‘He’s definitely a bit strange,’ Jenny said. ‘Sort of intense, you know? And he seemed a bit too interested in the case if you ask me—’
‘Well, make sure he knows we’re interested in him. See what you can shake loose. You might want to start with what they were doing the day Samantha Gold disappeared.’ He waited for a response and when he didn’t get one, Gardner said, ‘You OK with this?’
‘I might need to clear a few things with my boss, that’s all.’
‘Already done,’ Gardner said. ‘I spoke with your … what? Your lieutenant?’
‘DCI,’ Jenny said. ‘Detective chief inspector.’
‘Right. I told him what a great job you’d done so far and that if it was acceptable to him I’d like you to stay on it.’
‘He said that was OK?’
‘Well, to begin with, he was a little surprised that you’d done quite as much work as you had.’
‘Shit.’ Jenny had said it before she could stop herself. A muttered hiss of panic, anticipating the dressing-down she would get for overstepping her boundaries, for failing to keep her superiors informed.
Gardner chuckled softly. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘I just gave him all the “hands across the ocean” stuff. Told him what a great job he was doing in bringing on officers who were prepared to go the extra mile, you know? Who used their initiative.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Obviously, I didn’t tell him you hadn’t exactly been straight with me, but as long as we’re clear about how we proceed from here, I’m willing to overlook that, Trainee Detective Constable …’
When she had hung up, Jenny rummaged in her bag and fished out the memory stick that held the reports she had written up for Jeff Gardner. She loaded the files on to her computer and began reading through her notes on the conversations with the Dunnings, the Finnegans, Dave Cullen and Marina Green. Behind her, someone began to complain loudly about being thirsty. Somebody else laughed. She turned and saw a balding DS who fancied himself as the office comedian waving an empty mug in her direction and nodding towards the coffee machine.
She told him to make it himself.
FORTY-THREE
That indefinable, oddly soporific time between late Saturday afternoon and early Saturday evening and Angie had already taken up her regular position in front of the television. She had a bottle of white wine open and her legs up beneath her on the sofa. She wore grey velour tracksuit bottoms and a DKNY T-shirt and the menu for a local Chinese delivery place lay on top of the TV Times, next to a dog-eared book of Sudoku puzzles on the table she had pulled across from the nest beneath the window.
Perfect …
King prawn and mushroom with egg-fried rice and some of those sesame prawn toast things. Harry Hill then The X Factor and maybe that Matt Damon film where he was a spy without knowing it, if she wasn’t already asleep by then. Barry shaking her awake; opening a beer and taking her place on the sofa to watch Match of the Day. Or maybe even following her up, his hands on her backside as she climbed the stairs, naked in the hall when she came out of the bathroom, with his knob in his hand and that big stupid grin.
Not that Angie could remember the last time there’d been any of that.
She picked up the remote and started flicking through the channels as soon as the ITV news came on. It would only be the same terrible stuff as always, after all. Bombings in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever, job losses and the football results. Never anything nice, never anything that made her smile. They’d even stopped doing those funny little stories at the end about cats that got reunited with their owners after umpteen years or nutters seeing Jesus in a piece of toast.
Was there no point even trying to cheer anybody up any more? When had the world become so bloody miserable?
Nothing on as yet that took her fancy, she flicked back to ITV and reached for her mobile to make sure she hadn’t missed a message from either of the kids. Laura and Luke were both out with friends. Each had a social life far busier than hers or Barry’s: parties and Pizza Hut and trips to the cinema at fifteen quid a pop; gatherings outside the local shopping centre where – if Laura and Luke were to be believed – everyone but them would be smoking and drinking cheap cider.
‘For God’s sake, don’t you trust us …?’
In a few hours the text messages would come through, the pair of them demanding to be picked up from God knows where. She’d be in bed with the latest Lee Child by then, leaving Barry to pull his sheepskin on and stalk out to the Range Rover. Moaning about not being able to have a drink, being nothing but a ‘glorified bloody taxi service’.
