by Paula Daly
18
‘THERE’LL BE REPERCUSSIONS, of course,’ Joanne said to Oliver Black as she swung the Focus out of the Blooms’ gateway and drove down the hill towards Applemead.
They could have walked. It was only a few hundred yards.
And Joanne should walk more. It was one of the few things she disliked about her job – the fact that it was almost completely sedentary. She had thought she covered quite a few miles in a day. In and out of the car, never standing still for long. She’d felt quite complacent when she had uploaded the step-counter app on to her phone, thinking she’d easily be covering more than the advised ten thousand paces.
In fact, she achieved less than two thousand, which was a total disgrace. If she stayed at home watching daytime TV she’d clock up more than that hunting for the remote control.
‘What do you suppose made Karen Bloom go and say a thing like that?’ Oliver asked.
‘You mean, “This is not some council-estate case”?’
Oliver nodded.
‘She is a bit bonkers. But I can see her way of thinking. She hopes that by pointing that out to the general public they won’t be dismissive about Brontë’s disappearance, they’ll take it seriously. Which they probably will now. Trouble is, they’ll hate her for it. Nothing worse than saying, “My child is more important than your child because we’ve got money.” ’
‘Do you think you should warn her of the repercussions?’
Joanne shrugged. ‘Probably.’
Joanne hadn’t been inside Applemead before. Her aunt had been employed there for a couple of years now, after becoming tired of working in community care. Actually, that wasn’t quite right. Jackie had loved community care, but the younger members of staff had become woefully unreliable, and Jackie would find herself covering for those who’d failed to turn up, often doing back-to-back shifts.
And she wasn’t getting any younger.
Jackie also had a crap pension, no savings and a large debt she didn’t like to talk about. So, short of a miracle, Jackie would be staying put in Joanne’s spare bedroom until well into her retirement.
Not that Joanne minded.
Well, sometimes she minded.
Oliver pressed the bell, and the door was opened by an immaculately dressed gentleman of around eighty, carrying an ivory-handled walking cane. Joanne presented her warrant card, and the man told her he was a volunteer. ‘Would you like to follow me through to the office?’ Joanne cast about for any signs of Jackie but she didn’t see her.
They waited outside the office, where a rather shrill-sounding lady was speaking on the telephone. ‘I appreciate it’s not an ideal situation, but it’s proving very difficult to keep the two of them apart. They say they’re quite in love…No, we’re not allowed to lock service users inside their bedrooms…Yes, I know it’s dreadfully upsetting, especially with your mother so recently deceased, Mrs Biddle…I do understand, honestly I do, but…’
The speaker tried to placate Mrs Biddle with more words of apology before ending the call. Joanne heard her sigh weightily before presenting herself to the detectives.
Smoothing down her pleated, Black Watch tartan kilt, she said, ‘So sorry to have kept you, but this is turning out to be one of those days.’ She introduced herself as Esther George. She had a nervous smile, and said it was she who had made the call to South Cumbria CID about the witness, Winnie van Breeda.
‘Winnie’s fairly lucid today,’ she told them, ‘but she has good days and bad days.’
‘Dementia?’ asked Joanne, and Esther nodded.
‘She’s quite the character,’ she said.
They followed Esther George along a prettily decorated corridor: antique occasional tables, tasteful prints on the walls – not at all institution-like – and made their way into a lounge at the back of the building. It was full of plants and books. There was no television. Winnie van Breeda sat alone in the bay window, gripping her handbag to her, as if there might be a thief on the loose.
There had been no mention of dementia when Joanne received the call about this witness, but she tried to remain positive. Most witnesses got things wrong anyway. White men became black. Beards became sunglasses.
People didn’t set out to deceive, but their memories were unreliable, especially when there was high emotion involved. So Joanne had learned to take descriptions with a pinch of salt, and it wasn’t until a set of features had been corroborated by two or three witnesses that she would take it seriously.
‘Winnie, here are the detectives I told you about,’ Esther George said loudly.
No reply. Winnie eyed them with distrust, pulling her handbag in a little tighter.
