‘We’ve not yet looked at it ourselves,’ Fran said. ‘Why don’t you have first pop?’
Paula broke a fingernail removing the paper clip. She nibbled it flat. ‘I don’t think that’s a good omen, do you? Oh, look – baby handprints and footprints. These must be Hadrian’s. The poor little dabs must be poor Julius’s: some babies with Edwards’ syndrome haven’t got proper thumbs, have they? Ordinary poster paints by the look of it, and ordinary A4 paper. The Garbutts must have done them when they had the kids at theirs.’ She dug in her bag for an emery board and tackled her nail again, blowing away the dust. It took her some time to get it to her satisfaction and return her attention to the papers.
‘You can’t get much more personal than that,’ Mark said sadly. ‘Or this: I think it says Nanna. A portrait of her. Look! And this says Grandad. Possibly.’
‘The rest are just more of the same – it was a bit grandiose of Stu to log them as documents,’ Fran observed. ‘Do you reckon there could be anything here from Natalie’s childhood, Paula, as opposed to the boys’? No?’
‘I’m not exactly your art expert,’ Paula said, assuming a pompous voice, ‘but I’d say the paint and paper were all from the same source.’
‘So would I,’ Mark agreed. ‘And there’s very little point in getting them checked forensically – it’s not as if we’re investigating art fraud, is it?’
‘It’s weird, isn’t it? Keeping just your grandchildren’s paintings, not your own daughter’s. As for her driving licence and passport and all the serious stuff, perhaps Foreman kept them. When are you going to nip across and talk to him, Fran?’
‘When a fairy godmother touches our zero budget and transforms it into a crock of gold? The thing is, we know he couldn’t have abducted her – he wasn’t in the Midlands. We know he employed a private detective to find her; if he had had her abducted, he wouldn’t need to do that. Not unless it was a double bluff, which means he’s a lot brighter than people give him credit for. So I can’t see any justification for a trip to Cyprus. Not really.’
‘I got a sense the marriage wasn’t a happy one,’ Mark mused. ‘And she’s alleged to have been squirrelling away his money, whether with or without his permission we don’t yet know.’ He snapped his fingers in irritation. ‘Did Stu ever report back on whether she’d got any driving convictions? There was talk of her having taken points on her licence to keep his clean.’
‘I’ll double check now, shall I?’ Paula suggested.
‘Thanks for offering, but the computer system was down earlier – essential maintenance, whatever that means for a computer. It’s not urgent. Tomorrow will do. In fact,’ Mark said, as a squall made a fresh assault on their windows, ‘I think we should remind ourselves that this is all unpaid overtime, and that we should go home while there’s light to see where the roads are. Assuming the route is clear. If you take the kids down, Fran and I can lock up and pick up our things. See you in a minute?’
Fran snapped her fingers. ‘There’s one thing I need to ask Paula – meant to ask you, but I’ll bet her eyes are even better than yours. Can you make out what it says on these medals?’ She jiggled the bag at her.
Paula manoeuvred the bag under the light. ‘English Schools Cross Country runner up – she’d be sixteen then. University Women’s Cross Country. Home Counties Cross Country, third in class – and that’d be the year before she disappeared. All awarded to Natalie Garbutt.’
‘It gives the cliché doing a runner a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?’ Mark said. ‘In other words, tricky though toddlers are—’
‘Sorry,’ Fran broke in, ‘but I think we should have revised that definition of Hadrian too. He’s too old to be a toddler. Toddlers are uncoordinated and wilful.’
‘You’re telling me,’ Paula put in sourly. ‘And worse when they lose the uncoordinated bit.’
‘Hadrian may have been wilful, but not uncoordinated. In fact, he played startlingly good tennis, according to the father of another kid having lessons at the same time. So he was a mini-sportsman. Capable of running fast and maybe walking a decent distance. Paula, is it humanly possible to get through to the Wyre Forest again? Are some roads clear?’
Paula pulled a face.
‘Back to our OS map,’ Mark said briskly, spreading it on a table. ‘Let’s see. She parks here – right?’
‘If park is the word you choose,’ Paula chipped in.
‘And according to Marion Roberts the footprints on the verge led towards the road. Maybe they crossed the road.’ His index finger traced the route. ‘Back towards Buttonoak there were a couple of paths heading south – right? There’s a car park for one – Earlswood or something.’
Paula nodded. ‘Earnwood. Earnwood Copse. There’s quite a good trail towards the disused railway line. Once you get there you can follow the line west or east, or you can cross it and reach the visitor centre. Lots of car parking there. Or you can simply fetch up on the A456. It’s a long schlep for a child though, even a fit one.’
‘But what if his mother was an expert cross country runner? What if she carried him on her back?’ Fran persisted.
