Times of Trouble (15 page)

Liam seemed sure. But
during my uncomfortable sleep on the ugly sofa, I had a lot of time
to worry about all the ways we could be found by these people. What
if they worked out what Sophie’s real name was, and tracked me down
through that? They could easily work out I had flown to Sydney from
a flight manifest, or someone could be watching us right now. I
spun around in my seat, suddenly anxious to know who was driving
behind us. A little old lady in a tiny Hyundai, her head hardly
showing over the steering wheel, peered back at me. Liam saw me
look, and glanced in the rear view mirror.

‘
Do you think we can
out run her?’ He revved the engine as he spoke.

‘
Ha ha. It’s not
funny. I think we should be on high alert at all times. If you ever
think you see the same person twice behind us, that’s a sure sign
we are being followed.’

‘
Ok. I’ll watch out
for people I don’t know in cars I don’t recognise.
Happy?’

He wasn’t taking me
seriously.

‘
Another thing I was
thinking about…’

‘
Worrying about more
like it…’

‘
Is whether there is
any need to go to the police? People have been killed. I would have
thought we need to involve them at some point.’

I could feel Liam
starting to get wary again.

‘
So you want to go to
the police, and tell them we are looking for Sophie. And that her
two friends have been killed, but we know absolutely nothing about
who might have done it?’

‘
I can tell by the
way you’re speaking that you think that’s a bad idea. But why not?
Why shouldn’t we tell them we think Katie was murdered? If we are
so sure, why wouldn’t they be?’

‘
Because there’s no
evidence, is there?’

‘
Except Danny was
killed… sorry....murdered… and Katie's death is being treated as
murder too, and we know Sophie is scared. So why can’t we tell the
police that?’

‘
There are so many
reasons; I don’t know where to start.’

‘
Give me one good,
convincing reason, then.’

‘
That’s just it.
Convincing is the key. The police have absolutely no evidence Katie
and Sophie even exist. They have come to Sydney illegally, with
fake passports and names. Sophie's been living illegally in London
for numerous years before this, working as a prostitute. We say
they’re being pursued by people they may not even know. Do you
really think the police would take anything we told them
seriously?’

‘
It would be worth a
try.’ I crossed my arms with stubborn defiance.

‘
Did you consider it
might be dangerous to go on record talking about what we know? You
say you are scared these killers could find us. What better way to
lead them to us than giving all our information to the police?
Written statements go on public record.’

‘
I hadn’t thought of
that.’

Did written
statements really go on the public record? I doubted it. But he was
the lawyer, so he must know better than I did. It was time to
change the subject.

‘
Ok, then what if,
instead of going to the police, we made a public appeal for Sophie
through the media, like on TV, or in the newspaper? We could ask
them not to give any information about us, but to tell Sophie that
friends are looking for her, and if she wants us to find her, she
needs to get in contact again. Why wouldn’t that work?’

Now Liam looked even
more exasperated than before. ‘Ellen. Think about what you just
said. How is that not going to lead these people straight to us? Or
to Sophie, when she tries to get in contact? That’s not a smart
suggestion.’

Maybe he was right. I
had to remember what I had been worrying about myself last night.
These people could be more cunning than I
thought
.
And the longer we went without them knowing about
us, the safer we were.

‘
I find it hard to be
scared of people who are completely unknown to me,’ I
said.

‘
I know what you
mean. We know they have killed people, but there’s no face or name
to put to them, so they are just nobodies who can’t possibly hurt
us.’

‘
Do you think Sophie
thinks of them like that?’

‘
Depends how much she
knows about who they are. We have to assume she and the others did
something, or know something, that makes them a target. I still
think she must have some idea who they are. But it’s really
impossible to say what she knows.’

We got to the first
hotel, which was a block from the airport. Memories of staying at
places like this with mum came flooding back. I remember the way we
laughed when we opened the door to our room, discovering it was the
size of a walk-in wardrobe. The bed was so close to the bathroom
that you could leap off it, straight onto the tiles next to the
toilet. This really would have been a stretch for Sophie, compared
to a penthouse apartment.

Liam led the way into
reception.

‘
Would you like to
book a room?’

The receptionist
looked very young; she couldn’t have been over 18. Her starched
uniform was oversized, which made it look like her small frame was
drowning in collars and sleeves. Her voice was high-pitched, well
suited to her pixie-like face.

‘
We don’t want a
room. We are enquiring about the whereabouts of this missing
person. Have you seen this woman before? Do you recognise her
face?’

Liam’s investigative
work obviously brought out the lawyer in him, but his authoritative
tone seemed out of place, and his well rehearsed script cold and
wooden. Not surprisingly, he scared the girl, and she stammered as
she tried to focus on the three photos shoved under her
face.

‘
I… don’t…think… so…
are you the police?’

I stepped closer to
the desk, not wanting Liam to completely ruin our chances of
unearthing a possible sighting. I smiled at the girl, and tried to
speak as softly as possible.

‘
Look, we’re not the
police or anything. We’re just looking for my sister. She’s in
trouble, and we need to find her so we can help her.’

The girl’s face
relaxed, and she looked harder at each photo.

‘
Why do you think she
might have been here?’

She still sounded
scared; it was obvious she had never come across anyone at the desk
before who wasn’t just booking a room. Liam glared at me as I
continued speaking to her.

‘
We don’t know for
sure she was. We’re just checking as many places as
possible.’

Still staring at the
photo, she shook her head.

