by El Edwards
“Well the delivery office technically. It’s round the back, behind the main post office. But only for a bit, over Christmas.”
“And you’re sure it’s her?”
“Of course. I’m not blind.”
“Thanks!”
The woman called something out to me as I left but I didn’t hang around to find out what she said. Instead, I raced out of the shop and went in search of Rob. I’d show him what an ace investigator I really was. I saw him coming out of the greengrocers and when he saw me, he grinned.
“Guess what?” He said.
“Her name’s Shona.”
“Oh.” His face fell. “How did you know?”
“The woman in the florist told me. Sorry to steal your thunder.”
“It’s alright. Did she also happen to mention that Shona had a brother?”
“No?”
Rob nodded proudly. “Yep. And as luck would have it, the description of the brother matches a pair of twins we know.”
“You’re kidding!”
“There’s more. They told me the brother was also working for the post office, but he got sacked for tampering with the mail.”
“His parents never mentioned that. Sneaky pair.”
Rob frowned. “When did you speak to their parents?”
“Few days ago. Doesn’t matter.” I waved his protests aside.
I knew what he was going to say. He was going to ask me if this was before or after I’d promised him I’d drop the case. I’d feel compelled to tell him the truth and then we’d argue. I also knew we’d make up again pretty quickly so I was just saving us some time.
“Let’s go and speak to someone in the post office. Hopefully they can tell us where she’s living and we can pay our new friend a visit.”
“If it’s not too late,” Rob reminded me. “She could be long gone by now.”
FORTY-SIX
“Can I speak to Tony please? Tony Peters?”
The man behind the glass petition frowned before replying. “He’s not in today. Back tomorrow.”
He started to slide the glass across but I put my hand in the way to stop him. “Is there someone else we could speak to? It can’t wait until tomorrow. A supervisor maybe?”
The man reached under the counter and pulled out a form. He handed it to me. “If it’s a complaint, all the details you need are on here.”
“I’m not here to complain.” I lowered my voice so Rob couldn’t hear me. “This is a police matter. That man over there is a police officer.”
“Let me get someone for you.” He wandered off and I smiled encouragingly at Rob.
“You just need to know how to deal with these people,” I said, sounding smug.
The door to the right opened and a woman came out. She looked from me to Rob before speaking. “Police? What can I do for you?”
Rob glared at me before replying. “Is there somewhere quiet we can talk?”
She led us towards a corridor then indicated that we were to go ahead without her. “All the way along, first door on the left. Someone will be with you shortly.”
When she was safely out of ear shot, Rob turned to face me. “You told them I was police? I can’t believe you did that!” Rob’s eyes were dancing.
“Calm down, it got us in didn’t it?”
“But you can’t do that. I’m not here in an official capacity. Carry on like that, you’ll get me sacked! Then who’d do your lab tests for you? Didn’t think of that, did you?” He quickened his pace and left me running slightly to catch up.
“I’m sorry. I just needed them to take us seriously.”
He held up his hand. “I don’t want to talk about it. But the next time you pull a stunt like that, I’m gone.”
We walked into the room and sat at the table, the silence stretching between us. Eventually the woman returned, this time accompanied by a second woman. She sat opposite us and introduced herself as the head of HR.
“Now what’s all this about?” She looked at Rob but I knew he wouldn’t say anything so I cleared my throat.
“We have reason to believe that a young woman by the name of Shona O’Leary was working for you.”
“Maybe. I don’t have the files in front of me right now.”
“Could you get the files? It’s very important for us to establish her whereabouts.”
“There’s no need. She was dismissed.”
“So you do know her?” I looked at Rob and gave him a smug smile.
The woman shrugged.
“On what grounds was she dismissed?”
“I can’t divulge that kind of information. It’s against company policy.”
I looked at Rob and he shook his head slightly. His meaning was clear. I knew what would happen if I tried to use the police line again.
“Can you confirm that she had a brother working for you?”
“Look miss, I don’t know where you got your information from but I’m not at liberty to disclose personal details about any of our staff, present or past, so unless you’re here with a warrant, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“So you can’t tell us where she lives?”
“Absolutely not!” She looked furious. “Now if there’s nothing else, I really must get back to work. I’ll send someone in to escort you out.”
“Bloody red tape! It’s an absolute joke!” I was pacing up and down outside the post office. “What’s it going to take for you to go back there with a warrant?”
Rob laughed. “Me? I can’t go anywhere near this case. If my bosses knew I’d been helping you, they’d put my balls in a clamp and twist it!” He winced at the thought.
“But it’s not fair!” I whinged.
Rob sighed. “We’ve talked about this before. The rules are there for a reason. They’re meant to protect people. What if this girl is innocent? Is it fair to have her personal information given out to whoever shouts the loudest?”
“But what if she’s not innocent?”
“If she’s not then you’ve got to trust that the justice system will take its course. There are people, smart people, investigating that hotel. If she’s mixed up in it some how, they will catch her.”
“But what if it’s too late?” My voice came out in a whisper.
