by Eva Hudson
The woman said nothing. Her gaze was focused in the middle distance.
“Has he made contact with you since yesterday morning?”
Yvonne Sherwood’s eyes opened wide, her lips parted slightly. After a beat she seemed to recover. “Why would he contact me?”
“We have reason to believe you know First Lieutenant Foster quite well,” Ingrid said, not wanting to reveal the details of Glen Cooper’s sighting just yet.
“Who told you that?”
“Do you know him?”
“He comes in for a drink now and then. But that’s true for a lot of men from the base. Doesn’t mean I know them all.” She started to scratch her forearm as if something was irritating her skin.
“We believe he may try to return to the area.”
“Surely he knows this is the worst place he could come.”
“Can you explain what you mean by that?”
“If he doesn’t want to get caught, why would he come back here?”
“Perhaps he wants to give himself up.”
Sherwood shook her head. “Why would he?”
“But surely that would be better for Kyle, better for Tommy. Better for everyone. Don’t you want to see him safely in custody?” Ingrid did her best to keep her expression as neutral as possible. She didn’t want to influence the woman’s response.
The bar manager swallowed. “Of course. We all want to make sure Tommy’s safe. But I was just trying to put myself in Kyle’s position.”
Gurley leaned back in his chair. His gaze hadn’t left the woman’s face.
“Can you think why he might come back here?” Ingrid continued.
“I can’t imagine, that seems like a stupid thing to do. Are you sure you’ve got your facts straight? Who told you he was going to come back?”
“We can’t share that information with you, I’m afraid, ma’am.” Ingrid leaned in a little closer. “How well do you know Kyle Foster?”
Sherwood stopped scratching her arm. Her nails had left long red marks. “I told you. I don’t really know him at all. He comes in here every Saturday with some of the other dads from football. They have a couple of drinks. Maybe play some pool. The kids amuse themselves outside—we have a climbing frame and swings in the garden. My son plays for the team too.”
Ingrid glanced over her shoulder toward the bar in the other room.
“Not Marcus! My youngest, Luke.”
“So does your husband take Luke to the match every week? Maybe he knows Kyle a little better? Maybe we should speak to him.”
“I don’t have a husband.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No need to be sorry—he’s not dead or anything. A dead weight, maybe. That’s why I got rid of him. Useless lazy sod.” Her nostrils flared slightly. “I take Luke to football, Marcus looks after everything here.”
“Did you ever get a sense from Foster or Tommy that there might have been problems at home? Anything that might have indicated a recent change in Kyle Foster’s state of mind?”
“No, I’m sure everything at home was fine. There’s nothing wrong with Kyle Foster’s mind.” She answered emphatically, without a moment’s hesitation.
Ingrid wondered how Sherwood could be so sure if she hardly knew Foster. She glanced at Gurley.
“I know what they keep saying on the news about all that post traumatic whatnot, making a big thing of it,” Sherwood said, unprompted. “I heard one of the other dads talk to Kyle about it once. There’d been documentary on the television about PTSD. How it was under-diagnosed in the army. Kyle said he’d seen a few of his Air Force buddies really get it bad.” While she was talking about Foster the expression on her face had softened. It was obvious to Ingrid that she liked the guy.
“Kyle Foster was seen in the village early this morning.” Gurley blurted, no doubt getting impatient with the way Ingrid’s questioning was going. “There’s no point in protecting him, it’ll only make things worse. Did he contact you?”
What the hell did he think he was doing?
“I’ve already told you that he hasn’t!”
Ingrid glared at Gurley.
Sherwood stood up. “I think I’ve answered enough of your questions. I’d like you to leave now.”
Reluctantly, Ingrid rose to her feet. She held out a business card to Sherwood, who folded her arms and looked away. Ingrid slipped it onto the table instead. “If he should contact you, it really would be in his best interests if you told us about it. Or the police.”
