by J. L. Butler
‘I’m handling a divorce,’ I began cautiously. ‘And my client’s wife has gone missing.’
Tom seemed to perk up a little bit in his chair, whilst I desperately tried to compose myself. I couldn’t betray the back-story to what I was about to tell him. I knew how dangerous it would be to do so.
‘Missing?’ replied Tom.
‘She hasn’t been seen since Monday, and the police are taking it seriously. There’s going to be a TV appeal tomorrow night, unless she turns up.’
I looked at him and noticed that he looked tired, with purple semicircles under his eyes.
‘And where do you fit into this?’ he said, putting his coffee down on the wooden floor.
‘The police are interviewing my client as we speak. I’m the only legal representation he’s got right now and he’s worried.’
‘You mean he’s nervous.’
‘She’ll almost certainly turn up, Tom,’ I said, resenting his implication that Martin was feeling guilty.
He didn’t say anything and I knew I didn’t have long before he would lose patience with me.
‘I just need some advice. Martin – my client – is relying on me, and I said you might be able to help.’
Our eyes met, a remembrance of things past, an incident five years ago that neither of us would ever forget. Tom Briscoe had been a criminal defence barrister back then, the protégé of our former head of chambers, now retired, handling a lot of legal aid work. He did the odd bit of family law on the side, but it was the drama of the criminal bar that he loved – until he was instructed by Nathan Adams, a thug on a GBH charge. Adams was on trial for a vicious attack on his ex-girlfriend, Suzie Willis, which had left her with a fractured spine. It was senior work for one who’d only been at the bar for the length of time Tom had, but his performance in court had been devastating. Cross-examining Suzie on the stand, Tom Briscoe had portrayed her as a habitual drunk, destroying her credibility and had succeeded in persuading the jury that his client was innocent.
Six months later, Suzie was dead – murdered by Adams. He’d hunted her down, taken a knife to her throat and sliced it from ear to ear: her punishment for daring to testify against him.
I’d never had the guts to discuss what happened with Tom directly. How much he had known about Nathan and Suzie’s relationship, her long list of suspicious injuries that hadn’t been reported to the police, or about Adams’ violent history and his links to a West London crime syndicate.
However much he knew, what happened to Suzie Willis made Tom Briscoe jump horses from the criminal bar to family law. The look in his eye told me that he didn’t want any reminder of his professional past.
‘For a start, do you think he should have a lawyer with him for his interview?’ I pressed.
‘I thought you said the interview was happening.’
‘It is. I think a police officer is visiting him at his house, although he’s already spoken to someone earlier in the day.’
Tom stood up and went over to the dining table. He picked up his laptop and brought it across to the sofa.
‘I assume they’ve searched her house already.’
‘They found her passport and phone, but they couldn’t find her purse. That’s obviously a good sign.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Tom, looking sceptical. ‘I remember a murder trial I observed as a pupil. A woman had gone missing from the family home; the husband said he had no idea where she might be. He was eventually arrested and found guilty of killing her. He’d made it look as if she’d taken off by hiding her personal possessions after he’d disposed of the body.’
I flashed him a look of disapproval.
‘What’s she called? The wife.’
‘Donna Joy.’
I watched him tap away at the keyboard, his fingers rattling over keys. ‘There’s an appeal online already. A number to contact: Kensington CID.’
My heart was thumping as I peered over his shoulder at the screen. There was a photo of Donna and a description: five feet six inches tall, weight around nine stone, last seen wearing a pink coat and black trousers. She’d gone missing after being escorted home following a night out at the Green Fields restaurant on the King’s Road last Monday.
I found myself mentally adding more details to the text as I read it. I could confirm that she had been in the Green Fields for ninety-seven minutes, that she had been drinking, and her hair was at least three shades darker than it seemed in pictures, thanks to a trip to the Josh Wood salon twelve days earlier that she had indiscreetly recorded on Instagram.
The appeal ended by saying that the police were concerned for her welfare, but I doubted that they were nearly as concerned as I was.
‘Most people who go missing turn up,’ said Tom with a shrug. ‘A tiny proportion don’t, but out of those, the majority have a history of mental issues or depression that’s pushed them into taking their own life.’
‘So it’s unlikely anything has happened to her,’ I said, pleading for reassurance.
‘Did she suffer with depression?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘Adults have a legal right to disappear, Fran, you know that. And we have no way of knowing what the hell was going on in their relationship. Maybe she’s playing games,’ he said, as I nodded my approval of his assessment.
‘But maybe something has happened to her. A TV appeal means she’s been classed as high risk.’
‘High risk?’ I frowned.
‘In danger. In danger of hurting themselves or being hurt. Who was she with on Monday night, any idea?’
‘Her husband,’ I said flatly.
‘Your client.’
‘They met for dinner. Apparently they slept together, but he says he didn’t spend the night. No one has seen her since. She missed her FDR hearing on Friday and her sister’s birthday party the previous night.’
‘No wonder they want to talk to him.’
I didn’t want to hear that.
‘So what’s he like?’
‘Smart. Very successful.’
‘So the press could have a field day with it.’
