The Missing Witness

by Jo Smedley

  “Who else could it have been?”

  Who else indeed? I looked at Irene. She had that thoughtful cog-turning look.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  “But the police?” I said. “Surely we should tell them.”

  “Rose already has,” Irene reminded me. “They’ve already eliminated Gill, otherwise why didn’t they follow up the lead any further? She must have an alibi for that night.”

  “How about the night Geoff disappeared?”

  “Probably the same alibi.”

  “Meaning what exactly?”

  “Pete.”

  “You really think Pete and Gill were together a whole year before?”

  “Stands to reason. He was digging up the other neighbour’s grounds the year before. They’d have met then.”

  “But she would have been married then.”

  “Unhappily.”

  We looked at each other. Lillian filled in the silence by dragging a vase down from the sideboard using the table runner we both assumed was out of reach. It smashed, sending water and flowers everywhere. She immediately started screaming.

  “Sorry,” I shouted to Irene over the din.

  “Didn’t like the arrangement anyway.” I looked to the half-finished watercolour on one side of the room. She’d already paint-sketched in much of the still life but was still a significant way off completion, with patches of white showing through, and the colours still quite muted in comparison to her other work.

  “It was just to help me think. There’s something about painting. Concentrating on the shape, the form, of something else that frees the mind, unlocks the compartments and lets everything out to play. It’s like taking your mind off the hook. You should try it.”

  I looked around the room at her other paintings. She’d had many of them framed, but there were at least an equal number still on their painting boards leaning up against walls, positioned behind furniture where Lillian couldn’t knock them down. Irene was good. The last time I’d attempted painting I’d been in secondary school.

  “Painting isn’t really my thing.”

  “What is your thing then?” Irene asked, arms full of watery stems. She’d gone for the flowers first I’d noted. Not the china shards. Perhaps she intended to rearrange them in order to finish the painting. The flowers, that was. The china was in such small bits I doubted superglue would work.

  She opened up one of her dressers and found a large jug. She dropped all the stems in, filled it with water and left it on the kitchen work top, definitely out of reach, and then went to work on the china pieces. Lillian had done a thorough job. I hoped it wasn’t valuable.

  “B and M 99p,” she said, mindreading over her shoulder. “She can pay me back out of her pocket money when she’s sixteen. Don’t worry about it.”

  Irene collected up the scrap china and darted looks around the room, checking for any other bits that could have escaped notice. There were none.

  “You can put her down again now,” she told me. “I’ll leave the water there. She can play with it for a bit.”

  It was a hard floor; tiled. It was the reason the vase had broken into so many pieces. Lillian had knocked loads flying in our house, but so far we’d only had a few breakages thanks to the carpets.

  I lowered her to the floor, wiping at the snot which was now dangling down from her nose in a gooey sticky mess. Her face was dark red, her eyes puffy from the crying, and her lips were quavering. She looked to Irene, who smiled.

  “It’s all right, Lillian. You’ve done me a favour. It was a dreadful composition.”

  Lillian looked back to me for affirmation. I smiled back and told her she could go and investigate the water. Which she did.

  Had this happened in our house, Lucus would have a) hit the roof and b) tidied up the water before allowing me to let Lillian loose. His obsessive cleanliness would have permitted nothing less. Irene was much more relaxed, and this sudden addition of water to the day was seen as an opportunity, not a disaster. I allowed myself to slump back in the chair. There was something infinitely relaxing about Irene.

  “So…?”

  “So what?”

  “I’m still waiting to hear what you do to unwind. You don’t paint. You must do something.”

  I looked at her. I couldn’t even remember what it was like to have free time. Baby free days seemed so long ago.

  She waited, and then realising I wasn’t going to answer, she changed the subject.

  “So… Gill and Pete were having an affair,” she said. “He was her alibi for the time Geoff disappeared.”

  “But if she was with him, then surely Geoff was minding the children?”

  “You’d have thought so, wouldn’t you? When did you say we had that coffee with Fiona?”

  “Thursday afternoon.”

  She glanced at her watch. “Two days,” she said. I chuckled.

  “What?”

  “You looked at your watch,” I said. “I said Thursday and you looked at your watch.”

  “Habit,” she smirked. “I used to have one with a date.”

  “What’s the time?” I asked.

  “I don’t actually know.”

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  It turned out two days was far too long to wait for our investigation to continue. Irene called by my house on Wednesday with another idea.

  “I thought you’d already ruled him out?”

  “He probably is. But it’s still a lead we’ve not actually met yet.”

  “He’ll be working in the day.”

  “Yes, I know. That’s why I thought we’d go this evening.”

  I frowned. That meant lying to Lucus again.

  “Are you sure you need me?”

  “Yes. It’s not good enough to feed back. You need to be there too. I might miss something. Something important.”

  It turned out she was right.

  *

  The door to Len Crossley’s place in Holton-le-clay was opened by a young man I’d seen before. I recognised his unique university look and his brilliant blue eyes. Lou’s boyfriend. He didn’t seem to recognise me, but then I had no buggy, wasn’t wearing an old dog-walking jacket and didn’t have a baby or a dog in tow. In fact I was looking quite smart. Not interview smart, but going out smart, certainly suitable for the role in which Irene had cast me this evening. That of research assistant.

