by Peter James
The room was half full. Colleagues were slowly drifting in and it would be packed by two o’clock for the Monday briefing, when the previous week’s activities would be reviewed. Everyone liked to report results, and Glenn had two good results: a petty burglar he’d been responsible for catching had been sent down for two years on Friday, and the arrest of a serious antique-jewellery thief.
His mind drifted back to Cora Burstridge’s flat. The blowflies. The terrible sight of her face inside the plastic bag. What a way to end up. To have been loved by the whole world, and to end up alone, being eaten by flies.
He shuddered.
Then he thought again about the pathologist querying how the blowflies had got there.
Two actresses of similar ages had killed themselves in the past three weeks. First Gloria Lamark, then Cora Burstridge. He’d spotted the news of Gloria Lamark’s death by chance, when he was waiting in a private house to take a statement and the only thing to read had been a copy of The Times. Poor old Gloria Lamark, he thought. Whatever happened to her? She’d made quite a few pictures, some very good, but then her career had petered out way back in the mid-sixties, whereas Cora Burstridge’s had taken off. They had been famous rivals at one time, he remembered, Halliwell or Kim Newman had talked about it in one of their books on the movies of that era.
He could remember how beautiful Gloria Lamark had been. She’d been called England’s Marilyn Monroe and there were indeed similarities. She’d had that same quality of innocence and charm as Marilyn. He remembered in Double Zero with Michael Redgrave and Herbert Lom, the way she had smiled so innocently while lifting Michael Redgrave’s wallet as they embraced on the dance floor and –
‘Glenn, it was you last week put out an alert on a suspect Jag on the seafront, wasn’t it?’ Will Guppy said, without turning his head.
‘Last week?’ His mind was a blank for a second.
‘You prat! I was out with a uniform crew and we stopped it.’
It came back now. The Jaguar he had spotted on his way to Cora Burstridge’s flat. ‘Right! Got it!’
‘You are a fucking tosser. Know who was driving it?’
‘Who?’
‘Only Glen Drury. Only Glen fucking Drury, who just got a seven-million-pound transfer fee to Newcastle United and is probably going to be the next England striker, and you go and report him as having nicked his own brand new set of wheels. Good one!’
‘I hope he plays football better than he drives,’ Glenn replied, unfazed. He was about to take another sip of his tea when his phone rang. He picked up the receiver and heard the voice of the female switchboard operator.
‘Glenn, I’ve got a DC Roebuck from the Met, wants some help from someone in Hove. Can I put him through to you?’
‘Sure.’
The London Metropolitan Police considered themselves the cream, and could be arrogant when dealing with provincials. This one wasn’t. He had a polite, good-natured voice.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you could do me a favour. I need some help on a missing person. Her name is Tina Mackay. Thirty-three years old, editorial director with a London publishing house. Has not been seen since early evening, Wednesday July the ninth, when she failed to turn up for a date with her boyfriend.’
Glenn had his notepad open in front of him and was jotting details down as he listened. ‘I’m familiar with her name. We’ve had pictures of her sent down. There’s been a fair bit of press coverage, right?’
‘Yes. She’s quite prominent in the publishing world. She was last seen by a colleague just before seven that day, leaving the office. Collected her car from the multi-storey nearby where she had a contract parking arrangement. The attendant was distracted by two car alarms that had gone off simultaneously. He noticed her car leaving, but only from a distance and can’t identify who was driving. No one has heard from her since.’
‘Is this a murder inquiry?’
A brief silence. ‘We don’t have a body but we’re stepping up our inquiries a little. That’s all at this stage.’
‘How can we help you?’
‘I’ve been going through her expenses. She put in a standard claim form for the week ending July the fourth. There was a petrol receipt for a PDH garage in Old Shoreham Road, Hove dated June the twenty-ninth.’
Glenn flicked through his diary. ‘That was a Sunday?’
‘Yes. All she put down on the form was “Lunch, Robert Mason”. That name is not known to anyone in her company or to her family. She doesn’t appear to have mentioned him to anyone.’
