forced into a humiliating crawl home with my tail between legs, etc. The inner circle, however, (Mum, Dad, older brother and sister,) all know the shameful truth, and in the case of my beloved sister, Madeline, rarely miss the golden chance to score a point.

Decide to time her, to see how long she lasts without managing to get a dig in. Just for the crack.

Midday

Mother Blennerhasset’s annual Xmas midday drinkies for aunties, uncles, cousins, friends of parents, freeloading neighbours, etc. Drawing room’s completely thronged. Everyone v. successfully and politely avoiding questions about my jobless state. But you can always rely on Madeline.

Ah, Madeline. Older than me by just two years, but already following in the family footsteps by working for a top law firm and making more money than I’ve ever seen in my whole life; with a mortgage, a pension and a flash-git style Mercedes fully paid off. Weighs approximately same as her coat and keys put together. (And just as an aside, as you’ll see, the whole family have P. G. Wodehouse names. Which has to be borderline child abuse. Who in their right mind lumbers kids with names like Madeline, Toby and Angela when you’re unfortunate enough to have a surname like Blennerhasset?)

‘So, Angie,’ she coos, wafting up to me with a glass of Prosecco in one hand and mobile clamped to the other. (Claims she’s a very busy and important person who’s still working. On Xmas Day. I know, I know.)

Then in full earshot of Mrs Higgins, Mother Blennerhasset’s most competitive friend, with a v. successful daughter exactly my age already running her own business, fires her opener.

‘Any prospects of gainful employment coming your way in the New Year?’

And, ladies and gents, we have a new record. Not ten minutes into the drinks do and already her inner bitch is out of the traps. And yes, Madeline really does talk like this. Like some Victorian matron in a bonnet-y, corset-y, Dickensian drama.

‘Gimme a second, I just want to put out some more of these,’ I smile weakly, indicating a near-empty tray of vegetarian vol-au-vents that I’m trying to squeeze my way back to the kitchen, to replenish.

She follows me though; clearly seeing this as green light to have a go at me. Angie-baiting being what she excels at, like an evil cat toying with a defenceless mouse. Bloody expert at it. Started when we were kids, when she’d go out of her way to make me the butt of her gags just for the laugh, but now that we’re older, it’s somehow got nastier. Then my brother Toby wafts in after two of us, wanting nothing more than grub and to make an escape from the arse-numbing tedium of the party, knowing him. Both come after me into the kitchen and slam the door shut.

‘Come on then, answer the question, Angie, don’t obfuscate the issue,’ Madeline persists, instinctively knowing she’s hit on my weak spot. And now that she has, she’ll keep on and on at it till she’s drawn blood. ‘Are there or aren’t there any jobs coming your way, sometime this century?’

‘I just have to get these into the oven …’ I mutter vaguely.

‘Stop changing the subject,’ she says, perching up on the kitchen table now and elegantly picking at a single grape from corner of cheese platter. Probably all she’ll eat for the entire day. ‘Because sooner or later you’ve got to get yourself back out there into the jobs market. Got to up your game a bit. So you’ve had a few knocks – who hasn’t? Pointless hiding out at home, lazing around the house all day, just passively waiting on work to come to you.’

Look appealingly over to Toby, who’s sitting in an armchair by my mother’s Aga, flicking through yesterday’s Times and stuffing his face with a large batch of cheese frittatas. Toby’s generally far more humane than Madeline. Will tease me to tears, then surprise me at the oddest times by actually sticking up for me.

‘Toby, tell her to back the feck off,’ I say pleadingly to him.

‘Aah, don’t be so touchy,’ he says, mouth stuffed, far more interested in the TV listings than in what’s going on over his head. ‘Mads just wants you to get a bit of work for yourself, that’s all.’ Then he thoughtfully adds, ‘But you know, in all fairness, sis, she does have a point. The longer a gap any potential employer sees on your CV, the less attractive you become in their eyes.’

‘Gee, thanks so much, Toby. “Et tu, Brute”, and all that,’ I hiss over at him, with what I hope is withering scorn.

‘All I’m trying to impress on you,’ Madeline drones on in that affected nasal whine that grates on my nerves so much, ‘is that you’ve just got to get up off your backside, get out there and make it happen. Can’t keep scrounging off the Aged Ps for ever, now can you?’

I’ve been trying v., v. hard not to rise to the bait, but at that, the saliva in my mouth suddenly turns to battery acid. Is this honestly what this one thinks I’ve been at? Arsing round watching daytime soaps, when in fact I’ve practically been hammering doors down trying to get some work? Any kind of work?

Oh, to hell with her anyway. I snap up from the oven, where I was shoving in yet another fresh batch of mini beef Wellingtons.

‘Excuse me,’ I tell her v. firmly, hands on hips, like a character out of a spaghetti western. ‘I’ve already had a job interview this week, I’ll have you know, thanks very much.’

‘Oh, really? What for?’ she scoffs. Can practically sense her getting riled up to test out what she thinks is her rapier wit on me.

‘For … a position. A really good one, as it happens. Something secure, just till I get back on my feet again.’

‘Where?’

‘Never you mind where.’

I turn and bury my face deep in the fridge-freezer to avoid eye contact, pretending to rummage round back of it. Needless to say there’s absolutely no offer of help from Madeline, but then because she’s a lawyer, she clearly considers herself a cut above menial labour. Whereas, in her eyes, I may as well be the hired help with an apron on, saying ‘Just hand me a broom and call me Daisy from Downton Abbey.’

‘Stop avoiding my question, Angie, and just spit it out!’

‘No, now go away and leave me alone. The mini pizzas won’t defrost themselves, now will they? Toby? Call her off, will you?’

‘Jesus, I came in here for a bit of peace,’ Toby mutters disinterestedly, this time between gobfuls of mini gherkins. ‘So for feck’s sake, just tell Mads what your big interview was for and then the pair of you can shut up. Besides, bar you applied for a job as an exotic dancer, what’s the big deal anyway?’

Deep sigh. Because he’s right: I know only too well that Madeline won’t let up with the third-degree questioning till I come clean. She’s worse than the KGB like that. I fully realise from years of dealing with her that it’s easier just to let her have all the jibes she wants at my expense, and get it over with. Quicker in long run.

‘Right then, have it your way. The job I applied for is in a catering company, if you must know.’

‘A catering company?’

Then a short, two-second time delay while Madeline puts two and two together. ‘Oh my God, don’t tell me you mean like, buttering batch loaves in one of the sandwich bars your friend Sarah runs!’

If I’d said the interview was for a job scrubbing public toilets and that the main perk was that after two years I’d be issued with my own brush and a bottle of Domestos, Madeline couldn’t possibly sound like she’s enjoying this any more. She guffaws at me, like an Ugly Sister from Cinderella as I look pleadingly over to Toby for back-up, but no such luck. He’s far more interested in the sports pages now, not to mention the plateful of mince pies he’s devouring.

Thank Christ, am saved from further torture by Mum briskly swishing in, all swingy scarf, big, bosomy tweed suit and sensible shoes, looking even more like Ann Widdecombe than Ann Widdecombe herself. In she breezes, not a scrap of make-up on her, despite having a houseful of visitors to entertain. But then, Mum’s proudest boast is that she hasn’t put on foundation for minimum of forty years. No time.

As usual, her eyes are like hawks, taking in everything in one quick up-and-down glance.

‘So here you three are!’ she eye-rolls at us. ‘Now come on, girls, stop all your bickering. I need some help. Chief Justice Henderson has just arrived; Toby, would you be a pet and entertain him? And, Madeline, I know Douglas McGettigan has to be the single most boring man in the Northern Hemisphere, but he’s sitting all alone; anyone that’s actually met him before won’t go within six feet of him. Can you look after him for me, please? Chat to him about his golf handicap, he enjoys that.’

As the other pair scarper, I get thrown a familiar, vaguely exasperated look.

‘Angela, you let your sister goad you, and you really shouldn’t, you know. You just got to stop rising to the bait every single time. How often do I have to tell you?’

I mumble something vague into dishwasher along the lines of Madeline being a back-knifing cow and Toby being worse than useless, but Mum swishes off, too much in distracted hostess mode to pay much attention.

The minute she’s out door, I pour myself a very large glass of Prosecco and knock it back in a single gulp.

Then check that there’s plenty more bottles in fridge. If I’m to survive today, I’ll be needing lots, lots more where that came from.

Dining room chez Blennerhasset, 3.45 p.m.

Dinner served. Determined somehow to survive and live to tell the tale. Mum and I jointly cooked, but then we’re the only ones round here who eat normally and still gain weight. The other three are like bleeding rakes.

3.55 p.m.

Conversation turns to a personal injury case Dad presided over in the District Court few months back, where Toby was a junior counsel for plaintiff. Toby won, record settlement. Got in the papers and everything, one or two scuzzy tabloids even lapping up the whole father/son thing. Dad was utterly mortified by all the fuss, but I’m prepared to bet good money Toby still has all press cuttings framed and mounted in his downstairs loo. Strongly suspect he thinks it’ll boost his chances of landing a quick shag.

But if you weren’t involved in said case, and if you don’t happen to get the legal terminology, it’s all deeply, deeply boring, so while Toby’s telling yet another ‘hilarious’ lawyerly anecdote, I surreptitiously whip out my mobile from my jeans pocket and check it. Just on the off chance Simon has news. Or better still, in case Kitty herself has miraculously resurfaced. Who knows? Maybe having crashed out on someone’s sofa for past twenty-four hours? And now with nothing more than a minging hangover and a hilarious tale to tell?

Course I’ve tried to check if Kitty is by any chance visiting her foster mum, but can’t. Already made two sneaky phone calls to Foxborough, Mrs K.’s nursing home, when I was holed up in the kitchen loading the dishwasher. No answer, though. ’Course not, it’s Christmas Day. Who in their right mind would be working on reception Christmas Day?

Mum’s straight on to me. Asks me why I keep glancing down at my phone every few seconds. Then tells me to put the phone away, that it’s rude.

3.56 p.m.

Golden chance for Madeline to get yet another jibe in.

‘You know, Angie, you can just say if all this legal chat is a little bit above your head. We can always change the subject and talk about, ooh, let’s see now … what’s happening in the lives of the Kardashian sisters? Would that be a little more up your street? Or maybe the latest news from the catering industry?’

‘I was actually checking to see if there was any word from Kitty,’ I fire back, throwing her what I only hope is a scalding look.

The whole table give long sighs and eye rolls. Yet again. All in lawyerly agreement I’m totally overreacting to whatever’s going on. The gist of what they think is that Kitty’s spending the day doing whatever suits her and clearly has better things to do than making phone calls. Yes, even to the best friend she stood up on her birthday.

Relations between la famille Blennerhasset and Kitty are as follows: both Mum and Madeline are the only people I’ve ever met totally and utterly resistant to her laid-back, chaotic charm. Instead, the pair of them have her down as a notoriously unreliable, uneducated, lunatic flake-head from the wrong side of the tracks, whose worst crime in their eyes is that she’s a bad influence on me and has been ever since the day we first met. They hold her wholly responsible for my not obediently trailing after every other Blennerhasset since the Civil War and subsequently spending my days mouldering away in the law library. (Where I’d doubtless have ended up either an alcoholic by now, or else on hard drugs. Fact.) Mainly because it was Kitty who first encouraged me to stop always doing what was expected of me, but instead to follow my own dreams, and to live my best life.

