The Back Road

by Abbott, Rachel

  Leo realised that if Mimi was a barmaid it was quite an achievement to be able to afford this place. She remembered well the pittance that she’d been paid, and some of the hovels that she had put up with. Considerably worse than this, even if it did need a bit of tlc.

  The kitchen ran along the back of the house – a long thin room with a small space at one end to squeeze in a table and two chairs.

  Mimi dumped the flowers on the worktop. She couldn’t quite meet Leo’s eyes.

  ‘I know it’s not much, but it will do until Patrick’s divorce comes through. It’s only a rental - so there’s not much we can do to improve things.’

  ‘Mimi, you don’t have to make excuses to me you know. I lived in a squat for a while when I first left home.’

  Mimi looked at her, as if to decide whether this was bull or it was real.

  ‘Do you want coffee?’ she finally asked.

  ‘Actually, do you have any tea? I’ve drunk so much coffee this morning already that I’ll get the jitters if I have any more.’

  There was silence while Mimi made the tea. Leo pretended to look with great interest at the view out of the back window, which revealed a tiny square of slightly overgrown lawn leading to the passageway that ran behind the row of houses, and a flat and uninteresting field beyond. Mimi was obviously not going to break the silence, and Leo wondered if she was shy.

  ‘Great to have a house that isn’t overlooked from the back,’ Leo remarked, trying to start a conversation.

  ‘It’s okay. We don’t use the garden much. Do you want to sit down? We could go in the lounge if you like, or stay here?’

  ‘Here’s fine. I’m a kitchen person - well, not in the sense of being able to cook, but I like being in kitchens.’

  Leo sat down and smiled encouragingly at Mimi, who still seemed a bit unsure of herself. She sat down opposite Leo, clutching the mug of tea between her two hands.

  ‘What have you done with Patrick today, then? I often wonder how teachers amuse themselves in the long holidays. Max is kept busy with the twins, of course - but what about Pat?’

  ‘He’s had to go to a meeting at school.’

  ‘In the holidays? That’s a bit mean isn’t it?’ Leo suddenly had a thought. ‘I bet it’s to do with Abbie Campbell - you know, the girl who was knocked over on Friday night. I presume you’ve heard that they’re now saying she was abducted?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about it. Patrick’s not said much, and I don’t watch the news. It’s too depressing. I expect it’s all become a bit exaggerated though, as things seem to in this village.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’d feel like that if she was your daughter,’ Leo said. ‘Her parents must be going through hell, although Ellie does say that there are some signs of recovery. It takes time, though, and it could be weeks before she’s able to tell the police what happened.’

  Mimi appeared to have nothing to add to this conversation thread. It was like pulling teeth. She wasn’t exactly hostile, but she was obviously not comfortable. There was a level of anxiety there, and Leo didn’t seem to be able to break down the barrier.

  ‘How did you end up in Little Melham, Mimi? Not an obvious place to choose, I wouldn’t have thought. You’re not from round here, are you?’

  ‘I’m from the south coast.’

  ‘Ooh, nice. I’ve been to Brighton, and Poole. There are some lovely spots down there.’

  ‘Yeah, well - it all depends on where you live and how much money you’ve got, I suppose.’

  Leo looked keenly at Mimi, who was absent-mindedly chewing her thumb nail.

  ‘Are you okay? You seem a bit edgy today.’

  Mimi pulled the nail away from her mouth and sat up straighter.

  ‘Blame it on the hormones. I’m okay. I’m fine. I don’t want to be rude, Leo, but is this a social call or did you have something on your mind? Only I need to go out again soon.’

  Leo felt a twinge of guilt, although she wasn’t sure why. She had come here with the best of intentions.

  ‘There was no agenda at all, I promise you. Ellie asked me to bring your cardigan back. She’s been trying to reach Pat, but he hasn’t been answering his phone. And I just thought I’d see how you’re doing, and repeat my offer of the free life coaching session, if you’re interested. With the baby coming and everything it would be a great time to think about how you’d like your life to pan out.’

