Presumed Dead

by Shirley Wells

  A coffee and a sandwich later, his new shirts on the passenger seat, he sat in his car and called Yvonne’s number.

  She answered almost immediately.

  “Yvonne? It’s Dylan. Dylan Scott.”

  “Oh, yes?” She sounded guarded.

  “Yes. Two things. First, I must apologise for my behaviour. A delightful dinner companion and all I did was talk about another woman. I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” Slightly less guarded.

  “Second, I’m going home on Friday and I wanted to make amends. Would you have dinner with me tomorrow night? If I promise not to drone on about other women?”

  “Well—”

  “I can’t blame you if you say no.”

  “Er, no. I mean, yes. Yes, okay.”

  “Really? Hey, that’s brilliant. Tomorrow, I’ll be the perfect gentleman. Promise.”

  He’d even wear a clean shirt. A new clean shirt.

  “I’ll look forward to it,” she said.

  Perhaps this time, he needed her tongue loosened by alcohol.

  “Shall I come to your hotel again?” she asked.

  “If you like. Then we can go on somewhere else. You choose. I’ll be ready and waiting at six.”

  She laughed. “See you about seven then.” The connection was cut.

  Dylan drove back to the hotel and left his car there. It was time to go to work.

  Broad Lancashire accents were all around him—some people sounded as if they had never been outside Dawson’s Clough. There must be plenty of people who could remember the Oasis club and, more important, Anita Champion. All he had to do was find them.

  And the best starting place was the pubs. God, it was a tough job.

  By nine o’clock that evening even Dylan, who dreamed of living in a pub, was keen to get back to his hotel and his bed.

  He’d started in the Commercial, dark and dingy with a miserable landlord and a clientele of no-hopers, then moved on to the Red Lion, where he was the only customer for an hour.

  Now he was at the bar in the Pheasant, a warm and homely pub if a little jaded, where the walls were covered with old photographs of Lancashire scenes. Better still, he had finally found someone who had known Anita Champion.

  “Once seen, never forgotten,” his companion said. “An absolute stunner, she were.”

  “I know. I was in the queue of admirers. A long way back, but at least I was in the queue.”

  “I were more of a—friend.” The man put out his hand. “Bill Thornton. Let me buy you another. Black Sheep, is it?”

  “It is, yes. Thanks, Bill, that’s generous of you.” They shook hands. “Dylan, by the way. Dylan Scott.”

  After Bill had enjoyed a joke with the barmaid, a loud young girl in tight denims and even tighter T-shirt, their drinks were in front of them, two pints of Black Sheep.

  “The landlord’s a miserable bugger, but he does keep a good pint. Yorkshire beer, this is.” Bill took a swig from his glass, savoured it, and licked the froth from his top lip. “Brewed in Masham. Do you know the story?”

  “Story?”

  “Paul Theakston’s family had been brewing beer in Masham for—ooh, probably six generations—but then, much to Paul’s disgust, it were sold off to become part of Scottish and Newcastle Breweries. But young Paul were the black sheep of the family—you get it?—and he decided to stay on in Masham and do what his family had done best, that is, brew damn good beer in the traditional manner.”

  “Really?” Dylan took a swallow from his own pint and decided that Paul Theakston had done them a huge favour. “It’s a cracking pint.”

  “That it is.”

  “A good story, too.”

  Bill nodded, and concentrated on his beer.

  “So you were a friend of Anita’s?” Dylan asked.

  “I were. I can’t say there weren’t times when I didn’t want more, but really it were better like that. We used to have a drink together now and again. Sometimes we went to the cinema. She loved films, didn’t she?”

  “Yeah.” Dylan nodded as if remembering happy evenings in front of the large screen with Anita.

  “I remember we saw Braveheart three times,” Bill said. “She could almost recite the script.”

  “Oh?” There was an old ticket for a showing of Braveheart in the stuff Holly had given him.

  “She were a big Mel Gibson fan. Never read much, did she?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “Nah. She liked biographies, though. And, of course, she loved Princess Di. Read everything about her after she died.”