Which is why, not long after graduating, I took myself off to post-grad film school, to study as a freelance director. Which is kind of why, after years of great gigs coming in, I’m now suddenly unemployed. (Film production is what you might call a soufflé business, and this is not a good economy to be in the soufflé business, trust me.)

Dad and Toby tend to be slightly more under Kitty’s spell, though every now and then Dad will remind me he still hasn’t forgotten about the time she filched a bottle of his Château Margaux for a piss-up we were both going to. Happened when I invited her to stay here one Christmas all of four years ago and he still hasn’t let it go. And I know right well Toby has a crush on Kitty, I can tell by way he blushes like a wino whenever she’s here and he keeps asking her if she’d like to swing by his flat sometime, to check out his fifty-two-inch Blu-ray plasma screen.

‘She’s clearly gone to visit that foster mother of hers down in Limerick,’ Mum is telling me, ‘so just relax and don’t let that girl ruin your Christmas, like she ruined your birthday.’

‘She didn’t ruin my birthday,’ I say loyally, to an exasperated eye-roll back at me.

‘I’m sorry, love, but it’s no secret that Kitty Hope is not exactly my favourite of your friends.’

‘Mum’s quite right, you know,’ Madeline pontificates, ‘so just stop harping on about what did or didn’t happen to Kitty and wait till she gets back to you. Knowing her, she probably forgot all about you and spent the day at some more interesting Christmas Eve do. Be perfectly typical of that nutcase you insist on hanging around with. Oh God, will you ever forget the time that she—’

But Dad interrupts. ‘Scan not your friend with microscopic glass; you know his faults, so let his foibles pass.’

Dad’s a great man for quotes, but I rarely have the first clue where they come from. Nice, though, to think he’s temporarily forgiven Kitty over the nicked Château Margaux incident.

‘Thanks, Dad,’ I smile gratefully back at him.

‘You know, I’m certain there’s absolutely nothing for you to worry about, pet,’ he says, leaning forward and gently patting my hand. ‘One of a thousand things could have happened to Kitty yesterday, you know. She’ll be in touch, you just wait and see. Never assume something is wrong until you have concrete evidence in front of you.’

Subject dismissed as far as everyone concerned.

Long pause, the table filled with sounds of nomnomnom noises, then Mum suddenly pipes up, sounding worried now.

‘Are you absolutely certain that you and she didn’t have some kind of falling out?’

I nearly splutter on a Brussels sprout.

‘Mum! There was absolutely nothing like that, I promise! Come on, you know how close Kitty and I are. We’ve never had a single cross word in all the years I’ve known her!’

Almost the truth. Only ever had one tiny blip with Kitty, in seven otherwise row-free years. In my defence, it wasn’t entirely my fault either. It was Kitty’s idea to shoplift two lip glosses from the Top Shop cosmetic counter just for the laugh, when she thought the place was so packed, no one would notice.

Bloody CCTV cameras.

It was v. scary, we were taken into a security office and threatened not only with the police being told, but even more intimidatingly, with being barred from every Top Shop branch on the planet for life. I was all of twenty-one years old at the time and while Kitty brazened it out with all the swaggering confidence of someone who’s had to fight all her own battles from a young age, I collapsed under questioning and just sat there, bawling hysterically. End result? We were let go with a caution, but to this day I still can’t cross threshold of any Top Shop without breaking into a cold, clammy sweat.

Mum’s implication is v. clear though. That somehow, even without realising it, I did something to piss Kitty off, and now she hasn’t disappeared at all. She’s just not speaking to me.

7.35 p.m.

Dinner over, thank Christ. And now we’re all sprawled round the fire with Mum point-blank refusing to switch on the telly, even though I’d kill to see lovely, life-affirming It’s A Wonderful Life and banish the horrendous shittiness of last twenty-four hours temporarily out of my head. The others are all back to chatting about mutual colleagues that they know and I don’t, to the background track of Dad snoring like a passing Zeppelin.

So, so bored. And still so worried about Kitty.

I’m just thinking about her when my mobile rings … Simon! Suddenly wide awake and on high alert, I race out to the hall to take it, away from the riveting background debate on the gripping subject of Flynn vs. Sullivan and whether or not sentencing was overly lenient.

‘Simon? Can you hear me?’

My heart’s nearly walloping off my ribcage by now, cartoon-like.

Please have news, please, please have good news, please can Kitty somehow have surfaced and be with you and please tell me that all is well …

‘Hi, Angie, look I’m so sorry to bother you on Christmas night, when you’re with your family …’

The line’s v. bad, he’s already cracking up on me, but even so, I can clearly hear the deflation in his voice. Not a good sign.

‘Simon, are you still there?’

Have to shout this a few times before he comes back into coverage again.

Come on, come on, come on!!!!

‘Yeah, look, Angie,’ he almost has to yell now to be heard, ‘I’m still with my parents down in Galway and the signal is rubbish at their house … Have you heard anything yet?’

Oh shit. If he’s calling me to see if I’ve any news, then we’re really in trouble.

‘No, not a word, I was hoping you might have by now! What about Mrs K. in the nursing home? Did you have any luck getting through there? I tried earlier but no joy.’

‘Me neither. So look, here’s the plan …’

Good. A plan. I’m a big fan of plans. Everything works better with a plan. Weddings, murders, everything.

‘I’ll keep ringing every friend Kitty has that I can think of tonight,’ he says, sounding more and more crackly by the second, like he’s calling from inside the large Hadron Collider at Cern.

‘Great, I’ll do likewise …’

‘… And if there’s still no sign of her by first thing in the morning, I’m going to drive straight to the nursing home in Limerick, to find out exactly what’s going on for myself.’

‘And … well, what if Kitty’s not there either?’

My voice is sounding tiny now, like a small child’s, and the worry sweats have restarted with a vengeance.

‘Then I’ll just come straight back to Dublin and I guess we’ll take it from there. The main thing to remember, Angie, is not to panic. I’m sure she’ll turn up safe and sound and that there’s some perfectly reasonable explanation for this.’

As ever, when told not to panic, my shoulders seize and my breath starts to come in short, jagged bursts.

‘But, Simon, what then? What’ll we do if we still can’t find her?’

Too late, though. His phone’s gone totally out of coverage. Line’s now totally dead.

And he never even answered the question.

Chapter Three

Stephen’s Day, 7.01 a.m.

Another sleepless night alternately spent tossing, turning or else staring at the ceiling, hoping against hope that my phone would just ring and it’d be Kitty. Then I switch the light on, check the mobile on my bedside table, thinking maybe, maybe, maybe the Miracle of Christmas has actually happened … Keep telling myself that you just never know with her … But nothing. So I lie back down again, try to sleep, can’t, then repeat the whole palaver all over again at regular thirty-minute intervals.

At first light, I check the phone for about the thousandth time, but it’s a total waste of time, the screen’s completely blank. Automatically I hit the re-dial button and call Kitty’s number, almost through force of habit at this stage. I know it’s like eating a whole tube of Pringles and that it’s ultimately v. bad for me and will end up driving me mental, but I just can’t stop myself. And, of course, her phone clicks straight to voicemail.

‘Hi there, it’s Kitty! Sorry I can’t take your call, but leave a message and I’ll ring you back. Providing of course that you’re a) good-looking, and b) that I don’t owe you any money!’

Completely weird hearing her disconnected voice like this. It’s almost a shock how bright and bouncy and full of energy she sounds, while we’re here, agonised out of our minds about her. I check the number of times I’ve called her since the whole Christmas Eve/aborted birthday fiasco. Fifty-two. And not one single message returned. Even find myself turning to prayer, something I only ever indulge in when I’m really sick with worry.

Listen God, I know you don’t exactly hear from me all that often, and I appreciate you’ve probably got miles more important things to get on with, such as sorting out famine in Africa, etc., etc. But if you could just see your way to keeping Kitty safe wherever she is and maybe if you could get her to turn up anytime now, we’d all be so, so grateful. Come on, God, you can do it! It is, after all, officially the Season of Goodwill, isn’t it? Any chance this could be my miracle of Christmas?

P.S., hope Baby Jesus had a really lovely birthday yesterday.

The only straw of hope we’ve got is this: at end of day, it is Kitty we’re dealing with here. I have to constantly repeat it over and over, like a mantra. Therefore, the rules that bind ordinary mortals like you and me just don’t apply.

True, she’s my best friend, but still … I remind myself of the sheer number of times in the past when she’s flaked off like this before. Honest to God, you’d marvel at how entirely possible it is to love another human being dearly, and yet want to strangle them with your bare hands at same time. No question about it: Kitty’s the type who could have taken off anywhere, or who absolutely anything could have happened to. Easily.

Might possibly even have ended up drunkenly crawling on a flight to Rio, with a gang of people she accidentally got swept up with, and now can’t get in touch with us …

Highly unlikely, but you’d never know … I keep saying it over and over, like it’s playing on a loop in my mind.

With Kitty, you just never know.

7.02 a.m.

Snap out of it immediately. Course she’s not on a flight to Rio. As if! I’m suddenly aware my excuses for her now becoming increasingly more far-fetched. Jeez, I’ll be imagining alien abductions next. I tell myself Simon is right: there has to be some perfectly simple explanation. Perfectly simple. We’ll look back and laugh when she turns up. After I physically reef the curly mop off her head first, for putting us through all this crap.

And if it does actually turn out that she flitted off to South America to do conga lines in the sun, then I’ll personally wring her neck with the knicker string off her own bikini.

Not an idle threat, by the way.

9.14 a.m.

A text from Simon. I nearly drop the phone, my hands are shaking so much as I try to read it.

HAVE JUST LEFT NURSING HOME. STILL NO NEWS. KITTY HASN’T BEEN HERE SINCE LAST WEEK. I SAW MRS K., WHO’S UNAWARE OF WHAT’S GOING ON, BUT IN GOOD SPIRITS. ON WAY BACK TO DUBLIN NOW, NO SIGNAL HERE, WILL CALL YOU SOON AS I GET THERE.

9.30 a.m.

My brain’s completely scrambled. I’m finding it so hard to function normally, to colour in between the lines. Between panic attacks, I keep thinking, oh, OK, now I get it, I’m in hell. And once I accept that, surprise myself by getting through whole minutes at a time.

9.35 a.m.

OK, two choices here. Either I can continue staring worriedly out the window like a stray character from Chekhov, or I can actually make myself useful and get back to doing a ring-around of just about every mutual friend Kitty and I have. Which, given that it’s Stephen’s Day and normal people are all out visiting relatives or else hitting the January sales, is a lot easier said than done.

Call my buddy Jeff, but it’s only his voicemail. Probably up climbing a mountain today or something equally shamingly healthy. (Jeff’s one of those outdoorsy, Patagonia-clad fitness nutters.) Then Sarah, who at least answers, but then she’s been queuing up to get into the Harvey Nichols sale probably since sometime before midnight last night. Sarah’s the type who’d v. happily drive through a warzone if she thought there was even an outside chance of a discount store, where she’d save a fiver off leggings.