  The smart casual look had been a compromise. Had I gone out with Irene looking business-like Lucus would have surely smelled a rat. And so I’d opted for dark trousers and a blouse style top. The story this time had been a WI meeting. I was to be Irene’s guest. Lucus had laughed himself silly at the notion. WI? You? At your age? Do you even know any of the words to Jerusalem?

  “There’s a mix of ages there,” I said, defending the group I had no intention of going to. The irony was not lost on me. “They’re not just a bunch of old grannies crocheting things. They do charity work and get in all sorts of interesting speakers.”

  Lucus looked at me. “If you say so. How long until you enter the baking competition?”

  “No time soon,” I told him. “This is just a one off. Irene thought I’d enjoy the speaker.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Er… a local author, Kerry… something…used to work in the library, now writes books for a living.”

  “Oh well. Whatever floats your boat. I’ve got some “mighty machines” to watch.”

  I wasn’t sure who was going to have more fun. Me at an imaginary WI meeting, or Lucus with his geeky boys TV.

  I’d gone out as arranged and Irene and I had jumped into her car and driven around to Len Crossley’s house. She’d ditched the dog collar in favour of a clipboard and smart, business-style suit. She even had a leaflet with her which explained she worked for a legitimate research company and an ID card with her picture on it. I decided not to ask. Either she had borrowed these from a legitimate research company worker or this was another of her carefully orchestrated scams. I wasn’t sur
e I wanted to know which. In all the weeks I’d known Irene, she’d not mentioned being part of a research bureau once.

  “Irene Franks,” she told the young man at the door. “I work for Family Fortunes; you might have seen it on TV?” The young man I knew as Joe nodded.

  “Every week we survey different households in the UK to get our survey reports on questions in the quiz, and we’re currently surveying this area. Do you have time to answer some questions?”

  Joe smiled broadly. Who wouldn’t have done? It was a chance to be connected to television in some small way. A chance to feel famous. Even Lucus and I would have bitten the hand off anyone who’d come to our door with such a story. We loved family fortunes. The old buzzer sound “uh uh” was a familiar refrain in our house when one of us made a silly mistake. I’d always wondered where they’d done their survey and this ploy of Irene’s made perfect sense. Anyone who knew the show would know the questions weren’t going to be intrusive, it was an obvious invite in, and sheer genius. I tried not to look too impressed. Irene caught my eye as Joe turned around and yelled into the house, and winked.

  I listened as Joe explained in yells who was at the door, and then heard the muffled shout responses back from what I knew to be the living room from our brief exploration the week before. I heard footsteps approaching and Mrs Crossley appeared in her slippers, a curious smile stretching across her face.

  She was late middle aged. Much older than I was, much younger than Irene. If I described her as jowly it would have been doing her a disservice, but age and weight loss had caused her cheeks to slip a little and there was only so much “tightening moisturiser” could do. She’d obviously been a much larger woman at some point in her life. While she wasn’t exactly a size 12 now, she had clearly lost a significant amount of weight in recent years. Whether by ill health or design I didn’t know and wouldn’t have dared ask. Sadly, the biggest problem with vast weight loss was that it left your skin hanging a little and she was baggy now in all the wrong places. Even so – she looked healthy for her age and had a warm glow about her that made her look incredibly mumsy.

  “Family fortunes?” she said. Irene nodded. “How long will it take?”

  “Not long,” Irene told her. “We just have a list of 50 questions or so that we need your knee jerk responses too – most people enjoy it actually. It takes around 30 minutes.”

  I knew Mrs Crossley was already interested. I could tell by the red tint spreading across her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes. This would be something to tell her work colleagues tomorrow, assuming she did work. A bit of excitement in an otherwise hum drum life.

  Irene had clearly thought this through. The goal was to get into the house and into small talk. This “survey says” research would guarantee us access to the house, and once inside, well… Irene could ask anything she wanted. If someone had come to my door claiming to be from Family Fortunes I would have let them in, too. Maybe I was too trusting, but it would have been fun to have had to give answers to some questions and find our answers on the hit TV show as part of the “survey says” results. I knew Lucus would have enjoyed the experience, too.

  “Come in then. Would you like a coffee while you work, or have you had one in every house so far?”

  “Oh, a tea would be lovely,” Irene told her. “You’re the first person who’s offered this evening, and we’re both gasping.”

  “Ooooh... Let me get the kettle on then. Joe – show them into the lounge.”

  We walked through the hallway into the living room. It seemed odd seeing it from this side of the glass. The television didn’t look so big from the inside. The furniture a little more worn than it had appeared from outside, too. It was still a level more opulent than our shabby living room with the small TV we’d purchased at uni together. But it didn’t look “embezzling-executive”.

  Joe slumped down into what was probably his usual chair, throwing his legs up over one of the arm rests in a typical relaxed student pose. He attempted to look non-plussed by our mission, but it was clear he was just as interested as his mother. Game shows were uni hits. I’d wasted many mornings myself in front of Supermarket Sweep.

