No sooner had this thought crossed Tom’s mind than the door opened and the PC beckoned him into the kitchen. He seemed a little nervous, and Tom guessed he hadn’t long been allowed out on his own. Poor lad. Not the most straightforward of cases.
‘Sir, I’ve spoken to the landlady in Wales. She’s confirmed that Mrs Brookes and her three children were there for a week, and left last Saturday. She said they all seemed fine, and were looking forward to their next holiday in the summer.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ Tom responded, his attention diverted by a large cork noticeboard on the wall. A couple of metres long, it was completely empty, apart from a few drawing pins.
PC Mitchell was talking again, and Tom turned to him.
‘Sorry, what were you saying?’
‘I was saying that, according to the landlady, Mr Brookes paid his wife a visit while she was staying there. She said,’ he consulted his notebook, ‘I was sorry not to meet Mr Brookes when he visited this week. We’ve spoken on the phone, of course, but I was disappointed he didn’t give me a knock to say hello. He was gone by the time I got up in the morning.’
Tom looked at the policeman. ‘Are you sure that’s what she said?’ He immediately felt guilty, because the young constable looked alarmed and stood up a little straighter, his long lanky arms ramrod stiff at his sides.
‘Yes sir, I’m sure. I wrote the whole thing down.’
‘So what the hell is going on?’ Tom asked, a rhetorical question aimed at nobody but himself. ‘Right, we need to get the local police in Anglesey to pay the landlady a visit – tomorrow morning will be fine – but first thing – and we need them to question her. Tell them to jog her memory and extract as many details as possible, no matter how trivial. I’m going back in there to talk to Mr Brookes; find out why he lied to us. We need to canvass the neighbours starting early tomorrow morning, before they all bugger off to do whatever they’re doing over the weekend. You know the procedure?’
PC Mitchell nodded slowly.
‘Good lad, but if you get stuck just ask us. Okay? We’ve all been new, you know. And it’s better to ask than to cock it up.’
Tom walked across to the noticeboard and peered at it intently. He turned his head.
‘Come and look at this, and tell me what you see,’ he said.
PC Mitchell looked puzzled for a second, then he pointed to the top left corner of the board.
‘One of the drawing pins has a scrap of paper attached. It looks as if something’s been ripped off.’
‘Well done.’ Tom looked down and pointed. ‘There’s a drawing pin on the floor too. Something was here. So what would you do next?’
‘Check the bins?’ PC Mitchell suggested.
Tom nodded.
‘Get some gloves on, and see what you can find. I’m interested in the bins anyway. If Olivia Brookes and the children have been here all week until this morning at least, I’d like to know what you find.’
Tom gave the policeman a reassuring nod, turned on his heel and pushed open the door from the kitchen to the living room.
Becky was still asking questions, but she was running out of steam. Tom took over. He wasn’t going to ask Robert about his trip to Anglesey yet. He had a feeling that Robert would clam up completely once he was aware of how much they knew.
‘Mr Brookes, we’d really like to take your wife’s computer to check it out. Would that be okay with you? We might be able to find something on it that gives us a clue about where she might be. We’d like yours too, so we can check your FaceTime records.’
‘What for? It will only show you when I called her. I don’t record the conversations.’
‘We can check where she was speaking to you from.’
Robert was shaking his head in frustration.
‘She was here. Don’t you think I recognise my own bedroom when I see it on a screen?’
‘Well, that will help us to set a time frame. According to your neighbour who spoke to the school head teacher, Olivia hasn’t been seen all week. When you had your calls with her, what exactly did you see in the shot – just a pillow behind her head, or more?’
Robert lifted his hands and put them on his head. It seemed to Tom that he was literally trying to hold back steam from escaping.
‘I don’t know how many times I need to repeat this. She was here, speaking from our bedroom with our cushions propping her up. Here. In this house.’ Robert said each word slowly and distinctly, punctuating them with a stab of his finger. ‘And not just today, but every fucking day this week. Just because the nosey old bat across the road didn’t see her doesn’t mean she wasn’t here. That woman might spend a fair proportion of each day by the window, but she’s not there twenty-four seven.’
‘Okay. Can you tell me if there are any other computers that Olivia had access to? A home computer, perhaps? Or did the children have anything with an Internet connection?’
Robert shook his head. ‘It’s the only computer she used, and we didn’t agree with children accessing the Internet at all. They weren’t allowed near our computers.’
Tom bit back a response about school and homework. This was none of his business, but his daughter Lucy, who was only a little older than the Brookes’ eldest girl, used the computer all the time. He hoped that he and his ex-wife had instilled an awareness of all the right safety measures into their daughter, but to forbid her to use it would surely have put her behind her classmates at school.
‘So there are no more computers in the house, then?’ Tom asked.
‘Only the one in my study, but she wouldn’t have used that. It’s password protected.’
‘Can you show me, please?’ Tom asked.
Robert sighed as he pushed himself up from the sofa. He bent down to pick up a bunch of keys from the coffee table and led the way from the room. As he inserted a key into the lock, Tom glanced at Becky, whose brow was furrowed in a puzzled frown.
