EQMM, December 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "That's the thing about castles in Spain,” she said. “They're very moreish."

  Moreish. Moorish. You see? She was always playing with words. She accorded them due deference. She recognised their weight.

  And she'd no more sign herself Shell than she'd misplace an apostrophe.

  When I eventually went to bed, I lay the whole night on my side of the mattress, as if rolling onto Michelle's side would be to take up room she'd soon need; space which, if unavailable on her return, would cause her to disappear again.

  * * * *

  2.

  The mattress is no more than three inches thick, laid flat on the concrete floor. There is a chemical toilet in the opposite corner. The only light spills in from a barred window nine foot or so above her head. This window is about the size of eight bricks laid side by side, and contains no glass: Air must come through it, sound drift out. But here on floor level she feels no draught, and outside there is no one to hear any noise she might make.

  But he will find her.

  She is confident he will find her.

  Eventually.

  * * * *

  3.

  Forty-eight hours later, I was back in the police station.

  Much of the intervening period had been spent on the telephone, speaking to an increasingly wide circle of friends, which at its outer reaches included people I'd never met. Colleagues of Michelle, old university accomplices, even schoolmates—the responses I culled varied from sympathy to amusement, but in each I heard that chasm that lies between horror and delight; the German feeling you get when bad things happen to other people.

  At its narrower reach, the circle included family. Michelle had one parent living, her mother, currently residing in a care home. I'm not sure why I say “currently.” There's little chance of her future involving alternative accommodation. But she's beyond the reach of polite conversation, let alone urgency, and it was Michelle's sister—her only sibling—that I spoke to instead.

  "And she hasn't been in touch?"

  "No, David."

  "But you'd tell me if she had?"

  Her pause told its own story.

  "Elizabeth?"

  "I would reassure you that nothing bad had happened to her,” she said. “As I'm sure it hasn't."

  "Can I speak to her?"

  "She's not here, David."

  "No, it certainly sounds like it. Just put her on, Elizabeth."

  She hung up at that point. I called back. Her husband answered. We exchanged words.

  Shortly after that, I began drinking in earnest.

  * * * *

  Thursday evening was the forty-eight-hour mark. I was not at my best. I was, though, back at the police station, talking to a detective.

  "So your wife hasn't been in touch, Mr. Wallace?"

  I bit back various answers. No sarcasm; no fury. Just answer the question. Answer the question.

  "Not a word. Not since this."

  At some point I had found a polythene envelope in a desk drawer; one of those plastic things for keeping documents pristine. Michelle's card tucked inside, it lay on the table between us. Facedown, which is to say, message-side up.

  "And there's been no word from anyone else?"

  "I've called everyone I can think of,” I said.

  This wasn't quite true.

  "You have my sympathy, Mr. Wallace. I know how difficult this must be."

  She—the detective—was young, blond, jacketless, with a crisp white shirt, and hair bunched into the shortest of tails. She wore no makeup. I have no idea whether this is a service regulation. And I couldn't remember her name, though she'd introduced herself at the start of our conversation. Interview, I should probably call it. I'm good with names, but this woman's had swum out of my head as soon as it was spoken. Then again, I had distractions. My wife was missing.

  "Can we talk about background details?"

  "Whatever will help."

  "What about your finances? Do you and your wife keep a joint account?"

  "We have a joint savings account, yes."

  "And has that been touched at all?"

  "We keep our current accounts separate.” It was important to spell out the details. One might prove crucial. “I pay a standing order into her account on the fifteenth, and she deals with the bills from that. Most of them. The mortgage and council tax are mine. She pays the phone and the gas and electricity.” I came to a halt. For some reason, I couldn't remember which of us paid the water rates.

  "And your savings account, Mr. Wallace,” she reminded me, quite gently. “Has that been touched at all?"

  I said, “Well, yes. Yes, it probably has."

  "Emptied?” she asked.

  "No,” I told her. “Quite the opposite. Well, not the opposite. That would be doubling it, wouldn't it? Or something.” Rambling, I knew. I took a breath. “Half of our savings have been withdrawn,” I told her.

  "Half?"

  "Precisely half,” I said. “To the penny."

  She made a note on the pad in front of her.

  "But don't you see?” I told her. “If they'd taken it all, that would have alerted me, alerted you, to the fact that there's funny business going on."

  "They?” she asked.

  "Whoever's taken her,” I said. “She hasn't just left. She can't have."

  "People do leave, Mr. Wallace. I'm sorry, but they do. What is it your wife does? She works, is that right?"

  "She's a librarian."

  "Whereabouts? Here in town?"

  "Just down the road, yes."

  "And you've spoken to her colleagues? Have they ... shed any light on your wife's departure?"

  "Disappearance."

  She nodded: not agreeing. But allowing my alternative term the way you might allow a child to have his way on an unimportant matter, on which he was nevertheless mistaken.

  I said: “She handed in her notice."

  "I see."

  You had to hand it to her. There was no inflection on this.

  "And when did she do that, do you know?"

  "A few days ago,” I said. Suddenly I felt very tired. “On Monday."

