by Anne Morice
To my surprise and relief, she refused, adding not over-graciously that she could do with a cup of tea if it wouldn’t be any trouble. It was quite a lot of trouble as it happened because Mrs Cheeseman, who works for us when she is able to, is very inventive about finding new hiding places and I spent a tedious ten minutes tracking down the tea caddy. Also I resented every second’s delay in finding out why Brenda had come at all. When the full story came out I was inclined to attribute her visit to the circumstance of my husband’s being a police detective, although she maintained right up to the end that it was my personal advice she was seeking.
I eventually returned with the tray and placed it beside her and then drew one pair of curtains, blocking out most of the light, on the pretext of making the room a little cooler. I doubt if it did so, but it certainly had the desired effect of forcing her to take off her glasses in order to distinguish between the cup and the sugar bowl. Having done so, she turned her head away from me, though not fast enough to prevent my seeing her puffy pink lids. The sight of them instantly made me feel guilty, for I realised that the glasses had masked either some eye infection or the fact that she had been crying for hours on end.
“What’s the trouble?” I asked, trying to adopt a bracing tone. “Something wrong with Mike?”
She nodded, pressing a handkerchief to her mouth and then, to my utter astonishment, she asked:
“You wouldn’t have seen him, by any chance?”
“Not lately, no. I regret to say that I haven’t set foot in a film studio for over a month.”
“I didn’t mean there. The studio people don’t know where he is either. I just thought you might possibly have heard from him? He hasn’t many friends outside his work and I don’t know who else to ask.”
I stared at her: “You mean you really have no idea where he is?”
She shook her head, dumbly at first, then after a sip of tea said in a stronger voice:
“That’s about it and it’s driving me round the bend. I know I’ve no right to lumber you with my troubles, but I happened to hear you on the radio this morning and you sounded so sort of warm and friendly, if you know what I mean, so I thought, ‘Here goes!’ Besides, I remembered you’d been kind to me at that god-awful party. I was scared silly and you were about the only person who bothered to come near me. I was hoping you might be able to help me now.”
“And so I will, if I can, but why were you scared silly?”
“I’m not sure really, but I was feeling awful that evening. Can’t understand what came over me, but the fact is that I’ve never been any use at parties at the best of times. Can’t communicate, I suppose. I’m hopeless with strangers and film people are the worst of all. It’s such a closed shop and I always feel they’re despising me. Mike never likes to talk about his work when he’s at home and he doesn’t invite any of his mates to the house, so it’s not all my fault that I can’t get on with them. Just the same, I always feel such a nit. I still don’t understand what came over me that evening though. Don’t remember much about it, to be honest with you.”
“And there hasn’t been any more recent occasion where the same kind of thing happened? What I mean is, something which you don’t remember too well, but which upset Mike and caused him to go off on his own for a bit?”
“No, honestly, Miss Crichton, there’s been nothing like that, I swear. Everything was perfectly normal right up to the minute he left. That’s what makes me feel so awful. It’s not knowing what’s made him do it and whether he means to come back which has got me into such a state.”
“Yes, I can understand that, but isn’t there somebody closer to you that you could confide in? Someone in your family, for instance?”
“No, I’ve only got my sister. She lives up North, and a fat lot she cares!”
“What about neighbours?”
“Oh no, I couldn’t say anything to them, I’d rather die. They’re such a snoopy lot, most of them, and they’d simply lap up a story like this. Besides, they’d talk about it in front of their children and then it would get back to Barry and Keith. Those are our two boys. I’m trying to keep it from them for as long as I can. I’ve told them their Dad is doing a job on location. He often doesn’t get home until after they’re in bed and sometimes he has to work weekends and that, but all the same I think they sense there’s something wrong. For one thing, Mike usually manages to phone me when he has to spend a night away.”
“Who’s looking after the boys today?”
“Oh, they’re both at school now. Barry’s seven and Keith started this term, he’s just five. They stay for school dinner, so I don’t have to meet them till four. That’s when they’ll begin asking about their Daddy and I’ll have to invent some more lies for them. Honestly, I don’t think I can go on much longer. That’s why I’ve come to you. You struck me as a bit more human than most of the gang he works with. And then again you were one of the few people he used to talk about when he was at home. I thought he might possibly have been in touch with you.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, no. We aren’t really on those terms, you know.”
“Yes, I suppose it was a silly idea really. Mike never was one for giving much of himself away. Not even to me. Isn’t it awful to think you can share a bed with someone for nearly ten years and still know so little about them that when they walk out on you you haven’t a clue about where they might have gone to? No, if I’m honest, I suppose the real reason I came here was that I was afraid I’d go mad if I didn’t talk to someone and I was hoping you’d at least listen and give me some advice.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I’d love to help you, I really would. I’m fond of Mike and it doesn’t sound at all in character for him to behave like this, but I’m afraid the only advice I can give you is to go straight to the police.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t do that,” she replied at once, and more or less as I had anticipated.
“Why not? They can be very discreet.”