She tells me she hasn’t seen Kitty in well over a week, but promises to call back as soon as she bags a Marc Jacobs trench coat she’s had her eye on for months and been saving up for, as a Christmas self-gift.

‘Reduced by SEVENTY-FIVE PER CENT, can you believe it?’

‘Yeah, but the fact is that Kitty’s still missing and I’m starting to get seriously worried now …’

‘Oh, come on, I wouldn’t worry about Kitty. Sure, you know what that one’s like! She’ll turn up safe and well with some mental far-fetched tale to tell, you wait and see!’

Her v. last words to me before hanging up.

And Mags’ phone goes straight to message minder, but then I know she’s got a houseful of visiting in-laws and will only get back to me at what she calls ‘wine o’clock’. In other words, when her kids are in bed and she can actually hold an adult conversation, without banana being rubbed into the good furniture.

So in a nutshell, no one seems to have seen or heard from Kitty. Course they haven’t. By now, they all know the distress flares are up. So if they had, wouldn’t they have just called me?

12.05 p.m.

Simon phones again. Says he’s nearly on the outskirts of Dublin now and asks if we can meet, to decide where we go from here. Am delighted; two heads are most definitely better than one. We arrange to hook up at Kitty’s house in an hour. Don’t know why, but it just seems like the most logical place. Also to be v. honest, am bloody thrilled to be getting out of here. My family are all starting to treat me like I’m bit soft in the head for investing so much time and worry on Kitty. Mum and Madeline clearly of the ‘no doubt about it, that one hopped on a plane to Rio on a whim and true to form, didn’t bother telling anyone. Would be typical of her’ school of thought.

Which is not only mean but v. unfair. Don’t care what they say, flitting off to Rio definitely isn’t something she’d do.

And the more I keep saying it, the more I actually manage to convince myself.

1.20 p.m.

Bit late, bloody skeleton holiday bus service, not helped by icy roads, meaning the driver can only do approximately two miles an hour. Then, skidding and sliding from the bus stop down to Kitty’s little terraced street, I nearly sob pure, salt tears when I turn the corner and see Simon’s black Audi parked neatly outside, right beside Kitty’s banger. Like the two of them are home; like old times; like absolutely nothing’s wrong. Like I’m swinging by for nothing more than a lovely glass of wine and big, comforting plate of pasta, while dissecting some of the more rubbishy pitches on The Apprentice.

But at least Simon’s here, I have to remind myself with an inward sigh of relief. It’s a big step forward. And who knows, maybe he’ll have good news or else he’ll have figured out some way to find her?

Everything’s going to be OK now he’s here, I think. Am certain.

1.22 p.m.

Simon lets me in, looking like he only just got here ahead of me, still in a heavy winter coat and deep in chat on the phone. By the sounds of it, am guessing to someone v., v. High Up at Byrne & Sacetti, possibly even Stephano Sacetti, the man himself. Co-owner, with a bit of a Silvio Berlusconi complex, according to Kitty.

Simon smiles quickly at me, leads me into the tiny living room and motions for me to grab a seat, miming me a gesture that he’s trying to wrap up the call. He keeps making lots of ‘ah huh’ noises and saying, ‘OK, OK, yes, I see,’ a lot.

Rip off my heavy winter coat and plonk down, fidgeting with my gloves and pretending not to earwig.

God, am inclined to forget just how authoritative and impressive Simon can be, even on the phone. If handsome, lovely Simon can’t find Kitty, then no one can! Would be v. surprised if he’s not getting a big pile of information out of Sacetti right now, including really personal stuff, like bank account numbers, star sign, current relationship status, etc. He’s just one of those guys people naturally trust and open up to. Bit like a senior consultant. Or a hairdresser.

Doing me the power of good, though, just to see him. Can’t begin to describe the huge relief at just being around another human being who’s actually being proactive and prepared to take this seriously and not just write me off as a near-mental case for worrying myself into early grave.

Look at him distractedly in all his gorgeousness while he talks on. Simon’s v. tall, by the way, even taller than Kitty, but with the same lean, leggy build as her, which short-arses like me are so envious of. Classically dark and good-looking, in a Pierce Brosnan circa-when-he-was-doing-the-Bond-movies type way, right down to the deep sea-green eyes, always v. focused and intense. But I must stress in an attractive way, not a Christopher Walken-weirdo way.

I drift off a bit while he keeps talking down the phone. Funny just how different he and Kitty are personality-wise, and yet how well suited at the same time. Like a textbook case of the opposites attract theory in practice. Whereas she’s wild and abandoned and reckless, and by a mile the funniest girl on the planet, Simon’s a more conservative, stable, strong, silent type. Oddly enough, the combination works though and works beautifully. She’s able to knock a bit of craic out of him and lighten him up, whereas he’s had a v. steadying, calming influence on her. Everyone says so. He’s tamed her down a bit too; right up till she met him, the very second she sensed a guy was getting overly serious on her, she’d bolt screaming for the hills. Was famous for it.

But she’s been with Simon for over eighteen months now, her longest relationship ever, and I should know, I was there on fateful night it first happened. It was like something out of a movie; he just took one look at her and that was that. I might as well have turned into background flock wallpaper. Just like everyone who meets Kitty instantly falls under this inexplicably strange, charismatic spell she’s able to weave. It’s extraordinary; even gay men seem to get crushes on her. I’ve invested many, many hours trying to study exactly what it is that she has, so I can somehow impersonate it, in much the same manner as politicians running for President are said to study JFK and ask, ‘What was it that made him so special, and how do I in some small way, channel it?’

But no chance. Kitty’s a unique one-off.

Eighteen months on, and the pair of them are more loved-up than ever; the Christmas tree in the corner that they went out and bought together is a big reminder. Not to mention the fact that Simon’s officially about to move in here. And they’re completely fab, one of those couples you point to and think, you see, YOU SEE? True love isn’t just excuse for weak rom-com vehicles tailored around Jennifer Aniston! It actually exists and is out there. And Kitty and Simon are living, walking proof! So there!

He mimes a ‘sorry about this’ gesture at me and throws his eyes to heaven, like he’s been trying to get off this call for ages now and just can’t. Have to say, though, whoever he’s on to, he’s certainly doing a terrific job.

‘No,’ he’s saying calmly down phone, ‘as I’ve already explained, the last time I saw Kitty was early on the morning of the twenty-third, when she was leaving the house for work … Yes, yes, of course, we already tried that, that was the first thing we did, but no joy … Besides, you’re right, I think you’ve got to be missing for a minimum of three days before they’ll finally take you seriously … Though if it comes down to it by this evening, then rest assured, the police will certainly be my next port of call …’

The police? Hang on a minute. Did he just say the police? Suddenly I’m panicky. I thought Simon of all people could fix this, could find Kitty and make it all go away! So if he’s now talking about going to the worse-than-useless cops, then my whole confidence base just spectacularly imploded. I throw him a sharp, horrified look, but he just makes a ‘calm down, it’s fine, relax’ hand gesture back at me.

‘No, she’s most definitely not with her foster mum in Limerick either, I’m afraid,’ he’s saying now. ‘I’ve just driven up from there, in fact. She hasn’t been down to see her in over a week …’

Another eye-roll at me, though if he’s beginning to lose patience at the daftness of the questions he’s being asked, you’d never know by him. Simon’s always unfailingly polite.

‘Yes, yes, of course, we’ve been trying to get in touch with all our mutual friends for two full days now, but you know how hard it is getting anyone to answer their phone on Christmas Day. Or even today, for that matter. No, no, I’m quite sure you’re right and that there’s absolutely nothing for us to worry about, but as I say, if I could possibly get my hands on a list of anyone she was working alongside at the restaurant on the night of the twenty-third, that would be really useful to us at this point … Brilliant. Huge thanks for this … And yes, of course I’ll be sure to call you the minute we do find her … Right, well, see you shortly, then. And once again, I really do appreciate everything you’re doing to help.’

A big thumbs up sign to me, then finally he wraps it up.

‘Well? Any news?’ I ask, on edge of seat, bowels knotted and palms sweating, too antsy even to say hi properly.

‘I’m so sorry about that, Angie,’ he says, not answering my question and instead coming over to give me a big, warm hug. I hug him back and for a moment, we hold each other v. tight. And it’s comforting. He smells lovely too, but then Simon always smells delicious. Citrussy.

Then he slumps down in the armchair beside me and rubs his eyes like he’s ready to flake out with exhaustion. Unsurprising really, given that the poor guy must have left Galway at some ridiculous sparrow fart of an hour this morning, to drive all the way to the nursing home in Limerick, not to mention coming straight on to Dublin.

‘Simon, you mentioned the police?’

‘It’s not going to come to that, trust me. She’ll have materialised by then,’ he says. ‘But if we’ve no more news today, then I think maybe it’s our best option.’

Then he clocks the stressed-out-of-mind look on me and softens. Even sits forward and takes both my hands in his. Feels warm and reassuring.

‘Oh, now, come on, Ange, you’ve got to keep calm. Chances are she’s safe and well, and, for whatever reason, just can’t get a message through to us. Maybe she’s been staying with someone she works with who lives down the country, where there’s no phone signal, for instance.’

‘You honestly think she could just crash out with friends and not even go to see Mrs K.? On Christmas Day? You really think she’d be capable of doing that? Because I, for one, just aren’t buying it!’

‘I know, I know,’ he sighs, letting go of my hands and staring straight ahead of him now, the gorgeous green eyes focused, v. on-the-case. ‘Believe me I know that none of this adds up. But all you and I can do for the moment at least, is take this one step at a time. Worse thing is jumping to conclusions. And the second worse thing we can do is panic.’

I nod, a bit numbly.

‘By the way, I guessed you talking to Sacetti just now? Any news?’

‘Yeah, that was Sacetti all right. Ever met him through Kitty?’

I shake my head. Though I’ve often heard her talking about him. Apparently, although happily married with five grown-up kids who all work for him, he has a terrible eye for the laydeez, and Kitty claims he’s an outrageous flirt, particularly with the younger waitresses. Even tried it on with her once, but was swiftly met with a sharp knee to the groin and a stern lecture about how he should try being a bit nicer to his gorgeous and v. hard-working wife.

‘Well, like just about everyone else, he hasn’t seen her in a few days …’

‘Oh for God’s sake! When will someone turn up with news that can actually help us?’

‘No, hang on, there’s more,’ Simon gently cuts across me. ‘I asked him for a full list of all the staff who were working alongside Kitty on her last night there.

‘OK. Well … good thinking.’

‘And Sacetti immediately agreed, said he was glad to be of help. They’re actually open today and he’s in work, so we can call in, if you’ve time. Then maybe the two of us could come back here and do a ring-around of all her co-workers to see if anyone knows anything.’

I nod eagerly.

‘Because,’ he continues, sounding supremely confident, ‘someone just has to. She could easily have gone to another work colleague’s house after she clocked off her last shift, maybe for a few Christmas drinks and somehow ended up staying there. Maybe she figured Mrs K. was fine, so she just decided to hang out wherever she was for Christmas. She and I aren’t due to go away on holidays till tomorrow, so for now at least, let’s just assume the best. We might even hear from her later on today; you of all people know how scatty Kitty can sometimes be. She’s well capable of just bouncing through the front door this evening like absolutely nothing’s wrong and start flinging stuff into a suitcase for the trip. You know what she’s like. So until then, the best thing you and I can do is stay focused and keep our heads. Just remember, there’s dozens of perfectly reasonable explanations for this.’

