by Mike Crowson
* * *
Late on Sunday afternoon, a long-suffering desk officer at Witchmoor Edge Police Station reluctantly took down some details.
"You can't say he's missing just because he didn't come home last night," the desk officer said.
Shirley Hunter, though, seemed to want to tell her story.
"Like I said," she repeated to the man, "We went on a picnic yesterday. We had a row. I locked myself in the car and when he made to break in I drove the car at him and knocked him down. When I got out of the car to see if he was all right he got up and chased me off. When I got back to the place, the car was gone and I haven't seen him since."
The desk sergeant had heard it all before. "He probably drove off in a temper, had a drinking binge and he's sleeping it off somewhere," he told her. "You come back on Tuesday if you haven't seen or heard from him by then."
"Aren't you going to make a note of his name and the car number?"
"He'll turn up," the policeman said. "They usually do."
"Well, note down that I reported it," Shirley Hunter insisted. The officer gave a sigh and noted it down in the day book, but he didn't give it a crime number or enter Simon Hunter on the computer as a 'missing person'. He was certain the man would turn up.
