by Alan Beechey
“Her husband couldn’t keep his assets hidden?” Oliver suggested, as they drifted toward the door. Mallard grabbed his arm. Effie had already passed into the corridor.
“The only reason I haven’t throttled you is because I need to talk to you,” he whispered urgently. “Privately. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
The concern was still evident in Mallard’s voice the next morning. “I’m in trouble,” he was saying on the telephone.
“I’m sure Aunt Phoebe will forgive you,” Oliver replied. “It can’t be the first time in your marriage that you’ve made a bit of an ass of yourself.”
“Your aunt was very understanding and sympathetic about last night’s fiasco.”
“When she stopped laughing, I bet. I suppose the tricky part will be to get the trousers to split at exactly the same time tonight.”
“Will you shut up about those bloody trousers!”
“So what’s the trouble?” Oliver asked soothingly.
“It’s professional.”
“Ah. Is this something to do with this sudden Christmas vacation you seem to be taking out of the blue, thus obliging my girlfriend to work on weekends?”
“Exactly. It was forced on me by Assistant Commissioner Weed.”
“Getting a little behind with your work?”
There was a noise on the line that suggested Mallard was either choking or practicing Japanese. After a pause, he spoke.
“Weed has turned up my personnel file. So they know about that mistake over my birthdate. He wants me to retire, starting more or less now.”
“Bummer.”
“If you make one more buttock joke, you little prat, I’m sending your Christmas present back!”
Christmas present! Oliver scribbled a reminder to think of something for Effie.
“I’m not ready to retire,” Mallard was saying. “This is too soon, too sudden.”
“But—”
“I warned you!”
“No, this is a real but,” said Oliver sympathetically. “What can we do?”
“I was hoping you might have some bright ideas. Can you think about it over the next couple of days, anyway?”
“Certainly. It will take my mind off what I want to do to Geoffrey.”
“What’s young Angelwine been up to this time?” Mallard asked, and Oliver told him about the book proposal and the sequence of practical jokes, which had culminated that morning in the removal of every nut and bolt from his ancient bicycle.
“I was left just holding the handlebars,” he complained. “I had to walk to Harrods to stalk and capture the pains au chocolats.”
“It’s odd to think of Geoff as a practical joker, though, when he’s practically a joke himself,” Mallard said pensively. “Where is he now?”
“At work. Weekends have no meaning for the ambitious flack.”
“Tell you what, give me his work number, I’ll have a word with him.”
“You’ll threaten him with the long arm of the law if he doesn’t desist forthwith?”
“Er, yeah, something like that. Although I can’t threaten him with anything official if I’m on holiday. Now, what about this missing persons case Effie was telling us about last night? Think she needs a hand? Unofficially, of course.”
“Busting in unannounced on her first assignment without you, Uncle Tim? Isn’t that showing rather a lot of cheek? Even for you…”
Oliver listened placidly to the beginning of Mallard’s stream of invective and then quietly hung up the phone. “Christmas present,” he read off a sheet of notepaper. What did that mean?
The telephone rang again, putting the thought out of his mind.
***
Commentators who lament the triumph of conformity over individuality in English society should consider the semi-detached house. These paired dwellings, joined at the seams, were designed by their architects to be perpetual mirror-images, facing leafy residential streets in a perfect symmetry of form and decor. But like Siamese twins who rebel against being dressed identically, English homeowners have other ideas about their metaphorical castles. As Effie pulled into the Quarterboys’ cul-de-sac, about a mile from the church, she was struck by the mismatches: Fake Tudor half-timbers, strapping half a frontage like a bondage outfit, jostled relentlessly modern picture windows; faux Jacobean cladding and diamond-pane windows stood cheek by jowl beside pebbledash and frosted-glass porches; and the Quarterboys’ blue paintwork and off-white stucco competed blatantly with the brown and beige color scheme chosen by their neighbors.
The street was eerily silent for a Saturday morning, the cold weather keeping its children indoors. Joan Quarterboy answered the door and fussed Effie into the front room, which was clearly kept for the entertainment of visitors. It was warm, but there was a faint dampness in the air that implied the radiators had been turned on only recently. Effie knew that the rear sitting room contained the working fireplace and the family’s modest Christmas tree.
Joan, too, seemed dressed to entertain strangers. Her skirt, blouse, cardigan, and outdoor shoes seemed unnecessarily formal for a Saturday morning. “My husband isn’t here, I’m afraid,” she announced nervously. “He couldn’t sit still. So he’s taken the car and he’s driving the streets, just to see if he can spot our Tina.”
Effie nodded and took in the room. It was sparsely furnished, with the bare minimum of good quality items to make entertaining tolerable—gold three-piece suite with fussy fringes, coffee table, unmatched end tables, small bookcase, and an odd étagère made of chrome and yellow glass, crowded with ornaments. The bookcase contained mainly religious books, including several different translations of the Bible. Nothing to indicate the presence of a thirteen-year-old in the household, except for a partially wrapped Christmas gift that Joan swept from the sofa to make room for Effie.