Simon sounds calm, self-assured, completely confident. And, amazingly, given the state I’m in, some of it manages to rub off on me. Even though I know deep down in my bowels this is a big load of horse manure. My best pal in the world would NOT stand me up on my own birthday. It’s unthinkable. Just not possible.

‘So, are you free to come to the restaurant with me right now, by any chance?’ he asks, hauling himself up and rooting around for his car keys. ‘Sooner we get that list from Sacetti, the sooner we can start ringing around. Be a helluva lot quicker if we work together.’

‘’Course I’m coming with you,’ I tell him firmly. ‘You think I’m going anywhere till all this is sorted?’

He looks gratefully down at me and smiles.

‘You’re a good friend, Angie. Kitty always says you’re the best and it’s only the truth.’

‘She’d do exactly the same for me. I know she would.’

‘So apart from all this,’ he says, helping me on with my heavy, winter coat like the perfect gentleman he is, ‘how are you doing? Holding up?’

‘Been better,’ I shrug up at him. ‘People keep telling me to relax, that she’ll turn up, but I can’t listen to them. I just know in my bones that there’s something seriously wrong. And I don’t care what anyone else says, nothing about this feels right, not even for Kitty.’

Then I can’t help myself.

‘Simon, if I ask you a straight question, will you give me a straight answer?’

‘’Course I will. You know that.’

‘And I want the truth from you now, and none of your spin.’

‘Truth and nothing but,’ he says, the eyes boring into me.

‘You seem so calm and reassured and that’s brilliant, but, well … just how worried are you at this point in time? Because you must be, just a bit. I mean, deep down.’

Desperately need him to say, ‘Worried? Me? Not a bit of it! In fact, I’m so supremely confident she’ll walk through the door this evening, that I’m fully intending to start packing ski gear and snow boots for our holliers tomorrow, the very minute I get back from the restaurant.’

But instead, he goes quiet. Worryingly quiet.

Which is wrong, all wrong! I’m the one having a wobbly here; he’s meant to be rock of sense that talks me in off the ledge!

‘At this point in time?’ he eventually says, ‘I’d give it a four out of ten. If I ever make it all the way up to ten, then I’ll really start panicking.’

Have to bite my tongue clambering into his car. It was a trick question! He was supposed to say zero out of ten!

Cosmic shift in that moment. And I’ve now officially gone from absorbing his calm aura, into hand-me-a-Xanax territory.

2.25 p.m.

Stephano Sacetti turns out to be short, round and welcoming. Kisses us both on both cheeks, Mediterranean style, and waves us into his private office on the top floor. He’s actually a v. charming man, twinkly-eyed and sallow skinned, with an expensive-looking silk suit and the faint whiff of cigar smoke off him.

Says all the right things, all the stuff I needed to hear: that we’re not to worry, that Kitty is a v. responsible person. (Eyes went slightly goggly at that. Kitty’s many wonderful things but responsible is most definitely not one of them. But then given that this is her boss-man, I figure she must have put on one hell of an act in front of the guy.)

Anyway, soon as we arrived, he immediately printed us off a long, long list of all the staff, waiters, bar staff, delivery men, kitchen staff, right down to Polish guys that scrub down the loos, who were all around during that same last shift as Kitty. Way more than I’d ever have thought, but then you must need a small army of staff to run an ever-growing empire like this. Plus, as he tells us, it was the night before Christmas Eve, the place was packed out; it was a case of all hands on deck.

Jeez, scanning through it, the list runs to almost two full pages, literally dozens of names and their contact numbers. He’s even thrown in the contact details of diners who’d booked in that night and who’d left their phone numbers when making reservations. Everything we need and absolutely no stone unturned, in other words.

On the way out, we do a quick scan on each level of the restaurant, just in case there’s someone working that either of us might recognise. Place is surprisingly busy; there’s a whole clatter of young girls in Ugg boots with gel nails and too much false tan, all chattering excitedly over coffee and buns in the Food Hall Café about their Christmas sales bargains. Meanwhile the entire restaurant level is bustling with families having a post-Christmas lunch/hangover cure, or else diners who just couldn’t have been arsed cooking another big meal two days running. Simon just strides through every level confidently, me racing after him to keep up.

Only see one person we can ask though, a young part-timer who works down in the Food Hall. Francesca Sacetti is a cousin of Stephano, but then approx. fifty per cent of the staff in here all seem to be cousins of Stephano. (If you ask me, the Sacetti family are a bit like the Corleones, only legit.) We head over to where she’s busy restacking tins of olives on the shelves and ask if she’s seen Kitty at all.

No, she blinks innocently back at us. Says she’s been in Palermo for past two weeks. First day back at work today.

Should have guessed by her shagging suntan. Then she asks, wide-eyed, ‘Why, what’s the matter? Is something up with her? Is Kitty OK?’

Not off to a v. good start.

4.05 p.m.

Back at Kitty’s, stuck on our phones, the pair of us. Bit like a telesales conference in here. Lists covered in biro marks surround us, scattered all over the floor. My ears physically sore and raw red from being on the phone for the past few hours. At this stage, we’ve a system of sorts going. We’ve both crossed out the names of people we actually got to speak to but who were no help to us, then made dirty big red marks beside the names of anyone who didn’t actually answer their phone, but who we’ve left messages for, practically begging them to call us back urgently.

Net result to date? Sweet feck all.

8.20 p.m.

Still here, with my voice nearly hoarse by now from talking on phone.

On the plus side, between the pair of us we’ve at least managed to make some kind of headway and now have a good long list of people we’ve left messages for and who are to get back to us; people who might just be able to shed a bit of light on the whole thing. On the minus side, though, in spite of everyone we did actually manage to speak to, we’ve got absolutely nowhere. In cop-show-speak, no leads to talk of. No one’s seen or heard a whisper from Kitty in days, and no one’s spoken to her on the phone either. No texts even to say Happy Christmas, nothing.

As if she’s just vanished into thin air.

9.05 p.m.

Eventually, Simon slumps forward, holding his head in his hands and looking about as shattered as I feel. He has to be feeling the uselessness and futility of this, I just know. Know it without being told.

‘Listen, I’ve an idea,’ I tell him tentatively, not wanting to panic the guy, but at the same time, anxious to do more than keep on cold calling a bunch of total strangers late on Stephen’s night, when everyone we talk to would far rather be stuffing their faces with Cadbury’s Selection Boxes, while watching Mamma Mia!

He looks over to me, red-eyed with tiredness by now.

‘Don’t freak out on me,’ I say, ‘but I really think it’s time to start checking around hospitals. Just in case … Well, you know. She might have been at some party and maybe something happened to her on the way home? And say she was taken to a hospital somewhere and no one has a clue who she is?’

He looks worriedly into space for a second, then nods his head.

‘I’m only praying you’re wrong,’ he says, jaw clamped tightly, ‘but it’s certainly worth a shot.’

Sick with nerves now, I get back onto the phone, go online, look up the number for Vincent’s Hospital and dial.

9.20 p.m.

Bloody waste of time! Hospitals turn out to be a total dead end. Didn’t take me long to ring every single one with an A&E unit in the greater Dublin area as there’s not that many. And once I navigated my way past ‘Are-you-next-of kin?’ type questions and explained the situation, I pretty much got the same response from all of them.

V. sorry for my trouble, but it’s impossible to give that information over the phone. Have I tried contacting the police, is all I’m asked, over and over.

Right then. Nothing for it but to call into each and every hospital we can think of, first light tomorrow, as they say in search-and-rescue TV shows. Better than sitting round here ringing a total bunch of strangers who know absolutely nothing, feeling useless and with all confidence fast draining from me.

Anything’s better than that.

9.35 p.m.

Agree we need to call it a night. As Simon v. wisely points out, calling people we don’t know at this hour just isn’t a good plan. He offers to drive me home and promises to call during the night if she turns up.

Which I just know by him, he’s still secretly holding out for. All night long, whenever he hears a car door slamming or fast footsteps pounding down street outside, he’ll jump up a bit, then look confidently towards the front door like a lost puppy, silently praying she’ll slide her key into lock and bounce in like nothing happened. Honest to God, the hope in his eyes would nearly kill you.

Am wall-falling with tiredness by now. Gratefully accept his offer.

9.45 p.m.

On the way to my parents’ house, we pass by the local cop shop on Harcourt Terrace.

I catch sight of a copper striding out of there, which means at least they’re still open. It’s a sign. Right then, in a flash, the decision is made.

‘Simon, pull over the car,’ I tell him firmly, when we’re stopped at traffic lights.

‘What did you say?’ he asks, looking at me like I’ve finally lost it.

‘I know this is the last thing either of us wants to do right now,’ I say, whipping off my seat belt and getting ready to jump out, now that we’ve stopped. ‘But I just think there’s no harm in calling in and telling the cops everything that’s happened to date, that’s all. Let’s just bring them up to speed and keep them informed. I mean, they’ve got access to all sorts of resources that we don’t, so …’

I trail off a bit here and it would melt a heart of stone to see just how crushed the poor guy’s starting to look. Can practically hear him thinking: bringing in the coppers now means Kitty’s really, really gone and isn’t coming back.

He parks the car and I reach over to pat his arm sympathetically.

‘Look, I know how sick with worry you are,’ I tell him a bit more gently. ‘And I know how much you were looking forward to your skiing trip tomorrow and that you’re secretly hoping against hope that she might yet do some kind of eleventh-hour resurfacing act in the middle of the night. Don’t get me wrong, I’m praying for that too. But we’re here, is all I’m saying. And we have spent all afternoon and evening pretty much doing their bloody job for them. So let’s just see if they can help us out! Just humourise me, Simon. Come on, what’s wrong with that?’

Long pause, and I swear I can physically see the eternal optimist in him wrestle with his inner realist.

Astonishingly, the realist wins out.

‘You’re right,’ he sighs, for first time all day sounding defeated. ‘We’re here. For what it’s worth, let’s do it.’

10.35 p.m.

Police are useless! Total and utter waste of time! I storm out of there fuming, and even calm, level-headed Simon’s pissed off at just how lackadaisical they were. Now I know it’s Christmas, etc., I know the sixteen-year-old copper on duty would far rather be home in front of a computer screen chatting up girls on Facebook, rather than listening to a borderline hysteric and the shell-shocked boyfriend of a missing woman, demanding that something be done immediately to track her down.

First question: did Kitty have a history of drug or alcohol abuse? I gave him an adamant no. Almost snapped the face off him. I mean, sure Kitty likes a drink the way we all do, but drugs? Never once, in all the long years I’ve known her! And that is a long, long, time, probably since well before you were toilet trained, I stressed to the acne-faced copper.

Second question: did she have a history of depression, or was she in any way prone to suicidal tendencies? Almost guffawed in his face, and Simon was at pains to point out that she’s a respectable student, waitressing her way through night school; the jolliest, most positive, outgoing type you could ever meet, who’d probably never once in the whole course of her life entertained a solitary dark thought. ’Course, I was nearly thumping on the table by then and kept demanding to talk to someone – anyone – more senior, who might see the severity of the situation and take it that bit more seriously.

