The Missing Witness

by Jo Smedley

  “You look tired.”

  “Early start,” I said, nodding at the toddler now asleep in her buggy. What I wouldn’t have given right then to dash back home and get 20 minutes Nanna nap myself, but I knew the minute the buggy stopped moving Lillian would wake up.

  I had taken a slightly different route around the park, forgoing my usual figure of eight walk. With the arrival of spring the crows had started nesting again in one of the large ash trees, which meant the parent birds attacked anything they deemed a threat walking underneath. I had gotten away fairly lightly so far, but the owner of a sandy coloured Alsatian-cross had needed to beat off a few attacks with a stick and so I was missing out a certain section of the path and cutting across the green to avoid that particular tree.

  Irene had caught up with me mid-way through the changed route. The buggy bounced and rattled in front of me, Lillian’s little head wobbling from one side to another.

  “Got them.” She held up a carrier bag as she walked towards me. It was weighted at the bottom by a pair of collection canisters, their curved egg cup shapes bulging through the plastic bag. “Are you free this afternoon?”

  I looked at her and raised my eyebrows in a “What’d’ you think” look. She smiled. She knew perfectly well I was. What else did I have to do apart from tangle with Lillian, wash, iron, clean the house, mow the lawn, or get a meal on the table for Lucus returning home? Before we started on the investigation I had begun calling him at lunch time to find out what time he was likely to arrive home, so I could time the meal to perfection. I had felt myself losing it. Slipping slowly into an attempt at “Mrs Beaton domestic goddess,” but without the servants needed to beat two dozen eggs for two hours. Mind you, even with the servants she had died young. Housewifery clearly wasn’t good for you.

  “Good. We’ll leave after lunch. I’ve worked out the route. We’ll need the buggy, of course, and if you wanted, you could bring Moss, but I think we’ll have a better chance of chatting to people without him.”

  “What’s the plan?” I asked her.

  “Oh, we’re just collecting for the British Heart Foundation. A few doors either side of the target house should do it. I think we can do most of the addresses today. And tomorrow we can try the Mother’s.”

  “Have you found out her name?”

  “She was listed in the original newspaper article about Lesley’s murder. Gill Rand. Rand’s a more common name, but her husband also got a mention, Pete. So I’ve narrowed it down to Ps and Gs. Eight houses total. I don’t think we’ll get to them today, though. Not before Lucus comes home. And you’ll need to get his meal cooked of course…,” she smiled at me. She knew exactly what my issue was. “See you at one.”

  And with that she loped off ahead of me at her speed walking pace. She was going somewhere. She never ambled at the best of times, but if she had to be somewhere, her pace quickened to a level much faster than I could keep up with, with a dog and pushchair.

  “Where are you going?” I called after her.

  “Library,” she said, over her shoulder. “Just realised my books were due back yesterday. Don’t want to get a fine!” And she was gone, behind one of the many shrub borders that skirted the figure of eight path. By the time I’d crossed the grass and was in a position to see the path to town, she’d already made it up to the fork and had gone behind another set of shrubs.

  I shook my head. One minute we were plotting an investigation into a murder, possibly two, and the next, we were both continuing with our normal lives, she with her library books, and me with my baby minding. Maybe she needed this as much as me. Perhaps being a pensioner was boring her as much as being a mother was boring me. We were both out to pasture. Just different pastures. I would eventually clear my cul-de-sac of parenting and return to a more normal work-life balance, but for Irene her cul-de-sac of retirement was more like a dead end. One day it would just be over. There was no return to anything. She’d passed her useful point. Society had decided she had nothing more to contribute. All she had left were her hobbies, and trying to eke out her pension each week.

  I thought back to the funeral. Pete and Gill Rand, Mother and step-father, the grandparents, friends, family, work colleagues. Then those missing; the sister Lou still in Thailand, home soon, the missing father, Geoff Allenby, who’d never returned, and Russell Cooper, the incarcerated husband. The family was already in pieces, scattered pieces at that. Lesley dead, Lou in Thailand, Geoff missing, presumed dead. Just what exactly was going on?

