Missing Lies (Reissue)

by Chris Collett

  ‘You look lovely,’ June had said, trying to ignore the expanses of flesh on display and the rather heavy make-up. She knew Tiff was longing for a boyfriend and the last thing she wanted to do was knock her daughter’s confidence. Now the room was empty except for all the detritus from their preparations.

  June couldn’t make sense of it. She went through to where Josh was setting up a game on his Xbox. ‘She’s not there,’ said June. ‘Where can she be?’

  Josh just shrugged. ‘I dunno. She must have stayed over at Lex or Sophie’s.’

  ‘But it’s her birthday. Why hasn’t she let us know?’

  June rang her daughter’s mobile, which went straight to voicemail. ‘She’s got her phone switched off,’ she said. ‘I don’t like this. What if something’s happened to her . . .?’

  ‘Like what?’ Josh grinned. ‘Let’s face it, Mum. Who’d want our Tiffany?’

  * * *

  On Sunday morning Millie had to drive past Louise’s house on her way to the supermarket. It was her habit now to look in on the estate, past the main gates to Louise’s house. She expected to see the driveway empty, which it was, except for a van parked across the bottom of it. It reminded her suddenly of what Louise had said about being watched. Immediately she recognised the folly of that — had the van driver been up to no good, he would hardly have parked in front of the house so blatantly. It was the type of van a tradesman would use. Perhaps Greg had decided to surprise Louise with that new kitchen counter after all. Lucky Louise. The car behind Millie’s beeped its horn and she moved off, pondering the significance of what she’d seen.

  * * *

  All through the weekend almost everyone involved in the washerwoman case had willingly come back in and, once they’d expressed their initial disappointment and disbelief, knuckled straight back down to what needed to be done. As soon as he thought it a reasonable time, Mariner checked with Suzy that all was OK then phoned Mercy to explain that he’d been called back into work. ‘My, er . . . friend is with Jamie at the moment, but I don’t know how long she can stay before she needs to go back to Cambridge.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Mercy, as he’d known she would. ‘I can come and take care of him.’

  ‘I’ll be taking Jamie to Manor Park tomorrow,’ Mariner said, in case she’d forgotten. ‘I’ll try and get back for dinner this evening. Maybe you’d like to stay and eat with us?’

  ‘Yes. I’d like that, Tom.’

  Now Mariner was back in his office reviewing his notes from the interview with Paddy Henderson. He heard the sound of a throat being cleared and looked up to see today’s desk sergeant standing in the doorway. ‘Sorry to bother you,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a woman downstairs who’s worried about her daughter. She didn’t come home last night.’

  ‘How old is she?’ asked Mariner, a chill developing in his belly.

  ‘Today’s her twenty-second birthday. According to the mother she’s got dark, curly hair.’

  ‘Shit.’

  June Davey was an attractive woman: petite, with dark hair cut in a glossy bob. She’d brought along a surly-looking young man in low-slung jeans and Converse trainers, who was Tiffany’s older brother apparently. Mariner led the questioning and quickly established the circumstances of Tiffany’s disappearance. ‘And you’ve tried her phone?’ he asked.

  ‘It goes straight to voicemail. But she only ever turns the thing off when she’s at work.’

  ‘This might seem an odd question,’ said Mariner. ‘But has Tiffany had to go to hospital at all recently?’

  June Davey looked impressed with his insight. ‘Yes, a couple of weeks ago she slipped on some wet leaves and sprained her wrist quite badly. She should have been wearing a splint, but I see she left it at home last night.’

  ‘Did you go to A&E with her?’ Mariner asked.

  ‘I met her up there,’ said Mrs Davey. ‘I got this call from her work to tell me where she was, so I jumped on a bus to the hospital. We had to wait ages before she got seen.’

  ‘Who did Tiffany talk to?’ Mariner asked. ‘This is important.’

  June Davey seemed puzzled. ‘Only the nurse when we first got there,’ she said, ‘and the doctor who looked at her wrist.’

  ‘Did she happen to pass through the atrium, the cafeteria area?’

  ‘I don’t think—’ June broke off. ‘Oh, yes, she did! She went to get a bottle of water. It was so warm in the hospital.’

