Whatever Happened to Sarah Hawkins?

Morning, Day 3:

"Mr Symonds, open this door."

Sarah never had a man's voice. Maybe it's not her, maybe it's someone else. I stumbled to the door, and when I opened it I found myself confronted by the police. "Shit, you, what time is it?"

"It's after eleven, we've been trying to contact you for hours. You look like shit by the way."

"I didn't want to be contacted."

"I gathered that. Have a heavy night did we?"

He could see the two empty wine bottles and the one that had lost as much wine as it could while laying on its side. There was a reasonable amount of spilled wine on the table, and when I felt the wet patch on the side of my head I found it was wine. I must have fallen asleep and knocked the bottle over. I peered at the label, what a waste, I must remember in future to drink the cheap stuff if I'm going to get shit-faced.

"You could say that. I found myself in this empty house waiting for her to come home, and then I realised that she might not, so I decided to wipe myself out. To what do I owe this pleasure? You don't mind if I make some coffee do you? Would you like a cup?"

"No thank you, I think I'll pass on that." He stood and watched while I put the kettle on and got my favourite coffee mug out, the one that Sarah gave me, with the big red heart on it and the message that said; 'the world's best, everything'. I looked at it for a second or two before shovelling some instant into it and pouring water over the granules.

"Now, what do you want this morning?"

"You haven't heard from her this morning?"

"Do you think that I'd be here if I had? No, nothing. There was one thing, in one of my few lucid moments last night, and I even wrote it down so that I wouldn't forget it, it's here somewhere," I picked up the wine soaked scrap of paper with an almost illegible scribble on it, my eyes eventually focussed, "her car, has anyone found her car?"

"No, it was a Volvo S60, wasn't it?"

"As far as I know it still is. Yes, a blue one, with personalised plates, white on black, SH 1987, that's her birth year by the way."

"I'll make sure that information is circulated. Now tell me about that last night that the two of you were together, was there anything unusual about it?"

I smiled when my mind scrolled back to that night.

"Hi Darling." Sarah greeted me as I walked in the front door. She would have said more except that she was kissing me. When she finished devouring my lips she dragged me down to the kitchen, taking my case from me and placing it outside the kitchen door. "Sit." She pointed to my usual chair. She joined me on the chair for a further session of kissing, as was her wont, then got back to her feet. "Pour us a wine while I finish off dinner, you'll love this."

"That was great." I said as I cleaned my plate. "What's the occasion?"

"Do I need an occasion to prepare you a special meal?"

"No, but when you say special, there is special, and then there is really special, this was one of those."

"Thank you Darling, I love you so much."

I know that those words are easy to say, but when she says it and how she says it, there can be no doubting her sincerity.

"About as much as I love you. I don't have any work to do tonight, what do you say we have an early night?"

"You have been reading my mind again." She stood and headed for our bedroom, taking item after item of clothing off as she walked. By the time she sprawled on the bed she was totally and gloriously naked, her body an open invitation to me to join her.

We had made love hundreds of times since our first time together, and each new time was the equal if not better than those that had gone previously, never worse. It was the pure joy of us, that drove us to try and improve on our love making. This night was one of the slow, sensual, lots of touching and kissing nights. We both came once, but it was the lead-up and the timing of our mutual orgasms that made it such a powerful experience for us. It would have been close to midnight when we both subsided into a deep sleep.

I heard someone snapping their fingers at me. "Hey, wake up," He had seen the far-off look in my eyes and the smile on my face. "It couldn't have been that good."

"It was better than good, it was the best."

"Nothing unusual about it then, no new positions, nothing kinky or anything like that?"

"No, just lovemaking at its finest. If you'd been a fly on the wall, you'd understand."

"I think that we should get back to the matter at hand. Was there anything that she said over the past week that would lead you to think that she would want to leave you?"

"No, nothing."

"Anything that she said that was bothering her, say with her work?"

"There was one thing. About two weeks ago she mentioned that she had been getting weird phone calls at work."

"Weird? When you say weird, did she elaborate on this?"

"Yes, she said that she'd been getting calls, and when she answered, the other person ended the call after a couple of seconds."

