The Disappeared

by Ali Harper

  ‘The thing is with hindsight,’ Wilkins said. ‘You look back and it seems like you had a plan. But I didn’t. I just reacted to a series of off-the-wall events. I thought the police would realize what she’d done. I even thought they might agree to keep it secret, to not let Jack know. I had crazy ideas.’

  ‘How come they didn’t find the suicide note?’ Jo said. ‘They must have searched the house for her.’

  ‘They did. Turned the place upside down. But it wasn’t here. I left it in the boat. They never found out about the boat. They concentrated on the cars. And that was a weird thing: when they searched the lot, they found a note on my desk. “Ring the missus, at home”. Billy, one of the lads that worked for me, had left it. And on it, he’d written “Friday, 4.15 p.m.”. Now I don’t know how that got there, cos obviously she was dead by then. Maybe it was from the week before, maybe he’d got the day wrong. But when the police spoke to him, he was convinced he’d spoken to her on that Friday. And that saved me because they decided that at 4.15 p.m. she was alive and at home.’

  ‘Billy was covering for you.’

  ‘I don’t know. He never said a word about it. But it meant I had an alibi. I drove back to Manchester. Couldn’t bear to be alone. Went to the pub with the lads, got pissed, ended up crashing on Billy’s settee. Went straight from there the next morning to pick up Jack. So, the police decided that even if she was dead, I couldn’t have killed her.’

  Truth is a strange thing. You can be told a lie and not know whether it’s true or not, but when the truth is spoken, it’s impossible to avoid. It has a ring to it that can’t be faked. I hated admitting it, but I knew in my heart that Wilkins was telling the truth.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jo, spinning her chair from side to side. ‘We’re back to the beginning.’

  A man rich enough to buy anything but couldn’t make his wife stay. My mother didn’t choose to die, but she didn’t choose to live either. She surrendered after my dad went, and I grew up with the knowledge I was never enough to make her happy. I never filled the gap. There was always something missing for her, a hurt she clung to.

  ‘Didn’t …’ said Jo. It’s not often Jo’s lost for words. She kept opening her mouth to say something and then thinking better of it. ‘Didn’t Jack ever ask you what happened?’

  ‘Not in so many words,’ said Nick.

  ‘“Not in so many words”?’ said Jo. Jo has a great relationship with her mother, even though they argue from time to time. Jo doesn’t really get how some families don’t talk about stuff.

  ‘I said maybe she’d had an accident, lost her memory.’

  Jo’s forehead creased, and she spun the chair harder.

  ‘He was 5 years old.’ Wilkins sounded defensive.

  ‘But isn’t keeping alive the idea she might come back worse than telling him she’s dead?’

  I felt sorry for Jo, for her inability to grasp how dysfunctional families operate. Wilkins sighed, the air rushing out of him. He looked old again, beaten by life.

  ‘And you’ve not talked about it since?’

  Even I wished Jo would quit with the questions. He’d told her they didn’t talk about it. As if he sensed I was more of a kindred spirit, Wilkins turned to me and said: ‘What would you have done?’

  I couldn’t answer that one. I put the gun down on the sideboard and checked whether the cupboard was strong enough to hold my weight. It was, so I sat myself on it. No one spoke. In the silence we heard a noise, a muffled bang, and Jo and I both started.

  ‘The boiler,’ said Wilkins. ‘On its last legs.’

  Jo and I stared at each other. I knew we were both thinking the same thing. What the fuck next? Wilkins turned his back to us, began scooping up his papers and stuffing them into the cabinet.

  ‘Before Jack was born, we’d managed. She’d always been a bit off the wall, but nothing like the problems after. Christ, I was scared to come home.’

  I knew what that felt like too. Memories of hanging around after school, making the walk home last as long as it possibly could, anything to avoid the heaviness of home.

  ‘I didn’t want people to point the finger at me,’ Wilkins said. ‘There’s the guy who couldn’t make his wife happy.’ He stuffed another pile of paperwork back into the cupboard and then turned to face us. ‘We didn’t know as much about it in those days.’

  ‘“It”?’ I said.

  Jo’s always faster at getting this kind of stuff than me. ‘Postnatal depression,’ she said.

