Missing From Home

by Mary Burchell

  “Jerry, how kind of you!” Clare held out her hand to him and smiled anxiously. “This must mean you’ve been trying to help us again.”

  “Not as much as I should, Mrs. Collamore,” he replied frankly. “There’s a long story to tell, and we may as well say right away that it begins with Marilyn having to confess that Pat and she originally engineered Pat’s disappearance.”

  Marilyn, who had not quite expected to be flung in at the deep end like this, gasped at the ruthlessness of Jerry’s tactics. But she instantly recognised their irresistible force as well, for there was simply no doubting the genuineness of her mother’s astounded horror and anger as she cried:

  “Mari! You—and Pat? Oh, you couldn’t have done anything so wicked! Why should you?—Why?” Wordlessly, Marilyn stood before her parents, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, the picture of guilt and remorse.

  “I don’t understand!” Clare pushed back her hair with both her hands. “What have I or your father ever done that you should inflict such misery on us? Don’t you know what you made us suffer? The torture of that first evening—that useless journey—oh, everything! I can’t believe it of you!” And she actually buried her face in her hands, as though to shut out the sight of her guilty daughter, while Greg put a comforting hand on her shoulder and looked sternly at Marilyn.

  “Why did you do it?” he said helplessly. “Didn’t you care about hurting your mother—or me?”

  “It—it wasn’t that we wanted to hurt you.” Marilyn spoke through dry lips. “It was just—” She made a futile sort of gesture with her hands. “We wanted you to come home—” she said with forlorn simplicity. And then she began to cry—desperately, hopelessly, without even putting up her hands to her face.

  “You wanted—?” Her mother raised her head and stared at her.

  “You wanted—” it was her father who spoke through dry lips now—“you wanted me as much as that?”

  Marilyn nodded, and her harsh, almost childish sobs seemed to tear little rents in the silence of the room.

  Jerry Penrose moved as though to go to her, but Gregory Collamore stopped him with a swift gesture, and he himself went to his daughter and took her in his arms.

  “Don’t,” he said at last. “Don’t cry like that, child.” And he put his cheek down against the top of her head. “It was a terrible—a ridiculous thing to do. But I think I understand.”

  “Greg!” Clare spoke half in astonishment and half in protest. But he looked across at her over Marilyn’s head and said,

  “It was just as you insisted to me. We failed them.”

  “No, you mustn’t blame yourselves too much.” Marilyn looked up then and spoke between gulps. “We were wrong, Pat and I. I see that now.” Then she looked at her mother’s pale, distressed face and with a little cry of remorse she ran to her and, kneeling beside her, flung her arms round her.

  “I’m sorry, Mother,” she said. And once again she seemed unable to get further than the bald, simple statement.

  “All right.” Bewilderedly, Clare ran a singularly gentle hand over her child’s dishevelled hair. Then she looked at Jerry Penrose and asked, “Do you think you could finish the story?”

  “If Marilyn prefers it that way.”

  “Yes, please.” Marilyn’s face was half hidden against her mother and her voice was muffled.

  So, lucidly and concealing nothing, Jerry went over the story from the moment of Pat’s disappearance until she telephoned to him at his office, at which point Clare interrupted reproachfully.

  “You mean you realised then that the whole thing was a hoax?”

  “Yes,” said Jerry resolutely.

  “But you should have told us! Don’t you think it was unpardonable for you yourself to join in the deception?”

  “Yes, I do,” he admitted frankly. “But I’m afraid I indulged in some muddled thinking at that point. I was reluctant to interfere too insistently in another family’s affairs. Though I think I was wrong now.”

  “I persuaded him,” Marilyn interrupted doggedly. “Both Pat and I played on his kindness and good nature. It was our fault.”

  “Oh, Mari!” exclaimed her mother. While her father said grimly,

  “Don’t you think you’d better finish the tale yourself, young woman? Otherwise we’re going to put some of the blame in the wrong place.”

  “Yes.” Marilyn, who had recovered some of her natural courage and resolution by now, flashed Jerry a grateful smile for all his support and then, in a husky voice, took up the story. When she came to the visit of the policeman the previous evening, her father exclaimed almost violently,

  “Wasn’t that enough to make you confide in us?”

  “I still thought it was only a temporary crisis,” Marilyn explained timidly. “I knew she’d be short of money, of course, after losing her bag. But it seemed to me she’d get by all right for twenty-four hours if she pawned her watch or her bracelet or something—”

  “Her bracelet!” interrupted Clare, glancing at her husband, who nodded shortly.

  “It wasn’t until I got to the garage this morning and found there was no message—no sign at all from Pat—that I realised something must be terribly wrong.”

  “But you were there rather early in the day, weren’t you, Mari? She might not have got there until later,” suggested Clare, clinging to the only faint hope which offered.

  But Marilyn shook her head despondently.

  “She’d have got there at the first possible moment, Mother. She had to. Why should she delay? She’d already managed to let me know there would be a message there, and her need to contact me had become even more urgent than before.”

  “Perhaps she hadn’t the money for a bus fare,” Clare said desperately. “Perhaps she had to walk quite a long distance.”

