by Janet Tanner
‘Where is it?’
‘In the short-stay car park.’
‘Then I’ll come with you. I could do with stretching my legs.’
He took her suitcase from her, noticing with some surprise how light it was. When Ros went anywhere she seemed to take her entire wardrobe with her. They went out through the swing doors. It was not raining today but the air was still damp and cold for June. Maggie shivered.
‘After Corfu this feels like the Arctic! I should have brought some warmer clothes. But I suppose I can always borrow something of Ros’s.’
They walked the short distance to the car park, where Mike unlocked the boot of his Citroen and put Maggie’s case inside. Then he let her into the passenger side, got in himself and turned on the heater.
‘It shouldn’t take too long to warm up. But you’re right, the weather is pretty foul for midsummer.’ He stopped to pay the parking fee and pulled away towards the airport exit. ‘You still plan to stay at the cottage, do you?’
‘Yes. It seems the sensible thing to do.’
‘Do you want to go straight there or do you want to get something to eat?’
‘No, it’s all right, I ate on the plane.’
‘Perhaps we ought to stop at a garage so you can buy milk and bread.’
‘That might be an idea.’ They swung out on to the main road. ‘So,’ Maggie said, still hugging herself with her arms to try to get warm, ‘ what is this all about, Mike?’
Mike changed gear smoothly, the car gathered speed.
‘I wish I knew. But to be honest I don’t think I can tell you any more than I told you on the telephone. When I left for my week at school camp Ros was here – everything seemed perfectly normal. When I came back, no Ros. And no messages, no phone calls, nothing. Not a single word from her.’
‘And nobody else has heard from her either?’
‘Not as far as I know. I’ve rung just about everybody I can think of, without any success, but of course there may be someone I’ve missed. Ros’s address book is in her Filofax and she takes that everywhere with her, so there’s no way I can check if I’ve missed anybody. That’s one area I’m hoping you might be able to help with.’
‘I can try,’ Maggie said doubtfully. ‘ But I’ve been in Corfu for the last three years, remember. I knew all her old friends, of course, but I’m sure during that time she’s made some new ones. And it’s always possible that the ones I do know will have moved or married or something. Though I suppose if I could give them some starting points the police could take it from there.’
Mike snorted, executing a racing change to sneak through a bend in the narrow curving lane.
‘The police aren’t being exactly helpful. They seem to think Ros has simply gone walkabout and her whereabouts are none of their business – or mine, either.’
‘You mean they aren’t going to do anything?’
‘They said they would institute enquiries but I got the distinct impression they would be low-key, low-priority. The policeman to whom I reported her missing was fart-assing on about it not being his area and I think he thought it was just a case of a broken romance – Ros running out on me and not wanting me to know where she’d gone.’
‘It’s not that, is it?’ Maggie asked.
Mike glanced in her direction, eyes narrowing.
‘I don’t think so. Do you?’
‘No. Ros isn’t the run-out type. She’s a girl who stays to fight her corner. And besides …’ She broke off, not wanting to put into words the thought that had occurred to her – that Mike really did not look like the sort of man girls ran out on. With that profile, the crooked nose and strong jawline, with those narrow hazel eyes and wide sensuous mouth, with his powerful yet athletic physique and a smile to die for Mike was more likely to excite undying adoration than be run out on. He might be an utter heel, of course, beneath all the outward charm, but even that, in Maggie’s experience, was unlikely to sway things much. Women didn’t run out on devastatingly attractive heels as a rule. They ran out on ordinary nice guys who bought them flowers and chocolates and did everything in their power to please. Unfair, but true. And besides, unless Ros had had a massive change of heart she had been crazy about Mike. He was the best thing that had happened to her in a long time, she had said, and somehow Maggie could not believe she had fallen out of love with him so completely that she had gone to these lengths to avoid him, or that it would be in her nature to do so. She had not even run away from Brendan, and goodness knows, he’d given her cause. She had stayed and brazened it out, in spite of his jealousy, in spite of his violence. She hadn’t run then and comfortable though it would be from Maggie’s point of view to accept the explanation favoured by the police, she honestly did not think it was likely.