  I didn’t know much about that. Perhaps I didn’t want to. I carry enough guilt about my mother, I don’t need any more. Besides, postnatal depression has to wear off eventually, surely?

  I dropped my own problems from my mind, focused on Wilkins’s. ‘Jack deserves to know what happened.’

  Wilkins shook his head at me, like he felt sorry for my ignorance. ‘You think truth is objective. That’s because you’re young.’

  ‘What about Karen?’ asked Jo.

  ‘Karen?’ He checked his watch. ‘You mean Karen Calvert? What about her?’

  ‘Karen Carpenter.’

  ‘She’s Karen Calvert now. Has been for—’

  ‘Were you the father of her baby?’

  ‘Karen’s baby?’ He finished stuffing papers into his cabinet and turned back to face us. ‘Where did—?’

  ‘She was pregnant when she died,’ I said.

  ‘Who told you that?’

  I glanced over at Jo. Again, I had the feeling the facts were running away from us, sprinting from sight.

  ‘Karen isn’t dead,’ Wilkins continued. ‘Least not as far as I know, and I’m sure I would have heard.’

  ‘She died in a lake,’ said Jo, but I could tell by her voice she’d also lost the certainty we’d arrived with.

  ‘When?’

  Jo glanced at me. I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Seventeen years ago.’

  ‘Well, someone needs to tell Eric.’

  ‘Eric?’

  ‘Her husband. I saw him not that long ago. Never said anything about her being dead.’ His forehead scrunched as he tried to remember the details. ‘They’d just got back from Spain. Andalusia, I think he said. All five of them.’

  I shook my head. ‘She died in a car crash, in East Yorkshire, years ago—’

  ‘She married Eric Calvert, not long after Jayne died. I was invited to the wedding. Didn’t go.’

  A sick feeling hit my stomach. ‘What about children? Did they—?’

  ‘Three. All boys. Who told you she was dead? Peter bloody Partingdon? He’s getting worse, certi-bloody-fiable.’

  Jo did a 360-degree turn in the chair, then slapped her own leg. ‘The tail.’ She looked my way first, then back to Wilkins. ‘What about the guy that followed us?’

  ‘What guy?’

  ‘When we left you, on Saturday, you followed us.’

  He nodded at me. ‘She mentioned Jack. I wanted to talk to you, that’s all.’

  ‘And you had someone else follow behind, a Volvo,’ said Jo. I breathed a sigh of relief. His accomplice.

  ‘Navy blue Volvo?’

  ‘Yes.’ We both shouted the word out. For one glorious moment it felt like we were all on the same page.

  ‘Who’s he and why was he carrying a gun?’ asked Jo.

  ‘No idea,’ said Wilkins. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  But he’d given himself away. I grabbed the realization, swung on it like Tarzan through the jungle. I couldn’t keep the excitement from my voice. ‘Then how did you know the Volvo was navy blue?’

  But Wilkins’s voice remained steady, even. ‘Because I saw it. I’ve seen it a few times. It’s been at the garage, here, followed me to the pub the other night. Thought it was something to do with you two.’

  ‘It wasn’t your gun?’ I picked up the Glock and waved it in his direction.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ he asked, like he was seeing it for the first time.

  ‘You know where. Your wardrobe.’

 
He frowned, and I knew either his confusion was genuine, or he was one of the best liars I’d ever come across, and I’ve come across a few.

  ‘That’s not my gun.’

  ‘You admitted it,’ I said. I looked to Jo for confirmation. She nodded. ‘You admitted you’d got a gun. For protection, you said.’ I wondered whether to tell him Jo was wearing a wire, that it was too late for him to start changing his story.

  ‘I do have a gun. But it’s not that one.’ He turned back to his desk, ducked down to open the bottom drawer on the right-hand side, scooped out a pile of envelopes and a large wooden box. The top fell off the box and landed on the floor, and I caught a glimpse of jewellery inside. I jumped down off the sideboard and moved a step closer to him, my fingers tight on the trigger.

  ‘Pull the other one,’ Jo said but her voice sounded less full of bravado than it had before.

  He emptied the contents of the box onto the desk. ‘I swear to you. That’s not my gun. Never seen it before.’

  ‘So, where’s your gun?’

  ‘That’s a funny thing,’ he said. ‘Not here.’

  ‘What?’

