Now You See Them

by Elly Griffiths

  ‘If I get married,’ she said, ‘which I don’t think I will because the men I meet are all two foot tall, I’ll make my husband iron his own shirts.’

  ‘You do make me laugh, Meg,’ said Isabel. Which was friendly at least, if slightly worrying.

  They settled in a café opposite which had a view of the famous arches. The owner, a friendly, sardonic Italian, also seemed relaxed about the girls sitting for hours over their milkshakes.

  ‘You know the other day,’ said Meg, ‘when you said that Rhonda had met a man outside the Ritz who said that she should be a model?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Veronica, using her straw to hoover up the final bubbles.

  ‘Did Rhonda say anything else about this man? She thought he was an agent, didn’t she?’

  ‘Why?’ said Jean, who had been watching them silently up until now. She hadn’t ordered a drink and Meg wondered if she was short of money. She didn’t live at home like Veronica and Isabel and so presumably didn’t have the same access to parental handouts. Meg had never had pocket money herself, in a family of nine the concept was as alien as space travel, but she could spot middle-class girls a mile off. And Jean wasn’t one.

  ‘Rhonda’s missing, isn’t she?’ Jean went on. ‘I read it in the paper. Why are you asking all these questions? Are you a policewoman?’

  Meg took a deep breath. She hadn’t been planning to break disguise quite so soon. She remembered what Jean had said about hating the ‘pigs’. But the girls would have to know sooner or later and, besides, it felt wrong to lie in answer to a direct question.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am. We’re investigating Rhonda’s disappearance and I was asked to go undercover. Look, here’s my identification card.’

  Veronica and Isabel gasped as if she had performed one of Max Mephisto’s magic tricks.

  ‘That’s so cool.’ Veronica.

  ‘Amazing.’ Isabel.

  ‘Do you have a gun?’ Sadie.

  Jean stood up. ‘Get out,’ she said, pointing towards the door with a trembling finger. ‘You’re not one of us. You’re not a Bobby Soxer. You’re a grown-up.’

  This last sounded so ridiculous that Meg could not stop herself laughing, despite the genuine anger in Jean’s voice.

  ‘I’m only nineteen,’ she said. ‘I’m a girl just like you. Just like Rhonda. Her family are worried about her. Imagine if it was your sister who’d gone missing.’

  ‘I haven’t got a sister,’ said Jean, but she lowered the accusatory arm.

  ‘Nor has Rhonda. She’s an only child. Just think how worried her parents must be.’

  ‘Why should we help the pigs?’ said Jean.

  ‘Don’t think of helping the police,’ said Meg. ‘Think of it as helping Rhonda. She’s a real Bobby Soxer, after all. She loved Bobby. I’ve seen her room at school. It’s full of pictures of him. The man who asked about modelling might be a suspect. That’s why I came up here to talk to you again. It’s torture squeezing into this skirt, I can tell you.’ This made Isabel laugh and the ghost of a smile even flitted across Jean’s face.

  ‘Do you remember anything about the man?’ said Meg. ‘Anything at all?’

  ‘No,’ said Isabel. ‘Like I said, he was just a man. Tallish, oldish, in a suit.’

  ‘Did Rhonda say anything about him?’

  Veronica and Isabel looked at each other.

  ‘Just one thing,’ said Isabel. ‘She said he was American. That’s what made her think that he must be the real thing.’

  Malcolm Henratty was a wiry, dark-haired man with a rather piratical air, although that could just have been the gold earring in his right ear. He was short with receding hair but there was something about him that made Edgar understand how he could have seduced Sara’s mother, Bernadette. Henratty reminded him of Emma’s friend Tol Barton, whose Romany charm Edgar had always slightly distrusted.

  ‘I know an officer came to see you on Friday,’ said Edgar. ‘I’m very sorry about your daughter.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Henratty; he had a London accent with an odd, transatlantic twang. ‘I’d never even seen Sara but, even so, it was a shock.’

  ‘Do you mind me asking why you’d never seen her?’ asked Edgar. ‘I mean, you knew she existed, didn’t you? You knew that Bernadette was pregnant.’

  Henratty paused before replying. He had bright, dark eyes, like those of a blackbird or a magpie.

