The Disappeared

by Ali Harper

  I threw on some clean clothes and knocked on Jo’s bedroom door. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Where we going?’ she shouted back.

  ‘Alderley Edge. Back to the old fella’s house.’ He knew more than he was letting on, I was sure of it. ‘Five minutes,’ I shouted through the door. ‘I want to get there before he’s pissed.’

  We were back outside his house in Alderley Edge before nine on Monday morning. I used my fist to bang on the solid oak front door. He opened it wearing the same dressing gown he’d been wearing the last time we’d seen him.

  ‘Knew you’d be trouble,’ he said. He licked a finger and ran it over his right eyebrow.

  I gave him my best don’t mess with me smile. ‘We’re investigating the death of Mrs Wilkins. We think you can help.’

  ‘How do you know she’s dead?’

  ‘Give us a break,’ said Jo. ‘We know she’s dead.’

  ‘No body.’

  ‘Nobody what?’

  ‘Never found a body.’

  ‘In a car crash?’ I had visions of a high-speed collision, Mrs Wilkins being catapulted through the air. Surely her body would be impossible to miss.

  ‘Car crash?’

  Jo put a hand against the front door and pushed it open wider. ‘I think we better come in.’

  He shrugged and stood aside to let us into the entrance hall. ‘Is that what Wilkins told you? Don’t trust that slimy bugger. All points to him.’

  ‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ I said, leading the way through to the kitchen. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Professor Peter Partingdon.’ He bowed. ‘Delighted to be of service.’

  ‘How did Mrs Wilkins die, Professor Partingdon?’

  ‘She didn’t. Well, she probably did, but no one knows for certain. She disappeared.’

  ‘And they never found her body?’ asked Jo.

  ‘One day she was here, the next gone.’ He clapped his hands together.

  ‘And she’s never been found?’ I wanted to be clear.

  ‘I’ll have the newspaper cutting somewhere.’ He inched up his dressing gown sleeves like he was a doctor about to perform surgery. ‘Give me a minute.’

  He disappeared into another room. Jo pulled a face at me.

  ‘I’ll stick the kettle on,’ she said.

  We heard bangs and muffled cursing coming from the other room. Jo brewed up, we drank a mug of tea, then let ourselves out of the back door and smoked a cigarette in the vast overgrown garden.

  ‘Do you need any help?’ I shouted through when we heard a noise that sounded like him falling off a chair or a set of ladders or something.

  ‘Not necessary, thank you.’ He popped his head around the door, his arms full of newspapers. ‘System’s shot to hell, but it’s all in here. Somewhere.’

  He disappeared again and came back almost fifteen minutes later, holding a single newspaper above his head like it was the FA Cup. ‘Told you. Never lost a thing. Just a question of searching long enough.’

  He handed me a copy of the Manchester Evening News, dated 15 September 2000. The story was on page two and the headline had been circled with marker pen.

  ‘Police question millionaire in wife’s disappearance.’

  I felt my pulse quicken, a wave of something akin to excitement flooded my system. We’d found the source of the river.

  I took a seat in the armchair, and Jo peered over my shoulder as I read the article, whispering the words to myself, careful because I didn’t want to miss anything, any slight clue that might have been left for us, all these years later. ‘“The husband of missing housewife Jayne Wilkins has been called in for questioning, according to sources close to the investigation, writes Martin Blink”; Martin Blink. Write that down,’ I said to Jo. She rummaged for a pen while I read the article aloud.

  ‘“Nick Wilkins was the last person to see his wife alive, in the early evening of Friday, 8 September. He told police she was going to the cinema with a friend. Police have been unable to locate the friend and checks with local cinemas have failed to confirm Mrs Wilkins attended on the night in question. Police are keen to speak to anyone with information, particularly from members of the public who visited the Odeon cinema on Oxford Street on the night of Friday, 8 September”.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Jo.

  ‘And they never found her?’ I asked the professor. I turned to see he’d poured himself a drink.

  ‘Not a single trace.’

  ‘And Nick Wilkins wasn’t charged?’