On the screen, a man and a woman walked slowly up on to a small stage and sat behind a table.
Angie put her phone down.
They both looked tired and very serious, washed out.
They were holding hands.
Angie turned up the volume as a man in a smart suit – a police officer, she quickly realised – made the introductions. She could hear the whirr and click of cameras as he spoke. A short statement, he said. No questions. He gently nudged a small microphone a little closer to the woman, who smiled a thank you and unfolded a piece of paper.
‘If anyone out there has any information at all about our daughter, please come forward and pass it on to the police.’ The woman’s voice was surprisingly loud. The police officer moved the microphone away again and the woman grasped it nervously. ‘If anyone watching this is holding our daughter …’ She looked up from her notes, stared into the camera for a few seconds then flinched as a flash went off. ‘If you’ve got Sam, we’re begging you not to hurt her.’ She raised a hand to her face and her husband laid a hand on her arm. ‘We’re begging you to let her come home. Please … she needs to come home.’ She nodded across to the police officer then folded up her sheet of paper, kept folding until it was nice and small.
The police officer nodded back. Mouthed, ‘Well done.’
The husband leaned towards the microphone and said, ‘We miss you, Sam, and we love you … very much.’
‘I reckon it was him.’
Angie turned to see Barry standing in the doorway. ‘What?’
He pointed to the television. ‘It’s always the dad.’
‘Oh, that’s rubbish.’
‘Look at him.’ Barry ambled in and sat down on the edge of the sofa. ‘He looks like he’s trying too hard, you ask me.’
‘You’re wicked,’ Angie said. They watched as the police officer read out a final statement and a number appeared at the bottom of the screen over a picture of the missing girl. ‘No way. Never …’
‘Oh, listen,’ Barry said. ‘I was thinking I might ask a few of the lads over next Saturday, watch the Arsenal–Spurs game. Fair enough?’
‘You asked your brother?’ Angie looked at him. ‘Might be a good chance for you and him to have a natter, you know.’
Barry kept his eyes on the screen. ‘Just the lads,’ he said.
‘Well, make sure you’ve got rid of them by this time.’
‘Why?’
‘We’ve got dinner round at Dave and Marina’s and I’ll need to get ready.’
Barry slumped back on the sofa. ‘Oh, Christ, do we have to?’
‘Well, we don’t have to, but it’s their turn and we’ve said we’re going now, so …’
‘You said.’
‘Don’t be so miserable.’
‘It was hardly a laugh a minute last time, was it? People getting chopsy and kicking off.’
‘That was you, if I remember rightly.’
‘Yeah, well.’
‘I’m looking forward to it,’ Angie said.
They watched as the parents of the missing girl were led off the stage amid an explosion of camera flashes and the reporter at the press conference handed back to the studio. ‘Yeah, definitely the dad,’ Barry said. ‘Definitely him, if you ask me.’
Angie hauled herself up off the sofa. ‘Nobody’s asking you.’
Just before she left the roo
m, Barry said, ‘I’ll have tea if you’re making some …’
When Ed came in, Sue was at the small table in the kitchen, sharing a bottle of wine with a colleague from school. Graham Foot was the teacher she was closest to, the only one she truly considered a friend, and a much-needed ally when it came to some of the battles with a head teacher who clearly did not like children over much and whose head was usually halfway up the arse of an Ofsted inspector.
She could relax with Graham, open up to him – as far as she ever did with anyone – and she knew very well that this closeness was not unconnected with her friend’s sexuality.
Graham was a gay man.
Childless.
Graham turned when Ed came in and held up the bottle.
‘Want one?’
Ed looked at Sue. ‘I’m going to have a shower.’
Sue said, ‘There’s some pasta left if you fancy some …’
Ten minutes later, Ed was drying himself, and hoping that Graham was not going to overstay his welcome. At the mirror, he wiped away a circle of steam and moved a blob of styling wax carefully through his hair. Graham was all right, as far as it went and it wasn’t as though Ed had anything against poofs. He’d met plenty of that sort over the years through work and there was even one they played with regularly at the tennis club. It was never an issue and all of them, even the player concerned, enjoyed a laugh and a joke about it.