  He swivelled round to face us, holding the wooden box in his hands. He tipped it to towards us, to show us its green velvet lining and its lack of contents. ‘It’s not here. I keep it in this box. Someone’s nicked my gun.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  As the three of us stood there, arranged in a triangle, each trying to make sense of the new facts that kept popping up like lottery balls, the study door pushed open. It took my brain a few seconds to work out what my eyes were seeing. My skin goose-bumped.

  ‘Col.’

  He was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing the night before. I wondered whether he ever slept. He flashed his police badge at Wilkins. ‘I can take over from here,’ he said.

  I tried to wipe the smile from my face. His baggy blue jumper was too long in the sleeve, so came down to his knuckles, leaving just his fingers exposed.

  ‘What are you doing here? I thought …’

  He crossed the room towards me, kissed me on the cheek, like we were an old married couple and he’d just got in from work. He slipped the Glock from my fingers.

  ‘I was worried,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t fair of me to let the two of you handle this on your own.’

  I shook my head, realized Col had some catching up to do. ‘He didn’t do it. He didn’t kill his wife.’ I turned to look at Wilkins who had returned to perching on the desk. The old man had his arms folded again, his shirtsleeves pushed up his forearms. ‘And if he didn’t kill Jayne, why would he kill Megan?’

  ‘Who’s Megan?’ Nick Wilkins asked.

  Col ignored him and spoke to me. ‘That can’t be, Lee. He paid the ransom. Men like him don’t hand over that kind of cash unless they’ve got something to hide.’

  ‘He thought it was Jack.’ I glanced over at Jo. Why wasn’t she saying anything?

  Col kept the Glock trained on Wilkins. ‘Let’s go into the front room. See if we can sort this out. It’s comfier in there.’

  Jo got up from her chair, still without speaking, and led the way across the hall. I followed, Nick behind me. We were like school children, allowing ourselves to be herded. Col brought up the rear, still holding the gun. Once we were all in the front room, he closed the door behind him.

  ‘I don’t buy it,’ he said.

  Jo retrieved her roll-up from the ashtray on the coffee table. She lit it again and retook her place on the settee. Wilkins returned to his armchair.

  ‘What kind of car do you drive?’ he asked Col.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Col. ‘Prefer public transport.’

  ‘You lied about Karen,’ Jo said. I hated her for pointing that out. I scrambled for explanations. Maybe there were two Karens. It was feasible. Col pulled at a stray piece of wool from the sleeve of his jumper.

  ‘Where’s the rest of the team?’ asked Wilkins.

  ‘He’s dying,’ I said. ‘Jo’s seen his medical notes.’

  ‘Never known a copper come to a bust single-handed.’ Nick crossed to the window and flicked back the curtain. I wondered who’d drawn them. They’d been open the last time we’d been in this room. I realized it must have been Col. ‘Didn’t hear any cars pull up.’

  ‘I guess you could call me off-duty,’ Col said.

  ‘That a fact?’

  ‘Wanted to keep an eye on these two. See, they thought they could handle you. Get a confession, get you behind bars, where you belong.’

  ‘You’re being set-up,’ Nick said to me and Jo.

  Still Jo didn’t say anything, but from the expression on her face she didn’t have to.

  ‘I know a copper gone bad when I see one,’ Wilkins continued.

  I glanced at Col. ‘You mean—?’

  ‘Ignore him,’ said Col. ‘We’re not listening to the word of a man who killed his own wife.’

  ‘I can prove I didn’t.’

  ‘He’s got her suicide note,’ I said. The curtains made no sense. Why would Col draw the curtains?

  ‘Faked.’

  ‘I’ve got dozens of letters she wrote me, her signature on the deeds of the house, our marriage certificate, a couple of her diaries. Forensics will prove it’s her handwriting.’

  My mouth had gone so dry my teeth stuck to my lips. I tried to align myself with the new facts. Jayne killed herself, Karen wasn’t dead. That left me with two pieces of jigsaw that didn’t seem to fit with the new picture. I stared at Col, remembered standing so close to him last night.

  ‘Who killed Megan?’

  ‘You’re looking at him,’ said Jo.

  I kept my eyes on Col. ‘Am I?’ I asked him.

  Col sighed. ‘I knew this was too good to be true.’