‘If she put expenses in that means it’s to do with her work,’ Glenn said.
Then he detected a wry note in the reply. ‘Assuming she was honest with her expenses.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ said Glenn.
DC Roebuck laughed. ‘Of course. Wouldn’t dream of trying to stick a day at the seaside on my expenses.’
‘I wouldn’t need to,’ Glenn said. ‘Life’s one long beach here.’
‘Lucky sod. You ever need any help with topless sun-bathers, let me know, I’ll be straight down.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind. But you’ll be at the back of the queue.’
‘Thanks, pal. OK, business. Could you check out this Robert Mason for me, so we can eliminate him?’
‘You have any other details on him?’
‘Sorry, that’s it.’
‘No problem. What’s your first name?’
‘Simon. Simon Roebuck. You?’
‘Glenn Branson.’
‘Any relation to Richard?’
‘I wish!’
Roebuck said he would fax down full details about the inquiry, gave his direct line and his mobile number, thanked Glenn and hung up.
Glenn entered the name Robert Mason into the Sussex Police computer files but nothing showed up. Then he opened the phone directory and saw, to his dismay, about a hundred and fifty Masons listed.
Bastard! he thought, realising that Roebuck had offloaded a pile of thankless donkeywork on him. He ran a finger down the names. Fifteen had an ‘R’ among the initials. At least that narrowed it down.
While he waited for Roebuck’s fax to come through, his thoughts turned back to Cora Burstridge.
It would take a couple of days for the blood and fluid samples the pathologist had taken from the body to be analysed by the lab. By the time he got the pathologist’s report through from the coroner, it would be early next week. If Dr Church found nothing suspicious, her body would be released by then and her funeral arrangements made.
He had a week to satisfy himself that she really had committed suicide.
And he didn’t yet have any idea where or how to start looking.
Chapter Forty-three
The same woman as earlier answered the phone.
‘Oh, hallo,’ Michael said. ‘Could I speak to Amanda Capstick?’
Irritation. ‘She hasn’t come in yet. May I take a message?’
‘I’ll call back, thanks.’
He hung up.
It was one o’clock. His next patient was due at two fifteen. He felt ragged from lack of sleep. She would call, of course she would call. She was busy, her work was hectic, she’d already told him that. Her early meeting had gone on later than she’d expected, that was all.
He looked out of the window but it was still raining hard. Even so he decided to brave it, he needed fresh air. If he went out for half an hour, he’d arrive back to find a message from her.
He checked his e-mail again. Another dozen had come in but he barely noted who they were from: he was looking for one name only, and it wasn’t there.
He took the main section of The Times, the blue and yellow golfing umbrella that someone had left in his waiting room a year back and had never claimed, slipped his mobile phone into his raincoat pocket, told his secretary at the Princess Royal Hospital, Angela Witley, whom he shared with two other psychiatrists, that he was popping out, and asked her to give Amanda Capstick his mobile number if she rang.
He walked down to Tottenham Court Road, crossed over, then cut through into Cleveland Street and joined the short queue at the counter of his favourite sandwich bar. He wasn’t hungry but he needed energy; the slice of toast and bowl of cereal he’d forced down at breakfast had gone and he was aware that his gloomy mood was being exaggerated by his low blood-sugar level.
‘Don’t worry, it no gonna happen!’
Michael looked up with a start to discover it was his turn. The irrepressibly cheery Greek owner beamed up at him like a man with six numbers up on his lottery ticket. He smiled back drily. ‘Your people were all right. You had Byron to solve your problems.’
Still beaming like a lottery winner. ‘And you have Mr Blair.’ He made the name sound like a deity.
‘Blair’s not a poet.’
‘But he’s good Prime Minister, yes?’
‘He doesn’t have much to beat,’ Michael replied.