"Did she report this to her work?"

"Yes, They arranged that all calls to her extension would go through the switch, even direct line calls would be diverted to the switch, and the operator would screen them and only put calls through if the caller identified himself or herself. The calls stopped after a couple of days. The other person must have realised that he, or she, would never be able to get through."

"And you didn't think to mention this before?"

"No, I guess that I didn't make the connection between the two."

"Leave decisions like that to the experts in future. Are you going in to work at all today?"

"I don't think so. I think that I'll need a valve grind and decoke before I can run efficiently."

"As it turns out a good decision. The media jackals are still hovering."

"Just out of curiosity, who has been feeding information to that Rachel person?"

"Do you suspect that someone is?"

"Yes, her questions yesterday hinted of inside knowledge."

"I'll look into it, we can't have that, can we?"

"Not unless you want the media to stir the pot a little to see what surfaces."

"I won't ask you where you got that idea from, but I'd suggest a little less TV might be a good idea." With that he left me to my misery, and it wasn't just the hangover, which I was regretting, it was the absence of Sarah.

I spoke with both of our parents and they gave me the support that I was seeking. It made me feel much better and I accepted a dinner invitation from her mother and father.

Evening, Day 3:

Reggie rang just before the office closed to see how I was getting on. "Did you get that stuff I emailed you yesterday?"

"Yes thank you, I haven't had time to look at it in detail, I just couldn't get the motivation. Then I decided to write myself off for a while, I've only just surfaced. I'll get onto it first thing in the morning."

"The problem with getting shit-faced is the resultant hangover, with its furry mouth, rock concert in the head, and the double vision, I speak from experience in this."

"You amaze me young Reggie, I would never have imagined you to be the party animal type." 'Young Reggie' was purely a relative term, she was all of three years younger than me.

"I'm not the pure and innocent virgin you take me to be, I've been known to kick over the traces on occasions, although not of late."

"Warn me to stay right away from you at the next Christmas party."

"Spoil sport, can't a girl have some fun?"

"Not with me you can't. Now let's get serious for a while. I imagine that the rumour mill will be grinding them out at a rate of knots, tell me, what is the latest?"

"The one that's got the most legs at the moment, is that there is some sort of bizarre love triangle, and that the other man has abducted her and is holding her, against her will, in a remote house in the hills. These rumours include her being tied to a bed so that he can have his wicked way with her whenever he feels like it."

"Is that real, or something that you've made up?"

"Okay, you got me, pure fantasy on my part. No, there's nothing going around, but a wave of sympathy for you. Everyone loves you and is hurting for you, probably not as much as you are, although some of us girls are getting close. I'll have to keep my eye on a couple of them."

"Reggie, will you stop this, I don't believe a word of this."

"Just trying to keep your spirits up Boss."

"Thank you and good-bye, go home Reggie."

The dinner was a sombre affair, try as we might, neither of us found it possible to make light of the situation.

"Something bad must have happened to Sarah, if there was any change in plans she made sure to ring me. If I couldn't take the call and it was diverted to Message Bank, she'd leave a message but still keep trying. She left nothing to chance, and made sure that I was aware of any changes to our normal plans."

"The one thing that she told us about you, was the she could never imagine anyone more perfect for her than you." Margaret, her mother said to me. "The last time that we spoke with her, that night that you came over for dinner, she told me that she was never happier, and that she was going to ask you if you wanted to start a family. Her words were that she wanted children to share her happiness with."

"Yes we did discuss that possibility and agreed that we would get married as soon as possible and stop taking precautions. I must admit to being relieved in a way, every time I looked at myself in the mirror, I could see my biological clock on fast forward. I wanted children while we were both young enough to enjoy them. I have seen women at work who had left that decision until almost too late, and while, on the surface, they claim to be enjoying the experience, those of us on the outside, can see the strain that it is putting on their lives."

"That's good, we didn't want to have to look after grand kids from our wheelchairs." Her father Rob added.