The police wouldn’t care about a dog. One little animal like that, it was just collateral, but I knew Beverly would be devastated if anything happened to Tortoise. I felt like I was the only thing that stood in the way of tragedy for that poor defenceless animal.
“Let’s go back to yours and have a cuppa. There’s nothing else you can do now. Give me the keys, I’ll drive,” Rob said.
“But what about your car?” His car was still outside the Railway Inn where we’d left it.
“I’ll go back for it later. Or tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. One of the boys’ll give me a lift.”
“Thanks Rob.” I smiled and let him lead me back to the van.
I felt totally deflated. I’d worked so hard, chased so many leads, and now I felt like there was nowhere else to turn. Even if I was wrong about Shaun, his brother had worked for the post office and been sacked for tampering with parcels. Given what I knew now about the items going in and out of that place, that was too much of a coincidence. And neither of them had mentioned a sister. I’d given them every opportunity to be honest. I’d even spoken to their parents and they hadn’t mentioned her either. Who was the mystery sister? It made no sense at all. I knew if I could only speak to her, I’d get to the bottom of everything but yet again my hands were tied.
When we walked into the house, Grace and Louise took one look at my face and made themselves scarce. They knew that look only too well and they weren’t keen to stick around for what came next. Rob, however, was untrained in the art of Diamond management. He did his best to cheer me up, made me a coffee and offered to cook, but in the end even he made a quick phone call to the station and had one of his colleagues pick him up and give him a lift to collect his car.
Aft
er he’d gone, I walked to the fridge, pulled out a bottle of wine, and poured myself the largest glass I could find. Tomorrow I had work to do, red tape to claw my way through and a mystery sister to find but for tonight, I’d take comfort in the contents of my wine glass. I could only hope that with morning would come clarity.
FORTY-SEVEN
I was awake before my alarm the following morning, having formulated a plan overnight. They say three am is never a good time to sort out your life but in my experience, when fuelled by the optimum amount of white wine, three am is the perfect time to sort out an ailing investigation. Having made the mistake, more than once, of falling asleep without writing anything down, only to wake the next morning unable to remember all that I’d conceived, I now made a habit of keeping pen and paper on my bedside table. With something akin to delight, I re-read my early morning scribblings and smiled with satisfaction. While wallowing in self-pity last night, I’d convinced myself that Tortoise must be dead, but thanks to my scribblings I now had a number of questions I needed answering. First stop, Shaun’s parents.
If Shaun or Declan knew I was on to them, they hadn’t briefed their mother. She smiled warmly when she saw me standing on her door step and greeted me like an old friend. It was still quite early so I passed on the cake but willingly accepted coffee, mentally reminding myself to lay off the white wine for a few days, it didn’t suit me one bit. Ted was out fishing, she told me, but he’d be back soon.
“Any news love?”
Feeling like I was stuck in a remake of Groundhog Day, I shook my head. “There is something I wanted to talk to you about though Norma.”
“Go on love. Ask away …” She sat back in her chair, a smile on her face.
“When did you last see Shona?” I watched Norma carefully as I spoke, looking for any hint of recognition, but her eyes stayed fixed on some far away point on the wall behind me. She didn’t say anything so I repeated the question but still she just stared. With her not reacting, I didn’t know what to do next. If she’d lied and told me she had no daughter, I could confront that, but I had no way of breaking her wall of silence.
After the silence had stretched on for nearly a full minute, a minute I’d seen tick by on the clock on the wall and felt uncomfortably in my body, I got up and moved to sit next to her on the sofa. I touched her hand and she jumped.
“Did you hear me Norma?”
She nodded and a single tear trailed its way down her face.
“Oh Norma.” I wanted to give the older lady a hug, to tell her it was okay, that it didn’t matter, but with every second that ticked by I became more and more afraid that it actually wasn’t okay, that the one thing she didn’t want to talk about mattered very much indeed.
“He told me not to say anything. Said she wasn’t a part of our family.”
I felt anger rise up inside of me. “Declan?” That little weasel!
Norma shook her head. She opened her mouth but froze at the sound of a key in the front door. Before I knew what was happening, Norma was out of the chair and bustling about picking up coffee mugs and wiping her face. By the time the door to the living room was pushed open, she was the picture perfect housewife once more. She smiled at her husband as he came grumbling into the room.
“Well that was a bloody waste of time!” Ted stopped when he saw me. “Charlie Diamond. What a surprise! And look at me, all stinking of bait. Let me get myself cleaned up. Is there tea in pot Norma love?”
He kissed his wife on the head then went back out the way he’d come, presumably to change into something less fishy. I looked at Norma, waiting to see if she’d finish what she was about to say but she shook her head.
“Would you like another cuppa Charlie love? Tea okay this time? My Ted likes his tea.”
I accepted the offer of tea and followed Norma as she left to make it. I could hear the sound of a shower coming from upstairs and decided now was as good a time as any to make one last appeal.
“Please Norma, what is it?” I glanced in the direction of upstairs as I filled the kettle. “It’s okay, he’s in the shower.”
She shook her head again. I wasn’t above begging, I needed to know what she was so afraid of. I was about to appeal to her sense of motherly duty when Ted appeared in the doorway.
