Alice Teale is Missing

by H. A. Linskey

  Then common sense kicks in and I start thinking about practical things, like not being able to control how deep the teeth cut into me or how I could hit a big vein, possibly even an artery; my knowledge of human biology is so insufficient, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to miss them. I contemplate how it would feel to see my blood pumping out right in front of me and the helplessness I’d experience if I couldn’t stop it. Imagine bleeding out and dying on your bed because you’d had another bad day and just wanted to stop yourself thinking about it. I wonder if that’s ever happened to anyone? Bound to have, I reckon. How many so-called suicides were really just anxious teenagers who accidentally went a bit too far and couldn’t stop what they had started?

  So I go back down to the kitchen, put the knife away then pour myself a drink instead. That helps to make the pain go away, too, and it takes a hell of a lot longer to kill you.

  23

  It was no great surprise to find another envelope on his desk. Black read the words from Alice’s journal on the wisdom of cutting herself then handed the page to Beth as soon as she arrived at the major-incident room.

  As Beth read the entry, he handed her another half-page. ‘This arrived at the same time.’ It contained only a few words, written in a jittery, urgent scrawl.

  He stayed silent as Beth read the words aloud.

  ‘Yesterday I went to the roof. It’s higher than it seems from the ground, but everything seems scarier when you’re looking down, doesn’t it? You could climb out on to all that wobbly scaffolding. If you could just hold your nerve, then it would work.’ She looked up at Black before finishing: ‘I just need the courage to see it through.’

  She commented, ‘That’s a pretty clear indication of Alice Teale’s state of mind. She didn’t do it, obviously, not from the school roof, but it reads like a suicide note, or the precursor to one. She had been up on the roof, too,’ she recalled. ‘Chris told me he had to call her down.’ Then she said, ‘I’m itching to get into that school. Her teachers must know something about Alice.’

  ‘Particularly the young one who has been giving her lifts,’ he agreed. ‘It’s strange, though, isn’t it? No one has said she suffered from depression or exhibited any suicidal tendencies. But the pressure she was under to be’ – he shrugged – ‘“perfect”, as Tony put it, was getting to her. She told him that, and her notes about playing lots of parts and acting them all out does show that her mind was troubled.’

  ‘She felt she was living a lie,’ said Beth. ‘Maybe the pressure did become too great and she seriously entertained the idea of ending it all.’ They contemplated this for a moment. ‘But if she did, then why haven’t we found a body?’

  ‘That’s the big question,’ he said. ‘And we won’t answer it sitting round here. Come on.’

  ‘Where are we heading?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the Teale family,’ said Black, ‘and how things don’t seem quite right with them, particularly Alice’s father. We already know he has a temper, and his alibi isn’t cast-iron. Now we find Alice has been thinking about self-harming and throwing herself off a roof. That’s a bit extreme, and maybe the issues start at home.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Beth cautiously. ‘Ronnie Teale’s wife and son aren’t his biggest fans, but they don’t suspect him of involvement in Alice’s disappearance. Even Daniel said he would never hurt Alice.’

  ‘Maybe he’s too close to the problem,’ said Black. ‘But there’s one member of the Teale family we haven’t spoken to yet.’

  ‘The grandfather.’

  ‘He lives in one of those cottages right by the school. He didn’t see Alice on the day she disappeared, but I do want to speak to him about his son-in-law.’

  ‘And you said “I” again,’ she observed, and when he didn’t explain further, she said, ‘Which means you want me to ask Kirstie about that kiss.’

  Alice Teale’s grandfather, Stan, was close to Alice, and she had to have walked right by his home just before she disappeared.

  The cottages were just yards from the school, in two long, neat rows. Black scanned the doors until he found the right one. He knocked, but there was no answer, so he went around the back. The little cottage had a sizeable garden to its rear and Alice’s grandfather was busy tending it. Black called the man’s name and he turned around. The detective introduced himself and told him why he was here. ‘Bloody hell, son,’ he said. ‘Don’t do that to me. I thought you’d come with bad news.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Black, ‘but if we don’t tell people who we are right from the off, they tend to get upset later.’

