by Ford,P. F.
‘I had an interesting phone call from John Hunter while you were out,’ Jolly announced when they trooped back into the office.
‘What did he want?’ asked Slater.
‘Remember he told us he couldn’t read the will because he couldn’t find the missing sister?’
‘Uh, huh.’
‘Well, it appears she’s alive and well, and got herself a solicitor of her own.’
‘So where’s she been hiding away?’ asked Slater.
‘He didn’t say, but apparently she knows all about the will. She’s coming down the day after tomorrow, in the morning, and she’s demanding to have it read as soon as she arrives.’
‘This all a bit sudden, isn’t it?’ asked Norman.
‘I’m curious to know how they can be sure it’s her if she’s been missing for years,’ said Jolly. ‘I did a quick search and I couldn’t find a single trace of her. Doesn’t she need to prove who she is first?’
‘Presumably she intends to do that when she arrives,’ suggested Slater.
‘It’s all very convenient, isn’t it?’ asked Norman.
‘That’s why Hunter called,’ said Jolly. ‘He thinks he can smell a rat, but he doesn’t know what he can do about it.’
‘That makes sense to me.’ Norman nodded slowly. ‘I think I can smell a rat, and I haven’t even spoken to the woman.’
‘John Hunter wondered if one of you two could insist on being there,’ said Jolly.
‘Insist?’ asked Slater.
‘He said maybe you could use the excuse that you need to make sure she understands she can’t have access to the house yet. He thinks if you stress this is a murder investigation, she really can’t object without looking suspicious.’
‘Can we do that?’ Slater asked Norman.
‘We can try. But I’m not sure where we stand if they insist we have to leave before the will’s read.’
‘I’m sure I can come up with some bullshit reason why I have to be there,’ said Slater. ‘In the meantime, let’s see what’s on this CD.’
He removed the CD from its envelope, and, handling it as if it were the Crown Jewels, he placed it carefully on the desk. He slid open the drawer of his PC and slipped the CD into place. The anticipation was rising inside him. This CD could hold the key to the whole mystery.
‘Oh, bollocks!’ he cried, staring at the screen in disbelief. ‘Can you believe it? He’s password protected the bloody thing! What’s the point in sending it to us and then making it impossible to read?’
‘Let’s think about this.’ Norman came over to stand behind Slater. ‘He went to a lot of trouble to make sure this reached us, right? Now would you go to all that trouble and then set a password that couldn’t be cracked?’
‘Of course not,’ said Jolly, coming over to join them. ‘So it has to be something we’re going to be able to figure out quite easily.’
‘Well, I’m open to suggestions,’ said Slater. ‘Because, right now, I’m clean out of ideas.’
‘Maybe it’s something we should have found in his house,’ suggested Jolly.
‘Was that before, or after it was hit by a tornado?’ asked Slater, referring to the second break-in.
‘Good point,’ said Norman. ‘But maybe it’s a bit more obvious. What about the dog’s name, Dougie? People often use their pets’ names as passwords.’
Slater typed in the dog’s name, first in upper case, then lower case, and then in a combination of the two, but it was no use.
‘I’m concerned there might be a limit on how many goes I can have at this before I get locked out,’ said Slater. ‘That would be a disaster.’
‘Now that’s something to think about,’ Norman said, nodding.
‘There’s never a bloody geek around when you want one,’ complained Slater. ‘If we have to send the damned thing off it could be weeks before we get it back.’
‘Maybe I should take it up to Vinnie,’ said Norman.
‘Who’s Vinnie?’ asked Jolly.
‘Ah!’ Norman looked awkward. ‘You didn’t hear that, Jane.’
Slater had turned round and was glaring at him. He mouthed a ‘sorry’.
‘Have I stumbled across something I shouldn’t know about?’ Jolly looked between Slater and Norman.
‘Vinnie’s a secret weapon of ours,’ explained Slater. ‘You know it can take weeks to get anything IT related done the official way, right?’
Jolly nodded.
‘Well,’ he continued, ‘Vinnie is our fast track way of getting geeky stuff done. The thing is, he’s unofficial, and if we get caught using him we could get into some deep doo-doos.’
‘So he’s a sort of high tech version of picking locks,’ said Jolly, before adding quickly, ‘Which a police officer would never do, of course. Yes, I can relate to that. Good for you. If it saves time and red tape I’m all for it.’
‘But it goes no further,’ said Norman. ‘You can’t tell anyone else about it, right?’
‘Can’t tell anyone about what?’ Jolly beamed at him.
‘We’ll make a detective out of you yet,’ said Norman, looking proud.
He looked pointedly at Slater.
‘So what do you think?’
‘I dunno,’ said Slater, who found Vinnie difficult to get on with. ‘Do we have time for that?’
‘That depends how much time we’re going to waste trying to guess the password,’ argued Norman. ‘That’s assuming we don’t trigger some failsafe system and end up being locked out forever.’
Slater turned the idea over and over in his mind.
‘If I go now, I could be back by morning,’ said Norman.
‘And if he doesn’t crack it?’ asked Slater.
‘I’ll eat humble pie and you can gloat for weeks to come.’
