by Iris Gower
‘We can go down to the lounge, if you like,’ the detective suggested, ‘we can talk just as well down there.’ He picked up her overnight bag and handed it to her.
As she left the room Lowri saw faces staring at her from half open doorways. The other guests, curious about the comings and goings at her door, were clearly wondering if she was a thief or worse. She wanted to scream out that she had done nothing wrong. She had fallen asleep on the balcony a happy woman and had woken up to a nightmare.
In the dimness of the lounge, the constable was waiting. ‘I’ve searched around, miss, but there’s no sign of anyone lying hurt out there. No sign of the car either.’ He peered at his notebook. ‘Perhaps you could confirm your friend’s name and address, miss?’ he asked.
‘His name is Jon Brandon, he lives in a rented cottage in Plunch Lane, number 4.’
The constable looked questioningly at the detective. Lainey nodded.
‘I know it. Got a phone number we can try?’
Lowri shook her head. ‘As I said, the cottage is only a holiday place. Jon doesn’t have a phone. I think he’s only there until he finds something more permanent.’
The detective frowned. ‘How do you normally contact him, then?’
‘He has a mobile,’ Lowri said. ‘I haven’t got the number with me. It’s so long I can’t remember it offhand.’
She rubbed her eyes. ‘Please, I want to go there, to see if he’s home. Something has to be wrong for him to go off like that. Why don’t you try to find him? Can’t you see this is no ordinary situation? Jon and I haven’t quarrelled; he could be in all sorts of trouble for all we know.’
Mr Peters loomed up at Lowri’s shoulder. ‘I would like proof of identity, madam, before you leave.’
Lowri rummaged in her bag and took out some cash. ‘Is this enough to pay the bill?’ she asked, her tone icy.
The manager took it. ‘Not enough, no, there’s the bottle of whisky you ordered from room service.’
Lowri took out her driving licence. ‘I’ve said I’ll pay your bill and I will.’
‘Ah but . . .’
Lainey intervened. ‘Look, sir, if I understand you correctly you don’t want any trouble.’ He smiled, a strangely innocent smile that Lowri was beginning to realize concealed a quick mind. ‘But if you want to make a formal complaint that’s fine by me.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’ The manager spoke hastily.
‘Perhaps you will trust the young lady to send you the balance, then.’ Lainey turned to Lowri. ‘Could I check your means of identification, Miss Richards?’
She handed him her driving licence. ‘Will this do, or do you think I’m a master forger on top of everything else?’
‘I’m sure it will be enough to satisfy Mr Peters that you are not going to run off with the few extra pounds you owe.’ His sarcasm was lost on the man, who glanced at her licence and industriously wrote down her address.
‘If we learn anything we’ll be in touch.’ The detective looked at her sympathetically. ‘Better get off home now, don’t you think?’
Lowri walked through the foyer of the hotel in a daze and found herself standing in the chilly dawn, her overnight bag in her hand. Her tiny semi was almost eleven miles away in Jersey Marine Village. She had no idea how she was going to get there at this time of the morning.
She began to walk; there was nothing else she could do. The street lamps were paling in the dawn light. Early dew shimmered on the pavements. She felt her throat constrict; now she was alone the full import of what had happened seemed to swamp her. Lowri was angry and fearful in turn; she and Jon had been going out together for only a few months, but she had thought they had something special.
They did have something special! What if he had gone for a drive and had met with an accident? But then why had he taken all his clothes? Nothing made sense.
She suddenly felt faint. She leaned against the wall of a house, trying to breathe deeply. She felt alone and frightened.
‘Are you all right?’ A car drew up beside her and DI Lainey looked up at her from the driving seat. ‘Daft question. Hop in, I’ll take you home.’ He climbed out of the car and took her bag, and Lowri allowed him to help her into the back.
He slid the car into gear and she sank back gratefully, struggling against waves of nausea and darkness.
‘Try putting your head on your knees,’ Lainey said, pulling smoothly away from the kerb. She obeyed and after a few moments, she felt the darkness recede. She sat up, gulping in air from the partly opened window, and as she looked at the big shoulders of the man in front of her she wondered why he was being so kind.
