Stone Cold Red Hot

by Cath Staincliffe

  I made my way back to the kitchen. Frances may have been right, something she had said had got to Jennifer or it was the thought of going home. But why so sudden? Had she made up her mind to tell them that evening and then panicked? And run away? Where? With no money, no spare clothes. As far as I could tell that had been the last that any of her friends had seen of her. She’d missed Caroline’s birthday the following evening and no-one had seen hide nor hair of her since.

  Suicide? I’d not thought of that. Her body never discovered? Or found but never identified? If she’d been anywhere in the Lancashire area it would have been all over the papers and the telly, her family or friends would have made a connection. But what if she’d gone to London or further afield, run out of hope there? Her parents had never reported her missing and it was doubtful whether Lisa’s attempt to do so would have received much attention so if an unidentified body had been found they wouldn’t have been able to compare dental records with those of missing persons.

  It was all a mess, I thought, a hopeless, confusing mess. I rubbed my neck, trying to ease the tension lodged there. I heard Roger coming.

  “Is she alright?”

  “I think so. I’ve put her to bed. She’s absolutely livid with me.”

  I nodded. “At least it’s out in the open, now. She knows that you’re serious. What do you think she’ll do?”

  “There’s not much she can do. But she’ll be difficult to live with. She’s not used to me going against her.” He sighed and filled the kettle. “Did she tell you anything?”

  “No.” Just lies. “Same old stuff about Jennifer going to Keele. Why do you think she’s so upset?”

  “I don’t know, it’s like I told you - she won’t talk about it, like some ancient feud and I don’t know what’s behind it apart from Jennifer expecting the baby. But why she won’t tell you, tell me...” he broke off in exasperation then sighed. “Tea?”

  “Coffee, if you’ve got it.”

  Neither of us spoke until he’d made the drinks. He sat opposite me at the small table cradling the mug in his hands.

  “Do you want me to carry on?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t need to think about it.

  “Roger,” I wondered how to phrase it, “I may not be able to find Jennifer, sometimes people just get lost, stay lost and with the time lapse...”

  “I know,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I want you to keep looking. I want you to go tomorrow. You said you could check the records to see if she had the baby.”

  “Yes. There’s something else to consider, too. You need to think about the possibility that Jennifer may no longer be alive.” The words sounded strained as I picked my way round the topic.

  He paused for a beat, his body still. “You can check that out too, can’t you? When you go to Huddersfield?”

  “Yes, I can, if her death was ever registered, if her identity was known. But her next of kin would have been notified unless there had been some mistake along the line. Another possibility is that Jennifer married and changed her name, she might never have told her husband she had any family, in that case he would have been her next of kin and your parents would never have been informed. So I’ll look for marriages as well as the births and deaths.”

  He swallowed. “Right.” He looked at me then, his eyes glistening but his gaze steady. “Because it would be better to know, whatever you find out, it would be better to know, wouldn’t it?”

  I had no answer.

  Chapter fourteen

  I felt lousy cycling back from Roger’s. The confrontation with Mrs Pickering had left a bitter taste in my mouth and the tension had given rise to a dull ache in my neck and shoulder. I admired Roger’s determination that I should press ahead with my enquiries, especially after the fury of his mother, but I felt anxious at what I might find out. My hunch was that I would bring only bad news back from Huddersfield. I told myself it was his choice, he was a grown man, but it had hardly been a fully informed choice. Yes, I’d hinted at the possibility of Jennifer’s death but I’d come nowhere near telling him I now thought that the most likely outcome.

  I needed to work off some of the tension. I was pushing it for time but I just made it home to get towel and swimsuit and out again for the Tuesday night women only swim at Withington Baths. It was better going later, not so busy. I swam as fast as I could, pushing myself, feeling my legs tire and my lungs work hard. After thirty lengths I walked up the steps, my legs wobbling from the exertion. I had a long shower, letting the water play on my sore shoulder. The water was hot but only stayed on for ten seconds at a time so I had to keep reaching up to press the knob again which made it hard to keep my back relaxed.

