The Lady Vanished

by GRETTA MULROONEY

  ‘You’ve a clever tongue,’ she said, taking a deep pull on her cigarette and blowing a smoke ring. ‘I ought to give these up but I started when I was fourteen and you’ve got to die of something.’

  There was a pause. Swift looked intently at the garden.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, Tyrone; when I said to the police that Mrs L seemed chipper on the thirtieth, it did cross my mind later that maybe she sniffed a romance or at least had met some fella she liked. She didn’t like being on her own, I could see that right enough. My friend Kate told me that the husband had put her on a pedestal and cosseted her, treated her like some kind of princess. Whatever she wanted, she got. Must be hard to suddenly not have that kind of attention and be on your own. I’ve never had it, so I’ve never missed it. The way she acted around men, you could see she was a bit desperate; you know, coming on a bit too gushing. Men aren’t keen on that, are they?’

  He held his hands up. ‘I don’t know, not sure it’s ever happened to me. But I can imagine it might be off-putting.’

  Ronnie gave him a look. ‘I’d say you’re being modest, a good-looking, fit man like you would get plenty of offers. Are you married?’

  ‘I’m not, no. So, was Mrs Langborne acting like that around some of these supper-party men?’

  ‘Aye, but not to one in particular, as I recall. But, you know, she’d do that Princess Di kind of thing, holding her head to one side, fluttering her eyelashes and being girlish. It was funny to me, seeing it, because I only know this rather formidable woman. A wee bit sad, too, because she’s not in the first flush anymore and she isn’t that much of a looker, although because she’s slim and beautifully dressed, she can make some other women feel a bit frumpy. I heard one of the wives muttering to another one in the hallway about it. She said, “Carmen looks grotesque when she’s flirting, it’s awful at her age, I do wish she’d stop it.”’

  Ronnie had adopted a posh accent for her quotation and Swift laughed.

  ‘So she isn’t popular with wives?’

  ‘Aye, you could definitely say that.’ She leaned forward. ‘Do you think one of them has bumped her off for poaching?’

  ‘Seems unlikely; I think that’s Agatha Christie territory. Does Mrs Langborne keep an appointment diary?’ He was hoping she had relied on pen and paper rather than an electronic record.

  ‘Aye; the police took it away but they brought it back a couple of weeks ago. I’ll show it you.’

  ‘How about a computer? Did she have one or use email?’

  ‘No, she disliked technology, said she had no time for it. Oh, here comes Paris, the third bundle of trouble.’

  A lissom, grey-and-brown striped cat, like a mini tiger, was picking his way among the terraces. He ignored them and vanished through the cat flap into the kitchen.

  ‘He’s the troublemaker,’ Ronnie said. ‘There’ll be madness in there in a minute.’ She stubbed her cigarette out carefully in an ashtray and swept up all evidence of her pastime with a duster she took from her pocket. She turned to him as she was leading the way back into the house, frowning. ‘I can tell you that something’s happened to Mrs L; she’d never have left her cats unfed or gone away from them for this long, she was devoted to them.’

  She gave Swift the diary, a thick, hardback book with the RSPCA logo and a cover featuring kittens and told him to look around the house; she could stay for another half hour and had things to get on with. He sat on a Queen Anne chair in the hallway, reading through the pages from the beginning of January. Most days had one entry and all looked like the moderately interesting social activities of a wealthy woman; Animals in Need supper; bridge, PS; hair 230; National Trust talk 6pm; Wigmore Hall @ 7; CPL coffee morning. No suggestion of assignations with a ‘fella.’ Carmen’s writing was elaborate, with curlicues and loops. On January 31 she had written Dr F 930, then Re WP and Haven. February held a similar series of entries, never fulfilled. March was almost empty. There was no repeat of WP or Haven. He took a photo of the January 31 page with his phone.

