‘Where does your son live now?’
‘Here, in Leek.’ Sheila Selkirk stared boldly at Mike. ‘He’s a teacher in the so-called Special School, the one for the children we would once have called retarded or mental defectives. They have some silly name for them now – severe learning disabilities or some such nonsense. ’ She grimaced. ‘All that expensive education, Sergeant. Public schools cost a fortune. And my son ends up teaching a bunch of morons! Her dark eyes fixed on Mike. ‘No justice, is there?’
‘Is he married?’ Mike chipped in.
Sheila nodded. ‘Oh yes.’ And then unexpectedly her face softened and again her strange beauty shone through. ‘He has a daughter,’ she said. ‘A lovely, lovely little thing.’ She flushed. ‘Oh dear, here I am, boastful grandma ... But she really is a dear little thing.’ She gave a short, self-conscious laugh. ‘Three years old. Wait, here ...’ She crossed the room to a small, mahogany chest of drawers. It was so packed with photographs that she had difficulty opening it. She leafed through them until her hands touched one and she handed it to Joanna. It was a picture of a Shirley Temple lookalike ... a laughing, curly-haired, beautiful child, plump cheeks and dimples.
Sheila Selkirk gloated over it, her mouth quivering and moist. ‘Lovely, isn’t she? Look at those eyes, her mouth, her beautiful little curls – exactly like Justin’s at the same age.’
She took the photograph from Joanna’s fingers and stared straight at her. Unhappiness tightened her face into spasm. ‘I suppose you’re wondering why the pictures are stuffed into an already over-full drawer! She closed her eyes in sudden, tight pain. ‘Unfortunately, Jonathan’s dislike of his son extends even to our granddaughter.’ She gave the picture a fierce stare. ‘He wouldn’t have a photograph of little Lucy in the house at all.’ She gave a sideways glance at the chest of drawers and laughed. ‘Had he been a slightly more curious man’, she said, ‘he probably would have found these pictures.’ She stopped and the look of anguish was blended into one of fury. ‘And then he would have burnt them,’ she said lightly.
Joanna and Mike looked at one another. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Selkirk,’ Joanna said gently, steering the conversation back on course, ‘do you have a photograph of your husband?’
The woman looked up sharply. ‘What for?’
‘Identification,’ Mike said. ‘Someone might have seen him.’
‘Sergeant,’ Sheila Selkirk said coquettishly. ‘When my husband disappeared last night he was wearing a pair of brown and cream striped pyjamas and bugger all else. I should think if he’s wandering up and down Leek High Street someone would have called in a couple of your strong-arm colleagues.’ The idea seemed to amuse her thoroughly.
‘A photograph, please, Mrs Selkirk.’
She recovered herself quickly. ‘Somewhere,’ she said.
Joanna and Mike both gave an involuntary glance at the drawer.
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘I don’t put their photographs together.’ She smiled and disappeared from the room, returning a few minutes later with a studio portrait of a grave-looking middle-aged man without a trace of humour in his face. She looked down at it for a moment, then handed it to Joanna. ‘This is my husband.’
‘Well,’ Joanna said as Mike took the car down the drive. ‘So far, apart from the nurse who’s only worried her head may roll, we seem the only ones at all upset by the man’s disappearance.’
Mike grinned. ‘Look on the bright side, Jo.’ he said. ‘She could have been one of those really neurotic types, breathing down your neck all hours of the day and night. At least like this she’ll keep off our backs until we find him.’
She turned her head and stared at him. ‘Dead or alive, Mike?’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘He was too sick a man to be wandering the streets for thirty-six hours in nothing but a pair of pyjamas. The weather’s quite cold. If he hasn’t taken refuge with a friend he’s quickly stiffening.’
She smiled at him. ‘Thank you, Mike,’ she said, ‘for your usual graphic and dispassionate thesis. Now commit yourself, Sergeant. Dead or alive?’
‘Dead,’ he said soberly, ‘and some poor bugger’s got to find him.’
