The Missing Witness

by Jo Smedley

  One house had an arch of yellow blossoms. A shrub of some kind they had trained over the doorway and on the step of that house sat two young girls, carefully picking off the flowers within reach. Given a few hours, they’d have cleared every blossom up to waist height, but they were enjoying themselves and the two mothers in the garden sharing a cup of tea and catching the weak spring sun didn’t seem concerned. Their children were quietly occupied, happy and outside. What did it matter if they were deflowering the shrub?

  We were looking for house number seven and unlike the previous road, these houses followed the traditional odds and evens system, and house number seven was close to the end of the road, a door away from the girls.

  Irene walked up to the fence.

  “Hello,” she called. “We’re collecting for the British Heart Foundation. Could you help by sparing a few coins? Loose change is fine. Every little helps as they say.” Irene grinned broadly. Nobody could resist her. The two women didn’t either. The visiting mother riffled through her handbag, the other mother tripped inside to check out their loose change pot.

  “How old?” I asked, pointing at the two girls.

  “Three and a bit.” The young mother grinned back. “I remember that age,” she said, looking at Lillian.

  “Does it get better?” I asked.

  “It changes,” she said. “The baby bits go, but you get new problems. Tantrums and stuff. It’s just as hard, but in a different way. And the talking… oh the incessant talking…. Girl?” She pointed at Lillian who was in fairly neutral colours today.

  “Yes.”

  “You have it all to look forward to.” She rolled her eyes knowingly, and dropped a few coppers into Irene’s proffered tin.

  The other woman came back and dropped a five pound note into the canister.

  “Oooh, thank you,” said Irene as if she really meant it, and that this collection was the real reason for us roaming the streets.

  “My gran died of heart problems last year,” she said by way of explanation.

  “It seems like a lovely area,” Irene said, looking around.

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” the home owner said. “It’s not bad actually, just the odd bad egg. Her at number four is a bit of an odd ball, and number seven two doors up has a massive motorbike that sets off all the car alarms down here at two in the morning. And music? Blimey, you can tell when he’s got his friends round for the evening. I’ve complained to the council a few times about it. They don’t do anything. But… well… you know what it’s like with kids.”

  I did indeed.

  Irene gave me a look, which indicated she thought it was doubtful our man was at number seven. Len Crossley clearly didn’t strike her as a loud music playing motorbike rider. We said goodbye and for the sake of appearances did the rest of the road, collecting a fair amount of loose shrapnel from the local residents, who for the most part, were in, rather than out. Clearly the older houses attracted a very different clientele. Number seven was empty, but there were also two doorbells on the back door, which meant they were flats. Neither name in the clear strip in the doorbells was Crossley.

  Strike two.

  *

  The third road we pulled up outside was in Holton Le Clay, a commuter village just outside Grimsby. Again it was a fairly modern housing estate, but nothing overtly ostentatious. It must have been built sometime in the 90s, as it had that air of uniformity about it.

  The crescent was populated with a mix of semi and fully detached houses and bungalows. Some had been extended; some had loft or dormer conversions. There were grass lawns at the front of every house with borders and shrubs and from what I could tell mature gardens extended behind each one as well. Each house had a driveway and most had a garage or at least a car port. The brickwork was that limestone effect brickwork. Not the red brick typical to Grimsby, nor the more orangey brickwork of the modern estates.

  Irene and I exchanged looks as we parked up. If we were going to find Len from the telephone directory entries, this looked like the right road. It shouted “rich middle class” loudly and proudly, two houses had caravans parked in the driveways, and one even had a motorboat on a trailer. Oh yes, if we were going to find a financial director with his hand in the till, then this would be the place.

  We started counting down the numbers, odds and evens on this road, and were a little disappointed to find it wasn’t the one with the boat in the drive. Well, I was, Irene didn’t seem too perturbed, even when we realised that of all of the houses on the estate, the one we were looking for was the least adjusted of them all.

  “Perhaps he has a villa in Spain?” she suggested.

  We walked up to number eight; the house next door to the target property and the one which also sported the yacht.

  Irene rang the doorbell, and we waited to see if anyone was home.

  The glass wasn’t frosted as such, but had those leafy patterns in the glass which made it opaque. I could just make out the approach of a figure through the clear spots in the design, something black blocking the light. The door opened, revealing an attractive man sporting an apron. He looked about as gay as you could get, which was to say, lithe, attractive and very easy on the eye.

  “Hello?”

  Irene gave him the usual collection patter and he raked through a pot near the door for a wallet, out of which he tipped all his loose change and dropped it into Irene’s canister.

  “Lived here long?” Irene asked.

  “A few years,” he grinned back disarmingly. Gay… why were the good men always gay?

  “That your boat?”

  “Ben’s. It’s needing a bit of repair work on the back.” He pointed to a cracked piece of fibreglass. “We’re taking it in this weekend.”

  “I bet you’re popular in the summer,” Irene quipped. Ben’s other half smiled. “Do you take the neighbours out?”

  “Nah. Most folks keep to themselves around here. Don’t actually think they like us both living here, you know, husband and husband.” His choice of words was deliberate. He was edging for a response. I nudged Irene. She’d clearly forgotten her dog collar. She smiled, seemingly oblivious.

