‘Carole?’ I said, when someone answered.
‘Speaking.’ The voice was so eager it sounded breathless.
‘My name’s Tash Dodd.’ Here, definitely, was another stranger who would have plenty to say if I suddenly went missing. ‘I’m looking for Ivy Stone, as I said, and I wanted to see if you had said anything to the P&J reporter that didn’t make it into the article. You never know what’s going to be helpf—’
‘Anything that didn’t make it?’ Carole’s voice was tight with indignation. ‘Just a bit. We talked for forty minutes and he put two sentences in. What is it you want to know?’
‘All of it,’ I said. I took the phone away from my head to look at the time, then tucked it back into my chin again to open up my room. The Cross Keys wasn’t swanky enough to have stationery but there was a Gideon Bible with a flyleaf doing nothing. I put Carole on speaker and propped myself up on the bed, stuffing thin pillows between me and the headboard, making it reasonably comfy.
Carole regaled me with a lot of details about animal cruelty and fundraising legalities that I no way needed to know. None of it could be relevant to the night in February when Ivy Stone attended the meeting. Surely. ‘She didn’t sign up as a member, or even to receive our newsletter. We work hard on that newsletter. We still do a physical one if people prefer. Most branches are online only.’
‘Good for you,’ I said. There had been a pause begging for me to fill it.
Carole sniffed. Maybe I had guessed wrong; maybe I was supposed to have asked to be put on the list. ‘Well, anyway,’ she went on, at last. ‘God knows why she was there.’
‘To meet a friend, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but if you’d let me explain. What I mean is God knows why they decided to meet at ours. Miss Ivy Stone the Cat Killer went rushing out before the end.’
‘Cat killer?’
‘In favour of it, yes. Not a very nice woman, even if you’re not supposed to speak ill of the— So anyway, she rushed out and the friend went after her.’
‘I know you can’t give me Ivy’s friend’s details. From your sign-up. But could you get in touch and tell her I’d like to speak to her?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Carole said. ‘She was another walk-in. No genuine interest in our work. Like I said, I don’t know why they met there at all.’
I looked at the time. The Family Forest meeting would just be starting.
‘Well, thank you, Carole,’ I said, breaking into the flow. ‘That’s all very helpful.’
‘What is?’
‘I might be able to find out where they went when they left together,’ I said, plucking it out of the air for something to say.
‘They went to the Boat. A few of us repaired there for a late drink and we saw them, thick as thieves. They sat together, talking, and left the pub together. They hugged in the street.’
‘Hugged?’ I said. ‘You mean, like a romantic hug?’ That was a bit more hopeful, if you were looking for the point where a quiet little life started to unravel. A misunderstanding about the nature of a drink? Maybe.
‘No, not at all,’ Carole said. ‘More like one of them was upset. Couldn’t say which one. But it was a sort of a “there-there” hug. Bitter-cold night it was.’
‘Thank you,’ I said again. ‘Thanks for filling in all that missing detail. I’m going to have to go now. I’m following up another lead right now actually. But you’ve been very helpful, even if you don’t think so. Thank you very much.’
‘You’re as bad as the reporter,’ Carole said. ‘You can’t do that. You ask a thousand questions and don’t answer a single one.’
‘Another time,’ I said. ‘Sorry, but I really have to go.’
I hung up before Carole could get in any more objections, then stood, smoothed over my bed – if there was anything more depressing than a cheap hotel room, it was a cheap hotel room with a messy bed – and went to put a bit of lippy on or at least brush away the salt, in time for the meeting.
It hadn’t really got going, as near as I could tell. Only half the little tables in the function room were occupied and groups of people were chatting. There was a podium set up as if for a speaker but no one was anywhere near it. I put my shoulders back and made a beeline.
‘Hiya,’ I said, lifting the mike. It squealed and I moved it back. ‘Sorry. And sorry to interrupt.’
The conversations died out as everyone turned to listen.