  ‘And the last people to see Tiffany last night would have been her friends, Alexandra and Sophie?’ Mariner checked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘OK,’ said Mariner. ‘If you can give me their details, we’ll go and have a chat with them.’

  * * *

  Mariner and Jesson went to Lex’s house where both girls had finished up the night before. Sophie was already downstairs, sitting quietly on the sofa, fiddling with the zip on her hoodie. Although it was the middle of the day, Lex’s mum had to get her out of bed. She was sleepy and hung-over but both girls seemed equally mystified to hear their friend hadn’t arrived home in time for her birthday. ‘She really looks forward to it,’ said Lex. ‘She’s been banging on about it for days.’

  ‘What exactly happened last night?’ Jesson asked them.

  ‘We had a few drinks in the Aussie bar, then we went to RedZone,’ Lex said. ‘We met these lads. They were a laugh. We were having a good time.’

  Sophie spoke up. ‘We were having a good time,’ she corrected her friend. ‘I’m not sure if Tiffany was.’

  ‘Yeah, well. There were two lads,’ Lex admitted. ‘And they hit it off with us two.’

  ‘So Tiffany was left out,’ Jesson observed.

  ‘She didn’t have to be.’ Lex was defensive. ‘I mean, it was only a bit of fun. She could have stuck with us if she’d wanted to.’

  ‘So what happened when you met these boys?’ asked Jesson.

  ‘Tiff said she was going outside for a smoke. We keep nagging her to quit, but she won’t listen. Anyway she was gone for ages and when I looked at my phone there was this text saying that she’d pulled and that she’d see us tomorrow.’

  ‘Can I see?’

  Lex tapped into her phone and scrolled through the messages before passing it across to Mariner. He read the text, noticing that it had been sent at nineteen minutes past eleven. ‘When did you pick this up?’ he asked Lex.

  She turned down the corners of her mouth. ‘About twelve, probably.’

  ‘Didn’t it worry you that Tiffany might have left with a complete stranger?’ asked Jesson.

  The girls exchanged a look. ‘We didn’t think she had. We just thought she’d gone off in a strop, you know, got a taxi and gone home. She just made up this bloke to make it sound better.’

  ‘So you’ve no idea who he might be? Was she talking to anyone in the club, or is there anyone she’s mentioned before?’

  ‘There is no bloke,’ Lex insisted. ‘If there is, we never saw him and it would be a first for Tiff. She’s never had much luck before.’

  * * *

  As they climbed the stairs to the incident room after speaking to Tiffany’s friends, Jesson said, ‘Do you think we might be looking at a doctor from A&E? I mean, first Rosa Batista and now Tiffany. The meeting with Grace Clifton could have been a chance one, like we thought with Hayden.’ They moved aside as a couple of civilian staff passed them on their way out for a cigarette.

  Mariner sighed. ‘That opens up a whole new line of enquiry, but yes.’ He stopped, his foot hovering over the next step. ‘Grace Clifton smoked, didn’t she?’

  ‘So did Rosa,’ said Jesson. ‘Ricardo said the two of them used to finish off their shift with a cigarette before going home.’

  ‘And we’ve just been told that Tiffany smokes too.’

  Up in the incident room, Mariner went straight across to the board and pinned Tiffany Davey’s photo alongside the others. ‘We have another potential victim,’ he announced, eliciting a number of assorted exple
tives. ‘However, we might also have another lead. One factor we’ve overlooked with these women is that they’re all smokers. These days smokers share a common bond — they’re often in the minority and outside in adverse weather. I think our man has been making his initial approaches in smoking shelters. What easier way to initiate contact, either by offering a light, or asking for one?’

  ‘It would be conveniently out of range of the CCTV cameras too,’ said Glover. ‘So do we still think he’s hospital staff?’

  ‘A doctor, or someone posing as one, would automatically command a degree of respect,’ said Mariner. ‘The women would be off their guard and more likely to talk to him.’

  ‘That would open up the possibility of dozens of men who will have been around on all the dates we’re looking at,’ said Jesson despondently. The phone beside her began ringing and she picked it up.