Slater pressed the eject button and the drawer popped out. He slipped the CD back into its sleeve and handed it to Norman.
‘I’ll give these people who sent it to Rita a ring and see what I can find out from them,’ he said.
‘I’m gone,’ said Norman, slipping the envelope into his pocket. He turned to Jolly. ‘I’ll see you here in the morning same as today, right? We’ll go back out to Hatton House and see what Florence has to say.’
Chapter Nineteen
It had been snowing overnight and next morning everything was covered in a good two inches of the stuff. And it was cold; Norman shivered as his breath filled the air around their heads.
‘I take it from your downbeat mood this morning that your friend Vinnie didn’t crack the password,’ said Jolly, her words creating a visible vapour trail, as they trudged along the old towpath.
‘It never occurred to me that he might be away,’ Norman said, sighing and forming his own word cloud. ‘Good job I phoned him before I drove up there, or I would have wasted the whole night.’
‘What did Dave say?’
‘Ha!’ Norman smiled. ‘Him and Vinnie don’t get on, so he’s torn between being disappointed that we don’t have the password and pleased that he doesn’t have to thank Vinnie for helping us out.’
‘Why doesn’t he like him?’ asked Jolly.
‘Oh you know Dave. He finds it difficult to deal with people who are too sure of themselves, and Vinnie is confident to the point of arrogance. I guess it’s because he’s out of his depth with all the geeky stuff that Vinnie finds so simple. The guy’s a genius and he knows it. I guess he makes Dave feel inadequate or something.’
‘It’s funny,’ said Jolly. ‘I never thought of him lacking confidence until we went to the school together. He really struggled with the kids at first.’
‘But I bet he was okay once he was the one stood at the front giving the talk,’ said Norman.
‘Yes, that’s right, he was,’ agreed Jolly.
‘He likes to be in control of the situation. That’s why he finds the unexpected difficult to deal with. He doesn’t like change. I wonder how he’s gonna cope when Bob Murray leaves and they start shaking things up at wor
k.’
‘You think they will change things?’
‘They have to,’ said Norman. ‘Tinton’s run like it’s still the sixties. Once Murray goes they’ll send in a new broom, you wait and see.’
‘Is the old man definitely leaving then?’ asked Jolly.
‘I didn’t tell you this,’ said Norman, ‘but they’ve asked for volunteers to take redundancy and he’s applied. I got the same letter, but I’d have nothing to do if I quit. But Murray’s different. He sees it as his free ticket from hell. He can’t wait to go.’
They’d reached the woods at the back of Hatton House now, and it was time to split up.
‘Make sure you keep that switched on.’ Norman pointed to the small radio in Jolly’s top pocket. ‘It’s got a range of about 100 yards so I should be able to hear everything you say through my earpiece. If you need me just say so. I’ll probably walk about a bit to keep warm, but I won’t be far, okay?’
‘Okay,’ she said.
The path was difficult to make out in the snow, but she was soon gone from view. Norman was happy he could hear her breathing as she walked. They had agreed beforehand that he would avoid speaking so as not to frighten Florence. He would use a simple click switch unless there was some sort of emergency.
‘Can you hear me, Norm?’ she whispered in his earpiece.
He gave her a click.
‘She doesn’t seem to be here. There’s no sign of the dog either.’
Another click.
‘But the door’s ajar. I’m going to look inside.’
Over the radio, Norman could hear a door creak open.
‘There’s no one here. Even the wood-burner doesn’t seem to be lit. This isn’t right, Norm. I think you’d better get over here.’
‘On my way.’
Norman didn’t do running as a rule, but the alarm in Jolly’s voice left him with no choice. Following her footsteps in the snow, he shuffled along as fast as he could.
Jolly was normally the epitome of cool, calm and collected, but when he found her, Norman thought he’d never seen her in such a state before. She was almost in tears.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she said. ‘I think she may have run away. Oh God, you don’t think we frightened her away yesterday, do you? I’d never forgive myself.’
Convinced she was verging on panic, he grabbed her by the shoulders and stared intently into her face.
‘Jane,’ he said. ‘Stop this. You can’t help her if you start to panic. She could be anywhere. You said yourself she goes into town sometimes. Maybe that’s where she’s gone now.’
He seemed to have her attention now.
‘Right. Yes. Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that-’
‘You can’t go jumping to conclusions. Let’s do this properly. You’re sure she’s not in the house?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Jolly. ‘But there are no footprints apart from yours and mine. It began snowing at around eleven last night, so she must have been gone all night.’
‘Shit,’ said Norman. ‘So she could be anywhere. Let’s have look inside first. Maybe there’ll be some indication where she might have gone. Come on, there’s not much of it, so it won’t take long.’
He led the way into the tiny log cabin. He was right about there not being much of it. Apart from the little wood burning stove, which Florence obviously used to boil a kettle and heat a single pan, there was little in the way of furniture. A rocking chair, just like the one outside, a small table with matching chair, and a narrow dresser were the extent of her furnishings.
‘No electric,’ said Norman, pointing to a candle in a holder on the table.
The large print in the ornate frame filled the centre of one of the walls with no windows. The wall opposite, also with no windows, was home to a large poster of the old children’s TV series The Magic Roundabout.
