by Wonny Lea
‘It was hardly Manuel’s fault that Catherine had a tough pregnancy, and if the man could have borne the child for her he would have done. She had no time for the baby and although I sympathise with anyone who suffers post-natal depression most of Catherine’s symptoms were self-inflicted.’
Margaret Washington looked at her sister in total disbelief. Not only had Elsie decided to tell her exactly what she thought about Catherine, but she had decided to do it in front of two strangers. Martin had lost count of the number of times that a visit from the police had unleashed years of pent-up tension within families and he had learned to let the exchanges run. When people were letting go of their feelings they were off their guard and said things they may otherwise have thought twice about.
‘She was sick, really sick.’ Catherine’s mother spoke in her daughter’s defence.
‘I didn’t see anything different to what we had all seen before when Catherine couldn’t get her own way. She stayed in bed most of the day – well, I can’t remember a time when she didn’t, unless there was something she wanted to get up for. Her so-called sickness didn’t stop her partying and staying out all night, though, did it?
‘Did you think I couldn’t see what was going on in my own house? You covered for her with Manuel when he phoned and she did the dying swan act whenever he was here so the poor man had no idea what his wife was up to.
‘It came as no surprise to any of us when she left her child and didn’t come back, but Manuel and his family were devastated.’
At this point Martin started to interrupt, but Elsie was suddenly embarrassed by her outburst and got in first.
‘I’m sorry you had to hear all that, family business should stay within the family and I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was just that I remember your aunt as a woman who spoke her mind and somehow thinking of her gave me the courage to speak out.’
Helen picked up on what she guessed Martin had been about to ask. ‘You say that Catherine left her child and didn’t come back? What happened?’
It was Mrs Washington’s turn to express her feelings and she turned on Helen, who had asked the questions.
‘I thought you came here to speak to Manuel, not ask a load of pointless questions about my daughter. Catherine will have had good reasons for leaving and I have tried for years to get her father to help me figure out what those reasons could have been. Unfortunately he chose to wrap his sorrow at the loss of his daughter around the neck of a whisky bottle, and now his liver is past recovery. What a bloody mess.’
Elsie stood up, walked around the table, and drew up a chair next to her sister.
‘I’m sorry for my outburst, but maybe it has cleared the air and now we can talk about things that we should never have left unsaid.’ She looked towards Martin and addressed him formally.
‘Perhaps we should ask you to explain things more fully, Chief Inspector Phelps, starting with why you want to speak to Manuel?’
Martin explained that he was trying to contact the owner of a piece of land that had been earmarked for development a few years ago. ‘The Council’s planning department have this farm as the address for all correspondence with Mr Romanes when the plans were submitted and we need to speak to him regarding why the work was halted.’
Mrs Washington shook her head. ‘Are you seriously telling us that a detective of your ranking has been sent here to find out why some building work hadn’t been completed? I don’t think so but in any event you don’t need Manuel for that. I can tell you exactly why Nuestro Abrigo was abandoned.’
Seeing the slightly quizzical look on Martin’s face she explained that the Spanish name that meant ‘Our Shelter’ had been chosen for the home that Catherine and Manuel were planning to build on the site.
‘We were going to live there too, you know. The plans included a beautiful two-storey annex for me and Peter and although I know all Catherine really wanted us for was full-time child care I would have been happy there.’
Martin was afraid that they were going to be treated to a long trip down memory lane as she started to describe the colour scheme she had chosen for her kitchen and he rather curtly moved the conversation forward.
‘I am more interested to learn about why the plans didn’t go ahead and I’m assuming they stopped when your daughter left her husband.’
‘She didn’t just leave her husband – she left me and Peter too, and Peter almost had a nervous breakdown.’
‘Do you know where she went?’ asked Helen.
‘If I knew that I wouldn’t be standing by watching my husband slowly die from the results of wallowing in whisky. Cirrhosis of the liver is not a pretty disease, young lady, it’s not pretty for the sufferer and it’s downright ugly for anyone close to the victim.
‘There was no consoling Peter when Catherine left and as time went on and we heard nothing from her for weeks and then months he became more and more withdrawn and that was when the drinking started.’
Elsie could see that her sister was struggling and so she took over and told the officers that Manuel had stayed at the farm for weeks after Catherine had left. ‘He of course wanted to ensure that his son was OK, and to be fair to him he also made strenuous efforts to find Catherine. I think their marriage was already on the rocks but he wanted to hear from Catherine, face to face, that she was not coming back.’
Having regained her composure Mrs Washington weighed in with no small degree of sarcasm.
‘Looking for Catherine, was he? More likely chatting up someone he hopes will be the second Mrs Romanes. He practically lived at the riding stables and even took Anton to see his “new mother”!’
Although she probably felt like banging the table again Elsie refrained and tried to reason with her sister.