"We would never have allowed that to happen, it was just a matter of time before we acted on that decision. We are financially well off, our house is pretty much mortgage free, I'm far enough up the food chain at work to have a work car, Sarah's is paid for, so we have no major expenses to worry about. Yes it was time." It was that statement that brought me undone. I was now a blubbering fool and it was embarrassing for me to be crying like this in front of them, just when I was trying to convince them, and myself, that everything was going to be fine, and soon. "I think that I'd better go home, I'm bringing you down to my level, and it's not a nice place to be."

"We understand. James, you know that we are here for you at any time. We are in this thing too."

"Thank you for your support." We exchanged parting pleasantries and I left.

Maybe it was my paranoia setting in, but I was certain that I was followed home. I tried to shrug off the feeling, but the lights in my mirrors stayed there and stopped a hundred metres behind me when I turned into my driveway.

I went inside and, before turning on the lights, tried to make out the other car. It was a dark coloured sedan, and that was about all that I could tell about it.

I thought briefly about numbing myself with wine again, but dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come to me as a bad move. I ended up tossing and turning for what seemed like hours before sleep arrived un-noticed and stayed with me until morning.

Morning, Day 4:

"Morning has broken, like the first morning, blackbird has spoken. . ." That's how far Cat Stevens, or whatever he calls himself these days, got into his song before I hit the kill button on my clock radio. Whoever decreed that everyone wanted happy music first thing in the morning needs to be taken out and shot.

My face in the mirror told me that I had aged ten years in the last twenty four hours, and my head told me that it wasn't lying to me.

Breakfast consisted of about two thirds of a cup of coffee and two bites of toast. I made a mental note to myself that I should iron myself a shirt for tomorrow. I had decided to go to work today and to hell with the media.

Most of the media had decided that I was no longer a headline, so they stayed away from my home, and only a few were gathered, looking totally bored, when I walked into the office. A microphone just about went up my nose and that voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Mr Symonds, is there any news about Sarah?"

"Don't you have a life Rachel? Sorry. No there's nothing new, at least the police haven't told me of any new developments. I don't suppose you have any information that they don't that you'd like to share with me?"

I managed to put the door between me and them and found myself in the relative peace of the office.

"Welcome back boss." Reggie said as I walked into my office. "Did you manage to look at those files I sent you the other day?"

"Yes." I took them from my case and handed them to her. "Can you type up the responses and the notes for the next meeting please, and what is the possibility of you rustling me up a cup of coffee?"

"I'll get right onto it. It is good to have you back, I missed your lame jokes and your angry face." She smiled at me and kissed the tip of a finger and placed it on my lips to stop me from saying anything,

"Smartarse." I said in a low voice as she left, my head down so that she couldn't see my smiling face.

"I heard that." We have the kind of working relationship that would have the workplace relations people having a hernia. We could say things to each other that other, dermatologically challenged, people would find offensive, but we choose not to be offended by it.

We worked our way through the day catching up on the work that I had missed and that had piled up, and then attacked today's workload.

"Reggie, could you come here please." I said in my gruffest voice.

"Yes, what have I done wrong now?" She knew what was coming so she wasn't quaking in her boots.

"This file that you were working on," I paused.

"Yes?"

"You have done a really great job with it, thank you." I smiled at her.

"And why would you thing that I would do any less than a really great job. I have seen you angry (she had never seen me angry) and I would not want to be on the receiving end of one of your hissy fits."

"I don't know how you can stand there with a straight face and tell such downright lies."

"Years of practise and self-denial." By this time she was perched on my desk, her hand on my shoulder. "You really miss her don't you?"

"You wouldn't know how much." She touched my cheek softly. "And I don't think you should be doing that, the guy across the road with the bloody great telephoto lens on his camera would be having a field day if he sees you."

"Sorry James." She patted my shoulder and got up from the desk. "I was going to invite you to dinner, but under the circumstances that's probably not such a good idea."

"No, it's not. Time to go home."

"Yours or mine." She caught my angry look. "Sorry. Force of habit I guess. See you in the morning." Before I could tell her not to stop, she was gone.

