Rooted in Dishonour

by Christina James

  “Margie?”

  “Yes, Margie. Do you have other daughters?”

  “No. But what’s happened to her? Where is she?”

  “That’s the point. We don’t know. We think she’s been missing for twenty-four hours now. When did you last see her? Did she say she was going anywhere – to visit friends, perhaps?”

  “No.” Liz frowned. “She spends most of her time with that child-minding cow. She puts ideas into Margie’s head. Have you tried her?”

  “It was Mrs Sims who reported her missing. Can you think back to the day before yesterday? We know that Margie was working with Mrs Sims during the day. Did you see her in the evening?”

  “Yes, I think so. She came in late. I don’t know where she’d been. She didn’t say.”

  “What do you mean by ‘late’?”

  “Not very late. The middle of the evening. Late enough for her to have been somewhere else after the nursery closed. But then again, it might have been the night before. Can I have something to drink? I’ve got a splitting headache.” Liz fell back against the pillows and closed her eyes again.

  Juliet was losing patience.

  “Liz, can you just pull yourself together for a few seconds? Your daughter is missing, probably in danger. Can you try to think of anything at all that might help us to find her?”

  Liz Pocklington began to cry. Her performance was noisy and unconvincing. The nurse who’d been there earlier entered the room with a jug of water and a squash bottle. A doctor followed close on her heels.

  “You’d better leave it for now,” he said to Juliet. He was brisker and less sympathetic than the night doctor had been. “She’ll recover more quickly if you don’t harass her. And we need to get more fluids into her now.”

  Juliet sighed.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I’ll come back later. I don’t think there’s any use in my staying here longer. I’d be grateful if you’d let me know if you decide to discharge her.”

  Chapter 53

  Nancy had had to ring the buzzer in order to be admitted to the police station. The desk sergeant had let her in when she’d explained who she was, but didn’t know where she was supposed to be going. He called Superintendent Thornton, who came bustling down the stairs to greet Nancy and at the same time show her who was the boss. She saw him react to her clothing and glared ferociously up at him.

  “Ah, Derry Hacker’s lady! I’m sorry I didn’t have time to talk to you much yesterday. No more time today, I’m afraid, but I’ll show you where DC Armstrong sits. I’m sure she’ll be here shortly. An excellent idea of DI Yates, to ask you to help her. I’m sure you know more about this kind of thing than she does.”

  Nancy valiantly controlled her fury at the Superintendent’s double patronage of herself and Juliet and silently allowed herself to be led up the stairs to the work area outside his office.

  “None of the DCs appears to be here at the moment,” the Superintendent continued, looking at the floor beneath the desk units as if he might spot someone crouching there, “but I’m sure they’ll arrive soon. There’s a kitchen through there, if you’d like to make yourself some coffee. A cup of tea for me wouldn’t go amiss, either.” He gave her a more engaging smile.

  “You mean you’d like me to make you some tea?” said Nancy incredulously.

  “Well, yes, if it isn’t too much trouble, and if you have nothing else to do at the moment.” He looked a little abashed, but she recognised the sting in the tail of his last comment. She shrugged inwardly. It wasn’t her office, after all. You wouldn’t catch her making tea for Derry Hacker.

  “All right, then. But I warn you, tea isn’t my strong point. People ’ave ended up in ’ospital after drinking my tea.”

  “Really? Well, I’m sure that won’t happen this time.” The Superintendent was clearly made of stronger stuff than she’d given him credit for. “My office is just there. Don’t bother to knock when you bring it in. And thank you.”

  He retreated into his office and closed the door. Nancy went to the kitchen and made a half-hearted attempt at locating some clean mugs. She saw there was a dishwasher, but no-one had bothered to stack it the previous evening. Cups and plates that had fallen victim to various stages of fungoid invasion were littered around. In the interests of hygiene, Nancy decided to load the dishwasher. The Superintendent would have to wait for his tea.