Winnie’s fine hair had been fashioned into a bun on the top of her head, but there wasn’t enough hair to hold it there. Joanne could see her scalp. It was covered in age spots and there was a dark, raised, circular mole above her right ear, the size of a five-pence piece. The kind the BBC website tells you to have checked by your GP but not to get unduly worried about.
‘How are you today, Mrs van Breeda?’ Joanne asked, thinking she may as well try to get the woman to talk, since she was here.
‘Dying,’ Winnie replied dryly.
Esther George huffed in mock-annoyance and bent at the waist, squeezing Winnie’s elbow with her hand. ‘You are most definitely not dying, Winifred van Breeda. You are in the best of health. Now shush with all that nonsense.’
Winnie threw Joanne and Oliver a pained look as if to say, See what I have to put up with? Esther babbled on, saying, ‘Now, Winnie, you need to tell the police officers exactly what it was you saw when the little girl went missing yesterday.’
Winnie shook her head.
‘Please, Winnie,’ pressed Esther. ‘They really need to find her. They need your help.’
But Winnie stood firm; she was not going to talk.
‘How about you tell us what Mrs van Breeda said?’ Joanne suggested to Esther.
‘She didn’t tell me anything. That’s the problem. After one of your officers showed her a photo of the child, she later told a member of staff that she saw who took the girl. But when I questioned Winnie about it, she refused to talk.’
‘Did she tell the member of staff what, exactly, she saw?’
‘No.’
‘Okay,’ said Joanne. ‘Then we have a problem.’
Joanne glanced around the room, hoping that an answer to their dilemma might present itself. When her eyes drifted back towards Winnie van Breeda, Joanne saw that the woman was staring right at her. Staring intently, as if trying to will some information across the space between them.
Joanne smiled. She tried to make Winnie feel more at ease with her presence and, in return, Winnie angled her head towards Esther, narrowing her eyes and thinning her lips.
She wanted Esther out of the room.
‘Would it be possible to get some tea?’ Joanne said to Esther. ‘If it wouldn’t be too much trouble. It might just settle Mrs van Breeda enough to talk.’
‘Tea? Of course. I’ll need to find another body to replace me, though. We don’t allow our vulnerable service users to be alone for longer than a moment with people they don’t know.’
Esther left the room, and Joanne took out her notepad. When she looked at Winnie, she saw that she was smiling triumphantly.
‘Are you ready?’ Joanne asked, and Winnie said, ‘I am.’
Winnie shifted in her seat, straightening her spine as if readying herself for a job interview, then uncrossed her ankles, before asking Oliver if he would mind placing the footstool beneath her feet. Oliver obliged, and Joanne got the sense that Winnie was enjoying the attention.
‘You’re a handsome man,’ she said to Oliver as he squatted by her knees. ‘A very handsome man, indeed. Are you married?’
‘I’m afraid I am.’
‘And is she good to you?’
‘Very,’ he said.
Joanne heard footsteps in the hallway and turned to see Jackie enter the room. Her au
nt looked harried. Her face was slick with sweat and she had a tea towel slung over her forearm. ‘Will this take long?’ she asked, and Joanne was about to tell her she wasn’t sure how long it would take, was about to introduce her new colleague, when Winnie said to Jackie, ‘Oh, it’s you. I don’t want you.’
Jackie remained impassive, as if she’d heard all this before.
‘Why don’t you want me, Winnie?’ she asked, goading.
‘Because I don’t like your face.’
‘Well, that’s not very nice. It’s the only face I’ve got. It’s not like I can change it, can I?’
‘Well you should, because it’s appalling,’ said Winnie, folding her arms.
Jackie shook her head and sank down heavily on the sofa opposite. She used the tea towel to dab at her forehead. ‘You need to be firm with her,’ she warned Joanne. ‘Be firm with her, or she’ll run rings round you. Used to be a schoolmistress. Didn’t you, Winnie?’
Winnie scowled in the direction of the window.
‘Bet you were a real tyrant with those poor kids, weren’t you?’ Jackie said.