  ‘Aye, I bet they do.’ Black wondered if the old man shared the inherent distrust of the police he always seemed to detect in former mining communities.

  ‘Would it be okay if I had a chat with you about your granddaughter?’ he asked.

  ‘Howay in,’ said the old man. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Once the tea was made, Stan brought Black outside again and they sat on two rickety kitchen chairs on the patio, looking out at the garden. ‘Nice spot you have here,’ said the detective. ‘It catches the light.’

  ‘Anyone can have one of these cottages, you know,’ the old man said dryly. ‘All you have to do is join a very long waiting list and try not to pop your clogs in the meantime.’

  ‘I’m sure you earned it.’

  ‘I was brought up to work hard and bring a wage home to my family. I did that until my daughter grew up then got married, and I thought I’d have a few years with my Ivy before God called me’ – he was staring straight ahead and not betraying any emotion – ‘but he took her instead. Now I’m on my own, my daughter doesn’t pop round much, on account of her job and tending to her own family. I’ve got my garden and I’ve got my granddaughter. If God takes her from me as well, I swear I’ll burn his church to the ground.’

  Black decided to deflect him from that thought. ‘You don’t see much of your grandson, then?’

  ‘He’s a man,’ he said, in excuse for the lack of contact. ‘They’re always off out doing things, aren’t they? I would be, too, if I still had the energy. Women are more caring.’

  ‘Not all of them,’ observed Black. ‘But your granddaughter obviously is. How often does she pop in?’

  ‘Every couple of days. Sometimes she comes up specially, but mostly it’s a look in on me after school. We have a cup of tea and a biscuit before she heads home.’

  ‘She didn’t call in on the night she went missing?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. Perhaps he was thinking that, if only she had, Alice might still be here.

  ‘And you didn’t see her walk by?’

  ‘I was watching the telly in the front room.’ He meant he couldn’t have seen the path at the back of the cottages as his lounge window faced the other way. ‘I didn’t think she’d be there that late, otherwise I’d have left the back door open. That’s what I usually do, so she knows I’m in.’

  It seemed a quaint idea to leave a back door open, but Stan probably didn’t have that much to steal and he was still a formidable-looking man. He might be old, thought Black, but you wouldn’t want to mess with him.

  ‘She popped in a lot,’ confirmed Black, ‘even though she was busy elsewhere, with her job and school activities? She must have very little free time.’

  ‘It’s hectic, I think, what with her studying and all.’

  ‘They must hardly see her at home.’ Black dropped the observation in lightly, and the old man made a dismissive noise through his teeth.

  ‘Her fatha’s a …’ And whatever word he was about to use was lost when he went off on a tangent. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he’ll be worried sick about Alice – he loves her, I’m certain of that, but …’

  ‘He gives her a hard time?’

  ‘I was a strict father, and I make no apology for that. My daughter has manners and knows how to behave in company. When she was little, she’d get a smack if she played up, so I’m not one to criticize
another man for scolding his daughter when it’s needed.’

  ‘But it’s not always needed?’

  ‘She can barely breathe, man!’ Black was startled by the ferocity of the statement. A bird had flown from the bushes at the suddenness of the outburst. ‘She could never do anything right. I used to say to her when she was small, “You must have done something to cause it,” but after a while I realized he was never happy, no matter what she did. It’s always wrong.’

  ‘You ever intervene?’

  ‘You can’t, can you? Another man’s family,’ he explained.

  ‘Your family, too,’ Black reminded him, but he knew the old man didn’t view it that way.

  ‘If he’d been hitting her or my daughter, then he’d have got a good hiding, but this was just words.’

  Just words. Black contemplated that for a moment and wondered at the impact words might have on a girl like Alice, then Stan continued, ‘I saw him down the club once and bought him a pint. I tried to raise it with him, gentle, like, but I didn’t get very far.’