‘I suppose one can’t blame them in a way,’ Mike was saying. ‘ I had a pal in the force once and he used to say more people went missing after domestic disputes than for any other reason – not just lovers’ tiffs, of course, but problems between parents and children and husbands and wives as well. I expect the poor old overworked constable I saw thinks he’s heard it all before.’
‘Perhaps they’ll take more notice of me,’ Maggie said. ‘I’ll get on to them tomorrow and try to find out what progress they are making.’
‘None I should think or they’d have got back to me, surely.’
‘We’ll see,’ Maggie said. ‘Oh – is that a garage there? Will they sell milk, do you suppose?’
‘There’s a good chance they might.’ Mike pulled on to the forecourt, parking beside the little shop that housed the pay desk, and Maggie went inside, noticing with some surprise the range of goods on sale, from groceries to flowers and even some household plasticware. When she had lived in England garages had sold chocolate bars and cigarettes and de-icer for the car windscreen, and that was about all.
She selected a carton of milk, a loaf of bread, biscuits and coffee, paid for them and went back to where Mike was waiting. There would almost certainly be coffee in Ros’s store cupboard, she imagined, but she wasn’t prepared to chance it. Getting up tomorrow morning and finding herself without any didn’t bear thinking about!
Ros’s cottage was only a few miles further on, on the outskirts of the village of Stoke-sub-Mendip. As Mike turned the car into the lane leading to it Maggie noticed the hedgerows, burgeoning thick and green from all the recent rain, and the thick clumps of white cow parsley growing against them. The may was still in flower, too, overhanging the road in places, and through the gateways she glimpsed meadows with cows grazing placidly, interspersed with fields of bright yellow rapeseed.
A Somerset idyll, she thought. No wonder her sister loved it here and was unwilling to move, lonely though the spot was for a woman living alone.
There were just two houses in the lane and Ros’s was the second, a tiny picture-book cottage which had once been the dwelling of farm labourers. The cottage was square with low eaves, but a single-storey extension which had at some time been built on to the side gave it a slightly lopsided look. One wall was covered with Virginia creeper, red-tinged leaves giving a warm glow to the grey stone, and honeysuckle grew around the little porch that shielded the front door. But as Mike pulled on to the gravelled hardstanding to the side of the gate Maggie noticed that the tiny front garden had a slightly uncared-for look about it, with roses that needed pruning and shrubs and herbaceous plants jostling for light and space around the lawn, which was at least ankle deep and thick with clover and even the odd dandelion.
Ros didn’t have much time for gardening, she knew, though she pretended to enjoy ‘pottering’, and she used to employ a man from the village to come in for a few hours a week to keep the place tidy. It didn’t look as though he’d been lately, and briefly Maggie wondered why. He might simply be ill or on holiday of course – it didn’t take long for a garden to run riot at this time of year.
Mike got her case out of the boot and carried it to the front door, turning the keys on his key ring
to select the appropriate one. As she waited Maggie breathed in the scent of the honeysuckle, heavy on the evening air, but when he pushed open the door and she stepped into the tiny hallway it was quickly overpowered by the airless smell of a house that had been shut up for more than a week.
It shocked her somehow, that smell, reminding her forcefully that Ros was not here. It had been so different last time she had visited. Ros was a superb cordon bleu cook, who loved to entertain when she had time, and the kitchen had been full of the lingering aromas of frying garlic and fresh herbs, simmering wine sauces and fresh-brewed coffee. In winter Ros was in the habit of burning perfumed candles, in summer the scent of freesias and roses filled the house. Now what flowers there were were dead, their withered petals lying in sad, untidy drifts around the murky-looking vases.
Mike set down Maggie’s case in the hall and followed her through to the kitchen where she was unloading the purchases she had made at the garage on to one of Ros’s spotless formica worktops.
Apart from a cereal bowl and cup washed up and left upside down on the draining board the kitchen was reasonably tidy.
