Twist Of Fate

Forty

SALVATORE'S CAFE, ST PETER'S, BROADSTAIRS

DI Richards opens a sachet of sugar and tips it into her latte with a sigh. She picks up a wooden drink stirrer and begins to swirl it around her coffee, barely moving the froth around the inside of the mug. DS Willis takes the seat opposite and gives a grunt of frustration. 

"No sightings." 

"Do they have the power of fucking invisibility or something?" Richards hisses, tossing the stirrer aside where it settles on the table top in a little pool of lukewarm froth. "How can no one have seen them? How can no one remember them? Where the fuck are they?!"

Willis shakes his head in defeat. "If that sodding B and B in Frome had taken even a sliver of interest when they checked in, we'd have had them in the cells by now."

Richards is well aware that their fugitives had been almost within their grasp a couple of days ago at a tiny little bed and breakfast a few hundred metres from Frome train station. She is also well aware that this is the last official sighting of either of them, and their leads have all but run dry. They are either accomplished at travelling in disguise, or they have simply disappeared off the face of the earth.

The police investigation team has begun delving into Chloe Lewis' past in an attempt to unearth any information that might give them a clue to her current whereabouts, which has brought them to a typically English seaside resort town called Broadstairs, on the south east coast. It is a little too close to the port of Dover for Richards' liking, which would be the easiest route out of the country and onto the continent with little hope of finding either of them ever again. Their photographs have been sent to every port in the United Kingdom as a precautionary measure, and while Richards would have staked her life a week ago that neither of these escapees would have the brains or the cunning to flee the country without a trace, she has traded uneasiness for downright fury at their continued success at evading capture, or indeed at being spotted at all.

They have no reports of Chloe Lewis or Harry Styles in the east Kent area, however it is the only lead they have to go on at the moment and Richards has a niggling feeling that at some point Lewis will return here. So little is known about her - Richards has spent the last few days reading her adoption file for any sign of a history of absconding, or indeed any type of criminal activity to explain her link to Styles, but yet again she has drawn a blank. Lewis' files describe her as a quiet, polite child with a previously stable home life and excellent academic record. Her parents, before their deaths, had been hard-working, law-abiding citizens. It appeared that after Lewis was orphaned and moved to London she spent a couple of years in a children's home before moving into flat as soon as she was old enough to get a job and support herself. The few people who have given descriptions of her to the police have all said the same thing: shy, timid, keeps herself to herself. She is one of the most unlikely accomplices Richards has ever come across, yet the CCTV and the odd witness who has seen Styles and Lewis together don't imply that Lewis is being coerced - rather that she is acting on her own free will and appears to have helped Styles to escape. 

If Styles' girlfriend is to be believed she has never heard of Lewis and has no idea why her boyfriend is on the run with another woman. Sofia Torres Alonso has stuck to her story since Styles first disappeared, stating she has had no contact with him and she does not know where he is. Although Torres has appeared willing to cooperate with the police, Richards finds it hard to believe that she knows nothing at all about Styles' disappearance. 

"We're missing something," DS Willis says eventually. "There has to be somewhere else that means something to Lewis. Somewhere she might have left her mark."

"If she's even been here at all," grumbles Richards, staring blindly around the four walls of this quaint little café in this quintessentially Kentish village. "I'm starting to feel like this has been another wild goose chase."

They have already been to the house where Lewis lived until her parents died, the school she attended and the local park where she would have likely played as a child. No one has seen or heard of her, which isn't surprising given it's been a number of years since Lewis left the area.

"What about the churchyard?" muses Willis. "Her parents are buried there. Maybe she's been to the grave? We could head over there, ask at the church if they've seen her."

Richards takes a sip of her latte. It is lukewarm, and tasteless. She drains half in one gulp and gets to her feet, setting the cup back on the table. "Why the hell not? We've got nothing to lose."

A bell on the door tinkles as they leave the café and head out onto the road back in the direction of St Peter's church. As they are approaching the entrance to the cemetery Richards' phone rings from the depths of her bag, and she pulls it out impatiently. It is the Kent Police, who have been making enquiries locally on their behalf.

"DI Richards? It's Constable Jennings from Broadstairs Police Station. We've got a potential sighting of your two suspects. A restaurant on the seafront reckons they had a couple in the night before last matching the description of Styles and Lewis. Things got a bit heated, he caused a bit of a scene and they left pretty quickly."

"Fuck," breathes Richards. "You sure it's them?" She gestures wildly with her free hand to Willis, who stops in his tracks.

"The owner has identified them from their photos," Jennings explains. "I've taken some details: they headed back along the seafront towards town on foot. They didn't have jackets with them or any belongings, and both were dressed smartly. They could be staying somewhere locally."

"Dressed smartly," Richards mutters, mostly to herself. "Not sleeping rough then. Can you get their pictures circulated to all the hotels and guest houses in the immediate area, and text me the name of the restaurant. I'm on my way over now to speak to the owner." She hands Willis the car keys and he blips it open, yanking the door wide and getting into the driver's seat. "Good work Jennings. Keep me posted on any developments."

"Yes ma'am." 

Richards hangs up the phone with a smile on her face and buckles her seatbelt as Willis starts the engine. "I knew she'd come back here," she says triumphantly as the car backs out of the parking space and turns in the direction of Broadstairs sea front. "I knew one of them would slip up eventually. With any luck we'll have them in custody by lunchtime."

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Just a short one this evening! Is the net finally closing in on Chloe and Harry?? More updates soon, I promise! xx