‘Sheesh!’ Norman whistled. ‘I have never seen one of these before. It must be straight from the seventies.’
‘Is that the TV series you were on about before?’ asked Jolly.
‘Yeah. Florence must have been one big fan,’ he said.
‘That print.’ Jolly pointed to the opposite wall. ‘I’m sure it’s the one that’s missing from Mr Winter’s house.’
‘But how the hell did it get here?’ said Norman. ‘Do you think she broke in and stole it?’
Jolly had pulled open a drawer in the dresser that seemed to serve as Florence’s kitchen.
‘She didn’t need to break in,’ she said, holding up what appeared to be a back door key. ‘It looks like she may have had her own way of getting in and out.’
A large grandfather clock dominated the inside of the cabin. Jolly stepped up for a closer look.
‘This clock looks exactly like the one at Mr Winter’s,’ she said. ‘Except this one doesn’t seem to be working.’
‘Maybe she forgot to wind it,’ said Norman.
There were no ceilings as such, just the inside of the roof, but at one end, a narrow mezzanine floor looked as though it might house a bed. A ladder led up to it.
‘I’m gonna take a look up here,’ said Norman, as he mounted the ladder.
He climbed enough steps to see over the top.
‘The bed’s on the floor like one of them futon things. She’s got some stuff up here but I can’t reach it, and I think I may be a bit too heavy for this. I don’t want to bring the roof down. Can you come up here, Jane?’
He climbed back down and made way for Jolly to climb up.
‘Wow!’ she called down to Norman. ‘She’s one big fan of that TV series. All these cuddly toys look like the characters on that poster down there.’
Norman listened to her rummaging around, and then heard her exclaim ‘Oho!’
‘What have you found?’ asked Norman, as she eased her way back down the ladder. In her hand, she had an MP3 player.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘What on earth would she be doing with one of these?’
‘Come on, Jane,’ said Norman. ‘What’s the big deal? So, it’s an MP3 player. Nearly everyone has one of those these days.’
‘Right, Clever Dick,’ she said. ‘But most people have the means to charge it when the battery runs down. What does Florence use, candlepower?’
‘Okay. Good point,’ said Norman. ‘Does it work?’
Jolly pressed a couple of buttons and waited but nothing happened.
‘Looks dead,’ she said.
‘Take it back with us,’ said Norman. ‘Becksy will have a charger for it.’
He turned his attention to the dresser and slid open the remaining drawer.
‘There were three ancient black and white photos, and he carefully removed them and went over to the window where there was more light. Jolly went across to join him. There was one photograph of two children – a girl of about five and a boy just a few years older. They were arm-in-arm, both wearing huge grins. Then there was one of the same little girl, smiling her gap-toothed smile and squinting at the camera. But it was the third photograph that caught Norman’s attention. It showed what he thought was the same girl, but this time she was holding a man’s hand. He was a good deal older than her, and his smile seemed somewhat forced, but it was the girl’s face that made Norman take notice. She had a haunted look to her, and any smile that she might have been able to produce was missing and had been replaced by a look of total fear. Whoever this man was, the girl appeared to be terrified of him.
‘Oh fuck,’ said Norman. ‘I don’t like the look of this.’
Jolly looked shocked by his outburst. Norman rarely swore, but he couldn’t think of another way to express his feelings about what he thought he was seeing.
‘Sorry about the language,’ he apologised.
‘You took the words out of my mouth,’ Jolly said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. Slater needed to know about this.
‘Balls,’ he muttered. ‘No damned signal. Come on, Ja
ne. We need to get back.’
Chapter Twenty
When they got back to the station, Norman made a quick trip down to Ian Becks’ lair down in the basement.
‘Can I charge an MP3 player?’ repeated Becks. ‘I didn’t know you were into such things, Norm. I thought you’d be more of a vinyl record man.’
‘It’s part of an inquiry,’ said Norman, in no mood for joking. ‘I need it charged so I can see what’s on it.’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Becks, soothingly. ‘I’m sure I’ve got something that will do the job.’
He looked at the small player Norman had handed to him.
‘What are you hoping to find?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, Ian, that’s why I need it charged up.’
‘You know this one plays videos as well as music,’ said Becks.
‘It won’t play anything unless it gets charged, right?’ said Norman, testily.
Brilliant as Becks was, he could be very trying at times, and right now he was in danger of pushing the normally placid Norman to the point of no return. He went to open his mouth again, but Norman beat him to it.
‘Quick as you can, would be really good, Ian.’
‘Right. Leave it with me,’ said Becks. ‘It should be ready in an hour. I’ll call you.’
‘Thanks. I owe you,’ said Norman.
‘And so does Slater,’ said Becks. ‘Make sure you remind him for me.’
Next, Norman made sure everyone on duty was aware they were looking for Florence. He didn’t want her stopped, he just needed to know if anyone had seen her overnight, and if anyone should see her today, he wanted to know.
Upstairs in their tiny office, a distraught Jane Jolly was struggling to relate the morning’s events to Slater.
‘And there was no sign of her anywhere?’ Slater asked.