‘Why do you keep this door locked, Mr Brookes?’ Becky asked.
Robert tutted, as if the answer were obvious.
‘Because I work in here. I don’t want the children getting in, and I don’t want them touching the computer. I opened the door for your constable, but it’s a habit to always lock the door behind me.’
‘Does your wife have a key to this room?’ Tom asked, suspecting he knew the answer before he even posed the question.
‘No, she doesn’t need one. She cleans in here when I’m at home, not when I’m away.’
Tom nodded his head, as if this were a perfectly normal state of affairs.
‘Just one last question, Mr Brookes. You say you were in Newcastle for the whole of the last two weeks – is that correct?’
‘Yes, of course it’s correct. I already told you.’
‘Well then, can you explain how – according to the landlady of the guest house in Anglesey – you visited your wife in the middle of last week?’
Robert Brookes spun round on his heels.
‘What did you say?’
‘I asked you whether you did, in fact, visit your wife in Anglesey during her holiday with the children last week.’
‘No. I’ve told you. I never left the hotel in Newcastle during the whole two weeks. I was snowed under with work, and there was no way I could leave. Ask anybody.’
‘We will, Mr Brookes. Thank you.’
*
It seemed to Becky that they had learned a lot, and they had learned nothing at all. They had questioned Robert Brookes for another half an hour about everything from the conference venue to his conversation with Olivia that morning, and had nothing more to show for it than a list of people who could apparently verify that Robert was in Newcastle.
She looked across at Tom, who was exchanging contact details with Robert Brookes, and she couldn’t help comparing the two men again. Tom’s calm and relaxed demeanour somehow accentuated Robert’s nervy behaviour. His fidgeting and constant flicking of the eyes from one person to another without ever making eye contact w
as disconcerting to put it mildly.
PC Mitchell poked his head around the door and, not wanting to disturb Tom, Becky went to see what he had found.
‘DCI Douglas asked me to check the bins,’ he explained. ‘The waste bin in the kitchen was empty, and appeared to have been cleaned and disinfected, judging by the smell. So I had a look in the dustbin. That was empty too, except for two things. A John Lewis carrier bag, which had nothing in it, and this.’
PC Mitchell unrolled a large sheet of paper and spread it on the kitchen table.
‘I think it used to be on the wall, because the tear in the corner matches the scrap that’s attached to the drawing pin.’
Becky looked at the chart and took out her phone, thinking a few photos might be a good idea.
‘It looks like a schedule of some sort,’ PC Mitchell said.
A schedule of some sort was the understatement. Covering about two metres wide by one high, it was a half-hourly breakdown of each day for the past month, and a blank one for the month ahead.
Becky bent over and peered at it closely. The level of detail was staggering. ‘3.20 pm – going to pick children up from school. 3.40 pm – back from school with the children.’ This was the last entry, and for that very day. Each element of Olivia’s day was mapped on here. Not the children’s timetable – she had noticed there was a separate small blackboard for that, with reminders clipped neatly to the bottom. But this sheet of paper detailed every time Olivia left the house and every time she came back in again. It also listed any phone calls she’d received, however trivial. ‘Phone call at 10.13 am. Wrong number.’ What was that all about?
When questioned about his wife’s mental health issues, Robert had implied that they had set up solutions to help Olivia, which would suggest there was a forwards-looking plan she had to follow. This schedule appeared to be written in retrospect – either what she was about to do or what she’d actually done, rather than what she planned to do. Sometimes there were remarks like ‘Returning to Sainsbury’s – forgot the eggs. Back in 20 minutes’ as if it was a message to somebody. And she’d written on the board today – or yesterday, as it was now well past midnight – that she had returned from school with the children. But the children hadn’t even been to school.
She looked more closely at the chart. Most of the entries used pencil, red pen, blue pen – even children’s crayons. But the entries for the last few days were all in the same pen, and she couldn’t be absolutely sure they were the same handwriting as the previous ones. She needed to get somebody else to look at this. Not that it meant anything. Olivia could have written those entries days ago. As could Robert, for that matter.
12
Saturday
Robert waited fifteen minutes after the house was emptied of bodies with their relentless questioning and the beeping of their mobile phones. He grabbed a bottle of water, his car keys and his wallet, and made his way out of the front door. The security light came on, but the beam wasn’t shining on their drive, as it should have been. It was shining straight across the road into Mrs Preston’s window. It must have been knocked out of alignment somehow, and he could see a shadow standing back from the bedroom window opposite. He knew the light would have alerted his neighbour and she would be watching with interest. Well, no doubt she would get the opportunity to have her say, because he was fairly certain the whole street would be questioned as soon as they were up and about.
He’d planned to leave as quietly as possible, but as the nosey old bat was watching anyway, he revved the car and was about to speed off down the road with a squeal of tyres, just to wind up the silly bitch, when he noticed a car parked further down the road. Not a car that was normally on this street. It didn’t take him long to work out what it was. Bastard police. He eased his foot off the accelerator and, with his car emitting the gentle hum of an expensive engine, he slowly and almost silently made his way off the drive. If he was followed, he would just have to have another think.
