Crooked Street

by Priscilla Masters

  ‘There’s been no ransom demand?’

  ‘No.’ She thought for a moment before adding incredulously, ‘You think he’s been kidnapped?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘No.’ This time there was a note of regret, of sadness. ‘No, Inspector,’ she said. ‘No one has contacted me.’

  ‘OK.’ Joanna stood up to leave, her head still confused with Eve Glover’s reaction.

  It was only as she drove away that she wondered if she’d found the handle. Some women need a man around. It’s as simple as that. If Jadon wasn’t there Eve would just have to find someone else.

  3 p.m.

  Wendy Bradshaw was a solicitor based in Leek with an office plumb in the middle of the market square. She’d worked with her father when first qualified and since he had retired had run the practice with two other partners. Many of the clients she worked with today had been her father’s which had led to some lively and helpful discussions with him over Sunday lunch. Monica was one of these – an inherited client.

  And she had been summoned.

  Wendy parked her Audi tidily in the staff car park, picked her briefcase off the back seat and approached the entrance of Brooklands Nursing Home, ready to do her client’s bidding. She had served Monica Pagett for the last five years, ever since her father had retired. When he had finally relinquished her he had given his daughter a quick description.

  ‘She’s an intelligent woman, in her early nineties but with all her marbles. Just because she’s not educated to a high standard and has lived all her life in the isolation of the Staffordshire Moorlands doesn’t mean to say that she doesn’t have a handle on her own finances or people’s character. She is very astute. Just unmaterialistic.’

  ‘How did the cottage get its weird name?’

  ‘Bit of a sad story, really. It was her grandmother who named it. It used to be called Sky Cottage.’

  Wendy had laughed. ‘That’s a more apt name, surely?’

  ‘You didn’t know the old woman. She was a tartar. Anyway, she had a pet bird – a crow.’ His eyes had held a mischievous twinkle, ‘As you might have guessed. It lived in the house with her, apparently scaring the living daylights out of anyone who called. It would swoop down on them, peck their heads. They would even cover their eyes. Crows have very powerful beaks, you know, and it was an evil bird. But unfortunately, of course, this evil bird was completely domesticated. So when the old lady was snow bound in Leek for ten days …’

  ‘The bird starved to death.’

  Her father had nodded. ‘The old lady was heartbroken. That’s when she changed its name.’

  She returned to the present circumstance. ‘And now Monica’s slipped on the cobbles outside the Butter Market. Broken her hip. She’s in a nursing home. Apparently it’s unlikely she’ll ever return to Starve Crow Cottage.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ her father said. ‘That’ll break her.’

  Wendy had taken to Monica straight away and been flattered that the elderly lady with a fierce intelligence and iron character had accepted her almost straight out of law school. In fact, Monica had appreciated the young solicitor’s modernist views though not always falling in with them. They had had some great discussions on factory farming, GM crops, antibiotics for dairy herds, even on grazing management. Wendy had learned much and had begun to have some insight into the difficulties of managing the high and almost barren land, the barter that ducked below the tax system: a dozen eggs for a piece of lamb or some pork; a fleece in return for silaging the field. With each conversation Wendy’s respect for the elderly woman had grown and she had been really sorry when Monica had broken her hip, quickly recognizing it as the beginning of the end of her independence. And sure enough Monica never had returned to the cottage where she had been born and had lived her life out. Wendy knew the moorlander missed the open spaces and was feeling claustrophobic in the nursing home. Brooklands was as good a home as could be but the old lady simply didn’t belong here. Her habitat, like the kestrels and buzzards, rabbits and hares, stoats and weasels, was scampering around the moors, drinking at pools, striding across boggy marshes, sticking to trails, sheltering from hostile winds. She just didn’t belong here in this small, overheated room with an en suite shower. And so Wendy decided she would stay a little longer than was necessary, bring a breath of fresh air into the stuffy little room. Like her client, she enjoyed these encounters with a sort of relish and excitement. One never quite knew what Monica would say or do next. She was wonderfully unpredictable. And challenging.

  The nurse showed her to room nine.