  ‘He tell you to mind your own business?’

  ‘In so many words. He said he was responsible for his daughter until she was married and somebody else’s problem. That’s how he described her, as a problem. Then he said, “No one ever told you how to raise Abigail,” meaning that I shouldn’t tell him how to bring up Alice.’

  Ronnie had chosen the best way to silence his father-in-law, by invoking the outmoded right of a man to run his house and order his family around as he saw fit.

  ‘Do you think there was anything more to it?’ asked Black tentatively. ‘Anything going on inside the house, I mean. Was it just controlling, unforgiving behaviour from her father or something’ – he was choosing his words carefully now – ‘worse?’

  ‘Worse? Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ But Black could tell the old man knew what he was inferring, because he looked alarmed.

  ‘Don’t you go reading too much into what I just said. Ronnie can be a bit of a bully and I might not like him all that much, but Alice is his daughter and he would never lay a hand on her like that.’

  ‘Good,’ said Black quickly, as if he were able to immediately dismiss the notion and move on, though he reasoned that if something more sinister was going on in Alice’s home, then Stan wasn’t likely to know too much about it. Alice could have confided in him, but then her grandfather would likely have ended up brawling with her father in the street. She would have known that and probably done anything she could to avoid it.

  They sat in silence for a while until Black asked him, ‘Where do you think she is?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue, son. That’s your job, isn’t it?’ His tone softened then. ‘I genuinely do not know where my granddaughter is, and it is breaking my heart.’ He had to make an effort to compose himself before continuing: ‘Do you think I wouldn’t be out there now looking for her if she’d run off with some young bloke and I knew who it was? ’Course I would.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Just find her and bring her home.’

  Black drained his cup of tea. ‘You didn’t see anyone else kicking about that night around the time she came out of school? That boyfriend of hers, or a stranger, perhaps?’

  ‘I didn’t see her boyfriend or anybody who wouldn’t normally be here, but I wasn’t out back when she was last seen.’

  ‘Did you see anyone at all that night, either leaving the school or milling around outside it?’

  ‘Evie from next door,’ he said helplessly, knowing this would be of no use to the detective. ‘I saw Archie Thorogood on his way back from fishing, and Dolly got dropped off by her daughter – she’d been for her tea – and I saw Happy Harry.’ He said that last bit as if Black would know who he meant.

  ‘Happy Harry?’ The old man nodded. ‘Does this chap have a surname?’

  ‘Must do,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know what it is. He was round the back.’

  ‘Okay. What was he doing round the back?’

  ‘He was on the cadge, like always.’ Then he said: ‘He’s soft in the head. That’s why they call him Happy Harry, ’cos he’s happy just plodding round. You see him all over town, begging. Some folk are daft enough to give him money, but he spends it all on booze.’

  ‘He’s an alcoholic?’ asked Black.

  ‘He begs in the marketplace in the morning and round here in the evening, so what do you think? Don’t know where he gets the booze from, since he’s been barred out of every pub in town. He’ll ask the old wifies round here for summat – food or money or a cup of tea in that manky old flask he carries.’

  ‘Did he knock on your door that night?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘He was fishing inside the bins.’

  ‘He was looking in the rubbish bins?’

  ‘He’s always doing it.’

  ‘How can I find this Happy Harry?’

  ‘He’ll be wandering around the town,’ he said. ‘Why do you care about him?’

  ‘He might have seen something if he was hanging round the back of your house.’

  The old man seemed to consider this a reasonable assumption. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘If you can get any sense out of him.’

  ‘Have you seen him since that night?’

  ‘Now you come to mention it, no, I haven’t.’

  ‘Where does he bed down? In the town?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘He wouldn’t be safe when the pubs turn out. There’re some mad young buggers in this town. They’d probably set him alight.’

  ‘So where, then?’

  ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if he has an address.’

  Black got to his feet and thanked the man. A breeze went through the back gardens then, and it carried a rank smell. Alice’s grandfather must have smelled it, too, because he said, ‘That’s Billy on the corner,’ then added: ‘Well, not him, his garden. He’s obsessed with his bloody roses, piles loads of manure by them and swears it makes all the difference.’

  ‘And does it?’ asked Black.

  ‘Must do. He grows a bonny rose,’ conceded the old man. ‘Trouble is, his whole garden smells of shite.’ He shook his head again, at the idiocy of that. ‘And you know what they say about shitting on your own doorstep.’

  24

  Kirstie didn’t seem thrilled to find Beth standing there when she opened the door.

  ‘Hello, Kirstie, I was wondering if I could have another word with you.’ As Beth said this, the sound of hammering from the lounge reached her.

  ‘My dad’s laying a new carpet.’

  ‘I was hoping for a chat in private.’

  Was Kirstie surprised? She didn’t look it. ‘We can talk in my room,’ she said, and trudged up the stairs while Beth followed.

  Once inside her room, Kirstie sat on the bed and left Beth standing. She looked around and saw an old wicker chair next to the wardrobe. ‘Can I?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s a free country.’

  Beth dragged the chair over to the end of Kirstie’s bed and sat down.

  ‘We’ve been speaking to a number of people about Alice’ – Beth didn’t mention Ricky at this point – ‘and we learned a little more about her personal life.’

  ‘Why are you so interested in her personal life?’

  ‘We are looking for reasons why she might have run off, or, if she’s been taken by someone, who it might be. In cases like this, it’s often someone close to the’ – she almost said ‘victim’ – ‘missing person who is responsible.’

  Beth had intended to set the scene. She’d planned to go for a gentle, gradual build-up about Alice Teale’s boyfriend and her ex-boyfriend, plus anyone else she might have taken an interest in. Only then was she going to try to ease the question of Kirstie’s feelings for Alice, and whether they were reciprocated, into the conversation. But something made her abandon that tactic. Perhaps it was the girl’s defensiveness that made her want to unsettle Kirstie into revealing something.

  �
��Tell me about the kiss,’ she said, and waited to see if Kirstie knew what she meant. Would she deny it ever happened?

  ‘Oh, that.’ Kirstie laughed it away, but without humour. ‘You heard about it then? It seemed like a good idea at the time, but we were wasted. We’d been on the tequila at my house while we were getting ready. You know what they say about tequila – “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.”’ And she brought the palm of her hand down on to the bed to mimic someone hitting that floor.

  ‘Then you went to the pub?’

  Kirstie just nodded. ‘It’s a lot cheaper to get hammered before you go.’

  ‘So whose idea was it? To kiss, I mean, not to drink a lot of tequila.’

  ‘Hers.’ Was it Beth’s imagination or had Kirstie said that just a little too quickly and too brightly?

  ‘And she just planted a kiss on you in front of a bunch of people in the bar.’

  ‘Yeah – well, no.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘When I said it was her idea, it wasn’t Alice who suggested it, but it wasn’t me either. She just went along with it. We’d been drinking for ages and having a really good laugh, but we started getting attention from some of the older guys in the pub. They thought they had a chance with us and we couldn’t get rid of them. Then one of them called us a couple of dykes.’

  ‘How did you react to that?’

  ‘I was annoyed and I wanted them to leave us alone.’

  ‘But not Alice?’ Beth probed.

  ‘Alice didn’t like it either, but she handled it differently. She started to take the piss, putting her arm round my shoulder, giving me a hug – that sort of thing – and I went along with it for a laugh. It was just a silly thing.’ She seemed embarrassed now. ‘The clingier we got with each other, the more they liked it. I can’t really explain it now – we were so bloody drunk and we were draped over each other – but all of a sudden it was like we were the centre of their attention, as if we were on stage or something, and they were loving it. They started cheering us.’