‘Aren’t you afraid I’ll bring out a knife and attack you or something?’ she said shakily. ‘Mr Peters obviously thinks I’m barking mad and perhaps you agree with him?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’re mad, just confused perhaps. Or simply stood up?’
‘Jon would not do that!’
‘I believe you,’ Lainey said. ‘There must be some other explanation for your friend’s vanishing trick.’
‘Will you help me to find out what’s happened to him?’ Lowri asked. ‘Please?’
Lainey sighed. ‘The truth is that folk go missing all the time, especially men who might be married and are, if you’ll pardon the expression, having a bit on the side.’
Was that the answer: was she Jon’s bit on the side? How could she really know? If there was one bright spot in all this, it was that this stranger, this policeman believed in her and was concerned about her.
She leaned forward and touched his shoulder. ‘Thank you, Mr Lainey.’
He moved abruptly. ‘Don’t thank me, not yet, sometimes problems of this sort have no solution.’ He paused. ‘All I can promise is that I will do my best to trace this man for you.’ He glanced at her. ‘Will that do?’
She closed her eyes wearily; it would have to do. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, then feeling she sounded ungracious, she added, ‘Thank you very much, Mr Lainey.’
All she wanted now was to get home, to shower and change and sleep the day away. Perhaps, when she woke, an explanation would present itself though, somehow, she doubted it.
2
She was running in the darkness, her feet sinking into the sand. The small waves lapping the beach were silvered with moonlight. Lowri wanted to scream but no sound would come from her throat. Footsteps pounded behind her, drawing nearer. Then she was caught in a cruel grip and forced down onto the sand. She could feel it in her hair, gritty with sharp shells. He was above her, his face masked, eyes black with venom peering through slits. He was dragging her towards the sea, drawing her deeper and deeper into the water. Just as the water covered her face, she reached out to grasp his mask.
The scream woke her, her own scream. She sat up in bed, panting with fear. She was bathed in sweat. It had come again, the nightmare that had haunted her since childhood. Lowri slid out of bed and padded downstairs to the kitchen. Her fingers were shaking as she switched on the kettle.
She took her coffee into the sun-filled living-room; she could hear the bells of St Mary’s summoning the faithful to morning prayer. It was Sunday and she should have been spending it with Jon.
The nightmare receded, to be replaced with reality, and Lowri felt the overpowering weight of loss and pain edged with fear. ‘Oh Jon, where are you?’ She moved towards the window and looked out at the small village street. Across the road, the hills, riotous with summer greenery, towered above the houses.
She usually loved Sunday mornings; they were lazy times when she could sit around, have a luxurious bath and get ready to spend the rest of the day with Jon, if she hadn’t been staying overnight at his cottage in Plunch Lane. Later they would walk on the beach by moonlight, hand in hand. She shuddered, remembering the nightmare.
She would dress, go out and take a walk in the fresh air – perhaps it would clear her head. But what if Jon phoned, or the police rang with news of him? No, she had
better stay in.
When she was dressed she scrambled an egg and sat picking at it with little appetite. The phone remained stubbornly silent. Lowri wondered if DI Lainey would be on duty on Sundays – if so she would be able to contact him at the police station. But even as she reached for the phone, she thought better of it. She would only confirm the impression he must have received last night that she was an hysterical female.
The day seemed to drag on endlessly, and when evening came at last she felt weary and swamped with despair. No-one was going to ring her, not Lainey, not the young constable and not Jon.
She was in the bath when the ringing of the phone shattered the silence of the house. Grabbing a towel, she ran downstairs into the sitting-room, leaving wet footsteps behind on the carpet.
‘Hi, Lowri, it’s me.’ A feeling of such disappointment filled her that for a moment she could not speak. It was Sally from the office.
‘Lowri, are you there?’
‘Yes, Sal, can’t speak now, see you first thing in the morning.’ She replaced the receiver and heard the phone click. What if someone else had tried to get through when Sally was on the phone? Lowri dialled her BT answering service and an impersonal recording told her she had no messages.
