The Doll's House

57

She hated lying, but sometimes you had no choice. At least that’s what DC Sanderson told herself as she dialled Sinead Murphy’s number. Having already lied to her team about what she was up to, she was now about to lie to an unsuspecting member of the public.

‘It’s about your daughter Roisin.’

The voice on the other end of the line – which moments earlier had been warm and welcoming – suddenly went quiet.

‘There’s no need to be alarmed. This is just a routine follow-up call,’ Sanderson continued, keen to put Roisin’s mother at ease. ‘Our records show you reported your daughter missing nearly three years ago. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, for all the good it did me.’

‘I take it you’ve not seen her since you made the report?’

‘No’ was the brief and sober response.

Sanderson ran through the particulars on the forms – occupation, family, physical descriptions, past behaviour – before asking the only question that mattered.

‘Has there been any contact between you and Roisin since she went missing? Anything at all?’

There was a long pause, then:

‘I suppose you could call it contact.’

‘Meaning?’

‘She sends the odd text or tweet. But she never replies when I text back.’

‘Have you tried calling her on that number?’

‘What do you think?’ was the withering response.

‘And?’

‘Always straight to voicemail.’

‘Can you remember the last time she tweeted?’

‘Why do you want to know? Why are you asking me all these questions?’

Sanderson paused – how to respond?

‘We’re just trying to make some progress on Roisin’s case. Frankly, too little has been done so far and her communications are the best hope we have of finding out where she is.’

Another long silence, then:

‘She tweeted earlier today actually.’

‘Saying?’

‘Nothing of interest. Just a gripe about having a bad day.’

‘Can you remember the exact time?’

‘Hold on,’ Sinead replied. Sanderson could hear her rummaging through her bag for her phone. ‘Come on, come on,’ Sanderson thought to herself, casting a nervous eye over the sheet of timings that lay on the table in front of her.

‘Here we are,’ Sinead responded. ‘She tweeted at… 6.14 p.m. today.’

‘And the one before that?’

‘Yesterday. Just after ten a.m.’

Sanderson took Sinead back through a few more of Roisin’s tweets, then ended the call, promising that she would be back in touch shortly. Sanderson had a nasty feeling that she would honour that promise and when she did, it would be with the bleakest of news. The timings of Roisin’s last five tweets matched exactly with the timing of Ruby Sprackling’s latest communications.

Helen had been right all along.