They hadn’t called the police. They’d been on the point of it when I’d opened the door.
‘OK, tell me,’ I said to John. ‘Make it quick and clear.’
‘We had a row,’ he said, and from the faces of the other three I knew they’d heard this already.
‘What about?’ I said.
‘Is that important? Sally was even paler than usual, and I could see the effort she was making to stay in her seat.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What about?’
‘About nothing. It was stupid. But she walked off.’ John turned to Sally. ‘I shouldn’t have let her go. I’m really sorry.’
‘Concentrate,’ I snapped. ‘What time was this, and where?’
He gave his head a tiny shake, as though to clear it. ‘Thirty minutes ago,’ he said.
It was now nine forty-seven.
‘At the bottom of Wraithe Road,’ John went on. ‘I followed after ten minutes. I thought I’d keep her in sight, but I couldn’t catch up with her.’ He took a deep breath, as though he’d sprinted some distance. He was holding down panic. They all were. Even Cassie’s hands were trembling.
‘What time did John arrive here?’ I asked.
Larry had lost his usual swagger. Even his hair seemed to have flopped, lying limp and greasy on his forehead. ‘Can’t say for sure,’ he said. ‘I saw him in the garden when I got back. He was looking up at Luna’s window.’
‘He does that a lot,’ said Cassie.
‘I was throwing pebbles up,’ John said. ‘Tiny ones, not enough to do any damage. I just wanted to get her attention, make sure she was all right.’
‘It would be about nine-thirty,’ said Sally. ‘I was watching Mission: Impossible and the ads were on.’
‘Where had you been?’ I asked Larry, as Sally gave a whimper of frustration.
‘Pub,’ Larry said.
I left it at that. We could check later. ‘Did you check her room then?’ I said to the group in general. ‘When John appeared?’
‘I did,’ said Cassie. ‘I went to tell her her boyfriend was outside again, but she wasn’t there.’
‘Any sign that she’d come back? Her coat? Bed ruffled?’
Cassie shook her head.
I stepped towards the door. ‘Right. I’m going to call the police. All of you stay here and think where she might have gone after she left John. Friends, neighbours, secret places. Cassie, get a pen and make a list.’
I used the phone in the hallway to contact the station. I figured it would take fifteen to thirty minutes before the police arrived.
‘I need permission to search the house,’ I said when I got back to the kitchen. ‘Sally, come with me, please. Larry, take a torch and make sure she isn’t in your workshop, or the garden shed, or anywhere in the garden. Cassie and John, carry on thinking. I want that list when I come back down.’
Sally and I started in Luna’s bedroom. The bed was neatly made. The window closed, the curtains open.
‘I tidied up after she went out,’ said Sally. ‘She’s hopeless about putting clothes away. I don’t think she’s been back.’
I couldn’t disagree: the room looked undisturbed. ‘You didn’t hear her come in?’ I asked.
‘No, but the TV was on, and we weren’t expecting her back till ten,’ Sally said. ‘She promised us she wouldn’t leave the others.’
From Luna’s room we went up, checking the attics, which were full of boxes and possible hiding places, but that was a search I could safely leave to the dogs. We looked in every room on the first floor, including my own, and then the ground floor. When we got to the kitchen, Larry had arrived back before us.
‘Nothing.’ He put the torch on the table.
At that moment, we heard a car crunching over the gravel and saw the flickering of a blue light in the darkness.
‘Tell me what you and Luna argued about,’ I said to John Donnelly an hour later, when he and I were in the interview room, together with Tom and the duty solicitor.
‘I told you, it was nothing.’ In the last hour, the self-assured, rather arrogant boy I knew had become a nervous, jumpy mess. He’d been picking at the loose skin around his thumbnail until he’d made it bleed. He kept sighing, and jiggling about in his seat.
‘Nobody argues about nothing,’ I said. ‘Luna must have thought it important enough if she was prepared to walk home alone. Especially given everything that’s been happening lately.’
He looked past me, at the two-way mirror. ‘Who’s behind that?’ he said.