  Leo knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say. Mimi’s eyes glinted like ice, but at that moment her mobile buzzed and she looked away, too soon to know whether it was the glint of tears or anger.

  Mimi pressed a button on her phone, and her brow wrinkled in annoyance at whatever was on the screen.

  ‘If you need to answer that, it’s okay with me,’ Leo said.

  ‘I don’t.’

  Leo wanted to try to recover the situation. In one of the few normal conversations she’d had with Ellie in the last couple of days, her sister had told her that Pat was spending a lot of time with Georgia - trying to make things right. Maybe Mimi knew, and that would account for her stress, particularly now that she was pregnant.

  ‘It’s funny, but I once thought the whole idea of life coaching was ridiculous. Like you, I worked in a bar. More of a nightclub I suppose, and it was in central London. The hours were long, the pay crap. You know how it is. But I was a stroppy cow, and got very lippy with the customers. One night, I chose the wrong guy - the brother of the boss. He somehow got the idea that I’d like his grubby hands sliding over my backside, and I informed him otherwise.’ Leo laughed at the memory. Mimi’s face was expressionless. ‘My boss was a woman, and a bit more sympathetic than a man might have been - but she told me I had “issues” that had to be sorted if I wanted to keep my job. There was apparently a better way of defusing difficult situations than a mouthful of verbal abuse. I was forced to go to a couple of counselling sessions which I thought were a joke, because all we did was examine the things that had made me the person that I am. But then I went to see a life coach and it changed everything. It doesn’t stop me being who I am, warts and all, but it helps me to deal with it and make my little foibles work for me rather than against me.’

  Leo could see that her speech had fallen on deaf ears. Mimi had folded her arms, and her hands were clenched. Her mobile buzzed again, and she whisked it off the table, transfixed by the screen.

  Mimi stood up abruptly, her phone clutched tightly in her hand.

  ‘Will you excuse me, Leo? I need the toilet.’

  Without another glance at Leo, Mimi made her way out of the room and Leo heard her clattering up the wooden staircase.

  This had not turned out the way she’d hoped at all.

  She picked up the mugs from the table and stepped over the shopping bags to reach the sink. Her thoughts were miles away, wondering how difficult life might be for Mimi at the moment. Lost in thought, she turned to make her way back to the table.

  ‘Bugger,’ she muttered, as she kicked one of the shopping bags and the contents fell out all over the slate tile effect lino. She bent down and started to pick up onions and potatoes from where they had rolled across the floor. As she started to stuff the groceries back in the bag, she noticed something unexpected at the bottom. But before she had time to give it any thought, she heard clattering coming down the stairs again and hastily started to stuff everything back into the bag.

  She looked up as Mimi walked in the room. The two women regarded each other without a word.

  Leo broke the silence.

  ‘I think I’d better go.’

  Nothing else was said. But then, nothing else was needed.

  * * *

  Leo had been right about one thing on Tuesday evening. There was a hell of a lot of tension in the Saunders household at the moment. Tom had felt it like a waft of cold air the minute Leo had opened the door. Leo had been pleasant enough, but there was nothing relaxed in her manner. Even when she was stroppy and sarcastic, she had an easy grace about
her. But her movements had been jumpier, her voice less modulated.

  And Ellie was worse. She hadn’t even wanted to talk about their intruder, which was strange as Leo said that Ellie was the one who was most concerned about it. She was hiding something, but Tom couldn’t think of any reason why she would.

  Well, whatever was going on, all he could do was help when he was asked. Which reminded him - that’s exactly what Leo had done the previous evening. She was desperate to finally know the truth about her father’s disappearance, and Tom had a few routes to intelligence, although it was strictly forbidden to use police computers to track information for personal purposes. But he had done similar research before and had a good idea where to start. Local knowledge.

  Sitting at his desk in the study, he grabbed the phone. Steve had called the day before and fortunately he had stored the number. There was one thing that his old sergeant might be able to help him with. The phone was answered almost immediately, but it was a noisy line and not very clear.