  Of course. Princess Diana died three months before Anita disappeared. Newspapers and magazines would still have been pushing the story to the front page.

  Bill smiled. “She’d have been in her element with all this celebrity-this-that-and-the-other they put on telly these days.”

  “She would, wouldn’t she? Do you remember the last time you went out together?”

  “I remember all right. It were a Monday night, the Monday before she disappeared, in fact.”

  “Oh?” Dylan supped from his glass.

  “Yes,” he said, clearly thinking back. “I were off to my uncle’s funeral in Glasgow the next day. I were going to be away for ten days, catching up with family, so we had a farewell drink.” He looked wistful. “I didn’t realise then, of course, that it really were farewell.”

  “How did she seem?”

  Dylan respected a male perspective more than a female’s. You got logic from a man whereas, so far, he’d had nothing but crap from her female friends.

  “Fine,” Bill replied. “The same as ever. Happy, content—the same as she always did. She made me promise to call her as soon as I got back.”

  “So you don’t believe she had plans to—go somewhere?”

  “Never in a month of bloody Sundays. I told you, she were happy with her lot. Content. She might have had a few boyfriends, more than a few to tell the truth, but she weren’t daft. She liked a good time and there’s no harm in that.”

  “None at all,” Dylan agreed.

  “Besides, she wouldn’t have left Holly behind. She loved that kid. Holly meant the world to her.”

  “People seem convinced that she went off with someone.”

  “I know they do and they’re bloody daft.” Bill took a quick swallow of beer. “No way. She wouldn’t have left Holly. I’m telling you, just as I told them bloody hopeless coppers when they finally decided to show some interest, that she didn’t go nowhere. Willingly, at least,” he added.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Exactly what I said. Look, I have no idea what happened to her, but I know it weren’t good. She wouldn’t have left Holly with no word.”

  Dylan didn’t know what to make of that. Sandra, Yvonne and Maggie all seemed to believe she’d met a rich toy-boy and gone off for a better life. Bill, on the other hand, suspected something far more sinister.

  A few minutes later, a chap in his late sixties entered the pub and walked up to the bar. “All right, Bill?” He looked Dylan up and down and gave him a brief nod.

  “Geoff.” Bill tugged on the man’s arm. “You’ll never guess who we’ve been talking about. Anita Champion!”

  “Christ, that’s going back a bit. Why? You’ve not heard from her, have you?”

  “No.”

  Bill made introductions and Dylan decided to get another round of drinks in.

  “Dylan here has come to the Clough hoping to find Anita,” Bill was saying.

  “You’ll be lucky,” Geoff scoffed. “I bet she’s in bloody Brazil or somewhere.”

  “You think so?” Dylan asked.

  “Yes. Oh, I know Bill thinks something terrible happened to her.” He grinned. “But he reckons the CIA had Kennedy shot and nothing will convince him that the Yanks walked on the moon.”

  Dylan smiled, as was expected.

  “She were a handsome woman,” Geoff said, chuckling, “b
ut I can’t imagine she were abducted by Martians.”

  “How well did you know her?” Dylan asked.

  “Not as well as Bill. I have the newsagent’s on Trueman Street, just round the corner from where she lived. She used to come in for her lottery ticket and a packet of fags on a Saturday night.”

  “She didn’t smoke,” Bill said, and Geoff rolled his eyes.

  “Of course she did, man. A packet of ten every Saturday night she bought.”

  “She might have had the odd one,” Bill said. “A social smoker, I suppose you’d call her. If she were out with the girls, she might buy a pack.”

  “There’s no might about it.” Geoff’s sigh was impatient.

  “When she disappeared, Geoff,” Dylan asked, “did she come in that night?”

  “No. Well, she stuck her head inside the door to tell me she’d been into Manchester the day before and that she’d see me next week. She’d have bought her fags in Manchester, you see.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “The same as always. Full of life. Like a bloody whirlwind. Opened the door, shouted that she’d see me next week, and were gone.”

  “Did you see her after that?”