  ‘Monica. How are you?’

  But the old lady didn’t waste time. ‘No time for all that, Wendy, dear,’ she said. ‘We’ve got things to do.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Anything I can do?’

  ‘The bloody lot,’ Monica said with spirit. ‘I’ve realized I’m not going to get back home. My nursing home fees have to be paid. I want you to put Starve Crow up for sale.’

  Wendy felt the bleakness of the situation. ‘You’re sure about that? It’s early days yet.’

  ‘Certainly I’m sure.’

  Monica reached out a liver-spotted wrinkled hand and touched the young solicitor’s. ‘I want you to handle it.’

  ‘You sound as if …’ Wendy was at a loss what to say.

  ‘Like a thief in the night,’ Monica said, urgency making her voice hoarse as she quoted, ‘We know neither the day nor the hour.’

  ‘Are you telling me you’re …?’ The words stuck in her throat.

  ‘No. No,’ the old lady said impatiently. ‘I’m not going to die yet. It’s just that it’s too important to leave to chance. I’m in my nineties. What if I have a stroke or a heart attack? What I’m telling you …’ She seemed to soften and reached out to touch her solicitor’s hand with a gentle stroke. ‘What I’m trying to say is that this is too important to leave to chance.’

  She sat, shaking her head.

  3.15 p.m.

  The dogs were combing through the giant premises of Big Mill. Room after room, floor after dusty floor, sifting through debris – cigarette ends, the odd syringe or two, ancient newspapers, some used as toilet paper. It was a filthy job with much to distract Holmes and Watson. The place had been used by the homeless and drug addicts but there was nothing that placed Jadon Glover here and after a sniff at his worn shirt the dogs’ tails remained down, their barks staccato yelps of the disappointed. After three hours they left, dejected in spite of the treats their trainer slipped them anyway. If it wasn’t there they couldn’t find it. The teams of officers looked at each other. However tempting and appropriate the large derelict building might have appeared it was not a crime scene. So they must return to the crowded streets, the higgledy piggledy cram of terraced houses and the unlikely backdrop of a children’s playground with the usual misplaced CCTV.

  Joanna was aware that her date with the local TV and radio was for five o’clock, in time to be aired on the news. Local and even, possibly, national, if no other story stole the day.

  She’d learned this lesson the hard way.

  Prepare your statement and then prepare it again. Wear plain clothes so as not to distract your audience from your message. She’d chosen a navy turtle-necked sweater and black jeans which would be hidden by the table. She’d brushed her hair and applied a pale pink lipstick. Again, nothing too garish. Keep your facial expression neutral. Mentally she practised her words as they prepared the lighting and sound.

  The bank of cameras and microphones didn’t faze her now as they once had. She waited.

  It had been suggested that Eve make an appeal. It usually worked better if the wife played her part. But Eve had declined the opportunity. Joanna couldn’t quite work out why except that Eve was distancing herself from the husband who had deceived her.

  As Joanna waited to be given the go ahead she ran through other possibilities.

  Some people find the media daunting but Eve didn’t strike her as one of those.<
br />
  Surely she was desperate to find her husband? Get him back?

  The cameraman gave her the signal, Joanna cleared her throat and began.

  ‘We are concerned as to the whereabouts of Jadon Glover, a thirty-two-year-old man, who has not been seen since last Wednesday evening.’ She paused. ‘Mr Glover was connected with the money-lending business and was on his rounds when he vanished. It is possible that his disappearance is somehow connected with his work.’ Again she paused and fixed her gaze on the camera. ‘We have CCTV footage of a person crossing the children’s play area from Britannia Avenue walking towards Barngate Street at around eight thirty p.m. but we cannot be sure if this is Mr Glover.’ DC Phil Scott cued in the footage. ‘As you can see this person is wearing a mac, hood up, and you can’t see his face. Mr Glover was a devoted …’ she stumbled on the word as though it wasn’t quite in context, ‘… husband and has only been married for two years. Naturally his wife is distraught.’ The word felt false, penned without truth or thought, simply fitting neatly into the sentence. ‘Please, if you can help in any way to find out where Mr Glover is, contact us.’ She read the number out for listeners as it was displayed at the bottom of the screen for the TV watchers.