Simon had to haul me back by the elbow at this point, and even had the manners to apologise to the young kid on my behalf, politely explaining that we’d both had a v. stressful day of it. At which point I went back to standing sulkily on the sidelines, arms folded, occasionally lobbing in, ‘But she never went to visit her foster mother on Christmas Day! And she stood me up on my birthday! So why aren’t you writing that down in your logbook, sonny? Unheard of for her!’

Totally wasting my breath. Child-copper told us that standard procedure is that a missing persons report can only be filed when someone’s been gone for a minimum of three days. I nearly had to be held back at that and had to resist the urge to holler, ‘So going AWOL over Christmas is no cause for immediate concern, then?’

Simon calmly pointed out that, as far as we know, the last person who actually saw Kitty was Joyce Byrne at Byrne & Sacetti, who said goodbye to her at about one in the morning on the twenty-fourth, just as she was finishing up her shift. About seventy hours ago, roughly. For God’s sake, we’re almost there, almost at magical three-day mark!

But the copper was v. insistent. If she still hasn’t surfaced by tomorrow, he told us, then we could come back and they’d take it from there. Around six in the evening is the best time, he added, as the sergeant would be back on duty then. Like we were making appointments at the hairdresser’s.

But then – And this is bit that almost made me gag – he v. coolly, almost dismissively, informed us that the vast majority of people who disappear for a while usually resurface again safe and well. Well over ninety per cent of them, in fact. Clearly it must be a well-known statistic they apparently teach you in your first year at Garda Training College, because he kept stressing it over and over again, like a broken record. Then told us to just go home and even managed to add insult to injury by calling after us, ‘And try not to worry.’

Had the strongest urge to smack him over the head with the butt end of my umbrella, but Simon clocked it in time and hauled me out of there, before I got the chance to inflict lasting damage.

11.10 p.m.

Front driveway of my parents’ house. Sleeting down v. heavily now, lashing. The two of us barely spoke the whole way here; too punch drunk by it all. Just as I’m about to clamber out of the car, Simon grabs my hand and pulls me back.

‘Thanks, Angie,’ is all he says sincerely, the green eyes focused right on me in that v. intense way he has. ‘You’re keeping me sane in all this. I just want you to know that.’

‘Ring me,’ I tell him, ‘anytime at all in the night if she turns up.’

‘You know I will.’

Am too exhausted to say what I really think.

But what happens if and when she doesn’t?

Chapter Four

27 December, 8.20 a.m.

I’m in a deep, dead, exhausted sleep when I’m woken by the phone, beside me, ringing. And in a nanosecond, I go from early-morning grogginess to wide awake and on high alert.

Please be Simon with news … Please can the pathetic, frail little hope he was clinging to – that Kitty would just stroll through the front door during the wee small hours – have actually, miraculously come to pass …

It’s not Simon, but the next best thing! My buddy Jeff, ringing me back to say he got all my hysterical voice messages yesterday and of course now v. anxious to find out what in hell is going on with Kitty. What’s the story? Has she turned up? Quickly, I fill him in and bring him up to speed.

‘OK then,’ he says in his decisive, man-of-action way. ‘Just tell me how I can help and I’ll be there.’

Jeff’s amazing. Jeff’s a true pal. This is exactly what’s needed right now. Fresh blood. Reinforcements.

8.25 a.m.

Call Simon. The phone’s picked up after approximately half a ring, if even that.

‘Hello?’ he answers.

Shit. I just know by the overly hopeful note in his voice he was praying this might be Kitty. But Simon’s always the perfect gentleman and at least has the good grace not to sound a bit deflated, when it turns out it’s only me. My heart goes out to the guy. Am actually afraid at one point he sounds dangerously close to tears.

Please, for the love of God, don’t cry, I find myself silently praying. Don’t think I could handle it if I had to be strong one in all this, while Simon fell apart. Thank Christ he doesn’t, but the underlying tremble in his voice is nearly worse.

He says he and Kitty were meant to be leaving for their big skiing hollier in just under three hours’ time. His Xmas gift to her. He tells me that just a few short days ago, before the whole world somehow fell apart, he thought he’d be arm in arm with her right at this very moment, skipping through Duty Free with bottle of champagne tucked under his oxter and with nothing but a fab, romantic week in Austria arsing around the slopes to look forward to. Says never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d spend this morning ringing up a gangload of total strangers, in the slim hope someone, somewhere might have had even a fleeting conversation with her on that final shift and that maybe, maybe they might be able to shed a bit of light on this.

It’s a flair of mine to say the wrong thing at times like this, and true to form, Angie strikes again.

‘Simon … this is just a thought,’ I say tentatively, ‘but I don’t suppose there’s any point in turning up at the airport, just in case?’ Then in a classic Freudian slip, I manage to mumble out the single most annoying comment, the same one I was gritting my teeth down the phone over, every time I heard it yesterday.

‘I mean, you know what Kitty’s like,’ I blurt out, barely pausing to think. ‘So just say she did end up buried deep in some stranger’s house over Christmas, someone who we’ve not made contact with yet, then … well, maybe she’ll just turn up at Departures later on this morning, with a credit card in her back pocket and nothing else?’

I regret the words the very second they’re out of my mouth. Am a stupid, bloody, moronic, tactless idiot. I shouldn’t do this to the guy, when he’s going through so much! It’s downright cruel. False hope can be a v., v. dangerous thing.

Still, though. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be unprecedented carry-on for our Kitty. Can’t help thinking back to that one particular, now-famous occasion—

But Simon interrupts my train of thought, sighing exhaustedly.

‘You know, I’d sort of been hoping for that too,’ he says. ‘In fact, I was thinking almost exactly along the same lines as you. But at about four o’clock this morning, I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and started rummaging through her desk, in case there was some clue there as to what’s going on. An address of where she might be staying, a phone number, a name, maybe. Something we’ve overlooked that just might explain all this.’

‘And?’

‘Well, put it this way: she’s most definitely not going to casually turn up at the airport this morning and that’s for certain.’

‘You’re absolutely sure?’

Not meaning to contradict him so baldly, but she actually has done it before. With me, as it happened. Years ago. I thought she’d stood me up for a last-minute trip to London, and next thing she bounded into airport, no bags, no luggage, nothing, and full of the most outlandish story involving a hit-and-run driver, a sick cocker spaniel with a mashed front paw, a wailing child and a last-minute dash to the nearest vets. One of those completely mental, nutty excuses, so utterly off-the-wall that you just knew it could only be the truth. Vintage Kitty, in other words.

‘Yeah, I’m pretty certain,’ Simon is saying, ‘because when I was rummaging through her desk at stupid o’clock this morning, I came across a couple of things.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like a list of restaurants in the resort that we were meant to go to. A German phrase book I’d bought her for the trip, as a joke. And right beside all of that, I found her passport.’

9.25 a.m.

Jeff picks me up and v. kindly says he’ll drive me to Kitty’s house, then help to give Simon and me a dig-out for the rest of the entire day. Says he’ll do whatever he can to help, bless him. Claims he’s prepared do anything to find our gal, even if it’s only running around distributing milky mugs of sugary tea, patting shoulders and saying, ‘There, there, dear,’ at regular intervals. A true friend, in other words.

Anyway, he collects me in his little runaround Skoda, typical Jeff, dressed like he’s on his way to a gym. Bit too tight Lycra gym leggings with trainers and a v. clingy sweatshirt, with suspicious overtones of a recent spray tan, just a shade too mahogany for it to be natural. In December. When it’s freezing.

To his great annoyance, Jeff’s often mistaken for gay, reinforced by the fact he works as a freelance make-up artist, hence the addiction to spray tans. But he’s not; he’s straight as they come and actively seeking a GF. And he really is a total sweetheart, inordinately generous, the kind of bloke who’d gladly do anything for you. If he was in a movie, he’d most likely be cast as the reliable-best-buddy-of-leading-man. You know, the sort of roles Paul Rudd makes a v. healthy living out of. Such a lovely guy, Kitty often says, that it’s almost a racing certainty he’ll ultimately end up with a complete bitch. Always the way; the sweeter and more genuine they are, the more horrendous the girlfriend. Sad fact.

‘I just can’t believe Kitty would pull a disappearing trick like this!’ he tells me after a quick peck on the cheek, as I clamber into the car beside him. ‘It just doesn’t seem possible, not even for her!’

I nod mutely back at him in agreement.

‘So that’s not only Christmas that she’s missed,’ he goes on, ‘on top of your birthday, but now the chance to head off on a holiday with Simon, too? Jeez … Dunno about you, honey, but I’m now working on the definite possibility that something serious must have happened to her on her way home from work. I’m thinking … maybe some axe-wielding psycho now has her locked up in a cellar somewhere in the bowels of the South Circular Road?’

He has the tact to shut up instantly when he catches me doing an involuntary shudder and offers me a bottle of ayurvedic water. (Still water, by the way. Jeff’s theory is that carbonated bubbles are an indirect cause of male cellulite. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy dearly, but he can be tiny bit image-conscious like that.)

‘Congratulations,’ I tell him, gratefully snapping open water bottle and taking a big slug. ‘You’ve now arrived at stage one. Disbelief combined with a willing acceptance that whatever happened to her must be gruesome beyond belief. I’d a full day of that yesterday, thanks very much, while you were hauling your skinny arse up the side of a mountain.’

‘So, dare I ask what stage you’re now at, hon?’

‘Since early this morning? I’m officially at stage two.’

‘Which is?’

‘Bizarrely, it’s ridiculous belief that everything’s going to be OK, in the face of almost overwhelming odds. Which is why I’m about to suggest you and I take a quick detour on the way to Kitty’s.’

10.01 a.m.

Vincent’s Hospital, the biggest one over my end of town. Jeff pulls into the car park and we stomp our way through the icy grounds towards the A&E department.

‘Simon thinks this is a total waste of time,’ I explain briskly on the way, ‘but I’m saying, let’s just rule out all possibilities, that’s all.’

‘Quite right.’ Jeff pats my arm a bit patronisingly, like I’m some hysterical old dear who needs agreeing with at all times, else she’s likely to get a fit of the vapours. Truth is, though, I’m not particularly bothered whether Jeff understands or not. Just need to be doing something. Need to keep being proactive.

Keep telling myself over and over again: if it was the other way round, Kitty would probably have SWAT teams out patrolling the streets, searching for me by now.

10.17 a.m.

A&E unit is v. quiet. Miracle. Was half expecting it to be like a field hospital at the Battle of the Somme given that it’s the Christmas holidays. Head to the main desk and speak to a v. helpful receptionist. A lovely young one who must be able to sense waves of urgency practically pinging off the pair of us, as she goes out of her way to be helpful.

‘We’re looking for a patient who may possibly have been admitted early on the morning of Christmas Eve, thirty-one years old, five feet ten … em … really skinny … Oh yeah, hazel eyes and waist-length long, black, curly hair. Name of Kitty Hope. Might they have anyone who even comes close to fitting that description?’ is our not v. well-thought-out opener.

