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The missing hold an
enduring fascination for us. As rational beings we demand explanations. When a
murder takes place, we want to know who did it and why. Any evidence of the
supernatural is met with a raft of scientific theories and justifications. Even
the least scientific amongst us anxiously wait for explanations. Take secrets.
Facebook, in particular is full of them. In any one day my timeline is full of
posts recommending that we ‘watch this space’ and ‘an exciting announcement coming
soon’. It prompts us to return to social media even though we know it’s eating
into our writing time. Why? Partly, because we want resolution. We can’t abide
the thought of the unknown. And generally, in life, very little remains
completely unexplained.
The missing, however,
taunt us with their absence. For those who have voluntarily disappeared, the
not knowing is excruciating for their family. Near me, the relatives of teenager
Andrew Gosden, who left his home in 2007, still post updates ten years later
asking for information on his whereabouts. They know he made it as far as
London and, after that, nothing. I can only imagine how excruciating the not
knowing is for them. And, of course, not every absence is voluntary. I grew up
in south Manchester and the still missing victims of the Moors murderers was an
ever constant reminder to us children of how not every adult was trustworthy.
The missing are popular
feature of crime novels. From Agatha Christie’s Sleeping Murder to Gone Girl by
Gillian Flynn, the mystery posed by absence makes for compelling plots. For
when someone’s movements are unaccounted for, the potential for criminal intent
isn’t far behind. The missing have featured in all my books. In Bitter Chill, partly influenced by those murders on Sadleworth Moor, tells the story of a young girl who goes missing in the 1970s as the devastated community close in to protect their children.
In A Deadly Thaw, a husband goes missing for fifteen years util he is killed in an a disused mortuary. Here, I wanted absence to cover up something more sinister.
My latest book, A Patient
Fury, also has a missing person at the heart of the story. Elizabeth Winson who
in 1980 pins a note of her shop stating that she’ll be ‘back in two minutes’, is
never seen again. Police are convinced that she is a victim of her controlling
husband but her adult children are less sure. Elizabeth Winson was a bored wife
desperate to escape the confines of a small town and a verbally abusive
marriage.
The legacy of Elizabeth’s
disappearance is what obsesses us most about the missing. Are they out there in
the world leading a parallel life or is there or a more sinister explanation?
There’s also the sense of time in suspension. We get older while that person
remains perpetually frozen in time. Husbands remarry, children grow up and have
their own offspring and, all the time, in the back of their minds is the
question. What really happened?
My books have dual
timelines. This is partly a reflection of the Peak District setting where
crimes often have a long genesis. I wanted to have a contemporary disappearance
to balance the devastation wrought by Elizabeth’s vanishing. This time there is
no easily identifiable missing person but a shadowy figure in the background. It’s
a modern take on the concept of missing. Who is the fourth presence that my
detective Connie Childs can sense but not identify?
In A Patient Fury, as in
all my books, I want the missing to recover their voice, however uncomfortable
the truth might be. I’m clearly as bad as the next person in ultimately needing
motive and enlightenment.
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