I figured that if I was followed home last night, and that was pretty much a given, there was a good chance that I was still being followed, and that there would be people watching my every move, including my interaction with Reggie, I'd better warn her to be careful. I was in the middle of dialling her number on my mobile and when I stopped. It was a combination of my paranoia and watching too many CSI type shows on TV that made me think that they, whoever they were, would be tracking my mobile. I rang from the landline. "Reggie."

"At last, you can't keep away from me, my prayers are answered."

"Reggie, stop that. I called to warn you that whoever is following me might also be watching you. If you think that someone is following you, call the police."

"I'd rather call you, okay, I'll behave, 'bye Boss."

Evening, Day 4:

I was heading for the front door fully expecting to be confronted by Rachel. I wasn't to be disappointed, but she wasn't the only person there. Detective Sergeant Montgomery was also there. "Mr Symonds, we have located Sarah's car."

"The way that you're saying that suggests that the news isn't good."

"In a way it is, it means that you are no longer the number one suspect in her disappearance. It was found in a hotel car park in Melbourne. It was dusted for prints, nothing. They even tried for prints on the underside of door handles. Negative. Whoever drove this car knew how to clean it thoroughly, not a stray hair, grain of soil, it was as if it had just rolled off the production line. I tell you, this mystery is getting deeper by the minute."

"So I don't get to be with her tonight then?"

"Afraid not."

"By the way, I was going to ask you, have you got someone following me around?"

"No why, are you being followed?"

"Yes, at least I'm almost certain that I am. A car followed me home from my In-Laws last night, and I've had the feeling that someone has been watching me all day from the building across the road from my office."

"I'll check into it." He left me to the tender mercies of my least favourite person.

"Mr Symonds, Are there any new developments in this case?"

"I am not at liberty to discuss the progress in this investigation in case I jeopardise it. That's the official line, the unofficial one is that I don't like you and wouldn't tell you even if I could. If you want any information I suggest that you speak to Detective Sergeant Montgomery."

"He won't tell me anything."

"I wonder why that would be." I said as I walked away from her. I hoped that her mike was still switched on and her sound people and producer would pick up what an obnoxious little bitch she is.

I searched through the cupboards for something exciting to eat and came up with not a lot. The freezer was no better, so I ordered in a pizza. Something that tasted great when Sarah and I had pizza, now tasted like a lot of mozzarella and not a lot of the other ingredients all dumped on a thick tasteless crust. The glass of red I had with it was the only redeeming feature of the meal. I stopped at one glass.

I don't know whether I was desensitised, or whether it was sleep deprivation catching up on me, but I managed to get more sleep than I had over the three previous nights, including the one with the wine induced coma.

Morning, Day 5:

Breakfast consisted of a whole cup of coffee and two slices of toast. I was half expecting the usual committee waiting in ambush, but there was none. The same went for when I arrived at work. Did this mean that I was off the hook as a suspect?

"Good morning Reggie, how are you this morning?" I sked her as I walked into my office.

"My, someone is chirpy this morning. Have you heard the news?"

"What news?" I hadn't had the radio on in the car, and hadn't seen or heard any news over the radio or TV before I left home, simply because I didn't turn either of them on.

"The police are following up a new lead in Sarah's disappearance."

"No, tell me more."

"It seems that a trucking company was used to ship her car to Melbourne. The truck driver heard the news when he returned from a trip to Perth."

My phone rang, it was to tell me that Montgomery was on his way in to see me. "Mr Symonds, this is getting more interesting by the day."

"In what way?"

'We had a call from an interstate truck driver who told us that he picked up Sarah's car from a car yard and took it to Melbourne where he left it at another car yard. When we questioned the owner of the yard he told us that the Volvo had been traded on a Mercedes by a man. All of the paperwork was fine so he was happy to take it, this was of course before you had reported her missing."

"Why didn't he call you?"

"You have to understand, the relationship that we have with some members of that particular trade is not what you would describe as cordial. The yard in Melbourne is run by an associate and we suspect them of trading in stolen cars, they ship them between states and offload them straight away, we suspect that they are stolen to order. If the car is identified and impounded they produce paperwork that shows a legitimate transaction and it is the new owner that loses out, not them."