That night she slept on the sofa, hoping to ward off the nightmare. She woke unrefreshed and as she drank her coffee, she waited for the sound of the postman. When the post did arrive, it contained nothing but circulars. Lowri dropped them in the bin with a grimace of disgust. She would be glad to go to work; at least there she would have to concentrate on something other than Jon’s inexplicable behaviour.
It was hot in the office – the air-conditioning had broken down yet again. Lowri leafed through several pages of Mr Watson’s barely decipherable notes. Somehow, she would have to translate them and put them on the computer.
Sally, as usual, was late. ‘Morning, Lowri.’ She sank into the chair at her desk and examined her brightly varnished fingernails. Today they were puce. The phone rang. Sally picked it up and began to switch the caller through to one of the solicitors. Everything appeared so normal.
Lowri swallowed hard; she was still living in a nightmare world where nothing would ever be normal again. She looked around her, seeing the office through fresh eyes, everything familiar and yet changed. What was she doing there, working as though her life had not been shattered into little pieces?
‘Right,’ Sally said. ‘Now perhaps you’ll find time to help me with some notes I’ve got to type up?’ She shuffled the mail and then looked across at Lowri. ‘What’s wrong? You’ve got a funny look in your eyes. Jon not fulfil expectations in the bedroom department?’
‘You know we went to an hotel for the weekend. Well, he disappeared, Sal. We made love a couple of times, I fell asleep and he just vanished. All his clothes were gone, his shaving stuff, everything.’
Sally for once seemed lost for words. She shook back her hair and put on her glasses in order to see Lowri’s face more clearly.
‘I keep going over everything again and again, trying to work out what happened, trying to make some sense of it all,’ Lowri said.
Sally found her voice. ‘Want a coffee?’
Lowri smiled and nodded. Sally’s way of dealing with any problem was to serve coffee. If an awkward client wanted reassuring for the umpteenth time that the searches on his house were progressing as quickly as possible, Sally would smile sweetly and offer coffee.
Lowri dropped Mr Watson’s notes and they spread out in a fan on the desk. She was not able to give the job her full attention. She felt as though she was outside her life looking in – it was difficult to explain even to herself.
‘Why not go over to his place to look for him?’ Sally suggested. ‘You’ve been there millions of times.’ She had a gift for exaggeration. ‘He probably hasn’t disappeared at all, perhaps he was called away or something. He could just be home by now, couldn’t he?’ She put a cup of steaming coffee on top of the pristine sheaf of legal documents on Lowri’s desk and Lowri picked the cup up hastily.
‘No, he would have phoned.’
‘Could it be that he’s married, do you think?’
Lowri felt a pain, as if Sally had stabbed her. ‘I don’t think so. If he is married then he can’t see a great deal of his wife, can he?’
‘No, but how do you know he hasn’t got a family somewhere?’
Lowri shook her head; she loved Jon. How could she think of him as a married man with children?
‘As you pointed out, he might have been called away suddenly, perhaps so suddenly that he had no time to leave a message,’ she said.
‘You’ve tried phoning him, I take it?’
Lowri felt momentarily surprised. ‘No, I haven’t phoned him. Perhaps I’m afraid of what I might find,’ she added truthfully. She bit her lip, fighting the tears.
The office phone rang, stridently shattering the sudden silence, and both girls jumped. ‘I’ll answer it.’ Sally picked up the receiver. ‘Watson Jones and Fry,’ she said. ‘Oh right, Mr Lainey, I’ll see if Miss Richards is free.’
Lowri practically snatched the phone from Sally’s hand. The inspector’s voice sounded warm, as if he was in the room with her, but what he said sent a chill down her spine. After a few moments, she put the phone down and looked at Sally.
‘The police, they went to his place in Plunch Lane.’
‘And?’ Sally sounded impatient.
‘And it doesn’t belong to Jon, he was simply renting it for the summer. Apparently his lease ran out on Saturday.’
‘What the hell is going on?’ Sally said.
