The Last Six Million Seconds by John Burdett

Ever since Clare disappeared, I’ve been making them give me every Identi-Kit from Asia that comes in. I bet I can check out artists’ impressions as good as anyone.”
    Out of her money belt she took an envelope with photographs.
    “This is her at sixteen. I brought it for me really.”
    Chan saw a thin-faced girl in a purple and green tracksuit, dark blond hair falling over one eye, large trees in the background, trees of a kind he’d never seen except in pictures. He paused over the smile. Perfect American dentistry.
    Moira took back the picture, stared at it. “Central Park, 1986.”
    “A jogger?”
    “Skateboard. Now, here she’s twenty-one. Graduation. NYU. That stands for New York University. B.A. in sociology.”
    Chan glanced quickly at the scotch bottle. He didn’t need another drunken woman on his hands; she took the scotch well, though, apart from a single burp half suppressed. Her eyes and hands were steady. He picked up the photograph. The child had turned into a young woman in cap and gown. She was gazing not into the camera but into a future full of promise. Only Americans smiled like that. Only Americans had that kind of future.
    “Now here’s the most recent. Two years ago, when I went to see her in San Francisco.”
    Something had gone wrong. Only a few years down that sunny road life had failed. She was still smiling, but it was wan, uncertain. Her hair was brutally short; two dabs of silver shone in each ear. This time she was looking straight into the camera, trying to say something to whoever was going to see the picture. Help me?
    “I know what you’re probably thinking, Charlie. Any cop would. But it wasn’t drugs. It was just the tail end of an affair with a married man that was chewing her guts out. She snapped out of it pretty soon afterward. It’s just that I haven’t got any pictures more recent than that.”
    Chan nodded. No point in asking questions until after positive identification. He placed the most recent photograph next to the fax that Moira laid out on the floor. Photographs could be as deceptive as eyewitnesses. The human eye saw what the mind told it to see. Urban Man spent his life trapped in an internal dialogue from which he emerged only for the purposes of survival. On the fax sheet he covered over the hair that Angie had given her: a possible identification. If anything the young woman in the photograph was better-looking with a finer chin, chiseled nose, large eyes. A beauty.
    “How long has your daughter been missing, Mrs. Coletti?”
    “Please call me Moira, Charlie.” She touched his hand. “It feels funny not using first names in this tiny apartment. The British really did a job on you people with the formality, didn’t they? About twoyears.” She swallowed. “No, I’m kidding myself. Must be two years six months since I saw my Clare.”
    “But you spoke to her on the telephone, received letters?”
    “Oh, sure. Sure. All the time. Look, we both know you’re going to see your forensic department tomorrow with whatever I’m able to give you—”
    “Everything can wait till after that. Sure. I’m sorry.”
    She waved a hand at the same time as blowing her nose on a man-size handkerchief. “No, no. I shouldn’t have rushed it, but what else could I do? Haven’t thought about anything else since I saw that fax.”
    Chan saw that the whiskey bottle was empty. In an ashtray he saw a nest of butts that had collected since her arrival. With a hand she covered a yawn. He felt tired himself; perhaps even tired enough to sleep. “You want another beer before you go?”
    She nodded. “That would help.”
    “Where’s your hotel?”
    She coughed. “Haven’t had time to get hold of one. Haven’t even thought of it.”
    She waited. Chan looked at his fake Rolex, which he’d left on the coffee table: 3:20 A.M. In Hong Kong it wouldn’t be difficult finding a hotel, even at that time, but what would be the point? It would be 4:30 before she could lie