The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell
26
September 2018
‘Erm, Soph. There’s a Detective Inspector McCoy here to see you? In reception?’
It’s Shaun on the phone, sounding rather confused and distracted.
‘Oh,’ she replies. ‘Yes. That’s probably right.’
There’s a beat of silence during which Sophie realises she’s meant to say something. ‘I dug that thing up,’ she says. ‘In the woods. Turns out it’s connected to a missing-person case.’
‘The thing?’
‘You know. That sign I told you about on our garden fence that said “Dig Here”? I dug. It was an engagement ring.’
‘Oh,’ says Shaun. ‘Right. You didn’t tell me.’
‘Well, no, I only found out who it belonged to yesterday and you were at work and—’
‘Well, anyway,’ he cuts in. ‘What should I …?’
‘Shall I come over?’ she asks, slightly breathlessly.
‘I suppose. Yes. I’ll get someone to find a room for you.’
And then he hangs up, rather abruptly, and Sophie thinks it’s the first time he’s ever spoken to her impatiently.
DI McCoy is disarmingly attractive: a deep summer tan, sun-burnished brown hair, a crisp baby-blue shirt under a dark blue suit.
He’s sitting in a small meeting room just behind the reception office. There’s a pane of glass in the door through which Sophie is aware of a head bobbing just out of sight. The presence of a police officer in the school is causing frissons of warped energy. The fact that he is here to talk to the new head teacher’s girlfriend is adding even more controversy to the situation.
DI McCoy gets to his feet as she enters and shakes her hand.
‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt you in the middle of the school day.’
‘Oh, no, honestly, that’s fine. I don’t work here. So it’s, you know …’
‘Well.’ He sits down again. ‘I assume you know what I’m here to talk to you about?’
‘The ring?’
DI McCoy checks his notes. ‘Yes. The ring. Found in the school grounds? By you?’
‘Correct.’
‘And this was when, exactly?’
‘A few days ago. I put it away at first, in a drawer, because I didn’t know what to make of it. Then it kept playing on my mind. So I got it out of the drawer and cleaned the box and found the name of the jewellery shop. I took it there yesterday and then took it straight round to the owner. But he doesn’t live there any more. Apparently, well, the woman who lives there, Kim, she told me that he’s a missing person?’
‘That’s right. He disappeared on the sixteenth of June 2017, with his girlfriend. And there was a theory that he might have taken his girlfriend out that night to propose to her. So the ring suddenly reappearing after all this time is quite a big development. Essentially, it reopens the case.’
Sophie nods, somewhat fervently, trying not to betray her excitement. ‘I suppose it does,’ she says.
‘So, Ms Knox tells me that you found this ring after following the directions written on a note?’
‘Kind of. There was a sign, nailed to our garden fence. With an arrow. I can show you if you like? It’s still there. I didn’t touch it.’
‘Yes. Yes, please.’ The detective puts his pen and notepad back into his jacket pocket and gets to his feet.
She leads him through the grounds of the college and through the cottage. ‘I saw it the first day we were here,’ she says, opening up the back door. ‘I just assumed it was left over from a treasure hunt or something.’ She unclips the back gate and gestures at the fence with her left hand. ‘I didn’t really think anything of it at all at first.’
DI McCoy looks down at the fence, and then looks up at Sophie, questioningly.
Sophie looks down.
The sign is gone.