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and giving the flat a cramped stifled atmosphere. It
took him back to the oppressive days of the heat wave several weeks
earlier.
    Claire pulled her cardigan
around her like a comfort blanket and weakly offered them a cup of
tea as if it was a politeness that would be a struggle. They
accepted and she shuffled off into the open kitchen like a frail
old lady and started the tea-making ritual.
    Craig called out to her. “I was
at the press conference the other week with all the other
photographers and journalists. But now I am here and it’s just us I
had better tell you that I live in this building, a couple of
floors down, I hope you feel comfortable about that,” he offered
courteously and professionally.
    “ I thought I recognised
the face. I guess I don’t mind; everyone knows what’s been going on
anyway,” she called back meekly from round the corner in the
kitchen.
    When tea was made the three of
them settled down into an atmosphere of pregnant expectation,
Claire in an armchair and Vicki and Craig on the three-seater sofa.
Vicki quickly cut off any chance of the awkward quiet becoming a
stifling silence. “So, Claire. You called us the other day. It’s
been...” Vicki looked at notes on her pad, checking the facts,
helping her to sterilise her next question. “Two weeks since little
Emily went missing?”
    Claire nodded. “Yes, I wanted
to make another appeal for any information. Didn’t want people to
forget.”
    The national press had
lost interest. They were waiting for a conclusion. The Camden Gazette , through Vicki,
was Claire’s only voice. Vicki had been just another reporter at
the conference, didn’t get any question time as she was only with a
local rag, but she would not let go of a story that had the
possibility of being national again. She had managed to get
Claire’s number of a source she had in the local police, and had
called vowing to keep her story in the papers. “Of course, we have
the facts of the story. I just need an update, a few lines, a quote
or two to go with it: How do you feel now that two weeks has
passed? And with the police making no progress?”
    Craig watched uncomfortably as
Claire sighed under the weight of Vicki’s journalistic angle that
reinforced the pain and hopelessness of the situation. “It’s
terrible. I mean there’s just nothing to go on.” She stared
intently at Vicki as if measuring her for a moment. “It just
happened! She was asleep in her bed and then she was gone.”
    “ Do you feel the police
haven’t done enough?” Vicki pushed.
    “ No, no.” She leapt in
with her emphatic answer, despite her general malaise. “There’s not
much to go on. She disappeared, no one has come forward with seeing
anything, and she had no reason to run away.” Her voice fractured
into faltering tones forcing her to clear her throat of thick
emotion. “It just feels so useless.”
    “ Do you feel that some
people close by are hiding things?”
    “ Someone must know
something, mustn’t they? Emily has to be somewhere. Someone knows
where she is, or must have seen her.”
    There was a pleading
desperation to her reply. “Do you think it could be someone in the
building?” she rerouted after a little time.
    “ The police did a full
search of all the flats. Everyone was very co-operative. I’ve
always found everyone here to be good people.”
    Claire looked to Craig for some
corroboration but Vicki blocked her prompt to maintain the focus on
Claire. “What are your feelings regarding the disappearance of Mr
Taylor?” She glanced at her notes for his full name. “Albert
Taylor.”
    Claire’s eyes brimmed and she
looked to the ceiling as if trying to tip the tears back into her
head. She sucked air into her chest and faced Vicki again. “I don’t
know. When he wasn’t working, he... he always seemed such a
friendly man, always had a joke for anyone who cared to listen.
He... he was great with kids.” She smiled but her resolve broke
apart around