Dangerous Games

Chapter 4 part 1

When I arrived at the police station the following morning, I felt terrible. I must have looked a dreadful sight. Whenever I have one of my nightmare nights, I always use work as a coping mechanism. It's one of the few occasions when I feel better at the end of the working day than I did at the start.

As if to emphasise that, Mr. and Mrs. Patel were back - oh joy! - and waiting for me in reception.

"Good morning, Constable Pritchard." This morning, Mrs. Patel seemed to have taken the lead. "Are you any closer to finding our daughter?"

I sighed, and no longer inwardly either. "No, I'm sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Patel. Although we are exploring every possible avenue to get Anita back, there has been no sign of her yet."

"And what about this?" Mrs. Patel held up that day's copy of the Daily Mail, with the headline NEW LEAD IN TWILIGHT ZONE MYSTERY.

"What's this?"

She leaned in. "We did that! You were doing nothing to find our beautiful girl, so we decided to get things moving by talking to the press."

"What? Do you realise what damage you've done?"

"Damage? What about the damage that you did? You should have gone to the press yourselves. Why didn't the police make Anita's disappearance public knowledge the moment it happened? You should have shouted it from the rooftops!"

Mr. Patel joined in. "Yes, that's right. We went to the press, and we shall continue to do so every day that Anita isn't found."

I was furious, though I couldn't show it, of course. These people were the reason that I'd been hauled over the coals the previous day. "I do wish you'd left it to the police. I can assure you that we will find Anita, but you've just made our job so much harder!"

"I don't think so! I think we're doing your job for you, and I hope the press expose you lot for the incompetent fools that you are."

"That's rather uncharitable. We are pulling out all the stops."

Mr. Patel came up really close and started jabbing his finger right in my face. Clearly he wasn't the sort of man who is intimidated by a police uniform. "And we haven't so much as started yet. Anything we can do to embarrass the police, we will happily do until Anita is found. Just to encourage you to do 'your jobs', as you say, properly."

At this, he turned smartly on his heels and strode out through the double doors, followed by his wife in equally high dudgeon. As if the police didn't have enough enemies to start with, now we had two more. They did however leave their newspaper behind, so I picked it up. What was this new lead that they claimed to have?

"Some other teenager's tried it."

I looked up, to see a rather attractive WPC standing in front of me. The day was starting to look up! I didn't recognise her, so she must have been one of the new team brought in by Superintendent Sugden. She nodded towards the paper in my hand. "Some other teenager's tried that stupid game. Claimed it worked, and when she came back she started boasting to all her friends. Somehow the press got hold of it and now she's on all the front pages."

I glanced down at the front page, and, sure enough, a spotty, rather plain looking girl stared back at me. A quick skim through the article revealed that her supposed exploits beyond the veil of shades were remarkably lacking in detail. The reporter, one Jim Murray, had augmented the story with a vitriolic interview with the Patels in which they had some very excoriating things to say about the police. That must have been what they meant by being responsible for the story.

"I'm Claire, by the way." The pretty WPC smiled at me and held out her hand.

"Tim." I shook the proffered hand and smiled back.