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two years and two days missing
chapter 35
alex
‘Jesus Christ,’ Jack Murtaugh says. ‘Half amillion? You’ve got to be kidding me!’
He glances around the table. You could cut the tension in the room with a spoon. Jack’s been an outspoken supporter of ours since he was re-elected as the local MP for Balham Central back in December 2019, two months after Lottie disappeared. But this is the first time he’s become directly involved with the Foundation, and the reason he’s doing so now, at my request, is because we need to bring an outsider’s clear-eyed scrutiny to what we do next.
The original campaign to find my daughter morphed into the Lottie Foundation after I returned to England. Our mission is not just to search for my daughter, but to raise the profile of missing children who would otherwise slip through the cracks: children like Jovon Jackson, whose parents don’t have the same resources and contacts I have. Legal restrictions meant the Foundation couldn’t be formed as a charity. Instead, we set it up as a not-for-profit company run by a board made up of friends and relatives, including Dad and me, Paul and Zealy.
And Marc, of course.
Without him, we no longer have anyone with marketing expertise on the board. One of our greatest strengths – ourclose-knit loyalty – has become our biggest weakness. With the exception of Jon Vermeulen, who continues to manage things on the ground in Florida, the rest of us are well-meaning amateurs, not fundraising professionals. The Foundation has been run too much from the heart, not the head, which is why we’re almost bankrupt.
Paul Harding, our treasurer and the man who once mistook one little girl in a pink dress for another, has the grace to look embarrassed. ‘That money was spent over a two-year period,’ he says.
Everyone shifts uncomfortably. We’re all aware how expensive the search for my daughter has been in the abstract, but seeing the numbers in black and white makes disturbing reading.
‘This man, Simon Green. He’s bleeding you dry,’ Jack says. ‘Who hired him?’
‘Marc Chapman,’ Paul says. There’s an awkward silence.
Jack sighs and tosses the ledger of accounts across the table. ‘Well, this can’t go on,’ he says. ‘The Foundation’s barely solvent. If nothing else, Green is going to have a comfortable retirement.’
‘The man’s a crook,’ Jon says, his South African accent more pronounced than ever. He’s flown over especially for this board meeting, and he and Jack are clearly on the same page. ‘Half a million quid, and all we have to show for it are shots from Google Earth and some photos of a travelling salesman.’
‘The salesman was a legitimate line of inquiry at the time,’ Paul protests. ‘Berkeley International were only able to eliminate him after three months of surveillance—’
Jon snorts. ‘Three months of fat fees.’
I don’t believe Simon Green is a crook, but we can’t keep spending money the way we have been. All the surveillance, the voice analyses, the profiling, the deep background checks – we just don’t have the money for it. People have lost interestin Lottie. It’s been too long since she vanished and, without a single hard lead to show for the millions spent on the search for her, people have stopped giving. We need to pivot to the Foundation’s core mission and focus on other missing children if we want to attract new donors.
‘Re-litigating the past isn’t going to help,’ I say, before the meeting descends into recrimination. ‘We’re here to talk about how we fund the Foundation going forward, not just the search for Lottie. That’s why Jack’s here.’
Jack rakes a hand through his thick, black hair. A shambling bear of a man in his mid-thirties, he’s not particularly good-looking, but there’s something oddly compelling about him. He commands the room without saying a word. He has a sartorial style that could best be described as unmade-bed: his jackets are usually rumpled and flapping open, his shirts spilling out, his collars awry, his ties rarely on an even keel. But he deploys his dishevelment in strategic ways, seemingly too passionate about the subject at hand to iron. In an increasingly airbrushed and filtered world, his style telegraphs unvarnished truth-telling and reality. It holds the allure of the anti-spin. I’m not surprised he’s tipped for the front bench in the next reshuffle.
‘As Alex says, it’s not just about Lottie any more,’ Jack says. ‘You can’t justify spending this kind of money on one kid – sorry, Alex – when there are so many other children out there who need help.’
‘But once the Yard inquiry gets more funding—’ Paul begins.
‘I wouldn’t count on that,’ Jack interrupts. ‘You’re not getting any support from Number 10. You’ve been treading on too many toes.’
Paul bristles. Out of all of us, he’s given the most time to the nuts-and-bolts running of the Foundation. ‘I don’t see what Downing Street has to do with it,’ he says.
‘Yeah, that’s obvious.’ Jack tips back his chair, his handstucked behind his head. ‘Look, mate, every time you remind the Americans they lost a British citizen on their watch, the “special relationship” takes another hit. Post-Brexit, we need them more than they need us.’
‘We have precedent on our side. The McCann inquiry—’
‘She disappeared from Portugal. The US is a different kettle of marine life. You’re comparing apples and oranges.’
‘Jack and I have a meeting with the Foreign Office this afternoon,’ I say, bringing the meeting to a close. ‘We’ll know a lot more after that.’
As we leave the boardroom, Jack falls into step beside me. ‘I don’t think I’m going to win any popularity contests with your friends,’ he says.
‘They’ll get over it,’ I say. ‘You’re not telling us anything we don’t all know. Donations from the public aren’t going to cut it. We need that government funding.’
‘Like I said, don’t get your hopes up.’
