Wings over the Watcher

by Priscilla Masters

  She jerked her head upwards to find Arthur Pennington waiting for her to speak, his pale eyes, behind the glasses, drooped and sad but fixed on her face with the vaguest glimmer of hope. That Detective Piercy would find his wife and bring her home again.

  Joanna felt she must perform. “Your wife didn’t leave you a note, did she?”

  “No.” Said indignantly. “I’d have told you. I wouldn’t have kept that from you. I know how important these things are.”

  Then it was time to take the bull by the horns. “Your wife. I mean – Beatrice…” She was aware she must tread very carefully. Tiptoe through the tulips. “There isn’t any possibility that your wife has gone away with someone, is there?”

  The scraps of scarlet and black lace and chiffon lay between them, almost obscenely, on the desk.

  Pennington didn’t even stop to consider. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He rejected the idea out of hand. “That’s a stupid suggestion. My wife is a moral woman. I’d have thought you’d have realised that. Have a lover, you mean?” He tried to laugh. But really he was seething at the suggestion. He began to lecture her. “Inspector. I know it’s all the rage now to go on and on about these things but sex. A lover. Well – it doesn’t play a big part in our lives. We’re far too busy getting on with things. I’d suspect the Pope of having a lover before my Beatrice.”

  Joanna opened her mouth, clamped it shut again, realised the Pope quip had been an attempt at a joke, smiled and felt a terrible pang of anxiety.

  Arthur Pennington was due for a very big shock.

  His forehead was shiny with sweat. He mopped it with a hanky he drew from his pocket. An old-fashioned, man’s cotton handkerchief, starched, pressed and ironed. All this registered and made her slightly uneasier. She was going to have to play this one strictly by the book, gather all the evidence and confront him with it. Otherwise Arthur Pennington was the sort of man who would virtually camp outside Leek Police Station. He would believe nothing bad about his wife unless she could confront him with her whereabouts. For her to simply disappear was not going to be an option. There was a steeliness about his face, a mulish stubbornness too. “OK,” she said finally. “I need to know a few more details about your wife.”

  And then the petty side of Pennington peeped out again as he mocked her. “What is there to tell? What do you want to know? How often she takes a bath? None of that’ll find her.” Then he lost it. “Oh, none of this makes any sense.” He passed his hand across his brow, wiped the moisture off this time on his trousers as though his standards were slowly slipping.

  “Where does she work?”

  “In the library.” He frowned. “I already told you. She’s an assistant there. No one there knows a thing. I’ve been and asked them. I’ve virtually done my own investigation. More than you have, anyway.”

  Anyone who deals with the general public, particularly when they are labelled a servant of the people, is on the receiving end of their scorn. They are paying for you. They dish out your wages. There was something belligerent about Pennington now. This was going to be hard work with no reward.

  “And what does she do in her spare time?”

  “Not a lot, Inspector. A bit of gardening, keeps the house, shopping. She reads a lot of books. That’s why she went to work in the library in the first place. She has a fondness for reading. She started up a Readers’ Group there. It’s been going a few years now.”

  Joanna felt the faintest of tingles in her toes. Readers’ Groups sounded fertile feeding ground for a romantic entanglement.

  She would find him there. Some quiet, shy man, who loved to dream of romance through the pages of a book.

  “We lead a quiet, organised sort of life,” Pennington said with pride.

  On the surface, maybe, Mr Pennington. But underneath? I suspect otherwise.

  Keep mum.

  “And what do you do?”

  He showed his impatience then. “What has that got to do with it? I work as an accountant. But knowing that won’t help you. This is nothing to do with either of our jobs.”

  “Does she have any brothers and sisters?”

  “One sister, Frances. She’s a widow. She and Beatrice were fairly close. Not very, you understand, but I thought she might have some idea.” Again he looked acutely lost – bereft. Then he shook himself so the shoulders of his jacket puckered and smoothed. “But I’ve already rung her. She doesn’t know where Beatrice is.”

