Page 85 of The Trap by Catherine
She started screaming.
Reallyscreaming, like she was being attacked by an animal or something.
Actually, it reminded him of that Werner Herzog documentary, the one about the guy and his girl who got eaten by a bear. A video camera had captured audio of the entire attack—only audio, the lens cap had remained on—and that footage had ended up in the hands of one of the dead guy’s ex-girlfriends. The documentary hadn’t included the audio, but there’d been a really odd, silent scene where Herzog listened to it via headphones and then told the woman that she should never, ever listen to it and basically if she’d any sense, she’d destroy it.
The viewer had had to imagine what the attack must have sounded like and, inhishead, it had sounded like this.
Screams.
Some high-pitched, out of pain.
Others guttural and raw.
And, just like if you’re getting eaten by a bear out in the middle of nowhere, completely and utterly pointless.
“Look,” he said, “if you can’t stop screaming, I’m going to have to make you.”
And he did.
ANSWERS
The Nicki O’Sullivan that Angela knew was the woman captured in her official picture, the one that had been given to the guards and distributed to the press. In it, she was sporting bright-purple hair that had been inexpertly dyed and haphazardly cut. The torn collar of a green T-shirt was visible, her eyes were ringed with smudged black make-up, and she was making a face. Brows raised, face turned slightly to the side, as if asking,Well, what do you think?
And that’s exactly what she had been doing. The photo the nation was so familiar with was a selfie Nicki had snapped on the bus home after getting a friend to dye her hair. She’d sent it to her sister to show her her new look. That was why, whenever it appeared in the press or on television, the image seemed a little blurry: Lucy only had the low-resolution version of it she’d saved to her phone from WhatsApp.
When the guards asked families for photos of their missing loved ones, the advice was always the same: if possible, provide a recent photo, and one in which the person looks the way they did when they disappeared. If you have a guard who’s particularly empathetic, or who knows something you, the family member, haven’t yet been told, he or she might lower their voice and add that you should perhaps choose a photo that isn’t a favorite, of an occasion that wasn’t important or which there were plenty other photos of, because there might come a time when you never want to see that picture ever again.
Now, as the real-life, 3D version of Nicki O’Sullivan walked toward them, Angela saw the fallacy in relying on a single photo to accurately capture anyone.
The short, purple hair was gone, replaced by shoulder-length dark locks that were flowing freely. Her skin had the kind of color you get from being outside a lot—a deep, even tan—and she looked thinner, maybe even underweight. She was barefoot, in shorts that looked like they’d been designed for men, and a plain white T-shirt that hadn’t been white for quite some time.
Even her face looked different, now that there were other angles to it.
Denise had pulled over and she cut the engine just as a man came out of the caravan too.
He was of a similar age with a similar tan, wearing a faded baseball cap. He stopped just outside the caravan and frowned at them.
Nicki, meanwhile, looked furious.
She greeted Angela and Denise with, “What the fuck isthis?” when the three of them met at the edge of the track.
“I’m Detective Garda Denise Pope”—Denise showed Nicki her ID; Nicki folded her arms and refused to look at it—“and this is my colleague Angela Fitzgerald from the Missing Persons Unit. Can you confirm that you’re Nicola O’Sullivan, known as Nicki, with an address on Ballinteer Road in Dundrum, Dublin 16?”
“What’s this about?”
Angela glanced toward the pillars, where the other two marked cars had stopped. The uniforms were getting out but staying there, hanging back, watching.
Even though they had located one of the state’s most high-profile missing persons, everyone’s expressions were grave.
If only they’d found her earlier.
If only, at some point in the last year, she’d called them.
Baseball Cap Man came and stood next to Nicki and touched her arm gently, as if to calm her down.
“We’re here,” Denise said to her, “because your sister, Lucy, filed a missing person report in June of last year. You’re not in any trouble and you don’t have to leave with us, but we would like to have a quick chat beforeweleave. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Angela hoped no one would suggest the caravan.