Chapter Four
She kept the preliminary briefing short, emphasizing the point that so far Jonathan Selkirk was a ‘missing person with cause for concern’. But as the hours ticked by, all the listeners were homing in on the same thought. The search would probably end with a sodden body, a crumpled heap of extinguished life.
She mentioned the probability that a car had picked him up and knew she could rely on a couple of them to check along the taxi rank as well as among his circle of friends. True, Sheila Selkirk had already rung their close friends, but it was possible that though Jonathan Selkirk’s whereabouts had not been revealed to his wife, they might be to the police. Joanna’s years in the police force had taught her to rely on no one’s statement until it had been thoroughly checked. After the briefing Mike drove her home. She watched him handling the car with a touch of peevishness, irritated that the plaster cast was slowing her down, forcing her to be dependent. Making an invalid of her.
‘He asked for the telephone,’ she said. ‘I wonder who he wanted to phone. His wife?’
Mike took his eyes off the road for a moment. ‘She claimed she was out all evening with her innocent family friend.’
‘Since when have you started believing alibis?’
‘Just reminding you,’ he said good naturedly. ‘Surely it’s more likely that he wanted to ring for a taxi?’
‘Ripped all his wires off and climbed in wearing pyjamas?’ She shook her head. Even taxi drivers have their suspicions.’
‘Maybe he had a bag of clothes with him.’
She shook her head again. ‘His wife took the only bag of stuff away with her.’
‘As far as we know.’
‘From what she and the hospital staff have said, he wasn’t in a fit state that morning to be packing bags of clothes.’
Mike agreed.
‘Anyway, thanks for the lift,’ she said as he pulled up outside her cottage.
‘My pleasure. I’ll be along in the morning – nice and early.’
‘You’re at the gym tonight?’
He grinned and flexed his muscles.
‘You should have told Sheila Selkirk how she could get a body like yours.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ he said, and she laughed as she slammed the car door behind her.
Even getting her keys out of her bag was tricky. Turning the key while holding down the door handle was even worse. Elbows have no grip. And her damaged arm had no strength either. She cursed softly and eventually opened the door. Inside, she struggled feebly with her jacket. The sleeve was too tight over the plaster and it tore.
‘Damn.’ she cursed softly and wondered whether she should have accepted Matthew’s offer and moved in with him. But she knew it would be easier to move in than to move out. She filled the kettle awkwardly and sat, pondering, before hunger drove her back into the kitchen.
Matthew arrived at eight thirty, a take-away tucked under his arm. He grinned at Joanna and held out the brown paper carrier bag. ‘This is a large slice of humble pie,’ he said, bending and kissing her cheek. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He gave one of his boyish, apologetic grins and rubbed his chin ruefully.
‘The only thing I can say in mitigation is that I really did think it would be better for you to have a couple of days’ rest instead of charging around the place on the hunt for a missing patient.’
‘If this is Chinese humble pie,’ she said, sniffing the contents of the bag, ‘you’re forgiven.’
‘It is,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean you were like Joan of Arc.’
She met his eyes. But in anger there was an element of truth.
He smiled and drew her to him. ‘My mother always told me the way to a woman’s heart was through her stomach,’ he said softly, into her hair.
‘Your mother,’ she sa
id, ‘sounds a remarkably sensible woman.’
He tilted her chin towards him and stared at her. ‘You should meet her.’
‘Should I?’ Matthew drew back and hung up his jacket. She didn’t pursue the subject.
‘Well, as I didn’t think you were going to manage much in the way of culinary adventures with that thing on your arm ...’ He was speaking too quickly, ‘I thought ...’
Sometimes she wondered whether Matthew’s parents would ever accept her. Perhaps not while he had a daughter and a legally bound wife. Occasionally she would wonder which of the three disliked her most?
Like Snow White’s stepmother peeping into the magic mirror, the answer never varied. Eloise hated her most and the answer still had the power to wound her. Maybe one day she would cease to care but today, already wounded, it still did.
She walked into the kitchen and picked up two plates with her good hand.
Matthew’s voice reached her there. ‘I remember when Eloise broke her arm ...’
The kitchen seemed suddenly icy, frost edging under the door, through the windowframes, down the stairs. And even Matthew, with his selective, wilful blindness, must have sensed it as she returned with the plates.
