Twenty-sixth

In York the police were now dealing with a suspected murder, they were absolutely clueless in the case of the missing University librarian, which implied they were failing substantially, but it was simply that there were no clues whatsoever. The strain on her family had become unbearable, there seemed to be no hope of any closure in the matter, and even closest relatives feared the worst. I couldn’t understand why the police had to use old-fashioned expressions like ‘come to harm’, why couldn’t they just use plain English and say she’d most likely been harmed by a man ?

In some ways it would have been a relief to find her body floating in the Ouse or Foss, yet there was always that glimmer of hope while no physical evidence was found. Despite TV appeals and some calls from the public hardly anything other than vague reports of suspicious-looking characters around the University emerged.

The students came back from yet another long holiday, and in all those thousands of young people there was nothing significant to help the official investigation. They were mostly concerned with getting on with academic life, which consisted of drinking, plenty of sex, sleeping into the afternoon, and the minimum amount of work.

Jess continued to take the whole thing very personally, as if she was somehow directly involved in the woman’s disappearance just because she worked on the campus. I had learned to limit any questions about her day to the most banal details only, struggling at times to maintain a cheerful and optimistic atmosphere.
‘I was attacked a few years ago’ she blurted out eventually.

‘What ?!’

‘Near the Central Hall.’

‘What do you mean ? Were you hurt ?’

‘I screamed and kicked so much he ran off.’

‘But isn’t it a busy area round there anyway ?’

‘Not at two in the morning.’

‘You were OK then ?’

‘Of course I bloody wasn’t’ she screamed.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t...’

‘I only had a few scratches, he probably came off worse, but you can’t just forget about something like that.’

‘Did you report it ?’

‘I did, but I’d had quite a bit to drink, and they didn’t take my story too seriously; I couldn’t give much of a description.’

She started crying, and I tried to comfort her, but she pulled away.

Eighteenth

I don’t know why dead people are so often found in the water; it was the same with the missing University worker in York, except the woman’s body found in the Ouse wasn’t her. It was an apparently less significant lady from the Doncaster area, but the whole episode was inevitably agonising for the family and friends of the disappeared library assistant, for whom hope was uncomfortably vanishing.

Despite having some inclination towards Tibetan Buddhism I have grown more into the view that when we die that’s it, unless you’re buried and literally rot away, forming an elaborate human compost in the lonely earth of the graveyard. But we can never really know, and I hate these people who are so certain that any kind of afterlife is a load of nonsense; at least we should keep our minds open – unlike those that are so definite about global warming, or that all fat people should be mercilessly ridiculed.

In our so-called ‘advanced’ societies we try not to talk about death, and even pretend that life can be extended almost indefinitely with the help of medical science. In many other cultures they still retain an awareness that life and death are all part of the same process, and humans should simply make the most of what they have in the here and now. For some this means pure selfish indulgence, forgetting that the most important aspects of our lives cannot be bought at Tesco.

‘It wasn’t the lass from the Uni. then’ I commented, reading the local paper.

‘Not this time’ Jess replied.

‘You don’t hold out much hope then ?’

‘I’d like to believe she’d gone off with some bloke for romantic reasons, but she didn’t seem the type to withhold that kind of information from family and friends.’

‘She appeared to be quite sociable for a library assistant.’

‘What does that mean ?!’

‘She liked going to pubs.’

‘I don’t think libraries are the silent tombs they used to be, and some of the people working there are quite bubbly.’

‘I’ve always preferred buying books.’

‘Not everybody has your wealth.’

‘My inheritance is fast diminishing.’

‘And then what will you do ?’

Jess would ask me this question from time to time, implying that I was nothing more than a lazy, rudderless child; and I would always reply with silence.

Thirteenth

At least part of Jess’s reluctance to discuss campus life was because at that time the City of York was gripped by a massive police hunt for a woman employed at the University library, who’d disappeared inexplicably, leaving detectives without a single clue. She was an attractive young woman in her thirties, and from a ‘good family’, which meant the police and public were taking a keen interest; if it had been a tramp or person from the wrong side of town there wouldn’t have been half the excitement.

These kind of cases are almost as if an invisible alien spaceship has descended on our ancient and beautiful city, beaming the young woman onboard in a flash of blinding light. A more likely explanation is usually an ex-boyfriend, a member of the family, somebody known to the victim, or less commonly – abduction by a stranger.

Jess had naturally taken an interest at first, but had then gone quiet on the matter, preferring to maintain her private thoughts. The media had gone crazy, and not just locally, because she was/is a very nice girl, for whom even the splendid Archbishop of York was praying regularly.

From time to time these kind of perceived or real threats from men would grip the campus, as some attractive young student was attacked on a back lane near The Retreat ‘mental’ hospital, or chased coming out of a college bar late at night. We are always reminded that York is a very safe place, and it probably is compared to the larger cities; yet these kind of events can have a major impact on the psyche of those in a smallish community, and particularly on women, and even more so for those closely involved.

We had another recent case in Yorkshire where a young girl went missing and the outcome looked extremely grim, until one day she simply turned-up unharmed; it emerged that the mother and a male accomplice had actually arranged her abduction, with the child spending a few weeks hidden under a bed only a few miles from the family home. They had hoped to cash-in on a large financial reward for returning her safely, but only ended-up with long prison sentences and universal condemnation.

The case of the missing library assistant did not look as though it would have a positive outcome, and it was no fun to watch the father appearing on television and becoming more and more distraught as the weeks passed with absolutely no evidence as to her whereabouts.

Jess knew deep down, like everybody else, the sad fact was she had most likely come to harm at the hands of a man, either one known to her or a stranger. Bad things happen in this life; many millions can’t even afford to put food in their mouths; and even in our so-called ‘developed’ nations we cannot protect ourselves from all the sorrows.

Yet there is still some joy to be grasped, like that relished by Jess and me, still so early in our love relationship – the honeymoon period, a long, long way from any estrangement that might, or might not happen, in an uncertain future.