‘No wonder you can’t volley with a wrist as limp as that …’
‘Shouldn’t this be called mixed doubles?’
He wanted a quiet night in, that was all. Just him and Sue and a couple of glasses and maybe something mindless on DVD. He didn’t want to think too much, to make smart conversation, to entertain. Sunday tomorrow, then Monday and a fresh week to kill. It was necessary, of course it was; but the deceit was starting to wear him out, the effort required far more tiring than the work itself ever was.
Leaning close to the mirror, he decided it was starting to show in the laughter lines and the darkening half-moons beneath his eyes. Jesus, even this was an effort he could do without. He was fairly certain that Sue’s mate fancied him, he knew those looks well enough, and that meant he couldn’t relax, he couldn’t just slob about in a ratty old sweatshirt or whatever.
It was a pain in the arse.
He grinned at himself in the mirror. That was a good joke. Pain in the arse …
He snatched at the deodorant and squirted. Once under each arm, then he lifted his balls and squirted once more down there, for luck.
Right.
Khakis and a polo shirt and that would have to do. Then a quick ‘hello’ and Gay Graham could sling his hook.
When Ed came back down, Sue and Graham had opened another bottle, so he sat and joined them. They talked about school – about teachers they hated and kids who were borderline feral – and when Graham asked Ed how work was, Ed shrugged and told him he would much rather hear some more of Graham’s hilarious staff-room stories.
After half an hour, Ed went and helped himself to the leftover pasta, ate standing up, leaning against the worktop on the other side of the kitchen.
Just as Graham appeared – finally – to be leaving, he said, ‘Sue tells me you’re having dinner with your new friends again next week.’
Graham had put ‘friends’ in inverted commas and Ed asked himself how much Sue had told him about their holiday.
‘Hardly friends,’ he said.
‘So why are you going?’
‘Because they came here,’ Sue said. ‘Everybody gets to be host, I suppose. Kind of a three-way thing.’
Graham raised his eyebrows. ‘A three-way? Sounds interesting.’
Sue grimaced. ‘No, thank you. Mind you, I think Ed might be up for it.’ She nudged Ed, and he smiled politely.
‘Course, you’ve got that business in Florida,’ Graham said. ‘Probably something to do with that.’
Ed said, ‘Right.’ It was obvious now that Sue had told him what had happened back in Sarasota.
‘Horrible.’ Graham shook his head, reaching for his coat. ‘That poor girl. Mind you, things like that bond people, don’t they?’ Then, when he was almost at the door, ‘There’s that wonderful Roald Dahl story about the people that survive an air crash and all meet up for dinner every so often. You know the one?’
Ed said that he did, but the truth was he’d never heard of it. Didn’t Roald Dahl write kids’ books? Willy Wanker and giants or whatever?
‘Of course, in that story there’s that lovely twist, isn’t there?’ Graham said, leaning in, conspiratorial. ‘They’d all eaten their fellow passengers after the crash and so they’d developed a taste for human flesh. That was why they kept having those special dinners.’ He shuddered theatrically and grinned. ‘I hope there’s nothing like that going on with you and your new mates.’
Sue laughed. ‘When they came here I just made spaghetti …’
When Graham had gone, Sue said, ‘How was the gym?’ It was where Ed was supposed to have been going.
‘Fine,’ he said.
‘How come you didn’t have a shower there?’
Ed walked back into the kitchen and Sue followed him. ‘There wasn’t much of that pasta left,’ he said.
‘Sorry.’
‘I wouldn’t mind a bit of toast.’
‘Not sure there’s any fresh bread—’
‘So, defrost some.’