‘I don’t know why you continue to blame Manuel for Catherine leaving home. She knew what she was doing and didn’t have a second thought for any of us – not even her young son. Manuel spent time at the stables but only because Catherine’s circle of friends were always there. As you know he discovered that one of the men had also stopped going there at the same time as your daughter disappeared and there was a lot of gossip about their relationship.
‘The man was someone called Simon Davidson and Manuel tried to contact him but his family intervened. Apparently Simon’s mother was quite frank with Manuel and said she knew about her son’s affair and told Manuel that her son had ended it. She confirmed that Simon was living at home and that Catherine was most definitely not with him and was not going to be.’
She turned to Martin. ‘Nevertheless, the rumours that Catherine had taken off with him continued and as time went by it seemed the most likely thing.’
‘How long ago was that?’ questioned Martin.
‘Four years, five months, three weeks, and two days ago,’ said Mrs Washington, seemingly without even having to think about it. ‘That’s when my daughter left this house and we haven’t seen or heard from her from that day to this.’
Chapter Nineteen
Catherine?
You could have heard a pin drop as the two sisters noted the effect that Margaret Washington’s words had had on the detective chief inspector and his constable. Martin didn’t believe in coincidences and the words had been the final link in the chain he had already forged concerning the skeleton ‘Vera’ – or as he now believed her to be, Mrs Catherine Romanes.
He wanted to know more about the circumstances surrounding Catherine’s disappearance and knew that he had to hold out on telling the women what had been discovered at the building site. It was likely that once they knew the two would fall to pieces and he would have to wait for his answers.
He spoke quietly and asked Mrs Washington if she would tell him exactly what she remembered about the last time she had seen her daughter. ‘Had you and she quarrelled? Did she drive away in her car? Who else saw her go? Tell me anything that you can remember, please.’
Margaret Washington had a gut feeling that the man sitting opposite
her was about to give her the most terrible news regarding her daughter. She also sensed that he would not be rushed into anything and so she explained that Catherine walked out on a Friday evening.
‘There had been a big argument that afternoon and she as good as told us that she was planning to leave Manuel and didn’t much care happened to Anton. Her father was angrier than I have ever seen him and he told her that her husband and son would be better off without her.
‘She laughed in his face and told him that the only reason he wanted her to stay with Manuel was so that he and I would have the benefit of the Romanes’ money. It was a dreadful row and afterwards I heard Catherine banging about in her room and thought she could be packing up her things to make the get-away she was planning.
‘Then it all went quiet and it was sometime later that I thought I heard her car drive off, but it must have been a taxi because her car is actually still here.
‘Later that evening we got a call from Manuel and Peter made me tell him that things were bad and that Catherine had possibly left for good.’
‘Were you the last to see her before she left?’ asked Martin.
‘No, I don’t think I was, because I thought I heard raised voices later but when I asked her father about it he said he had heard nothing and that it was probably loud music.’
She turned to her sister Elsie. ‘You wouldn’t have spoken to Catherine that night because you didn’t get back from your craft fair until very late. Do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember, we’ve been over and over that night a million times.’
Something had been bugging Helen from the beginning and she looked for an answer. ‘Why didn’t you inform the police of Catherine’s disappearance? Maybe not immediately, if you believed she had taken off with somebody – but when you didn’t hear from her for such a long time why didn’t you simply report her missing?’
‘She wasn’t a child and she had as good as told us she was leaving her husband for someone else. We had already endured the scandal of Peter’s business disaster and we couldn’t face any more public humiliation.’
‘Are you sure when Manuel phoned you on that Friday night that he was phoning from Spain?’ questioned Martin.
‘I can answer that,’ said Elsie. ‘It was me who picked Manuel and his parents up from the Cardiff International Airport the following day and they stayed here just as they had done whenever they came over to visit.’
‘Now will you please tell us what this is all about?’ Margaret asked.
Martin leant forward. ‘You will probably have heard the news regarding the little boy that was kidnapped whilst on a school trip.’
Both women nodded, wondering what that had to do with anything, and Martin continued.
‘I’m not sure how up to date you are but the boy was taken by a man and there was a woman involved. While they were holding the child captive they quarrelled violently and the woman was killed. After his arrest the man told us what had happened and directed us to where he had left the woman’s body.’
Elsie had cottoned on and explained things to her sister who still looked puzzled. ‘I knew there was something familiar about that place – I said so when we were watching the news – but I only went there a couple of times to be shown the view looking down to the coast.’
‘That’s why these officers want to speak to Manuel, it’s got nothing to do with Catherine. It’s because he owns the land on which this woman’s body was found and presumably the caravan we saw on the television is the one he had placed on site for the builders to use. Oh, that is a relief.’
She turned to Martin. ‘I had come to the conclusion you were here to tell us that you had found Catherine’s body and were looking for Manuel in connection with her death.’
Martin looked at the two women who in spite of all they had said were obviously relieved to think that Catherine wasn’t the subject of this official visit. Their mood had gone from one of extreme anxiety to cautious optimism and for Martin that was going to make the next few minutes even more difficult.