‘My name’s Tash Dodd,’ I said. A few of them were frowning. ‘I’m here tonight because I’m looking for Martine MacAllister.’ Now some of the people were looking down at their laps or exchanging glances. ‘I don’t want to disrupt your meeting. I’m just going to sit in the bar and if anyone thinks they’ve got anything to tell me – no matter how small or even if you don’t know how it might be relevant but it’s just bugging you, you know? – I’ll be there all night and you could just stop by. I’ll buy you a drink and I’ll listen. Thank you.’
A man in a blazer with a badge on the lapel was coming my way at a fair clip so I dropped the mike back on to the podium. It boomed as it fell and half the people gathered in the room put their hands to their ears and winced. I scooted out through the open arch back to the bar and didn’t stop until I was on my stool with the friendly barmaid to look out for me. A minute later I saw someone bearing down, and turned.
‘What can I get you?’ I said. He was in his thirties, dressed in a Scotland top and a baseball cap, beefy turning flabby.
‘Bottle of Becks, hen,’ he said. ‘And a packet of prawn.’
Pushing it, in my opinion, but I nodded at the barmaid anyway and she bent to the beer fridge.
‘So?’ I said, when the guy had taken a long suck from the neck of the bottle and stuffed a greedy grab of crisps into his mouth, wiping the flavour dust off on his jeans afterwards.
‘So?’ he said. His resting face was close to a leer. Amused, anyway.
‘Martine MacAllister. What have you got to tell me?’
‘Show you,’ he said. ‘It was me that took the photo of her on the last night. The one the papers used.’ He was already flicking pictures across the screen of his phone with a stubby finger, still crusted with prawn flavour.
‘And why were you taking pictures of Martine?’ I said. ‘Was she a close friend? Or did you take them of everyone?’
‘Close friend?’ he said, hissing a laugh down the sides of his teeth. ‘You’ll get me shot. No, she wasn’t. I was taking a picture of my beautiful wife and her new hairdo. Martine MacAllister just got herself in the background.’
That was right. I had forgotten. I’d been doused in pity for the woman when I’d seen the photo in the newspaper article, side on, pixelated, accidental.
He had found it and he passed his phone over. It was the original of the shot I’d seen; a beaming woman in the foreground, looking coquettishly over one shoulder to show off her undercut. Out on the top left of the frame, there was Martine, leaning forward so eagerly towards the person she was speaking to.
‘So this is Martine talking to her new friend?’ I said. ‘Is she here tonight?’
‘She’s not,’ the man said. ‘She only came that once. Never been before. Never been since. She came to meet Marty, we reckoned. No clue why they did it here though. Wouldn’t catch me, if I had the option.’
I stared at him, Carole’s words echoing behind his, then I bent to the picture again, zoomed and repositioned, zoomed again, until I was looking at the right-hand side of the wife’s head. Martine’s companion was tantalizingly out of view. I could see her feet, tucked back behind the spar of her chair, neat little feet in high court shoes, and I could see the woman’s left hand resting on top of Martine’s on the table-top, but the rest of her was hidden.
‘Can I scroll?’ I said. ‘Have you got more?’
He shook his head.
‘Really?’ I said. ‘I always take twenty to get one half-decent one. Can I check?’
‘I keep my phone tidy,’ he said. ‘Lea
rned that the hard way.’
‘Can I send this one to myself?’ I said.
‘More than my life’s worth,’ he said. ‘What do you think I’m doing here, digging up grannies’ names? She caught me, didn’t she? The wife. Borrowed my phone and caught me out. So no I wasn’t close to Martine and no you can’t put your number in my phone. I’m only here talking to you because she’s at home on her bad week tonight and I’m off the leash.’
I studied the picture in the few moments I had left. The woman was small, I was pretty sure, the feet looked small and the hand was tiny on Martine’s. Not young, I didn’t think, from the ropey look of the back of her hand and from the fact of the court shoes and tights. Martine’s gaze was directed downwards too, looking into a small woman’s eyes, unless she was staring at something the woman was showing her.