She had noticed this yesterday. Apart from some brightly colored outerwear in the hall, Tina’s possessions were restricted to her bedroom, and even in this sanctum, there were clear indications of her parents’ taste. She doubted that the girl would have chosen the old-fashioned dressing table complete with pink-draped pouffe or the faded eiderdown with its pattern of climbing roses. The walls were glaringly devoid of pictures of kittens, horses, or—if Tina was on schedule—pop singers and teenage television stars. There was only an Advent calendar, now two days behind schedule. The room’s neatness meant Joan had easily spotted the space on top of the wardrobe from which Tina had removed her small suitcase.
“You must excuse me, Sergeant,” Joan continued. “This business has left me very flustered. You’re not the policewoman who telephoned earlier? I know I should be paying attention.”
“That’s all right, Mrs. Quarterboy,” Effie said gently. “No, that’s my assistant, Detective Constable Belfry.” My assistant. She couldn’t recall having used the phrase before. It had a nice ring when it wasn’t applied to her.
“She wanted the name of Tina’s doctor,” Joan said. “I can’t think why. Tina hasn’t been to the doctor for months.”
“Perhaps she went without your knowing?”
“She wouldn’t do that sort of thing behind our backs. She knows better.”
“Perhaps she just didn’t want to worry you,” Effie offered. “Although I should say that we have no reason to think she’d been to the doctor. It’s just the sort of routine inquiry we have to make, in the circumstances.”
“You do this a lot, do you?” asked Joan hopefully. “Find missing children, I mean.”
Never having sought a missing child, Effie had no idea how to answer the question. She had helped to find the murderers of several missing children, but she didn’t think Joan would appreciate hearing that. Fortunately for her, the woman had a limited capacity for listening to anything that lifted her out of her own narrow world. She prowled the surface of words, pouncing on opportunities to interrupt w
ith her own beliefs and experiences.
“I suppose it’s something a policewoman would be good at,” she continued, filling the silence. “They leave the rough stuff to the men. I’ve noticed that on television.”
“Most of the children reported missing turn up within twenty-four hours,” Effie blurted defensively, having rejected the temptation to boast of her black belt at karate.
“But it’s been more than twenty-four hours already,” Joan wailed. She snatched a handkerchief from the sleeve of her cardigan and sat heavily on the arm of an armchair.
“Only just,” said Effie, privately bemoaning her blunder. She perched beside Joan and put an arm around her shoulders. Joan sobbed into the handkerchief for a few moments and then blew her nose.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should be strong. Sam says we have to be strong. He says the Lord is testing us, and if we put our faith in God, everything will turn out fine.”
Whatever works, thought Effie, although she wondered how Sam Quarterboy would twist that theology if Tina was in worse danger that she suspected.
“Would you like me to call the minister of your church?” she asked. “Wouldn’t his help and guidance be a comfort while you’re waiting for Tina to come home?”
“The only comfort I could have is for Tina to march through that door right now and say ‘Hello, Mum,’” Joan replied, her eyes tearing again. “No, I don’t want to call anyone at the church. Sam doesn’t want them to know we’re facing this shame. He’s a proud man, he’d be humiliated if it looked like Tina was turning out to be a troublemaker or a juvenile delinquent. It was bad enough that we had to miss last night’s church meeting for the first time in more than fifteen years.”
“Just because Tina’s run away, it doesn’t mean she’s a troublemaker, or that she’s at fault.”
“What else could it be? What did we do that was wrong?”
Effie stood up. “Mrs. Quarterboy, we know for a fact that Tina chose to leave, which is good news, because we can rule out foul play. That puts the whole investigation onto a very different footing from the start. She’s not an adult, but at thirteen, she’s clearly old enough to have some idea where’s she’s going and how to look out for herself. As I said, I’d be very surprised if she doesn’t come home by herself, today or tomorrow at the latest.”
She knew Joan was no longer paying attention to the meaning of her words, but was sifting them for an opening for her own opinions. Effie noticed through the window that a maroon Ford Escort had pulled into the driveway, with Sam Quarterboy at the driver’s wheel. She spoke quickly.
“When she does come home, Joan, the very last thing you or your husband should do is accuse her of being a troublemaker or get angry with her because of the fear and worry she’s caused. There’ll be time to get to the bottom of her disappearance. But first, make her feel welcome and forgiven. And above all, loved.”
Joan Quarterboy looked up, with horror on her small features. “What kind of a parent do you think I am, Sergeant?” she demanded angrily. “Of course I love my daughter. And so does Sam. You don’t have children, so you don’t understand.”
Effie waited until her instinctive irritation with the woman had subsided. She weighed her responses. What makes you think…How do you know…Too challenging. “How can you tell that I don’t have children?” she asked, hoping the concession to Joan would disguise her impatience. Her gloved hand hid the absence of a wedding ring.
“You wouldn’t be working if you had little ones, would you? Not as a policewoman.”
The front door opened. Joan rushed into the hallway but stayed in the 1950s. “Did you find her?” she gasped.
Sam shook his glossy head without breaking his step and closed the door firmly behind him.
“I’ve just been—” He stopped, spotting Effie behind his wife. “Why are you here? Is there any news?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Then I can’t think why you’re wasting time here when you could be out looking for Christina.”