Much to his amazement, when he reached the long straight road towards the M56 there was nobody behind him. His suspicions must have been wrong. The roads were empty at one o’clock on a Saturday morning, and he would have easily spotted a car tailing him.
He had a couple of hours’ driving ahead of him, but in spite of his exhaustion he felt totally awake. It was an effort, but he forced himself to stay within the speed limit. He wanted no undue attention tonight. He didn’t know how all the systems of the police worked together, but if his name was down on some list of ‘persons of interest’ he didn’t want to be flagged up. It was a rough night, though. Following such a sunny day, a fierce wind had blown up from nowhere, and the trees were swaying violently from side to side.
An hour and fifty minutes later, courtesy of the total absence of traffic at this ungodly hour, Robert arrived at his destination. At just before three o’clock in the morning it would be entirely inappropriate to ring the doorbell – at least if he wanted to get the right result. This had to be handled well, and he was going to have to bide his time and keep his temper in check. He imagined that people who ran B&Bs had to be up at a reasonable hour to start preparing the guests’ breakfasts, so he would just have to wait. It might have been an impulsive decision to come here in the middle of the night, but he needed to be sure he was the first person to speak to the landlady today.
At this hour of the morning the guest house was in darkness. A wide drive led to the front door of the property, and a single outside lamp created a halo of light around the main entrance. Robert could just make out a number of tall chimney pots silhouetted against the starlit sky, and the white painted window frames standing out from the traditional grey limestone of the building.
He pushed the soft leather seat of his Jaguar XJR into recline and leaned back, closing his eyes. He couldn’t sleep, though. All he could see were vivid images of Olivia – from the moment he met her up until the last time he saw her.
Checking his watch every few minutes, time dragged and he tried to close his mind to all thoughts of his wife. But it was impossible. By five o’clock, his limbs were twitching with inactivity and his emotions had run the gamut from rage to fear. He had to get out of the car.
As he pushed the door open he was hit by the tang of sea air, and he could hear the waves gently lapping on the sand. He turned and looked at the beach, bathed in the early dawn sunlight of a June morning. And he looked again. Something was wrong here, but he didn’t know what it was. He gave himself a mental shake, and set off on his walk, away from the small harbour. He strolled to the far end of the bay and sat on a smooth rock looking out to sea, his thoughts coming in waves to match the ebb and flow of the tide. He had hoped the cool morning breeze would have blown away the cobwebs and allowed him to think rationally about his next move, but he was wrong.
By five thirty he thought he should return to his vigil, and he made his way slowly back to the car as an orange sun began to melt away the shadows.
Finally he saw a chink of light through some closed bedroom curtains. Somebody was awake. Time dragged, and it was a full twenty minutes before he saw the curtains pulled back and the light switched off. He left it a further five minutes before he felt it might be safe to approach the house. He pushed open the car door and closed it quietly behind him.
He walked towards the back of the house where he hoped the kitchen would be. A window was open, and he could hear a radio playing quietly. The presenter announced the next song. Michael Bublé. He almost smiled. Olivia hated Michael Bublé. She said his music was anodyne. How appropriate for today.
There was a smell of frying bacon – and Robert realised that he had eaten nothing for nearly twenty-four hours. He hadn’t even stopped for lunch on the way home the day before. The idea of food made him feel slightly nauseous, and he swallowed the saliva that threatened to choke him.
He gave three sharp raps on the back door and heard a voice call quietly, ‘Coming,’ with that hint of a warm Welsh accent, and a clatter of
pans as if she were moving the frying pan off the hob.
Robert realised that he probably looked like a tramp, with his crumpled shirt and the dark shadow of his unshaven face. Maybe that was a good thing.
The lady who opened the door was exactly as he would have expected. Probably in her early sixties and looking all of her age, she nevertheless had a relaxed expression that said all was well with her world. Her grey hair was cut short in a practical, no-nonsense style, and she wore a too-pink lipstick. She smiled pleasantly, but beneath the smile he could sense a hint of wariness.
‘Good morning,’ she said, maintaining the welcoming air. ‘What can I do for you, dear?’
Robert returned the smile and held out his hand.
‘Mrs Evans, my name is Robert Brookes. Do you think I could come in for a moment? I’d like to talk to you about my wife.’
13
‘What?’ Tom Douglas was not given to yelling at people down the phone, but then he’d rarely had people on his team as daft as Ryan Tippetts. ‘Ryan, we waited until you said you were in place before we left. We’ve no idea what’s happened to Olivia Brookes and her children. They could all be dead, or he could be holding them somewhere. We don’t know, so I wanted you to keep eyes on the house in case she came home or he went out. What part of that did you fail to comprehend?’
Tom listened impatiently to Ryan’s explanation, and didn’t believe a word of it. Some rumpus at the end of the road that he had felt obliged to investigate? Not a chance. He was probably asleep. And how come he’d realised only now – hours later – that the Jag was missing from the drive?
‘Yes, I do accept that he could have put the car in the garage, but did it not occur to you to check as soon as you realised it wasn’t visible? We can’t justify formal surveillance on Robert Brookes at this stage, but it’s common sense to let us know if he leaves, isn’t it?’
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