  “What’s the name of the garage, Marilyn?” her father asked abruptly.

  She told him, and added the telephone number when she saw him move towards the phone. Then they all watched silently while he called the garage and asked if there were any message for the young lady who had made enquiries that morning.

  From his expression they knew the answer even before he put down the receiver and said grimly, “Nothing.”

  “That girl—who had her bracelet—” Again Clare looked at her husband.

  “Yes, I was thinking of that.” Greg fished in his pockets and brought out an envelope with a number scribbled on the back. “At least I have the number of the car. If I go along to the police now—”

  “Ah, that’s better!” exclaimed Jerry, who had been a silent spectator of the family scene for some minutes now. “Let’s have some action. We’ve none of us had our priorities right in the last few days. The one thing that matters now is to find Pat.”

  “Of course!” Clare smiled at him gratefully, almost as though he were a member of the family. But Greg, who of course had never seen him before in his life, seemed to think the young man a trifle officious.

  “It’s very good of you to have taken so much interest—so much trouble,” he said stiffly. “And we owe you a debt for bringing Marilyn to her senses and making her come and tell us the truth. But now that—”

  “That’s all right, sir,” interrupted Jerry, firmly but kindly. “I’m in this too, if you don’t mind. I’ve got Marilyn’s interests warmly at heart.”

  “Pat’s,” corrected Marilyn, in the interests of accuracy.

  But he looked at her and grinned.

  “Marilyn’s,” he repeated. “Allow me to know my own mind. I think you’re a tiresome little idiot, and you probably deserve a good spanking for the way you’ve behaved to your parents. But you called me into this business yourself, and I’m going to see you out of your present troubles whatever anyone says.”

  “Are you?” Marilyn stared at him, wide-eyed, as though she really saw him for the first time.

  And in all the fog of misery and anxiety and guilt which enveloped her there was suddenly a bright shaft of light, jus
t because Jerry Penrose had said she was a tiresome little idiot but he had her interests warmly at heart.

  CHAPTER VIII

  HOWEVER comforting Jerry Penrose’s intervention might be to Marilyn, for Clare and her husband it provided no special lifting of the heart. All they could think of was the urgent necessity of starting once more on the weary, agonising search for the now genuinely lost Pat.

  “Shall I come with you to the police, Greg?” Clare got up and came to her husband’s side, as though sensing that his need of her was as great as her need of him. “I might know some fact or remember some detail that escaped you.”

  “If you feel you can bear it,” he said bleakly.

  “Of course I can bear it! Much better than sitting here waiting for news, to tell the truth. Let’s go together, dear.”

  She slipped her arm into his, and for a moment he brushed his lips across her cheek, as though unspeakably thankful to have her there.

  “Will you trust me to stay here and look after Marilyn?” asked Jerry at that point.

  “I doubt if she needs anyone to look after her,” replied Greg drily. “She seems to have shown herself well able to take the initiative—for good or ill—without the support of anyone else.”

  “I’d like Jerry to stay,” Marilyn said humbly. “It would be better than waiting here alone.”

  Jerry looked disproportionately pleased at this modest estimate of his company, and Clare said, “Please stay, then, Jerry. I expect the police will want to see Mari later. But perhaps it’s best for my husband and me to make the first approach.”

  “Yes, indeed!” And as Marilyn looked startled and anxious, Jerry moved to her side with the obvious intention of putting fresh courage into her.

  “It’s still half make-believe to those two young idiots,” Greg observed grimly as he and Clare went to the lift. But Clare said,

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so. It’s just that, having confessed their disgraceful part in this, they’re almost weak with relief, and they can’t help feeling things will somehow be all right now.”

  “Having unloaded their anxiety and trouble on to us, you mean?”

  “Isn’t that what parents are for?” Clare smiled faintly. And after a moment he made a slight face and said,

  “Yes, I suppose they are. How much do we tell the police?”

  “Everything.” Clare was resolute about that.

  “Even the girls’ so-called reason for doing this preposterous thing?”

  “How else can we make the situation clear? They were so unhappy about the break-up of their family life that they thought they must do something. That’s the sole reason for Pat’s disappearance in the first instance.”

  She saw from his expression that he very much disliked the idea of laying their private affairs before a stranger. But he accepted her commonsense ruling. And when they arrived at the police station, it was he who took on the disagreeable task of telling their story to the stolid-looking sergeant, who sat at a desk taking notes.

  “So you mean, sir, that in your opinion the young lady disappeared intentionally in the beginning, but that now she would like to come back but can’t.”

  “I know it sounds an improbable story, but—”

  “No, sir. Nothing is improbable these days,” the sergeant said resignedly. “You couldn’t tell me anything about young people that would surprise me. What makes you think she wants to come home now but can’t?”

  “She has practically no money—” Clare began. “That’s usually the least of their worries. If they’ve got a bit of push they can get a job almost anywhere. If this young lady really intended to leave home—”

  “But she didn’t! Not really. It was a—a sort of hoax,” Clare pointed out. “Then it became vital for her to contact her sister. She arranged to do so—and then there was nothing from her. Not a word or sign.”