I’d heard about Missing White Woman Syndrome before and knew that this case came with added drama. Donna Joy wasn’t just blonde, white and beautiful. She was estranged from her millionaire hedge-fund banker husband which meant her story came with a ready-made bogeyman.
‘He didn’t hurt his wife,’ I said, hearing protective scorn in my own voice.
‘How do you know?’
I thought of us on the Spitalfields roof-tops. ‘We just have to hang in there and soon, really soon, it’s going to be this. Just us. No Donna, no sneaking around, just me and you.’
‘What do I tell him?’ I asked.
‘It wouldn’t do any harm to talk to a criminal defence solicitor. Matthew Clarkson is very good. He might also want to speak to Robert Kelly. He’s a media lawyer, deals with reputation management. If the press start playing silly buggers, he might be worth a call.’
Tom stood up, pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through his address book.
‘I suppose your client should start worrying if they make him take part in the appeal,’ he muttered as he wrote down two numbers on a piece of paper from his yellow legal notepad.
‘Why would that worry him? He wants to do everything he can to help.’
‘I’m not sure they’d have the estranged husband there at any press conference, unless they were trying to test his reactions. He might also get a visit from the family liaison officer. Ostensibly they’re there to help, but they’re also a pair of ears on the ground.’
‘My client had nothing to do with her disappearance,’ I said, hearing a touch of steel in my voice.
Tom looked at me and for a moment neither of us spoke.
‘As you said, I bet she’s turned up by morning.’
The mood had shifted. I felt hot and uncomfortable just being here. ‘I should go.’
He smiled and glanced at his w
atch.
‘It’s late. How did you get here? Did you drive?’
‘No,’ I replied too quickly, thinking of Martin’s car dropping me on the edge of Pond Square. ‘I should call a cab.’
‘Don’t be daft. I’ll give you a lift.’
‘Honestly, I’ll call a cab.’
‘Saturday night, at chucking out time? And Uber will be price surging. Come on. I’ll grab my keys.’
He ushered me out to a four-by-four parked in front of the house.
‘I hope you’re charging your client double time for this,’ grinned Tom as he deactivated his car alarm, two sharp beeps that pierced the quiet of the night. ‘Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty. He’s lucky to have you.’
He gave me a look, a knowing half-smile, and a sense of dread made me wonder what, and how much, he had worked out.
Chapter 19
It was gone midnight by the time I got home.
I hadn’t eaten since breakfast – I never did get to eat any fish and chips or mussels with Martin on the beach – and I felt weak and light-headed. There were slim pickings in the fridge: a withered lemon and an opened packet of ham that had darkened and curled, so I made some toast and a Pot Noodle that I found lurking in the cupboard. As I poked the dry noodles with a fork, I checked my phone again for any messages from Martin, but still, there was nothing.
Perching on the sofa I chomped down on my still-hard noodles, unable to wait the required four minutes for them to soften. I debated running a bath, dismissing the idea as soon as it occurred to me on account of our noisy plumbing. After all, it was late and I didn’t want to wake Pete downstairs. He was someone I didn’t want to remind of my existence.
I ran the time over in my head, trying to work out if Martin would be done with the police yet. I doubted that these sort of interviews lasted very long, if it had even happened at all. Even so, a carousel of images flickered in my mind. Scenes from various movies and cop shows. Suspects being handcuffed and dragged to the police station, interrogations in small dark rooms. I told myself I was being dramatic, but still, I couldn’t understand why Martin hadn’t got in touch. Not when he had sent me to see Tom Briscoe to discuss his next move. Not when I had sent him a message from Tom’s car, asking him to contact me.
Crossing the room, I sat at my desk and turned my computer on.
I checked my emails – all the accounts for which Martin had my email address – and switched my phone off and on to check whether it was working properly.
My next internet pit-stop was the Daily Mail. My eyes darted around the home page, looking for any story that might relate to Donna Joy. When I found nothing of interest, I repeated the exercise with every major national media site, then re-checked the Met’s police appeal page to see if it had been updated, which it had not.
A voice in my head reassured me that so long as there was no mention of Donna’s disappearance in the press, the less we all had to worry about her. But I felt increasingly on edge. My foot was tapping softly on the floor and I was helpless to stop it. I knew that my conversation with Tom Briscoe had not helped matters. In fact, he had angered me with his talk of victims and reputation-management lawyers, his insensitive implication that Martin was somehow involved in his wife’s disappearance.
Coffee would help me think, but I knew it was the last thing I needed.
Instead, I went upstairs into my tiny en suite and opened the bathroom cabinet, where a white pot of pills sat next to my dental floss and contraceptives.
When I had gone to see Dr Katz a couple of weeks earlier, he had given me some additional medication. I was loath to take it at the time, but I knew that I needed something to calm me down now. Manic episodes frightened me even more than depressive ones. I was someone who liked to be in control, and I had ordered my life in an effort to keep tight hold of the reins. But over the past couple of days I had felt the gremlins in my head coming to life again.
Tipping back my head, I swallowed the pills then looked at my reflection in the mirror. I was pale and sad-looking. My lips were dry, my tired eyes were rimmed with pink, my skin blotchy in the harsh brightness of the overhead light.