  ‘So we start with those on duty in A&E and work out from there,’ said Mariner. ‘A doctor would have easy access to the post room, to scrubs and to sheets,’ he added. ‘Did we ever get the results from those linen samples? If not, we need to follow that up. We should find out if there’s any CCTV outside RedZone too. If we can link anyone to Tiffany Davey last night, it will be a start.’

  Jesson replaced the phone. ‘That was Stuart Croghan,’ she said. ‘You were right about Hayden. He was dead before his car filled up with exhaust fumes. He’d been strangled, probably manually.’

  ‘So as we already know, this is someone fit and strong,’ Mariner said. ‘See if West Mercia can help us out,’ he said to Jesson. ‘Whoever drove Hayden’s car up to Titterstone Clee had to get away afterwards. It’s in the middle of nowhere. I can’t believe he wasn’t seen at some point.’

  * * *

  With strict instructions that he must be contacted immediately if there were any developments, Mariner left the incident room early on Sunday evening. He needed time to get Jamie ready for the move tomorrow. From Jamie’s perspective, the sooner they got this over with, the sooner he could adjust to his new home environment. It had been a tricky few months but somehow they’d gotten through it.

  On his way home Mariner picked up a Chinese takeaway. Suzy had texted him to say that she’d gone back to Cambridge earlier in the day, so, sitting round the table in his living room with Jamie and Mercy, Mariner felt as if he were part of some weird dysfunctional family.

  ‘I’m going to miss you, Jamie,’ said Mercy.

  Jamie continued shovelling fried rice into his mouth.

  ‘We’ll miss you too,’ said Mariner, on his behalf. ‘But he’ll be back here some weekends, so I’m sure we’ll still be needing your help from time to time.’

  Mercy glanced around the rather less-than-tidy living room. ‘I could come round and clean up for you, if you wanted me to,’ said Mercy. ‘It would be no trouble. Do a bit of ironing . . .?’

  Mariner realised in that moment that Mercy was probably lonely. ‘How’s your Carlton?’ he asked.

  She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, that boy. I hardly seen him now for days.’

  After dinner Mercy helped Mariner to pack Jamie’s things. There wasn’t much, just a couple of suitcases of clothing, his DVDs and iPad. Mercy had bought him a new sweatshirt, identical to those he already had, and she’d even remembered to cut out the labels that he found so irritating. Before settling Jamie down for the night, Mariner and Mercy took him through the photo book of Manor Park, his preparation for going there the following day. Then they said their goodbyes.

  When Mercy had gone off in her taxi and Jamie was in bed, Mariner phoned Suzy. ‘I’m sorry about last night and today.’

  ‘So am I,’ she said, feelingly, then: ‘I understand, although I was very glad when Mercy appeared. She’s a treasure, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she is,’ said Mariner, wondering if having a cleaner might be worthwhile after all.

  * * *

  On Monday morning Mariner drove Jamie over to Manor Park. They were shown up to Jamie’s new room, where Mariner unpacked his belongings and put them away in the wardrobe and drawers before setting out the few pictures and personal possessions Jamie owned. He was zipping up the empty suitcases when Izzy appeared. ‘Hi, all set then, Jamie?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Mariner.

  ‘I’m glad I caught you,’ she said. ‘A friend of mine gave me this. He didn’t know what to do with it, but I thought that you might have an idea.’ She handed him a CD in a white paper envelope.

  ‘OK,’ said Mariner, curious as to what it might be. But before he could ask, one of the sirens sounded, signalling that morning activities were about to start.

  ‘Come on, Jamie,’ she said, holding up the black-and-white drawing. ‘Gym time.’

  ‘See you, mate,’ Mariner called after them. Jamie just smiled. And it was that easy. Driving back to the city, Mariner felt oddly empty inside.

  * * *

  It was Monday afternoon and Millie had just returned to the house from her first foray into the mother and baby group at a nearby church. Haroon was tired and fractious, and she hadn’t yet decided what she and Suli were having for dinner that night. For all these reasons, Millie was feeling slightly fraught when the doorbell rang.

  ‘Greg,’ she said, in surprise. He looked awful. When she’d last seen him, Greg had been clean-shaven, his hair groomed and his clothes immaculate, but today he looked dishevelled — like he had at least a couple of days’ growth on his chin. He looked past Millie and into the house, then back along the street, his right foot tapping a regular beat on the ground.