Most people didn’t realise the significance of the mirror.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, truthfully. ‘Maybe no one. We’re pretty busy at the moment.’
He ran a hand over his hair, in a gesture that reminded me of Larry. ‘What about Luna’s parents? Will they be there?’
I shook my head. ‘Definitely not. Mr Glassbrook is out with the search party, and Mrs Glassbrook is at home with Cassie. We wouldn’t let other witnesses hear what you had to say anyway.’
‘Tell you what.’ Tom got to his feet. ‘I’ll check.’ He vanished, reappearing a few seconds later. ‘No one,’ he said. ‘Everyone on duty is out and about, looking for Luna, which is what we should be doing, so why don’t you just answer WPC Lovelady’s question, John, and then we can move on?’
John dropped his eyes to the table between us. ‘She wanted me to have sex with her,’ he said.
I didn’t look at Tom. ‘And that was a problem?’ I asked.
John glanced up. ‘She’s only fifteen. Her dad would kill me.’
‘I’m sure he would,’ said Tom. ‘I’m also sure most lads of fifteen wouldn’t let the threat of an angry dad put them off if sex was on offer.’
John glared at Tom. ‘She’s only fifteen. It’s illegal.’
‘Very sensible,’ I said.
‘She’s been on at me for a while.’ John focused on me now. ‘I’ve been saying we should wait, but then she started going on about how I didn’t fancy her. She accused me of wanting to chuck her and go with Tammy instead. And then she wanted to know if I’d had sex with Patsy because—’ He stopped.
‘Because everybody knew Patsy was keen on you,’ I said.
‘I never did, I swear.’
‘What about Susan Duxbury?’ Tom asked. ‘Did you have sex with her?’
John’s lip curled in distaste. ‘I hardly knew her.’
‘Same class. You’re a good-looking lad. You must have lots of girls interested. Don’t tell me you’re turning them all down?’
John’s eyes went past me again to the mirror. ‘Is it still empty through there?’
‘As far as I know,’ I said. ‘What is it you’re worried about saying?’
‘What I tell you, who else has to know?’
‘It depends how relevant it is to the investigation,’ I said. ‘If it’s something about Luna, you really shouldn’t keep it to yourself.’
He ran his hands over the lower part of his face. ‘It’s not about Luna; it’s about me. Well, it sort of is about Luna and the other girls. I need you to know there was nothing going on with any of them.’
I had a feeling I knew what John was about to tell us.
‘I’m not that sure I’m into girls,’ he said. ‘Not in that way.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ Tom said. ‘That you’re a poofter?’
‘Lots of teenagers are unsure about their sexuality.’ I wished I could kick Tom without making it obvious. ‘I know I was for a long time. It’s nothing to worry about.’ I tried to smile at John, but his eyes were fixed on his lap. ‘Thank you for telling us,’ I added.
‘Will you tell my dad?’ he muttered.
‘No,’ I spoke firmly. ‘And neither will Tom.’
We finished the interview after forty minutes. John went to join his mother in Reception. Tom and I headed back to CID.
‘He doesn’t know anything, does he?’ Tom said.
‘I don’t think so. But two of his friends have gone missing now. Has he ever be
en in trouble before?’
We’d reached the stairs.
‘Not especially,’ Tom said. ‘He was given a caution about a year ago for driving his dad’s van around the pub car park and clipping another vehicle. No real harm done.’
Rushton was in the CID room when we arrived.
‘Right,’ he was saying, ‘the dog unit have called it a night. No trail at all that they can pick up. Randy’s taking charge of the area search. He’s lived in that part of town for two years and knows it as well as anyone. He’s got fifteen men, and a few of the neighbours have come out too. It’s a bit hit and miss, frankly, because she could have been taken anywhere in a vehicle, but we have to be seen doing it. Gusty is leading the house-to-house.’
‘We’ve got officers at the railway and bus stations,’ Sharples added. ‘They’ve been there since half an hour after she went missing, thanks to Florence’s prompt action. Fortunately, young Elanor is quite distinctive-looking.’
