by Carla Kovach
Gina wondered why Mary was seemingly taking a more defensive tone. ‘You say you’ve tried to call her?’
Mary nodded and paused. She wiped her eyes. ‘I’ve been trying over and over again since picking Rory up from nursery yesterday. There’s no answer. The call just goes straight to voicemail. I’ve left a couple of messages. This isn’t like her, you have to believe me.’
‘Of course I believe you, Mary.’ Gina paused. ‘Has anything like this ever happened before?’
Mary went to speak but then closed her mouth and stared in the direction of the cabinet in the corner of the room.
‘Mary?’ For the first time in Gina’s experience, Mary’s house was silent, just like Mary.
Mary shook her head. ‘Sorry, no. This has never happened before.’
Too long. In Gina’s book that meant the woman was lying, but why? ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes. What do you take me for? My daughter would never leave her two-year-old at nursery.’
The kitchen door creaked open and Clare walked in. Gina watched as the older daughter stared at her mother. Clare had similar features to Susan but she was thicker set all over, her hair short and straightened, eyebrows more defined with dark make-up.
Mary began to tremble. ‘Please find her. And no, she wouldn’t go anywhere without telling me and she wouldn’t leave her children. I don’t know any more than that.’
Clare awkwardly shuffled from one foot to another, like she was waiting for them to leave.
‘Of course. We’ll keep you informed of anything we find. Can I please have Susan’s husband’s address?’
The woman’s shoulders dropped with relief as she noted down Ryan’s details. Gina felt a tingle on her neck, a slight chill breaking up the sweat that was coming over her. Young missing mother of three, going through pressured times – anything could have happened to her. In her book, that wasn’t a good enough reason to vanish. The tingle turned into a shudder as several unsavoury scenarios ran through Gina’s mind.
‘There is something else.’ Mary paused. ‘I heard Susan arguing with Ryan on the phone, telling him he deserved everything that was coming to him after what he put her through. I tried to ask her what it was all about but she said it didn’t concern me. She’s also been swanning off a lot lately and leaving me with the kids but she always comes back when she says she’s coming back.’
‘Do you know where she’s been going?’
She shook her head. ‘I wish I did. It’s not that I didn’t ask, she just avoided answering. She has this serious, vacant look about her all the time. Something was happening in her life, I just don’t know what. She wouldn’t talk to me. I put it down to the divorce as she’s only been like this since announcing it, but maybe there was something else.’
Gina’s mind whirred into action as she held Mary’s gaze for a moment. Clare looked away and sighed. Which bit of the story of Susan Wheeler were they holding back? Maybe the husband would have something to add.
Four
As the police drove away, Mary stared out of the window into the dark garden, sensing Clare’s disappointment.
‘You should have said something.’ Clare opened the cupboard and pulled out a packet of custard creams.
‘How can you eat at a time like this? You hate her, don’t you?’
Clare began crunching on the biscuit. ‘I hate the way she always has you running around for her, at her beck and call.’
Mary shrugged. Her oldest had asked for it now. ‘Like I do with you! I do so much for Harrison and you. I’ve taken you in, I support you; I look after him a lot of the time so that you can have a life. This was meant to be my time. Howard wanted to retire soon and all we wanted was a peaceful existence but no, you’ve come back and filled my life with chaos—’
‘There goes my point. You’d never say all that to Susan, the golden child. Susan can do no wrong. Don’t forget who gave you all those sleepless nights years ago. It wasn’t me, was it?’ She threw the biscuits at a tin of beans and slammed the cupboard door. ‘Oh and now I know how you feel, I’ll be looking to move out as soon as possible. You and Howard can be all on your own without me and my problem son. I’m sick of you and Susan ganging up on me anyway, picking away at me. No, I never went to college and no I’ve never had a good job and I’ve made mistakes. You always loved her more than me. I’m the disappointment of the family, clearly.’
Mary placed a hand on Clare’s arm. ‘We’re not picking on you. We just want to help you find a job. You’re my daughter and I love—’
‘Don’t even say it. You hate me being here and you’re always having a go at my son.’
Harrison’s behavioural issues had been a challenge for them all and she sympathised with what Clare had to put up with. Her grandson annoyed her and she felt he lacked discipline but was she having a go at him all the time? Is that how it came across? It was hard and it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Clare was right in a way. Susan had always had most of her attention throughout their lives but that didn’t mean she loved Clare less. Susan had been the poorly behaved child who Mary had bent over backwards for and gave all her attention to. She had neglected Clare. Her stomach knotted as the guilt sank in. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to upset—’
‘You never do.’ Clare hit both of her palms on the worktop and walked out of the room, slamming the kitchen door as she went. Harrison began calling for her. The peace was all but gone, if it had ever arrived.
‘Oh come here, love.’ Howard entered and placed his arm around her, pulling her close. ‘The police will find her. She can’t be far and I’m sure everything will be fine.’
She pushed away from him. ‘That’s the problem, everyone thinks this is all nothing.’
‘Did you tell the police about what happened? You know, in the past.’
Mary shook her head. ‘I couldn’t. They won’t look for her if I tell them. I know something’s different this time. She wouldn’t just leave Rory and the girls when she said she’d pick them up. She wouldn’t, it would be like her right arm had been cut off.’