  “I didn’t,” Geoff said. “That were the last I ever saw of her.”

  “What about her friends?” Dylan asked. “The night she went missing, she went out with Yvonne Yates, Maggie Gibson and Brenda Tomlinson. Did you see any of them that night?”

  “No. But I wouldn’t. They used to meet in the Commercial, and they’d have walked straight there from their homes. There would have been no need for them to pass my shop.” He emptied his glass. “I saw Maggie a couple of days later, and she were right upset about Anita.”

  “Was she?”

  “Yes. Upset or annoyed, it’s a job to tell. Like everyone else, everyone except Bill here, she assumed that Anita had gone off with some bloke and not bothered telling anyone. Well, I mean, even her daughter, young Holly, assumed she were staying out all weekend. That’s why none of us knew she hadn’t got home until the Monday.”

  Dylan could understand why the police hadn’t shown much interest. Just because Anita had stayed out for weekends before, everyone—everyone except Bill—assumed she’d met a sure thing.

  Dylan might have shared that view if he hadn’t been convinced that both Yvonne and Maggie had lied to him. Or at least been very economical with the truth.

  One thing was certain, he would handle Yvonne with care tomorrow night. She knew something, he was sure of it, and he was determined to find out what it was.

  “What about that property owner?” Dylan asked. “What was his name? Terry Armstrong? Was he one of her admirers?”

  “Terry Armstrong?” Geoff laughed at that. “He weren’t even living here back then. He came from your neck of the woods, mate.”

  “I heard he used to visit the area before he moved.” But why, Dylan had no idea.

  “Did he? I never knew that,” Geoff said. “But even so, what the hell would he have been doing with someone like Anita? Sorry, Bill, I know she were a friend of yours, but even you have to admit she didn’t move in Armstrong’s circle.”

  “What makes you ask about him?” Bill asked.

  “Just something I heard. Well, something she told me once. It made me wonder if she had a bit of a thing going with him.”

  “In her dreams!” Geoff laughed.

  “No.” Bill shook his head. “We were close, me and her. She would have told me if she’d known a bloke like that.”

  Dylan wasn’t convinced. He hadn’t seen two strangers discussing a dinner and dance or the weather in that photo. He’d seen two people with secrets.

  “I suppose you knew her husband then,” Dylan said. “Ian, was it?”

  “A good bloke,” Geoff said. “Moved to Wigan, he did.”

  “Married a girl from there.” Bill nodded in agreement.

  “Do you still keep in touch?” Dylan asked, but the pair shook their heads.

  Ian Champion would be easy enough to find. At least, Dylan hoped he would. If people went missing, it was usually to avoid someone or something. A spouse, a loan, a lawsuit. Otherwise, it was easy enough to trace people.

  A man was standing by the bar watching the three of them. In his thirties, Dylan supposed, with overlong dark hair, he was clearly a few pence short of a shilling. His left hand was slightly deformed and he was stooped. For all that, his clean, pressed shirt put Dylan to shame, and he was even wearing a tie.

  Bill saw Dylan watching him. “Don’t mind Simple Stevie,” he said. “He’s as mad as they come but he’s harmless enough.”

  “He used to work at Sainsbury’s,” Geoff said, grinning, “collecting up the trolleys in the car park, until he were found taking them for long walks. Tried to take one up the hard shoulder of the M65.” He put up a hand in Stevie’s direction. “All right, Stevie?”

  Stevie nodded and grunted. Then he emptied his glass in record time and shuffled, limping awkwardly, out of the pub.

  “Must have been something you said,” Dylan murmured.

  Chapter Eight

  Yvonne Yates’s choice of eating place was Chang’s, the Chinese restaurant on Market Street. Dylan, a huge fan of Chinese food, had been pleased about that until he’d seen the prices. Not that he was paying, it was all on expenses, but it didn’t seem right that Holly Champion should have to waste her money on a liar like Yvonne.

  This evening she was wearing a short, figure-hugging black dress that showed off long, shapely legs and more cleavage than was good for him. He wondered if it was for his benefit. If so, it was wasted.