  “What, even next door? I’m sure you’re both charming neighbours.”

  “Len? Oh, he’s a bit homophobic. The wife’s OK though. We chat to her over the garden fence now and again.”

  “Everyone seems to have had a lot of work done on their houses around here.” Irene had picked up on the name, and I could see she was trying to continue the conversation, find out as much as she could.

  “Yeah. Most have. It’s cheaper to extend than move isn’t that what they say? Ben’s talking of a loft conversion. Wants to put an office up there.”

  “Have you been round any of the other’s just to see what sort of space is created?”

  “Nah. Like I say, everyone tends to keep to themselves. You can’t really just go around knocking on doors and asking for a look-see.”

  He had a point, but it didn’t stop Irene knocking on people’s doors, or indeed breaking into their houses with a set of lock picks for a look-see when the mood took her. But then, she wasn’t a typical person, as I’d found out.

  “So… extend or move, or, I suppose swan off on long foreign holidays if you have the money? I always wanted to travel.”

  “We get away a fair bit.” Ben’s partner smiled.

  “And next door?”

  “No. Got kids at uni still I think. All the money goes on them I expect. Bloody expensive there now. Tuition fees, accommodation... gave up after a year.” How did he not realise Irene was probing him? He was giving away so much detail, and seemingly without realising. This must have been how con-artists worked. Irene had clearly missed her calling.

  “What do you do now?” Irene asked, continuing the patter.

  “Oh, Tescos shelf stacking at the moment. I do evenings mainly, we catch up over dinner. Hence,” he gestured to the pinny.

  “You’re the cook. How lovely,�
� Irene smiled. “Well, I better let you get back to your catering. Thank you for the change.” She smiled again, and lofted the canister in thanks which was, by now, quite heavy, after our street treading.

  Irene’s gentle probing had given us what we wanted to know. Len had children at uni, so that explained where some of his director’s salary was going. By the look of his house he wasn’t particularly well off; comfortably so, but not rolling in cash; and unless he had a vast off shore savings pot for retirement, the chances were he wasn’t embezzling from the company either. Which was good as it closed one line of enquiry, but bad, as it closed the only line of enquiry we had!

  Irene didn’t say anything until Ben’s husband had closed the door behind us and we’d walked past the boat and along the concrete driveway back onto the pavement.

  “Looks like we’ve found him,” she said.

  We both looked at the house next door. There were no cars in the driveway and no signs of life. The lawn could have done with a trim and was sporting a few daisies. It wasn’t as bad as my lawn, which was large enough now to sport dandelion flowers, but it was still higher than the average we had seen so far on our travels. Otherwise the house was in remarkable shape. Had I been house hunting, I would have agreeably noticed the health of the facia boards, the downpipes and guttering, which were all in good condition, lacked moss and weeds, and didn’t have any noticeable leaks. The tiles were all intact, the windows double glazed, and there were no failed panes. The lawn, while long, was well kept and edged, unlike my own lawn, where the grass always managed to go to seed where I couldn’t easily run the mower. The flower beds were without weeds and their daffodils, which had clearly flowered early and died back, had been tied into little neat knots of leaves.

  We walked down the driveway to the side door which served as the front door, the same as Lesley’s house despite the huge differences in age and style between the two properties. There was a door bell. Irene pushed it. Lillian giggled to herself in the buggy and pointed at the back garden. I followed her gaze into a garden replete with spinning wind catchers and various garden ornaments. Money but no taste, I thought to myself.

  We waited. Irene pushed the bell again. We waited some more. Irene peered in through the letter box.

  “Irene!” I hissed.

  “What? Is anyone watching?”

  I turned around and looked behind me. “No.”

  “Good.”

  She walked around the side of the house into the back garden.

  “Bah! Bah!” shouted Lillian, rocking the buggy, keen for us to do the same so she could explore the shiny things. I rolled it forwards, just to the edge of the wall. Irene was already peering into the windows.

  “Forty-two inch telly,” she announced. “New suite. Well, relatively new. Probably last seasons. They aren’t spending any money they shouldn’t have at home.”

  “No,” I agreed. Even though we didn’t have a 42 inch television or a new suite, we knew plenty of people who had, and none of them, as far as I was aware, were embezzling money. “Shall we go?”

  Irene walked back towards me.

  “No taste,” she said, taking in the garden with a sweeping gesture. “Looks like the cemetery on a good day.”

  It did at that. What the need was to litter graves with garden ornaments I didn’t know. But the new section of the cemetery was full of them. Wind catchers, spinners, and wind chimes all giving the dead a voice they’d probably have loathed in life.

  We headed back to the car.

  “Is that it then?” I asked.

  “Now we know where they live, we’ll have to pop back in another guise.”

  “Another guise?”

  “They aren’t ruled out just because they’ve got no taste and they aren’t obviously flaunting their money.” Her tone was that of a teacher reprimanding her pupil. “There’s off shore accounts to consider. Holidays. Who knows what people spend money on when they’ve got it. Not everyone spends it in the same way.”

