Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy

business. I wouldn’t tell him nothing. Even if I knew where she was.”
    “Even if he offered you money?”
    “Nah, not me,” one of them said.
    “How much though? I only see him offering tenners,” another said.
    “It’s an interesting point,” Frankie said, sitting upright, getting into the argument. “How much would it take for you to grass on someone.”
    “And there’s the other issue,” someone else said. “Surely the parents have got a right to know?”
    “If you knew where she was and there was a reward of a hundred quid – would you tell?”
    The argument went on but Alice had stopped listening. She drank more of her beer, holding the glass in front of her face. The detective was holding his hand out as the girl counted his change. He said something to her and then in his other hand, as if by magic, there was a piece of paper which he gave her to look at. The photograph of JJ, Alice was sure.
    The girl looked at it for a few moments and then shook her head. He took it back, putting it into one of the giant pockets of his jacket. He turned away from the bar in her direction. He was holding three pints of beer in a kind of triangle between his two hands. He caught her eye for a second and she looked away, back to Frankie, who was leaning forward, cutting the air with his hand, arguing a point with the others.
    Out of the corner of her eye she could see him place the drinks on a nearby table. She put her glass back and let herself glance in his direction.
    He was still looking at her. His face a little confused. His eyebrows tensed.
    She looked away, holding her breath for a moment. Then she picked her glass up again. She held it steadily although she didn’t drink any. She looked from Frankie to the others, all looking relaxed and arguing about how much money it would take to betray someone. Thirty pieces of silver, perhaps.
    Had he recognized her? Had he been looking at her photograph for so long that she had become like a real flesh person? Never mind that she had had her hair cropped and lost weight since then. She had the same eyes, the same lips, the same pale skin. She was JJ.
    Suddenly she couldn’t sit there for another minute. She stood up, knocking the table slightly, the glasses clinking together, some of the beer spilling over the edge. The lads all looked at her.
    “Whoa!” Frankie said. “Careful.”
    “I’m just going to the toilet,” she said.
    The noise in the bar seemed louder, the smell stronger, the floor more sticky. She didn’t feel well, she needed to be outside, in the fresh air. But as she moved away from the table the detective stepped across and blocked her way. She had no choice but to stop and look up at him.
    “Excuse me,” he said. “I know you, don’t I?”
    She stood very still, not answering him, focusing on his puffy cheeks, his hair, slicked down and pulled back into a ponytail.
    “I do, I’m sure. I know you from somewhere!”
    She opened her mouth to speak. Could it be this simple? To be found out here, in this bar, in front of everyone? To have her new life end in seconds, her feet stuck to the floor of a tatty bar in front of dozens of drunken students.
    “I . . . I. . .”
    He smiled suddenly and clicked his fingers in a dramatic way.
    “You work in the coffee place by the station. You found some of my papers one day.”
    “Yes,” she said, the tension draining out of her so that she felt lightheaded. As though she might float up and away.
    “I must pop in again,” he said. “Next time I’m round there.”
    Then he turned and went back to his table and she stumbled on out to the toilet. Once inside she splashed her face with water and stood bent over the sink, letting the droplets fall off, ignoring the sound of people coming in and out behind. Let them think she was drunk, she didn’t care.
    The argument at the table had finished when she got back and the lads were sitting quietly, their beers in front of them. One of them was passing a