‘No, we’re fine, thank you.’
The younger officer sat, his partner remained on his feet.
‘I’m Detective Constable Allan. This is Detective Sergeant Harvey – he’s here to supervise.’
The first thing Peter noticed about DS Harvey was his height. Or rather lack of it. He was perhaps around five foot five, and had clearly spent a lot of time in the gym trying to make up for it. His shirt was straining slightly across his shoulders and yet baggy in the waist – perhaps the job didn’t pay well enough for tailoring. He had closely shaven blond hair, and as he stepped forward to shake Peter’s hand, he got a whiff of menthol chewing gum and expensive aftershave. Apparently, the pay wasn’t too shabby. Maybe he just wanted people to notice his muscles as they looked down on him from above. Yet there was something about his face . . .
‘Have we met?’ Peter stared at him.
The older officer looked familiar somehow, but seeing the police wasn’t second nature in Severn Oaks. The last time had been . . .
‘Did you come when Erica fell? Harvey, yes, I remember you.’
The officer inclined his head. ‘You have a good memory.’
‘Not really,’ he said. ‘We just don’t get many occasions to see the police here. It’s usually very quiet. People here look out for one another generally. You were only a trainee then? You’ve done well for yourself in less than a year.’
The sergeant reddened. A sore spot? Although Peter couldn’t see how a promotion could be cause for discomfort; he was a man who believed that the top was the only place to head. No use competing for last place and all that. DS Harvey didn’t seem to agree, judging by the way he changed the subject so swiftly.
‘No CCTV any more, I see?’
Peter shook his head, tried to look regretful that their every move wasn’t on cameras for the world to see. ‘There used to be CCTV, the developers paid the contract for the first five years as part of the deal – although of course they put the cost onto the house price. After that, Erica took care of it and we all just paid her. Then after she died, no one else bothered and it lapsed. My wife kept meaning to . . .’
‘That’s Erica Spencer?’
The younger officer looked at his partner, who nodded back slowly but didn’t elaborate.
‘Why don’t we kick things off?’ prompted the sergeant.
The younger officer reddened and pulled out his notepad. ‘Okay, Mr King—’
‘Peter, please.’
‘Okay, Peter. We’re following up on the missing person report you filed on your wife. Firstly, has anything changed since you made your report? Has Mrs King made contact at all?’
‘No.’ Peter shook his head. That much, at least, was true. ‘I haven’t heard from her.’
‘Okay.’ DC Allan made a note. ‘It’s going to seem like I’m asking questions you’ve already answered in the report but I just want to make sure we get a full picture of what might have happened.’
To see if my story changes, more like , Peter thought, but he wasn’t worried. He’d gone over the story a million times, he’d thought of little else.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you everything I know.’ He didn’t know what to do or say, what the correct procedure was, the way one should act when one’s wife has been missing for days. Would he be a suspect? Wasn’t that what happened on TV? The police look like they are trying to help, but they are trying to get you to incriminate yourself? Could you try and look too innocent?
‘So, we need to establish if Mary-Beth is what we call “high risk”.’
‘High risk?’ Peter repeated. ‘Isn’t everyone who goes missing high risk?’
‘Not necessarily, no,’ Harvey replied, speaking for the younger man. ‘There are a lot of reasons why someone – especially an adult – might go away without telling anyone, and they don’t always equate to that person being in danger. What we need you to do is give us every bit of information you can so that we can make an informed decision about how to proceed with the investigation.’
‘But there will be an investigation?’ Peter rubbed sweat from his palms onto his trousers and hoped the officers didn’t notice.
Allan nodded. ‘There will always be an initial investigation, we just need to know what we’re dealing with.’
Peter pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes. When he released the pressure the room swam for a second before coming into focus. DC Allan was talking again.
‘When was the last time you saw your wife?’
‘Monday morning, about eight a.m.’
DC Allan made a note in his book. ‘But you didn’t report her missing until nine p.m. last night?’