  Ray and Laura were watching a video when I got back. I didn’t feel like joining in. I asked Ray if he’d be able to collect Maddie and Tom from school the following afternoon. He mumbled a yes and snuggled closer to Laura who giggled at something. I wondered whether Laura had met Nana Tello yet. She’d be delighted at any sign of Ray getting ready to settle down properly with someone. She had always viewed our household and my presence as an awkward aberration which would stymie Ray’s eligibility for romance and marriage and further grandchildren. I bet she was lighting candles to the patron saint of courtship on a regular basis.

  Sheila was washing up in the kitchen; she shares it with us and has a flat in the attic with her own bathroom and sitting room.

  “You look tired,” she said.

  That made me yawn. “I didn’t get in till nearly three, my car got nicked last night.”

  “Oh, no, where?”

  I told her all about it as I made myself some tea and crumpets. “And now,” I yawned, “I’m absolutely shattered.”

  “Early night?”

  “Yes.” I didn’t want to play gooseberry to the loving couple and I nearly said so to Sheila but it wasn’t the right moment, really. If I was going to raise it we needed time for a good talk. I wanted to know if she found Ray had changed and what she thought about Tom and Ray leaving us or Laura moving in. “What about you? Course going well?”

  “I love it,” she laughed at herself. “I’ve definitely got the bug. I’m hoping that they’ll let me do a PHD after this.”

  “Good for you.” She was in the second year of a degree course in geology, after the break up of a twenty-year marriage.

  I slathered my crumpets with butter and Marmite and took them up with my drink.I read for a while but found it hard to concentrate. I checked on the kids before I went to bed. All was well. I had a bunch of late sweet-peas by my bed. I lay there and breathed in their perfume and tried not to think about work; about secrets and lies and snapshots of a girl with stars painted on her cheeks. I tried for ages. And then I slept.

  The nearest car rental place was in Didsbury. I rang and checked that they could help me, then, armed with my driving license, credit cards and proof of identity, I walked down there and got sorted out with a nice white Datsun. It had a stereo sound system which would help to relieve the tedium of the M62.

  It was raining steadily as I drove out over Barton Bridge and got stuck in the queues for the massive Trafford Centre. The place had a wonderful dome but the prospect of miles of mall and hundreds of shops and shoppers was my idea of hell not heaven. If I ever had a few grand to spend it might be fun but even then I’d prefer wandering round real streets with sky above and proper city air and pigeons.

  I reached the M62, peeling off from the traffic going west and began to climb the Pennine hills. Some are so steep there are crawler lanes for the heavy goods vehicles that have to slow down, but there were still plenty of manic trucks on the road that October day, slewing past me in a welter of spray and muck or travelling stubbornly in pairs, a lane each, vying to overtake. I was relieved to see the Huddersfield exit and content myself with getting lost in the one-way network.

  The records of births, deaths and marriages were housed in the Local History Library. Once I’d found the right section I dutifully deposited my
bag in one of the lockers. Pens were forbidden, presumably in case someone got carried away and scrawled “found Grandma!” or “this must be Harry’s wife” on precious archives. I purchased a pencil and found a free microfiche viewer.

  The place was quietly busy, to my left an elderly man was surrounded by papers and books which he referred to in between peering at his screen. To my right a young couple were working together and talking in whispers. The microfiches were kept in folders, each year divided into quarters. I went to the birth records folders and pulled out the one for 1977. I settled in front of the viewer, got my notebook and pencil ready and began to trawl through the entries.

  Jennifer had been pregnant in the summer of 1976, maybe only a few weeks but possibly two or three months, so I checked from the following spring through to autumn. There were three Pickerings; my heart leapt each time I saw the name - had I found Roger’s niece or nephew? But when I examined the details each entry gave a different maiden name for the mother - these were women who had married a Pickering. I needed a Pickering whose maiden name was Pickering. No joy. If Jennifer had given birth there was no record of it.