  ‘No evidence. Either he didn’t do it, or he covered his tracks well. That journalist tried – buying beers for anyone who might want to talk about it.’

  ‘Can we take this?’ I held up the newspaper.

  ‘You most certainly cannot.’ He snatched it from my fingers, and for a moment I thought he was going to hit me round the head with it. ‘Not much point in keeping records if I’m to hand them over to any Tom, Dick or Harry who turns up on the doorstep.’

  ‘OK, no worries. You’ve been very helpful.’

  Jo and I left the house. ‘Why did Jack tell Carly his mother died in a car crash?’

  ‘Maybe that was what he was told.’

  ‘But he said he was in the car.’

  ‘Survivor guilt. He blames himself, so he puts himself in there. He was only 5.’

  ‘Do you get survivor guilt if no one died?’

  ‘She died, Lee.’ Jo climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed her door shut.

  I got in the passenger side. ‘There’s no proof.’

  ‘He paid Martha, Megan twenty-four grand to keep quiet.’

  ‘We don’t know that for a fact.’

  ‘Why would he tell Jack his mother’s dead if she wasn’t?’

  I buckled up my seatbelt. ‘I don’t know.’

  Jo turned the key in the ignition and pressed the accelerator down so that the engine revved. ‘Let’s see if Martin Blink can shed any light,’ she said. ‘Bet you a tenner that’s a made-up name.’

  Martin Blink wasn’t a made-up name. I fired up my new phone and googled ‘Manchester Evening News’. When I rang the news desk I was told Martin Blink didn’t work there anymore. ‘Is there any chance we can get a message to him,’ I asked, using my best professional voice. ‘We want to talk to him about a story he worked on.’

  The woman promised she’d try and reach him. ‘He’ll be happy to hear from you. Too much time on his hands now he’s retired.’

  I put the phone down and we drove in silence for a while, no real plan as to where we were headed, but my mind chewed over the new information. ‘You think I should give Col a ring? He might be able to find out what happened in the original investigation.’

  ‘I guess. Make the most of working for a fascist pig.’

  I pulled a face.

  ‘Joke,’ said Jo. She didn’t laugh.

  Col had given us a telephone number but warned that he wouldn’t always be able to access it. I left a message on his voicemail and hung up. I was just about to switch my phone off when it rang, making me jump.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Lee Winters, please.’

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘Name’s Blink, Martin Blink. Is Lee available?’

  ‘You’re speaking to her,’ I said. I explained we were private investigators and that we’d like to arrange a meeting because a case he’d reported on might have some relevance to a missing person case we were working today.

  ‘In 2000?’

  ‘I know. It’s a long time ago.’

  ‘Ha, might be to you. When you get to my age, seventeen years feels like yesterday. What’s the name?’

  ‘Lee.’

  ‘Not your name. The vic.’

  ‘The vic.?’

  ‘The victim. The story.’

  ‘Oh. Jayne, Jayne Wil—’

  ‘Wilkins.’ He finished my sentence for me. There was a pause and I thought I heard him whistle down the phone, but it might have been wheezing. He sounded p
retty old. ‘When were you thinking?’

  ‘Sooner the better.’

  ‘Well, I’m retired. Don’t have a right lot to do any day. Where are you now?’

  ‘The city centre, trying to find somewhere to eat.’

  ‘Then meet me at the café on John Dalton Street. Be there as soon as I can.’

  The café was painted green, and Jo ordered pie, chips and gravy. I was still full from Aunt Edie’s breakfast the day before. I’ve never had that big an appetite, but it’s got worse since I gave up drinking. Jo keeps telling me heroin chic is out of style but it’s not that I don’t want to eat. It’s just I’m not as hungry as I once was.

  We’d been there forty minutes when Martin Blink arrived, dressed in a tweed jacket. He carried a briefcase and walked with a limp, his right knee twisted out to the side so that it looked like his leg might buckle any moment. You could feel his pain as he made his way across the café, but he didn’t look that old once he’d sat down. Loads of life in the old dog yet, I caught myself thinking.

