Page 11 of Dead to Me

6.Seaton

It became increasingly obvious to Seaton that he needed the police.Step by step, he was exhausting every avenue he could think of.

While at Anna’s house, he messaged to ask James if he knew where she was.James was the one member of that group who he knew independently, and whose number he had.Of course, as far as James knew, Anna was his god-daughter rather than his daughter, but it wasn’t unreasonable to be concerned about a no-show for lunch.

James replied quickly, but with a message that made Seaton’s heart twist.

She left the ball pretty early with some friend of hers.Kit’s been trying to call her too, but she’s not replying.We haven’t seen her since eleven last night.Hopefully she’s just crashed out, hung-over.

A few seconds later, he messaged again to ask if Seaton needed help tracking her down.Seaton was already messaging back to ask who the friend she’d left with was.But James’s reply was more than disappointing.

Sorry, I don’t know him.Saw the two of them at a distance and honestly couldn’t tell you.Are things ok?

Seaton tried to still his anxiety while he thought for a minute, and then messaged:

Thank you.Could you ask around?A bit worried for her.Call me if you hear anything, please.

He stepped outside the house, and paused.Should he be saying more?Should he be insisting that he needed a description of this friend, and an exact account of where Anna had been and how she’d seemed?

Perhaps he should call Philip Sedgewick, too.Ask him to step in.He was the sort of person who always, always knew what to do in a crisis.

But he stopped short with his phone in his hand, too afraid of bringing Anna’s whole house of cards crashing down.Something that would be terrible for him, and possibly dangerous for her.

Whatshouldhe be doing?He was standing on her doorstep now, immobile, and he had to act.

He wanted to try calling that temporary phone of hers again but he was worried about that, too.If she’d ended up stuck somewhere, he might just drain her battery.And if she was hiding, he’d only bring attention to her.

Just as he lifted his head from his phone with a sigh, he caught sight of a retreating figure striding away towards town.It looked, he thought, like Kit Frankland, dressed in a polo shirt and jeans.

He tried to make out the young man’s profile as he turned the corner of the terrace, but he still wasn’t sure.All he’d seen of Kit was a series of photographs on Anna’s laptop, and the figure wasn’t close enough for his features to be clear.

And surely if itwasKit, he’d be here trying to track Anna down.He would have knocked on the door.Wouldn’t he?

Seaton hesitated and then decided it was time to make all this official.He had an old university acquaintance who was an assistant chief constable at Cambridgeshire Constabulary.He was the man for this.

Gerry and he hadn’t exactly been close, but when your daughter was missing, a high-ranking officer was exactly the kind of man you wanted on your side.

Seaton’s call was answered by some admin clerk who told him they couldn’t put him through to specific officers if Seaton didn’t know their extension.They were then particularly obtuse about passing on a message.

So Seaton decided to go to the station in person.He’d file a missing persons report, he decided, then ask to see Gerry and have it prioritised.

The first thing that went wrong was the wait.By the time he’d sat for thirty-five minutes in a stifling-hot reception area at the police station, with the dehydrating effects of the lunchtime champagne kicking in and increasing levels of real hunger, his anxiety had morphed into anger.

When he was then faced with a slow-moving constable who took almost ten minutes just to take down basic details, he found himself snapping.

‘Look, is there someone more senior I can talk to?’he’d said, his voice tight.Irritable.‘This really is quite urgent.’

The constable, a man probably in his late twenties, had raised an eyebrow at him.‘This will obviously go to someone more senior, and if your daughter is deemed high risk, it’ll be treated urgently.’

‘Well, of course she’s high risk,’ he snapped.‘As I said, she was undercover, in the middle of investigating a murder.She was last seen with the people who killed a young woman last year.’

‘So you said,’ the constable replied.‘I just need to go through the process…’

‘Look, I’m sure there are faster ways,’ Seaton said, before the constable could go on.‘I’m a Cambridge fellow and a friend of Gerry Siegland’s.You just ring him, and I’ll explain this to him.I’m sure he’ll understand the urgency.’

For Seaton’s entire life, his position in the university had opened doors.It had gained him respect.But for some reason,as the constable looked up from his iPad, Seaton felt a shiver of uncertainty.Because the PC wasn’t looking at him with respect.Instead there was… something else.

‘Sorry,’ the officer said with a very forced-sounding politeness, ‘do you mean the former assistant chief constable?’

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