‘... anyway, she couldn’t do anything for herself,’ he finished quickly. ‘I only hope your help with the investigation was worth leaving that luxurious hospital bed for. Besides all that delicious free hospital food.’
She motioned towards the food. ‘Nothing as good as this.’
‘Well,’ he said as she set the plates awkwardly on the table, ‘have you found the old goat yet?’ He clutched his chest and staggered around the room. ‘Lost – man with chest pain wearing pyjamas.’ He shot a wicked glance at her. ‘And did I hear he was dripping blood?’
She laughed uneasily. ‘Theatrical – isn’t it?’
‘Just a bit. Surely the whole case is quite simple,’ he said. ‘Just follow the blood trail.’ He gave her a mocking glance. And you a Detective Inspector, Joanna. Really.’
She enjoyed sparring. ‘It ends in the car park.’
‘So,’ Matthew said in conspiratorial tones, ‘an accomplice with a car.’
She shrugged.
‘What do you think – was he loopy or depressed? Or possibly both?’
‘I honestly don’t know about his mental state,’ she said, ‘and we haven’t found him in spite of the police search.’ She paused for a moment before adding, ‘His wife’s not exactly concerned about his disappearance.’ She put her head on one side, considering. ‘And that always makes me a bit uncomfortable, when the next of kin are less concerned at a disappearance than are the police. In fact,’ she said, forking stir-fry into her mouth, ‘I cast her more as the merry widow than the grieving one.’
Matthew looked up. ‘You do think he’s dead, then?’
She shook soy sauce over the food. ‘Where else could he be? He isn’t at home. It doesn’t seem that he had many friends. His son, by his wife’s account, hated him. He was a sick man. The nights have been cold and he was only wearing pyjamas. We think he’s been abducted.’ She paused. ‘We’ve a few lines of enquiry. The car he left the hospital in, and there’s a possibility he made a phone call.’ She sighed. ‘Obviously he might not have actually spoken to anyone. But assuming he did it could have been either a colleague or a taxi firm. There are always unanswered questions. Sometimes even after the end of a case. I only hope we get the answers to some of them. And then there’s the tiny matter of finding the body.’ She grinned at him. ‘Just to provide you with a bit of work. We’ll intensify the search of open wasteland, rivers and the canal tomorrow.’
‘Well,’ he said, pouring them both a glass of wine, ‘if no one else is bothered about him, why are you so concerned?’
‘It’s my job, Matthew. Besides ...’ she considered for a moment and looked at him, ‘I have a very strange feeling about this case. It’s so atypical. So many unusual ingredients.’ She stopped. ‘And there’s another reason you definitely won’t understand.’
He moved closer. ‘Try me.’
‘Well,’ she began, then stopped. ‘It’s really silly.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well,’ she said again, slowly. ‘We spent part of last night under the same roof. We shared a house. We were both in hospital. The same one.’ Then she caught sight of his face. ‘You don’t understand, do you?’
He laughed. ‘In a way,’ he said and she left it at that.
They ate in silence for a while.
‘I thought people weren’t supposed to speak ill of the dead,’ she said suddenly.
‘You mean the wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, maybe she doesn’t think he’s dead.’ She shook her head.
He looked at her. ‘What did she say that caused you such offence?’
‘I tried to suggest he might have a mistress. She replied he couldn’t even get it up during his honeymoon. Horrible, isn’t it?’
The room fell silent while Matthew turned his wine glass around in his hand and stared moodily into the ruby glints. ‘And when are we going to have a honeymoon?’ He asked the question lightly, in his habitual bantering tone, but when she glanced at him he’d stopped looking into the glass as though it was a crystal ball and his eyes were resting on her. Their expression was quite cold.
For once she had no flippant answer for him. Nothing to deflect his question. So she sat miserably and they ate the rest of their food chatting desultorily, the atmosphere destroyed. He changed the subject back to the safe area by asking her what she thought the chances were of finding Jonathan Selkirk still alive.