  “So… uh… are you local then?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Irene. “I do research for a number of different companies, the Family Fortunes one is the most fun though. Ruth here is learning the ropes. She’s going to take over from me when I give up.”

  He smiled at me. Did he recognise me? But no. There was not even a vague hint of recognition on his face.

  “How did you get into it?”

  “Oh you can apply for research positions on-line,” Irene told him. “They’re always looking for researchers in different areas. The pay isn’t great, but you can fit it around other things, like studies. Are you on leave from uni?”

  “Yes,” he said. “How d’you guess?”

  “I have a friend with children about your age. They’re just back now. Where are you studying?”

  “Leeds.”

  “Not too far then. Girlfriend? I bet you have. Good looker like you.” I marvelled at how Irene could play-act the “granny” role so well. Sometimes I didn’t know which was the act: the Irene I saw or the one she showed everyone else.

  He smiled and nodded.

  “Missing her already I bet.” I wasn’t sure who was more embarrassed. Me or him. I kept quiet. Irene didn’t know how he was connected to Lesley’s family. I did. She still thought we were here to find out about Geoff. But suddenly I wondered whether Lou had been Joe’s first choice.

  I tried to gauge his age. Lesley had been in her mid-twenties. Lou was the younger sister. How much younger? Two years? Three? Four?

  If Joe had fallen for Lesley first, then maybe Lou was choice number two. He might have resented Lesley’s marriage to Russ. He could have been a jealous spurned lover – or perhaps his love was unrequited and that had given him an urge for revenge.

  If only I could indicate the relationship to Irene somehow. She’d know what to say. I tried and failed to catch her eye.

  Mrs Crossley walked back in with a tea tray complete with tea pot and milk jug. The tea tray made it all seem very formal. Then again, maybe this was how you entertained guests when your husband was a Financial Director of a big firm.

  “Thank you,” Irene gushed.

  “Milk?”

  “Yes – we both take milk. No sugar for either of us. Is it just you and your son home?”

  “At the moment. Len’s due back any minute. Did you want him too?”

  “Oh… it’s not necessary. It’s just sometimes quicker, you know, if we can interview everyone in a household. Saves me visiting another couple of houses. And you’re all over 18. So I could have ticked off three surveys at once.” Irene tried not to let her disappointment show.

  “Two is great though,” I added, as Mrs Crossley’s face drooped a little. Clearly she was keen to get on, and perhaps finish the interview off before Len got home in order to spring the news on him over dinner later. I could imagine the excitement.

  “First off, can I take both your full names and a contact number in case the TV studio wants to follow this up? You know, just to check we HAVE interviewed 100 people and we haven’t just sat in our houses making up the responses.”

  “I’m Hilary Crossley, and this is Joe. Joseph if you want his full name. You are taking part aren’t you Joe?”

  “Yeah, why not.” Joe tried his best to sound complacent about it.

  “Phone number?”

  “01472 873021”

  “Home owners?”

  “Well, I am. Joe’s renting at uni.”

  “Occupation?”

  “Nurse.”

  “And student.” Irene scribbled. “What are you studying?”

  “He’s going to be a vet. This time anyway.”

  “Mum.”

  “Second time round. Not cheap sending a kid to uni. We’ve forked out twice. He’s in his third year now, again .”

&nbs
p; Second course? Possibly older than I thought in that case.

  “There was no work as a history graduate,” Joe complained. “At least as a vet I’ll be able to qualify for a job. Besides, I like animals. Don’t know why I didn’t do it the first time around.”

  “Nor me,” Hilary said, grimacing at us. If they had been embezzling, paying Joe through uni twice shouldn’t have been a big issue.

  Irene busily completed both forms, and then handed me a clipboard with Joe’s questionnaire clipped to it. She kept the other one for herself. I glanced down at the list and wondered where she’d collected all the questions.

  “Ready?” Irene asked.

  Hilary nodded eagerly. I wasn’t sure who was going to have more fun for the next thirty minutes, her or me.

  “It’s really important you don’t overhear each other’s answers,” Irene said. “So what I’m going to do is ask Ruth here to take Joe somewhere else to run through the list with him. Is that OK?”

  “You can go in the kitchen,” Hilary told us, settling herself into her own chair. Joe managed to slump to a stand. It was quite a feat. It was like he poured himself into an upright position without utilising any spine. He then slouched off and I followed in his wake to the kitchen.

  The kitchen was in the modern shaker style. The popular natural wooden cupboard look which was in vogue when Lucus and I renewed our kitchen was out these days, and the lime washed Scandinavian look was ‘in’. Which meant the kitchen had been renewed fairly recently; probably within the last year. There was still an absence of limescale around the taps.

  The kitchen had a breakfast bar as well as a dining table, but it was to the breakfast bar that Joe veered. He was tall. Taller than I’d remembered from the cemetery. Then again, the driveway had been on a slope and in the open air height could be deceptive. Inside was another story. He must have been two to three inches taller than Lucus, making him a full six foot or thereabouts.

  Joe slumped on his perch like an old parrot. I took up the other stool, much more conscious of my posture.