Fifty-Seven (Tim); Silence.
".......And back to today's headlines. The case of the disappearing singer. Twenty-eight-year-old Heather Lloyd-Gale, wife of eccentric Hollywood director Tim Burton has disappeared. Our Entertainments Correspondant Martin Lowe is on the scene. Martin."
"Thank you Lorna. Well, the temperature at The Firelight Club here in London's prestigious West End was certainly rising last night at the debut gig of 'Fevered Sleep', a band fronted by Heather Lloyd-Gale. Eye-witnesses report that the gig ran smoothly until the end of the gig when an apparent powercut plunged the entire club into darkness. Club organisers managed to keep calm amongst the audience until light was restored. Panic only broke out when Stephen Brown, a member of Fevered Sleep ran into the audience shouting "Heather's gone! Heather's gone!".
Police are unwilling to comment on whether this is a missing person's case or an abduction inquiry, but sources have reported that composer and long-term friend of the Burtons' Danny Elfman has flown over from LA--"
"Tim, turn this shit off!" Danny snaps. I don't look at him, and I don't move. I hear him sigh irritably, and the next moment the remote has been removed from my hand and the TV switched off. I turn in time to watch as Danny throws the remote at the TV before returning to silently glaring from his seat on the couch. This is too much. Too quiet. Too empty. Too silent in the middle of all this mental chaos. Too alone in the midst of all my friends.
I can't believe this is happening to me... Heather's gone, again. I don't want to believe that she's left of her own accord once more, but what other choice do I have? No one knows what happened in the blackout; all the security guards flocked into the main room of the club to enforce 'calm', so she could have just walked right out the back door and no one would have been any the wiser, no one would have seen her. And with no proof to the contrary that's all we can assume she did. I just wish I knew why...
The phone rings, making us all jump. I look around. Everyone is exchanging uneasy glances. Lisa to Helena, Helena to Amy, Amy to Jenny, to Tim and Danny and finally to me. I look away. I hear Danny give another hiss through his teeth, and turn my head enough to watch him snatch up the phone.
"Hello." He says shortly. He listens for a moment, but his face is a mask, devoid of any emotion, devoid of any clue as to who is calling and why. "Right. Okay. Okay. Yes. Yes I understand." he growls. I wonder if I'm the only one who hears the unspoken words 'fucking well' between 'I' and 'understand' as he grits his teeth. "Right." He hangs up and slams the phone into it's cradle without so much as a 'thankyou' or 'goodbye'. Reassuringly typical Danny. I scan his face for any trace of what he's thinking... But there's nothing.
"What did they want?" Lisa asks quietly, breaking the heavy, smothering silence that had descended upon us. The question hangs in the air as those of us who didn't already figure it out, figure it out; it was the police. I swallow, and watch as Danny looks over to her. I clench my hands into fists as he has to take a breath before he continues.
"They've found a note. They say it's a kidnapping."
Chapter 56 ; Contents ; Chapter 58
