ago. She was riding home from school but never got there. We were fifteen. I’d already lost her before that; when we were both in Year 7 our paths began to diverge. But she was a determining factor in my life. She still is—she’s beginning to dominate my thoughts again.
From the beginning of primary school Isabel was my best friend and we were inseparable. We spent hours in her bedroom. Isabel had a really cool table and chairs where we’d install ourselves with coke, nachos and dipping sauce. We’d listen to music and chat about everything we were interested in: friendship, love, her first bra, who in class had had her first period and who hadn’t.
I can still remember how it felt when we began to grow apart.
Isabel and I were both twelve and starting secondary school. We’d ride there together, and enter separate worlds. I would fade into the background and Isabel would blossom. The moment she rode in to the school grounds there was a clear change in her posture. She sat up straighter, stopped giggling, and would look around her with an almost queenly arrogance. Even the older boys looked at her.
Isabel began to dress differently. She was already a B cup when my hormones were still asleep and I still had a helmet brace. She had her long, dark hair cut off and started wearing a leather jacket and ripped jeans; she had her nose and navel pierced.
One day she rode away from me the second we got into the school grounds, she locked her bike quite far from mine, and walked towards the others with a self-confidence which won her attention and respect.
I didn’t dare go after her. I could only look on at Isabel and the other girls from my class. They were all tall and slim and dressed alike in tight tops which showed off their bellies. Long hair, dyed blonde or red, floated around their heads or was casually tied up, with refined wisps, which framed their sun-tanned faces. They all smoked, and chatted in a language I didn’t speak.
I realised that I’d been missing something they’d all been aware of and that it was too late to change.
Isabel had epilepsy, but very few people knew. Her really bad fits were controlled by medicine, but sometimes she’d have blackouts or light fits. I could usually tell if one was coming. If she had time, she’d give me a sign, but mostly I’d see it in her blank expression or in the twitches in her hands.
When we were still riding to school and back together, sometimes we’d have to stop because a black-out was coming. I’d lay our bikes on the roadside and we’d sit down on the grass, if necessary in the pouring rain, in our waterproof jackets. After a bad attack, Isabel would be really tired and I’d push her home on her bike.
It was like this for a long time but our friendship would always end the moment we entered the school grounds.
On the day she disappeared we hadn’t been friends for two years. That’s why I was riding quite a way behind her when we left the school. She was with Miriam Visser who she was hanging out with a lot at the time, and I didn’t feel like latching on. They wouldn’t have appreciated it either. I needed to go the same way and slowed down so that I wouldn’t catch up with them. Isabel and Miriam were riding slowly, hands on each other’s arms. I can still see their straight backs and hear their carefree voices. It was nice weather; summer was in the air.
At a certain point, Miriam had to turn right and Isabel and I would usually carry straight on. Miriam did indeed turn right but so did Isabel. I followed them, I don’t know why because it wasn’t my usual route. I was probably thinking of going home through the dunes, something my parents had forbidden because the dunes were so isolated. But I did go that way quite often even so.
We rode behind each other to the Jan Verfailleweg which led to the dunes. Miriam lived in one of the side streets. She turned off and held up her hand to Isabel who continued alone. This surprised me. I’d been expecting Isabel to go to Miriam’s house.
I carried on behind Isabel, keeping a safe distance. She dismounted for a red light at an intersection. I stopped pedalling, hoping that the light would quickly turn green. It would be embarrassing to find ourselves next to each other and to have to find something to say. Then a small van stopped behind her shielding me as I drew closer. The light turned green and the van set off in a cloud of exhaust fumes. Isabel got back on her bike and went on her way. If I’d also gone straight I would have ended up right behind her and I didn’t want that. I turned right and took a slight detour to the dunes.
That was the last time I saw Isabel.
My memories of the time are a little foggy. It is strange how unimportant details remain razor sharp in your mind, while everything of significance is lost. For example, I can’t remember anything else special about that day, just that I rode behind Isabel and Miriam and how trustingly they rested their hands on each other’s arm. I can’t even remember the moment I learned that Isabel was missing. I only know what my mother told me about it later. Our parents had known each other earlier when we were still best friends, but that had petered out too, with our friendship. That evening, Isabel’s mother had telephoned mine when Isabel didn’t come home. My mother came upstairs to my room where I was busy doing my homework and asked me if I knew where Isabel was. I said I didn’t. That didn’t surprise her—Isabel hadn’t been round for ages.
Isabel’s parents had called the police right away. A fifteen-year-old girl who had stayed out all night? She was probably at a friend’s house, the duty officer had said. Isabel’s father spent the whole night combing the village and neighbouring areas while her mother called everyone who knew her daughter.
When she hadn’t turned up after two days, the police got involved. The officers interviewed everyone within her circle of friends, but because I wasn’t part of that anymore they didn’t ask me anything. I couldn’t really have told them that much, only that I was the last person to have seen her, not Miriam Visser. But what difference did it make? Since I’d turned off early, I couldn’t be sure that she’d ridden home through the dunes.
With the help of the army, helicopters, tracker dogs and infrared scanners, the whole area was searched. Isabel’s mother and her neighbours stuck up missing posters in bus shelters, public places and in house windows.
They found no trace of Isabel.
At school it was obviously the subject of conversation. Everyone had something to say about it, but I can’t remember much. Robin once reminded me about the wild rumours that were being spread: she had been kidnapped, raped, murdered, perhaps all three. And if it could happen to her it could happen to anybody. Nobody thought that Isabel might have run away. She had nothing to run away from, after all. She was the most popular girl in the school.
Teachers who Isabel had recently had problems with were treated with suspicion. As were boys she’d dumped. The depths of the North Holland canals were searched and an aeroplane combed the beach. Police motorbike officers drove along all of the walking paths in the dune area from Huisduinen to Callantsoog.
Isabel’s parents were filmed for programs like Missing and The Five O’Clock Show. After each broadcast, the tip-offs would come pouring in and people from all over the country volunteered for a large scale search because the police were not prepared to provide the necessary manpower. The search took place. Part of the army joined in. Psychics tried to help. But Isabel was not found.
I must have really retreated into my own world since I can remember so little. Finally the excitement died down. Worries about forthcoming reports, having to retake classes, the next school year and all those other cares gained the upper hand. Life went on. That’s to say, it should have gone on, but I still wonder what happened to Isabel.
Not long ago, her case was reopened in Missing. I was surfing the channels and got a shock when Isabel’s smiling face and short dark hair appeared on the screen. Spell-bound, I watched the reconstruction of the day she disappeared. All possible gruesome scenarios were played out while Isabel’s face smiled down at me from a box in the top right of the screen.
‘There must be people who know something more about the disappearance of Isabel Hartman,’ the presenter said earnestly. ‘If you’d like to come forward, please call our team. The number is about to