Gabby Is Missing: Part Twelve

~ beetleypete

This is the twelfth part of a fiction serial, in 719 words.

Detective Sergeant Clive Wright was standing in front of a large whiteboard, addressing the assembled officers sitting on chairs in the briefing room. To his left, his boss stood with her back to the closed door of the room, watching him intently.

It wasn’t so much that Clive resented having a female Inspector in charge of him, but he would have preferred it if she hadn’t been sixteen years younger than him, and so straight it was as if she had a metal rod up her arse.

“Okay, listen up!” Once he had the attention of the ten cops in the room, he pointed at the top photo stuck to the whiteboard.

“Gabrielle Louise Parker. Almost twenty-one, and a student at the UEA. She has now been missing for four days, and has shown no financial or telephonic activity during that time. Nobody she knows has seen or heard from her, and there was no suggestion that she was visiting anyone, or taking a trip somewhere. We now have to seriously consider she may have been abducted, so we are jacking-up the current missing persons investigation into a nationwide search”.

Turning back to the board, he pointed in turn at the other photos.

“Her housemates, Ben Halliday and Michaela Petersen. They reported her missing, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know more about what happened. Kimberley Lau, a uni friend who lives in the city. She gave Gabrielle her credit card details, supposedly to book a flight. We have since discovered that seven thousand pounds was taken off the credit card and transferred to a bank account in the name of Gabrielle Parker. Moments later, that was transferred to different account in the name of Louise Parker, which is now empty. Gabby possibly stole that money, or Kimberley did the transfers to make her look guilty. Either way, Kimberley has a motive”.

Inspector Duggan stepped forward and pointed at the board. “Who’s the older guy, Clive?” Trying not to look exasperated at the interruption, he answered.

“I was getting to him, ma’am. Andrew Donaldson, a history lecturer and the tutor for the set containing the other four mentioned. According to Michaela Petersen, he was having a sexual relationship with Gabrielle. We went to see him last night, and at first he denied it. Then when I said we had a sample of Gabrielle’s DNA and could swab his whole house, he broke down and admitted an affair. It’s not illegal of course, but he acted like we were going to lock him up, and throw away the key. He agreed to a search of his house and property, and we found nothing of interest”.

Clive stopped to pull his trousers up before continuing. He had lost a full size around his waist, and wasn’t even trying to diet.

“So matey-boy is definitely a suspect, as he is the only one we know for sure was shagging her”. He didn’t see his boss wince at the crude word. Clive was old school, and as far as Duggan was concerned, he was well past his use-by date.

“So, the next thing we do is to get all of them in for interviews under caution. They can have a solicitor in with them of course, but I tend to think none of them will bother. Gabrielle’s photo and description has been circulated to other forces nationally, and also to Border Force, the National Crime Agency, and Interpol. We have also issued an international arrest warrant for her. If she shows up anywhere, she can be detained on the credit card fraud. Then at least we will know she’s alive. Her mum is still in hospital with DTs, so no good her doing an appeal. Her brother has agreed to come up from London, and we will do the appeal on BBC Look East tomorrow evening at six-thirty”.

Duggan stepped forward again.

“I think I should be on that, Clive. You know, senior officer and all that. I will take any questions and make the appeal on behalf of the force”. Clive nodded. He had expected as much. Then she took over the end of the briefing.

“Right, thank you, Clive. Good work so far everyone, now let’s get to it and find this girl. Alive if possible, or her body if not”.

47 thoughts on “Gabby Is Missing: Part Twelve”

    1. Such cases are often a ‘big deal’ here. So many young female students are raped and murdered, unfortunately. There normally seems to be some rush to try to find them alive, though it is usually only their bodies that are found.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  13. (1) Two Clives:
    Wright is a detective who works for the common good and strives to keep the peace.
    Barker is a hellraiser who favors cranial acupuncture and once worked as a male prostitute.
    (2a) Inspector Duggan prefers having pins planted in her cranium to having a metal rod shoved up her arse.
    (2b) Inspector Duggan may be straight-laced, but her curvy body looks great in Chantilly lace.
    (3) The body of Gabrielle Jeez Louise Parker may have been temporarily stuffed in a freezer by that old geezer, Andrew D.
    (4) Kimberley Lau was crazy to give Gabby her credit card details to book a flight. There was either a loco motive behind that, or else her parents didn’t train her properly in money management.
    (5) Inspect Duggan didn’t appreciate Clive’s use of the word “shagging.” She’s likely to call him on the carpet after the meeting.
    (6) When it comes to sex, Ben and Mikki are not experts. However, they did stay at a Halliday Inn Express last night.
    (7) The sheep in Scotland are kept in line by the Collies who make up the Border Force.
    (8) Overheard:
    Inspector Duggan; “Now let’s get to it and find this girl. Alive if possible, or her body if not.”
    Detective Sergeant Wright: “That’s the spirit!”

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  21. And I had begun to tell myself that one should never make assumptions about people who can have all sorts of dark stuff they are dealing with, like an alcoholic mum. Still, I suppose it could lead one to a life of crime….Don’t like the boss. I’ve know women like her.

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      1. What I took issue with with the young whiz kids, either sex or indeterminate, with their little business degree who thought they could teach me how to check in passengers after I’d been at it since before they were born. NO I said. I’m going to carry on as before. Latterly I could check in more passengers than any of the agents and it wasn’t even my job anymore. Who did they need when the computer was out? I know you heard about BA’s infamous systems outages…we always made headlines. That and our world-class baggage loss record. Oh la la…

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        1. For some years, I lived next door to a guy who was a long-haul purser on BA. Openly gay, and a realy fun guy. He told me a lot about that job, and about his employers.
          I flew with BA to Beijing in 2000, and again eleven years later, to Prague. On both flights I had great service, and a comfortable trip. But my best flight experience ever was with Emirates, to Singapore via Dubai.
          Don’t get me started on Aeroflot! 🙂

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