  “She could have changed her mind.”

  “There was no reason for her to change her mind.”

  “Oh well—” the sergeant’s tone said clearly that in his experience people constantly changed their minds for little or no reason at all.

  “Then her bag was found—rifled.”

  “She might have disposed of it herself.”

  “With her passport in?”

  “No,” the sergeant conceded. “No, that’s unusual.” And he made another note. “Now what’s this about her bracelet being worn by another girl? You say there’s no possibility of its being a duplicate?”

  “Hardly the smallest chance.” Clare spoke quickly, before Greg could. “I had it made to a special design for her.” And, slowly and clearly, she repeated the story Greg had already told.

  “You say you have the number of the car these people drove off in?” The sergeant turned to Greg. “Yes. Here it is.”

  The sergeant noted down the number. Then he studied what he had written and said,

  “Well, we’ll make the routine enquiries for a missing person, and we’ll try to trace the owner of this car and make enquiries there too. Meanwhile, if the young lady turns up—” he seemed to regard this as a distinct possibility—“perhaps you’d let me know immediately.”

  “Yes, of course.” Greg spoke a little stiffly. And then, with Clare’s imploring eyes on him, he added, “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “You’ve enquired at the homes of her various friends, I take it? Anywhere where she might be staying.”

  “There’s nowhere she would go and not be able to come back,” Clare insisted.

  “Assuming she really has changed her mind and still doesn’t want to stay away. We’re not really sure about that, are we?”

  “Everything points to it!”

  “Well, no, madam, I wouldn’t say that exactly. The only thing we know positively—according to her sister’s admission—is that she went away of her own accord in the beginning. It’s possible that the situation has changed, and of course we’ll follow up that possibility. That’s all I can say.”

  It seemed that was all anyone could say. And on the short drive home Clare and Greg hardly addressed a word to each other. Then finally she burst out,

  “He wasn’t very helpful, was he?”

  “I suppose he thought the chances were that it was just another crazy, inconsiderate kid playing up her over-anxious parents.” Greg’s mouth was set grimly. “It could be, too, of course,” he added after a moment.

  “It’s not! I know my child—At least, I think I do.” Clare pressed the back of her hand against her forehead. “She was happy at home. There was never any real reason for her to go away, as I always thought. It was just this mad idea she and Marilyn had. And now that things have gone wrong for her—as shown by the empty handbag and the bracelet on another girl’s arm—she would want only one thing—to get in touch with Mari. She knew how to do so. She’d suggested the very way herself. And yet there’s this utter silence. No one can tell me she isn’t in trouble—or danger.”

  Greg made no answer to that, but it was obvious from his expression that his thoughts jumped with hers. And by the time they got back to the flat they both looked so dispirited that Marilyn cried anxiously, “No news? N-nothing helpful from the police?”

  “Nothing.” Clare ran her hand distractedly through her hair. “Oh, they’ll make what they call the routine enquiries for a missing person. But the sergeant was obviously more than half convinced that she’s still staying away of her own accord. It’s so difficult to explain an individual person to someone else. He just thinks she’s any sort of tiresome teenager kicking over the traces. He doesn’t know she wouldn’t do this or she would do that just because she’s Pat. He doesn’t know how Pat ticks. How should he?”

  “Give him a little time, Mrs. Collamore,” Jerry said encouragingly. “They never promise anything. They can’t. But they’re much quicker on the uptake than many people think. And they have very efficient machinery for tracing people, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. I keep telling myself that, a
nd thank you for reminding me.” She smiled faintly. And then, as she saw him taking prolonged leave of Marilyn, “Must you go now?”

  “I’m afraid I must. I didn’t leave word at the office that I’d be missing all the afternoon, and I’d better put in some sort of appearance, however belated.”

  “Yes, of course. We can’t thank you enough for all your help and support.” And she followed him out into the hall.

  For a whole minute there was silence between Marilyn and her father. Then, as they heard Clare go to her own room, he said, as though with some difficulty,

  “Mari, when you were really frightened this morning, why did you go to that young man—a virtual stranger—for help? He’s a nice fellow, I admit, but wouldn’t it have been more natural to go to your mother—or to me?”

  “I didn’t feel Mother could stand any more. She’s so alone and—”

  “All right,” he interrupted quickly, as though something stung him unbearably. “I understand that. But why didn’t you come to me? Did you think of me as so unfatherly and uncaring?”

  “No, no!” She was moved by the bitter unhappiness in his face. “I did go to you. I went to the hotel. But you weren’t there. You were out.” And then, after a pause, “Mrs. Curtiss was there.”

  “Linda Curtiss?” Her father glanced at her sharply. “Surely you didn’t talk to her about it?”

  “She talked to me.” Marilyn looked down at her tightly clasped hands. “She said she knew Pat and I and Mother were all in some absurd sort of conspiracy to—to get you back. She—” Marilyn swallowed—“spoke abominably about Mother, and said she would make it quite clear to you that you were being fooled by us all.—What did you say?”