‘That’s them starting,’ the man said, as the mike in the function room squealed again. He shook my hand then left, taking his bottle of beer and his half-eaten bag of crisps with him.
‘Carole?’ I said, when I’d rung and waited and the call had been answered. ‘I should have said this before: can you describe the woman who came to meet Martine?’
‘That’s what you get for being so rude. Practically hanging up on me like that.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Can you?’ I was betting she’d not be able to resist it.
‘Hard to say,’ came grudgingly at last. I kept quiet. ‘Not young and not old, one of those types. Spry enough but dressed very formal. Looked like she might work in a bank maybe.’
‘A uniform?’ I couldn’t help the leap of hope in my voice.
‘No. Just heels and tights and a skirt. V-neck cardi, blouse.’
‘And what about her hair? Eyes?’
‘Her eyes?’ Carole said. ‘I never got close enough to see her eyes. Her hair was fair. Fine. Thin, actually.’
‘Was she tall, short? Thin, fat?’
‘Not a picking on her. Poor-looking wee thing.’ I would have put money on Carole being a woman of fairly comfortable build.
I turned to the back flyleaf of the Bible.
Small thin woman, fair hair, well-dressed.
Family history/cats/first date(?)
It wasn’t much to go on to find out what happened in April. Different towns, different methods, totally different victims.
There was always the police, I thought. I wouldn’t have to tell them what I was looking for when I had found the three women’s stories and put them together. Everybody spent their nights trawling online for nothing these days. It had completely taken over from aimless driving. I could go right now to the Lockerbie police station and ask to speak to a copper.
At that very moment I lifted my head and looked into the mirror on the back of the bar. I had to bite my lip to stop myself from laughing. He was off-duty and out of uniform, but from the precision parting in his hair, through his Kangol jersey and his ironed cords, all the way to his polished slip-ons, that was a polis, sitting there, ordering a drink and giving me a sideways look.
No wedding ring, I saw. So not necessarily a scumbag, despite the looking. I turned from the mirror and smiled at him. ‘Evening, officer.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘Just as well I’m not undercover.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up,’ I told him. ‘Lucky guess. Listen, can I pick your brain about something if I buy you a drink and a bag of crisps?’
‘I’m off the carbs,’ he said, patting the front of the Kangol jersey. ‘And when you say “pick my brain” … you know I can’t get you out of speeder.’
‘It’s nothing like that,’ I said. ‘It’s something I’ve found out, and I’m going to burst if I keep it quiet any longer.’
‘Can’t have you bursting on this nice carpet,’ he said. ‘I’ll buy the drinks, though. Keep it on the right footing. OK?’
‘OK,’ I said, thinking here goes then; here we go.
TWENTY-THREE
I had moved so much in the last year that waking up in a strange place didn’t faze me any more. I lay looking at the slice of light spilling across the ceiling from the gap in the curtains and let my mind range lazily back over my room at home, my room in Aberdeen, studio in Dumfries, bedsit in Ayrshire, and the flat in Hephaw, not awake enough to wonder where I was this morning. It was when I stretched my legs out and felt the warmth of another body beside me that I came to fully, with a snap that kickstarted my hangover.
I turned my head carefully, feeling my neck twang, and saw the profile silhouetted on the pillow beside me. Ty. A policeman. Never married. Born in Carlisle, moved here for a cheaper house and quicker promotion. I turned back and faced the ceiling, raising my arms carefully out of the covers and pressing the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. Ty. He’d been surprised, shocked nearly, when I’d put a bottle of wine on my room bill and asked him if he wanted to join me. And the barmaid had given me a look that made me hope she wasn’t on breakfasts today. Ty. He had condoms in his wallet and didn’t consider for a second not using one, and he’d taken it away to the bathroom afterwards, wrapped it and binned it. Good manners and kind to marine life. Ty.
Whose second name I didn’t have a clue about. Which meant I’d just broken one of my own lifelong rules. Never mind that I might not have long to regret it. (He wouldn’t, would he?) I took my hands away from my eyes and opened them. The dark sparkles blinded me but I knew without looking that he was awake now.
