The Vanishing Girls by Callie Browning (read this if txt) 📕

they had gathered to Derricks. Eileen had some measure of comfort in knowing she had done a good deed. But under that, clawing at the surface, were doubt and impatience.

To pass the time, Eileen tried calling both of the phone number on the ads, but eventually she gave up on the newer of the two when no-one answered after numerous calls. That was the problem with something as light as a piece of newspaper at an old crime scene. It could just blow into the middle of a place and be irrelevant. But she felt similarly frustrated with the older number; whether she called early or late in the day, no one answered. Eileen concluded that it couldn’t possibly belong to a business, forcing her to question her theory. Every day she checked the classifieds looking for similar ads. She even went back to the newspaper office and extended her archive search from seven to ten days before the other victims had disappeared. Her efforts were in vain.

She tried the phone company to no avail. The operator told her they could find the number attached to a name, but not a name attached to a number. By the end of the week, Eileen was at her wit's end. There was one other lead they hadn't fully fleshed out and despite Holden’s assertions that the killer might find out that she was asking questions, Eileen wanted to continue looking.

The Friday after their visit to Lord Town, Holden and Eileen stood in front of the Mutual Building, waiting for the Hampstead Village bus to arrive. The buses were quaint little things with bright colours and rustic appeal. Commuters sat on long wooden benches enclosed by wooden rails; the passengers often put Eileen in mind of circus attractions behind stout parallel bars whenever Eileen saw them. Buses were in high demand since so much of the populace didn't have cars which meant that seats were always at a premium. Two schoolboys ran past Eileen to grab the rails on the bus so they could squeeze between the bars and cobble a seat before the bus got to the depot. A policeman chased them with truncheons, landing stout whacks that left bright whales on brown legs and arms, but both Eileen and the police knew that efforts to discourage dangerous onboarding would be forgotten by the next day. Many of the boys did so in imitation of the conductors who were adept at navigating the slippery sideboards and fenders on the outskirts of the bus without ever once stepping inside the speeding omnibuses to collect fares. Neatly dressed in khaki uniforms, they hung off the sides, their sharp eyes seeing every passenger who hopped on. Shortly after, they’d shuffled along the sideboard with the leather pouch slung around their shoulder that jingled merrily with its cache of coins.

Soon, the Hampstead Village bus rounded the corner, trundling up the street until it pulled to a stop in front of the Mutual Building. As people disembarked, a man in a khaki shirt jac and matching pants hopped off the wheel flares and tipped his hat to them. He eyed Holden's three-piece suit and asked, “Wunna is the inspectors?”

Holden shook his head. “No. We came to ask you about Anna Brown. I’m Holden and this is Eileen. What’s your name?”

“Raymond.” The conductor nodded grimly. “I remember Anna. Nice girl who always looked sweet in her clothes.”

“Did she catch your bus the day she disappeared?” asked Eileen.

“Yeah, it’s the only bus on that route.” He looked Eileen in the eye. “But you should know that…it ain’t you that move into Anna’s old apartment?”

Eileen was surprised. “Well…yes. But I never met you.”

The conductor’s face coloured. “I like red women so I would always notice you. I’ve seen you in the neighbourhood.”

Holden cleared his throat. “So did Anna get off here on that day?”

“Nah,” said Raymond. “She got off by the post office and told me she had to catch another bus for a meeting on the west coast, so she had to hustle.”

“Who was she meeting?”

Raymond shook his head. “She never said. When she was found, I talked to the guys on the west coast route and asked if they had seen her. Don said she caught his bus and got off by the secondary school. When he didn’t see her again, he figured she came back to town on another bus.”

Holden raised an eyebrow. “So what happened to her after that?”

Raymond shrugged and said, “If I knew, I would tell you, but right now the bus is full so I gotta go.”

Raymond jumped onto the sideboard and tipped his hat to them again before the bus disappeared around the corner.

“So she did make it to town that day,” Eileen said, her mouth twisted with worry.

“Yes,” said Holden. “So she was abducted either before or after her interview.”

Eileen nodded. “The question is…who took her?”

* * *

EILEEN SPENT THE AFTERNOON making wreaths while Holden balanced the books. It was their second week dipping their toe into the floral arrangement business offering wreaths and bouquets for all occasions. Business had been robust and Holden smiled broadly when he saw the numbers. They’d done wreaths every day since they started, not to mention bouquets for guilty husbands who forgot birthdays and anniversaries and were their most frequent customers so far. As Eileen had predicted, their central location was a huge boon, a great place to get a last minute token of affection. It wasn’t lost on Holden that sometimes orders were upsized because of the pretty lady who prepared the bouquets. He wasn’t discounting her artful persuasion, but men were men, and they constantly tried to impress her by doubling their orders. He didn’t care for the extra attention they showered on Eileen, but she put her foot down after one man reduced his order to a single red rose when Holden tried to intervene. “Stop helping! I’m working on commission and you don’t have boobs”.

He wasn’t pleased with how she got