‘It’s not exactly the Marie Celeste, is it?’ she said doubtfully. ‘I mean – it doesn’t look as though she left in a hurry.’
‘No, but you know Ros. She likes to clear up even before going to work. And I have had a bit of a tidy round. I threw out the milk that had gone sour and some rotten fruit. And I stopped the newspapers and picked up the post – there’s probably some more now in that wire basket thing under the letter box.’
‘I’ll sort it out later on.’ Maggie leaned over to open a window and let in some fresh air, then emptied the water that had been standing in the kettle, swilled it out and refilled it from the cold tap.
‘Let’s have a cup of coffee. Or do you have to get off?’
‘No rush.’ Mike usually played squash on a Wednesday evening but he had cancelled tonight. ‘The most important thing on the agenda is trying to find out what the hell has happened to Ros.’ He paused, watching Maggie unhook beakers from Ros’s wooden mug tree and spoon instant coffee into them. ‘You don’t think I’ve blown this up out of all proportion, do you?’
She bit her lip, a little-girl gesture which was at odds with her sophisticated appearance and made her look suddenly very vulnerable.
‘I wish I did. I notice her car wasn’t outside, Mike. Wherever she went she must have been driving it. And what about her clothes? Have you checked to see how much she has taken with her?’
‘No.’
‘Then let’s do that while we’re waiting for the kettle to boil. You’ll have to help me. I haven’t seen enough of her recently to know what’s missing.’
‘Her trenchcoat seems to be. That usually hangs behind the door. But that doesn’t tell us anything. We’ve had so much rain recently she’d hardly be likely to go anywhere without it. But I’m not sure I’ll know what else is missing. Ros seems to have an awful lot of clothes.’
Maggie smiled briefly. Mike was of course a typical man’s man who had not the slightest interest in women’s fashions. She imagined her very smart, very clothes-conscious sister going to a great deal of trouble to dress up for him and not realising for a moment that he hadn’t a clue what she was wearing – beyond the fact that, as usual, she looked stunning. But she was determined to try to make him remember.
She led the way up the steep and narrow staircase. Ros’s bedroom was on the right of the landing. The bed, with its designer duvet of pinks and mauves, was neatly made, a paperback book, opened, was on a small octagonal table beside it, and on top of the book lay Ros’s reading glasses. Maggie’s stomach contracted. Ros couldn’t read small print without glasses, she knew – would she have intentionally gone anywhere without them? It was possible she had another pair, of course – one pair for reading in bed, one pair kept in her handbag so that she could be sure of having them with her at all times … Yes, that sounded like businesslike, well-organised Ros.
Maggie looked around the bedroom feeling like an intruder. On the dressing table, which was covered with a thin layer of dust, a small family of china animals Maggie remembered from their shared childhood gave her a sharp whiff of nostalgia; beside them stood a bottle of Ros’s favourite perfume, Coco, still in its cardboard carton to protect it from the light. Again Maggie wondered – would she have gone away for any length of time without her perfume? But she might have a small phial of it in her bag, and there were no pots of cream or tubes of foundation jostling for space in front of the mirror.
‘Her make-up doesn’t seem to be here,’ she said hopefully.
‘I think she keeps it in the bathroom,’ Mike offered, and Maggie remembered that as the man in Ros’s life he would be familiar with the intimate details of her routine – had often slept with her in this bed, in all probability. ‘ I’ll see if it’s there.’
A moment later he was back.
‘It’s there all right, at least, it looks to me as though it is.’
Maggie went into the bathroom to check. Sure enough, pots of moisturiser and night cream, cleansing lotion, foundation and a jar of face powder were lined up on a shelf above the basin, and her heart sank. Ominous, but still not conclusive. Ros could have miniature versions in a vanity bag. She was the sort who would organise her life that way.
‘Where are her clothes?’ she asked – there had been only a very small wardrobe in the bedroom, prettily carved but more ornamental than functional.
‘Spare room.’ He led the way past the room Maggie had used when she had stayed to a door at the end of the landing. ‘ She had it converted to a sort of walk-in wardrobe a couple of months ago. As I told you, she has rather a lot of clothes.’