  ‘Did you want to see Suli?’ Millie said. ‘I’m afraid he’s not home yet.’ For some reason she felt reluctant to let him inside.

  ‘No, it was you I . . . um . . .’ He glanced away down the street. ‘Actually, no . . .’ he said. ‘It’s fine, no. Forget it.’ Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he turned abruptly on his heel and retreated back down the path.

  ‘Greg, wait. Is everything all right?’ Millie called after him. ‘Is Louise back yet? I’ve just been to the baby group, and I’m sure she’d like it too.’

  ‘No!’ he called back over his shoulder. ‘I mean, no . . . she’s not back. Sorry.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll text her,’ Millie suggested.

  ‘What? Oh . . . yes, fine,’ said Greg, his head down. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  The whole exchange was just weird, but it wasn’t until Millie was back upstairs that a terrible thought occurred to her. She got out her mobile to text Louise, but then thought better of it. It would be easy enough for Greg to just text back, pretending to be his wife. The developing field of text analysis had made it possible, in many cases, to ascertain who had composed and sent a message, but Millie didn’t know enough about Louise’s texting style for that to be of any help. No, she would feign ignorance instead. She punched in Louise’s number and pressed ‘call.’ The phone rang and rang, eventually cutting to voicemail and Millie’s uneasiness began to blossom into outright fear. She didn’t leave a message. Now what? She could hardly challenge Greg on the grounds that Louise wasn’t answering her phone. So what should she do? As she was working through the options in her head, her mobile rang, making her jump.

  ‘Hi, Millie, it’s Louise. Did you just call me?’

  Millie felt the relief wash through her, though she doubted Louise would be entirely convinced by her ‘just called for a chat’ excuse, delivered as it was through a barely controlled adrenalin rush. ‘I felt pretty silly,’ she told Suli when he came home.

  ‘Maybe we’ve got Greg all wrong,’ said Suli. ‘It could just be that he’s far more dependent on Louise than we thought. You know, one of those guys who can’t look after himself when the wife’s away.’

  ‘Like you, you mean?’ Millie teased. ‘No. There was something on his mind that he wanted to talk about, before he clammed up.’

  ‘Well, if it was important he’ll come back again,’ said Suli.

  Later in the evening they settled down to catch up on a bo
x set on TV, but Millie couldn’t keep her eyes open.

  ‘Time for bed,’ she said. It was ridiculously early but it couldn’t be helped. Only a couple of hours and she’d need to be up to feed Haroon anyway. But she was woken long before that by Suli, there beside her in the bedroom.

  ‘Mil, you asleep?’ he held out the phone. ‘It’s Louise and she’s in a bit of a state. I think you need to speak to her.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Rousing herself, Millie took the phone from Suli.

  ‘It’s Greg,’ said Louise without preamble. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Where are you?’ said Millie. ‘I thought you were at your mum’s?’

  ‘We got back a couple of hours ago, but Greg’s not here and I can’t get hold of him.’ Millie could hear the complete panic in her voice. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Millie. ‘I’m sure there’s a very simple explanation. Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘I’m sure he’s in some kind of trouble,’ Louise went on, ignoring the offer. ‘He more or less forced me to go to Mum’s. He kept saying he was going to have a difficult few days at work and that I had to go. But now he’s not here and I don’t know what’s going on.’

  ‘Leave it with me,’ said Millie. ‘I’ll talk to someone for you.’

  Millie rang Mariner’s mobile. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know who else to call. Greg’s not exactly a MisPer, I just need someone to check up on him. I’d go myself but—’

  ‘But you’re not working and if Suli’s got any sense he won’t hear of it. It’s no problem, I’ll look into it.’

  ‘I expect you’re scratching around for something to keep you occupied now anyway,’ Millie said cheekily.

  ‘Not exactly,’ said Mariner. ‘It turns out that Hayden wasn’t our washerwoman after all. And now another young woman has gone missing.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ said Millie. ‘Look, if you haven’t got time for this—’

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Mariner. ‘It won’t take long.’ He was about to ring off when a bizarre thought struck him out of nowhere. ‘Does Greg smoke?’ he asked.