  ‘Funny name for a girl.’ We shook hands, and Martin Blink gestured over to the woman behind the counter.

  ‘The usual?’ she shouted across.

  ‘Aye.’

  By the time Jo had soaked up the last smear of gravy with her chips, Martin had had a cup of coffee and a currant teacake delivered to him. Jo put down her knife and fork and held her finger and thumb together to form a circle to the waitress.

  ‘Jayne Wilkins. Always hoped someone would show up one day, have another crack at this one. Lovely looking woman.’

  I didn’t have to look at Jo to know that her hackles would be rising. I knew what she was thinking and, of course, she’s right. It’s a disease, but one we all catch. People are more interested in good-looking people. Fact.

  ‘Lovely looking dead woman,’ said Jo, leaning back in her chair and cracking her knuckles.

  ‘Unproven,’ said Martin.

  ‘Her son thinks she’s dead.’

  Martin took off his glasses and polished the lenses with a napkin. ‘Must be all grown up now. Early twenties. What does he say?’

  ‘We haven’t spoken to him,’ I felt obliged to point out.

  ‘What was his name now? James? No. Jake?’

  ‘Jack,’ I said, stacking Martin’s empty plate on top of Jo’s and pushing both to the side.

  ‘You haven’t spoken to him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how do you know what he thinks about anything?’

  ‘Girlfriend,’ said Jo.

  ‘His girlfriend told you Jack thinks his mother’s dead?’ He replaced his glasses. ‘Bit tenuous. What’s your interest?’

  We’d talked about this on the way to the café. How much to tell Martin Blink? The fact he was a newspaper reporter, albeit retired, meant he was surely a safe bet when it came to protecting sources. And we didn’t have a lot to protect at that moment. Does client confidentiality matter when your client’s dead? We’d decided to stick close to the original story – Martha hiring us to find Jack. No need to complicate it by mentioning Martha’s death or Col’s involvement.

  ‘Jack’s missing. We’re trying to find him.’

  ‘Any leads?’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘Who wants him found? The father?’

  ‘A friend of his, a woman called Martha. She’s worried about him.’

  He sat back in his chair and pulled a packet of Fisherman’s Friends from his pocket. He popped one in his mouth. I could see the cogs in his brain whirring. He licked his lips and lowered his voice. ‘Missing, like his mother. Interesting. I can tell you something – Jayne Wilkins loved that kiddie. Spoke to the neighbours, her brother. Everyone said the same thing. Inseparable. ’Course, you don’t get that so much these days. Women more focused on careers. They’d see her in the mornings, picnic basket on her arm.’

  ‘Jesus, a regular, real-life Mary Poppins,’ said Jo.

  ‘Took him all over – art galleries, museums, libraries.’

  Jealousy made my nose wrinkle – not something I’m proud to admit. Jealous of a smack addict who was either on the run or dead, whose mother disappeared when he was 5, his father chief suspect in her probable murder. Doesn’t make sense when you write it like that, but the image of a mother skipping down the road with a picnic basket? I’ve never even watched the movie. It was hard enough to get my mother to leave the house. Fact is, she didn’t, not for the last few years. She stayed in, mouldering to the settee.

  ‘He was only 5 when she left,’ I pointed out.

  ‘She didn’t leave.’ Martin banged the table with his fist, shocking both of us and making the builders on the table in the corner turn and stare. I wondered whether the journalist’s interest was purely professional. ‘Not of her own free will.’

  ‘You think she was killed?’ asked Jo.

  ‘No body, no proof, no crime. But a woman like that doesn’t walk out on her kid. I’d stake my pension on it.’

  ‘Where was Jack?’ asked Jo. ‘At the time?’

  ‘Friend’s house. Gone for a sleepover. Which also makes the father’s statement a bit of a lie. What happily married couple gets a kid-free night and decides not to spend it together? According to him they were the most loved-up couple since Taylor and Burton.’ He flashed me a grin of brownish teeth. I wondered if it was the Fisherman’s Friends. ‘Before the divorce, obviously.’