But no joy. Receptionist is nothing if not persevering, though, and as soon as she’s checked on her system that no one of that name’s been admitted, she then volunteers to ask around for us, just in case. Even disappears off into the A&E to double check; really goes the extra mile for us. Then comes back through double doors where we’re sitting tensely on plastic seats in the waiting area and shakes her head sadly at us.

She doesn’t even need to open her mouth. The look on her disappointed face tells us all we need to know.

10.32 a.m.

Back in the car when Simon calls wondering where I am. Sounding agitated and panicky. V. worrying. And now I’m starting to feel a bit shitty about leaving poor guy alone this morning, to deal with all this by himself. Just doesn’t sit right with me, somehow.

Suddenly I’m concerned that he and I seem to have switched personalities: whereas he was the pillar of confidence and strength yesterday and I was the screw-up, today we’re in near-perfect role reversal. He seems to be falling apart, so it’s up to me to be Miss Bossypants Assertiveness. I tell him that we’re on our way back, then saintly Jeff v. kindly offers to drop me off at Kitty’s and continue doing the trawl of hospitals on his own.

I thank him warmly. So fab to be able to delegate. Then I’ve a brainwave. I suggest to Jeff that we should start rooting out photos of Kitty from her house, so we have something to show to the world, and in particular, to the hospitals. Not to mention the coppers, who are bound to want decent headshots of her later on, if it comes to that. I’m now working along the lines that Kitty could be lying in a ward somewhere, suffering from deep concussion and not knowing who she is or how she got there.

Then, of course, my imagination totally runs away with me and I get an immediate vision of her bandaged from head to foot with just tiny slit holes for her eyes, so no one can even see who she is, never mind what she looks like. Bit far-fetched, maybe, but as I said to Jeff, quoting Basil Rathbone in the old Sherlock Holmes movies, once you’ve eliminated the impossible, then whatever you’re left with, however improbable, must be the truth.

Makes sense. Doesn’t it?

When the pair of us arrive at Kitty’s, Simon answers the door. Soon as I catch the state he’s in, the sudden urge I get to cradle him tight and tell him everything will be OK, even though it clearly isn’t, is almost overpowering. He actually looks like a lost little boy. The dark circles under his eyes have now gone even darker; poor guy looks like he never even got to bed last night, never mind slept and, unusually for him, he’s still streeling around in yesterday’s clothes. He gives me a hug and I instantly feel the roughness of his face against mine. Unheard of for a man like this, I think distractedly. Simon’s normally all smooth and lotion-y with a lovely, lemony smell of expensive aftershave off him. Well turned out, as Mother Blennerhasset would be wont to remark. Heartbreaking to see.

Even Jeff gets bit of a shock at just how badly Simon’s taking it.

Soon as we head inside, Jeff skites off to Kitty’s study to whip a few decent photos off the wall and Simon automatically goes to stick on the kettle, offering us both coffee.

‘I feel daft even asking you this,’ I say gently to him, ‘but how are you feeling right now?’

He gives a weak, watery smile back at me. ‘You know what I’ve spent the last hour doing?’ he says hoarsely. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the hotel in Austria where Kitty and I were due to be checking in around now.’

‘Cancelling the booking?’

‘Cancelling everything. The reservation, the candlelit dinner for two I’d booked for tonight, the …’ He breaks off here a bit. ‘Well … let’s just say, I had a surprise arranged for her, a very special surprise, but now I guess that’s all gone by the wayside too.’

‘Oh, Simon, I don’t know what to say,’ I tell him gently. ‘I hope at least that the hotel were OK about it?’

‘Oh, yeah, very sympathetic. The reservations manager spoke fluent English and she was incredibly understanding. She wanted to know …’ but he trails off again, like the end of that sentence is too painful to even articulate. I instinctively move a step closer to him, but he focuses on putting Nescafé into mugs and composes himself in time.

‘She said she was sorry if my girlfriend and I had broken up. And I just couldn’t find it in me to get the right words out, so instead I hung up the phone.’

Then Jeff sticks his head around the door, with a stack of photos for us all to check. V. hard to find one of Kitty without a drink in her hand, or where you can actually see her nose full-on (she was expert at turning her head in photos, as she’d say, to minimise general Barbra Streisand-ness of it), but eventually we settle on about a half a dozen that’ll have do.

Right then. Jeff sets off on his mission and Simon and I get back to manning the phones, picking up exactly where we left off yesterday.

12.45 p.m.

Getting on bit better today. Spoke to one junior chef who distinctly remembered seeing Kitty on that last shift and having a long chat with her. Apparently about how much she was looking forward to her skiing trip.

V. strange look from Simon at hearing that. Would nearly break a heart of stone.

2.20 p.m.

Our buddy Sarah arrives, fresh from doing an early shift at her family’s sandwich bar where she practically runs the place single-handedly; doing everything from PR to sales and marketing to working on the tills, if she has to. Bless her, she strides in laden down with basket of fresh sambos, croissants, muffins, etc.

Carb hit, just what we need. Sarah’s completely amazing, like a ray of light round here, positive energy beaming all round her. Great ‘can-do’ attitude, v. Dunkirk spirit. If you were casting Sarah in a biopic of her life, you’d go for an efficient Women’s Institute/ICA type, as played by a young Penelope Keith.

Kitty and I know her all way back to her post-grad college days, when Sarah used to trawl round the place in Doc Martens and denim overalls, famous for never shaving under her arms. Then, the minute she graduated and went to work in her family’s catering company, overnight she suddenly morphed into a female Alan Sugar, crossed with a Karren Brady-businesswoman-type, dressed in stilettos and scarily smart black pantsuits, and living off a combination of fags and nerves. It’s in the blood and genes will always out, as Kitty used to shrug.

Really delighted to see her now, though. Like a burst of vitally needed energy.

3.45 p.m.

It was exhausting, it nearly bloody killed us, but somehow between us, Simon, Sarah and I, we’ve now managed to work our weary way through to the v. last name and get to speak to everyone we could on that everlastingly long contact list. Don’t know how we did it, but between Sarah’s Prussian efficiency and my insane, misguided optimism in the face of overwhelming odds, somehow we get there.

Absolutely nowhere, that is. No one has seen or heard from Kitty since her last shift in work, no one knew of any late-night parties she might have pitched up at, not a bleeding sausage. Just dead ends everywhere we turn.

Poor Simon’s really worrying me now. Like a shadow of the same guy I knew from only a few days ago. He’s jumpy, tense, even a bit irritable, so unlike his usual über-gentlemanly self. Has already asked me about five times to come with him to police station later on this evening.

‘I really need you there with me, Angie,’ is all he says, with a pleading look, like a lost little puppy.

He’s actually starting to treat me like I’m his lifeline. Even Sarah noticed.

5.10 p.m.

Fast approaching the 6.00 p.m. deadline to get back to the cop shop, and Simon and I are about as organised as we’ll ever be to finally file a report. We’ve covered absolutely everything; we even rang up Foxborough House care home again, in vain hopes Kitty may somehow have surfaced there. But nothing.

Weird just how quickly you become inured to disappointment.

Between the whole lot of us though, I think we’re fully prepped for all eventualities. Sarah, being Sarah (bit ghoulishly I thought), even went and unearthed a whole missing persons website and saw that the first thing police apparently look for are mobile phone details, as well as bank account and credit card statements. So after a fair bit of rummaging through Kitty’s desk, the pair of us stumbled on a few old bank statements as well as a mobile phone bill (Kitty’s never a great one for clearing out her desk, it seems). Felt a bit like tempting fate even taking all this stuff with me, but as Sarah kept reminding me, far better to arrive fully prepared.

All in all, getting organised for this was relatively easy.

So now for the hard part.

Harcourt Street Police Station, 6.00 p.m. on the nail

Utterly mental in the cop shop tonight. Like a riot just broke out before we arrived and Simon and I had the bad luck to walk right into the aftermath. Place is packed with underage-looking yobbos with buzz cuts and v. scary-looking ‘body art’, all out of their heads on meths or God knows what. I’m not kidding, every single one of them looks fully ready to start fisticuffs with his own shadow. Bloody terrifying.

I shuffle over to stand v. close to Simon, who instinctively grips my hand. Grip it back, tight. Grateful.

We wait meekly at the back of a tiny reception area, either till the yob-heads all get arrested or else someone notices us, but by a stroke of pure luck, the very same adolescent copper who was on duty last night chances to walk right by us with a tray of coffee. He sees us and immediately stops.

‘You two must be back about your missing friend then, yeah?’ he asks.

Pair of us nod.

‘I take it she still hasn’t turned up, then?’

It’s all I can do to fire him an impatient look and stop myself from snapping, ‘Eh, no, sonny, she’s actually at home with the feet up watching tonight’s Christmas movie, which I believe is Avatar. Sure, we just thought we’d swing by to drink in the homely atmosphere.’

But Simon, as always, is that bit more tactful than I am.

‘Still nothing to report, I’m afraid,’ he says politely. ‘Can you tell me who’s the most senior person on duty here tonight?’

‘That’d be Detective Sergeant Jack Crown. If you just follow me, I’ll get him for you now. He said if there was still no news about your friend this evening, then he’d like to interview you both together.’

Sudden surge of elation. The sergeant wants to interview us! You see? Finally, finally, finally this is being taken seriously! Jubilantly we follow the pimply adolescent Garda, as he leads us out of the packed waiting area and down a long, snaking corridor to a tiny interview room right at the very end.

A gloomy, depressing, dismal-looking kip of a place. Overly bright fluorescent light that’d nearly give you a migraine, walls painted hospital green, with the paint peeling off them, and only one tiny window with bars on it, about seven feet above us. Bit like a prison cell. Underage Garda leaves us there and says that the sergeant will be along shortly.

The door slams shut and Simon shoots me a concerned look.

‘Don’t be nervous, Ange,’ he tells me gently. ‘Remember we’ve got all the facts in front of us and all we have to do now is tell the truth and nothing but.’

‘To be honest,’ I answer, ‘right now I’m mostly just relieved that maybe now they’ll get up off their arses and finally start to do something to help. Think about it: we’ve spent all of yesterday and most of today essentially doing the police’s work for them! It’s a complete disgrace, that’s what it is! Don’t know about you, but I’ve no intentions of leaving here without them promising to do what they’re being paid to do and get the bloody finger out.’

Because I want this sergeant, whoever he is, to be an elder statesman, Inspector Morse type, who’ll have this solved in a mere matter of hours. Or else a wise, elderly Miss Marple sort, as played by Margaret Rutherford, who’ll offer us pots of tea and scones, ask questions that initially seem totally irrelevant, like, ‘What was Kitty’s mother’s maiden name?’ Or, ‘Had she ever visited Bologna in springtime?’ And yet still manage to trace Kitty by morning.

Failing that, I want Kenneth Branagh as Wallander to stride confidently in here, or better yet, David Suchet as Poirot, who’ll waddle around, charm the arses off us, ask insightful questions, then whisk off and have Kitty back to us with nothing more than a funny tale to dine out on. I want someone who’ll walk in here and immediately inspire confidence. I want to just look at him and know that if this guy can’t track down Kitty, no one can.

