I collected the most recent issues myself, picking up a paper every day, but the back issues I got from the London Gazette offices on Friday. You’d think you could walk in and ask for old copies, but of course it’s not that simple. They screw you for ￡6.99 for each issue. I should have photocopied the copies I found in Graham’s office at work, but by the time it occurred to me it was too late; they’d gone. Graham must already have put them out for recycling.
I hear a creak upstairs and freeze, but there’s nothing else and I resume my search. ‘Women murdered in London’ brings up mercifully few results, and none with photos that matched the adverts beside me. I realise quickly that headlines are little help; Google images are much more useful, and far faster. I spend an hour scrolling through photographs of police officers, crime scenes, sobbing parents, and mugshots of unsuspecting women, their lives cut short. None of them are mine.
Mine.
They’ve all become ‘mine’, these women beside me. I wonder if any of them have seen their own photo; if they – like me – are frightened, thinking someone is watching them; following them.
A blonde woman catches my eye. She’s sporting a mortarboard and gown, smiling at the camera, and I feel a glimmer of recognition. I look down at the adverts. They’re all familiar to me now, and I know exactly which one I’m trying to find.
There.
Is it the same woman? I tap my screen and the image becomes a news page – from the London Gazette’s own website, ironically.
POLICE PROBE MURDER OF WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN TURNHAM GREEN.
West London. District line, I think, trying to picture the stops. The other side of London from where Tania Beckett was killed. Could they be connected? The woman’s name is Laura Keen and there are three photos of her at the bottom of the article. Another in her graduation gown, standing between a couple who must be her parents. The second is less posed; she’s laughing and raising a glass to the camera. A student flat, I think, noting the empty wine bottles in the background, and the patterned throw used as a makeshift curtain. Finally there’s what looks like a work photo; she’s wearing a collared shirt and jacket, and her hair is neatly tied back. I make the photo larger, then pick up the advert and hold it next to the screen.
It’s her.
I don’t let myself dwell on what this means. I bookmark the page and send the link by email to myself at work so I can print out the article. I change my search term to ‘sexual assaults on women in London’, then realise it’s a fruitless quest. The images that fill my screen are of men, not women, and when I tap to access the articles the victims are nameless; faceless. I find myself frustrated by the very anonymity that is there to protect them.
My attention is caught by a headline above a CCTV image:
POLICE HUNT FOR PERVERT WHO SEXUALLY ASSAULTED WOMAN ON EARLY MORNING LONDON UNDERGROUND TRAIN.
There is scant detail.
A 26-year-old woman was travelling on the District line from Fulham Broadway when a man inappropriately touched her. British Transport Police has released a CCTV image of a man they want to trace in connection with the incident.
I look at the adverts. ‘Did this happen to one of you?’ I say aloud. The CCTV still is absurdly bad: so blurry, and so fleeting it’s impossible even to say what colour hair the man has. His own mother would be hard pushed to recognise him.
I bookmark the article, just in case, then stare at my screen. This is pointless. Like a game of Snap with half the cards missing. I turn off the iPad as I hear the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the stairs. I start to gather up the photos, but the action causes several to float on to the floor, and when Simon comes into the lounge, rubbing his eyes, I’m still picking them up.
‘I woke up and you weren’t there. What are you doing?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
Simon looks at the adverts in my hand.
‘From the London Gazette.’ I start to lay them out again on the cushion beside me. ‘There’s one every day.’
‘But what are you doing with them?’
‘Trying to find out what’s happened to the women in the adverts.’ I don’t tell him the real reason I’ve bought so many back issues of the Gazette, because to say it out loud would be to acknowledge that it could actually happen. That one day I’ll open a copy of the Gazette, and find Katie’s face staring out at me.
‘But you’ve been to the police – I thought they were looking into it? They’ve got intelligence systems; crime reports. If there’s a series, they’ll find the link.’
‘We know the link,’ I say, ‘it’s these adverts.’ My tone is stubborn, but deep down I know Simon is right. My Nancy Drew approach is pathetic and pointless, costing me a night’s sleep and gaining me little.
Except for Laura Keen, I remember.
I find her advert. ‘This girl,’ I say, handing it to Simon. ‘She’s been murdered.’ I open the bookmarked link and pass the iPad to him. ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’