  ‘So, there was no car crash?’

  ‘“Car crash”?’ He frowned. ‘Where’ve you got that from?’

  ‘Jack’s girlfriend,’ I said. ‘She thinks Jayne might have been involved in a car crash.’

  ‘Not that I heard. Nick Wilkins had a bit of a chequered history when it came to cars. Drunk driving, I think. Not connected though.’

  ‘They arrested him?’

  ‘No. Questioned, never arrested or charged. He was always just “helping the police with their enquiries”.’ He made the quote signs with his fingers in the air. ‘They never proved anything. No body. No crime.’

  ‘But he was under suspicion?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Jo.

  ‘It’s my job to know.’ He paused, corrected himself. ‘Was my job.’

  A man and woman walked into the café with their arms around each other. The man laughed at something his girlfriend said. I felt a pang of something and turned back to Martin Blink. ‘How?’ I said.

  He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Sources. Close to the investigation.’

  I glanced at Jo, tried to gauge what she was thinking. There’s times we’re so close I could swear we’re telepathic, but right now her face was giving nothing away.

  ‘Listen,’ Blink said. He leaned towards us. ‘Everyone thought he’d done it, just no one could prove it.’

  ‘Innocent till proven guilty,’ I murmured. ‘Why did everyone think it was him?’

  ‘Because forty per cent of murdered women are murdered by their partners.’

  ‘Means there’s a sixty per cent chance it was someone else.’

  Martin Blink puffed out his chest. ‘He was caught out. Over and over. Lies. His version of their relationship turned out to be a fairy tale. He was having an affair.’

  Jo sighed. ‘Quelle fucking surprise.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘More than one, by all accounts.’

  ‘Any names?’ I couldn’t help the feeling Martin Blink had an axe to grind.

  ‘Karen Carpenter, like the singer.’

  ‘This is fact?’

  The retired journalist leaned in to me so I smelled his liquorice menthol breath on my face. ‘It’s gospel.’

  Chapter Thirty

  I pride myself on being a good judge of character and, having met Nick Wilkins, I had no trouble believing him capable of an extramarital affair. Jo, I knew, had no trouble believing any man guilty of sexual infidelity. Fact is she’d have trouble believing in a man who didn’t put it about. Still, I reminded myself, I was
an investigator. Investigators require proof.

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked Martin.

  ‘Tip-off.’

  We all started when my phone rang. I tugged it out of my pocket and gave it to Jo.

  ‘No one’s got this number.’

  She checked the screen and got up from the table. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked Martin.

  I frowned at him. Like I would know. ‘Tip-off from?’

  ‘Can’t reveal my sources, you should know that, lassie.’

  ‘Did they give you a name?’

  ‘Several names.’

  ‘You checked them out?’

  ‘I was the best investigative journalist north of Watford. Got more commendations hanging on my walls than you’ve got textbooks. ’Course I checked them out.’

  ‘And?’ I couldn’t help sensing that Martin Blink was playing us like bass guitars. His blue eyes had a glint to them. The more time we spent with him, the younger he looked. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Found two of them. Both denied it, of course. And you can’t blame them. Finding out the man you’re having a fling with not only has a wife but has a wife who’s disappeared in very mysterious circumstances – ’course you’re not going to admit to it. But I’m not daft.’

  ‘“Not daft”?’

  ‘They were frightened.’

  ‘Of?’

  ‘Frightened the same thing might happen to them. He’s a powerful man, Nick Wilkins. Powerful and sailing too close to the wind.’

  ‘What wind?’ I asked.

  Blink didn’t answer.

  ‘This all sounds like myth and rumour to me,’ I said. I leaned back in my seat and pretended to examine my fingernails.

  ‘Her brother thought he’d done it. What was his name? Tom, Tom Smith. That’s it.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He knew she kept a diary. Always had done, since she was a kid. He told the police, but Wilkins swore blind she didn’t keep one. So, the brother went looking for it himself.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And he found some of it.’

  ‘“Some of it”? What did it say?’