  ‘Also, please let us know if you are the person picked up on that CCTV footage. I would remind you that last Wednesday was a very wet and windy night – not a night to be out for a stroll.’

  She finished with a polite, ‘Thank you.’ Got the thumbs up from the presenter, thanked her lucky stars for media training and wondered whether the appeal would bear any fruit.

  7 p.m. briefing

  At this point there were still more questions than answers and focusing their enquiries with maximum efficiency was proving difficult.

  DC Alan King was their computer man so he was asked to delve into the couple’s past while Paul Ruthin and Bridget Anderton headed the team continuing with their house to house and Jason and Dawn followed up their original enquiries. At some point Joanna intended to meet the players on the field herself but she was staying back for now. Bank enquiries and mobile phone records had still turned up precisely nothing.

  But now it was getting late and she had an early start in the morning. Joanna headed back to Waterfall.

  The evening was dingy and cold and the lights of Waterfall Cottage seemed to sparkle an invite out to her. Inside would be Matthew, almost certainly either reading or more likely perusing his tablet, searching through papers and articles on anything – absolutely anything – to do with pathology which was both his work and his passion. She had never known anyone study so consistently as her husband. He seemed to soak up facts like a piece of blotting paper.

  She climbed out of the car, tempted to peep in and spy on him through the lit but un-curtained window. But she didn’t. She simply locked the car and let herself in through the front door.

  He looked up from his book. ‘Hey, you,’ he said with a big smile and she leaned over him and kissed his mouth. No whisky this time.

  Just coffee.

  She sat opposite. ‘How did your starring part go in The Mystery of The Missing Man?’

  She giggled. ‘Not exactly Cate Blanchett,’ she said, ‘but at least I didn’t fluff my lines.’

  Matthew lifted his eyebrows in an expression of mock admiration which she took with a bow.

  He moved forward to put another log on the fire though the room was already warm.

  ‘Aaagh.’ He sat back on the sofa and held his arm out for Joanna to rest against. ‘This is the life,’ he said.

  She never quite knew whether to bring up the subject when Matthew had had trauma at work, whether to encourage him to talk about the child and his role in the forthcoming conviction of the grandmother or wait and see whether he mentioned it first. The court case, she knew, was looming and would be harrowing enough. He could appear so professional, dealing with injuries and symptoms, evidence of trauma or disease. She’d watched him prepare his cases, taking hours of trouble, then his appearances in court. She’d listened while he gave his evidence, slowly, factually, hardly ever leaking out any emotion.

  Extensive bruising to the throat. A deep wound to the neck. A penetrating wound to the chest. Death would have been slow – instantaneous. A tumour which had infiltrated …

  Lists of bones which had been broken, lives ended.

  It touched her when he revealed this vulnerable underbelly of his work. She looked at him. His face was relaxed, his demeanour happy and contented. He’d recently had his hair cut so it was less tousled than before and yes, he looked slightly older, the small lines around his eyes and mouth a little deeper, a little more troubled than when they had first met. Life had not been easy.

  He caught her scrutiny. ‘What are you looking at so hard?’

  ‘Just wondering if you’re OK.’

  He knew exactly what she was talking about. His arm tightened around her. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘The case will come to court and I’ll give my evidence, put the old bag behind bars – for ever, I hope – so she can never ever do that to a child again.’ He was staring into the fire now. ‘If I succeed in my bit and the prosecution in theirs I shall feel I’ve done my best.’ His face darkened, as though a sad, damaged memory had passed across his light source. He looked at his hands as though they had the memory of their work imprinted on them. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘I never get to see them until they’re dead or …’ always literal, ‘… very rarely do I see them alive. I am OK, Jo,’ he said slowly. ‘Really.’

  There was silence between them.

  She leaned back against him and he stroked her hair. ‘Jo,’ he said tentatively. And she stiffened. She knew Matthew. He was a restless character, often wanting something else. Something more. Something different. His periods of peace and tranquillity tended not to last for very long.