  She was still tidying up when the call from Juliet came. She was delighted when Juliet asked her to help with Gerald Pocklington, partly because she’d expected nothing but hostility from that quarter and recognised that Juliet had extended an olive branch. She’d intended to call Katrin and explain she could no longer join her, but almost that instant Giash Chakrabati had arrived with the man she’d been asked to interview.

  “DC Chappell? Superintendent Thornton said I’d find you in here. This is Mr Gerald Pocklington. DC Armstrong said she’d ask you to take a statement from him.”

  “She did, and I agreed. I’d expected you to take a bit longer to get here, that’s all.”

  “I saw Mr Pocklington in the hospital car park,” said Giash blandly. He didn’t know how much Juliet had told Nancy about the events of the previous night. “I can wait in the interview room with him if you’re not ready to see him yet.”

  “No, that’s fine,” said Nancy. “If you’d just show me the way, we can get started. I’d like you to stay for the interview as well, if you can. Good morning, sir,” she added, holding out her hand. “I’m sorry about your daughter. You must be very worried, but she may turn up quite safe. It’s better not to jump to conclusions just yet.”

  The man who was accompanying Giash emerged from behind him. He registered such disapproval when he saw her that it was all she could do not to burst into giggles. Gingerly, he shook hands with her.

  “Yes, well my daughter and I aren’t very close. But naturally I’m upset,” he said stiffly. Nancy took an immediate dislike to him. The guy was a cold-blooded reptile.

  “Would you like to come this way, sir?” said Giash. Gerald Pocklington walked out of the kitchen smartly, as if it were contaminated. “I can stay for half an hour,” Giash added to Nancy over his shoulder. “I’ll need some time to take him back to his car and I’ll have to go and meet my partner then. She picked up Mrs Pocklington with me last night, but she’s been trying to get a few hours’ sleep.”

  “’alf an hour should be fine,” said Nancy. “Fanks.”

  “We should probably offer him some tea. And I could use a cup myself.”

  “Don’t you start! I’ve put the dishwasher on. It won’t have finished its cycle until he’s gone. If you really need to give him a drink, you’ll ’ave to send out for some.”

  “I’ll get some polystyrene cups from the canteen,” said Giash. “We could fetch the tea from there as well, but theirs tastes like drains. Don’t worry, I’ll make it.”

  “Fanks,” said Nancy again. “You might like to take one to the Superintendent, as well.”

  A few minutes later they had settled in the interview room, fortified with polystyrene cups of hot tea. Unexpectedly, Gerald Pocklington had accepted his gratefully and was gulping it down as if he’d spent the night in the desert.

  “Are you ready to start now, sir?” said Nancy. “We won’t be taping you, as you’re not a suspect, but PC Chakrabati will take notes.”

  Gerald Pocklington nodded sternly. He looked across at Giash, as if for reassurance. Nancy saw that she made him feel very uncomfortable. It didn’t worry her.

  “I understand that you’re estranged from your wife, and that your daughter lives with her mother?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “How long have you and your wife been separated?”

  “I really don’t see that . . .”

  “Please, Mr Pocklin’ton, your personal life is of no interest to me. I’m just
tryin’ to build up a picture of your daughter’s background, try to guess what makes ’er tick. You can only ’elp ’er by telling me what I want to know wivout makin’ a fuss.”

  Gerald Pocklington swallowed and straightened his tie.

  “I finally left about three months ago, but we’d pretty much been living separate lives for a long time before that.”

  “What do you mean by ‘separate lives’?”

  “I . . . I wasn’t there all of the time.”

  “Where were you when you weren’t there?”

  “Look, I . . .”

  “Mr Pocklin’ton, the more time you waste, the less likely we are to find your daughter alive.”

  “I resent being threatened.”

  “I’m not freatening you - I’m just stating a fact. Answer the question, please.”

  “I’ve been seeing someone else. I stayed with her sometimes while I was still living with my wife.” He had interlocked the fingers of both hands and was staring down at them now.

