Without thinking, I call her back, the dial tone ringing fanfare-like as it connects.
‘Kay speaking,’ she says as she picks up, her voice lighter than I’d imagined from her headshots.
I take a second to compose myself.
‘Hi, Kay, this is Annabella. I just got your email.’
‘Annabella,’ she says brightly. ‘Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.’
I hear her take a sip from something and imagine a vat of coffee in her hand. She’d be the kind of person that drinks it right up to bedtime, caffeinated to the hilt from dusk till dawn.
‘I’m so happy you want to help,’ I tell her, heady on the thought I might not fail Tabby after all.
‘No problem,’ she replies, composed. ‘Tabitha’s case is absolutely fascinating.’
I cringe at her choice of words but, though I wouldn’t choose to describe Tabby going missing as fascinating, I understand what she means.
‘Why now?’ I ask, wondering what’s taken her so long.
‘Tabitha’s case, it’s stayed with me. It had seemed so straightforward in the beginning, suspicious husband, shouldn’t take long to convict him, and then the investigation just… flopped. I want to find out why.’
As she speaks, I type Rick Priestley’s name into Google. My search brings up a raft of news articles relating to Tabby’s disappearance – still top of the results after all these years – and I scan a few of them to refresh my memory of the time, the mood of the reporting, the cut and thrust of the blame.
‘Do you remember Rick’s statement?’ I ask, rolling my eyes across it on the screen in front of me as though no time had passed between then and now. I read it down the phone.
‘When I woke up on the 22nd of August my wife was missing. We’d gone to bed, as normal, the night before… I am extremely concerned for her safety. Tabby, if you can see this, hear this, please get in touch. I want to talk, I want to help you. Please don’t hurt yourself. Remember that I’m here for you, at home, if you need me. Please just come back.’
‘To me,’ Kay says, ‘it sounded desperate at the time, contrived.’
‘Just reading those words again made my skin itch,’ I tell her. ‘Tabby and Rick hadn’t spent a normal night in together for weeks; he was cheating, she was unhappy. They were barely living together, let alone sleeping in the same bed.’ I pause. ‘I must admit, though, that the “crazy” card was a clever red herring, it delayed the investigation, set it off in the wrong direction, positioned Rick as a long-suffering, but caring, partner who was guilty of nothing besides supporting his damaged wife.’
I hear Kay taking notes down the line.
‘He knew what he was doing,’ I continue. ‘The way he orchestrated that statement wasn’t an accident. It was premeditated.’
I think back. During those first few days, the early-early days, people hadn’t paid any attention to Tabby’s story, a crazy woman running from her loving husband wasn’t a narrative they cared about. Then, when the focus shifted to Rick and it was rumoured he’d kidnapped and murdered her, reported by a blogger that he’d cut her body into quarters and sunk her in the deepest part of the Thames, then by a gossip site in the US that he’d strangled and defiled her, buried her corpse in the woods somewhere near his family home in Norwich, people began to get excited. Stories started to stir. He’d been seen leaving the property in his pyjamas by a neighbour in the early hours a few weeks prior. An ex-colleague said he’d once taken a very angry telephone call and had slammed the device onto the ground afterwards. His school-days girlfriend came out to say he was into bondage, the paper she’d sold her story to somehow able to convince her to dress in lingerie and handcuffs for the accompanying image. I could just imagine the paper’s gruff editor barking that the picture would ‘really bring the piece to life,’ rubbing his greedy fingers together as he thought about the copies he would sell if she agreed.
‘Million-dollar question, then,’ Kay says. ‘What do you think happened on the night of the 21st of August?’
I take a breath. ‘Honestly, I don’t know.’
‘Speculate, please, be my guest.’
I want to reply straight away, to tell her that Rick is guilty as sin, that he has so much to answer for that he’s never once had to justify… but I’m aware of coming on too strong. I don’t want to put her off, I don’t want her to think I’m as biased as I am.
‘Like I said, Tabby wanted to leave Rick. She was desperate, she was even talking about moving abroad to get away from him. He was having an affair and… I don’t believe in coincidences as big as that. I have no doubt that he was involved.’
‘Do you think he killed her?’
‘That’s what I’ve always wondered.’
‘Do you know anything about Rick’s other woman?’ she asks.
‘No.’ I curse Chad Cummings for his failure to deliver on that front.
‘Rick’s living with someone else now. Her name is Mandy,’ Kay says, dropping the bombshell I’d spent so long trying to find. ‘But, we’re five years down the line, so I’m not suggesting Mandy’s the same woman. And I don’t know how long they’ve been together.’
My hand trembles as it reaches my mouth. ‘Mandy,’ I repeat quietly, trying to remember if I’d heard that name before.
‘Do you know when this alleged affair started?’
I gather my thoughts, try to keep the nerves from my voice. ‘It had been going on for a while before Tabby vanished, but I don’t have an exact date.’
‘I can’t believe the police didn’t dig it up. Why do you think that was?’ she asks. ‘I mean, I certainly didn’t find any evidence of it when I was reporting the story for the London Times.’
I settle into her questioning, my guard down. ‘Laziness, incompetence, bribery… take your pick.’
‘Do you have anything to support your theory?’
‘No,’ I reply, a bit defensive. ‘I hired an investigator, but he was a waste, trailed Rick for years and found precious nothing. I’ve heard nothing about this Mandy woman until now.’
She pauses. ‘That’s interesting.’
‘Is it?’
‘Do you know what kind of an investigator finds nothing?’
A shit one?
‘The kind that’s gone to the other side and asked for more money to keep their secrets hidden.’
Blood rushes to my ears.
‘Did he tell you anything at all? He might have told you some information that Rick wanted you to hear.’
‘Err,’ I stutter, my mind reeling, the thought of how much money I’ve wasted on Chad piercing me. Had there been signs Chad was playing both sides? What had I missed at our last meeting? Had he even been following Rick at all? I shake my head, thinking back. ‘He showed me logs of Rick’s activity, examples of how accommodating Rick had been in helping the police investigation. And there was a photo… it was of a woman getting into a Polish car.’
‘The CCTV shot?’
‘Yes,’ I breathe.
‘I’ve seen it. Do you think it’s Tabby?’