‘No, well, I only realised she was missing then. The kids stay over at Mary’s mum’s on a Monday anyway. It wasn’t until Mary’s mum phoned yesterday to say she hadn’t been to get the kids – had we forgotten them? – that I even realised there was anything wrong.’ Peter stood up, then sat down abruptly. He didn’t know what to do with himself, his limbs seemed to demand to move around irritably. He laced his fingers together to stop them flexing.
‘You didn’t speak to her at all after you left Monday morning? Was that normal?’ DS Harvey didn’t even try to hide the incredulous tone in his voice.
‘No, it wasn’t, but it wasn’t abnormal either, if you know what I mean. Well, probably you don’t. I tried calling her when I arrived on Monday, but the phone went straight to answerphone. The signal around here is really bad, so that didn’t surprise me, but usually, she’d call back. I had a few drinks in the hotel bar after the training and went to bed – it only occurred to me in the morning that she hadn’t called back, but by then I was in another training session. I tried her from the car on the way home but it just rang out. I wasn’t worried or anything – I mean, why would I be? Your wife doesn’t answer a couple of your calls, you don’t automatically think that—’ He stopped short, unable to say the words.
‘Of course you don’t,’ DC Allan said, sounding as though he was aiming for a soothing tone. ‘So when you realised she hadn’t picked the children up, what did you do then?’
‘I called her again.’ Peter recalled the sound of a phone ringing and ringing with no one to answer it. ‘And of course, she didn’t answer. I went over to Mary’s mum’s to pick the kids up and I tried her all the way home, over and over, trying not to panic the children, making jokes about silly Mummy leaving her phone on silent. She did that all the time anyway. When I got home I sent the children to play while I searched the house. Everything was tidy and in place. None of her clothes seemed to be missing, the suitcase was where it always is.’
‘And that was when you called the police?’
‘Not straight away. I went out into the street, caught one of our neighbours, Larry Gorman from next door but one – he hadn’t seen her since Monday, but he works funny shifts. I banged on Jack – Spencer, that is – from next door but there was no answer. I popped next door to Felicity, but I think she was on the phone, then I saw Marcus in the drive. He looked a bit shell-shocked, not his usual self, so I asked him if he’d seen Mary-Beth and he said not since the picnic.’
‘The picnic?’
‘I’d forgotten all about it. The community picnic, the one at the school every year. Erica usually organises it, but with her gone . . .’
‘That’s Erica Spencer again?’
‘Yes, she and Mary-Beth were very close. She took on a lot of the work for the picnic – that’s what she’s like, she can’t say no to anything. She was at the picnic and dropped the kids off afterwards. No one has seen her since.’
‘Right, sorry, Mr King, I just want to make sure we have all the details. So you checked with your neighbours, and then you reported your wife missing?’
‘Yes. I mean no, not that very instant, but almost. I went back inside, and I was wondering what I should do next, whether I should bother the police when she could walk back in any second and apologise for forgetting to pick the children u
p. I think I called her phone again, sent a text for her to call me. I called a couple of her friends from the school – we have this pyramid letter with all the phone numbers on, so I just tried names I recognised. Then I called the police, and they asked me to come to the station to file a report.’
‘Okay, thank you, Mr King. I know that you must be anxious about your wife, but these next questions – we’re only asking them to get a full picture of what’s happened here. They might seem a little personal.’
Peter sighed. ‘Go on. Ask anything you want. I just want her found.’
‘Right. Would you say your wife was acting normally on Monday morning before you left?’
Peter nodded. ‘Nothing about her behaviour stood out as unusual. She was making the kids’ breakfast, flicking through Facebook or Twitter or something. I showered, dressed, came down and kissed her goodbye. Said I’d see her tomorrow and she said to drive safe. She always said that, like if she forgot and something happened it would be her fault.’
‘And the days before? Anything unusual?’
‘Not that stands out, no. I suppose everyone says that.’