  I cupped Moss’s ball and threw it ahead of me, watching as Moss’s passage into the grass changed the glittering white dew, to a track of green wetness. He reached the ball and started the biting routine he did; making sure it was definitely dead. Then, just to ensure there was no life left in the ball at all, and that it wasn’t going to run away again, he dropped it and went through the biting thing again; squeezing the ball between his teeth and juggling it forwards and backwards in his mouth, causing a hissing bubbling squoosh squoosh squoosh sound, as saliva got into every available pore in the foam rubber. It was disgusting. The ball was disgusting. It was one of the main reasons we used the dog whacker to throw it. Once he’d finished with it, the ball was hot, slimy and dripping. Not something you’d want to pick up with your bare hands.

  Geoff’s disappearance might have nothing to do with Lesley’s murder, or they might have been very much connected. The only way to find out was to investigate both, and if Irene was right, if money was involved, then finding the houses was critical. While neighbours rarely spent much time with each other anymore, and whatever was behind closed doors tended to stay there, money was obvious. How many parties, how much building work, the condition of the property… neighbours noticed things like that.

  We’d had two sets of neighbours already in the relatively short time we’d lived in our house. We were outgoing sorts and had got to know both, inviting them round for dinner and in turn getting invited back to their houses. At the moment we had two families either side of us, which would be great for Lillian as she grew up, and also great for the noise levels in our house at night. They’d both been through that baby stage. They knew the screaming was short lived. There would be no complaints.

  If we could find the right house and the right neighbours I knew we could find out what we needed to know, depending of course, on how good Irene was at getting them into a conversation.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Where on earth did you get that?” I asked her – pointing to a white dog collar she now sported at the top of a blue clerical shirt. “Isn’t impersonating a vicar illegal?”

  “It is, but it’s going to give us a little more sway at the doors.” She was shameless. Sometimes I felt impressed, other times I felt frightened at the lengths she’d go to. “Besides its only illegal if you aren’t a vicar.”

  “You’re a vicar?” I asked, incredulous.

  “No. Used to be a lay reader though, so it’s almost the same thing.”

  “A lay reader? Do they wear dog collars?”

  “No. But the last female vicar we had at the church went through a phase when her washing machine broke down and this ended up in my ironing pile one week and, well…,”

  She didn’t finish the sentence. I’d seen Irene’s ironing pile. I’d even offered to take some of it home. I was one of those unusual people who enjoyed ironing. It gave me an excuse to watch the television. I wasn’t one to sit idle, and having a set of shirts to work through gave me permission and time to watch a film in the evenings. She’d refused so far and after my initial offer, the pile had reduced, but recently I’d noticed it inching once again towards the ceiling. I could only assume Irene had a lot more clothes than me, as she never seemed to be short of something to wear.

  I sighed. Nothing phased Irene and I knew she wasn’t about to be stopped once she had an idea. Clearly she thought people would be more comfortable chatting to a vicar. She was probably right, and oddly, she looked comfortable in the shirt.
She could have been a vicar.

  “So what’s the plan then?”

  “First off, we identify the house we want, check it’s not vacant or anything. Then we hit the houses left and right and a few doors either way, taking in the target house as we go.”

  “And if there’s no one in, at the target house?”

  “Then we just hit houses left and right until we can find someone who confirms it’s the one we’re after.”

  “And what do you want me to do?”

  “Just stand there with Lillian and the collection canister. That’s all. But… you’ve seen the photos. You know the face of the man we’re looking for. Just let me know if we find him.”

  I may have seen the photo, but I wasn’t sure that was going to help us, unless he was actually at home. Knowing the face only helped us if we actually saw the face after all, and if he was still financial director, the chances were Len Crossley would be at work.

  *

  The drive to the first house on the list was uneventful, but it was clear from the street as soon as we arrived this wouldn’t be the house of a financial director, unless he was living way below his means.