  ‘Steve? Tom Douglas. Sorry to bother you - do you have a minute to chat, or are you in the middle of something?’

  ‘Morning, Tom. Good to hear from you. I’m in the car on hands free, and about ten minutes out from my destination. So shoot. I should warn you to keep it clean, because I’ve got my sergeant with me, and he’s of a delicate disposition.’

  Tom laughed as he imagined the accompanying wink from Steve. He heard an echo of his laughter from the noisy car. The sergeant, no doubt.

  ‘I wanted to ask if you have any old timers around the office who might be able to provide a bit of local information from about fifteen to twenty years ago. About a resident of Little Melham at that time, by the name of Harris. Edward Harris. Lived at Willow Farm.’

  ‘We’ve got a couple of guys who are coming up to twenty-five years, so they might be able to help. What do you want to know?’

  ‘His daughters have become friends of mine.’ Tom was interrupted by laughter and a few remarks about the fact that he had used the plural term. He let them finish before continuing.

  ‘His daughters, one of whom is happily married to my next door neighbour - just so that we’re clear - don’t know what happened to him. He disappeared, possibly in the summer of 1995, and they don’t know where he went or if he’s still alive. I know you can’t help with that bit, but any background, gossip, local knowledge might help.’

  ‘Okay - Edward Harris, you said? I’ll ask my sergeant here to get hold of anybody who we think might be able to help, and see if there’s anything we can find out for you. Do you know any more about him?’

  ‘Only that he was a bigamist, but was apparently never done for it. One wife died, and the remaining one had him declared dead in 2002 allegedly, although his daughter can’t find any trace of a death certificate in the relevant period.’

  ‘Quite a little mystery, then. Perhaps the surviving wife topped him and buried him in the garden.’ Steve laughed.

  ‘Don’t think that hadn’t occurred to me,’ Tom said, not entirely joking. From what Leo had said about her stepmother it didn’t actually sound like an implausible scenario.

  ‘Okay - we’re on it. Somebody will get back to you as soon as. If there’s anybody on duty now who might be able to help, I’ll get them to give you a call. Otherwise it might be tomorrow. Let me know how it goes.’

  ‘Thanks Steve. How are things going with the Abbie Campbell case?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Crap. We keep hitting brick walls. Have you heard any gossip since we last spoke?’

  ‘Nothing useful, I’m afraid. The villagers are breathless with excitement about the fact that you’ve been interviewing teachers and the like, but apart from that nobody seems to have a clue. I’ll keep my ear to the ground.’

  ‘Okay - that would be great. Speak soon.’

  They said their goodbyes, and Tom continued to sit at his desk, turning a pen over idly in his fingers as he thought about Leo and whether helping her would be a good idea or bad. He had a feeling that, when the time came, he might have to implore Leo not to shoot the messenger.

  * * *

  By the time Tom had made and eaten a bacon sandwich for his lunch and returned to his desk to start his online research, Steve and his sergeant had obviously done their stuff because the phone rang and Tom heard a voice he didn’t recognise.

  ‘Good morning, sir. My name’s Ernie Collier. Detective Inspector Corby asked me to call you with regard to Ted Harris - is that right?’

  This policeman didn’t need to call him sir, but Tom knew that he would be uncomfortable with anything else if he was one of the old guard, so he let it pass. More interestingly, he called Edward Harris “Ted”, which indicated that he knew who he was.

  ‘If Ted is Edward Harris, formerly of Willow Farm, Little Melham, then anything you can tell me about him would be useful. I’m trying to track him down for his daughters.’

  ‘Not sure you’ll be wanting to do that, sir, if I may say so as shouldn’t,’ Ernie said. That was a phrase Tom hadn’t heard in a while.

  He sighed. This wasn’t going to have a happy ending, but then given what he already knew about the man, it had always been unlikely.

  ‘Why do you say that, Ernie?’ he asked.