‘I shan’t speak to you, you vulgar woman,’ said Winnie.
‘Good,’ replied Jackie.
Joanne raised her eyebrows at Oliver. ‘Meet my aunt,’ she said, and Oliver smiled in Jackie’s direction. They were getting nowhere fast. Perhaps Oliver should try questioning Winnie, since she seemed so charmed by him.
Joanne gave Oliver a look to indicate: Your witness? and he nodded his assent, taking a seat in the high-backed chair next to Winnie.
‘Mind if I ask you a couple of things, Mrs van Breeda?’ he said, and, of course, she was all smiles.
‘Not in the least,’ she answered.
Joanne could hear Jackie tutting from across the room.
‘Yesterday, when Brontë disappeared, you say that you saw—’
‘Who?’
‘Brontë Bloom,’ replied Oliver. ‘The missing girl.’
‘They called her Brontë?’ Winnie asked incredulously. ‘After Charlotte Brontë?’
‘Or Emily,’ supplied Joanne.
Winnie snapped her head around and gave Joanne a glare. ‘I always preferred Jane Eyre. Cathy Earnshaw was a silly fool, and I had little time for her.’ Then she said, ‘They really called her Brontë?’
‘Yes,’ replied Oliver patiently. ‘They really did.’
‘Fools themselves, then,’ she said.
‘So can you tell us what you saw yesterday afternoon?’ asked Oliver again.
‘Certainly. I was in the drawing room at the front of the building, sitting at the window, watching the world go by, as I often do after my afternoon cup of tea. The child you’re talking about came out of the park gates and stopped to talk to someone.’
‘How do you know the child was Brontë?’ Joanne interrupted.
‘Because I saw her photograph. How else do you suppose I knew it was her?’ She rolled her eyes at Joanne’s idiocy before continuing. ‘They talked for some time, and I was quite taken aback, because they seemed to be on familiar terms, and I thought this unusual. So you could say my interest was piqued, and I watched the two of them intently for as long as they remained there.’
‘And would you know this person if you were to see them again?’ asked Oliver.
‘I would. I’d recognize her anywhere.’
Joanne felt the first stirrings of excitement.
‘Do you know this person’s name, Mrs van Breeda?’ Joanne asked, thinking that, if they had a name, they were home and dry. She could have Brontë Bloom home within the hour.
Winnie van Breeda sat up a little taller in her seat.
‘I most certainly do know her name,’ she answered proudly.
Joanne held pen to paper in readiness.
‘She is the Queen of England,’ said Winnie.
19
FLEETINGLY, NOEL THOUGHT about his patients. He had called his partner, John Ravenscroft, just before six that morning, to tell him of Brontë’s disappearance and that he wouldn’t be at work. John typically rose sometime around 5 a.m., so Noel knew he’d be awake. John had remained uncharacteristically silent after Noel had imparted the news, and for a moment Noel wondered if he’d passed out from the shock.
‘John? You there?’ he’d asked, and John had answered solemnly, ‘I’m here. Just haven’t got any words for you, I’m afraid.’
‘There are no words.’
There was a locum they used in case of absences, Leonie Merritt. She was a plump, pleasant, horsey type from Keswick who smelled of hoof oil and wore old fleeces covered with animal hair. She’d given up full-time general practice when her fifth child was born, but she was happy to cover for absentees, as long as it wasn’t for more than a few days a month. The patients complained about her, though. Not because she was lacking but because they still stubbornly clung to the notion of a family doctor being available twenty-four/seven, all year round.
Noel wondered which patient she was treating now.
There was a knock at his home-office door. ‘Come in,’ he said, and Joanne Aspinall appeared. He’d been told she had gone to interview a potential witness.
‘Any joy?’ he said.
‘An unreliable witness, as it turned out.’
Noel’s heart sank further. He wanted to thank her for trying, but it seemed superfluous.
Joanne took a step forward before closing the door behind her. ‘I wondered if I might have a word about something.’