Effie swallowed again. “We’re doing all we can. I needed to ask you some questions.”
“Questions, questions, it’s all questions,” Sam muttered, taking off his suede car coat and placing it on a hook beside Tina’s anorak. Although he was wearing a thick, V-necked sweater, he still wore a silk tie with his nylon shirt, and his trousers looked as if they were half of a suit. He turned back to Effie irritably. “We’re not holding anything back, you know. If we knew anything that would get our girl home sooner, we’d have told you by now.”
“I’m sure of that, sir.”
Effie held her ground, refusing to give him the signs of intimidation that he clearly expected. But she found herself excusing his frustration more easily than Joan’s proud foolishness. Sam suddenly seemed too drained to compete.
“I hope at least you used an unmarked police car,” he snapped. “We don’t want the neighbors to think there’s any trouble in this house.”
“We’re trying to be as discreet as we can in our inquiries,” Effie replied, “but we do need to ask the general public if they may have seen Tina. If she doesn’t come home today, you might consider an appeal on television. If Tina can see how much you’re concerned about her, it may make her come home all the sooner.”
“She’s not stupid, she must know how concerned we are,” he said stubbornly, fiddling with his car keys.
“Please, Mr. Quarterboy.”
For all his faults, Sam Quarterboy was intelligent and decent, and in the face of Effie’s firmness, he became aware that this untypical belligerence was not helping. He beckoned her into the front room and sat down wearily in an armchair. Joan followed.
“So what are these new questions?” he asked. Effie did not sit down.
“I want to know who Tina’s friends are at the church. There’s a chance she may have tried to contact one of them.”
“Why would she do that instead of calling her parents?” asked Joan. “And anyway, Sam doesn’t want people at the church knowing about this.”
“It’s all right, love,” he said. “I’ve just come from seeing the minister. I told him everything.”
“Him!” Joan blurted scornfully. “He didn’t even have the decency to call round last night, after the meeting. You’re the church secretary after all.”
“I told Paul Piltdown we weren’t going to the meeting because we were all down with a tummy bug. He didn’t want to disturb us last night. In fact, he was coming over this morning when I turned up.”
“By rights, they should have canceled the meeting altogether,” Joan grumbled, not wishing to waste the mood of dissatisfaction that had enveloped her. “I trust at least that you were reelected, even if you weren’t there.”
“Yes, I was reelected to the diaconate,” said Sam. “But there’s bad news, too. Nigel Tapster was made a deacon. Poor Cedric Potiphar had to stand down. Perhaps if we’d been there, our votes would have made the difference.”
“That man!” Joan began, but Sam interrupted her.
“This isn’t helping Constable Strongitharm find our Tina,” he declared. Effie chose not to correct him. “Now, who were Tina’s friends at church?”
Joan subsided onto the sofa, nervously stretching the small handkerchief that she held in her lap. “Well, there aren’t too many children of her own age, these days. They grow up and drift away. If their parents aren’t in the church, we don’t seem to be able to keep them.”
“Is there a youth club or some other association?” Effie asked.
“There used to be, but it sort of died. We were hoping that Paul Piltdown, being a younger man, might make the difference, but so far, he hasn’t attracted many new young people. Dougie Dock runs the local group of the Victory Vanguard, but it’s for boys only. No, the only thing happening at the moment is the Sunday School Nativity play, which is going to be part of
the Christmas Eve carol service. Tina was going to be in that—she’d been chosen to play Mary. But the other children in it are all younger. She was really looking forward to it. She was supposed to be at a rehearsal this afternoon.”
Joan began to weep softly. Her husband reached across and touched her arm gently.
“I understand Mr. Tapster’s become something of a youth leader,” Effie said quickly.
“Unappointed and unwanted,” Joan snorted, despite the tears.
“Nigel’s prayer meetings aren’t officially sanctioned by the church,” Sam explained diplomatically, unaware that Effie had been well briefed about the Tapsters’ practices.
“Did Tina go to these meetings?” Effie asked, trying to confirm what Oliver had told her. “Is there any chance that Mr. Tapster or his wife may be able to help us find her?”
“Once Tina told us the goings-on at Nigel Tapster’s house, I kept her away,” said Sam forcefully. “That was weeks ago, and I know for a fact that she hasn’t been anywhere near them since. No, if anything, she was much closer to Paul Piltdown, our minister.”
“I was hoping to drop in on Mr. Piltdown later,” said Effie. “Now that he knows about the situation, he—”
The telephone rang in the kitchen. Joan looked up at her husband with a terrified expression on her face, but Effie suspected it was her regular habit. She hurried from the room. Sam and Effie followed her.
Joan was frozen, her back to the others, listening closely to the telephone. Then she turned. Her face was joyous. She mouthed the words: “It’s her!”
“Keep her talking,” Effie whispered to Sam and snatched her mobile telephone from her handbag, switching it on and cursing inwardly that she hadn’t programmed in any telephone numbers for the Plumley OCU. She scrabbled in her bag for her diary.
“Why don’t you come home, lovey?” Joan asked, tears running down her cheeks. “We’ve been so worried.”