That was, Maggie thought as he opened the door, the understatement of the year. The tiny room was full of clothes – row upon row of hangers, the garments all shielded by plastic dust bags, and in a corner a rack of shoes. This could take all night. But at least Ros had things organised. Her summer clothes were nearest the door, whilst her coats and winter suits had been packed away in the least accessible places.
‘What has she been wearing recently?’ Maggie asked.
Mike shrugged helplessly. ‘Well – dresses, I suppose. Trousers sometimes. She has been wearing a pair of white denim jeans,’ he added with a sudden flash of inspiration.
Maggie sighed, flipping through some of the clothes. Two or three linen suits, half a dozen cool but smart dresses, a casual pyjama-style pants suit, a raw-silk jacket and trousers … It was impossible to know whether Ros would have chosen to take them with her if she had planned a holiday. But there were only a few empty hangers – that must say something. Of the white denim jeans there was no sign. Perhaps she had been wearing them when she had gone … wherever she had gone. Maggie said as much to Mike and he nodded.
‘She’s got an emerald-green thing she wears with them,’ he offered.
‘An emerald-green thing?’
‘A shirt. I can’t see that here. But that …’ he indicated the pants suit, ‘I’ve seen her in that a lot. I’d have thought she’d have taken that. And that cream shirt-dress is another favourite. But I honestly wouldn’t like to say for certain.’
‘I know. It’s impossible, isn’t it?’ Maggie was struck by another thought. ‘Suitcase! Has her suitcase gone?’
‘I don’t know. She keeps it in the attic.’
Maggie was overcome by a feeling of utter weariness. Suddenly she thought she did not want to know for certain whether Ros’s suitcase was missing. If it was there, in the attic, it would confirm all their worst fears and she did not think she could cope with that confirmation just at the moment.
‘Let’s go down and have that coffee first,’ she said. ‘The kettle will have boiled by now.’
They went back downstairs. Dusk had begun to fall, and though some of the staleness had gone out of the kitchen now, the dim light intensified the deserted feel of the place. Strange, Maggie thought. There were two of them here now
, yet because Ros, whose home it was, was not here the aura of emptiness remained. Disconcerted, she switched the lights on, thinking that at least here in England one did not have to worry about the light attracting the mosquitoes.
‘I don’t like it, Mike,’ she said, pouring hot water on to the coffee and opening the carton of milk.
With easy familiarity he fetched a bowl of sugar from a cupboard and stirred some into the mug she pushed across the counter towards him.
‘No,’ he said quietly, ‘neither do I. You see why I was worried, Maggie.’
‘The police will have to do something. If we made a list of all the suspicious circumstances …’
He brought his fist down hard on the counter and the mug shook, spilling coffee on to the formica surface.
‘Dammit, we shouldn’t have to do that! Why won’t they take our word for it? We know her, for God’s sake. We know she wouldn’t just go off like this without telling anyone. I’m going to talk to them again myself in the morning – try and shake them up, insist something is done. I mean suppose – just suppose – that something has happened to her. Suppose somebody is holding her against her will. I know it sounds bloody melodramatic but these things do happen. If it was something like that, the sooner the police start believing she hasn’t just run off to avoid me the better.’
‘You’re right,’ Maggie agreed. ‘There’s a limit to what we can do and how quickly we can do it. And as you say, time could be of the essence if she has been kidnapped …’
She broke off. Worried as she was, wild as her imaginings might be, to actually speak the word ‘kidnapped’ in connection with Ros sounded ridiculously lurid, like a story from one of the tabloids. As for anything else … Maggie was all too painfully aware that both she and Mike had referred to ‘kidnapping’ or ‘being held against her will’ because the other possibility – that something even worse had befallen Ros – was too dreadful to face. But it was there at the back of both their minds all the same, a looming fear they could not bring themselves to mention, yet very real for all that. If Ros was missing and not of her own volition there could be only two explanations – the one they had put into words and the other which they dared not …