Lowri shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Sally, what does it mean? Was he just having me on a string, was I just a diversion for the summer?’
‘If so, why not enjoy the entire weekend with you instead of going missing Saturday night?’ Sally said reasonably. ‘Look, why not go over to Plunch Lane and see for yourself what’s happened? Jon might have left a letter or something.’
‘I couldn’t ask for time off though,’ Lowri said uncertainly.
‘Of course you could! Mr Watson thinks the world of you. He’d give you all the time off you wanted, you know that.’
Lowri did know that. ‘I think I’m scared but you’re right, I will go over to the cottage and have a look for myself.’
‘Good for you! You’re entitled to do some digging; after all, you’ve been going out with Jon for nearly six months now, haven’t you? He could be dead of course,’ she added darkly. ‘Fallen over those cliffs near the Swan.’
Lowri rubbed her forehead tiredly. Sally was not the soul of tact. ‘Taking all his clothes and his shaving tackle with him? Don’t be dramatic, Sally.’
‘Only trying to help.’ Sally moved to the filing cabinet and searched through the documents, her brow furrowed. Lowri drank her coffee – it was hot and sweet, just as she liked it. Sally was a good girl, a little bit of an airhead but she meant well.
‘Talking of old Watson . . .’ Sally mumbled, ‘ah, yes here it is.’ She drew out a buff folder and leafed through it. ‘I thought I was right, our firm does hold the lease to those properties. Here’s Jon’s name and that copper’s right, the lease expired Saturday.’
Lowri put down her coffee. ‘Anyone else taken the place?’
‘Maybe, I haven’t dealt with the mail yet. You do know the whole row of cottages on Plunch Lane are actually owned by Mr Watson.’ She almost bit one of her nails but remembered in time that she was growing them. ‘Cor, old Watson’s rich!’ Sally added. ‘Got no kids, has he? Play your cards right, girl, and he could leave the lot to you.’ She shook back her silky blonde hair. ‘There’s not much in the file but you could just go in and ask old Watson himself about Jon, about references, that sort of thing.’
Lowri picked up her handbag. ‘No, I couldn’t. It would just be a waste of time. I’m going round there, now. I just have to see for myself that he’s really gone, taken all his stuff and that.’
‘I’ll c
ome with you, shall I?’ Sally sounded hesitant. Lowri shook her head.
‘You’d better stay here. We can’t both leave the office.’
Having gained Mr Watson’s smiling assent to her departure, Lowri went out to her car. It had been standing in the sun and the first thing she did was to open all the windows. Plunch Lane was a few miles away: a holiday site near the sea. She had enjoyed the weekends she and Jon spent there, but when he had suggested they stay at the Swan in luxury Lowri had been delighted. Now she saw that staying at the hotel was not some generous gesture on Jon’s part, but necessity, if the lease was up on number 4 Plunch Lane.
The drive took a little over fifteen minutes, the narrow road curving and bending, the hedgerows bright with flowers. It was a route that Lowri had taken many times before.
Those sun-filled days had been wonderful, so romantic. Jon would lay on a meal, cool some wine and play classical music for her. The evenings had, invariably, turned into passionate nights. She swallowed the sudden constriction in her throat. What had happened to him – was he dead or alive?
She parked on the grass verge opposite the cottage and slipped out of the driving seat, grateful for the cooling breeze drifting in from the sea. It all looked so familiar, so sane, so normal. She took a deep breath and swung open the gate; it creaked in the way it always did and she half expected to see Jon open the door to her. But when Lowri rang the old bell, it was a stranger who appeared: a woman who stood staring at her through large spectacles that almost covered her face.
‘Can I help you?’ She was young, not much older than Lowri herself, a beautiful woman in spite of the severely tied-back hair and the imposing glasses.
‘I’m looking for Mr Jon Brandon,’ Lowri said. ‘I believe he rents this place from my firm Watson Jones and Fry?’
‘So?’ The woman sounded cagey. She had a cultured voice, a well-educated voice. ‘As of today, I’m renting the cottage.’