He ordered a tuna-salad sandwich on sourdough, a banana, and a can of Coke, which he normally only drank as a hangover remedy. The rain was easing and he took the dainty brown carrier bag across into Regent’s Park and strode briskly towards the lake.
Every time he saw a flash of blonde hair his hopes rose, and he looked carefully, just in case it might be Amanda. It was the kind of coincidence that could happen, he reasoned against logic.
There was a bench close to the water, sheltered under the overhang of a massive chestnut tree. He folded his Burberry and sat down on it – remembering the day Katy had dragged him off to Simpson’s in his lunch hour to buy it, because she could no longer stand the battered mackintosh he’d worn for years. Dirty old man’s raincoat! she called it.
He checked that his phone was switched on and there was a reception signal. All five black dashes were lit. The signal could not be stronger. If someone tried to call, it would ring loud and clear.
He unwrapped his sandwich, took a bite and, chewing slowly, started to scan his newspaper. He was finding it hard to get into any of the stories until one headline caught his eye.
THE HIDDEN TRAGEDY OF MISSING PERSONS.
249,762 persons went missing in Great Britain last year, according to figures published this week by the National Missing Persons’ Helpline. Astonishingly, 34% will never appear again if the trend of the past decade holds true.
Wheelchair-bound mother of three, Paulette Flowering, is one of the latest parents to experience the nightmare of a missing child.
Her son, 19-year-old trainee journalist Justin, disappeared twelve days ago, after leaving the offices of the Mill Hill Messenger newspaper, where he had been working for the previous six months.
‘Justin was finding the job very stressful,’ she said. ‘And he was unhappy about the attitude of some staff members towards him. He ran away from school twice, but on both those occasions phoned me within a couple of days to let me know he was all right. I’m very worried about him.’
Michael took another bite of his sandwich and read on. The highest percentage of missing persons was among teenage children, but there were plenty of adults too, in all walks of life. A senior editor at a London publishing house had been missing for nearly three weeks – Michael recalled there had been heavy press coverage of that, and pictures of the attractive, dark-haired woman had been on national television news.
A fair number of seemingly successful professional people disappeared each year: in the past twelve months there had been bank managers, lawyers, estate agents, an airline pilot and – a psychiatrist.
‘We can assume a small percentage of these people have engineered their own disappearances for convenience,’ said retired Chief Superintendent Dick Jarvis of the National Missing Persons’ Helpline. ‘Insurance deceptions and bigamous marriages are two of the most common reasons; you may remember the famous case of the postmaster general, John Stonehouse, who left all his clothes on a beach in Miami in 1974, to imply he had drowned. In fact, he was alive and well and living under a different identity in Australia.’
Michael ate the last mouthful of his sandwich. Then he checked his mobile phone. All five black dashes sat there in the window, smugly reassuring him of perfect reception in this area.
She’s probably stopped for lunch with whomever it was she was meeting. You’re not likely to hear from her until after two, so stop fretting.
But he couldn’t.
He got back to his office on the dot of two. By a quarter past she still had not rung. His next patient was in the waiting room. A twenty-eight-year-old hot-shot commodities broker, who worked eighteen hours a day to earn one and a half million a year and wondered why he was suffering panic attacks.
Michael told his secretary to send him in. At least his mind would be occupied for the next forty-five minutes. By then it would be three o’clock.
Amanda would have to be back in her office by then.
Surely?
Chapter Forty-four
Michael’s four-thirty appointment was late. He had two more patients this afternoon, a short staff meeting, and he had to visit, briefly, two in-patients. Then he was finished – at least, here in the office. This evening, at home, he had to write his weekly piece for the Thursday Daily Mail and fax it through in the morning. Tuesday, ten a.m., was his copy deadline. Any slippage on that, and his editor would get twitchy. He didn’t like to be late, it was unprofessional.
He didn’t imagine Amanda would be unprofessional either. Which was why the news he was now hearing from the yahoo-voiced young woman on the other end of the phone disturbed him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘She still hasn’t arrived. You’ve rung earlier, I recognise your voice.’
