by John Harvey
“I spoke to Jennie. She’ll meet you this evening.”
Elder nodded. “Okay.”
“Frank, she’s really grateful to you for doing this.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“You will, though. I know you will.”
Elder let it pass. “How about Katherine?” he said. “Does she know I’m here?”
“Of course. She said she’d ring, try and sort something out.”
“Good of her.”
“Come on, Frank. She’s busy, studying. You should be pleased.”
“I am. I’d like to see her, that’s all.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“This flat she’s in, how’s that working out?”
“Fine as far as I know.”
“Why anyone in their right mind would choose a run-down place in the arse end of Lenton...”
“Instead of living here?”
“Yes.”
“Frank, she’s nineteen years old. She’s got a life of her own.”
“I know, I know.”
“You can’t mollycoddle her forever.”
“There’s been a lot of that.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I know.”
Elder leaned back and for a moment closed his eyes. If he was never himself free of the time Katherine had been snatched off the street by a confessed murderer, imprisoned, and abused, then how much worse must it be for her? How hard for either of them to forget that much of the blame was attached to Elder himself?
“Perhaps,” he said, “I’ll have that cup of coffee after all.”
As Joanne walked past the window, the sun came out as suddenly as if someone had just switched on a light, and Elder could see the outline of her breasts and thighs beneath the swivel of her dress.
Following her through to the kitchen, he leaned against the jamb of the door and watched as she spooned coffee into the bottom of the cafetière.
“When I asked you about Martyn on the phone, you didn’t answer.”
“That’s because there was nothing to say.”
“You’re not seeing him?”
“Seeing him?”
“I mean, he’s not living here any more?”
Joanne pushed down the plunger in the cafetière too soon.
“Why is it, Frank, every conversation with you, I feel as if I’m being interrogated?”
“I’m interested, that’s all.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“Martyn moved out last June, you know that. Or you did.”
“I thought he’d moved back in.”
“Not really. We did try—what did you say?—seeing each other for a while after that. It never really worked.” She poured coffee, barely dark, into wide china cups. “All those young girls hanging round him, not much older than Katherine. I couldn’t compete.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Is it?”
Sliding his coffee along the work surface toward him, she lit another cigarette.
“You’re not sleeping with him, then?”
“Sleeping?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Not afraid of the word, are you, Frank?”
“All right, fucking then. You’re not fucking him anymore, is that better?”
For a moment, she held his gaze. “Only when he wants to, Frank. And, like I say, that’s not often these days.”
Pushing past him, she went back into the other room.
Chapter 3
ELDER BOOKED INTO THE PREMIER TRAVEL INN, ACROSS from the BBC building at the head of London Road. The room was anonymous and clean, with a firm bed and a small TV and a view down over the canal as it made its measured turn toward the law courts and the railway station. A solitary fisherman sat on a folding stool by the canal’s edge, one rod near his right hand, another resting on a trivet some few metres off. A pair of moorhens ducked their scarlet-tipped beaks beneath the grayish water by the opposite bank.
Still angry with himself for behaving like an adolescent with Joanne, Elder stripped off his clothes and stood in the shower longer than was necessary, as if washing some sense into himself were even a possibility.
Away in Cornwall, he scarcely thought of her for weeks on end and thought little positive when he did; there was no real sense of missing her, of wanting things to be as they once had been. And when he did see her, more often than not it was like meeting a friend with whom you’ve fallen out of touch, whatever there’d been between you so far in the past as to be mostly forgotten.
Strangers.
Elder laughed.
Jealousy then, is that what it was?
Jealous of Martyn Miles after all this time?
Fuck!
He slammed his open hand against the tiled wall and turned the shower high. A burst of cold then out. The small reassuring roughness of clean, well-laundered towels; his body in the mirror taut as he stretched, no sign of flab, not yet. He’d wanted her, that was the thing, wanted her as she moved past the screen of glass and then again, when she stood in the kitchen, close. Only when he wants to, Frank. Her skin when she’d stared up at him, so pale it was almost as if the light showed through, faint purple shadows below the eyes. Only when he wants to.
Elder let the towel fall and stood naked in the centre of the room, head down, eyes closed, slowly unclenching his fingers until they were no longer fists.
IN THE TIME SINCE HE’D MOVED AWAY, BARS HAD SPRUNG up like brightly coloured sores across the centre of the city. What was it? Four hundred licensed premises within a radius of little more than a mile? A half million pounds changing hands on Friday and Saturday nights? Come two o’clock, the pedestrianized streets would be awash with puke and piss, young men in short-sleeved shirts eager for the chance to lash out with a word, a threat, a boot, at worst a knife; and girls, no matter the weather, dressed (if that was the word) in the skimpiest of clothes, their backsides, as the singer put it, out to the world.
Even midweek, early in the evening, finding somewhere for a quiet drink without the ubiquitous soundtrack pumping, bass heavy, through the sound system, was difficult if not impossible.
