Free Searching for Celia by Elizabeth Ridley

closer to Celia now than I am.”
    “Dayle, this isn’t a competition.” Edwina folds her long arms and leans back against the wall opposite the elevator, looking defeated. “I just want to know what’s happened to her.”
    “I know. So do I.”
    As we return to the A&E reception area, I glimpse DC Callaway shuttling through the sliding glass doors. Only five hours have elapsed since I last saw the detective, but the advancing day seems to have aged her, adding years to her appearance. Her oily beige trench coat flaps in the breeze and her thin, wispy hair, which earlier offered only the slightest hint of a style, has collapsed flatly against her forehead. Even from this distance she smells of a hastily smoked cigarette, obliterated by an angry heel and still smoldering on the steps outside the hospital entrance.
    After introducing Edwina and exchanging brief greetings, I suggest we sit down and perhaps get something to eat. There’s a chic-looking restaurant on this floor of the hospital, along with a smaller café, but DC Callaway doesn’t have time, even for a meager cup of tea, she informs us. So instead we find a few chairs on the perimeter of the A&E reception area, beside a bank of vending machines, and talk there.
    I begin by telling Callaway about my accident at the Tube station. As she takes notes, her nicotine-stained fingers press her pencil stub so tightly that her yellow nail beds turn white. A troubled V appears between her eyebrows and frown lines tug her firmly set mouth. “Hmm,” she offers. “Go on.” “Yes?” “Uh-huh.” She seems concerned mostly with whether I saw whoever pushed me, if indeed anyone did. “A man or a woman?” she asks.
    “I don’t know. I never turned to look,” I explain. “I felt something, lost my footing, then hit the ground.”
    She pivots, coughing into her clenched fist. “Well, you must have some sense of the person. Large? Small?”
    “I really don’t know.”
    A somber-looking Southeast Asian boy of about eleven with large dark eyes approaches the vending machine, coins pinched between his fingertips. Edwina nods him forward, indicating he may use the machine.
    “And you didn’t see height, hair color, clothing?” Callaway presses.
    I shake my head. “No. Nothing. I was reading Celia’s manuscript, so I wasn’t paying much attention.”
    A can of Coke rattles through the vending machine chute as Callaway draws in her thin bottom lip and squints at her notes. “Is there anything else you can tell me that might be helpful? Anything you heard? A noise? Anything?”
    “Not at Tottenham Court Road,” I say slowly, watching the boy walk away with his drink in hand, “but earlier in the day a man seemed to be following me. I wonder now if there’s some connection between that man and my accident.”
    “Followed you?” Callaway’s voice sounds practiced and casual, but her pupils briefly flare.
    “I think so. I can’t be sure.” I describe the man I saw on the way to Celia’s bank and then later on the Tube. While I speak, Edwina taps my shoulder and reminds me to keep my broken hand elevated, as the doctor advised.
    After I finish my description of the man, Callaway promises she’ll look into reports of any other recent assaults on the Tube or in and around the stations. “But I must admit, this sounds like nothing more than an unfortunate accident,” she warns. After reviewing her notes, she says I’m free to leave. I am secretly relieved—my wrist aches and I just want to rest for a while before the conference.
    “There is something else,” I add as we rise from the narrow plastic chairs.
    “Oh?” Callaway jams an arm into her trench coat and wrestles it over her shoulder. “What’s that?”
    I glance at Edwina, who nods for me to continue.
    “When Celia’s mail arrived this afternoon, there was an envelope containing a photo of her standing outside her flat. Someone had scribbled on the bottom, We can make you disappear