‘I’m sorry. Come here. You’re right, my love.’ He once again pulled her in and she allowed him to stroke her hair and comfort her, his warmth making her feel safe at that very moment. Maybe she was wasting police time and maybe Susan would turn up tomorrow or the next day, or even the day after; but what if she didn’t? What if Mary hadn’t said a thing to the police and something had happened? Just because the rest of the family wasn’t taking her disappearance too seriously, it didn’t mean she couldn’t. This time felt different, and she would find out why. She had to find the spare key to Susan’s house, the one she’d used a couple of years ago to water the plants when the family had gone on holiday. She’d put it somewhere. The answers were there and she had to be the one to look for them.
Five
‘I’ll be back at the station in a few minutes. We need to speak to the husband before he goes to work in the morning and I’d like to see Susan’s house. Also, put out an ANPR on Susan’s car. Make the calls.’ She ended the hands-free call with Jacob and continued driving in the dark. She hadn’t planned her next visit but Mary had been the catalyst for it. She’d missed spending time with her mother.
Gina placed the carnations on the passenger seat and began driving along the dark country lanes, back towards civilisation. Soon, she would go back to her past, the very past she’d tried so hard to forget and she only had herself to blame for this one.
She thought of Hannah, her daughter, with whom her relationship was turbulent most of the time. Hannah had abandoned her and moved to Gloucestershire and Gina couldn’t even start to judge her for that. After all, Gina had abandoned her own mother. She wondered if her mother would be proud of her if she were still alive. She died thinking that Gina was a failure but life had changed so much after. She’d brought Hannah up alone, studied and worked hard to become a detective inspector.
As she snaked the car along the lanes with only her headlig
hts lighting up the country roads, she felt her head pounding. She’d grab a quick coffee at the station, the lack of caffeine running through her blood was evident.
The carnations were already beginning to wilt but they were the only bunch for sale at the garage.
Flecks of frost on the road sparkled like miniscule diamantés in the light’s beam. Long naked branches reached across the hedgerows – reminding her of Jack Frost’s fingers, alluring but deadly should they enthral her with their shimmering beauty, causing her to take her mind off the icy roads beneath. She pressed her foot on the brake pedal, slowing down a little. The winter sun that had blessed the day was long gone. She felt the extent of that frost, creeping over the nape of her neck and down her spine. Shivering, she turned the heating up but the car merely spurted out more cold air. It needed running a lot longer than a few minutes to warm up.
The bend came quickly and the carnations rolled into the passenger footwell as she applied more pressure to the brakes. As she reached for the flowers mid-skid, the car hurtled towards the hedge. Steering failing. Tyres having no grip. As she braced herself, the tyres gripped the road just in time. She slammed the brakes stopping just before the hedge. Heart hammering against her chest, she held the flowers in one hand, gripping them, hugging them close to her heart. She wasn’t losing them, they were all she had to offer her mother. She glanced at them, realising what a pitiful effort they were.
The lights of the station shone in the distance. Buck up, Gina. She shook her shoulders out, trying to relieve the tension, ready to present ‘in control’ Gina to her colleagues. Foot back on the pedal, she took it slowly, all the way to the station.
Six
Gina passed her office and headed along the corridor to where Kapoor and Detective Sergeant Jacob Driscoll were having coffee.
Kapoor wafted a piece of paper in the air. ‘I’ve found out the registration, guv.’
‘And all units have been informed. Hopefully someone will spot the car or the ANPR will pick it up if she’s on the move.’ Jacob loosened his tie.
If she turned up in the area, the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system would flag Susan up, then they’d know where to start looking. ‘Nice one. You should both head home and get some sleep. I don’t think there’s much more we can do tonight.’
Kapoor nodded, finished her coffee and smiled.
Gina placed her cold hands in her pockets. ‘Thinking about it though, I don’t trust the family. When I asked Mary if anything like this had happened before, she was hesitant. What aren’t they telling us?’
Kapoor shrugged and Jacob listened intently.
‘We should try to locate her phone. Will you get that in motion and let me know if you hear anything?’
Jacob nodded. ‘’Course, guv. I’ll get that done before I leave.’
Kapoor yawned. ‘I’ll guess I’ll see you both in the morning.’
Gina nodded. They both needed a good night’s sleep. Hopefully she’d wake up to hear that Susan had come home. ‘See you then, for the big day.’
Kapoor smiled. ‘I know, I can’t wait. Eek, I’m so excited, guv. Catch you tomorrow.’
As she listened to Kapoor’s booted feet getting quieter, she pondered over any reasons that Susan may have for not telling anyone where she was. She was going through a divorce. Was it all plain sailing or had there been a lot of animosity? Maybe Susan was battling to stay afloat, having to manage her income closer, especially as she was self-employed with no fixed income. Maybe looking after three children alone had overwhelmed her. Gina had brought Hannah up singlehandedly. Doing that for one child had been a challenge, one she never regretted but still a challenge nonetheless. After Terry, she vowed never to bring a man into their lives. It was just her and Hannah back then.