  ‘I was thinking,’ he continued, still stroking her hair. ‘If we are going to have a little one this place really isn’t big enough.’

  He could have no idea how uncomfortable this simple statement made her. On both counts.

  ‘You want to move?’ She ignored the if – pretended he had not referred to it.

  ‘We-ell, yes. You know that.’

  ‘Where?’ She swivelled her head around to look straight into mischievous green eyes. Yes, he had recovered. ‘Into Leek?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Then he couldn’t hold it back any longer. ‘I’ve got the details of a lovely place on the Buxton road,’ he said, speaking quickly. ‘One of those Victorian houses.’ He stopped speaking, waited for her to absorb his statement.

  She’d known they would, at some point, be moving, and though she loved their cottage in Waterfall, she would accept it. Matthew had had itchy feet for a while; it had been inevitable even if her own so far barren state was less predictable and more difficult to solve. She held her hand out. ‘Let’s have a look at the details then.’ And somehow, miraculously, Matthew produced them from, apparently, nowhere or rather from behind a cushion.

  It was, as he had said, a large, five-bedroomed house with Gothic revival black and white half timbering. The interior shots looked slightly old fashioned with dark, antique furniture and dated wallpaper. But that was simply cosmetics.

  Matthew was watching her anxiously. ‘What do you think, Jo?’

  She was scanning the size and aspects of the rooms. Large, square, many south-facing.

  The garden looked amazing – a huge, rectangular lawn and flower beds all around. Some mature trees. There were apples on the ground.

  She glanced at the price. Reasonable. They could afford it though not if it needed extensive structural alterations. She looked at him. ‘It’s sound,’ he assured her and her mind began to adjust. There was another advantage to moving into the town: she would be nearer the station. Cycling in in the morning would take her ten minutes not forty-five. And she could probably do it in all weathers, except snow. Snow and cycling was a bad mix. It wasn’t just your own slithers and skids – it was the cars that could h
ardly be controlled. Like novice ice skaters, their direction was totally unpredictable, which meant they could easily slam straight into you.

  Curtains.

  ‘We’ll take a look?’

  ‘I hoped you’d say that.’ She loved the eagerness in his voice and his face.

  ‘Tomorrow? In the morning?’

  ‘Yeah.’ In spite of herself, she felt excited. It was the sort of house they could do a lot with. A home. And to live on the edge of the town instead of in the village seven miles out could have distinct advantages.

  Matthew couldn’t stop talking about it. ‘It’s an elderly couple who are moving into sheltered accommodation,’ he said. ‘They’ve got somewhere lined up and are ready to move. So it’s vacant possession on completion.’

  She looked around her. ‘We’ll have to sell here first, Matt.’

  ‘Yes, but the estate agent said these easy-to-manage country cottages in village locations are going like hot cakes these days. Often as second homes or holiday lets.’

  He was leaping ahead. She scrutinized him. ‘How far have you gone in this pursuit, Matthew Levin?’

  ‘Not all the way,’ he said, sliding his hand down her back, bending and kissing her mouth. ‘Not quite all the way.’

  He was hard to resist in this boyish optimistic mood. And actually, why should she?

  It was an hour later. They had made love and now dozed contentedly. It was ten o’clock. Too early to go to bed. They could have watched the television but there was nothing that interested either of them. They sat and talked some more then Matthew went quiet. ‘Actually, Jo,’ he said, ‘there is something else I should tell you.’

  Her heart dropped. She was instantly alert. She knew that tone. Either Eloise or …

  Matthew plunged in. ‘Mum and Dad. Well, now they’re retired. And if we do manage to have a family …’

  Glad you said if and not when.

  ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘You’re making me nervous. They’re not going to come and live with us, are they?’

  ‘No,’ he assured her. ‘No.’

  And then she could guess. All too easily. Matthew’s parents, who had disliked her from the start, blaming her for their son’s marital breakup and granddaughter’s subsequent unhappiness. Even now she felt indignation bubble up inside her. As though Matthew had played no part in events.