‘
No, I’m sure I
haven’t seen her. I can check the guest database. I’m sure it’s
probably against the rules, but she is your sister…’

I turned and smiled
at Liam, who was still fuming at my intrusion.

‘
Oh, that would be
great. I’d really appreciate it. She arrived in Sydney on the
10
^th
of
December, so if you could just check since then, her name is
So…’

‘
Yasmine Phillips,’
Liam interrupted in the nick of time.

The girl gave us a
strange look as she went to the computer, and started typing in
commands. She started shaking her head, and kept shaking it, as she
scrolled through pages and pages of records. I was sure there must
be a quicker way to search for a guest’s name, but didn’t want to
suggest this in case she gave up all together.

‘
No…there’s no
Yasmine Phillips coming up…’

‘
Do you need ID to
book a room here?’ Liam asked, still sounding too imposing for my
liking.

‘
No, we don’t ask for
ID.’

‘
And you can pay with
cash?’

‘
Yes, of course, we
accept cash, eftpos, Visa.’

‘
And how many
receptionists do you have working here?’

The girl didn’t like
this question at all, but she answered, probably in the hope it
would get rid of us. ‘There’s me and another girl during the week
and two others on weekends.’

Liam snatched the
photos off the desk, and strode outside. I quickly thanked the girl
for her help, and followed him, amazed at how aggressively his
investigative persona acted.

‘
That girl was a
complete waste of time.’

He slammed the car
door, as if angry with the poor girl for not having seen
Sophie.

‘
Look, you’re the one
who told me you have to be patient with this investigative stuff. I
never thought we’d get a hit straight away. You’re the one who has
already visited all the hotels in the city. What do you
expect?’

‘
I know, I know. I
just got frustrated when I realised Sophie could be booking into
these places without even giving her fake name. She might be giving
another name altogether. At least in the bigger hotels you have to
leave a credit card number, with a name on it, when you book a
room. If she’s paid with cash, and given a fake name, we’ll have to
show her photo to every receptionist at every hotel. It’ll take
forever.’

‘
It’ll take even
longer if you play the mister baddy detective act you had going in
there.’

‘
What do you mean?’
He looked hurt.

‘
You can’t speak to
people like that, and expect them to respond in a positive way with
the information you need.’

‘
That’s how I
investigate. I am a professional. I make people realise I’m not
there to waste their time. I’m doing a job! And it’s got me this
far hasn’t it?’

‘
I just don’t think
it’s the right attitude to use with some people. You scared that
girl. She hardly looked at the photo until I talked to
her.’

‘
Are you here to help
me or criticise me?’

‘
I’m here to find
Sophie. And I think you should take the advice on, rather than get
your back up about it, because we’ve got a lot more people to talk
to. The more personable you can be, the more likely we’ll get
results.’

The last thing I
wanted was more sulking like yesterday, but I also didn’t want to
let Liam think I wouldn’t tell him when I thought he was doing to
wrong thing.

‘
Look, I’ve been used
to working alone,’ Liam conceded. ‘I appreciate you are trying to
help me, and you have come up with a couple of good suggestions.
Can we just agree that we are both doing our best, and try not to
argue about every single thing? It’s exhausting.’

‘
Fine. Where’s our
next Formule 1?’

The day went on in a
similar manner, both of us frustrated at each dead end, both of us
trying our best not to take our frustrations out on each other. I
conceded by mid afternoon that Liam’s style was quite useful with
people who didn’t take the situation seriously enough without the
formal approach. But with many, especially the women, my softer
tone was much more welcome. And as much as he tried to hide it,
Liam absolutely hated me taking control of the questioning. He was
too polite to say anything, but he looked irritated every time I
beat him to the reception desk, and started a conversation. I found
myself racing him to the front door; he was really bringing out my
competitive side. It was quite thrilling to prove to Liam that I
deserved to be the one calling the shots as much as he did. And
even though I conceded that he had done quite well getting the
search this far, I was definitely now offering as many helpful
suggestions as he was.

The competitiveness
between Liam and me reminded me of the fights I had with Sophie in
the months before she left. I was tired of her taking everything
out on mum, and I had no tolerance for the bad mood she seemed to
wake up in every day. Little things set us off, like when she
commented on how much time I spent playing the piano, or when she
ate the last slice of bread. Sometimes she was really cruel, paying
me out for not having a social life. I started to lie, telling her
I was going out with friends from my class when I was really just
having an extra piano lesson. Back before dad left, she was really
proud of my musical ability. She came to all my concerts with mum
and dad, clapping and cheering when I finished playing. But about
the time he left, her interest vanished.

In the same way that
Liam got under my skin when he tried to decide what was best for us
both, Sophie upset me by telling me there was something wrong with
the choices I made for my life. I didn’t want her to think I was a
loser. I wanted to prove my choice was the right one, and that she
had no idea what was best for me. I retaliated by calling her lazy
or un-ambitious, because she wasn’t working as hard as I was. But
looking back, maybe she was a bit jealous of how much time mum and
I spent talking about my piano career. Maybe we didn’t show enough
interest in what was happening in her life.

By three o’clock, we
had visited six of the eight Formule 1 hotels in Sydney. With or
without my helpful suggestions, no one had seen Sophie, and there
was no listing of Yasmine Phillips in their guest lists. The
driving was what was eating up our time; the conversations with
each receptionist hardly took long at all. These places were so
spread out, it took almost an hour to get to one of them, and over
an hour to get to the next. Was there a more direct route that Liam
didn't know about? But Liam was in no mood to accept
suggestions.