  Some addresses Irene had automatically ruled out based on their location within Grimsby. We knew for instance, it was unlikely a financial director would live anywhere on the Grange or Nunsthorpe Estates. While council houses might well be a thing of the past, those council house style estates were unlikely to hide a Financial Director. Other roads in Grimsby and Cleethorpes weren’t so easy to rule out. In areas where neither Irene nor I were familiar, it was only by driving to the street address we could be sure.

  This road wasn’t ex-council housing, but it didn’t have the right air to it at all. There were no front gardens, the facades were a mix of pebble dash, brick and harling. The windows were a miss mash of original bays, double glazed bays, and in one case, the bay had been removed entirely and turned into a garage. He wouldn’t be living here. We drove off without even pulling over to check.

  The next address was in New Waltham in one of the modern estates, and gave off a much more likely air. We got out. I bundled Lillian into her buggy and we set off.

  Irene had insisted we park around the corner from the target house. Tradecraft she called it. We didn’t want to look as if we were only targeting one house after all. A car on the road would make it too obvious. So we parked up and went into the cul-de-sac on foot. We were looking for number 15, and looking at the numbering, it was clear this was one of the roads which went around in a loop rather than the traditional odds and evens style placement for the house numbers. We counted around. Fifteen would be on the opposite side of the road. We crossed over and started towards it.

  It was a bright day. The gardens sported a mix of spring flowers, and a heady scent of hyacinth washed down the road. The pungent smell took me right back to my childhood so fast, it was as if a wormhole had just opened up ahead of me. I could visualise the brown and orange table cloth, the white pottery pot containing the bulbs, the wooden writing bureau, magnolia wood chip walls, red carpet, and that grip in my chest which had been present throughout my childhood.

  Things hadn’t been easy at home back then. My father only needed a hairline trigger to set him off. We spent our days slinking around, saying very little, trying to make ourselves as small as we could, so as not to spark off anything that could lead to a bruise on my mother’s face, or another hole in the kitchen door.

  Spring for me back home meant we could get out of the house much more easily; spending time on the streets, meandering in and out of shops, playing in the fields around the back of the house, or ambling along the bank of the river which had washed in a loop around the town. In theory my brother and I were banned from spending time near the river. It was fast flowing and dangerous, but it was no more dangerous than our father. So we stayed out of sight and out of mind.

  I shuddered.

  “Are you OK?” Irene asked. The shadow of memories must have crossed my face.

  “Yes. I’m fine. Just thinking.” I hadn’t told Irene about how things were at home. I rarely spoke of it to anyone. Lucus knew. He knew more about me than anyone. But we were married. There were few secrets between us. Just two house break ins, a gate crashed funeral, a tour of an office for a job I had no intention of applying for…

  We walked on, the interrupting memories distancing themselves once again as my nose became accustomed to the heady aroma. By the time we reached the first house, I was back to normal. The past forgotten.

  Number 14. A well-kept garden. Carefully weeded borders and scalloped edging to the lawn which was so flat you could have played croquet on it. The developers here must have laid the lawns when the houses were built. Everyone had a square in front of their homes. Every one was flat and most were carefully maintained, though rectangular, rather than scalloped like this one.

  There were primulas in the borders, a few evergreen low cropped perennials, and a couple of those plants that looked like they’d been touched by frost all year round. I was no gardener. I didn’t know their common names, let alone the Latin ones. I just knew I didn’t like them. They were old people’s plants and so it was no surprise to me when the door bell was answered by an old woman.

  I say old, but in truth she was probably not much older than Irene. She had a stooped back, white hair which framed her wrinkled face like a halo, and one of those puckered, dry-lipped mouths which always reminded me of George’s Grandmother from the Roald Dahl books. However she had a friendly smile and on spotting Lillian, a twinkle danced into her eyes.

  “Is she allowed a lolly?” she asked me.

  “Not really,” I said, trying not to sound too disapproving. I’d already succumbed to biscuits, I wasn’t about to start on boiled sweets. “She’s still a little young.”