  The little worm of suspicion bored its way through Joanna’s mind again. Sworn to secrecy? Or truly ignorant?

  “And her parents?”

  “They’re retired farmers. They’re both in their eighties. They live near Brown Edge now, in a smallholding.” For the first time she saw Arthur Pennington smile. It was a nice smile. He had good teeth and it was wide and looked genuine. He looked a nice man. As had his wife. “They’re meant to be retired but they can’t be without a few pigs and a couple of sheep. It wouldn’t feel right to them, you understand. But I’ve spoke to all the family this morning. They haven’t heard a word from Beatrice for months. I tell you. We live a quiet life.”

  Not that quiet. Somehow, somewhere, in this quiet life, she has met a lover.

  “Friends?”

  “Apart from the people at the library and, I suppose the other folk in the Readers’ Group, she has really just the two close friends that live in the town.” He gave another of his surprisingly sweet smiles. “Been pals since schooldays. Close as skin they are. Once in a blue moon they go out for a bite to eat up the town and I suppose a bit of a gossip.”

  “I shall need their names.”

  “I’ve phoned them too. They know nowt.”

  “I’ll talk to them anyway.”

  “All right then. Marilyn Saunders. She trained as a nurse. Works up in the Cottage Hospital. Nights. And Jewel Pirtek.”

  “Jewel? That’s an unusual name.”

  “Changed it herself, by deed poll,” Pennington said in disgust. “Has a Fancy Goods shop halfway up Derby Street.”

  Joanna took their addresses and telephone numbers, noting that Arthur Pennington had already methodically prepared a list which he handed to her with resignation. Typewritten. As the day clicked by he must be coming to terms that his wife had, wilfully, abandoned him. And he expected her to investigate. He had thought no further than this. Certainly he had not considered the consequences. She had better not let him down.

  “One last thing, Mr Pennington, does your wife carry a mobile phone?”

  He looked excited. “She does. She does. I’d forgotten all about that. She does.” At last the policewoman had earned his respect. “I’ve never seen her use it though. It just sits at the bottom of her bag. I’ve never heard it go off. It’s for emergencies, you know?”

  “Do you have the number?”

  “It’s written down somewhere. I’m not sure where. I have it at home.”

  “So you haven’t rung it?”

  “No. No. I simply forgot all about it.” He looked flustered. Probably cross with himself for such an oversight. “How strange. How very odd. I’ll ring you and let you know. Will that be all right?”

  “Fine.”

  They both stood up together. The interview was at an end.

  Joanna touched his shoulder in a gesture of friendship. It was peculiar that she should feel she shared any responsibility for Beatrice Pennington’s disappearance. She certainly had had no hand in it. She had hardly known the woman. And yet, oddly, she did feel this was more than a normal disappearance. “Behind every crime,” Colclough, her Chief Superintendent, had once told her, “lies a story. It’s up to you, Piercy, to tease it out. Not to make judgements, just make sure that, when appropriate, the entire story is lain before the courts.”

  She shook herself. This was ridiculous. This was not a police case. Beatrice’s story was a private affair, something she must square with her husband.

  And lover.

  “Please,” she said, “don’t worry, Mr Pennin
gton, Arthur. Statistically your wife is likely to be fine. Just going through a bit of a crisis. A brainstorm, if you like. She wasn’t depressed, was she?”

  She hadn’t needed to ask this. Beatrice Pennington had been a woman who had been happily rediscovering herself. Right at the opposite end of the spectrum to depression.

  “No.”

  “And she wasn’t on medication?”

  “I’ve seen her take some pills occasionally but…” He turned around. “She was happy with her life. With our life. As I’ve said. None of this makes any sense.”

  “And you’re sure,” she began delicately, “that there is not another man?”

  “Oh, no,” he said firmly. “No. It isn’t possible. It simply isn’t possible.”

  And that was as far as she would get with him now.

  He left then, his shoulders slightly more bent than before.

  Joanna closed the door behind him very gently.

  When she was again alone in her room she realised there had been something fiercely uncompromising in Arthur Pennington’s stance.