‘Hiya,’ he said, his voice thick with sleep and the after-effects of that shitty wine.
‘Hi,’ I said. My voice was no better, gravelled and gluey.
‘How you feeling?’
I considered the question. Physically, I had a headache and a birdcage mouth, but no nausea. And I was in a pub with a full fried breakfast waiting downstairs if I could stand the smell of a bar in the morning. On the self-respect front, I hadn’t led Ty on. I hadn’t tricked him or used him. I’d had an open conversation with him and issued an unrelated invitation. One that he’d accepted. And the bit between the end of the bottle of wine and the start of the night’s sleeping had been pretty good for a first try. I wasn’t sorry about it.
So how was I feeling?
‘I’m going to have to shoot off,’ Ty said. ‘But you’ve got me interested, I’ll tell you that.’
I turned my head sharply to look at him, making my brain slosh against my skull. Last night, even after a skinful, he hadn’t said a smarmy word to me.
‘Not that!’ he said. ‘I mean, yes that, but that’s not what I meant. I meant you’ve got me interested about this missing woman in April. The not-missing one. I’ll see what I can dig up when I get to work and then … Can I phone you later?’
So how did I feel? I put a smile on my face and pushed myself up on to my elbows. If the ends didn’t justify the means, what did? Someone said that and this morning I agreed. For one thing, if this was my last day, I deserved last night.
The bed dipped as Ty swung his legs out and stood. I watched him on his way to the bathroom. Just one shoulder tattoo. Long-faded tan lines. Once he was behind the door he turned and looked round it. ‘Just so you know,’ he said, ‘I’m going to put my keks on and go downstairs, but I’m coming back. Can I bring you a decent coffee if they’ve started breakfasts?’
‘Why are you—?’
‘Because that bloody wine has gone for my guts like an old kebab and I don’t know you well enough to stink up your bathroom,’ he said.
I laughed and put my head under the covers to hide my red face till he’d gone.
I knew I should use the time to pee, brush my teeth, or even dress, but instead I propped myself up as best I could on all four thin pillows and tucked the covers under my arms, going over the conversation from the night before. No one else from Family Forest had come near me with any titbits about Martine, so there’d been plenty time to convince him.
‘Three women have disappeared round about the same day of the month in the last four months,’ I’d told him.
‘Two of them after meeting a short, thin woman no one knew, who made a beeline. It happened here in March and it happened at an NLL meeting in Fraserburgh in February. The third one disappeared after going on a first date in Ayr in May.’
‘With this skinny woman?’ Ty had said. He’d only reluctantly agreed to listen at all, but when I started talking he couldn’t help himself. He was like a beaver hearing running water.
‘Well no,’ I had said. ‘Actually, I’m only guessing it was a first date, because she left home all dolled up and she didn’t have a boyfriend. It was the right time of the month though. All three of them. They disappeared with their phones and laptops, and two of them with their cars, but they hadn’t cleared their fridges or put those holiday messages on their emails.’
‘At work?’ As he listened, he kept stretching his fingers and then curling them, as if his hands were itching for a pencil and notebook.
‘They all work for themselves. And they didn’t prepare their businesses for walking away.’
‘What businesses?’
‘Martine’s a grant-writer,’ I said, hoping he wouldn’t ask for details because I had only a very hazy sense of what that meant, ‘and Laura’s … it’s hard to say what it is. One of those businesses, you know.’
‘A tart, you mean?’
‘No! Jesus. Content design and retail, I mean. Something like that’
‘I was kidding.’ He smiled at me, waiting for me to laugh but I didn’t play. These three missing women were real to me now, no laughing matter.
And give him his due he sobered quickly. ‘So they’re all quite isolated,’ he said. ‘Living alone, working at home.’
‘But your lot never put them together,’ I said. ‘As far as I can tell anyway. They were all pegged as low priority, not vulnerable or anything. I suppose resources are stretched for you same as anyone.’
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