I wanted to go out, to join in the search for Jasmine, but I had no car– Holly had driven us home in the Land Rover and our rental was still at the caves– and it would take almost an hour, in freezing conditions, to walk to the village.
I slidThe Dealmakerback on to the shelf, my thoughts returning to my documentary. For a fleeting moment, I found myself considering a different idea. A movie about the Grants and this app they had invented. Charles finding Jasmine and the impact on the family. Lewis’s death.
It was a terrible idea. I would have no impartiality and, worse, Holly and the rest of the Grants would never talk to me again.
I should stick with the mystery of what had happened to Samir– which led to me checking my emails and seeing that I’d had a reply from Emma Fox, the podcaster.
Hi Patrick. Was quite shocked to hear from you! I saw The Disappearing Act and thought it was great! Loved the open ending! Interesting that you’re looking into what happened to Samir. I didn’t get very far at all so not sure how much help I’ll be, but give me a call and I’ll tell you what little I know. Best, Emma.
Her phone number was at the bottom of the email. The first thing she said when she picked up was, ‘Are you in Applecross?’
I explained that I was, without going into the whole story about Lewis and Jasmine or that I was dating the daughter of Charles Grant. I didn’t want to distract her.
I had already looked Emma up. I knew she was thirty-seven, originally from Streatham, and the winner of a British Podcast Award a couple of years ago, a Black woman victorious in a shortlist of white men, and I knew that her show specialized in seeking answers to mysteries and crimes the police had given up on. She had been involved in tracking down a serial killer called Lucy Newton, almost getting herself killed in the process. I knew that if Emma had looked into Samir’s death, she would have been thorough.
‘What did you manage to find out about Samir?’ I asked.
‘Not an enormous amount, to be honest. I spoke to his dad and a couple of his friends,’ Emma said. ‘The main thing that kept coming up was that he was a quiet kid. Studious. Well liked. You know, the kind of thing people always say, whether you’re a victim or you’ve just gone on a killing spree.’
‘He kept himself to himself,’ I said, quoting a thousand interviews with the neighbours and acquaintances of murderers.
‘Exactly. But I think Sammy, as his dad called him, really was a model student. He aced his GCSEs, revised really hard, and was doing his A-levels. But to his dad’s great disappointment he decided he didn’t want to go to uni and dropped out of school a few months before he was due to sit them.’
‘That’s interesting. Do you know why?’
‘He said he didn’t want to be saddled with loads of debt. I mean, I can’t blame him. But his dad, and the couple of schoolfriends I spoke to, they all said he was a “boffin”. Great at maths and science. All the STEM subjects.’
‘Did he have a job?’
‘Not according to his dad. He said Sammy would disappear all day and come home exhausted, refusing to talk about where he’d been or what he’d been doing. He had no money, though. Was always broke.’
‘Isn’t that typical of most teenagers?’
‘Hmm, maybe. One odd detail was that he had a gold signet ring that he always wore. It wasn’t on his body when he was found. There was speculation that he’d sold it.’
‘Or someone stole it from him?’
‘Exactly. They checked pawnshops and second-hand jewellers across the West Midlands and Scotland, but it never turned up.’
She went on. ‘I found out the police checked his “Find my iPhone” history in the weeks before his death and he was regularly going to the same place most days and spending hours there. When the police traced it, according to Samir’s parents, it wasn’t even a proper address. It was a lock-up garage on the outskirts of Coventry. It was empty, apparently. Nothing there but a load of old Coke cans and crisp packets. They spoke to locals, to people who owned the other garages, and they said they thought the lock-up was being used by drug dealers.’
That was disappointing. Teen mixed up with drugs. Hardly a great revelation for my film.
‘So yeah, that was the police’s main theory, not that Samir’s parents wanted to hear it. That he got involved with a gang. Drug dealers.’
‘But that doesn’t explain how he ended up in Applecross.’
‘Exactly.’
We both sighed at the same time, and Emma laughed.
‘There was one more thing,’ she said. ‘I didn’t visit Applecross, but I posted on a bunch of forums and Facebook groups, putting out an appeal for any information anyone might have. Asked if anyone had any friends in Applecross. I didn’t hear anything until about a month later, when I got a WhatsApp. I tried to call the number it came from, but it’s one of those burner numbers you can create using an app. It could just be a hoax. Someone messing around. But I’ll take a screenshot and send it to you anyway.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Good luck,’ she said. ‘I hope you get further than I did. I hate not knowing what happened to him.’
We wished each other a happy new year and hung up. A few seconds later a screenshot arrived of the WhatsApp messages she’d been talking about. Three short messages, received within moments of each other.