They left the bar and Ingrid strode back to the car. For once, Gurley ambled. Then he turned around and stared at the doorway of the pub, where Yvonne Sherwood and her son were standing, defiant expressions on their faces. He walked the remaining few steps backwards, keeping his gaze fixed on them.
“Thanks for your input,” Ingrid said, using all her will power not to raise her voice. “I think we really made some progress with her.”
“You know as well as I do she’s lying. You saw how uncomfortable she got. Foster could be holed up in her basement right now for all we know.”
Ingrid watched Sherwood and her son turn away from the door. There was definitely something about the woman’s demeanor that didn’t feel right. She seemed too eager to come to Foster’s defense. “OK—let’s say you’re right. Let’s say she has heard from Foster.”
“You’re actually agreeing with me?”
“If you are right, there’s only one option open to us.”
“I can have a half dozen men here in under fifteen minutes.”
“That’s not the option I had in mind.” Ingrid retrieved her cell from her purse. “I’m calling the local cops.”
23
Ingrid and Gurley were waiting outside the Hare and Hounds when the detective sergeant heading up the search of the pub appeared at the door, his head down, his hands buried deep in his pockets.
“Nothing,” he said as he approached them.
The search warrant had been arranged quickly. Ingrid and Gurley had stayed in the Oldsmobile, watching the exits of the pub while they waited for the police to arrive. The search itself had taken less than thirty minutes.
“Nothing at all?” Gurley said.
“I did spot a couple of pork pies in the kitchen well beyond their ‘best-before’ date that environmental health might want to know about. But I don’t suppose that’s something you’d be interested in.” He wrinkled his nose as if the aroma of the offending pies was lingering in his nostrils. “You still haven’t told me—what made you think Foster had come back to the area in the first place?”
Gurley shot Ingrid a look. He really should learn to trust her. As if she would say anything to contradict him. She waited with anticipation for his reply.
“A policeman’s hunch. I guess you get them all the time too, huh? The key thing is to determine which ones you should pay any attention to. On this occasion I called it wrong.”
Ingrid could see Gurley struggling to maintain a light tone. She knew he still thought he was right about Yvonne Sherwood harboring a fugitive.
“Is it possible something could have been missed? Another room inside that your men haven’t seen? You were awful fast in there.” Gurley asked.
“Do you know how much pressure is on us to track Foster down?” The cop’s previously jovial tone disappeared in an instant. Ingrid couldn’t blame him, Gurley was more or less accusing his team of being incompetent. “Are you seriously suggesting we wouldn’t do a thorough job?”
Gurley held up his hands. “OK, OK—you made your point already.”
“We’re sorry to have wasted your time on this,” Ingrid said, hoping a little polite interjection might diffuse the tension between the two men.
“Do you think maybe I could take a quick look around inside before you pack up and go?”
Gurley just wouldn’t quit.
“Unless the proprietor invites you in especially, you’re not getting anywhere near the place.” The detective shook his head in disb
elief and walked away.
“What were they looking for in there? A man hiding in a closet?” Gurley said when the cop was still well within earshot.
“They know what they’re doing. Can you just admit that maybe you misjudged Sherwood?”
“And you didn’t?”
Ingrid watched the last of the cops trudge out of the pub and back to the police vehicle. “OK—I admit there was something about her that didn’t feel right. Maybe she’s importing liquor without paying taxes. It’s possible she was hiding something. It just wasn’t Foster.” Ingrid walked around to the passenger side of Gurley’s car.
“Are we going somewhere?” he asked her.
“Back to the base.”
“What for?”
“There’s something I want to take a look at.”
Back at RAF Freckenham, Gurley parked up behind his quarters. The jeep was already waiting to convey them to the family quarters on the far eastern side of the compound.
“I had my team search the house yesterday, as soon as I was told what Foster had done. They didn’t find anything.” Gurley said as they stepped inside the Fosters’ dinky little two-story house. “What are you looking for?”
“Not a man in a closet.”
