Our Sister of Blackthorn
So, a huge shout-out and thank you to everyone who’s subscribed since the last episode. If you haven’t done it yet, please do—your support is what keeps us going!
This week I’m going to be touching on something more personal.
Those of you who’ve met me outside of this podcast will probably know that I started Presumed Missing because of something that happened when I was sixteen.
If you listened closely to our first episode, you’ll have heard me dedicate it to Emma Lawley.
It’s Emma’s story that I’m going to tell today.
Where to start?
With the important part, I guess. Emma was my best friend. We’d been friends since she came to our school in…year eight, I think? It was one of those immediate friendships that form when you’re young—the kind of friendship that encompasses your whole world.
Emma’s mum had got divorced, and they’d moved from Coventry.
They lived one street down from us, on the edge of the Blackthorn Estate.
A little maisonette, but plenty big enough for the two of them.
I remember listening to music together in their backyard, the great concrete cliff of Speedwell House casting a shadow over their scrap of lawn.
I spent more time there than I did in my own house, which makes everything that happened later so much more difficult to talk about…
But yeah, we were besties, me and Em. Emma and Sophie, two peas in a pod.
Emma Lawley disappeared on June 7th 2013, a Friday.
Me and her were meant to hang out at The Rooster, our local, with a couple of boys we were seeing: James Berry and Simon Orton.
Simon was my date—we’d gone to the Odeon in town a couple of times, but nothing serious.
James and Emma had more of a history: six months the previous year, followed by a messy break-up when she caught him snogging someone at a party (I won’t name them here, they know who they are!), then a couple of months back together before she vanished.
And yes, of course the police looked into James.
He was the first to be interviewed. Emma told her mum she was going to his flat on the Blackthorn Estate, and that we were meeting up later.
She left home about five p.m., but according to statements given by James and his dad, she never showed up.
He came to The Rooster at seven, expecting to find her there…
Anyway—you know what we do here at Presumed Missing .
Revisit the statements, talk to the witnesses.
In Emma’s case, I’m heading back to Blackthorn to talk to James.
My train was cancelled, so it’s been a long journey to get here—but three bus rides and a thirty-minute hike later, I’m finally standing on the streets where Emma and I grew up.
I won’t lie, it feels strange being back.
And James Berry? Well, we’ll see.
* * *
Jim lifts the kettle from its stand and waits while the hissing dies away. Pours the water in, then adds sugar—and another, for good measure.
None of this is going to be easy.
He’d recognized Sophie’s name as soon as the email landed in his inbox.
Of course he had—they’d been close, the four of them, before everything that happened with Em.
He rubs at his eye with the heel of his hand.
Blinks away the tears. They’d had a few good months there.
Maybe the last good months he had, before it all went to shit.
Taking his coffee through to the living room, Jim stares at a photo of his dad on the mantelpiece until he realizes the mug is scalding his hand. Placing it down, he turns the picture to face the wall.
Fuck him. Fuck the lot of them.
Beyond his door the estate whispers and groans in the wind, plastic sheets snapping like sails. Like lungs taking a labored breath.
* * *
I’m standing now on one of the balconies at Speedwell House. This is the block that James Berry lived in, back in 2013. Right slap in the middle of the Blackthorn Estate.
It’s exactly as you’d imagine it, really.
If you’ve seen one block of council flats, you’ve seen them all.
Blackthorn was built in a U-shape, with a small patch of grass in the middle—as I look down on it, it’s mostly mud.
There are clusters of litter here and there, packets and cans…
I think I can make out a couple of abandoned pizza boxes too, their corners chewed off by foxes or rats.
The balcony itself is a solid concrete ledge jutting out from the cliff of the building, the railings rusted and—Oh.
Okay, so a piece just came off in my hand as I said that! Moving swiftly on…
No one really looks after these old council estates, do they?
I can see two doors that are boarded up, the flats presumably empty.
Broken windows. They all have that wire mesh in the glass, to keep them from shattering?
Well, I can see one on the floor below where that doesn’t seem to have been enough—it looks like someone has gone at it with a hammer.
Back in 2013, I didn’t come here as much as Emma did, but I don’t remember it being like this.
We… Well, we were better off than the families here on the estate, I guess.