  ‘It was easier that way,’ he said. ‘I knew that I wouldn’t be much of a father to her. I thought that Bernie and Sara would be better off without me. I’ve always been a bad boy, Superintendent.’

  This was said almost mockingly but Edgar didn’t return the smile. He didn’t find Henratty very endearing and, besides, at nearly forty he really should stop referring to himself as a ‘boy’.

  ‘Did you keep in touch with Bernadette at all?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ said Henratty. ‘I didn’t even know she was dead until that policeman told me. Poor Bernie. She was such a pretty girl too. They tell me Sara looked like her.’

  ‘I believe so,’ said Edgar. ‘Can you think of any reason why anyone would have abducted and killed Sara?’

  Henratty’s face darkened, making him look more piratical still. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The scum. To kill an innocent girl like that. If I ever see him . . .’

  Petty criminals were always the most judgemental about their more hardened brethren. That was why child killers got such a hard time in prison. Edgar understood this but there was something rather disingenuous about it at the same time, a self-righteous unloading of guilt.

  ‘You’re in for theft, aren’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. Robbed an off-licence. The things a man will do to get a drink.’ The smile flickered again. Edgar stared stonily back.

  ‘Did you know a man in here called Coggins, Ernest Coggins?’

  ‘He’s the chap who escaped, isn’t he? Everyone’s talking about it.’

  ‘Did you know Coggins?’

  ‘Not really. I might have exchanged the odd word with him, that’s all. Odd fellow. Always feeding the birds or staring at the pigs. I thought that he might be a bit simple, to tell you the truth.’

  But Coggins had been clever enough to escape while cocksure Henratty was still in prison. There was nothing more to be gained from the interview. Edgar signalled to the guard that he was about to leave. But, as he moved towards the door, Henratty said, ‘Superintendent. Have you got a photograph of Sara?’

  ‘There’s one at the station, yes.’

  ‘Could I have it? After you’ve finished with it, I mean.’

  And Edgar found himself agreeing.

  Driving back to Brighton, Edgar thought about Malcolm Henratty and about Ernest Coggins, the man who had loved animals and worried about their welfare. He’d had a dog called Lenin, a dog that Rhonda had apparently cared about. Where was Lenin now? Probably dead, like his namesake. Coggins couldn’t have abducted Rhonda this time. He’d been in prison until yesterday. But, all the same, his escape was a coincidence too far. Coggins was apparently coming up for a sentence review and, as a prisoner with a previously unblemished record, he stood a good chance of an early release. What had happened to make him throw this chance away?

  At the station, Bob was on the telephone to the search team.

  ‘Nothing doing,’ he said, when he put the receiver down. ‘Man seems to have vanished into thin air. We checked on his friend Davies though. He hasn’t been seen at his digs for over a week. I think we should assume that they’re working together.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Edgar. ‘We should warn the Surrey police. It’s not inconceivable that Coggins might approach Rhonda’s family. Like I said, her mother’s in a very frail state of health.’

  ‘Did you see Henratty?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Yes. Not a very pleasant character. Did you interview him?’

  ‘No. I sent O’Neill. Thought he might be more intimidating.’

  ‘Henratty didn’t strike me as easily int
imidated. Said he’d never even seen Sara. Had never even bothered to ask after her, much less send her mother any money.’

  ‘He sounds like a bad lot,’ said Bob. ‘Did he have any links with Coggins?’

  ‘He claimed not to know him very well. Said he’d always thought of Coggins as slightly simple.’

  ‘He managed to escape from prison though.’

  ‘My thoughts exactly. I think we should get some protection for Rhonda’s family.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Surrey now,’ said Bob. He put his hand on the telephone but, before he could dial, Edgar’s secretary Rita appeared. ‘Please, sir, Max Mephisto’s on the line for you.’

  Edgar took the call in his office. ‘Max. What’s up?’

  ‘Probably nothing.’ But Edgar could hear a note of concern in Max’s voice. ‘It’s just, I was due to meet Ruby at the Grand for dinner yesterday and she didn’t turn up. I didn’t think much of it. She’s got a busy life, maybe she forgot. But I rang her flat last night and there was no answer. So I tried the TV studio today and apparently she didn’t turn up this morning.’