  He looked around the house, knowing that the police would already have searched and fingerprinted. Every room was shining and orderly. There was a great deal of chintz and numerous knick-knacks in the form of china shepherdesses and ladies in crinoline. Mrs Langborne’s bedside table held a small plaster statue of the Virgin Mary, a bottle of sleeping tablets and a copy of The Lady. He picked up the magazine and flicked through. There was a page with two apparently identical prints of a seated woman in twenties fashion, asking the reader to spot ten differences between the pictures. Swift found them all within seconds, thinking it wasn’t exactly taxing on the brain. Just along the upstairs landing was a box room which was clearly used for sewing and knitting. Downstairs in the sitting room there were more copies of The Lady and Country Life. Swift looked at an array of photos on the mantelpiece, over a coal effect gas fire. There were several of Carmen and her husband, one outside a hotel and one on what looked like a cruise ship. In each one he was looking at her, an arm around her slim waist. Her hair was very dark and looked dyed and Swift could see how expensive and elegant her dresses were. She wore gold earrings, necklaces and bracelets. Her face was a little hard and quite lined but she had a confident smile that lifted her expression. Her well-preserved figure would certainly annoy many other older women. There was another photo of Carmen with a tall man and a petite woman dressed in cream and holding flowers; he thought he recognised the steps of Chelsea register office. He took the photo through to the kitchen. He could hear a cat squealing, some thuds and Ronnie admonishing them. He put his head through the kitchen door and saw that two of the cats were squaring up to each other, Paris clearly being the originator of the ruckus. Ronnie shooed him out of the door and locked the cat flap.

  ‘He can stay out there and cool his heels for ten minutes,’ Ronnie told Swift, who was pleased that she wasn’t going to count to six. He noted that she had put on lipstick while he was looking around and there was a floral fragrance that he didn’t care for in the air; like cat hair, perfume often made him sneeze.

  ‘Just a couple more questions,’ Swift said. ‘What’s CPL?’

  ‘That’s the Cats Protection League.’

  ‘And these entries on the day she disappeared, WP and Haven?’

  ‘Aye, the police asked me about those. I haven’t a clue. The photo is her with Rupert and Daphne at their wedding three years back.’

  ‘Thanks. Could I keep it for now? It’s a very clear close up of her.’

  ‘Aye that’s fine. Are you done? I have to be at my next lady at two.’ She took a cream mac from the back of a chair and gave it a shake.

  ‘Thanks for your time.’ He gave her a card. ‘If you think of anything else, do ring me. Or, of course, if Mrs Langborne turns up.’

  Ronnie slipped the card in her pocket. ‘I don’t reckon that’ll happen. I hope you find her. It’s odd to be coming here and she’s not around. I worry that some harm has come to her; it must have, surely, or there’d be some trace of her. I’ve no idea how long I’ll be wanted here if she’s not found.’

  ‘Who’s paying you in the meantime?’

  ‘Rupert’s taking care of it.’

  She saw him to the door, one of the cats following her and brushing around her legs.

  ‘You’ve got my number too, Tyrone, if you want to give me a wee call,’ she said softly, waving.

  He waved back and walked away, a little startled, suspecting that he had just been propositioned. After a minute he stopped, retraced his steps and rang the bell of number eleven. No one answered. He looked at the new steps leading from the side of the front door down to a basement window. He went down them and looked through the window but the obscured glass revealed nothing. The area around the window was newly planted with dark green shrubs and smoothed with gravel. The chaos that had so annoyed Carmen had been made harmonious.

  * * *

  Back at his office, Swift wrote up his notes and looked at the photo of Carmen Langborne’s
diary. A haven for what or whom? He felt that he had learned a fair amount about Carmen, who seemed a tricky kind of woman and possibly tiresome, but nothing that suggested any reason why she should have vanished.

  He headed upstairs to his flat to forage for some late lunch. The place was still pretty much as Lily had left it; a well-proportioned square sitting room at the front, behind that a bedroom, and at the back a long galley kitchen and bathroom. Now and again, Swift considered redecorating, but the truth was that he loved the place as it was, albeit it was growing shabby. Lily had favoured the Arts and Crafts style; the sitting room was decorated with William Morris Strawberry Thief wallpaper, a console table with shield and cross motifs, a Victorian chaise longue and deep armchairs in a thistle-patterned fabric. The buttery-yellow woodwork and glazed ochre tiles in the kitchen over the butler sink, and the open shelves with copper pans and spice rack; all these things were a pleasant reminder of Lily and the sanctuary that the house had always offered him. He had friends who lived in homes that were minimalist, with plain walls and stark, modern furniture that made him feel edgy. Mary said that shabby chic summed him up, with his fraying shirt collars, unkempt curling hair and random pairings of suit jackets and jeans, so in her opinion, the décor suited him perfectly.