‘Well, as I said, we think he was abducted. Mike’s a hundred per cent sure he was, and I’m inclined to agree with him.’
Matthew made a face. ‘Don’t tell me Tarzan’s actually said something clever for once.’
‘Oh, Matthew,’ she said reproachfully. ‘Behave. Mike’s been driving me around like a model chauffeur all day. And I agree with him. I think he’s right and that Selkirk’s dead,’ she said. ‘I also think nobody will cry many tears for him. He was not a nice man.’
Joanna told him about the family photographs stuffed into the drawer and that Jonathan Selkirk had disliked his son so much he had refused not only to have his photograph around the house but even that of his three-year-old granddaughter. ‘And she looks quite a sweet little thing,’ she said.
‘Didn’t think kids were much in your line, Joanna.’ There was a tinge of dry sarcasm in Matthew’s voice that again chilled her.
She felt bound to say something. ‘Kids aren’t “in my line”,’ she retorted, ‘but this was Selkirk’s granddaughter.’
Matthew nodded. ‘I wonder why,’ he mused.
She looked at him. ‘Why what?’
‘I wonder why he disliked his son so much.’
She chased the last scraps of prawn cracker around her plate thoughtfully. ‘There’s lots of reasons why people don’t take to their offspring,’ she said at length. ‘Sometimes they suspect the child isn’t theirs, sometimes they’re jealous. Sometimes the kid is a little too like themselves – you know it mirrors all their weaknesses. And sometimes kids are just horrible.’
Neither of them mentioned Eloise. In fact, during the year since Matthew had left Jane, Eloise had quickly become a taboo subject. Matthew disappeared every other weekend and she knew he was taking his daughter out. But she was rarely mentioned because every time her name cropped up they argued. Matthew made occasional conscious efforts to remind Joanna that he had a daughter but it merely made the hair at the back of her neck prickle. Guilt at robbing the child of her full-time father? Or was it more closely linked to Eloise’s identikit resemblance to her mother?
Matthew tidied the meal away, loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and they settled back to finish the wine. It was eleven o’clock when he reached across and touched her plastered arm. ‘I think now is as good a time as any,’ he said quietly. ‘Perhaps your accident has pushed u
s towards a watershed.’
She already knew exactly what he was about to say.
‘Why don’t you sell here,’ he said, glancing round the cottage, ‘and move in with me? When my divorce comes through we can buy somewhere decent of our own.’
His face was firm as he watched her. She knew he had already made up his mind and that the accident had merely precipitated the actual question. But she couldn’t bring herself to speak. She loved Matthew – yes. But commitment? Her commitments were dual – both work and Matthew. And she had the uncomfortable feeling that commitment to the one might preclude the other.
She looked helplessly at him. He moved closer, wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘Jo,’ he said, ‘it would be the best thing – for both of us. Please.’ He stopped. ‘I mean, you are going to find it awfully difficult coping on your own. Your arm will be in plaster for a couple of months. Now is as good a time as any.’ His face was set and very firm. She knew Matthew well. Once his mind was made up he could be extremely stubborn.
‘I love you, Jo.’ He spoke very softly, almost a whisper. But his eyes were unblinking.
She swallowed and her mouth was dry.
After a pause Matthew moved away. ‘I see.’ he said. At least, I think I do.’
So they sat awkwardly, and at midnight Matthew left. Back home to the top floor of the huge house he had rented from a friend for the last year.
Joanna went to bed disheartened and depressed, but, thanks in part to the after-effects of the anaesthetic, slept like a log.
Mike hammered on the door just before eight and caught her still in her white towelling dressing gown.
She yawned and stretched. ‘Thanks for coming.’ And, to help hide his embarrassment, ‘For being so prompt and early you can make some coffee.’ He followed her into the cottage.
She was halfway up the stairs before she shouted down, ‘Anything turn up in the night?’
‘Negative.’ She heard the kettle being filled. ‘But all the taxi drivers have been questioned. No one picked him up.’
She did the best she could to wash and dress, clean her teeth and even managed a respectable smear of make-up. She settled herself across the table from Mike and drank the coffee.
And None Shall Sleep Page 5