Everything about my appearance screamed nervous exhaustion. I was desperate for sleep, but I knew that was not an option. The only thing that could calm my restlessness was reassurance from Martin.
I moved through to the bedroom and sat on the end of the bed, which only served to make me more anxious. I needed to be out there, fixing things, not eating Pot Noodles and sitting in the dark.
I found myself wishing that I had a car. I didn’t have one. Never had. By the time I could afford one, it felt like an unnecessary luxury. But now I felt as if a car, a tiny peppermint Fiat, or some other such girl-about-town vehicle, might give me wings. My mobile phone, in my jeans pocket and pressing into my thigh, reminded me that a solution was only a phone call away.
I called the taxi and didn’t hesitate before ringing Martin. It went straight to voicemail and I left a message, willing myself to stay calm. Zig-zagging the room, I took off my T-shirt, found a bra, and picked a white shirt from the wardrobe. Slipping my arms into the crisp sleeves of a clean shirt always empowered me, and tonight was no exception.
I waited in the hallway until the taxi arrived.
London was still buzzing as we slipped through the streets. As I stared out of the window, watching Angel bleed into the fashionable East End, I envied what I saw. Twenty-somethings on carefree nights out, their blithe, intoxicated joy reminding me of my own pleasure just hours earlier that day. But a switch had been flipped, a change in our universe had taken place, and a Greek chorus in my head warned me that I was wrong to be here. In a cab, hurtling towards Spitalfields at one o’clock in the morning, when Martin hadn’t even replied to my calls.
It took twenty minutes to arrive at the W.H. Miller warehouse. There was no sign of any police car or ‘unmarked vehicle’ outside Martin’s apartment block, which relieved me. I paid the cabbie and got out of the car. Nerves prickled round my body. Three men with elaborate beards laughed as they came out of a nearby bar, startling me.
The cab trundled off into the distance and the fashionable trio disappeared into the dark, leaving me alone. I walked across the cobblestones towards the warehouse. There was a tree outside I hadn’t noticed before; thin, black, spindly. I rested the palm of my hand on its trunk as I looked up to the top floor. There was a faint glow from one of the windows, a sign of life that steeled me to call Martin again.
This time he answered.
‘It’s me,’ I said, trying to tone down the urgency in my voice. ‘The police. Have they gone?’
‘Yes. Did you speak to your lawyer friend?’
‘Yes. He was helpful.’ My voice shook, I was shivering so hard from the cold.
‘You’d better come up.’
Waiting for the lift, I looked up at the atrium ceiling, noticing that it went all the way up to the roof, as if it had been scooped out of the brickwork and metal. As the lift door opened, sound rattled all the way to the rafters, loud at first, disappearing to a soft echo as it rippled upwards.
Martin was holding a tumbler of Scotch when he opened the door. He tossed it back and barely looked at me.
‘I had to come. I’m sorry,’ I said, trying to read the expression on his face.
I stopped myself. I didn’t know why I was apologizing.
‘I should have called,’ he said, putting his drink down on the table. ‘It was all just a bit stressful. The police were here longer than I expected.’
The room was dark, the only light coming from a floor lamp in the corner.
Martin moved restlessly around the room like a cat, his stockinged feet sliding silently across the parquet.
‘She’s still not turned up,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘So what did the police want from you?’
‘Details about Monday night. What time I went home. When I got there. Whether a
nyone could give me an alibi for that.’
‘You know a hundred and fifty thousand people go missing each year. That’s 0.05 per cent of the population,’ I said, trying to make him feel better.
‘Been on Google?’ he replied. There was a sourness to his tone that I didn’t like.
‘I’m trying to help,’ I said, reminding myself how stressed he must be feeling.
He sank on the sofa and put his head in his hands.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking up and stretching his hand out for me to take it.
I sat next to him on the sofa. Our thighs touched but I wanted to get closer.
‘Our marriage might not have worked, sometimes I don’t even think I like Donna any more, but this . . .’
‘What did you tell them?’ I asked quietly.
‘I left at one. Out of the front door. I don’t think she locked it behind me because I left her upstairs.’
I found it difficult to concentrate. It didn’t seem like the time to ask him, why, if he didn’t like Donna, had he fucked her? And there were inconsistencies in his story. He’d told me that he’d left Donna’s at midnight, not one o’clock in the morning.
‘They even asked me about this bloody cut on my hand.’
The one I had noticed in the oyster shed.
‘What did you say?’
‘I fell off my bike.’
‘Did you?’ I challenged.
‘Yes,’ he replied with irritation.
‘So, why are they so worried about her when she has a track record of going away, visiting friends . . . ?’
‘No one knows where she is. She has an Instagram account she uses a lot, posting pictures of parties, her artwork, but that hasn’t been used since Monday.’
‘It’s not much to go on,’ I said sympathetically.
‘Tomorrow they’re searching her house again. Specialist officers, apparently. Cadaver dogs.’
‘And the police told you all this?’
We looked at each other and we both knew what they would find. His hair in the sink, his semen on the sheets. I looked away and tried not to think about the finer details.
‘What about the appeal?’