  ‘I was a beat bobby in Little Melham for five years. I got to know the locals pretty well, and I knew about his other daughter coming to live there. She’d been there a couple of years by the time I arrived, but it was still news as far as the villagers were concerned. There wasn’t much went on, so a good story could last a fair few years. They all knew the girl had a different mother and that Ted had a long term relationship somewhere else.’

  Tom decided not to mention the word bigamy, as this had never been pursued at the time.

  ‘The girls know all about that of course, but I’m wondering why you think it would be a bad idea to find out what happened to him, or to discover if he’s alive.’

  ‘He had a bit of a reputation - not something his daughters would be proud of. Liked to put it about a bit – you know – spread his favours, as it were. Not just in the village, but round the area in general. There were lots of angry men, and a few were baying for his blood from time to time. But as I understand it, he’d disappear for a while until things calmed down, then turn up again.’

  ‘So do you think that one of these women’s husbands might have got to him in the end, then?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Not husbands, sir. Fathers. He liked ’em young, did Ted. Legal - but barely.’

  Christ, Tom thought. How the hell was he going to tell Leo any of this? Easy answer - he wasn’t. This was rumour and conjecture. He would tell her the truth about her father as and when he found it.

  ‘Was there anything solid, Ernie? Anything that might indicate what happened to him and why finally he went and didn’t come back?’

  ‘I’ve been pondering that one since DI Corby called, but nothing’s coming to me. I’ll think on - and if it does, I’ll let you know. I don’t know that any of this is fact - it’s just village chitchat. Nobody reported him to us, so as far as we know officially, he didn’t commit any crime. But on balance, I would say a smooth talking slime ball, if you get my drift.’

  Tom did. He thanked Ernie and hung up, wishing he’d never asked. It seemed to him that this opened up a plethora of possible outcomes to Leo’s search for her dad - and none of them sounded promising.

  36

  After the events of the morning Ellie had to get out of the house, and so she had grabbed four bags-for-life from the cupboard and set off for the supermarket. Shopping for food and the thought of what she might invent for dinner once this phase of endless shifts was over had cheered her up a little, and by the time she got home she was sorry to see that the house appeared deserted.

  As she drew her car to a stop by the front door, she looked at her watch. Max must have taken the kids somewhere again. She had expected to see at least his car, and probably Leo’s too. So where was everybody?

 
Walking round to the kitchen door with the first of the shopping bags, she was surprised to find it very slightly ajar. She must have been wrong. Somebody must be home.

  But the kitchen was deserted, and the house seemed silent.

  She quietly lowered the bags onto the floor and stood still to listen. Nothing. Max must have gone out and left the bloody door open again - how many times did she have to remind him?

  But what if he hadn’t? What if it was him - sneaking into her house while they were all out? Again.

  Ellie didn’t know what to do. Should she face him and have it out with him now? What would he do to her? If they were alone in the house, she knew what he would want - far more than she was prepared to give. She never thought she would be scared of him, but after their conversation this morning she was no longer certain.

  Perhaps she should go back and sit in the car until somebody came home.

  No. That wouldn’t do. She had to know. She didn’t want to see him, or for him to know that she was here. But she needed to be sure. If anybody knew how to get into their house undetected, it was him.

  Kicking off her shoes she silently made her way from the kitchen through the atrium to the hallway. She stood there quietly for a moment, but there wasn’t a sound.

  There was nobody there. She hadn’t realised that she was holding her breath, but with a huge sigh of relief she turned to go back to the kitchen.

  Clunk. Behind her, but above. Something dropped or closed. And she definitely wasn’t imagining it.

  There was somebody in her house.

  She shouldn’t be terrified, but she was. Why was he doing this to her? She really didn’t want to be on her own with him in an empty house.

  Clunk. There it was again. Before she could force herself to move, she heard the unmistakable sound of the creaking step at the top of the staircase, and she knew that he was about to appear. She couldn’t make it back to the kitchen without being seen.