We all turned to the photograph on the noticeboard. A head that seemed a little too big for her thin frame. Huge eyes, long red hair, a pointed chin and over-plucked eyebrows. Sometime tomorrow, that photograph would be on a fresh batch of missing posters.
I’d forgotten that Luna’s proper name was Elanor, but remembered Sally telling me shortly after I moved in. Spelled the Tolkien way, she’d said. Not the Jane Austen way and not … I couldn’t remember the other way. It was all so much harder when the missing child was someone I knew.
The door opened and Brown walked in.
‘What have you got, Woodsmoke?’ Rushton asked him.
‘Got Roy Greenwood out of bed and drove him to the funeral parlour.’ Brown pulled cigarettes out of his pocket. ‘We checked everything. Three stiffs in the chapel of rest, everything as it should be, no sign of the girl.’
‘I want an officer at every funeral parlour in the area first thing on Monday morning,’ said Rushton. ‘No coffin is nailed shut until we’ve checked it first. I also want a round-the-clock watch on every graveyard in town. Plain clothes. Discreet. Starting tonight. Not you, Florence – you go home and get a good night’s sleep. Some of us need to be fresh in the morning.’
‘Sir, I’m very happy to—’
He pointed a finger at me. ‘Young women do not work the night shift while I’m in charge, and they sure as hell don’t stake out graveyards.’
Even I knew when to stop arguing.
39
Sally’s face looked unnaturally creased, like a crumpled dishcloth that had been left to dry. Without waiting for her to speak, without even closing the front door behind me, I summarised what was happening, what would happen for the rest of the night.
In the darkened hallway, she stepped uncomfortably close. ‘Flossie, I’m so sorry about what happened earlier. We didn’t mean it. Of course we don’t want you to leave. Please don’t. At least, not until we’ve found Luna. And even then, not if you don’t want to.’
Well, that was one problem fewer, I suppose. I patted her shoulder. ‘I’ll stay as long as you need me.’
Sally was hot on my heels as I climbed the stairs. ‘Flossie, how can she have vanished?’ she said. ‘I’ve been going over and over it in my head. We’re more than a mile from where the others disappeared. She had to walk along two streets, both wide, both well lit. Then she was home. If someone snatched her from the garden, I’d have heard.’
I wasn’t so sure about that, with the TV on, but nodded.
‘And Larry practically came home the same way. Why didn’t he see her, or hear her?’
She followed me into my room, pushing the door closed. ‘What if they’ve put her in a coffin? What if she’s in the ground, like Patsy? She’s claustrophobic. She’ll be losing her mind.’
‘She isn’t.’
I told her about the contact we’d made already with funeral parlours, what we were planning to do the next morning. ‘There’s no chance of her being put in a coffin, Sally. She won’t get anywhere near one.’
‘They’ll dig a grave up, like they did with Patsy.’
‘No, they won’t, because every churchyard in the area is being watched. Starting now.’
Sally threw back her head and wailed. I stepped closer and put my arms around her. She clung to me.
‘Larry’s having an affair,’ she wept into my shoulder. ‘That’s where he was tonight. While our baby was being abducted by a monster, he was screwing that tart.’
What I wouldn’t give to be staking out a graveyard right now.
‘What tart?’ I said, before correcting myself. ‘I mean, who?’
She sniffed hard. ‘Beryl Donnelly, John’s mum.’
As gently as I could, I pulled away. ‘I’m really sorry about that, but we need to concentrate on finding Luna right now.’
Sally sniffed again. I took it as agreement.
Shortly after midnight, Randy came in, but only to change into warmer clothes. He shook his head at my raised eyebrows and went out again ten minutes later, heading for the churchyard of St Joseph’s, on the far side of town. I persuaded Sally to go up for a bath, and while she was gone, purely to keep my hands occupied, I painted my nails with Daphne’s polish. Sally came back down and I sat up with her until Larry got home at nearly two in the morning, but no news arrived and he didn’t bring any with him.
While Larry poured himself a drink, Sally’s head drooped onto the kitchen table and didn’t bounce back up again. Larry put his drink down and scooped her up into his arms. I held the door open as he carried her out.