“Oh, I daresay, but all the same they’d come round asking questions of all the neighbours and everything. It stands to reason, doesn’t it? And I couldn’t bear that. Besides, Mike would be livid if he found out. He must have had some reason for going off like he has and if . . . when he comes back he’d be furious with me for making it public property. He can’t stand people poking into his affairs.”
“But listen, Mrs Parsons . . .”
“Oh, do call me Brenda.”
“All right, and my name is Tessa by the way. What I was going to say, Brenda, was that you may have got it all wrong. Perhaps he’s been in a car accident and is suffering from loss of memory? It can happen, you know. He might be sitting in some police station at this very moment, while they check through the list of missing persons.”
She looked at me doubtfully. “Yes, I’ve thought of that, naturally, but it’s just not on. For one thing, he always carries a cartload of stuff around in his pocket book. You know, driving licence, credit card, all that lot. And he’s taken his wallet with him, I’m certain of that. I’ve searched everywhere and it’s not in the house. He was driving his own car too, so if he’s been injured in a road accident they could still have traced him through the registration number.”
“So he’s taken the car, has he? Doesn’t that put you in rather a fix?”
“No, I don’t drive, you see. Tried to learn once or twice, but I couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. Mike said my reflexes were too slow or something. Anyway, the car wouldn’t be much use to me because he always takes it to drive to work. There isn’t any other way for him to get there.”
“And what else did he take, if you don’t mind my asking? Clothes? Razor? Things like that?”
She hesitated, picking up the sunglasses and twiddling them around in her hand, as though tempted to put them on again and I said hastily:
“Forgive me, that was a foolish question. I know that if someone asked me the same thing about Robin I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how many sh
irts and pullovers he possesses, or razors either, come to that.”
She sighed: “Well, you’ve got more excuse, I suppose. I mean, being an actress and having your own career and everything.”
“I don’t feel the need of an excuse,” I told her. “No one would expect Robin to know how many shoes and hats I have.”
“Well, that’s different, isn’t it? I mean, a wife is expected to take care of her husband’s belongings. At least, that’s how most people see it, but they shouldn’t set themselves up to judge really. Mike’s very self-reliant, you know. Always buys his own clothes and takes them to the cleaners himself and all that.”
“Yes, and perhaps he’s not so exceptional as you imagine. To get back to the main problem, though, what makes you so convinced that this isn’t a case of amnesia? I don’t want to add to your worries, but supposing he’d been mugged and knocked unconscious and had his wallet stolen?”
“The trouble is, people don’t get mugged lying in bed in their own house, do they?”
“Well, that’s probably true,” I admitted, “but I’m not sure if I follow you.”
She nodded: “I know, I explain things badly. Look, Tessa, if it’s not an awful bind for you, could I tell you from the beginning? Even talking this much has made me feel calmer and you never know, you might notice some point I’d missed when you’ve heard the lot.”
I made no claims to altruism in giving my consent, for I was bursting with curiosity, but another sort of appetite was also forcing itself on my attention and I said:
“Okay, but let’s first of all go into the kitchen and find something to eat. Personally, I’m starving and you don’t look as though you’ve had a square meal lately. You can talk to me while I’m getting it ready.”
CHAPTER TWO
Omitting most of the repetitions as well as my own queries and interruptions and putting it all into a straight sequence, Brenda’s story was as follows:
“It began on Monday night,” she said. “That would be three days ago now. Mike got home about nine, after the kids were asleep. Yes, it was a bit late. He’d been doing a lot of overtime lately, including the Saturday and Sunday. It was some American production they were recording over here, as far as I can remember. Anyway, they’d finished it all up on the Monday and he and the rest of the sound crew had been given Tuesday off.
“Yes, he was a bit on the tired side, but nothing out of the ordinary. He looks frail, but he’s very strong and wiry, you know, and he’s accustomed to long hours. They often have these spurts when they want to finish on schedule and don’t have to worry about costs. He was in a cheerful mood too, looking forward to getting a few jobs done in the garden and if the weather held we were going to have a look at some boats. We’ve only got a small thing at the moment, with an outboard motor, but now the boys are getting bigger Mike thought they’d be able to handle something more ambitious, and it’s always been his dream to own a really swanky job. He’d marked one or two possibles in the local paper and he was going to ring round in the morning and fix up for us all to go and see them after school. Looking back on it, there doesn’t seem to have been a hint of anything wrong that evening.
“No, he didn’t want any supper. He’d managed to get a sandwich in the canteen during a break and he never drinks, as you probably know. So we both had some cocoa and talked for a bit; about an hour all told, I suppose it was, and then we went to bed.
“The next morning, Tuesday that would be, I got up at my usual time, which is seven, but Mike was still asleep and I moved around very quietly so as not to disturb him. I warned the boys about it too. They’re good kids, not like some of the hooligans on our estate, and they did their best not to make a sound. I kept the kitchen door shut while we had our breakfast and when I’d stacked everything into the dishwasher we went off to school.
“No, I don’t have to take them the whole way, only as far as the school bus, which goes from the new shopping centre at the bottom of the hill. It’s about half a mile down from where we live. Mike sometimes drops them off at the school on his way to the studios, but mostly I take them to the bus and I always meet them off it just after four. Well, yes, they could easily walk up on their own, but as I’ve said, there’s rather a rough crowd on our estate and we don’t want Barry and Keith mixing with them more than we can help.