‘I’m afraid ownership of the land is not the only reason we want to speak to Mr Romanes, and if Mr Washington is around it would be helpful if he could join us.’
Margaret Washington verbally jumped on Martin as if he alone was responsible for her husband’s predicament. ‘When I said that my husband had taken to drinking after our daughter left I didn’t mean he liked the occasional tipple. In the space of a few years he totally pickled what had previously been a very healthy liver. I won’t go into the details of his personality change, or his itchy, jaundiced skin, but I think the latest development will give you some idea.
‘Three days ago he started vomiting blood and collapsed in the bathroom, and we had to call an ambulance. He is now in hospital and the vomiting is apparently as a result of something called oesophageal varices – or to put it more bluntly his liver has virtually stopped doing what it should do and he is dying.’
‘The doctors talked about an end-stage condition and palliative care but what they really meant was “send for the undertaker” – so no, Chief Inspector, he is not around, as you put it.’
Martin was more than used to being the punch bag when people were faced with desperate situations and simply said how sorry he was to hear about Mr Washington.
‘As I said there was another reason we want to speak to Mr Romanes, and I’m afraid that there is no way I can make this easy for you. During the retrieval of the body we had been told about we discovered the remains of another body.
‘The second body is also a woman and she would have been around thirty years of age at the time of her death, approximately five years ago. She would have been about five feet eight inches tall and the only other thing I can tell you is that she had perfect teeth.’
Martin stopped and waited for a reaction, but neither Catherine’s mother nor her aunt said a word, and so he continued.
‘From what you have told me about Catherine’s disappearance and from what we know about when the building work stopped we believe that we have found Catherine. Obviously we will be making further tests to establish that fact but in my opinion those results will only serve to confirm our belief.’
Elsie put her arms around her sister and that was the only sign that either woman had heard what Martin had said. Not feeling comfortable with the silence, DC Cook-Watts collected the cups and plates and put the kettle on. She had on such occasions suggested something stronger than tea but in light of what had been said about Mr Washington she decided against it and made a strong brew instead.
Martin also felt the need to give the women some privacy and wandered to the far side of the kitchen. He hadn’t noticed them before but there were wooden framed photographs on the wall nearest the back door. He recognised Elsie and her sister and guessed the eldest of two men shown must be Peter Washington. There was a photograph of a swarthy, good-looking man holding a baby, but the one that most caught his eye was a beautiful young woman showing prefect teeth in what had been described by one of the professors as a toothpaste-advertisement smile. If the picture was correct, ‘Vera’ almost certainly was Catherine Romanes.
There had not been the wailing and gnashing of teeth that Martin had been expecting from Margaret Washington and as he returned to his seat he watched her drinking the tea that Helen had given her and wondered if she had even understood what he had said. Outwardly she looked totally composed and there was only the faintest hint of a tremble in her voice as she spoke.
‘I’ve been expecting one of two things for the past five years. One, that my daughter would breeze back through that door as if barely a day had passed since she left and expecting everyone to forget her behaviour and lack of communication. My second expectation has been the one you just delivered on and I’ve rehearsed that possibility so often. Now that it’s happened it’s almost a relief.’
Elsie squeezed her sister’s hands and nodded in agreement. ‘I think we’ve known for at least the past c
ouple of years that something must have happened to my niece, but none of us wanted to speak the words. Do you know what happened to her?’
Margaret looked up to see for herself what Martin’s response to her sister’s question would be. He shook his head and confirmed that until he had spoken to the sisters he was not aware of the identity of the woman that had been found. Even now it was on the balance of probabilities and explained that there were tests that would give positive proof.
Margaret’s hand went to the gold locket she always wore and her hands trembled as she unclasped it. ‘I have always kept a couple of Catherine’s baby curls in this locket and if it’s DNA comparison you’re looking for then I suppose they would help. Failing that I could simply identify the body – that’s what you get people to do, isn’t it?’
As he was looking for sensitive words to explain why physical identification would not be possible he was spared the problem as Elsie answered her sister’s question.
Margaret’s hand went to the gold locket she always wore and her hands trembled as she unclasped it. ‘I have always kept a couple of Catherine’s baby curls in this locket and if it’s DNA comparison you’re looking for then I suppose they would help. Failing that I could simply identify the body – that’s what you get people to do, isn’t it?’
Martin was spared the unpleasant task of explaining why physical identification would not be possible as Elsie answered her sister’s question.
‘I can see why that wouldn’t be possible, Margaret, and so will you if you think about it. You know that when we bury one of our animals on the farm, only the bones are left after a few years, and I suspect that is the case with Catherine. We have our memories of her, and some of them are precious, so let’s just think about the happy little girl who used to come here for her summer holidays.’
The awakening of those tender thoughts did more to bring on the tears than the stark reality of anything Martin had said and Margaret began to sob. Quietly at first but then with a torrent of tears she poured out years of heartache.
