by Faith Martin
‘Always, Jimmy.’
Ruth Coombs worked in shop on a small industrial estate that specialized in selling camping and outdoor gear. They parked near a large stock of propane cylinders, Jimmy eyeing them warily as they passed.
‘Had a bad experience with gas, Jimmy?’ Hillary teased. Living on a boat, she was used to using gas cylinders for all her cooking and heating needs.
Jimmy grunted something dire about rather being electrocuted than being blown to bits, or burnt, as they pushed on into the shop. It had seen better days, and décor wasn’t a particularly high priority, but at least it had several customers who were all shopping seriously. She supposed, in hard economic times, that cheap camping holidays were better than no holidays at all.
She waited to pass a man with an enormous beer belly who was stocking up on barbecue fuel. Given the vagaries of the great British summer, she had to admire his optimism if nothing else. When he moved to one side and they were able to get past, she headed for the only member of staff she could see in the place, a big-boned brunette serving behind the counter.
She held out her ID. ‘Excuse me, I’d like to speak to a Miss Ruth Coombs. She does work here, I understand?’
‘I’m Ruth,’ the woman said at once. She turned and suddenly barked out, ‘Hey, Joey, come out here a minute, will you?’ to someone out of sight behind the partition walling behind her and a moment later a thin, bespectacled man appeared. Ruth told him to mind the till, and inclining her head imperiously for them to follow, quickly led them round the back.
She was tall, and strode rather than walked. Jimmy gave a mock Nazi salute to her back. She was wearing a pale-blue nylon overall that was obviously the shop’s own uniform, and sneakers.
She led them to a cubby-hole that held a stockpile of fire lighters, storage heaters and single gas rings. It also boasted a kettle and a big tin of industrial-sized instant coffee.
‘Is this about Judy?’ she asked flatly. From the file, Hillary knew that Ruth Coombs was thirty-five years old, but she looked marginally older than that, mostly because her brown hair was already beginning to silver with grey. Her dark-brown eyes watched them with a hard, steady glare that almost defied them to deny it. ‘It has to be about Judy, right?’ she asked, before either of them could say anything in response. ‘There’s no other reason for the police to come calling. Not that I expected anything from you people after all these years,’ she added, this time with obvious belligerence.
Hillary instantly understood the reason for it. ‘I’m sorry if you feel we’ve been failing to do our job, Miss Coombs. I can assure you, Miss Yelland’s case hasn’t been forgotten. The Crime Review Team periodically reinvestigates cold cases,’ she said, not quite accurately, but definitely in no mood to give this hostile witness any information about the current state of affairs.
Ruth Coombs sighed and leaned back against a chipped Formica work table.
‘So, what can I do for you?’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard from Judy since you reported her missing?’ Hillary began with the stock question.
Ruth snorted. ‘Of course not. I’d have been back on to you lot like a shot if I had. I’m not stupid, so please don’t treat me as if I am!’
‘I can assure you that wasn’t my intention,’ Hillary said, responding to the other’s woman’s heat with a cool, neutral tone. ‘What can you tell me about Judy, and about what happened just before she went missing?’
Ruth looked at her steadily. ‘OK. Fair enough. But I can tell you right now, the same thing as I said before: Christopher Deakin is behind it all.’
Hillary nodded. ‘This was Judy’s boyfriend at the time. You told the DC in Missing Persons that you thought he was acting suspiciously.’
Ruth flushed. She had an odd sort of face – at times she looked attractive, and at other times she looked downright plain. Now her eyes began to glitter, and the heightened colour made her look suddenly vivacious. Hillary wondered, suddenly, whether Ruth was single or living with someone.
‘Before Judy went missing, I know they’d been having some rows,’ Ruth said, her voice once more belligerent, as if she was expecting Hillary to call her a liar.
‘They’d been seeing each other for some time?’
‘About a year. He was married, of course, still is, but that didn’t stop him. Or her, for that matter.’
Hillary caught a whiff of something besides a bad attitude in the woman’s voice. Pain perhaps? Spite? Obsessive, at any rate. It was definitely something interesting. ‘You didn’t approve?’ she asked guilelessly.