  “Ok. And ’ow did your daughter react to that?”

  “She was . . . upset. Of course, she only heard her mother’s side – though anyone could see what her mother had become.”

  “What ’ad ’er mother become?”

  “A slatternly drunken lush.” He would have shouted the words if he hadn’t been speaking through gritted teeth.

  “Did your wife’s . . . drink problem begin before or after you met your new friend?”

  “She would say that I triggered her alcoholism. My own memory is a little more accurate.”

  “What about Margie? What did she fink?”

  “I didn’t ask her, not about the drinking, anyway. She and I were close when she was a child, but we’ve grown apart since then. I believe she took her mother’s side, though the drinking probably upset her, or at least the results of it did. She’s quite fastidious: I don’t think she enjoys living in a tip. But quite honestly, I think she’s been more worried about going to university than anything else.”

  “Did she choose to live with her mother after you’d gone?”

  “Yes, I suppose so. She could hardly have found the money to set up on her own.”

  “No. But what I meant was, did you offer her the chance of coming to live with you?”

  “I . . . No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Rosie – my partner – wouldn’t have wanted it. And Margie wouldn’t have wanted to live with Rosie, in any case.”

  “I see.” Nancy said nothing more for a long moment. Gerald Pocklington darted the odd glance at her, but when she tried to meet his eye he looked down at his hands again. He was clearly disconcerted by the silence. He finally felt compelled to rush in to end it.

  “Look, I’m not proud of being part of a broken family, but it takes more than one person to destroy a marriage.”

  “I’m sure it does. Coming back to Margie, you say she was worried she wouldn’t be able to go to university. Was this because the marriage had broken down?”

  “Yes. I’d promised to give her some financial support, but I’m a little . . . a little strapped for cash now. And Rosie takes a different view about giving her money. I suppose it wasn’t very fair on Margie, when she’d thought she could rely on me. But circumstances change.”

  “Indeed. When did you last see Margie?”

  Nancy shot the question at him staccato-fashion. It seemed to throw him, though he must have been expecting it.

  “I’m trying to think. I haven’t seen much of her since we . . . since I left. But I’ve met her for a drink or a coffee once or twice. Yes, I think that was it. I met her in The Punch Bowl a couple of weeks ago. It was when I told her that there definitely wouldn’t be any money for university, at least not this year.”

  “And you haven’t seen ’er since?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Quite sure. If you must know, she stormed out of the pub in tears. I didn’t try to follow her.”

  “Have you heard from ’er since then – by phone or email, say?”

  “No. She made it crystal clear that she wanted nothing more to do with me. She called Rosie a tart, which was inexcusable.”

  “Did you intend to get in touch with ’er again?”

  “I suppose so. Eventually, when she’d calmed down. You know what teenage girls are like.”

  Nancy didn’t answer him. She made some notes on her pad and allowed another uncomfortable silence to dawdle through the air.

  “Did your daughter have a boyfriend?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Close friends? Someone she might turn to if life got difficult?”

  “Again, not that I know of. She had some school friends, but she didn’t bring people home. It’s not surprising. It was a pigsty most of the time.”

  “My last question, Mr Pocklin’ton. Was your wife ever physically abusive to Margie?”

  “No. What makes you ask that?”

  “Not even when she was drunk?”

  He shrugged.

  “I suppose it’s possible. I’ve no reason to believe Liz would have hit her.”

  “What about you? ’Ave you ever struck Margie in anger?”

  Another unexpected question, lightning fast. Giash raised his head from his notes and observed Gerald Pocklington keenly. The man looked flushed.

  “Why on earth would you think that?”

  “I don’t fink it, Mr Pocklington. It’s just a question.”

  “No. No, I haven’t.”

