Doors Without Numbers

by C. D. Neill

  “We understand Rachel was working for Child Protection Services at the time of her disappearance?”

  Mr Turner nodded affirmatively.

  “Did she ever talk to you about her work?”

  “No, not much. Rachel was a very discreet person, she took her work very seriously. There were occasions when I could see she wanted to tell me about certain cases she was working on, but she was a stickler for protocol, she would never have broken confidentiality.”

  “It says in the Police report that you suspected Rachel had left with another man? Do you still believe that?”

  Mr Turner sighed heavily and removed his glasses, he drew a hand across his forehead massaging the temples for several quiet seconds before replacing his glasses.

  “To be honest, I don’t know what to believe. Rachel was a good wife, she was a great mother to our daughter Heather who was only four when she left. When it happened I was convinced that Rachel would come back in the door at any moment telling me she had made a mistake, but she never did. The police had traced her movements throughout that day. She told me she was going shopping, but apparently, she had met some man at a local motel. It didn’t seem plausible but I was shown the security film footage from the motel lobby, it was definitely her. The Rachel I knew would never have left our daughter, she was devoted to Heather.”

  Mr Turners words were spoken hurried and without care, it was as if he was still trying to rationalise the incident.

  Dunn was silent for several moments, Hammond was aware that she shot a sideways glance at him before plunging in with her question.

  “Rachel had been beaten shortly before her disappearance? I understand that you were questioned by the Police about her injuries?”

  Dunn maintained eye contact with him, willing him to answer.

  “I never harmed a hair on her head. Never! Two weeks before Rachel left, she came home later than usual with a black eye and a broken nose. When I asked her about it, she said she had been mugged, and that she had spent the afternoon at the police station. I had no reason to disbelieve her. As for the police...they didn’t question me Sergeant Dunn, they accused me of abusing my wife. At one point, they suggested I had something to do with her disappearance. When I told them that Rachel had reported a mugging only weeks earlier, they accused me of lying. Apparently there was no such report.”

  Hammond spoke up, he realised a man to man talk may seem less accusatory.

  “The details that the police uncovered during their investigation into Rachel’s disappearance, it must have been a shock to you. You said that the Rachel they portrayed was not the same woman you had known. Is it possible Mr Turner that your wife had led a double life?”

  Mr Turner looked at Hammond for several seconds, studying his face before answering.

  “I don’t want to believe that Inspector Hammond. Rachel was a gentle, honest woman. We were a close and loving family. I cannot think of one reason why she would have left, yet I cannot understand why she met that man. I don’t believe she was having an affair, at least it didn’t look like that from the motel’s security video. I don’t know who she met, but she knew him, it looked like they were in a heated discussion, at one point he had his hand on her shoulder and was looking directly at her which isn’t the kind of thing you would do with a stranger.”

  “Had her behaviour changed in any way leading up to that day?”

  “Yes, I did say this to the police because I thought it was relevant. Rachel became very withdrawn and secretive about her work for about a year before she left. She wouldn’t discuss any individual cases with me anyway but I discovered that she stopped bringing her paperwork home with her, like she used to.”

  “Do you think she suspected you of reading her work?”

  “I cannot imagine why, I respected my wife’s work. It was none of my business what her charges were going through, I never had any desire to know about her work other than what she would tell me.”

  “Do you think someone else looked at her private papers, hence her being more security conscious?”

  Mr Turner looked with surprise towards Dunn, he obviously found her question ridiculous.

  “Who would look at her private papers here? It was only ever me and our daughter, who was an infant!”

  Hammond interjected, he leaned across and helped himself to a custard cream and smiled as he did so, hoping to ease the atmosphere.