And opening the freezer like a good girl, Sue thought – as she did a hundred times or more every day – that’s how easy it is to flick the switch marked ‘normal’. They had not spoken about their terrible argument, that night everyone had been round for dinner, though Sue guessed that Ed had been thinking about it when Graham had raised the subject of the coming weekend’s gathering at Marina and Dave’s.
No mention of what had been said. The poison spat out and Ed’s broad back to her on the edge of the bed.
The photograph.
That was how they handled things and Sue supposed it was what all husbands and wives did from time to time. There was always something a couple fell out about. Something that would simmer and spark and blow up in their faces every so often, that they would have to put behind them in order to keep inching forward. A little piece of them chipped away each time, the stings that little bit more painful, the damage lived with until it became irreparable.
All couples had their tender spots; the ulcers they bit down on.
With many it was money of course, or the lack of it. It was family or politics or previous sexual partners. The things they left alone until they became impossible to ignore.
With them it was a dead child, simple as that.
Carrying the frozen loaf across to the toaster, she saw Ed running fingers through his hair, his palm stroking to assess the amount of stubble on his cheeks, and Sue reconsidered that earlier thought. Was her husband really thinking about anything other than the lies he could invent to explain away his empty days and the smell of perfume in the car that most definitely wasn’t hers? Was his mind occupied with anything more complex, more hidden than improving his cross-court forehand and the things he was going to ask her to do in bed later on?
She doubted it.
She slipped two slices of bread into the toaster thinking: there is almost certainly nothing about this man that I did not know within a day of meeting him. Ed looked up to check her progress and she smiled.
Thought: and that is probably a very good thing.
FORTY-FOUR
Walking from church, Dave took Marina’s hand and squeezed and when they reached the car, he said, ‘That was nice, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ she said.
‘Not a great turnout, but that’s not how we measure these things, is it?’ He opened the car doors. ‘It’s how you feel afterwards.’
Driving home, Dave felt pretty good, always a lot calmer at this time on a Sunday than he had been walking into the cool and the silence of the church. The stress and the tension built up during
the week, every petty annoyance and painful memory lodged like a small, sharp stone in his chest, until by Saturday night the weight of them had become almost unbearable. With the worn wood of the pew solid at his back though and the words of the sermon echoing around, the weight was lifted, he could feel the rushing wind and once he began to sing – loud enough sometimes to make Marina wince next to him – it was as though he weighed nothing at all, and nothing mattered but God and forgiving, and nothing and nobody could ever wind him up again.
Only for an hour or two, the anaesthetic bliss of that, but still …
‘You know the smell?’ he asked. He was waiting patiently to pull out into traffic on the main road, no hint of irritation, not a single angry gesture as bastard after bastard refused to let him out. ‘Mothballs, candles, whatever it is. The smell in the church.’
‘What?’ Marina said.
Dave smiled, waved a thank you and eased out. ‘It’s faith,’ he said. ‘I heard an old woman telling her friend. The “glorious stink of faith”, she said.’ He chuckled. ‘That’s great, don’t you think?’
‘Smells like old clothes to me,’ Marina said. Her eyes were fixed on the blur of shops and houses moving past the passenger window. ‘A charity shop or something.’
She didn’t say a great deal else for the rest of the journey home, but Dave thought that was OK. They never talked much afterwards, each enjoying the moments of quiet reflection after a service in their own way. Dave believed it was important that they respected one another’s headspace, especially at times like this, but all the same he wondered and could only imagine that, while it lasted, she was relishing the same feelings of peace and calm that he was.
Of course she was, he could see it on her face.
They certainly never discussed their beliefs with anyone else. Not with work colleagues or friends and definitely not with that Florida lot. Nobody’s business but theirs, same as everything else. Yes, it was partly because they were private people, but Dave was not the sort to foist his opinions on anyone else. He couldn’t stand those idiots who tried ramming their religion down your throat, and besides, if he was going to respect the beliefs of others, surely that included the freedom to believe in bugger all. Not that he would have minded half an hour with Richard bloody Dawkins, put him right about a few things …
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