‘Get some sleep, Flossie,’ he said, as he turned to climb the stairs. ‘We’re going to need it. Nice nails, by the way.’
I watched him climb the stairs, his sleeping wife in his arms, and thought how strong he was. And also how handsome, even though he’d been awake half the night and must be out of his mind with worry. And how much I wished Sally was wrong about Beryl from the Black Dog, but knowing she wasn’t. What man notices a woman’s nail polish when his daughter is missing?
Two hours later, after about an hour’s fitful dozing, I gave up trying to sleep.
I parked outside St Wilfred’s. The pre-dawn sky was a gun-metal grey, and the few trees in the churchyard stood in stark, dark relief against it.
By a winged statue of an angel I stopped and looked at its shadow, a perfect outline on the ground. Turning round, I saw the almost-full moon, almost directly above me. Daphne and Avril were wrong. The abductions weren’t just happening at the new moon.
‘WPC Lovelady, as I live and breathe,’ grunted Tom, from the dark depths of the children’s den.
I held up the flask. ‘Brought you coffee,’ I said. ‘And a cheese sandwich. I wanted to do bacon, but I thought the smell might wake the house.’
‘Bloody angel.’ He was out of the den, stretching, rubbing his cold hands together. He grabbed the coffee with one hand and held out the other. ‘Food,’ he said.
I gave him the sandwich.
‘How are they?’ he asked, with his mouth full.
‘As you’d expect.’
Tom finished the coffee and held the cup out, before leaning back against the angel statue. ‘Bloody spooky here, isn’t it? So did you mean it, what you said at the station? About being a carpet-muncher.’
I sighed. ‘No. I was trying to show sympathy with the witness. And what does that even mean, anyway?’ I held up a hand. ‘No, don’t tell me – I really don’t want to know. I came here to make sure you got a couple of hours’ sleep. Go home. I’ll take it from here.’
‘You heard what the super said. No young woman will do a stake-out in a graveyard while—’
I pointed east, to where the sky’s colour was warming. ‘The sun’ll be up in ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Go home.’
He turned to leave and then stopped. ‘Word to the wise, Florence?’ he said, and I knew he was asking my permission to say something I wouldn’t like.
I nodded.
‘Drop the Freemasons thing.’
We stared at each other.
‘Are you one?’ I asked.
He gave a short laugh. ‘Do me a favour. I’m not old enough, grand enough or rich enough. And before you ask, I don’t know anyone who is, but I will tell you one thing. If they’re behind this, we may as well give up and go home now. You can’t touch those buggers, Flossie.’
He left. I watched the sun come up alone as tears poured down my face. Something was telling me this would be the last day that Luna Glassbrook saw.
40
Sunday 29 June 1969
When the sun was still low, I heard the church gate and looked up to see Dwane coming towards me with a red-and-white-striped mug in one hand. He had a black eye, and his upper lip looked swollen.
‘Made you a brew,’ he said, when he’d reached me. ‘I put two sugars in it. I didn’t know whether you took sugar, so I only put two in.’
‘Thank you. What happened to you?’
‘Couple of blokes outside pub t’other night. Jumped me. Don’t know why. I didn’t just take it. I fought back.’
‘Did you report it?’
‘Don’t know ‘em.’ His eyes left mine for a second.
‘How did you know I was here?’ I asked.
‘Saw you walking around. I don’t sleep much. Headaches.’
Dwane’s head was substantially larger than most. It hadn’t occurred to me before that its unusual size might cause him pain.
‘Dwane, I know you’ll be busy with it being Sunday and everything, but do you have time to let me see your model of the town again?’
‘You like small things?’ he asked, when he and I were once more in the shed at the bottom of the Ogilvy yard.
‘Could you help me find Nelson Street?’
Dwane leaned over and pointed out the place where Patsy had been seen last.
‘Do you have anything I can put down there, just so I can fix the place in my mind?’
Dwane crossed the shed to a small, narrow chest against the far wall and pulled open the top drawer. When he held out his hand, it contained nearly a dozen tiny plastic figures.
‘How many different colours do you have?’
‘Six,’ he said, without needing to check.
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