  “Oh. That’s a shame. Never mind. When you’re older, sweetie.”

  “Bah!” exclaimed Lillian in her friendliest tones, and kicked her feet in the buggy, in that up down, up down way children her age had. Two legs together, moving in synchrony. I wasn’t sure I could do that myself now. At least, not with the range of movement Lillian had. The old woman smiled back.

  “How can I help?” she asked.

  “Oh, we’re collecting for the British Heart Foundation.” Irene rattled her tin. “Do you have any spare change? Coppers is great. Sooner it’s full, sooner we can stop,” she joked.

  “Let me see what I can do.” The old woman shuffled off into the house.

  “I feel wrong, taking money from old people,” I whispered to Irene.

  “It is going to charity.” Irene whispered back. “We aren’t keeping it. John collects for the British Heart Foundation every year. If it’s any consolation, he’s worse on his pins than she is, so we’re doing him a favour.”

  The old woman returned, proffering a handful of loose change. “Will this do?”

  “That’s wonderful,” Irene cooed. “Thank you so much. It’s lovely to find someone in this time of the day. Do a lot of people round here work full time?”

  The old lady straightened up a little and looked around the close. I’m sure it wasn’t my imagination, but I could visibly see her swell. Someone had asked her about something she knew and I could tell she was looking forward to providing an answer.

  “Oh, yes. Quite a lot of these are owned by young families now. Most people my age have moved on.”

  “I see. Oh dear. We might be wasting our time, Ruth,” Irene looked at me. I tried to look crestfallen; I guessed that was the look she was wanting.

  “Next door should be in.” She pointed to the house we had on our target list. “Roger’s lived here about the same length of time as me. We’re both looking to move on. It’s the stairs you see. Not good for my arthritis…,”

  I didn’t really listen as Irene and the old lady continued the conversation. It wasn’t relevant; the man next door was called Roger, not Len. Instead I knelt down by Lillian and tried to pull her socks back on. As g
ames went, sock slinging was a good one. Had there been an Olympic sport for it, Lillian might have done quite well. I fiddled with her stubby little feet and her stubby little socks while Irene tried to extricate herself from a discussion on tomatoes and then one about hydrangeas, which, I guessed from the various looks down the lawn, were the two biggish bushes on the front. Eventually Irene offered to pray for her knees and we shuffled off back down the driveway.

  “If they’re all like that, this could take longer than I was hoping,” Irene whispered. She waved at the lady on the doorstep.

  “Kill me when I get THAT old will you?” she hissed through gritted teeth.

  I laughed. “You probably ARE that old Irene. You just feel young.”

  “Oi!” She dug me in the ribs. I laughed again and we walked towards the next house in the cul-de-sac.

  “Let’s hope Roger isn’t in,” Irene said as we walked up the path. “Then we have an excuse to leave early.”

  We got to the door. Irene paused, looking behind her. The other lady was still at her doorstep.

  “He’s a little deaf,” she called out. “You might need to knock loudly.”

  So much for that idea… with an audience, we would have to canvas every building on the street.

  *

  Lillian was on her second box of raisins by the time we pulled up in the next cul-de-sac, this time in Old Waltham. It was a small T-shaped road with a string of 1950s brick houses.

  The bricks were the old rusty coloured ones, giving the dead end road a real dark appearance. There was an occasional extension appended to the standard three up three down house, and a couple of Velux windows that indicated a loft development, but there was nothing garish. Everything was in keeping with the area. The lawns, in general, well-tended. The flower beds were much more mature than the houses we had just visited, there were even a few hydrangea bushes, if indeed those light green leafy structures were what the old lady had been discussing with Irene.

  The scent of hyacinth was missing, but there was a hint of freshly mown grass, and if I wasn’t mistaken, horse manure, where someone had been digging traditional natural fertiliser into their flower beds. They’d be popular in the summer as the dung heated up and released all the trapped horsey scent.