‘If a man doesn’t intend to be faithful, he shouldn’t get married,’ Ruth said flatly, crossing her arms across her ample chest. She shot Jimmy a sour look, but Jimmy had far more sense than to look up from his notebook let alone make a comment.
Hillary thought that although Ruth’s simplistic views were obviously heartfelt, she must have led a somewhat sheltered life if she thought them universal. Once more she wondered about the state of Ruth Coombs’s love life.
Closet gay? Had she, in fact, been in love with Judy? Or was it thoughts of Christopher Deakin that made her face flush with heat? And, if so, had she been jealous of her friend?
‘I understand you told the constable in Missing Persons that Judy had complained of a stalker?’
Ruth nodded reluctantly. ‘Some guy was sending her flowers and cards and what have you. Making nuisance phone calls. Judy had just changed her number.’
‘She never said who it was?’
‘She didn’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t Christopher’s wife playing games.’
Hillary blinked. ‘Mrs Deakin knew about her husband’s affair with Judy?’ she asked sharply.
Ruth’s glaring gaze faltered slightly. ‘Judy didn’t think so,’ she admitted, grudgingly. ‘She was convinced that they’d kept it all such a secret. Who knows, perhaps it was Chris himself who was doing it.’
‘Why would he do that?’ Hillary asked, confused. She was finding it hard to follow the younger woman’s thought processes.
Ruth sighed. ‘I don’t know. It was all a mess between Judy and Chris, I know that. Love’s young dream wasn’t all that dreamy any more, that’s all I know. And then, out of the blue, Judy just vanished into thin air.’ Ruth’s glare was now back. ‘You tell me that that was all a coincidence.’
Hillary nodded slowly. ‘When was the last time that you saw her?’
‘I already went through this. Judy came over the night before for a drink and to talk about Chris, and moan about her life, and how she needed her life to change. She went to work the next day, because I went to the shoe shop when I didn’t hear from her, and her boss there said she went to work in the morning, but didn’t come back from her lunch break. I think she went to meet Chris and he did something to her.’
‘That’s a serious allegation, Miss Coombs.’
Ruth shrugged. ‘I call it like I see it. I never liked or trusted Christopher Deakin,’ she added, far too adamantly.
No, but you wanted him, Hillary added silently. Call it a hunch, or a copper’s instinct, or sheer feminine intuition, but she was willing to bet there and then that was at the root of this woman’s angst. And still was. Had she kept in contact with Deakin? Somehow, Hillary thought that she had. Had she tried to take up where Judith Yelland had left off?
But even if she had, could it have had anything to do with Judy’s disappearance?
Then she gave herself a mental head slap. Of course it didn’t. As interesting as all this was, even if some sort of twisted love triangle had existed between Judy, Ruth, and Christopher Deakin, it was Judy’s unknown stalker they needed to find.
‘Did Judy ever mention seeing a man following her perhaps?’ she asked hopefully.
‘No,’ Ruth said flatly.
‘You said he made nuisance phone calls. Did Judy ever tape them to take to the police, or did you ever answer the phone when you were around her place, and hear his voic
e yourself?’
‘Sorry, no.’
‘Did Miss Yelland keep the cards and envelopes they came in?’
‘No, she binned them the moment they arrived.’
Hillary sighed. ‘All right. Well, thank you, Miss Coombs. If we think of anything else we might need from you, we’ll get in touch.’
‘Huh. I shan’t hold my breath,’ Ruth Coombs said flatly.
Back at the car, Jimmy grinned at her over the roof. ‘Well, guv, I reckon the original flatfoot had it right: if you had a friend like that, wouldn’t you do a runner?’
Hillary smiled wryly. ‘Did you get the distinct impression that she wanted Judy’s boyfriend for herself?’
‘Hell yes, guv. Talk about a frustrated man-eater.’
Hillary shook her head wearily. ‘This case has got more twists and turns in it than a game of snakes and ladders.’
‘Where to next, guv? This Deakin guy?’