Ingrid headed for the living room first. A worn couch and armchair took up most of the space, both were angled towards a forty-eight-inch flat screen TV. Framed pictures of the two children adorned the walls. A large plastic crate stuffed with kids toys was shoved in a corner. Beyond the living area was the kitchen. It was big enough to incorporate a small dining table and four chairs. A refrigerator stood in one corner, so tall it almost reached the ceiling. Ingrid pulled open the door. It was pretty much full of groceries. Strange that the Fosters had such a well-stocked fridge when they were planning to go away for a few days. Ingrid wondered if the trip was a last minute decision. Something else they should ask Carrie Foster.
Ingrid opened up the ice box. Apart from the usual cartons of ice cream and frozen vegetables, containers of what she supposed was frozen breast milk were stacked inside.
“How old is Molly?” she asked Gurley.
“Fourteen months,” he said quickly.
“Isn’t that a little old for breast feeding?”
“Hey—don’t ask me. I’ve managed to avoid that kind of knowledge my whole life.” He pulled out one of the containers and held it up to the light as if it might yield some clue. “It looks almost green. Maybe it’s really old.”
Ingrid checked another container for a date. Stuck on the bottom was a little strip of tape with the digits 07-24 written in thick black Sharpie. “Last month. I guess it keeps frozen as long as any other kind of milk.” She screwed up her face. She felt sorry for Carrie Foster having to express the stuff, then label up the container and carefully place it in the ice box with the frozen dessert. Ingrid’s mom had given her formula just as soon as she could. She grabbed the pot from Gurley’s hand and shoved both containers back in the ice box. Then she turned around and headed toward the front door. She paused at the foot of the stairs leading up to the second floor. “Are you OK?”
Gurley nodded back at her unconvincingly.
“Your face looks a little pale. Was it handling the breast milk?”
“Not at all. Just remembered the sight of little Molly lying in that hospital bed.”
“We should check to see how she’s doing—it’s possible Radcliffe wouldn’t bother to keep us informed.” Ingrid pulled out her cell. She needed to call Radcliffe anyway to give him an update on the local situation. Better that he heard it from her rather than the Suffolk cops. Just as she opened her contacts list the phone vibrated in her hand. An out of area number. She looked at Gurley.
“Hey—you go right ahead. It’s not as if we have a man to hunt down here.”
Ingrid hesitated for a beat. Screw Gurley. She answered the call. Thankfully her gamble paid off: it wasn’t Svetlana. “Hey, Mike. I’m in the middle of something right now, can I call you back?”
“It won’t take a minute, I was just checking you got the mp3 files I sent you.”
“You did?”
“Yep—audio interviews of the two women. I finally got a hold of them. Thought you’d want them right away.”
“Thanks Mike. I’ll check my email account later. I really appreciate your help.”
“Hey—glad to be of service.”
She said goodbye and hung up.
“You all done?”
“It’s another case I’m working on—I can’t just drop everything else.”
“You should feel free to go right back to it. I have everything under control here.”
Ingrid decided not to remind him about the fruitless search of the Hare and Hounds. She wasn’t sure he had anything under control at all. She bounded up the stairs. At the top, straight ahead of her, was the open door leading into the bathroom. The room was small by US standards, but big compared to the tiny shower rooms she’d seen in people’s apartments in London. There was a bathtub and a separate shower cubicle, and a sink beside the toilet. Above the sink was a mirrored cabinet. Ingrid opened the door. Inside were the usual items: shaving paraphernalia, deodorant, painkillers, and a small unlabeled bottle of pills. Ingrid reached in for it and checked the reverse—no label there either. She opened the childproof cap and shook a few pills into her hand. Small blue and white capsules rolled around her palm. She returned all but one of them to the bottle and screwed on the lid. She held the capsule between thumb and forefinger, trying to read what was printed in tiny letters on the side. After some serious focusing, she made out a manufacturer’s name, a four digit number on one side and a dosage: 30mg, on the other. There was no indication what the drug was called.
“Do you know what it is?” Gurley asked her.