‘Yes, I’m Dr Tennent. Amanda’s doing a segment with me in your documentary series on therapy.’
The young woman’s tone warmed considerably. ‘Dr Tennent! Yah, of course. I’m Lulu, her assistant.’
‘Right. Lulu, do you have her mobile number? Maybe I could try that.’
‘Yah, I’ll give it to you, but I think it’s switched off. I’ve been trying and I just get the answering-service.’
Although they had slept together, Amanda was still a stranger to Michael, and her private world – home and business – was unfamiliar territory to him. He was aware that he had no right to pry into her life but he just could not believe she deliberately wouldn’t call him.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘Lulu, is she OK?’
The assistant hesitated. ‘Actually, we’re getting worried.’
The words sent a deadweight of fear plunging in free-fall through him.
Lulu went on, ‘She had an important nine-thirty meeting at the BBC this morning, and I’ve just heard that she never showed up – or rang. And we were expecting her in the office for a meeting here at twelve and haven’t heard a word from her. She’s normally very good about keeping in touch. I hope she hasn’t had an accident over the weekend or something.’
It was too soon to start panicking, but Michael couldn’t get the feeling out of his system that something was very wrong. He had no idea how close or otherwise Amanda’s relationship was with Lulu, but knew he should not be divulging details of her private life to her office staff, so he kept it as professional-sounding as he could. ‘Amanda and I – we . . .’ He hesitated. ‘We met on Sunday afternoon. I had a patient driving in a stock-car race at Arlington, near Eastbourne. Amanda thought it might add a bit of production value to the piece if –’
Lulu saved him from having to go on. ‘Yes, she told me she was seeing you. She was looking forward to it.’
Michael could have sworn he detected a hint of humour in her voice, as if Amanda had told her a lot more than she was letting on. ‘She left the race meeting about half three to drive to her sister, somewhere near Heathfield.’
‘Chiddingly,’ Lulu said. ‘If she hasn’t come in by the end of the day I’m going to go round to her flat and make sure she’s not lying unconscious or anything.’ There was a brief pause, and then she added, unconvincingly, ‘Ther
e’s probably a perfectly good explanation. Maybe she’s double-booked herself and completely forgotten about the Beeb meeting. And she’s just got a new mobile – she’s been complaining about the reception. I’m certain there’s a perfectly good reason.’
She didn’t sound at all certain.
Michael felt agonisingly impotent. He wasn’t sure what else he could do or say at this point. Yet he wanted, desperately, to do something.
He clutched at one final straw. ‘Lulu, tell me something.’ He was glad he had her name: using it made him feel he was now at least some part of Amanda’s inner circle. ‘Is it like her to forget a meeting?’
‘No,’ Lulu said. ‘It isn’t. It isn’t like her at all.’
Chapter Forty-five
A woman answered the phone. Polite.
He needed to be tactful. For all he knew, Tina Mackay could have been having an illicit affair with someone down here. ‘This is Detective Constable Branson from Hove Police making a routine inquiry. Does a Mr Robert Mason live at this address?’
‘Robert Mason? No, no Robert Mason. You don’t mean Dave Mason?’
‘We’re looking for Robert Mason.’
‘I’m sorry. My husband’s name is Dave.’
‘You don’t by any chance know a Robert Mason?’
Brief pause for thought, then, ‘No, no, I don’t.’ Not over-bright, but she sounded straightforward enough.
Glenn thanked her, hung up, and put a line through the photocopied phone-book entry. Nine down. Six so far were negative. One hadn’t answered, and two were answering-machines, neither of which gave a name. He cursed DC Simon Roebuck of the Met yet again for lumbering him with this search.
It was a quarter to five, and he’d only just got back to the office after going off with his partners to arrest a suspect drugs dealer, who was a former kick-boxing champion. They’d gone in a team because they thought he might be violent. He turned out to be a pathetic, ageing wreck, in a drugged stupor, and gave them no trouble.