  He would defend his point of view, fail to recognise another’s.

  In some circumstances this could be a dangerous attitude to take.

  Chapter Five

  Working in the same room as Korpanski it was impossible to sustain any sort of bad atmosphere so when he returned she launched straight in without preamble and speaking in a way deliberately blocking out previous hostilities.

  “I’ve lumbered myself with this now, Korpanski,” she said laughing, running her hands through the unruly hair, as she invariably did when she was embarrassed, “so I may as well see it through. I shall always blame the Femina Club of Leek,” she finished ruefully.

  “Ladies with bikes,” was Korpanski’s cryptic comment and Joanna couldn’t resist making a sly dig at him. “Safer than ladies with cars?”

  He made a face. “Don’t remind me. And I’m not really sure about safer the way you rattle around the countryside on your bike, but cheaper certainly.” His grin was the usual warm-Mike grin and she felt a quick heat towards him. He was a good colleague, one who would back her all the way. A loyal friend too. Korpanski was the immovable object as far as his emotions went. Once you had enlisted his friendship you could count on it. Forever.

  She picked her jacket up from the chair. “Well I may as well make a start on this.”

  “Want any help?”

  She stopped in front of his desk. “Not sure at this point, Mike.” She laughed again. “To be absolutely honest Arthur Pennington had forgotten she has a mobile phone. He’s going to go home for the number then ring it. If she answers it’ll all be sorted by tea-time.” She was thoughtful for the briefest of seconds.

  If Beatrice Pennington had a mobile phone why hadn’t she at least put her husband out of his misery? Told him she was safe, left a message – or something. That was the whole point about mobile phones. You could use them any time, any place.

  So why hadn’t she?

  It was that and the Ann Summers underwear. So obviously meant to have been packed. But left behind. She’d considered the theory that it had been a deliberate and malicious act and discounted it in the same second. From the brief contact she’d had with Beatrice Pennington she hadn’t struck her as a malicious type. She simply wouldn’t have abandoned her husband then twisted the knife in the wound with such spite.

  So, still paused in front of Korpanski’s desk, she frowned. “It won’t do any harm for you to do a spot of fishing, Mike. I’ve got the name of Beatrice’s two closest buddies. I’ll just try and find out the name of this secret lover, maybe even where she’s gone off to.” She knew she was still frowning. “I’ll tell you what though, Mike, just in case there is a hiccup, you could see what you can get on the mobile phone companies. See what was registered to her and then we’ll home in on the detail. Whoever this secret lover was, she’s bound to have used the mobile to contact him. It’ll all be in the printout.”

  Korpanski tilted so far back in his chair he could look up, straight into her face. “And having wound up the mystery of the missing woman you can spend the evening sorting things out with Levin.”

  Now it was her turn to make a face. “I’m not sure he’ll want to hear from me, Mike. He isn’t lonely any more.”

  Awkwardly he covered her hand with his own, his eyes glancing away. “He will want to talk to you, Jo. I know he will. If he doesn’t he’s a…”

  Now it was her turn to feel awkward. “Well thanks for the vote of confidence, Korpanski.” She was back to her own, habitual acerbic tone.

  Once outside she looked down her list of the missing woman’s friends. The one that appealed most was conversely the buddy that Arthur Pennington had appeared to dislike. Jewel Pirtek, the woman who had (pretentiously according to Arthur) changed her name in accordance with her image. Idly she wondered what Jewel’s name had been before.

  Derby Street was only a stone’s throw away so Joanna strode out for what passed as the High Street, but was actually named Derby Street. Bustling with people, busily doing their shopping.

  She knew Jewel Pirtek’s shop well. It sold handbags and belts, jewellery and perfume. Today the window was filled with bright, flowery beach bags and big, flashy necklaces, strewn with seashells, luring the individuals about to head off on holiday into a late buy.

  She pushed open the door. It was a small premises, a tiny counter on her left, huge hooks of handbags on her right – and at the back of the shop were pashminas and scarves. A woman was sitting behind the counter, regarding her.