  “The fact is this Mr Turner, your wife suddenly left one day and didn’t come home. The police could find nothing suspicious other than an injury to her face that she didn’t report. Your wife was a conscientious worker, good at her job, and for some reason, she becomes over protective of her business papers. Then she lies to you about going shopping and instead meets a man who you do not know before disappearing. There isn’t much in this account that suggests a crime had been committed, which means that Rachel’s background would have been investigated. Is there anything, no matter how trivial it may seem, that would have been of interest to the people investigating her disappearance?”

  Dunn sipped her tea casually, she knew what Hammond was suggesting, that maybe Mr Turner hadn’t known his wife as well as he thought.

  “Soon after Rachel and I married, she was desperate to have a family, this would often cause arguments because I wanted us to enjoy a relationship before we had children. At one point we had an awful row about it, and she confessed that she had had a child when she was seventeen, a son that she had given up for adoption. She regretted it ever since. When she left, I wondered if she had managed to trace him which is why I didn’t report her missing until forty eight hours after she failed to come home. I wanted to respect her wishes to keep her son a private matter.”

  “Did she tell you she had attempted to trace her son?”

  Mr Turner shook his head. “No, but I thought she may have worried about telling me in case I disapproved. You see, when she mentioned the idea of tracing her son, I told her that I didn’t think it was a good idea to look for him, I suggested she leave her details with the adoption contact agencies so that, if her son wanted to trace her, he could. That way it would be his decision. I wanted to protect her from being rejected by him. But, perhaps she thought my motives were selfish.”

  “You didn’t mention any of this to the police. Why?”

  Mr Turner looked exasperated by Dunn’s question but he answered her calmly and simply.

  “The police were quick to presume that I was a wife beater, they didn’t listen to my concerns, instead they saw it as an act of guilt, that I was in some way responsible for her disappearance. I didn’t want them stampeding into an investigation of Rachel’s background. Her character would have been blackened. Becoming a mother at seventeen years of age wasn’t unusual but to Rachel, it was something to be ashamed of and I had no right to humiliate her by telling all and sundry.”

  “But you are telling us now. Why?”

  “Because eleven years have passed. If Rachel had contacted her son during this time, he would have had enough time to get to know his mother and trust that she didn’t abandon him. Heather is now fifteen years of age, she has forgotten her Mother. Also, I believe that if Rachel is alive, she is happy doing what she wants and that she has left her life with me and Heather behind. It doesn’t make a difference anymore. Rachel isn’t the same person now, she probably has a new identity and a new life. One where she has no secret to be ashamed of.”

  “Rachel’s son, did she offer you any information about him at all?”

  “None. But I do know that Rachel left home when she discovered she was pregnant. She moved into a hostel near Dartford which is where we eventually met. It is likely that she gave birth in a hospital near there, sometime in summer 1970.”

  Dunn gave an encouraging smile. “It should be easy enough to check out.”

  Mr Turner ignored her comment and looked at Hammond. “If you find her, tell her I am here. I won’t move house, it’s important she knows that there will always be
a home here for her. Everything she left here is untouched, ready for her. I won’t throw anything anyway.”

  Hammond stood up and looked at the other man. “You have Rachel’s belongings here?”

  Turner nodded. “Of course.”

  Hammond looked quickly towards Dunn and caught her eye. She knew what he was thinking, she came away from the door and ventured to her original spot in the living room.

  “May I borrow something of Rachel’s?” He hoped Turner wouldn’t question why but was prepared to be truthful if it was necessary.

  Turner studied both his visitors hesitantly. “You promise to return them?”

  Hammond nodded and told him he would write a receipt for anything Turner could offer. Turner nodded and lead them into a back room. Hammond cast his eyes over the room in a cursory glance. It was evidently Rachel’s former working area. A small mahogany desk was positioned in the far corner of what appeared to be a spare bedroom. A small wardrobe stood facing the window; Turner opened it and gestured to the clothes hanging above rows of shoes lined up at the bottom.

  “There is not much in the desk, a notebook and her diary with her appointments. The police looked through it but found nothing that was of any help so it is doubtful that it will help you either. As for her clothes, well, take your pick.