  “The food and the service are always excellent here,” Yvonne said when they were seated.

  Few things irritated Dylan more than that empty statement. It was talking for the sake of it. Presumably, if the food was crap and the service sloppy, people who had sampled the place already, like Yvonne Yates, wouldn’t return, and the restaurant would go out of business.

  “I adore it.” She looked around her. “It’s not as tacky as most of them.”

  “It’s very nice.” Crisp white tablecloths, thick red carpet, the interior devoid of the usual Chinese kitsch.

  Dylan wasn’t a restaurant person. He would prefer to get a takeaway and eat it, feet up, in front of the television. He had to make small talk, too, something he hated and something he was exceptionally bad at.

  “What would you do if I tore my clothes off?” Bev had asked the last time they’d been out for a meal.

  “I don’t know.” If he hadn’t feared it was a trick question, he would have suggested she try it and find out.

  “I wonder if you’d actually say something. You know, open your mouth and let words come out.”

  As Dylan had suspected, it was a trick question…

  “You said you’re going home tomorrow?” Yvonne broke into his thoughts.

  “That’s right, yes. There’s nothing for me up here.”

  He was going home, taking his son to the match, maybe getting his washing done, doing a spot of grovelling to Bev, hopefully moving back to the marital home, and then returning to Lancashire on Monday.

  “Where’s home?” she asked.

  “Shepherd’s Bush. Well, usually. As I said, my wife and I are separated but usually it’s Shepherd’s Bush. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking my son to watch the match. Arsenal.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Yeah.” It was always the highlight of Dylan’s week. Luke was the easiest person in the world to get along with, and they had fun. Until they got home, when the vocabulary Luke heard at the match often spilled out to send Bev’s blood pressure through the ceiling.

  “You’ll be banned from going, Luke, if that’s the sort of language you’re listening to,” Bev had said once.

  “I’m sure he’s heard worse in the playground.” Dylan never failed to be amazed at the language some children came out with.

  “I’ve heard worse from you, Mum.” Luke’s quick
response had had Dylan stifling a laugh…

  “So you’ve given up trying to find Anita?” Yvonne was asking.

  “No, but I know there’s nothing more to find out here. Maggie told me what happened. She said she wanted no part in it, but I suppose she would say that, wouldn’t she?”

  Yvonne’s eyes widened to the size of ten-pence pieces. “She—she told you? Maggie did?”

  “She did. I think she was under the impression that you had.”

  “Well!” Yvonne took a sip of her wine and shook her head in amazement. “Maggie never says boo to a goose.”

  “Really?”

  “Believe me, she’s as quiet as a mouse.” She thought of something else. “And she said she wanted no part in it? That’s rich. I was the one who was against it. Me! That’s why I went home early. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

  “I suppose that the passing years have dimmed the memory. Anyway, never mind that. I promised we wouldn’t discuss Anita.”

  As he had hoped, and gambled on, Yvonne couldn’t let it go so easily.

  “My memory is as sharp as it ever was, thank you very much.” She squared her shoulders. “As I said, I was the one who didn’t want to know. God, I’m hardly likely to forget that, am I? I quite liked Anita. In fact, if we could ask her, I bet she’d say I was her best friend.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really.”

  “Well, there’s no need to discuss it—”

  “She had her faults, but at least she was open about them. So she’d slept with Sandra’s boyfriend. So what? Eddie was a right tosser anyway. In my eyes, all it did was prove that Sandra was better off without him.”

  “That’s just what I thought.”

  No wonder Sandra Butler had seemed so bitter. Eddie had succumbed to her employee’s considerable charms.

  “But, oh no.” Yvonne was in full flow now. “Sandra wasn’t going to let either of them get away with that. She wanted revenge and nothing I said could talk her out of it.”

  Dylan shook his head in what he hoped was a sympathetic way.

  “Brenda was all for it, too. Mind, she always was a complete bitch. As nice as pie to your face but, the minute your back was turned, she couldn’t find a good word to say about you.”