  Had she married? I repeated my search in the marriage records. Nothing. Steeling myself, I moved on to look at the Deaths. Beginning in 1976 I searched every year for Jennifer. There were two Jennifer Pickerings, but each was too old at seventyseven and eightythree to be the one I wanted. I finished the latest folders and sat back rolling my shoulders from the strain of peering at all the data. I needed a break from sitting scrolling through the lists so I retrieved my bag and went to get a coffee.

  As I sipped it and munched on a flapjack I wondered whether there was anything else I could usefully do. There was no sign of Jennifer’s death or of her baby’s birth. Even if she had decided on adoption the original birth records would be here. Perhaps she had miscarried or gone for an abortion. She felt like a chimera. I’d seen her photograph, talked to her friends, met her family but she kept slipping through my fingers. Like she never existed.

  It was instinct that made me return to the birth records again. I certainly had no clue what I was expecting to find. And the rational part of me thought I was just prevaricating because I didn’t want to admit defeat and go home.

  I got the folder for 1958. There was no Jennifer Pickering born in Manchester that year. There was no Jennifer Pickering born anywhere else either. I double checked. This was crazy.

  “Yes!” The man to my left exclaimed, “There’s a marriage in York.” A couple of others stopped and smiled at his success.

  I returned to the shelves and looked through the years either side, maybe Roger had got the year wrong. No luck. I was stumped. I sat and thought for a while. Go back a step, I told myself. Find the Pickerings’ marriage. I didn’t know Barbara’s maiden name so I had to look for Frank. There was no entry for a marriage between a Frank Pickering and anyone in the three years before Jennifer was, supposedly, born. What was it with this family, where the hell were all their records? It was like the X-files or something.

  I sat and tried to think it through. I drew spirals on my notepad surrounded by question marks. I waited a while, thought some more. Where was Jennifer? Where was the marriage? Slowly, the penny chugged along the slope, lingered on the brink and then dropped. Was I right? I went through the microfiches. Yes! Pickering, Frank, married a woman, maiden name Carter, in Manchester in 1961. Jennifer would have been just over three years old at the time. I’d got it.

  I felt a buzz of excitement as the new information raised fresh possibilities. Jennifer Pickering was illegitimate, born before the marriage. Well before. In all likelihood she wasn’t Frank’s child. But how come he had deigned to marry Barbara? She’d have been a fallen woman in his eyes, surely? Jennifer had called him a hypocrite. Had she known about the details of her birth? Had she expected them to understand? Not according to her friends. Or had the fact of her illegitimacy only come out in the heat of the row which followed her announcement of her pregnancy, and then she’d rung Lisa, full of fury at the double standard. Her mother could be forgiven but she could not. But hang on, according to Lisa, Jennifer said her father’s hypocrisy wasn’t about her pregnancy. Was it about her mother’s then? Had she needed papers for university and found out then that she was not Frank Pickering’s child? Had she remembered all the sermons he had preached about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of purity, of fallen women and hellfires?

  No wonder Barbara Pickering found it hard to talk about Jennifer; her daughter’s pregnancy must have re-awakened all her buried feelings of disgrace and shame and revealed a secret that the family had jealously guarded. Had Jennifer demanded to know who her real father was? Whose blood ran in her veins? Could she have gone to him? Run away to find him cutting herself off from the family who had lied to her? My mind cartwheeled round the possible scenarios.

  I pulled myself back to the task in hand, carefully noted the record and then went back to the birth records to find Jennifer Carter. When had they changed her name? Had they done it formally or was it just Pickering by usage? Would she have needed her birth certificate for anything? College? Passport? She had to be there. What would I do if she wasn’t? My hand trembled a little as I slid the acetates into the glass holders. I peered at the screen, scrolled down to the surnames beginning with C. Oh, yes. There she was Carter, Jennifer. In the spring of 1958. Mother’s maiden surname; Carter.