‘Might as well,’ Hillary said. ‘He might have a better angle on his girlfriend’s stalker. You can see why she wouldn’t confide in our Miss Coombs, but a girl might well cry on her boyfriend’s shoulder. Perhaps she did catch a glimpse of our man, and told him all about it.’
Jimmy snorted. ‘If she did, he never came forward and told us about it when she went missing,’ he pointed out.
‘He’s married, remember?’ Hillary said sardonically.
Christopher Deakin, according to all that Vivienne had been able to dig up on him when she could spare the time, was thirty-three years old, married to a woman named Portia, and had twin boys, now aged eight. Hillary wasn’t surprised to note that it was the wife who had the money. With a name like that, it was almost inevitable. But to give Deakin his due, although he’d started out life on a council estate in Milton Keynes, he had successfully managed all of his wife’s money, a portion of which he’d invested in setting up his own business, a small television production company. According to the taxman and various other financial sources, the company was moderately and steadily in profit.
Specializing mainly in producing television adverts and news/documentary segments for local television, they had their offices not far from the BBC office building on the Banbury Road in Oxford.
Once they’d found it, this small slice of the so-called glamorous world of show biz turned out to be a rather nondescript yellow-brick, two-storey building with a small car-park and a view of a rather scrappy rugby field. But the grounds of the building itself were well maintained and the interior was clean, freshly painted in pale apricot and populated with helpful staff.
Within five minutes they were ushered into the office of the man himself.
Christopher Deakin was a touch over six feet tall, with very short blond hair and hazel eyes. He was lanky, but wore a good suit that did much to make him look elegant. He wore a plain watch and tie. He was good-looking in a Daniel Craig sort of way – with a touch of the rough-hewn about him that gave him a certain distinction. Hillary could see why Judy, his wife, and Ruth Coombs had all fallen for him.
He smiled at her a shade uncertainly however, and her first instinct was that here was a man made of straw, rather than steel.
‘Hello. You’re the police, Lizzie said?’ he asked, half-rising from behind his desk but then subsiding again as Hillary waved him back down. She flashed her ID, introduced herself and Jimmy and gave the usual spiel.
Christopher Deakin paled visibly at the mention of Judy’s name, and nervously readjusted his tie. Until then, Hillary thought that nobody ever did that, outside of bad television shows and old-fashioned crime novels.
Deakin managed to give them a shaky smile. ‘Please, sit down. I’ll make no bones about it, hearing Judy’s name again after all this time has shaken me up a bit.’
Hillary nodded, unimpressed. No doubt he was well aware that he’d given himself away, so becoming open and honest all of a sudden was probably a good move on his part.
‘You were having an affair with her, Mr Deakin?’ she asked, almost casually but stating it as a fact. She had the feeling that if she gave him just a little leeway he’d instantly start trying to justify himself or explain how nothing could possibly be his fault, and she just wasn’t in the mood for a whining display.
Christopher winced a little, then took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Yes,’ he confessed. ‘You’ve been speaking to Ruth, I imagine,’ he said, with a sad, small smile.
‘You were still seeing her when she went missing, in fact?’ Hillary clarified, not wanting to get to the Ruth Coombs conundrum just yet.
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t come forward.’
‘There wasn’t really an investigation, was there? I mean, nobody from the police called on me. And the first I heard about Judy being reported missing was when Ruth called, demanding to know where she was.’ Christopher sighed heavily and swung slightly to and fro on his black leather swivel chair. It was a subconsciously childish gesture that sat oddly on a grown man. ‘At first, I thought it was Ruth typically over-reacting. I kept expecting Judy to get in touch.’
‘But she never did,’ Hillary finished for him flatly.
‘No.’
‘And still you didn’t come forward.’
Christopher held out his hands, fingers widespread in the universally what-can-you-do gesture. Hillary noticed his hands were clean and well kept, and that he’d had a recent manicure. ‘What was the point? I didn’t know where she’d gone.’
‘Did your wife know about her, Mr Deakin?’
Again, the television producer went distinctly pale. ‘Portia? Good grief, no,’ he said fervently.