  “Fank you. I don’t fink there’s anything else we want to ask you at the moment, but please keep trying to remember anyfing that might ’elp us and give us a call if there is somefing. I’ll give you DC Armstrong’s telephone number, as this is ’er case really. I’m just standing in today. You’ll need to keep ’er informed of your whereabouts, too. If you’re planning on travelling any distance from ’ome, let ’er know.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ll take you to get your car, sir,” said Giash. He turned to Nancy. “I’ll have to go now. I’ll come back this afternoon if you need me.”

  Wow, Giash thought to himself as he followed Gerald Pocklington down the stairs, appearances can be deceptive! That was one of the best interviews he’d ever witnessed; and the bloke wasn’t even a suspect – or was he?

  Chapter 54

  Fiona Vickers is looking a bit sleeker than when we first met. She’s wearing a smart cotton pea-jacket in startlingly bright turquoise which sets off her dark hair. She sails into the office with her two charges in her wake and does a double-take when she sees Janey.

  “Christ, I didn’t expect to see you here!”

  Janey laughs uneasily.

  “I wondered if you’d recognise me. It’s been quite a while.”

  “Yes,” says Fiona, suddenly serious. “Five or six years. I remember the case well.”

  Janey ducks her head. It occurs to me that Fiona’s words are carefully chosen, meant to protect Janey from something. Had Janey known her as a colleague or as a client?

  “But I’m sorry,” Fiona continues brightly, “I’m forgetting my manners. This is Rashida and this is Jenny.”

  The two young women have barely ventured inside the office. They stand awkwardly on the threshold, apart from each other.

  “Do come in and sit down,” I say. “I’m Katrin and this is Janey. Would you like coffee?”

  “I’ll make it,” says Janey, getting up.

  I line up our two spare chairs and pull out my swivel chair from behind my desk.

  “I’ll perch on the desk,” says Fiona. “I don’t like chairs much. And you don’t want me getting in the way.”

  I gesture towards the chairs and they edge past me. Rashida is dramatically beautiful: she has flawless o
live skin and boldly arched eyebrows. Her eyes are tawny-brown. Her thick wavy black hair has been cut short in a severe style which would be boyish if the hair weren’t so luxuriant. She isn’t plump but neither is she slender; her breasts are full and she’s wide-hipped with a tiny waist: the classic hour-glass figure. She’s dressed from head to toe in black: black trousers, black shirt, black jacket, black boots. The shirt is buttoned to her neck. She carries a massive pink tote bag, which she puts on the floor beside her when she sits down. Jenny is petite and pale. She looks under-nourished. I can’t see her hair because it’s entirely covered by a hijab, but her skin is very fair, her eyes a remarkable translucent blue. She’s wearing a very plain long cotton dress. It’s light grey and quite shapeless, too big for her so that her body seems to float around inside it without revealing any hint of definition. She could almost be limbless. She also has a large bag, made of the same dull cloth as the dress. I’m a bit surprised by her. She isn’t my idea of the sort of victim I thought I’d be talking to. Fiona Vickers seems to read my thoughts.

  “Jenny’s not Asian,” she says. “She married an Asian man. She agreed to convert to Islam.”

  “So it wasn’t an arranged marriage?”

  “It was,” says Jenny sullenly. “Me Dad made me marry him. He got paid for it.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Me husband hit me. Not at first, but after we’d been married for a while. We were living with his Mam and Dad and his Mam started hitting me, too. She made me do all the housework and she wouldn’t let me go out. I ran away when I got the chance but I daredn’t go home. I know my Dad’ll send me back to them. He’ll have to: they’ll threaten him. Tariq will kill me if he catches me now.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you wearing the hijab?” I don’t add that it seems strange that a girl who’s trying to hide is wearing a dress that makes her stand out more than if she were dressed anonymously, like Rashida.

  “Jenny’s in therapy,” Fiona says. “She has to unlearn what she’s been taught. She’s doing very well.” She flashes Jenny a bright, encouraging smile. “It’s brave of her to come and see you. She hasn’t been out much since she came to us.”