  “I suppose.” I heard myself adopting ‘sullen teenager’ in response to her teacher tones.

  “First though, we need to find Mr and Mrs Rand.”

  Chapter Twenty One

  Mr and Mrs Rand were somewhat easier to locate.

  “I think we’ve found the money,” I said.

  The house was extended, the loft converted. There had been new pine cladding and new rendering to the outside of the property which had all been painted a pale antique green. It looked very modern, which was a shame, as it was, underneath, still a standard Grimsby 1950s home, with two big front bay windows, and a standard box-shape rooms-above-rooms layout, providing of course you ignored the extension, or rather extensions, which encompassed a big conservatory style room on one side, and a garage with room on top on the other.

  The houses either side of the one we were staring at were standard construction. In other words, rust coloured bricks, curved storm porches which had been sealed with an addition of a front door, probably sometime in the 90s. The Rand’s house had a new proper porch built onto the front, clad again in pine. I say proper porch, but on closer inspection this one had the modern twist of a glass roof, rather than a standard tile construction. Had the house been in extensive grounds of its own it would have looked quite delightful, but smack in the middle of a housing estate, where all the houses looked the same, this modern rendition of the standard house looked nothing short of an eyesore.

  “Don’t judge too soon.” Irene chided me. “There could be something else going on.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Look.” I followed Irene’s point to a white transit van parked in the driveway emblazoned with the words RAND CONSTRUCTION. The stepfather was a builder then. Perhaps that explained things. Maybe this was supposed to be an advert for his services. Mind you, even at cost price, materials were still expensive for a renewal project like the one I was staring at.

  “First things first,” Irene said, and turned into the neighbouring driveway. This house too had had an extension I noted. Only this one was brick, and in keeping with the property, barely noticeable. In fact, considering the house next door, this extension was quite understated and tasteful.

  She rang the doorbell.

  It was a standard buzzer noise, nothing quite as dramatic as when doorbells first started to come in and played all manner of tunes. There was some part of me that missed the 80s doorbells which chimed “Yankee Doodle” or “Big Ben” when you pressed them. There was another bigger part of me that was grateful we’d all moved on as a nation.

  Within a few minutes a shadow appeared at the door and I could hear the woman behind murmuring to someone further into the house in a tone of voice that indicated it was probably either a little one, or a very old person. I’d noticed many people adopted the same tone with dotty elderly relatives – inappropriately I might add with my NHS hat on.

  The door opened, revealing a blond haired woman. Her age was hard to calculate. I was bad at guessing ages at the best of times, but she looked in her mid to late fifties if I had to make a guess. A little too much mascara, a crease of moisturiser in the wrinkles, where the skin had puckered back up and the cream hadn’t fully dissolved in. Her hair was up in a messy folded back ponytail, spraying out behind her in a fan of peroxide white. Her roots were darker, her eyebrows plucked to within an inch of becoming pencilled back in. And oddly she looked a little familiar. Oh, for a Whats - is - name .

  “Hello,” Irene smiled winningly. “I was wondering if you’d mind making a donation towards the British Heart Foundation?” She held up the collection canister to illustrate her request. I smiled politely. After nearly 20 houses canvassed in this way I was beginning to feel very much like a spare part. A girl with a buggy accompanying a collection lady for a sympathy vote.

  Her face was really familiar. I tried not to stare.

  Just as the woman looked about to reply, I heard a soft padding noise on the other side of the door, and then a chubby fingered
hand reached around the bottom edge and pulled the door inwards. A little face peered around. A very familiar little face.

  “Careful, Nicholas,” chided the woman. Nicholas… Janice… this must be her mother, or sister maybe… she looked a little young.

  “Is that Janice’s Nicholas?” I asked, smiling, as the boy and my daughter exchanged toothy grins and points. Irene looked at me. It was unlike me to interrupt the doorstep patter.

  “Yes. Do you know each other?”

  “Baby group at St Hugh’s,” I said smiling. “She’s not been for a few weeks though.”

  “She’s just gone back to work.” The woman informed me, not realising I already knew. “So I’m on childcare. I’m her mum,” she added.

  “Oh… you don’t look old enough to be a grandmother!” I exclaimed in my best “how to win friends and influence people” voice. Irene raised her eyebrows at me. I’d learned from the best after all. Besides, this woman didn’t look old enough to be Janice’s mother, she really didn’t. There were thirty years between me and my mother; there must have been barely 20 between this woman and Janice. Either that, or I was just an old mother, and Janice was a lot younger than I thought.

  “I started young,” she responded, smiling.

  “He’s walking then!” I said, bending down to Nicholas’s level. He grinned back at me.

  “Yes. Started just the other day. Janice was off work, thankfully. She was so worried about missing it. How old?” she asked, bending down to Lillian’s buggy. Irene stepped back. For once she was the spare part.

  “Thirteen months,” I said. “She’ll be talking soon I hope.”

  “Thirteen months… time flies doesn’t it? I remember when Nicholas was born. I was there. Her other half doesn’t do hospitals. I was the birth partner.”

  “That’s where I’ve seen you before!” I exclaimed. “You were with Janice at the prenatal classes.”