Ingrid had no idea. But she knew a woman who would. Meanwhile, she didn’t want Gurley jumping to any conclusions about what they’d found. They didn’t even know if the unmarked bottle belonged to Kyle Foster or his wife. “It’s a medication for…” She wanted to choose something Gurley wouldn’t question. “For severe menstrual cramping.”
“Really?”
It seemed Gurley questioned everything no matter what.
“Sure. I take them myself sometimes.” She waited for Gurley to turn away before she slipped the single pill into her pants pocket, then followed him into the next room—the kids’ bedroom. On one side of the room was a narrow single bed, a Spiderman comforter cover draped over the edge. On the other was a wooden cot, a furry animal mobile suspended above it. On a dresser next to the cot was a baby monitor.
It all seemed so regular. So normal. How could it have gone so wrong?
The final room was the master bedroom. Gurley hesitated at the door. “What was it you were hoping to find in here, anyway?” he asked.
“Don’t you think it’s worth looking? Just in case we uncover something your team may have missed?” She pushed past him into the room and opened up the closet. Carrie Foster had a lot of shoes, or at least, a lot of shoe boxes. Ingrid glanced along the row of rectangular cardboard containers. The box furthest away from her had a dark stain in one corner. She reached into the closet and grabbed it. The cardboard was wet. She pulled off the lid. Inside was a bottle of vodka, its top a little loose.
Gurley finally made it into the room. “Kyle Foster is a secret drinker?”
“I found it on Carrie’s side of the closet.”
“Where better for him to hide his nasty little habit?”
“I would think pretty much the worst place ever.” Ingrid had no reason to believe it didn’t belong to Carrie Foster.
A bang sounded downstairs. “Hello? Carrie? Are you back? Did you know your door is wide open?”
Ingrid shoved the bottle back in its box and shoved the box back in the closet.
24
A few seconds later, a youngish, dark-haired, pale-skinned woman dressed in a light summer dress and baggy cardigan appeared in the hallway.
“Jesus Christ! Who the hell are—” She turned her head and saw Gurley. “Oh, I see.” She wrapped her arms around the cardigan, hugging herself as if a sudden chill had blown into the room. “Does this mean? Is Molly…?”
“As far as we know Molly’s condition hasn’t changed.” Ingrid reminded herself again to check in with Radcliffe.
“Should you even be in here? What are you doing here anyhow?” The woman’s accent was pure south Boston. “Is this even legal?” She marched over to Gurley. “You can’t go rummaging through people’s private, personal stuff.” She held her head up high. “You got no right to do that.”
Ingrid introduced herself quickly, then explained, “We’re only here because it may assist us in finding Tommy. Anything that helps track him down is worth doing, wouldn’t you say?”
The woman hadn’t taken her eyes off Gurley. “I want Tommy to be found as much as anyone. I’m just looking out for Carrie.”
“We appreciate that—I’m sure Carrie does too. Maybe I could ask you a few questions?” Ingrid was careful to use the singular pronoun. As she did, she made sure to stare at Gurley and raise her eyebrows, hoping he’d take the hint.
He stood his ground. It was obvious this woman wasn’t going to speak freely in front of a member of Security Forces, why wouldn’t he just accept that?
“Major Gurley, I don’t want to keep you any longer than necessary,” Ingrid said. “I can make sure the property is secure when I leave.” She nodded expectantly at him. “Didn’t you say you had to report to the… ah… general with an update?”
Gurley finally tore his gaze from Carrie Foster’s friend and gave Ingrid such a disdainful look it was as if she’d just insulted his family going back three generations.
“Sure—I’ll be right back.” He slipped past the woman who was now practically scowling at him. She watched him leave before she said another word.
“I don’t know what I can tell you that’ll help find Kyle and Tommy.” She walked over to the window and watched Gurley stride back to the jeep. “Arrogant bastard,” she murmured under her breath. She smoothed down a corner of the lilac and pink throw that covered the bed. “I don’t know what’s gotten into Kyle.” She shook her head. “How could he do a thing like that?”