Even the maisonette that Emma and her mum lived in was nicely kept, a proper home.
Blackthorn always felt…edgier. The kids weren’t exactly rough—James was one of the politest guys I knew—but we weren’t supposed to go onto the estate after dark.
Had Emma been here at night? Almost certainly, I’d say—but I’m not sure her parents knew.
We did plenty that our parents didn’t know about back then.
Right, I’m at James Berry’s door. Before I knock, just to explain—I haven’t seen him since a year after Em went missing.
I’ve been to this flat a few times before, maybe four, or five…
not many, anyway. I met his dad—a tall man, thin.
He looked ancient to me at the time, although I guess he must have been about fifty.
In his emails, James told me he passed away five years ago.
I can’t believe…standing here, it’s all coming back, you know? I’d better knock…
James? Hi. Hi, it’s Sophie? Good to see you after so long. Shall we go in?
* * *
Jim watches as she taps at her phone, opening some app or other, connecting to the mic she has perched between them on the sofa cushion.
Sophie hasn’t changed with the years, not really.
Not to look at. Her face has filled out a little, sure, her hair thicker and cut short—but it’s like having the old her sitting in his living room again.
He half expects Em to follow her in through the door.
Placing his hands beneath his thighs, he tries his hardest to keep them from shaking. The coffee’s bitter at the back of his throat, refusing to go down.
“Okay…” Sophie draws it out, her manicured nails still tap-tapping at the screen. “I think…yes, looks like we’re all set. Are you good? To talk, I mean?”
Jim grunts in the affirmative. He’s very far from good.
“So, can you explain for the people listening what your relationship was with Emma, at that time?”
He shakes his head. “You’ve not told them?”
“I’d like to hear it in your own words, if that’s okay. What were things like between the two of you?” Sophie leans toward him, trying to get closer to the microphone. “I remember you being on, then off, then on again, but you seemed…well, I’ll let you tell it.”
“Things were good. I mean, she were annoyed with me still. Over, y’know, with Jackie. But we were okay, yeah. We’d been making plans for the summer.”
“Really? What sort of plans? I didn’t know that.”
Jim stares at the mantel, and the photo turned to the wall. “Just—just planning, y’know? Thought we’d maybe go to Europe backpacking or something. To get out of here, mainly. Do something fun. It hadn’t got far, and anyway—well, clearly nothing came of it. Just stupid stuff, really.”
“And she seemed okay to you? Happy?”
“Em? Yeah, always the brightest spark, she was. She burned brighter than most—you know that.” He pauses. “She seemed happy to you too, right? In those days before?”
“She did.”
“Well, you were as close to her as anyone. Honestly, I don’t really know what you’re hoping to get out of this, Sophie. You know as well as me that they never found nothing. Better forgotten, my dad said to me. Forget about her. Move on.”
“And have you?”
He’s suddenly very aware of the low-level noises all around them: the whisper of breeze beneath the front door, the skittering of litter in the corridors. There’s a bang from somewhere deep in the building.
“Not really, no. Not completely. It’s good of you to come back and see me, though.
You’re looking well. Not like this place.
Fucking council leaving it to rot, hoping we’ll all move out so they can knock it down.
We won’t, though. This is our home, right?
I want to say that, if I’m going to be on your podcast: the Blackthorn Estate is our home, and we ain’t moving.
Not after everything we’ve done to be here, everything we’ve sacrificed.
It wouldn’t be right with Emma’s memory, would it? ”
Sophie shifts even closer to him. Close enough for him to reach out and grab her, if he wanted. “What do you mean by that?”
“Just…just what I said. It’s our home.”
“But it wasn’t Emma’s home, was it? Did she come here often? I didn’t realize her disappearance hit the estate community so hard.”
Something snaps. He stands, knocking the microphone off the sofa. His hands still won’t calm down, so he thrusts them, hard, into the pockets of his jeans. “I’ll fetch us some coffee—sorry, I should have offered. You want a cup? Or tea?”
“Sure—but can you tell me about Emma?”
Jim shouts through from the kitchen, his smile collapsing as soon as he’s out of sight. Reaching for a clean mug, he can’t help clattering them against each other, the noise like crashing cymbals in his head.