  He made a cheese and tomato sandwich, adding a dollop of damson chutney made by Cedric, who regularly cooked up batches of jams, marmalades and relishes. While he ate he rang Mark Gill who suggested he come round for an Indian takeaway that evening. There was an added enticement that Mark had some new additions to his collection of vintage detective magazines. He and Mark had met soon after he joined the police and had worked together on several cases. Mark was now an inspector operating in digital investigations but said he could take a look at what was happening regarding Carmen Langborne.

  Swift then emailed Rupert Langborne, asking for a meeting and giving his contact details. He made coffee, went back to his office and tidied up some accounts, checked the tides and decided that he could get an hour’s rowing in if he was quick. He donned a blue all-in-one Lycra suit and picked up a woollen hat to ward off the breeze. After he had changed, he ran up to Cedric’s flat with half a dozen empty glass jars. Cedric was back from the pub and when he opened his door there was a mouth-watering smell of fruit.

  ‘Ah, terrific timing, my boy!’ he said, waving Swift in. ‘You look like an elongated super hero in that outfit, about to save the world. I’m just making lime marmalade with Milo. You remember him, don’t you?’

  Swift certainly did remember Milo, who had fallen down the stairs at midnight due to inebriation, several months back, and fractured his wrist. Swift had been woken and had to call an ambulance and accompany Milo to hospital. He was older than sprightly Cedric, slightly bent and slow-moving; they called themselves the hare and the tortoise. They were both wearing aprons and there was an amazing mess in the kitchen. On the cooker a deep pot was making noises like a rumbling volcano.

  ‘Tyrone, my dear one, my rescuer,’ Milo called, waving a wooden spoon. ‘Come and taste this.’

  He held out the spoon and Swift licked it.

  ‘Lovely. Has it set?’

  ‘Almost,’ Cedric said, prodding a glob of the mixture that was chilling on a plate. ‘We must keep close watch now; we’re reaching a critical point.’

  Milo was ogling Swift. ‘Dear one, that outfit leaves very little to the imagination. If I was younger I might pounce on you!’

  Swift waved a warning finger. ‘You concentrate on your marmalade, Milo.’

  ‘Yes, Milo,’ Cedric said. ‘Tyrone isn’t of your persuasion so behave nicely.’

  ‘Ah,’ sighed Milo, ‘there was a time when I was young and fleet and I might have turned him. Now I get my thrills boiling fruit and sugar.’

  Swift left them to it and set off. So far that day he had been propositioned by a sexagenarian and an octogenarian; perhaps by night time a nonagenarian would eye him up.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mark Gill’s flat in a small modern block in Ravenscourt Park wasn’t so much minimalist as almost empty. Swift had been there a couple of times in the eight years Mark had lived in it and apart from a few expensive pieces of furniture and state-of-the-art TV there was little evidence of his personality. He rarely ate in, so his kitchen gleamed in the same pristine condition the builders had left it when he bought it off-plan. Mark was a medium-height, intense man who spoke, moved and acted rapidly. Even when sitting, he was restlessly tapping his fingers on the chair edge or drawing imaginary diagrams on surfaces. He talked constantly, in a stream of thoughts that were often hard to follow. It was hard to imagine that he ever slept and when he did he kept the TV in his bedroom flickering all night with the sound muted. He loathed being on his own and if not working, which he often did until late in the evening, he sought the company of others. His nickname at work was twitcher. Swift, who could be seen as solitary and taciturn, watched his friend jittering around the room. He found Mark’s volubility oddly restful; his friend never noticed if his companion was unforthcoming. He had often wondered what Mark’s childhood had been like, to cause such inability to be peaceful, but it wasn’t the kind of friendship that allowed such questions. And ultimately, Swift believed that everyone was a survivor in some way and to some degree of childhood experiences.