Jennie Preston had done her best. A corner bar just off the main street in Hockley, caught between the bland brickwork of an NGP car park and the philanthropic splendour of Victorian textile factories since turned into exclusive apartments or lecture rooms for the new city college. There were deep leather armchairs in twos and threes around the walls, tables scattered here and there across a well-scored wooden floor, and stools along the bar itself. Not many people yet: a small cluster of men drinking bottles of imported lager; two women straight from work, heads close together over a bottle of chardonnay; a solitary man, newspaper folded open, doing the crossword at the bar, and pausing every now and then to ponder a clue and check his watch. The music was mostly instrumental—organ, was it? Saxophone? Dinner jazz, Elder thought it might be called.
He knew it was her the moment she walked in.
Petite, Joanne had been right; without her heels, Elder doubted if Jennie Preston would have topped five feet. She was wearing a rust red suit, the skirt just above the knee; her blond bobbed hair, streaked here and there a darker colour and falling in a line that followed the curve of her chin, was expertly cut. Living with a hairstylist for nigh on twenty years, almost despite himself, Elder had learned a little about these things.
“Frank.” She walked toward him, hand outstretched, and he rose to meet her. “Frank Elder, yes?”
“Yes.”
“It was good of you to come.”
He gave one of those half nods, half shrugs to suggest it was fine, he hadn’t overly put himself out.
“What are you drinking?” Jennie asked.
“I wasn’t yet. I thought I’d wait.”
“Wine then. Red okay?”
“Yes, let me...”
But she was already on her way to the bar, heels clipping the floor. Onl
y one of the men in suits failed to turn and look.
A few minutes later she was back with two large glasses, which she set carefully down before fetching an ashtray from another table.
“You don’t mind?” she asked before lighting up.
Elder shook his head.
“How about merlot? You don’t mind merlot?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“I saw this film a while back, and this guy in it, a real wine buff, you know the kind, he and his friend are just about to meet these two women for dinner and he says, if one of them orders merlot I’m going to get right up and leave.” She smiled. “But you don’t feel that way?”
“No.”
“Then cheers.”
She touched her glass to his and drank. Even in that subdued lighting her makeup showed clear and bright.
For fifteen minutes or so they chatted about her job and how she had first met Joanne, some years back now, repping shampoo and conditioner into the salon Joanne managed; Jennie a foot soldier back then, not East of England sales manager as she was now, with several hundred accounts to look after—and cold calling, for her, thank God, a thing of the past.
She asked Elder about Cornwall. Didn’t it get lonely? The winters, they must be the worst. And Katherine, she’d only met her a couple of times, but she was lovely, a lovely girl—and after what had happened—to have put that behind her as well as she had and get her life back on track—he must be really proud.
Elder supposed that, when he could avoid the guilt, that’s what he was.
“My sister,” Jennie said. “My sister, Claire.”
“There’s still no sign?”
Jennie shook her head.
“And it’s how long now?”
“The Sunday before last. Nine days.”
“There’s been no phone call, no letter, nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“And you’ve no idea where she might have gone?”
“None.”
Jennie reached for her bag and lit another cigarette. There were more customers in the bar now, the lighting had been dimmed further, the volume of the music eased up. Little more than silhouettes, people drifted past outside in twos and threes.
“I called round on the Sunday afternoon,” Jennie said, “the bungalow in Sherwood where she lives. She moved into it after Brian—her husband—after he died. Five years ago, cancer. The kids had gone, grown up, and I suppose she thought, you know, a new start. New lease on life.”
For a moment Jennie’s voice cracked and she looked, hastily, away.
“You went to see her,” Elder prompted.
“Yes. It’s been a habit to go round every couple of weeks. Sundays. Just, you know, a cup of tea and a chat. Try and take her out of herself a bit.”
“She needed that?”
“Oh, yes, I think so.” Jennie drank the last of the wine from her glass and dragged on her cigarette. “I got there a bit later than usual. Four, four-thirty, I suppose it was. Somewhere around there. It wasn’t dark yet, but getting that way. There were no lights showing inside, none at all, and I remember thinking that was strange. Then I thought she might be lying down, taking a nap; she gets these headaches sometimes, migraine I suppose, and the only thing she can do is lie down in the dark until it goes away. So I knocked a few times, and rang, and then when nothing happened, I let myself in. Claire had wanted me to have a key.
“I called, called out her name, and then when there was no reply, went into the bedroom. I was certain that’s where she’d be, under the covers, you know, fast off.” Jennie paused. “There was just this bear, this old bear, propped up against the pillows. We’d had it since we were kids, hers first and then mine; somehow she’d got it back. Ratty old thing it is now, only one eye. And she wasn’t anywhere. Claire. Not anywhere.”
“She’d known you were coming round?”
“Not really, I mean, not for certain. But she’d have assumed it, yes. Like I say, it was what we did. Besides, she was never out, not that time of day. She’d be watching a film on TV. Ironing a few bits and pieces. Reading.”
“She wouldn’t have popped out to see a friend?”