  “Do you remember what she wore on the day she... left?” Dunn deliberately used the term Turner had used rather than referring to Rachel’s missing status.

  “Yes, a blue short sleeved blouse, grey skirt, matching jacket and navy heeled shoes. A faux pearl necklace and matching earrings, a tortoiseshell hair clip and a silver watch with clasp fastening.”

  Dunn’s eyebrows raised with the detailed description, a quick glance in the wardrobe showed her that the clothing he had listed was not in the wardrobe. Hammond moved over to the desk and pulled open a shallow drawer. The diary was on top of a jotter pad; he removed both items and flicked through them. There wasn’t much to see but he asked to borrow them anyway and wrote a receipt for both items.

  As they bid Turner a farewell, Hammond shook the other man’s outstretched hand with sincerity. He found himself pitying the man whom he knew would be waiting in vain for his wife to return.

  Dunn turned to Hammond as soon as he had settled himself into the passenger seat.

  “Well, did you find him convincing?”

  “If you mean do I think he is responsible for his wife’s disappearance. No, I don’t. He is innocent, I am sure of it. In fact I think he is deluding himself that Rachel is still alive.”

  Dunn nodded as she turned the ignition. “I agree. He couldn’t even refer to his wife having had disappeared, he kept insisting she had left. Although I find that rather strange. One minute he refers to her as being a devoted mother and wife, the next he is convincing himself and us, that she chose to leave him, even though they were a close and loving family? I am willing to bet he knows a lot more than he is saying.”

  Hammond looked at her, noting her self-assurance. He was tempted to place a bet but decided against it.

  It was almost dark by the time Dunn’s car left him outside his house. She walked him to the front door, offering an arm as he hobbled up the porch steps. He ignored her gesture, he was embarrassed by his disability, and would have preferred she had left him on the pavement. He dismissed her offer to accompany him inside.

  “I’m going to look through the diary, you never know there may be something that proves helpful.”

  “Phone me if you find anything. I’m in court in the morning, but I’ll get back to you if you leave a message.”

  They said their goodbyes and he waved to her with his crutch before letting himself into the house.

  From the moment he entered his hallway, Hammond knew something wasn’t right. The house felt different as if something was not as he had left it earlier that day. He paused by the coat rack, listening for any sound that would explain his unease. It was silent. He turned on the light and made his way slowly through the rooms downstairs. The living room and kitchen looked no different than usual yet he felt an inexplicable build up of nervous tension, goose bumps formed on his neck and arms. He started talking to himself out loud, telling himself he was being ridiculous but the feeling didn’t go away. For a moment he considered calling Dunn and asking her to return, but he couldn’t risk appearing a fool, a grown man scared of his own shadow. Eventually he forced himself to venture back into the living room and turned on all the lights and the television hoping the noise would distract him from his anxiety.

  Only when he reached for the television remote control did he notice the twelve shot glasses he had left on the coffee table had been moved. Each glass had been left in their individual groups, yet the glasses he had used to represent the thoughts of Thomas and Graham Roberts had been moved across to the corner he had used to represent Lloyd and Kathleen Harris. He had no doubts. Someone had been in the house whilst he had been away, and whoever had been there had been looking for something. He moved towards where he had left the file. It was gone. His mind was racing, did it matter that the file had gone? He could remember everything that was in it but the idea that someone had entered his home and gone rooting through his belongings made him nervous. Whomever had broken into the house had known he would be away which meant he had been watched. He forced himself to think calmly. It was possible that the intruder had left, that they had got what they had wanted and had no reason to stick around, yet he wanted to make sure.