‘Let me,’ he said, realizing that this was overdue. And it really wasn’t good form to let this go unsaid any longer, regardless of the god-awful crisis he had on his hands. ‘I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have lied about my identity and I certainly shouldn’t have spent the night with you. Obviously, you can see that I’m married, and I’m very sorry. And I’m sorry you find yourself here in the midst of all this after what happened between us.’
Joanne raised her eyebrows. ‘I was going to say that we need to re-interview Verity.’
‘Ah.’
‘But thanks for the apology. Though it really wasn’t necessary.’
‘I think it was.’
‘I wasn’t completely truthful myself,’ she said.
‘Wait. What? Are you married, too?’
Joanne smiled and shook her head, ‘No. I’m not married.’ And there was a moment. An odd, awkward moment. A flicker of something in which Noel sensed they were both thinking the same thing: perhaps if this had happened at another time, another place…
Joanne dipped her head. Noel saw the way she threaded her hair behind her ear when she thought she was being watched. The way she instinctively pulled her jacket close around her body to preserve her modesty.
‘Well, I appreciate your discretion,’ he stammered on. ‘I know it can’t have been easy being faced with me when you arrived yesterday, and I’m grateful for the way you’ve handled the investigation, considering.’
Joanne shrugged, as if to suggest it was all in a day’s work, before asking Noel if he’d heard about what Karen had done in front of the press, and on camera.
‘She gave me the general gist.’
‘You might want to talk to her.’
‘I did. I told her she could very well find herself a hate figure if she went on like this.’
‘What was her response?’
‘Let’s just say she didn’t exactly appreciate the advice.’
‘Well, we really don’t need the public turning on her at this point,’ Joanne said. ‘Maybe I could give her a few tips.’
Noel smiled bleakly. ‘Good luck.’
Noel thought Joanne might leave then, but she didn’t. She stayed where she was, looking around the room, examining the bits and pieces he’d accumulated over time. He watched her face, wondering what she might say next. She hadn’t yet made him feel like a suspect in the disappearance of his daughter, but he knew she must be considering the possibility.
‘So, then. Verity?’ he said, breaking the si
lence.
‘Verity.’
‘Mind if I ask why?’
‘No particular reason. We have so few leads to go on that we need to go back to the source. The house-to-house has turned up nothing, and neither have our other points of inquiry. When we come to a dead end, we go back to the start to see what we might have missed.’
‘Would it be okay if I explained this to Verity before you begin? She’s pretty shaken after Bruce’s allegations this morning, and I think she’d answer more clearly if she knew you weren’t accusing her of harming her sister.’
‘Sure. But I’m happy to talk her through it.’ Joanne paused. And then, after a moment’s thought, she said, ‘Bruce is kind of tough on her, isn’t he?’
‘Bruce is kind of tough on everyone.’
—
They assembled in the kitchen: the two detectives, Karen, Noel and Verity. Bruce and Mary weren’t there, thankfully. Mary had been visibly shocked by the total lack of food in the house, so Bruce had taken her to Booths to buy provisions. ‘Just to tide us over,’ Mary said, but Noel fully expected her to return with a carful of groceries. She didn’t drive any more. Not since she’d clipped her wing mirror reversing out of their driveway and Bruce had declared her to be a menace on the roads.
Joanne Aspinall and Oliver Black asked Verity once again to take them through the events of the previous day, step by step, leading up to Brontë’s disappearance. Verity was calmer today, less skittish, and Noel was proud of the way his daughter was handling herself with the two officers. Karen stayed quiet, over by the Aga, biting her lip, eyes darting back and forth across the width of the room as if she were watching a tennis match.
‘So you arrive at the rec and you position yourself a little way from Brontë and the group of girls,’ Joanne Aspinall was saying to Verity. ‘Can you recall anyone strange nearby, anyone doing anything you might think of as weird?’
Verity closed her eyes, as if she were replaying the scene inside her head.
‘Nothing I would call weird,’ she said. ‘There was a woman with two Rottweilers. She was shouting into her phone. She was angry. But she left before I did.’