  I didn’t call out like my neighbour but I felt a glow of delight at unravelling the tangle. Then, because I pride myself on being thorough, I looked through all the records again to see if Jennifer had given birth, died or married using her original name of Jennifer Carter. Zilch.

  It was way past lunch time and my stomach was growling. The rain had stopped and I wandered about until I found a little curry house in the town centre and wolfed down a vegetable dansak and two chapattis. New questions about the case sprang up in my mind like cress on cotton wool. Had they ever told Jennifer that she wasn’t Frank’s biological daughter? Had she discovered the truth herself, coming upon the birth certificate, cheeks burning and guts revolving as the truth slapped her in the face? Wouldn’t she have run to Lisa, though? Confided in her best friend? Around all my speculation circled the question that really mattered: where was Jennifer Pickering and was she dead or alive?

  I tried to focus on the last few days before her disappearance. She had spoken to Lisa and she had been very upset; she’d called her father a hypocrite but when Lisa asked her if she’d told them about the baby, Jennifer said not. She’d been low at Frances’s, (had that come sooner or later?) and then she had become distressed as she made to go home. Pushing her friend away, leave me alone. Sudden, it had been, as though she’d had a shock.

  Then nothing. No-one had seen her, heard from her. And I’d talked to everyone I possibly could. I pulled out my original list. All except Mrs Shuttle who had slammed the phone down on me. Next door neighbour, moved to Bradford. Why so violent a reaction? What was behind it? It was only a few miles from Huddersfield to Bradford. I could pay an unexpected visit. What had I got to lose? An hour or so? I flipped back through my notebook looking for the phone number. I knew I’d written it down early on in my enquiries. Found it. I rang the number and a woman answered.

  “Isabella?” I made my voice squeaky.

  “You’ve got the wrong number.”

  “Oops! Sorry.” Now don’t go out before I get there.

  I bought an A-Z at the newsagents and worked out my route. They didn’t live far from the motorway. As I rejoined the traffic I considered what questions to ask Mrs Shuttle. There would be little point in going over the same ground I’d covered with everyone else. I tried to come up with something other than ‘why did you cut me off?’ but I just couldn’t concentrate. I was too distracted by the revelations of the records office. To be honest I hadn’t got the foggiest what I’d say.

  Chapter fifteen

  I left the motorway and followed the ring-road round the
outskirts of Bradford. Like Sheffield, the city had grown along the valleys and up the hills but Bradford was built on wool not steel. My mobile began to bleat and I pulled in at a bus stop and fished it out of my bag.

  “Sal Kilkenny.”

  “Hello, it’s St Paul’s here, we’ve got Maddie and Tom waiting, no-one’s come to collect them.”

  I felt a wave of panic followed by a roll of anger. Where the hell was Ray? Had something happened to him? My mind span round seeking solutions. It would take me an hour or more to get back. Nana Tello wouldn’t be able to do it, unless she could get a taxi and had the money to pay for it. I hadn’t got Ray’s college number on me and past experience had told me it was hopeless trying to contact him there. Besides Salford is miles from Withington, it’d take him ages to get to school.

  “I’m ever so sorry, there’s obviously been some mix up. I’m afraid I’m over in Yorkshire but I’ll try and get somebody to come and get them now, I’ll ring you back and let you know what’s happening.”

  I took the school’s number then dialled home. Bloody Ray. No answer. Vicky? Vicky Dobson! Back from her tour of the festivals, she’d often babysat for Maddie and Tom before. I punched the number. Please be in, please.

  “‘Lo?”

  “Vicky, it’s Sal. Look, it’s a bit of an emergency, Ray’s forgotten to pick the kids up from school. I’m in Bradford and I can’t get there. Could you get them? I’d pay you of course.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you.