  ‘She hasn’t turned up for work?’ Edgar could imagine Ruby missing dinner with her father, or even a date with a boyfriend, but never a rehearsal.

  ‘I know. It’s very unlike her.’

  ‘Ruby was meant to be meeting Emma on Saturday,’ said Edgar. ‘Ruby said she had something to tell her but she never arrived.’

  ‘On Saturday?’ Now Max’s voice was sharp with anxiety. ‘I thought I saw Ruby on Saturday. Walking along the prom, towards the Palace Pier.’

  ‘Emma was meeting her on the pier.’

  ‘Can you check this out, Ed? Send someone round to her flat?’

  ‘I will,’ said Edgar. ‘I’m sure she’s fine but I’ll get the Met onto it.’ As he said this, Edgar remembered the last time Ruby had gone missing. That time she had been the bait, a trap to catch Max. Who was the intended target this time?

  Eighteen

  Emma started Monday with the best intentions. She would stop wishing that she was involved in the investigation and get on with her day-to-day life, trying to be the best wife and mother she could be. After dropping the girls at school she walked, with Johnny in the pushchair, to Brompton’s Butchers in Kemp Town to buy steak and kidney for Edgar’s favourite supper. Then she walked back, stopping at Mavis’s on the way to ask if she needed anything from the shops. Mavis was enchanted to see Jonathan, easily her favourite of the three children, and, if Emma was forced to drink sweetened tea and look at hundreds of photographs of Mavis’s dead relations, then at least she felt as if she’d done a good deed.

  Back home, she gave Johnny rice pudding and rusks for lunch and ate some herself in an absent-minded way. Then, while Johnny had his nap, she tidied the house and did some hand-washing. By two o’clock, though, her resolve was waning. She wanted to know what was happening in the case. She wanted to know why Ruby hadn’t turned up on Saturday. Yesterday her mother had said that she was looking tired. ‘You need some more help around the house, darling. Then you can have some time to yourself.’ But time to do what? The activities on which her mother had always lavished such care and attention—her personal appearance, socialising, charity work—seemed, to Emma, even worse than housework and childminding. What she wanted, she had to admit it, was a job. Specifically, a job as a detective.

  She telephoned the newspaper but was told that Sam was out ‘chasing up the hatches, matches and dispatches’. Emma knew that this referred to the paper’s column of births, marriages and deaths and that interviewing bereaved relatives (or mothers-of-the-brides) was Sam’s least favourite journalistic task. Next she tried to get Ruby’s number from directory enquiries but it was, unsurprisingly, ex-directory. Emma was just wondering if she dared to ring Edgar at the station and risk hearing Rita’s scornful voice saying, ‘Mrs Stephens for you, sir’, when the phone rang.

  ‘Hallo. What’s going on down on the ranch?’

  It was Edgar.

  ‘Hi,’ said Emma. ‘It’s the usual never-ending round of gaiety. What about you?’

  ‘The same, of course. I spent the morning in a prison. The thing is, Em, you know you were meant to meet Ruby this weekend?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, Max was meant to meet her for dinner on Sunday and she didn’t turn up. She hasn’t turned up for work this morning either.’

  ‘Oh my God. You don’t think anything’s happened to her?’

  ‘I got the Met to send a man round to her flat. He heard a cat meowing inside. Max says that Ruby’s devoted to her cat, she’d never go away without asking someone to look after it.’

  ‘Did the PC manage to rescue the cat?’

  ‘Yes, the warden of the flats had a key and she’s looking after it now. But Max is worried. I just wondered if you had any ideas. Did Ruby say anything to you?’

  Despite her own genuine concern for Ruby, Emma felt the familiar lift of spirits at the thought of having her opinion sought. ‘She just said that she had something important to tell me,’ she said. ‘Something she couldn’t discuss on the phone.’

  ‘Did you have any idea what it was?’

  ‘I assumed it was about a man. At Diablo’s funeral Ruby said that she was seeing a delicious new man.’

  ‘She didn’t give you a name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you think she wanted your advice about the new man?’

  ‘That’s what I thought at the time but now I’m thinking—why would Ruby want to talk to me about a new boyfriend? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Perhaps it was someone Max wouldn’t approve of. You must be one of the few people she knows who also knows Max.’