  They met now and again and always discussed their joint interest, detective magazines and particularly pulp fiction. On wet days when he wasn’t busy Swift sometimes called in to a shop in Soho that stocked an extensive selection of the magazines, and which for some reason played sixties music. He would spend an entertaining hour or two in the musty atmosphere, listening to The Troggs and Dusty Springfield; and he occasionally bought a couple of magazines if they particularly interested him. Mark was a dedicated collector and after phoning the food order and pouring beers for them both, he brought a box file to the S-shaped glass coffee table.

  ‘Here,’ he said gleefully, ‘look at my latest acquisitions. I picked up an early 1930s Casebook of Cardigan on eBay.’

  Swift looked through a copy of Dime Detective which featured the usual garish cover with private eye Jack Cardigan in The Dead Don’t Die. After it there was a story with Patricia Seaward, the female detective who gave Cardigan a run for his money. Mark also had a True Detective from 1952 featuring Jail for the Jezebel and Swift was taken with a magazine he had not come across before called Uncensored Detective with a cover of a horrified woman and the title, Murder Stalks the Bobby-Sox Bride.

  ‘Terrific,’ he said. ‘Jezebel is not a word you hear much nowadays. Did Cardigan ever fail to solve a mystery?’

  ‘Not in any I’ve read.’

  ‘Unlike the Met, so far, with Carmen Langborne.’

  ‘True. I’ll tell you more about that in a minute. I’m trying to find some copies of Black Mask with Tough Dick Donahue; tip me the wink if you come across any.’

  The door buzzer rang and Mark leapt out of his chair to receive the takeaway. They sat at the table, helping themselves to various curries, rice and pakoras. Mark fetched more cold beer. He ate as quickly as he spoke, stabbing his food.

  ‘I had a look at the Langborne case. No fingerprints in the house other than hers, the GP’s and the housekeeper’s. No signs of a struggle. No blood. Nothing known about her movements after the doctor visited. She doesn’t own a car. No activity in her bank accounts or on credit cards. Passport in her bedroom. A load of nothing.’ He shrugged and took a swig of beer.

  ‘What about those neighbours she argued with over the basement?’

  ‘They were checked out; away on holiday in South Africa, where they always go in January.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘There’s a stepson and stepdaughter, right? Both could account for where they were that day. It wasn’t one of the housekeeper’s days for cleaning and she was at another client in South Ken.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘The lady vanishes, all right.’

  ‘It’s the stepdaughter, Florence Davenport, who’s
asked me to look into it. I haven’t spoken to Rupert, the stepson yet. Doesn’t look good, does it?’ Swift helped himself to more rice. The food was spicy but not too hot, and he was hungry after his time on the river.

  ‘You know the score as well as me; she should have turned up by now if she was okay.’

  ‘The housekeeper said she’d never leave the cats unfed or stay away for so long.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe a random attack; I know they’re actually rare, but it is possible. Maybe she was carrying cash, wearing good jewellery and it was a mugging that went wrong.’

  ‘In London though, unseen by anyone?’

  Mark swept his fork efficiently across his plate. ‘You can find empty places in London. Given that the city is constantly being dug up, there are always opportunities to hide a body. I don’t know. It’s a DI Morrow who’s in charge of the case. I don’t know her but I can have a word with her about you and ask her to give you a ring.’

  They cleared away and sat talking and drinking beer, Mark expounding on the latest changes in the Met, the ever-growing bureaucracy and targets to be met. Swift let most of it wash over him. Mark frequently leapt up as he talked to straighten a curtain, glance out the window or check his emails.

  ‘How are you finding life after Interpol?’ he asked. ‘Not as exciting?’

  ‘I had enough excitement, thanks. I like what I’m doing.’

  ‘Did you leave because of that stabbing — in the leg, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Partly. It was a flesh wound in the thigh muscle but it took some time to heal. We were investigating a suspect’s house and I didn’t see the knife coming. They’d transferred me from arms-tracking to sex-traffic investigations. A year of that was enough for me; I could handle gun trading but those abused women, some just kids . . . my aunt had died and left me her house and money, so I did the sums and decided to bail out.’