  “Jewel?” she asked hesitantly.

  “That’s me.” A bright, gravelly voice only very slightly tinged with suspicion. “Who wants to know?”

  Like many old school friends Beatrice Pennington and Jewel Pirtek were as dissimilar as the proverbial chalk and cheese. Jewel was skinny, a size eight or ten, deeply suntanned, wearing an impressive amount of make-up including heavy, black false eyelashes. She displayed a scrawny cleavage and enough jewellery to sink a boat. She also smelt very strongly of Estee Lauder’s Beautiful. And Joanna had a sensitive nose for such things.

  The shop-owner treated Joanna to a great view of capped teeth. “Can I ‘elp you?” Her accent was pure Leek.

  Joanna flashed her ID card. “Does the name Beatrice Pennington mean anything to you?”

  The woman blinked. “Beattie? Course it does. We’ve known each other since schooldays. A few years ago now,” she added coyly.

  There was no affectation about Jewel – except the name – and that Joanna liked. Particularly when compared to Beatrice; it sounded exotic, exciting, unusual. And it suited this tough-skinned woman.

  The sticky eyelashes flickered wide. “What’s she done? Parked on double yellows?” There was a throaty cackle.

  “No. She seems to have disappeared,” Joanna said apologetically.

  Jewel did a double-take. “Beattie. Disappeared?” But there was not quite enough incredulity in the word.

  Joanna realised that this woman was busily sizing her up, wondering how much she knew.

  “Look,” she said, settling down on the stool the shop-side of the counter. Girl to girl. Woman to woman. “Arthur Pennington has consulted me professionally but I had met his wife on a couple of occasions. She came cycling with us. The Femina Club of Leek?”

  “Oh,” Jewel said again. “Yes. She did mention it. After getting fit, weren’t she?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  Jewel shrugged. Eyes wide open. “We’re always being told, aren’t we? Get fit, stop smoking, don’t drink too much. I suppose she was just following health advice.”

  Joanna thought there was something more to Beatrice’s sudden desire to change her image but she said nothing, leaving it to Beattie’s friend to continue.

  Jewel fixed her with a suddenly sharp look. “I can’t believe she’s gone missing. Since when?”

  “Since yesterday morning. She didn’t go to work in the morning and didn’t
return home last night.”

  “Doesn’t Arthur know where she is?”

  “No. Have you any idea where she might be?”

  Instinctively Joanna just knew that on the tip of Jewel’s tongue was the phrase, it’s for me to know and for you to find out.

  She braced herself, daring Beattie’s friend to say it but she didn’t so Joanna added.

  “She hinted to me that there was someone else. And Mr Pennington himself has some evidence…” (It seemed inappropriate to call the titillating underwear evidence but that was what it was or what it might become), “that she might be having an affair.”

  “Oh,” Jewel said again. She was giving nothing away.

  It was time to play the heavy-handed cop. “Ms Pirtek, Police investigations are very expensive and time-consuming. If this is a simple case of a middle-aged woman going off with another man I’d like to save the state some money. Understand?”

  “Oh I do that, dear.” Jewel was playing pally now.

  “And anything you tell me will be treated in confidence. So?”

  Jewel smirked and studied her false fingernails. “I had my suspicions,” she said. “I don’t know who it was but about six months ago Beattie completely changed. Just before Christmas it were. She had been down. Really down. We was worried about her. But then she changed. She started to look brighter. Much happier. Said she’d met someone. That was all she said, that she’d met someone. But it had quite an effect on her. She joined Weight Watchers. Tried on the fitness thing.” The eyelashes flickered. “To be fair to Beattie, life with Arthur was…well…shall we say predictable?”

  Joanna bit back the instinct to agree. It was not for her to pass judgement.

  “Do you know anything about the man? Do you know who he was?”

  Jewel hesitated. “No not really, except that she said this was someone who’d brought her back to life. That she’d never felt better or more fulfilled. That this was what the word kindness meant. She said an awful lot of things.”