No bonuses for guessing who wore the trousers in that relationship, Hillary thought wryly. Then gave herself a quick admonishment. She was not here to score points off this man – just find out what he knew. She deliberately let her voice become softer and a shade more coaxing. This, she was sure, was the best way to handle the likes of Christopher Deakin.
‘Can you tell me how you and Judy met?’ she smiled gently.
‘We met at a party, actually,’ Deakin said, relaxing a little. ‘A friend of a friend was holding a big barbecue and Judy was helping out with the serving. She did odd jobs at weekends to get more money – she didn’t particularly like her job at the shoe shop; she didn’t particularly get on well with the manager and she was always complaining that she was on minimum wage. So she was always on the look out for ways to earn some extra cash.’
‘And you hit it off over the hot dogs, so to speak,’ Hillary said, with another encouraging smile. She felt a bit like a primary schoolteacher egging on a slightly backward pupil.
‘Yes. She was one of these people who seemed really sunny and friendly, you know? Uncomplicated. She was pretty too, and … my wife can be rather…. Oh hell, I’m not going to go into the whole my-wife-doesn’t-understand-me cliché. Let’s just say, we met at a time when I was feeling needy.’
Hillary nodded. Something told her that this man was always going to be needy. ‘You’d been seeing each other some time, I understand.’
‘Oh not so long.’
‘Ruth said it was nearly a year,’ Hillary said, with just a hint of reprimand in her voice. She was not surprised when he responded instantly.
Christopher blinked and quickly backtracked. ‘Was it really that long? Yes. I suppose it was, now that I think about it.’
Hillary smiled gently. ‘A year is a long time for a young woman in love, Mr Deakin. After a year, they start to assume things. Did Judy ask you to leave your wife, for instance?’
‘No, never,’ Christopher said at once, looking truly alarmed now. ‘She knew the boys were too young and that they needed both their parents. Judy said that she knew what it was like not to have a good home life. She didn’t seem to have got on with her own family, and the last thing she wanted to do was split up mine.’ He was leaning forward in his chair now, his elbows on the table in his urgency to get his point across. ‘You don’t understand how it was between
us at all if you think that’s the sort of relationship we had. It was nothing like that. She wasn’t some demanding bimbo or home wrecker. We were good together, honestly we were.’ His voice level had risen by both a decibel and an octave by the time he’d finished.
‘OK, OK, I understand,’ she said soothingly. ‘Did Judy ever mention having a stalker?’
Deakin hesitated for a fraction of a second, then said, ‘No.’
A lie. Interesting.
‘Did she ever give you the impression that she was in trouble? That she was feeling suicidal maybe?’
‘No!’ Deakin said, sounding honestly shocked now.
‘Do you have any idea where Judy might have gone? Did she mention friends, or people abroad maybe, anywhere she might go if she just wanted to get away for a while?’
‘No. I thought about it, of course I did. I thought of nothing else for weeks – well, both Ruth and I put our heads together to try and think where she might have gone, but neither of us could come up with anything.’
‘It sounds as if you and Miss Coombs were united in your worry for her.’
Christopher shifted uneasily on his chair. ‘Yes. We were.’
‘Are you still in contact with Ruth Coombs, Mr Deakin?’ she asked casually.
Christopher shot her a quick look. ‘Not really. Why do you ask?’
Hillary smiled neutrally. ‘When we talked to her, she seemed to find you a fascinating subject.’
Deakin again went pale. Hillary was beginning to find it a very interesting phenomenon with this excitable, weak but attractive man.
‘Oh, that’s just Ruth,’ he said, with a brief, somewhat pitifully false laugh.
‘I found her rather.…’ Hillary paused, let the silence deliberately lengthen just enough to get him nervous again, and finished quietly, ‘Well, let’s just say that I thought she had a forceful personality.’ She baited the hook carefully and waited to see if he’d bite.
‘Ruth?’ Deakin said casually. ‘Oh, Ruth’s all right. She was Judy’s best friend.’
‘So you had no trouble with her?’ Hillary asked curiously.