  "While you were away."

  "That's right."

  "Didn't she have notice to serve? Under the terms of her contract?"

  "Yes. But she told them that she had personal reasons for needing to leave right away. But...” I could hear my voice trailing away. There was another but; there'd always be a but, but I couldn't for the life of me work out what this particular one might be.

  "Mr. Wallace."

  I nodded, tiredly.

  "I'm not sure we can take this matter further.” She corrected herself. “We the police, I mean. It doesn't seem like a matter for us. I'm very sorry."

  "What about the handwriting?” I asked.

  She looked down at exhibit one, which just now seemed all that remained of my wife.

  "It's a postcard,” I explained. I was half sure I'd told her this already, but so many facts were drifting loose from their moorings that it was important to nail some down. “It didn't come through the post. It's just a card we both liked. It's been on our fridge a long time. Years, even. Stuck there with a magnet."

  In a few moments more, I might have begun to describe the magnet it was stuck with.

  "And you recognise it?"

  "The card?"

  "The handwriting, Mr. Wallace."

  "Well, it looks like hers. But then it would, wouldn't it? If someone was trying to make it look like Michelle's?"

  "I'm not sure that impersonating handwriting is as easy as all that. If it looks like your wife's, well...” She glanced down at whatever note she'd been making, and didn't finish.

  "But the name! I keep telling you, Michelle wouldn't call herself Shell. It's—” I had to stop at this point. It's the last thing she would do was what I didn't say.

  "Mr. Wallace. Sometimes, when people want a new life for themselves, they find a new name to go with it. Do you see? By calling herself
Shell, she's making a break with the past."

  "That's an interesting point—I've forgotten your name. Whatever. It's an interesting point. But not as important as handwriting analysis. Maybe, once that's been done, we can discuss your psychological insight."

  She sighed. “Handwriting analysis is an expensive business, sir. We're not in the habit of diverting police resources to noncriminal matters."

  "But this is a criminal matter. That's precisely what I'm trying to get across. My wife has been abducted."

  I might have saved my breath.

  "When your wife's worked out her new place in the world, I'm sure she'll be in touch. Meanwhile, do you have a friend you can stay with? Someone to talk things over with?"

  "You won't have the card analysed,” I informed her. We both already knew this. That's why I didn't make it a question.

  "There's nothing to stop you having it done privately,” she said.

  "And if I'm right? When I'm right? Will you listen to me then?"

  "If you can provide credible evidence that the note's a forgery, then we'd certainly want to hear about it,” she said.

  It was as if we'd sat next to each other at a dinner party, and I'd described a trip I was planning.

  Well, if you have a good time, I'd certainly like to hear about it.

  The kind of thing you say when you're certain you'll never meet again.

  * * * *

  4.

  I've read books where they say things like I took an indefinite leave of absence. Do you have a job like that? Does anyone you know have a job like that? By Friday, my phone was ringing off the hook. Was I sick? Had I forgotten the appropriate channels for alerting HR to health issues? I spat, fumed, and mentally consigned HR to hell, but once I'd raged my hour I bit the bullet and saw my GP, who listened sympathetically while my story squirmed out, then signed me off work for the month. I returned home and delivered the news to the fools in HR. Then I fished out the Yellow Pages and looked for handwriting experts.

  Here's another. Have you ever tried looking for a handwriting expert in the Yellow Pages?

  Nothing under Handwriting. Calligraphy offers sign-writers and commercial artists. And—

  And that's all I came up with.

  I sat next to the phone for a while, useless directory in my hands. What other guise might a handwriting expert adopt? I couldn't imagine. I failed to deduce.

  In the end, I looked up Detective Agencies instead.

  You're probably thinking that was the thing to do. That once the professional arrived on the scene I'd fade into the background where I belonged, while some hard-bitten but soft-centered ex-cop with an alcohol problem and an interestingly named cat re-ravelled my life for 250 pounds a day plus expenses. But it was just another trip to Dolphin Junction. I gave my story twice, once over the phone and once in person to an acne-scratched twenty-something who couldn't get his digital recorder to work and forgot—thank God—to take the postcard when he left. I didn't hear from him again. He probably lost my address. And if he couldn't find me, missing persons were definitely out of his league.

  Anyway. I went back to the police.

  * * * *

  5.

  This time, it was a man. A thin, dark-featured man whose tie featured small dancing elephants, a detail which stuck with me for a long time afterwards. He was a detective sergeant, so at least I was being shuffled upwards, rather than down. His name was Martin Dampner, and I wasn't a stranger to him.

  "We've met before, Mr. Wallace. You probably don't remember."

  "I do,” I told him. “I think I do. When Jane was killed."

  It would have had to be then. When else had I been in a police station?

  "That's right. I sat in on the interview. Don't think I said anything. I was a DC then. A detective constable."

  "It was a long time ago,” I said.

  He digested that, perhaps examining it for hidden barbs. But I hadn't meant anything special. It had been twelve years ago. If that was a long time to rise from DC to DS, that was his problem.

  He said, “It was a bad business."

  "So is this."

  "Of course,” he said.

