‘Have you spoken to her friends or colleagues in China?’ she says.
‘We’re not in touch with them,’ I say. ‘She had been talking about a holiday, so it might be that she’s gone off somewhere and can’t use the Internet or get a mobile-phone signal.’
‘A holiday to…’
‘She never said.’
‘On her own?’
‘Possibly,’ I say. ‘Her friend out there couldn’t get the time off.’ It all sounds so vague and imprecise.
‘Things can be quite last-minute with her,’ Nick says.
‘We’ve spoken to her friends here. We’ve emailed and phoned and texted her…’ Faltering, I reach for the water glass and take a sip.
DI Dooley says, ‘And while she was still in touch was Lorelei having any problems – health, money, relationships?’
‘No.’
‘No previous incidents of going missing?’ she says.
‘No,’ I say.
‘Any history of mental-health problems?’
I balk at this, recoiling from the scenarios that it makes me think of, but DI Dooley says calmly, ‘We have to consider every eventuality.’
‘No, nothing like that,’ I say.
‘Was Lorelei living alone?’
‘More recently, yes.’
‘And before that?’
‘She was sharing with Dawn, a friend she met in Thailand. Dawn’s Australian – she’s the one who might have been going on holiday with her. They were seeing each other.’
DI Dooley nods and adds to her notes. ‘Do you have a surname for Dawn?’
‘Sorry, no.’
She lays her pen down, lining it up so it is parallel with the top of the paper. ‘There is a limit to what we can do, given this is a foreign jurisdiction. At this point I will make some enquiries and see if there’s been any recent activity on her phone, for example, any deposits or withdrawals from her UK bank accounts and so on. Depending on the results of that, if we don’t have any news, we’ll approach the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and ask them to liaise with police in the Chengdu area who would carry out their own missing-person inquiry there. I’m going to give you a list of information I need to get the ball rolling.’
I nod, a bit stunned that she’s geared up and ready to act.
She takes a blank page from her file and writes down the things she needs from us. ‘You can get these to me some time tomorrow?’
‘Lunchtime?’ I say.
‘Fine. My shift starts at one o’clock. Shall we say half past?’
I’m feeling numb. My brain and my heart feel frozen, as though I’m absent, have slipped away from inhabiting my body.
‘There is a charity, Missing Overseas,’ DI Dooley says, as we get to our feet. ‘They have a website. You might find it useful.’