“It must have been getting on for half past nine by the time I got home again that morning. The bus left at twenty to, but I wanted to do some shopping while I was down there and I had to wait around for the supermarket to open. I hadn’t been expecting Mike home for lunch, you see, and I was right out of everything. I thought I might as well make some Cornish pasties, which are one of his favourites, so I needed a bit of steak and some flour and one or two other things. Took me about half an hour, all told.
“There wasn’t a sign of Mike when I got in, so I set to and made the pastry and put it aside in the refrigerator. Then I went upstairs and tidied the boys’ bedroom. That brought it to after ten o’clock and the door of our room was still tight shut, but Mike doesn’t sleep as late as that as a rule, and I thought he might be lying there, hoping I’d bring him a cup of tea. So I opened the door very gently and peeped inside. That’s when I got my first shock because he wasn’t there.
“No, I can’t exactly explain why it scared me. It was just a lot of small things. For example, he’d stripped the bed back to air, and folded his pyjamas and hung up his dressing gown and that struck me as a bit odd. It’s such a treat for him not to have to go haring off to the studios first thing in the morning that when he does get the chance he likes to spoil himself a bit. You know, saunter about the garden in his dressing gown, pulling off the dead heads, little things like that, and then spending ages in the bathroom as likely as not. But he wasn’t in the bathroom, and another thing that struck me as funny was the way he’d closed the bedroom door behind him when he came out. I don’t think people normally do that, do they? It was almost as though he’d wanted me to believe he was still in there, though I couldn’t for the life of me see why.
“Well, scared is too strong a word really. More puzzled and a bit put out is how you could describe it. But anyway it wasn’t much later when I was able to tell myself how silly I’d been to get upset. I’d started to make the bed and I happened to look out of the window, which was when I saw that one end of the hedge which separates our garden from the field was all neat and tidy and the wheelbarrow beside it piled up with branches and clippings. You haven’t ever been to our house, but it’s the end one on the estate and we’ve got a bigger garden than the rest of them. From where I was looking you can’t see any other buildings at all. Just this big field, with those black and white cows in it, and then the woods, which go right down almost as far as the river. It’s a lovely spot and we were lucky to get it really, especially at the price we did, but this hedge has always been a bugbear. We can’t do away with it because of the cows getting in and trampling all over the garden, but it seems to grow so fast and it gets on my nerves to see it all straggly. I’m always on at Mike about trimming it back.
“Well anyway, when I saw he’d made a start on it I felt a bit ashamed of myself. ‘So he was playing a trick on me, after all,’ I thought. ‘Only it was meant to be a nice surprise. I was to think he was upstairs having a lie in, and then he’d stroll indoors and tell me to take a look out of the window.’
“The trouble with that was that he didn’t come indoors. I’d finished off one or two more jobs in the house and there wasn’t much needed doing by then, so I put the kettle on and went out to the garden, meaning to call him in to come and have some coffee. I was practising how I’d do it, you know, pretend I hadn’t known what he was up to and being ever so chuffed about the hedge and everything, but it was all wasted because he wasn’t in the garden at all.
“No, I didn’t exactly panic, even then. It was more of a sort of empty, let-down feeling, if you can follow me. The hedge was only about half done and the shears were lying on the
ground beside the wheelbarrow. He never leaves off a job without putting everything away after him, so I worked it out that he must have downed tools to run up and answer the phone. We’ve put in an outside bell, on the patio, so he’d have heard it from where he was standing. It might have been some crisis at the studio they were ringing him about, and if so he would quite likely have dropped everything and dashed off there. I thought he’d probably ring me as soon as he got the chance, and I decided to go ahead and make the pasties anyway and we’d at least be able to have them for supper. But first of all I went out to the garage to see if the car had gone and it had, so that more or less settled it.
“No, I couldn’t have seen earlier that the garage was empty. For one thing, me not being a driver, cars don’t mean so much to me as they seem to most people, and another thing is that we always keep the garage locked, whether the car’s there or not. We store a lot of things in there, you see, like fishing tackle and the rubber dinghy. At least, we did when we had one. Barry got larking about with it the other day and it capsized; but there’s several other things too, and we always load up with sticks and kindling when we go picnicking in the woods and that. We have a lot of trouble in that way with some of the neighbouring kids. There’s one family who wouldn’t hesitate to help themselves as soon as our backs were turned. Mike complained about it to the parents once or twice, but they didn’t want to know, so the only thing was to lock up every time.
“Well, I thought that too. I did think it was a bit strange he hadn’t left me a note, and that was the very next thing I did; started looking round for one, suddenly struck me that if he’d gone out at about nine o’clock, which he must have when you think of it, he’d have felt certain of meeting me on my way up from the bus and that would have given him the chance to explain. You have to pass through the shopping area to get on to the main road, so that’s exactly what would have happened, if only I hadn’t taken it into my head to spend all that time at the supermarket.