Allan ignored the remark. ‘Okay,’ he said, jotting something down. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I have to ask you this but . . . were there any problems in the marriage? Any reason she might have left? Any reason to believe she was having an affair?’
Peter felt sick at the word. ‘No, no, and no. I know everyone probably says that but even if there was anything wrong, or she wanted to leave me, she would never leave the children.’
‘Have you got access to your bank account online? Perhaps you could check the recent transactions? Sometimes, when women do leave, we find small withdrawals over several months, kind of like a pot so—’
‘She didn’t have a pot,’ Peter spat. ‘And there won’t be any transactions.’ He groaned, like an animal in pain. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just, God, of all the things I can think of, the best-case scenario is that my wife has left me for another man. How fucked up is that? Because if she hasn’t run away . . .’
DS Harvey made a small gesture and DC Allan stood up.
‘It’s an incredibly stressful situation, sir, and I’m not going to patronise you with statistics, but I do want to say that most of the cases we see have a perfectly good explanation and the people turn up fine. We’ll have a wander around, talk to your neighbours and get back to you as soon as we have anything to go on. Will you be okay?’
‘I’ll be okay when you find out what happened to my wife.’
16
The door clicked closed behind them and DC Allan turned to look at Harvey. His supervisor had both hands shoved into his pockets and Allan had a sudden urge to stick out his foot and let him fall on his infuriatingly vacant face. He didn’t understand why Harvey was so cagey about this case – about Severn Oaks in general, actually. Was there more to the Erica Spencer case than he’d let on? He seemed reluctant to discuss it – even more reluctant to admit that this new disappearance could have anything to do with what happened last Halloween.
‘You still think she ran away?’
‘Yes.’
Allan resisted the urge to sigh. Surely he wasn’t stupid? Allan had heard all about DS Harvey, about how he completed his training and made DS faster than anyone in the department, not long after the incident with Erica Spencer last year. He wasn’t exactly showing any of the intuition that had got him promoted right now.
‘He said there was CCTV.’
‘He said the CCTV hadn’t been working since Erica Spencer died.’
‘Exactly. Which means it was working the night she fell out of the tree house.’
Harvey looked at him sharply. ‘What’s that got to do with this investigation?’
‘You can’t just dismiss the idea that the two are linked. Was the CCTV checked in the initial investigation? Perhaps I should check out the files.’
‘Perhaps you should write up the missing person report and let the DCI decide what happens next. That’s how this works, we don’t get to just go running around looking for mysteries. We have a budget to think about. And before you go dragging up what happened here last year – the CCTV was checked. I did it personally. Only one person who didn’t live in Severn Oaks entered those gates. A woman drove up towards the Kaplans’ drive. The CCTV was trained on the street, not the private houses, so you can’t see the house anyway. After less than thirty minutes the woman returned, drove straight out and didn’t come back. It was two hours before Erica went missing. There was no way that woman had anything to do with Erica’s fall.’
‘Did you ask Karla who she was?’
Harvey scowled. ‘Of course I did. She said the woman was a friend, she’d been dropping something off. There didn’t seem any point in wasting any more resources on it.’
He shrugged as though it was no big deal, but Allan sensed there was something his sergeant wasn’t telling him.
‘Shame they didn’t keep that CCTV running. I’d like to know if Peter King was telling us the truth about when he last saw his wife.’
‘You think he was lying?’
‘Didn’t you hear what he said? When he was talking about Mary-Beth telling him to drive safe?’
‘Yeah, so she was superstitious. What’s wrong with that? Apart from being a pile of crap.’
‘He said, “She always said that, like if she forgot and something happened it would be her fault.”’
‘Yeah, so?’ Harvey’s voice was bordering on the aggressive.
‘He used the past tense. About his wife who’s been missing barely forty-eight hours.’
Harvey snorted. ‘You’re reading too much into it. People make those kinds of mistakes all the time. This isn’t some TV drama where one throwaway comment unlocks the mystery. I understand you’re eager to solve this but—’
‘Whatever.’ Allan looked up at the houses encircling them, all with their expensive cars in the driveways and their empty windows, and felt that each one was watching them. ‘I still think there’s more to this one. I think Mary-Beth King is in danger, and I intend to find out why.’
