She holds the pen horizontal below each item as she reads it, occasionally checking things with us.
‘Was this an email to all three of you?’
‘She has just one account?’
‘This is the phone number she’s using now?’
‘Yes, she got that one in China. It’s cheaper to use a local number,’ Tom says.
‘And you have copies of the emails?’
‘Yes.’ I’ve printed out Lori’s emails to us and copied our texts from the last few months.
‘Screenshots,’ Tom says, holding up a pen drive.
‘You have her blog address?’ I check with the detective.
‘Yes. So as of now the last communication was definitely the second of April?’
‘That’s right,’ I say.
‘So this is totally out of character?’
‘Not exactly,’ I say, as Tom says, ‘Yes.’
He glares at me.
I look at DI Dooley. ‘It’s just that Lori doesn’t always pick up her messages or maybe she sees them but it can be a few days before she replies. There was a time too…’ I feel traitorous raising it but it’s been on my mind. I’ve been turning it over and over, like a set of worry beads, thinking, If she did that then, well, maybe this is something similar. ‘… when she was at uni, in Glasgow, we didn’t hear from her for a couple of weeks. She didn’t respond to an email and then we found out that she’d been on some party trip to Skye, a last-minute invite. And forgot her phone charger. And now… well, we often don’t hear anything for a couple of weeks and she can be slow to reply to things – but for no one to have heard, for her to be ignoring us all, something’s not right. I spoke to the Foreign Office this morning,’ I say. ‘I gave them the details and told them we had seen you.’
She nods. ‘Who’s your contact there?’
‘Jeremy Chadwick.’
Tom moves the hair off his face. ‘Can’t you get the Chinese police to look for her – Interpol or whatever?’
‘If necessary, once we’ve done what we can at this end.’
‘Which is what exactly?’ he says.
‘You’re worried,’ she says, ‘anxious to find Lorelei. I understand that. There are procedures in place that have been built on the experience of previous missing-person investigations. It’s the most effective way of working. I do realize how difficult it must be, the sense of being kept waiting, but I need you to give me a couple of days while I carry out my own enquiries.’
‘OK,’ Tom says, though he doesn’t sound convinced. He sits back in the chair.
‘Have there been any family arguments between any of you and Lori?’ DI Dooley says.
‘No,’ I say.