“She doesn’t have friends. Not that way. Oh, a few people she knows to say hello to, neighbours, but no one close. Not the kind you can just call round to, on spec. Besides, she wouldn’t do that; she’s not the sort.”
“And there was nothing to indicate where she’d gone?”
“Nothing. Believe me. I checked her clothes, the wardrobe, her things in the bathroom—in case she had gone away for the weekend and not got back, though God knows where. But it was all there, everything was there, in place, the way she always kept it, neat and tidy. Everything except bloody Claire.”
Fiercely, she stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. Elder carried the glasses back to the bar and returned with fresh ones, more merlot. It tasted all right to him, but what did he know?
“What you’ve got to understand, about Claire...” Jennie weighed in again as soon as he sat back down, “she isn’t like me. She doesn’t stick her face out, get on with things. She’s never...” Jennie leaned back and pushed her hair away from her face. “When we were growing up, our mum, she walked out. Packed her bags and left. I don’t know, I suppose it had been going on for years, her and my dad, falling out, this and that. They say kids notice these things, but no, we didn’t. Not me, anyway. Even thinking back, I didn’t notice a thing. But one day—whatever the reason, whatever brought it to a head I don’t know, Dad never said—she just upped and left. Kiss on the cheek, pat on the head. Gone. I was five. I didn’t understand, didn’t have a bloody clue. She’ll be back, I thought, she’ll be back. Tonight, tomorrow, the day after. She never was. Not once.”
Jennie leaned back and drew smoke down into her lungs.
“I can understand that. Now. Not leaving like she did, not that. But once you have, once you’ve gone, the only way you could hope to make it work, live with yourself, must be to make a clean break. Forget. They say mothers never can, but I don’t know...”
Someone passing close to the back of Jennie’s chair brushed against her and apologized.
“My dad took it bad. Never made a fuss or anything, but you could tell; later especially, you could tell. Claire, she was a good deal older than me, fourteen. She looked after me when Mum left. Had to, more or less. After Dad died, especially. She left school as soon as she could and got a job. She could have gone to university, she was bright enough, but no. It wasn’t even a job she liked. Just paid a few bills, that’s all it was, marking time. Soon as Brian married her, she packed it in. Stayed home, looked after the kids. Two. Two kids, Jane and James.” Jennie shook her head. “That was her life, the children, the house.”
She sipped some wine then cradled the glass in both hands.
“One day—university, whatever—they’re gone. And then Brian got sick, lost weight, three months and he looked like a stick. Six more months the doctors gave him but he hung on close to three years. I sometimes think it was our mum leaving made him cling on how he did. As if he wasn’t going to go and leave us, no matter what. And, of course, she nursed him, Claire, all the while. Did everything.”
For a moment, Jennie closed her eyes.
“When he died, the first few months, she was brilliant. Me, I thought she’d fall apart, but no, all the funeral arrangements, she handled those, boxed up Brian’s clothes for charity, put the house on the market, found herself a job. Just back in an office, nothing special, but a job all the same. When she sold the house, she gave a chunk of money to each of the kids and bought the bungalow with the rest. And then she stopped: as if she’d run out of steam. That was five years back. Now it’s work that bores her silly five days a week, the weekly shop at Sainsbury’s and that’s all. Jane comes back to see her once in a while—not as often now as she used to—and once in a while Claire goes down to see her. At least she did when Jane was still in London. She’s in Bristol now, getting an MBA.�
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“And the son? You said there was a son?”
“James.”
“Where’s he?”
“Australia. Went out for six months, some kind of transfer from the firm he was working for, and stayed.”
“She wouldn’t have gone out to see him? That’s not a possibility?”
Jennie shook her head. “Without telling anyone? Without telling me or Jane? No.”
“But you’ve checked all the same?”
Jennie smiled a little with her eyes. “I’ve checked. The last contact they had was a phone call a couple of weeks before Claire disappeared. James is always on to her to get a computer so they can keep in touch by e-mail, but Claire says no, she wants to hear the sound of his voice.”
“They’re close, then?”
“As close as you can be a few thousand miles away.”
“It puts a lot of pressure on you.”
“I try.” Tears threatened the perfection of her face.
Elder hesitated, drank some more wine. “I don’t suppose you thought to bring a photograph?” he said.
But of course she had. Two, in fact. Head-and-shoulder shots, the kind you take yourself in cubicles at post offices and railway stations. A serious-looking woman with a roundish face and dark, rather lank hair. Late fifties, Elder would have said. That at least.
“It occurred to me not so long back,” Jennie said, “I didn’t have any recent pictures of her, not since Brian passed on, so I asked her if she’d get some taken. Told her I’d pay. I thought she’d go to a proper photographer, in town. What she gave me were these.”
Elder nodded and slipped them back into the envelope.
“What I’d like you to do,” he said, “is make a list of anyone you can think of with whom she might have been in touch—the children, of course, and anybody else. I know, I know, you say she didn’t have many friends, but think about it again and if you do come up with anyone, note it down. Where she worked, the details there, I’ll need those, too.”
“You will help then?”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you.”