  ‘What was?’ asked Wilkins.

  ‘Thought my luck had turned. If they could prove you’d killed your wife, this would be plain sailing. But you couldn’t pull it off, could you?’

  ‘Because he didn’t kill his wife,’ muttered Jo. She stood up, moved towards the coffee table; I think to flick the ash from her roll-up into the ashtray.

  ‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ I said. I sat down in the armchair, because all of a sudden, I wasn’t sure whether my knees would hold me up. ‘You killed Megan.’

  ‘Luckily, there is a plan B.’ Col moved the Glock to his left hand and, with his right, pulled a second gun out of the inside of his jacket pocket.

  ‘That’s my gun,’ said Nick.

  ‘You can have it back, soon as I’m finished with it.’ Col turned, raised his right arm, extended it forward and shot Jo.

  That moment is preserved in slow motion in my brain, like a clip from a film. I can replay it over and over, a millisecond at a time. I can see everything. The confusion on Jo’s face as Col points the gun at her. Her step backwards which knocks her into the coffee table. Her stumble, the bloom of red on her shoulder. Her fall to the ground. Nick’s roar that reverberates as the scene plays out. I can see the whisky bottle on the coffee table. It tips but stays upright. I watch Nick catapult himself out of the armchair and across the room. He launches himself horizontally towards the gun, while my brain scrabbles to reclassify Col as bent cop. Cold-blooded killer.

  Jo hit the floor, her body twisted at an angle that was just plain wrong. Nick was too slow, too old, but I was amazed by his fearlessness. He struck Col with all his body weight – charged him like a battering ram. Col toppled backwards, trying to keep Nick back with his right arm. He dropped the Glock, and it hit the carpet. I saw Col kick at it, and it disappeared under the sofa. I think I remained seated, frozen, my brain stretched with the effort of keeping up with the pictures in front of me, the two men grappling like sumo wrestlers. Nick had the size and height advantage, but Col was younger, fitter.

  Then something snapped.

  I fired from my chair. Rage, like rocket fuel, propelling me forward. I hit Col from the rear, kicked him in the ribs, low enough to hurt his liver. I saw Nick’s
gun drop to the floor, and I managed to get a foot to it, kicked it backwards along the carpet, out of the immediate area. Nick was on top of Col now and I crumpled with them, my left leg trapped under Col’s body.

  I think I took an elbow to the face. I shut my eyes to block the pain. I heard a shot, and I wondered how. I’d seen both guns leave Col’s hands. Nick slumped, became a dead weight. The pain in my left leg got worse. I felt the warmth of wetness seep into my jeans.

  I grabbed the armchair leg and tried to extricate myself, my mind only on Jo. I had to get to her, help her, make sure she was all right. But I wasn’t quick enough, because Col grabbed me by the throat.

  ‘Not so fast.’

  ‘You fucking bastard,’ I screamed. ‘If you’ve—’

  He pulled his arm back and slapped my face. So hard I felt my teeth move. He spoke slowly. One word at a time. ‘Shut. The. Fuck. Up.’

  He was on top of me, but the lower half of his body was still underneath Nick. He struggled to push Nick’s body off him, and he crawled his way off me. He pulled himself up to standing, and I saw the gun in his hand. Another gun? I couldn’t keep track. I sat up, the left-hand side of my face burning.

  ‘You’ll never get away with this.’

  ‘Only one way to find out.’ He grinned at me. In that moment he was the most beautiful ugly man I’d ever laid eyes on.

  ‘You’re going to kill me?’ OK, I’d cottoned on to the fact he wasn’t the man of my dreams. Hell, I’d even reconciled myself to it. It’s not like he was the first man to not live up to expectations. But had I got last night that wrong?

  ‘I didn’t kill you,’ said Col. ‘He did.’ He used his gun to point at Nick’s lifeless form. ‘I came to your rescue, soon as I got wind of your plan. But, sadly, I was too late.’ He took one of the fags that Nick had left on the coffee table and lit it. I thought I noticed a tremble in his hands, but it may have been me. ‘Tragic. But at least a murder got solved.’

  ‘Which one?’ I’d been right. Knowing you’re about to die is liberating.

  ‘Good question. Four murders got solved. Four for the price of one. Jayne, Megan, your good friend over there, and last but not least, you.’