Polly has a secret
Diana’s shaken, Brid’s suspicious, and Polly’s room reveals more than just vintage scarves and lip gloss. As they dig deeper, their search leads somewhere unexpected.
Diana was shaking when I sat beside her with a strong cup of sweet tea. That’s what they always give people in the films, so I thought it might help.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, not touching the tea. ‘Why would someone kidnap Polly? It’s not like she’s rich or anything?’
‘No, but you are,’ I said. ‘Maybe there’ll be a ransom demand?’
She scoffed, faintly. ‘Brid, I’m not that well off. Yes, I have the house and a little fund to keep in gin, but that’s hardly worth a ransom.’
‘Christ. There’s only one other reason a man takes a girl by force – what if the bastard is going to hurt her, or even worse?’
Diana shot a look of sheer panic at me. Then, composing herself, she brushed it back with a shake of her head.
‘Best not dwell too much on what might be – it’s too macabre. If we spiral into worst-case scenarios, we’ll be of no use to anyone.’
I nodded, took a sip of Diana’s tea and tried not to picture Polly in a cold cellar somewhere.
‘The police mentioned she seemed to know her kidnapper,’ Diana said, in a thinking-out-loud voice. ‘There’s a possibility that while she was taken against her will, it may not be as sinister as we think. She’s been dragged home kicking and screaming by Carl on occasion, for her own good.’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t Carl – he said he hasn’t seen her. And why would anyone else bundle her into a car if it wasn’t sinister? Anyway, she wasn’t that far gone. A few drinks, yes, but she had the play coming up…’
‘Never underestimate the power of self-destruction, Brid. Pol is an arch self-saboteur – the closer she gets to what she wants, the more likely she is to blow it all up.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she do that? Is it her addiction?’
‘No, not the addiction, but the hole in her heart – the hole her parents’ love should have filled. Even with all her bluster, she is a fragile soul. The binges, or addiction, as you put it, are not the problem. It’s her desperate need to fill that hole. I’ve tried to help, hoping to fill some of the gap with stability, support, and friendship. But the hole is just too big. And while she’s desperate to fill it, the fear of whatever she’s trying to fill it with not being enough sometimes takes over, and she does something daft. It makes her incredibly vulnerable.’
Diana’s voice cracked, and she looked away.
I wondered how Diana could be such a bon vivant and yet so tender beneath all her bravado. But then she, too, might have a hole in her heart, with both parents dead and a grandmother she hardly saw. She never left the house, and while she held soirées and people buzzed around, her life must have felt empty until Pol came along. And now, she was missing.
‘What are we going to do?’ I asked.
She straightened. ‘First, get rid of that ghastly tea. I’ll get us a proper drink. We need to go over what we know so far and make a plan. Then, we are going to search Polly’s room.’
Polly’s Room
Feeling a little light-headed from the large G&T Diana had made, I pushed open the heavy door and peeked in, half-expecting to see Pol sitting there, before stepping inside.
The room was a riot of colour, with walls in vibrant yellow, lime green window frames, and a wardrobe painted in a thumping fuchsia pink: classic Polly.
Drawers had been left half-open in the flea market chest. Wafty scarves, feather boas and vintage ‘finds’ adorned the cast-iron bed knobs, bedside chair, and the 'fabulous' screen she had bought at an auction three weeks earlier. Her makeup was still scattered across the Art Deco dresser. The giant palette of eyeshadows, all the sparkly ones worn down to almost nothing, sat beside a hard blob of electric blue nail polish she’d spilt months ago.
I clocked a tube of her favourite Bubblegum Kiss lip gloss and could almost smell the sickly-sweet scent that filled the air when Polly layered it on, thick and lustrous, until it almost dripped from her lips. I reached out to pick it up, but hesitated.
‘I know,’ Diana said behind me, her voice soft. ‘It feels wrong touching Polly's things, but we must do it; there could be vital clues in here.’
I nodded and turned to the bedside cabinet.
‘Bloody hell, Pol,’ I muttered, flushing as her collection of dildos rolled to the front of the drawer.
In the others, I rifled through pens, hair clips, bits of ribbon, coins, sticky cough medicine, half-used packs of tissues, random scraps of paper, and a scattering of receipts.
I laid everything out on the bed, sorting the receipts by date.
A pattern began to take shape. Polly had been spending a surprising amount of time in Lewes, going to cafés and pubs. Strange. She never mentioned Lewes.
One scrap stood out: brightly coloured, perforated along the edge. Bingo.
‘Diana, look. A receipt for photo prints – uncollected.’
She glanced over, raising a questioning eyebrow.
‘They’re from a shop in Lewes. Did she tell you about going there? According to these, she’s been there regularly for weeks, on Wednesdays.’
‘She hasn’t mentioned anything about Lewes to me either, how odd.’
Diana walked over to the wall planner above Pol’s desk, and I picked up the receipts and followed. Sure enough, red heart stickers marked every Wednesday going back three months, plus a few other scattered days.
‘That is interesting,’ she said. ‘A heart every Wednesday for the last three months.’
‘Yes,’ I added, ‘and every receipt date matches. Except this one.’ I pointed to the Wednesday before Polly disappeared. The heart was there, but it had been crossed through in black biro.
Diana frowned. ‘Mm, regular trysts on Wednesdays. What time is on the receipts?’
‘Mostly around lunchtime, in cafés, with some pubs in the evenings – the scattered dates. She must have been having a secret affair.’
‘Maybe. But why keep it secret? Polly had nothing to hide; she was single and could date anyone she chose. We don’t even know if she was meeting a man or a woman. But one thing’s clear – someone in Lewes knows more than we do.’
‘We, well, I need to pick up those photos. And maybe do the rounds in the cafés and bars she visited. Someone might remember her.’
‘Yes. But before that, let’s get organised. We still need to track down this Scottie character and find Gabe; our best hope for that is the band. They might know something, especially your friend Michael. And let’s not forget, they’re all potential suspects, so we need to tread carefully.’
‘So many leads,’ I muttered, mentally adding Carl to my list after what Diana had said about him dragging Pol out of places before. ‘Where do we even start?’
‘You get Michael to take you to Lewes – but don’t let on what it’s about. Meanwhile, I’ll track down a phone number for Ben and Thom and try to locate Scottie.’
‘And how exactly are you going to do that?’
‘I have my ways,’ she said smoothly, as we left Pol’s room. ‘And my contacts.’
We stood still on the landing. Somewhere in the house, a radio was on, the muffled hum of the news barely audible. Then:
‘The body of a young woman, believed to be in her twenties, has been found in Lime Wood, just outside Brighton. Police are…’
A sudden wail of sirens tore through the air, drowning the report. I tilted my head towards the sound, feeling my face tense with the effort of trying to catch the words.
When the noise faded, the report had moved on, leaving a high-pitched ring in my ears and a cold, sinking feeling in my stomach.