Her mind wandered back to Mary. She couldn’t get the image of her twiddling her hair around her finger out of her head.
‘I’ll see you nice and early, guv. I called Ryan Wheeler and we need to be there at the crack of dawn. Then I called Mary Hudson. She said she was heading to her daughter’s house tomorrow. She said we could accompany her. That will be a bit later in the morning.’
‘Thanks, Jacob. You best get home then.’
‘I’ll meet you at his, shall we say at seven?’
She grimaced. ‘See you then.’
He took his and Kapoor’s cups as he left.
Gina’s thoughts flitted back to Mary and Clare. She hoped that Susan would come home safely and in one piece and whatever secret the family were holding back would forever remain none of her business.
‘You still here?’ She flinched as she felt DCI Brigg’s breath on her neck. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.’
She smiled and turned. He looked as tired as she felt. His hair had flopped over his forehead.
‘Fancy a drink on the way home? You can tell me all about the new case.’
‘Best not. I’ll update the system as soon as I get home.’
‘Okay. It was just about the case, not about us.’ He took a slight step back.
She knew he always held out hope of rekindling their secret relationship but she wasn’t going to encourage him, despite every bone in her body wanting him to come back to hers. ‘I know. It’s just I have something to do.’ She couldn’t hide the heaviness in her heart or the longing she felt to be somewhere else at that exact moment as she buttoned up her coat and stood there, ready to leave.
‘Are you okay?’
‘That question again. I’m not going to be okay if you keep asking me if I’m okay.’
His shoulders dropped. ‘I can just see that you have something on your mind. You’re doing that thing – your temples, they twitch like you’re grinding your teeth. That’s how I can always tell.’
She unclenched her teeth. ‘I need to go.’ She hurried past him and out of the station. What she had to do couldn’t wait.
Seven
Gina laid the carnations on the headstone and sat in the dark, alone. The only thing she could hear was the traffic in the distance. She flinched as an owl hooted overhead. A chill ran through her body but she wasn’t ready to leave, not for a while. She owed her mother this much. ‘Hello, Mum, I’ve missed you.’ She took a sip of the cooled hot chocolate that she’d bought from the petrol station, enjoying what was left as it slid down her throat. She closed her eyes and tried to picture her mother then gasped as Mary replaced the image she had in her mind’s eye. She opened her eyes again and shivered.
‘You wouldn’t believe how big Hannah is now. I have a daughter who is in her twenties and I’m a grandmother. That happened a bit earlier than I’d hoped, but she’s a wonderful little girl. She has our eyes.’ Gina smiled and took another sip of chocolate. As she tried to swallow, a lump stuck in her throat. ‘Gracie’s beautiful, Mum. I wish you were here to see her. We could have taken her to the park together, ate cake, fed ducks, all the fun things I remember us doing. You should still be here with us.’ She looked up at the stars as she willed the tears to go back to where they came from. At least in the dark, no one could see her crying – not that there was anyone around to hear her crying. She could double up and sob until she had nothing more to give and no one would ever know, but she wouldn’t do that.
‘You would have been seventy.’ She paused, placing her hand on the shimmering frost that had formed over the top of the headstone. ‘There’s something I want to say, I need to say it. I’m so, so, sorry that I didn’t come to see you when you were poorly. I didn’t expect you to—’
She couldn’t say it aloud, even though there was no one around to hear. She couldn’t risk the breeze carrying her words across the graveyard, delivering them to someone who could use them against her. She couldn’t tell her mother what Terry had done either, how he controlled her with fear, how he manipulated her to feel as though it was all her fault, how he’d broken her both physically and mentally. By the time her mother had died, she was a mere puppet and he controlled the script that was their live
s in the tragedy that she had ultimately triumphed in. She tried not to think about how they had ended. An image of her dead husband flashed through her mind as she choked on the hot chocolate.
She had no words to express the regret that she’d been carrying around. Her mother had been right. She’d told Gina that Terry had seemed a little too demanding of her attention and time. Her lovely mother had always kept her door open, waiting for her return but going home would have been equal to admitting she’d failed. Instead, like so many people in her position, she’d stuck with Terry in the hope that he’d change. Gina wondered if her relationship with Hannah would have been better had Nanny Harte been in their lives.
Gina grabbed a stone from the grave and gripped it until she felt its jagged edge piercing the delicate skin on her palm. Regrets weren’t getting her anywhere and the pain in her hand wasn’t relieving the pain in her mind. Her mother was gone and Gina was all alone. She had let her mother down and she hadn’t been there for her father either when he’d turned to the bottle, eventually drinking himself to death. Both died in the same year. Blood seeped out of the gaps in her fist. The stone was sharp and she deserved every bit of discomfort that she was going through. As a tear trickled down her cheek, the shrill sound of her phone ringing felt as though it were filling the graveyard.
‘Harte.’ She blew her nose and waited for the caller to speak.
‘Harte?’
‘Briggs.’ She’d only left him at the station a short while back. If he was calling to ask her if she was okay again, she was going to lose it with him.
‘Where are you?’
She shrugged her shoulders. He’d called to ask her that.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I was a bit worried about the way you hurried off.’
