by Keith Dixon
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE RAIN HAD STOPPED but the streets of Crewe were shiny and sleek, the Christmas windows glowing with neon cheer against the premature dark. Harassed shoppers stepped from doorway to doorway, avoiding puddles like antelopes picking their way through rocks.
From my office I phoned Brands and got Carol-the-receptionist straight away. She asked about Laura and I told her she was OK.
‘So how can I help?’ she asked.
‘When I spoke to Melissa Ball, she said that Tara had people she could talk to when she wanted to. Who did she mean?’
There was a pause. ‘I’m so stupid,’ she said. ‘I should sit in a corner with a cone on my head. I should have thought of her.’
‘Who?’
‘Suzi Hampshire—Tara’s executive coach.’
‘What’s one of those?’
She was hesitant. ‘I don’t really know. Lots of business people are doing it. Especially people in senior positions. Tara used to see her once a month. Either Suzi would come up from London or Tara would go down there. They’d talk for a couple of hours and for two days afterwards Tara would smile and be nice to us. Then it would wear off and we’d be where we were before. Do I sound cynical?’
‘Have you got her number?’
She looked it up and told me. I wrote it down then repeated it back to her.
I looked at what I’d written, then said, ‘Why does Suzi Hampshire’s name sound familiar?’
‘Well, she’s Eddie Hampshire’s wife, if that’s what you mean.’
The consultant who was sacked but was still working out his notice.
‘That’s interesting,’ I said.
‘It’s quite an interesting story. It was when Mr Hampshire was in the SAS. He went through some rough stuff and had to see a counsellor. That was Suzi. That’s when he met her.’
That was very interesting.
I called Suzi Hampshire and was about to leave a message on her answerphone when she picked up. I told her who I was and that I was investigating Tara’s disappearance.
‘Where are you?’ she asked. Her voice had the middle-class hard-edged tone of most medical practitioners I’d met, as though everyone had to obey her orders or there’d be hell to pay.
I told her where I was.
‘Can you get to Birmingham tomorrow?’ she asked. ‘I’m meeting a client mid-morning. I’m staying in the hotel—I could see you first thing after breakfast.’
She told me the name of her hotel and I said I’d be there for nine o’clock.
‘Hell of a thing,’ she said. ‘Rory, then Tara. Thank God there are no kids. Kids shouldn’t see their parents treated like this. They never get over it.’
‘It happens,’ I said, and hung up, wondering what I meant.