  When they had moved into the house over ten years ago, Paul used to play in what he had called the ‘secret chamber’. In reality it was the old larder next to the kitchen that backed onto the wall of the old outside toilet. In time, the plaster and the brick work had disintegrated leaving a small gap between the walls. The forty-four year old Hammond had promised to re-plaster the walls to stop the draughts but he had never got around to doing it so Lyn had resorted to blocking it with the pine dresser that she had filled with Portmerion and Wedgewood collector pieces. Lyn’s china collection had since left with her so the dresser was easier to move. Hammond discarded his crutches and pushed himself against the dresser edging it away from the wall until he made a space to crawl behind. He cursed aloud at putting himself in such a pathetic situation as he made his way through the gap until he was in the old toilet room. The air was damp and heavy, his throat and nostrils filled with dust causing him to choke. Using one hand to cover his mouth, he crawled on his knees until he could raise himself to his full height. He was surprised to find Paul’s long-forgotten plastic Indian figures lined up on the wooden board that covered the old toilet bowl but refused to allow himself to be distracted by sentimentality as he concentrated on loosening the nailed boards that blocked the exterior door. It was an easy job and reminded him of his earlier half hearted attempts at D.I.Y. From his position, he could see into the back garden but was far enough away from the back door so he couldn’t be seen if the back of the house was under surveillance. He studied the footpath that lead around the back of the houses. He couldn’t see or hear anyone.

  It would have been possible to have simply looked out the front window to have seen anyone watching the house from the main road at the front but it wasn’t dark enough to be unseen and he wanted to be discreet. The side passage that ran alongside the house would exit further down the road. He shuffled his way out of the outside toilet and edged his way along the side passage, confident he wouldn’t be seen in the shadows. At the end of the alley way he kneeled down and peered around the corner of the next house. The car was parked two houses away. The engine wasn’t running and the lights were turned off but Hammond distinguished it as being alien to his neighbours cars, someone was seated in the driver’s seat. From his position it was difficult to tell if the driver was male or female. He stayed in the shadows for several moments wondering what to do. Then he made up his mind. He scrolled down his mobile’s contact list.

  “Edwards, are you free?”

  Hammond was whispe
ring, it was unlikely he would be heard from where he stood but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

  “Yeah, what’s going on?”

  “I need you. Do you think you could drive to my place? When you arrive, don’t stop, keep on driving slowly until you see a car parked on the right with the driver inside. Check to see if anyone else is in the car and take a note of the registration number.”

  There was a hesitation on the other end of the line. Hammond guessed that Edwards was confused as to why he was being asked to drive there when all Hammond had to do was walk down the road.

  “Can you do that for me Edwards?”

  “Sure. I’m on my way. You want me to phone you when I am there?”

  “No, drive past, and then wait when you are out of sight and I will call you.”

  Edwards muttered a response and the call ended.

  Hammond’s ankle was throbbing but he resisted the temptation to move. He wanted the person watching to think Hammond was still in the house, ignorant of the fact that he was the subject of scrutiny.

  “Life must always be a great adventure, with risks on every hand.”

  Henry Havelock Ellis. The Dance of Life. 1923

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The twenty minutes that passed as Hammond waited for his colleague felt like an age. Hammond was uncomfortable, he wished he had brought his crutches to lean on, but he couldn’t risk leaving his hiding place so resorted to gritting his teeth and accepting his discomfort like the man he wanted to be. He leaned against the wall of the next house and kept checking to see if the car was there. The driver hadn’t moved from their position. Occasionally car lights would sweep past and cause Hammond to step further back into the passage once he had checked it wasn’t Edwards.

  Eventually Hammond heard heavy breathing accompanied by rapid footsteps as a man hidden under a hooded top and scarf jogged past with a bull dog on a leash. The man didn’t seem at ease with running, he lifted his knees too high with each stride as if he were attempting dressage. Hammond watched them and caught his breath as the man stopped by the car with the driver inside. He saw him bend down to the pavement and heard muffled words before the jogger continued with his awkward practise. More minutes past and then Hammond recognised Edwards’ car crawl past slowly and continue down the road. Hammond waited five minutes then called Edward’s mobile.