  ‘But why would she care about Max’s approval? Ruby’s a grown woman with a successful career and her own money.’ She hoped that Edgar couldn’t hear the note of envy in her voice.

  ‘I know,’ said Edgar, and Emma could almost hear him thinking, a flashback to the days when they would be discussing the latest case and Emma, a keen young DS, would hang on Edgar’s every word and inflection. ‘Ruby doesn’t fit the pattern of the missing girls,’ said Edgar. ‘She’s older, for one thing, and, as you say, she’s independent. It’s hard to see her falling for the “I can make you a model” line.’

  ‘Is that your theory?’

  ‘It’s one of them. WPC Connolly, you know, the policewoman I was telling you about, she came up with it. Apparently Rhonda was approached by a man outside the Ritz who said that she should be a model.’

  ‘WPC Connolly is obviously a good detective.’

  ‘Bob thinks so,’ said Edgar. ‘Are you OK, Em? Your voice sounds a bit odd.’

  ‘I’m fine. I went with Sam to talk to Pete, Louise Dawkins’ doctor friend. He said that Louise had done some modelling in the past.’

  ‘Really? That’s very helpful. I’ll get Bob to send someone to talk to Pete. What’s his full name?’

  Emma had, of course, remembered the name. Dr Peter Chambers. She told Edgar, unable to stop herself from adding, ‘Why not send WPC Connolly to interview him?’

  ‘That’s up to Bob,’ said Edgar. ‘He does seem to rate her though. Thanks, Em, you’re a wonder.’

  I might be a wonder, thought Emma, as she went wearily upstairs to collect a now wailing Jonathan, but I’m a wonder who’s got to cook steak and kidney pie later. She bet that Meg Connolly had never cut up a kidney in her life.

  Max couldn’t just sit around in Brighton doing nothing, especially after hearing about the empty flat with the cat meowing inside, so he set out to call on Emerald, the ex-snake-charmer who had, unbeknownst to him at the time, given birth to Ruby after a brief fling with a young magician called Max Mephisto. When Ruby was a year old Emerald had married a plasterer and they went on to have two more children. They lived in Hove and Ruby had been brought up in a close, loving home. Ruby called her stepfather Dad. Max had to admit that, if she were in trouble, Ruby would go to Emerald and—what was his name? Tom?�
�before she confided in him.

  Emerald and Tom lived in one of the wide boulevards leading up from the seafront: Grand Avenue, First, Second and Third Avenues. The houses were handsome and well-proportioned but Max always found them rather depressing, perhaps because of their uniformity, endless white stucco frontages turned grey by the wind and the rain. There was none of the uneven charm of Brighton.

  Ruby had told him that her parents now lived on the top floor of their Second Avenue house and rented the rest out to lodgers. What else had she told him? Tom was now retired and Emerald did a lot of charity work. Max couldn’t imagine it somehow. He had seen Emerald a few times after he found out about Ruby’s existence but to him she was still a dimly remembered presence from that summer season in Worthing, a golden shape accessorised by a poison-green python.

  Anything less like a showgirl than the woman who answered the door would have been hard to imagine. Emerald was still an attractive woman, her dark hair well-styled and only lightly streaked with grey, but she now looked the epitome of respectability. Max thought of Betty, Bob’s wife, who had once been part of a tableaux act, even less respectable than being a snake-charmer. Betty was now a solid citizen in tweeds and twinsets. Emerald was slightly more stylish but she still looked like the sort of woman who proposed the guest speaker’s health at a WI meeting. She was even wearing a pony club brooch.

  ‘Max,’ she said, when she saw him at the door. ‘This is a surprise.’ She didn’t look as if it was an entirely welcome one.

  ‘Hallo, Emerald,’ said Max. ‘You look well. Could I have a word?’

  ‘Well I’m just out to a Distressed Gentlewoman’s meeting.’

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  They ascended a handsome, but extremely steep, staircase. Max was breathing heavily by the time they reached the top. It was as bad as the Brighton Alps. Emerald opened the door to a sunny flat, decorated in comfortable good taste. The only unusual object was a painting, hanging in an obscure corner, showing a large green snake lying coiled on a beach.