  We were in an office which might have been his or just one he was using for our conversation. I've no idea whether detective sergeants get their own office. My impression was that life was open-plan at that rank.

  "How are you?” he now asked.

  This stumped me.

  "What do you mean?"

  He settled into the chair on his side of the desk. “How are you feeling? Are you eating properly? Drinking too much? Getting to work okay?"

  I said, “My GP signed me off."

  "Sensible. Good move."

  "Can we talk about my missing wife?"

  "We can. We can.” He put his hands behind his neck and stared at me for what felt a long while. I was starting to quite seriously wonder if he was mad. Then he said, “I've looked at the notes DC Peterson made. She seems convinced your wife left of her own accord."

  "Well, it's nice to know she's formed an opinion. That didn't take much effort on her part, did it?"

  "You're underestimating my colleague. She followed some matters up after speaking to you. Did you know that?"

  I didn't. And had more important subjects to raise: “Did she explain about the name? The name the note was signed with?"

  "Shell, yes?"

  "That's right."

  "For Michelle."

  "My wife never called herself that. Never would. She hated it."

  "I got that much. But if you don't mind my saying so, Mr. Wallace, that's a pretty flimsy base on which to assume—what is it you're assuming? Abduction?"

  "Abduction. Kidnapping. Whatever you call it when someone is taken against their will and the police won't do a bloody thing about it!"

  I was shaking suddenly. How did that happen? For days I'd been calm and reasonably controlled, and now this supercilious cop was undoing all that work. Did he have any idea what I was going through? These days of not knowing; these endless nights of staring at the ceiling? And then, just when it felt the dark would never end, light pulling its second-storey job; bringing definition to the furniture and returning all the spooky shapes to their everyday functional presences. With this came not fresh hope, just an awareness that things weren't over yet.

  Days of this. More than a week now. How much longer?

  "Let's calm down,” he suggested.

  "Why,” I asked, pulling myself together, “did you agree to see me? If you've made up your mind nothing's wrong?"

  "We serve the public,” he said.

  I didn't have an answer to that.

  "My colleague, DC Peterson. She did some follow-up after you spoke.” Martin Dampner pushed his chair back to allow himself room to uncross his legs, then cross them the other way. “She went to the library where Mrs. Wallace worked. Spoke to the librarian."

  "And?"

  Though I knew what was coming.

  "When your wife handed her resignation in, she was perfectly in control. She handed her letter over, discussed its ramifications. Refused to be swayed. There was no coercion. Nobody waiting outside. No whispered messages for help."

  "And I'm sure you've drawn all the conclusions you need from that."

  He steamrollered on. “She, DC Peterson, also went to your Building Society. Where she didn't just ask questions. She saw tape."

  I closed my eyes.

  "They record everything on CCTV. You probably know that already. DC Peterson watched footage of Mrs. Wallace withdrawing money, having a brief chat with the cashier—who has no memory of their conversation, other than that it probably involved the weather or holidays—and leaving. On her own. Uncoerced."

  It was like pursuing an argument with a filing cabinet. I stood.

  "Mr. Wallace, I am sorry. But you need to hear this."

  "Which is why you agreed to see me. Right?"

  "Also, I was wondering if you'd had a handwriting test done.
"

  I stared.

  "Have you?"

  "No. No, I haven't."

  "And does that mean you're now convinced it is her writing? Or so convinced it isn't that mere proof isn't likely to sway you?"

  "It means, Sergeant, that I haven't yet found anywhere that'll do the job for me.” I didn't want to tell him about the spotty private eye. I already knew that was a road heading nowhere. “And I don't suppose you're about to tell me you've had a change of heart? And will do it yourselves?"

  He was shaking his head before I'd finished. “Mr. Wallace. Believe me, I'm sorry for what you're going through. I've been there myself, and there aren't many I'd wish it on. But the facts as we understand them leave little room for doubt. Your wife quit her job, withdrew half your savings, and left a note saying she was leaving. All of which suggests that wherever Mrs. Wallace is, she's there of her own accord."

  "My wife's name is not Shell,” I said.

  He handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it. “They're pretty good. They won't rip you off. Take another sample of Mrs. Wallace's writing with you. Well, you'd probably worked that out for yourself."

  I should have thanked him, I suppose. But what I really felt like was a specimen; as if his whole purpose in seeing me had been to study what my life looked like. So I just shovelled the paper into a pocket, and stood.

  "You've aged well,” he said. “If you don't mind my saying."

  "I'm surprised you've not made inspector yet,” was the best I could manage in reply.

  * * * *

  Back home, I sat at the kitchen table and rang the number Martin Dampner had given me. The woman who answered explained what I could expect from her firm's services: a definitive statement as to whether the handwriting matched a sample I knew was the subject's. There was no chance of error. She might have been talking of DNA. She might have been talking of a lot of things, actually, because I stopped listening for a bit. When I tuned back in, she was telling me that they could also produce a psychometric evaluation of the subject. I wasn't thinking of offering the subject a job, I almost said, but didn't. If they couldn't work that out from the postcard, they weren't much use to anyone.