The mug of freshly prepared and slightly burnt coffee thudded against the aged desk, followed by a drawn-out groan of an office chair accepting its purpose once more, all ninety-four kilograms of it. The man opened his laptop, dealt with all the security software they had to use, and navigated to his email inbox.
And after scanning the new messages, he realized that, for the first time in four months, none of them had been about that disappearance.
Of course, that was destined to happen, eventually. No case, however bombastic, keeps a hold of the media grip forever—and aside from the mystery factor included in this one, it was almost remarkably boring. A young woman disappears in the middle of the woods after tossing all her belongings away. Said belongings are then discovered by a since-exposed travel vlogger, and the case blows up on the internet before traditional media catch a whiff. And then, for a few weeks afterwards, the entire anglophone world follows every update from the police investigation; a million people ask themselves:
"What happened to Sue Mullins?"
The man cast an overlong glance at the chalkboard crammed in the corner of his office; the chaotic notes covering it had not been updated in well over a month.
There were some developments at the start: a bizarre find of gold dust in the immediate area, witness testimonies that strongly implied foul play. Each one sent the readers' imagination running, for none of it had an obvious answer. Or any answer, really. Media commentators and other societal leeches had to suggest more and more nonsensical theories to make sense of the findings, none of them falsifiable, of course. It was quite a sad day for print media when an alien abduction theory not only reached the front page of a national newspaper, but wasn't even the most insane hypothesis put to print that day.
Considering what came after, though, it was downright quaint in its nonsense. Sue Mullins was long since gone, but the world still demanded answers from her. At first, they were just pleas for her to come out of hiding, assurances that help was available whenever she chose to take it. But then, when no response manifested, the bargaining turned pointed, harassing. Scathing accusations of attention-seeking, aimed at a woman who was almost certainly a pile of bones at the bottom of a ditch by now.
People began to dig, and they were going to find something—regardless of whether there was anything to find to begin with.
The man rubbed his temples and focused back on the email inbox. Rote correspondence with tourism agencies, most of them annoyed that the investigation was still blocking access to some landmarks they were advertising in their tour brochures. A handful of questions about the forest park from a dozen ordinary people across a wide gradient of confusion, stupidity, and spelling ability. Yet another obvious phishing email that he futilely reported without a second glance.
The position of a public representative for a regional woodland authority was inherently deeply boring, essentially by definition. The disappearance threw a wrench into that boredom, and just for a moment, the man felt like he was a part of something greater. In a way, that 'greater' phenomenon still remained, though he'd long since made the wise decision to dive away from it. Judging by some of the gossip he heard at the office coffee machine, though, he might've been the exception and not the rule.
As far as he was concerned, not a single person in the world actually knew what had happened to that poor woman. People had their theories, even smart people—hell, even he had laid the groundwork of a pitch deck on a theory he would never ever tell another soul for as long as he lived. But on a practical level, the man figured that the most useful framing for her disappearance was just that. A random disappearance. The universe scratching its ass and forgetting she was supposed to be there. An act of God, almost. There was nobody to accuse and nobody to blame, unless one was willing to blame God. And even though he'd only gone to church twice in the past... well, a while, he still wasn't really comfortable with the idea.
Which was also true of the tabloids en masse, but in their case they went straight to blaming the poor girl herself. A presumed-dead victim had turned into a media spectacle, with every single part of her life scrutinized in search of evidence for each individual speaker's pet theory. And some of them weren't even misogynistic!
Her family, her upbringing, her university, the kinds of video games she played; everything was sifted through in pursuit of the silver bullet that explained it all. Only a single living grandparent whom the victim had never met? Obvious evidence of societal decay brought on by liberalism and gay rights. Inactive accounts on multiple forums dedicated to mental health issues? Bah, clearly she was just pretending to be insane on the day she disappeared to seek attention. Googled "should i say happy ramadan" once? Direct influence of those no-good migrants, maybe got herself involved in gang violence even! Maybe the middle of Galloway Forest was one of those 'no-go zones' all the most putrid people on the BBC kept scaremongering about.
It was frustrating to think about as a spectator, but outright disgusting to consider from the victim's perspective. Assuming she was somehow still alive, would she even want to let anyone know after all the vitriol that had been thrown her way? The man had no means of knowing, but he knew for damn sure that he wouldn't—
*ba-ping!*
REMINDER: URGENT: Soil sampling to be performed on 29.08.23 in regards to...
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he got the message last time. Yet another invasive procedure in search of something, ripping up the forest floor as if they hadn't sifted every single grain of dirt within half a mile of where that woman had disappeared already. Was there anything to be found anymore? He certainly doubted so. Would they find something anyway?
The man shuddered and gave another look at the manic conspiracy theory board in the corner. His coffee had gone cold.
He hoped they would not.