What’s more, I want whoever this guy is to give us his solemn word that highly trained SWAT teams are, as we speak, being deployed to come in and help. I want helicopters patrolling the area where Kitty was last seen, I want everyone she ever met in her entire life from the age of three upwards to be hauled in for a full police interview; I want her story to be on one of those ‘live police enactments’ that you see on TV shows like Crimewatch (except with somebody thinner playing me, obviously).

I want whole entire units of coppers with trained Alsatians pounding on every hall door between here and West Belfast, asking questions and demanding answers. I want to paper-blitz whole country with a full poster and flyer campaign, so no one can possibly avoid seeing Kitty’s unforgettable face staring out at them from billboards, bus stops and lampposts.

I want total media blanket coverage. And only when all that is done, will I …

6.35 p.m.

Mental ramblings are suddenly interrupted by arrival of Detective Sergeant Jack Crown, who instantly surprises me by not being a senior, Inspector Morse or even a Scando detective type, but a youngish guy. Not that much older than Simon, late thirties at most, and not a bit wise or experienced-looking at all.

Definitely not a Wallander or even a Poirot either; the guy’s sandy-haired, freckly, chunky and with sharp blue eyes and an intent, tight-jawed look about him. Thick-set build too, with hands the approximate size of shovels. Puts me in mind of Simon Pegg, for some reason. Initial reaction? Bit disappointed, actually. Was just hoping for someone with more gravitas and authority about them, that’s all. Whereas this fella looks like the type of guy who’d be far more at home in a theme bar with a big feed of chips and a few pints in front of him. Not what I was expecting and certainly not what you might call confidence-inspiring.

Glance over to Simon, who shoots a ‘would you just give the guy a chance?’ look back at me.

Funny; we’ve spent so much time together of late, it’s getting so we’re starting to communicate without speech.

Det. Sgt Crown shakes hands vigorously with both of us as we introduce ourselves, but he isn’t exactly what you might call friendly or even particularly concerned for our welfare. Never says, ‘Call me Jack’, and no offers of tea from plastic cups either. Just dumps down a notepad with a thick wad of files on the desk in front of him and rolls up his sleeves, ready to write down anything we say that might, in some small way, help.

‘OK, firstly I’m really sorry you both had to come back,’ he starts off, efficiently whipping a Biro out of his uniform pocket. ‘But I’m taking it that at this point in time Kitty Hope has been gone for over three days now? If you’ve an accurate date and time as to when she was last seen, that would be really useful, as a starting point.’

No chat, no ‘So where you do think she went?’ or ‘Tell me how you’ve both been coping?’ No preamble with this guy whatsoever. Just efficiently cuts to the chase, like we’ve come in about a missing passport and are now holding up a v. long queue.

Simon starts to fill him in, aided by me shoving notes I made earlier in front of him, with exact names of who last saw Kitty, where and critically at what time. I keep on red-pencilling around stuff, so he won’t forget and impatiently tapping my biro off sheaves of paper in front of him to draw his attention to anything he’s leaving out. Driving the poor guy completely mental, in other words.

Crown works his way through a whole list of fairly standard-sounding questions and we answer almost in unison, nearly tripping over each other to get our spake in first. It’s a long, long list, and we tell him everything: Kitty’s age, gender, height, build, hair colour, eye colour, the date she was last seen, where she was last seen, plus full details about her next of kin and, more specifically, all about poor Mrs K. and her condition.

Then I can’t help myself butting in.

‘So you see, by far the weirdest thing of all here,’ I interrupt, overeager to get the story out, ‘is that we know she was most definitely planning to visit her foster mum in the nursing home on Christmas Day. So that categorically proves that something awful must have happened in the meantime … because only something really disastrous would ever have prevented her from …’

‘… Going to see Mrs Kennedy on Christmas Day,’ Simon butts in, finishing the sentence for me. ‘Which, of course, was when we both started to realise just how serious the situation was, because up till then, we’d thought … that is to say, we’d hoped, that maybe she’d just been out having a few Christmas drinks somewhere …’

‘… And maybe crashed out at friend’s house or something? So then, between the two of us, we phoned around just about everybody we knew, not to mention everyone she worked with, even random strangers who were booked into the restaurant where she was working that night …’

‘… And we got absolutely nowhere. Total dead end.’

‘OK, OK, guys,’ Crown interrupts, waving at us to quieten down. ‘Let’s just hear one voice at a time and take the whole story from the very beginning. Why don’t we start with you, Angie?’

Strongly suspect it’s because he knows I won’t shut up or stop interrupting otherwise, but v. happy to have the floor properly opened to me.

‘Now, I want you to take your time and tell me in your own words exactly when you last saw Kitty and when you first became alarmed at her disappearance. Remember, don’t leave anything out. Even the most insignificant detail could prove to be vitally important to our investigation at this point. OK?’

‘OK.’

I feel a bit like a star witness who’s just been ushered up to stand in front of packed courtroom. But Crown’s not making any eye contact with me at all. Which is not exactly what you might call encouraging.

‘So,’ he starts off, face buried deep into his blessed notes, ‘let’s take it right from the very beginning. Firstly, tell me how long exactly have you known Kitty for?’

And so I start talking. About how she and I first met, all of seven years ago now. Remember it like it was yesterday. I was fresh out of college and because I hadn’t the first clue what I wanted to do with my life, I managed to get a part-time job working at telesales in a call centre. I can vividly see myself there on my very first day, nervously cold-calling and trying not to fluff my lines. ‘Excuse me, may I interest you in taking a market research call that could possibly end up saving you hundreds on your household bills?’ That kind of shite.

I was only at the job for about an hour when this bright, bouncy beautiful creature with long legs as skinny as two Cadbury’s chocolate fingers, springs into the cubicle right beside me and yells an apology over to the male supervisor for being late. Roared at him, ‘Won’t say what delayed me this morning, Sean, but by the way, you can sleep easy! The gonorrhoea test was negative!’ ’Course the whole room cracked up, supervisor included.

Right from the start, I was completely mesmerised by her; this glorious ball of energy with enough personality for two people, wearing a bright blue fleecy sweatshirt over what looked suspiciously like pyjama bottoms. I remember having to stifle giggles when I overheard her dealing with a particularly rude person she’d just cold-called. Instead of apologising and getting off the phone a.s.a.p. like we were trained to do, she just laughed and said, ‘Nah, don’t worry, I don’t blame you for telling me to feck off, love. After all, I work in a call centre, selling house insurance. So technically, that makes me the devil.’

And when she introduced herself and dragged me off to the pub after work, that was it. She and I just bonded and it was like my whole world suddenly went from monochrome to Technicolor. I knew we’d be mates and what’s more, we’d stay that way.

‘So you see, that’s how I’m so certain that something really horrendous must have happened to her!’ I find myself getting more and more upset now, borderline hysteric. Part relief that we’re finally being taken seriously, part vom-making worry at what in hell’s actually unfolding.

‘Because I’ve known Kitty for that length of time, practically all of my twenties, she’s like my sister! We’ve shared flats together and everything … And, OK, so she may be a tiny bit unreliable and scatty at times, but I know that vanishing over Christmas, when we’d all be out of our minds worrying about her, just isn’t something she would ever do!’

‘OK, OK, take it easy,’ Crown suggests in a don’t-argue-with-me tone. ‘And remember that jumping to conclusions isn’t helpful at this point.’

Which at this point slightly gets my back up, I have to admit. It’s unsympathetic.

‘I fully understand what you’ve been through,’ he goes on, ‘and how worrying this is for both of you, but trust me when I tell you, it’s far more useful at this point to try and leave all emotion out of it. So how about we just stick to the actual hard facts?’

I take a deep, soothing breath, then nod curtly back at him. Jeez, what is this guy, anyway? Some kind of emoticon? I feel like snarling across at him, ‘How would you feel if your best friend vanished into thin air over Christmas then, sonny? Or would you just “keep all emotion out of it” too?’

‘OK then.’ Crown looks up from his notes just in time to catch me glaring furiously across at him. ‘So when was the last time you actually did speak to Kitty?’

Like this is some kind of test, I’m fully ready for him.

‘It was just after lunchtime on the 23rd. About half-two.’ Don’t mean to snap, but that’s how it comes out. Sorry, but this guy is seriously starting to get my back up now.

‘That’s very specific. You’re quite sure about the time?’

‘Absolutely. Because I was—’

I break off a bit here. Because I was actually in the dole office signing on, when she called me. Distinctly remember as I had to give up my place in the queue and head outside to take the call. But then I decide it’s none of Crown’s bloody business anyway and keep on talking.

‘Em … I was in town when she called,’ I continue, ‘so we didn’t chat for very long. She was on her way into Byrne & Sacetti to start her last shift before the holidays, and she was calling to confirm a spa day we were due to have together the following day. It was my birthday, you see. So we arranged to meet at the Sanctuary Spa at eight in the morning for an early breakfast. Then she told me she couldn’t wait to see me and …’

I’m forced to break off a bit here. The threatened wave of upset has now given way to the kind of tears you have to choke back, and I’m absolutely determined not to get sobby, not in front of Crown.

Softie Simon notices, though. He tactfully rummages round in his coat pocket, then produces a clean tissue, which I gratefully take from him.

‘Come on, Angie, you’re doing great,’ he tells me gently, leaning into me and squeezing my shoulder. ‘But just try to take it nice and easy. There’s absolutely no rush. You all right now?’

I nod weakly back at him.

‘So if we can just get back to your statement,’ Crown interjects and I half-glower back at him. Then notice he’s not wearing a wedding ring. Now why doesn’t that surprise me?

‘Can you remember if Kitty sounded in any way distressed or stressed out about anything?’

‘Not in the least,’ I tell him defiantly. ‘But then, she rarely ever did.’

‘OK,’ he says, head buried back in his notes and scribbling away. ‘Now if you feel up to it, just keep on talking.’

And so I do, and before I know it, it’s Simon’s turn. He’s completely brilliant, though, far more businesslike and far less of a hysterical seesaw than I was. V. detailed and factual. I can practically see the sheer relief on Crown’s stony, emotionless face that at least one of us is making his life a bit easier, and not clouding the issue with tears and gulpy sobs, or with having to reach for Kleenex every two minutes.

Even though we’re essentially both telling same story except from two different viewpoints, this still takes us ages. Actually starts to feel bit like we’ve been stuck in this stale, stifling room for hours. But then, as soon as Simon’s done with his statement and Crown’s finally stopped writing on the file in front of him, our questions right back at him start all at once, in a barrage.

‘So what happens now?’ Simon wants to know. ‘What exactly is the next step here?’

‘Yeah! I mean we’ve got buddies out trawling the streets, knocking on doors locally and asking if anyone’s seen or heard anything, and we could really use a bit of help. Proper, professional help,’ I throw in, fervently hoping offer of SWAT teams and helicopters is only round the corner.

‘Because we’re now working on the theory that she left the restaurant at around one in the morning,’ Simon takes up from me, ‘on Christmas Eve, when her shift ended. We’re assuming that she went to walk home, as she always did, and that something could have happened to her then. Maybe a mugging? An abduction of some kind? Maybe she’s being held involuntarily against her will? So you see, the faster you guys act, the better.’

‘And the more help we can get from the police, the quicker we’ll find her! She could be in some kind of awful danger right now, while we’re all just sitting around here doing nothing!’