17
‘They’re coming out,’ Felicity hissed, jumping back from the patio doors. ‘What do you think is going on? Mary-Beth isn’t with them.’
‘Maybe the podcast guy gave them his evidence, after all,’ Karla speculated. She scrolled through her phone and clicked Marcus’s number. ‘Babe, it’s me. The police are at the Kings’.’
‘Oh, shit, I wonder if it’s to do with Mary-Beth?’
‘That’s what we said. Do you think they’re fingering her for Erica’s murder?’
‘Erica’s murder? Fingering her? Shit, Kay, you need to watch a lot less TV. Anyway, I don’t mean that. I saw Pete last night and—’
‘They’re coming here,’ Felicity announced, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘They are coming. Up. The. Driveway. Right. Now.’
‘Shit. Marcus, get back here now. And call your lawyer,’ Karla hissed into the phone, and hit the ‘end call’ button.
‘Lawyer?’ Felicity’s eyes widened. ‘Bloody hell, Karla, I don’t have a lawyer. I mean, I know lawyers, for the business and all, but I’ve never actually needed to use one. I never thought I’d need one. What do you think they’re going to say?’
‘We’re about to find out,’ Karla grimaced as the doorbell rang.
She flung open the door and announced, ‘You will have to speak to my lawyer.’
The two police officers on the front step looked alarmed.
‘Your lawyer?’ the younger one repeated stupidly.
The older one grinned. ‘Celebrities,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘Mrs Kaplan, isn’t it? If you wish to have a lawyer present while I ask you when was the last time you saw your neighbour then, by all means, go ahead and call them. We’ll pop back to you once we’ve asked the rest of the street. The ones who aren’t acting like they are on the set of Law and Order .’
Karla felt her face redden. ‘My
neighbour? Do you mean Mary-Beth?’
‘Yes, her husband reported her missing yesterday evening, and we’re trying to get a picture of when she was last seen. Would you mind if we came in, or do you still want your lawyer?’
‘Sorry,’ Karla mumbled, stepping aside to let them in. ‘Got a bit carried away. We don’t have police here often.’
‘You’d be surprised at how many people go Miami Vice on us, start referring to people as “perps” and asking us if we’ve “fingered” the criminals. This is DC Allan, and I’m DS Harvey.’
Karla gave a tinkling laugh and scowled at Felicity, who had stuffed her fist into her mouth to stop herself from laughing. ‘Ha! Idiots. Wait . . . Harvey? You were here last year. You’ve lost weight.’
Harvey’s face coloured. ‘A bit,’ he admitted, before the other woman spoke up.
‘I’m Felicity Goldman.’ She held out her hand, and both officers shook it. ‘I’d say good to see you again, DS Harvey, but I’d be lying. I don’t know if you remember but I live across there,’ she pointed at her house, ‘next door to Mary-Beth and Peter. I can’t believe she’s missing, though. Are you sure she hasn’t gone to her mum’s?’
‘Does she do that often? Stay at her mum’s? Were there problems in the marriage?’
Felicity clapped a hand to her mouth. Dropping it, she pointed at the police officer. ‘Ooooh, I forgot that you’re good.’
‘Do you want a drink?’ Karla asked, appearing from the kitchen with a tray. ‘Hors d’oeuvres?’
‘We’re fine, thank you. So, Miss Goldman . . .’
Karla noted the annoyance on Felicity’s face. She bloody hated being called ‘Miss’. Said it made her sound about twelve years old.
‘. . . Mrs Kaplan, when was the last time you both saw Mary-Beth?’
‘Well, she was at the picnic,’ Karla replied. ‘On the gate, doing the tickets. She said she was going to meet us on the grass afterwards but she never came to find us.’
Someone Is Lying Page 6