“Got a towel for me love?”
I jumped at the sound of his voice.
“Sorry Charlie, didn’t mean to startle you. No need for you to do that though, Norma’ll do it. You go and make yourself comfy in the other room.”
With little choice but to do as I was told, I went back into the living room and sat quietly on the sofa. Inside my head I was seething. How could this man have such a hold over her? It pushed all my buttons. It took every molecule of self-control I possessed to sit and make small talk, smiling and nodding along as Ted entertained us with his anecdotes. All this time I’d been so focussed on Declan and Shaun when it seemed their father was just as intimidating. All three of them had a lot of explaining to do, I just didn’t know how to force their hand and get answers.
As I was thinking about the relative merits of water torture versus slow poisoning, only as an academic exercise of course, my phone rang. I glanced at the screen, made my apologies, and stepped outside.
“Charlie? It’s Beverly. Are you busy?”
“Always, but that's okay. What can I do for you?” Reluctant to share my worries about her boyfriend’s father, I kept my tone light.
“Can you come round? Now?”
“Sure. What's up?”
“I’ll tell you everything when I see you.”
Before I could ask any more questions, she'd hung up. I sighed, said my goodbyes to Norma and Ted, and headed over to Beverly's house.
FORTY-EIGHT
Before I could knock on her front door, Beverly had swung it open, her eyes sparkling with excitement. It was the most animated I’d ever seen her and I could guess what had caused all the joy. I looked at her hand, expecting to see a diamond, but it was bare. I cursed my overactive imagination and waited to be invited in.
“Come in, come in. I’m so glad you’re here.” She practically skipped down the hallway as she led me through to the kitchen. “And look who’s here. We can’t wait to tell you our news.” Pregnant? Moving in together?
Standing at the kitchen sink, looking out into the garden, was Shaun. Quelle surprise! He turned as we walked in and smiled.
“Charlie, how nice of you to come.” He sounded genuinely pleased to see me. Damn he was good. He looked at Beverly, his eyes twinkling. “Have you told her?”
“Not yet, I wanted you to be here, hero of the hour.” She stood on tip toes and kissed him on the nose before turning back to me. “Both of you wait there.” And before I could say another word she’d raced out of the kitchen. She was soon back though, this time carrying a blanket with a little dog nestled in the middle of it. No way! I had not been expecting that and I felt like all the wind had been knocked out of me.
“Charlie, meet Tortoise. Tortoise, this is Charlie, the lady who’s been working so hard to find you all this time.” She turned back to me. “Can you believe it? She’s home.”
I peeped at the animal snoring in Beverly’s arms and didn’t know what to say. I rubbed her nose gently. “Nice to meet you Tortoise. Welcome home. When did she get back?” I asked Beverly.
“Just this morning. With Shaun. Isn’t it amazing?” She nuzzled her face in close to the animal. “I’ve been so worried about you. You little rascal. From now on I’m making sure your dog flap is double locked.”
I took a moment to process this new information. “She wasn’t stolen?” I asked.
“Nope, she must have gotten out some how. Shaun found her.” She stroked the dog’s head. “You’ve been on an adventure, you naughty girl.”
“You found her?” I turned to Shaun. “Where? How?” He had a smug expression on his face that instinctively made me want to smack it. I’d worked so bloody hard looking for this damned animal and
now he’d swooped in and saved the day. Found her after she’d gone missing. Not stolen at all. It was far too convenient for my liking and I couldn’t believe Beverly was falling for it, hook, line and sinker.
“Old Road. You know the traffic lights?”
I shook my head. “Can’t say I do.”
“Well there’s lights there, temporary ones, and I was waiting, felt like ages because they were only letting a couple of cars through at a time. I hate it when they do that. But good job too, otherwise I might have missed her. One minute I’m sat there gazing out of the window thinking about what to have for tea and how much I can’t wait to see Beverly and the next, I see movement in the undergrowth at the side of the road. Knew straight away it was her.”
“That’s incredible,” I said weakly.
“Isn’t it? I’m just so lucky. I can’t believe you found her.” She snuggled her arm up against Shaun and he leaned in and kissed the top of her head.
As I watched the two of them together, I thought I might be sick. I needed some fresh air and quick.
“If you’ll just excuse me.”
And without waiting for a reply, I went outside in the direction of my van and promptly threw up all over the back wheel. I stood there for a minute, waiting for the nausea to pass. The minutes ticked by. I was just thinking about going back inside when I heard a voice behind me.
“You okay?” Shaun asked.
“Fine thanks. Been a rough couple of days. Congratulations again, you must be very pleased.”
I wanted to get out of there as quickly as I could, make my excuses to Beverly and leave, something about this whole miraculous reunion didn’t sit well with me at all, but Shaun was blocking my exit.
“I just wanted to say, on Beverly’s behalf, thanks for all you’ve done. We’re really glad to have been able to bring this to such a happy conclusion.” He held out his hand and I shook it, mumbling something about it being my pleasure.
“I should go in and say bye to Beverly,” I said.