Crown makes another one of those ‘take it easy’ hand gestures that frankly are starting to annoy me.

‘I fully appreciate that you’re both deeply concerned,’ he says coolly. ‘But please remember that we’ve dealt with literally thousands of cases like this before and have a whole set of procedures in place that we’re obliged to follow first.’

‘Like what?’ Simon wants to know, sounding, for the first time since we got here, a bit impatient. Tetchy, not like himself at all.

‘OK, the first thing we’re going to take a look at are her mobile phone records. Was she the sort of person who’d have her phone on her person or close by her at all times?’

A moment while Simon and I glance across at each other.

‘Well … yeah,’ we both say together. ‘In case one of her tutors at night school needed to contact her,’ Simon adds, ‘or if the restaurant ever called to change her shifts.’

‘But we’ve been ringing her mobile number for days now!’ I chip in. ‘And believe me, there’s nothing! I must have left about five hundred messages by now and still not a whisper out of her!’

‘When you call the number, does it go straight through to voicemail?’

‘Em … yeah, it does.’

I’m narkily thinking: but what’s that got to do with anything?

‘Right then,’ Crown says, scribbling away on the pad in front of him. ‘In that case, we can safely assume her phone is probably out of battery. So the first step we take is to get onto her carrier and get them to put a triangulation trace on it a.s.a.p. Pinpoint the exact location of her phone, is the theory, and there’s a chance we’ll have a good starting point as to where to start the search for Kitty. With luck, she won’t be too far behind. Been very successful in cases like this before. We may not be able to nail down her specific location, but we certainly should narrow it down to within a one-mile radius.’

Simon and I nod back at him, a bit more enthusiastically now. Maybe not offer of SWAT teams I’d been hoping for, but still. It’s positive. It’s something.

‘Secondly,’ he continues, ‘I’ll need to take her home computer to run a few checks on it, as well as all her bank records and credit card details, if you can access them. The first thing anyone who goes missing will always need is access to hard cash.’

That, though, we’re prepared for, and I have them whipped out of the big mound of Kitty-related documents from my handbag barely before he’s finished talking. In fact, the only reason I haven’t called the bank myself before this, is that they’re all still closed for holidays.

‘And thirdly,’ Crown goes on, ‘I need to ask you both one or two personal things about her, if that’s OK?’

We nod and sit forward, both on the edge of our seats.

‘You’ve already stated that Kitty Hope doesn’t have any history of drug or alcohol abuse …’

‘Most sober, reliable, upstanding girl you could ever hope to meet,’ I interrupt, to a raised eyebrow from Simon at the sheer outrageousness of the exaggeration.

‘So in cases such as these there’s about a ninety per cent chance that she is, in fact, safe and well. And just for whatever reasons, felt she needed a bit of time out. Was she under severe pressure at work or maybe at the night school she attended?’

We both shake our heads.

‘Well, I mean, she worked long hours and when she wasn’t working, she was always studying,’ I throw in, ‘so the odd time she’d complain about being bone knackered, but apart from that …’ I trail off a bit here. Mainly because the exact phrase Kitty always uses is, ‘These fecking books have my brains turned into baked Alaska.’

‘Was she under any financial strain?’

Again, we tell him no more so than any of the rest of us. No mortgage, low rent, no major credit card debts, no big whacks of cash outstanding to any shady loan sharks, nothing. She earned good money at the restaurant and always said Byrne & Sacetti’s customers were consistently the best tippers in town. Sure, she’d overspend a bit; but then Kitty’s outrageously generous and would often find herself broke and counting days till payday or until some whoppingly generous tip would tide her over. But doesn’t that just make her an ordinary, normal person?

‘Any gambling addictions that either of you know of?’

Almost want to guffaw at that one. I once went dog racing with Kitty (under the misguided impression that it might be good place to meet blokes). I can still remember her roars of laughter, claiming that the mutt of a thing she bet on would probably still be panting towards the finishing post at midnight that night. Said anything she put money on was instantly cursed and doomed to the greyhound equivalent of early paralysis. So that one, single night was the beginning and end of her gambling career.

‘Was there a chance she may have been in the early stages of an unwanted pregnancy?’

An angry flush from Simon at that, followed by a firm no.

Did she appear to be suffering from depression lately?

No, we tell him, stressing what a happy, open person Kitty is naturally.

More questions come thick and fast, as Crown ticks off a long, long list in front of him.

Had she been acting in any way strangely up until the night she disappeared? Was she bringing home large sums of money? Had she recently appeared alienated in any way from her close group of friends? Were a lot of her clothes and personal belongings missing from her house? Any valuable jewellery suddenly gone missing? Or electrical items? Did she have an eBay account? And what about her foster mother, had she been to visit her in the days leading up to Christmas Eve?

We tell him no, a v. firm no to everything.

And finally he finishes writing, closes the file in front of him and sits back, eyeballing each of us in turn. One of those cold, unflinching glares. Serial killer-ish, I find myself thinking a bit nastily.

‘So neither of you is aware of any personal reasons at all why she’d need to take off?’

‘NO!’ we chorus back at him, yet again. Don’t know about Simon, but I’m kind of getting seriously sick of this guy by now. Worse than useless, if you ask me. And if he uses the phrase ‘established set of procedures to follow here’ once more, I’m seriously tempted to reach across the desk and thump him one. We’re not exactly talking about a bloody wallet one of us left in the back of a taxi here!

I want far, far fewer questions and far, far more coppers to burst in, heavily armed and telling us they’re now taking over the whole investigation. And that they confidently expect to have Kitty back home, with not a hair on her head harmed and looking for a shower, a glass of wine and a big feed of chips, in that order.

‘Well, then, in that case,’ Crown shrugs dismissively, ‘the news is not necessarily bad. Rest assured, we’ll do everything we can, but you should know that the chances of her turning up safe and sound are relatively high. In well over ninety per cent of cases like this, the subject is nearly always secure and will inevitably return when they’re good and ready.

‘However, given the worry and upset that Kitty’s causing to all around her, then unfortunately there’s one hard, cold fact that remains. So I’m afraid I’ll need you both to ask yourselves one unpleasant but unavoidable question.’

We both look at him expectantly.

‘Why would she do this in the first place? She must have had a very good reason for wanting to leave. So what do you think it might have been?’

I ask Simon exactly the same question again in car on our way home.

He doesn’t answer me, though, just goes v. quiet and stares out window into the night, completely wrapped up in thought.

By the age of fifteen, she’d already been with a grand total of eight foster homes, which had to have been some class of a record, she figured. They should be giving her a survival medal, like they did in Stalinist Russia, just for lasting this long in their poxy system. And here she was now, on the doorstep of number nine.

Initial reaction? Worst one yet. An old lady-type house in the back arse of nowhere, over-heavy with crappy-looking ornaments, family photos and, dear Jaysus help her, knitted tea cosies. And all those do-gooder social workers from Health must have seriously been scraping the barrel when they vetted the aul one, who was to be her new foster parent. This one was fifty if she was a day, with helmet-y hair like a wig, who answered the door to her in an actual suit. Feck’s sake, a suit? Who wore a suit going round their own house, unless you were a complete weirdo?

The care liaison officer had tactfully left, ‘just so you two can get to know each other a little better’, and with a stern ‘you’d better be on your best behaviour’ glare over in her direction, he was gone. Thank f**k. She’d accidentally seen a copy of her own file once and it had been impressed on her that she was lucky to have been homed at all, with her track record. But to hell with that shower of gobshites anyway, she thought furiously. They could feck off, the lot of them.

‘Out of control,’ her file had said. ‘Complaints of a serious nature … shoplifting … swearing … smoking … underage drinking … wild …’ Made her feel proud, though. She didn’t want to fit in; she was sick to the teeth of all their rules and regulations, and being told how lucky she was to be homed at all, like she was supposed to be grateful. All she wanted was to hit eighteen, get out into the world and tell the whole shagging lot of them to go and f**k themselves.

And yet here she was, arms folded defensively, sat sullenly at yet another kitchen table with this Old Dear opposite her. Mrs Kennedy; a widow, this time. Husband probably died of boredom, she thought viciously to herself, taking in the pin-neat house with cushions on the cushions and net fecking curtains. It felt like she’d been through the drill a thousand times. This was the bit where both parties were supposed to be on their best behaviour, tiptoeing round each other, while the house rules were impressed in on her. Don’t this, don’t that, please can you remember to x and y and z.

Mind you, the worst were the foster parents who cheerily told you, ‘This is your home now, so please just try to relax and enjoy!’ Then within hours, she’d find herself hauled over the coals for smoking in her room, or cursing in front of other kids, or any other rule-infraction shite they could think of to throw at her. In other words, we’re saying that this is your home now, except it’s not really and never will be, and we can turf you out on a whim. So don’t you forget it, missy.

Fine, she wouldn’t. In fact, she made a bet with herself, as Mrs Ancient here fussed around her and poured tea and handed her slices of gooey-looking cake. She’d see if she could equal her personal best of getting turfed out of a new home in under a week. Shouldn’t be hard either. By the look of her, if she refused to go to Mass on Sundays, then this one would probably take a heart attack, start calling her the spawn of the devil and she’d be outta here in no time. Problem solved.

‘Now please feel free to call me Kathleen,’ Aul One was saying to her, pouring out tea into dainty china cups that barely held two dribbles and that were covered in a pattern that looked like dead scorpions. Later on, she’d come to recognise this as the good, special occasion china, that only ever got wheeled out at Christmas and Easter, but for now she didn’t give a shite. Would gladly have smashed it, if she could.

‘Whatever,’ she shrugged back, putting her feet up on the chair opposite her. Aul One seemed to notice, but said nothing.

‘And remember,’ Aul One went on, ‘I really do want you to treat this as your own home.’

‘Fantastic. In that case, can I have an ashtray and a lighter please?’

Again no reaction.

‘Smoke all you like,’ Aul One shrugged back at her, ‘but I think you’d better do it outside.’

‘House rule?’ she sneered.

‘Not really,’ said Aul One. ‘I just don’t think it would be fair on the kittens. They’re barely two weeks old and still nursing. I only wanted to keep the air nice and fresh for them, that’s all.’

‘Kittens?’ In spite of herself, she was curious. ‘Where?’

‘In the kitchen, just behind you. Would you like to have a look? They’re the most adorable little bundles you’ve ever seen.’

In spite of herself, she was intrigued. She followed Aul One into the tiny, galley kitchen and there they were, in a warm basket by the door. Eight little balls of the cutest, fluffiest things you ever saw. She picked one up and instinctively cuddled it. It made a tiny, weak little mewling sound, no mistaking it.

‘She’s meowing,’ Aul One smiled down at her. ‘I think she must like you.’

‘Are you going to keep them all?’

‘I wish I could, love, but I can’t. They’re too young to leave their mother, but as soon as they are, I’m afraid they’ll all have to be rehomed.’

‘That’s horrible! They should be with their mother!’

‘I know,’ Mrs Kennedy said sagely, taking her in from head to foot. ‘And I agree. Farming them out is necessary, but awful.’ Then after a half-beat, she added, ‘unless … unless you’d like to keep one? As your own special little pet? You could name it and everything, if you liked.’

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