TWENTY
But there was no time for the others to respond as they no doubt wanted. Paula’s kids, sensing the adults were messing up their chance to escape, started a loud and physical spat. The usually cool, competent Paula yelled threats of all sorts of retribution she probably had no means of imposing. Mark caught Fran’s eye: they must get on the move before she smacked them and had to spend the rest of the afternoon apologizing for breaking the law. It was time for him to become a good grandpa.
So he spent the journey in the back seat of Paula’s car, trying to work out what electronic games the lads were playing; the double-slap of the wipers, the road noise and their excited and heavily accented explanations left him completely at sea. Paula, talking them through the route she’d chosen to avoid tree problems, complicated things even more, firing occasional comments at him. Fran covered for him, as she usually did. She didn’t understand the deafness, but she at least no longer thought him simply stupid if he missed things altogether – or more confusingly misheard them. In a barrage like this it was all too easy for him to switch off, retreating to his own thoughts. The kids didn’t seem to mind anyway; it was easier for them to pursue arcane targets without having to bother with someone else’s useless grandfather.
He turned to look out of the window at the entirely alien landscape. Dimly he recalled a poem he’d had to learn when he was a kid. Not all of it. Everyone in the class had had to learn just a few verses. His bit included the words, Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. Coleridge had been writing of a mythical ocean; here there were all too real sheets of water covering what were no doubt lush pastures or rich arable land. Snowdrop Cottage might have been flooded opportunistically, but had the perpetrator waited, his or her work would probably have been done by nature; all around, he could see cottages whose only meagre defences against this wash of water were vulnerable sandbags – though he could see some with what looked like commercial barriers by front doors, and hoses, gushing with water, emerging from cellars. Dare he, dare he thank God that their rectory had been spared? And ask that it would continue to be?
Scrabble had left Edwina with a headache she only feebly attempted to deny, so she adjourned with Fran to the living room with a couple of paracetamols while Mark yet again loaded the washing machine with flood-soaked clothes and applied himself to the vegetables. He was interrupted by a loud and urgent yell from Fran. Something about the car? On television?
He dashed to join them, wiping his hands on the pinafore he’d borrowed. And there it was indeed, the offending tree now swarming with men with chainsaws. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why they’d not guessed that such an arboreal disaster would attract coverage. Wouldn’t it have been a splendid opportunity to appeal for witnesses, for fresh information? In fact that was the first thing he’d do the next day: he’d talk to the press of
fice and see if they could at very least get on to the regional news and, aiming higher, on to Crimewatch. Fran had enjoyed such excellent relations with the people working on the programme she’d surely be on there in the click of her fingers.
Why had this idea come so slowly? There was all that business of the missing file and iPad too; was he really losing the odd marble? He’d had a terrible fear about Fran only a week ago, but now, thank goodness, she seemed very much back on song. Or perhaps they were simply out of practice and indeed seriously short of staff. There was still the problem of Ted, of course. He found himself smiling: the very fact that he’d used the word problem told him that his subconscious really did not want Ted as part of their little team. If only his conscious mind would tell him why.
By now the news was over. Weather forecast time. More tight isobars. And lots more rain to join the gales.
And, of course, no car.
Edwina declared that her head had cleared enough for her to start cooking dinner. ‘You have your uses as a scullion, Mark,’ she said grandly, holding out her hand for the apron, ‘but I am the chef. And since the medics would prefer me not to imbibe for another few days – such penance, darlings – I will leave the choice of wine to you. There are some very decent Riojas to tempt you …’
‘Access CCTV footage?’ Fran repeated, as they laid the table – nothing sloppily casual for Edwina, despite the change in circumstances. ‘Why on earth?’
‘Because I don’t believe the temporary disappearance of the evidence and the iPad were signs of our incipient dementia. Do you remember that writer friend of Caffy’s said she mowed the lawn when she needed her brain to produce fresh ideas for her next book? That’s what peeling the spuds did for me. I think that the temporary disappearances today are more connected to our being flooded out than to any carelessness, absent-mindedness or whatever on our part. And – you know what? – it also dawned on me I’m absolutely sick of the whole business and for two pins would tell Colin Webster to stuff the whole exercise somewhere painful.’
‘But?’
‘But I’m like you: the more someone tries to deter me, the more I want to dig my heels in.’
Fran abandoned her attempts to make the linen napkins look like anything other than linen napkins. Lilies and other variants were simply beyond her, at least while she was thinking. She pulled a chair from the table and sat down. ‘Let’s talk this through. The guy who employed us is sacked – OK, made redundant, which is better for him but comes to the same thing for us; our resources are negligible; our mini-team is depleted before we even say hello; one of the team keeps disappearing – though admittedly that’s through no fault of her own—’
‘Assuming she is indeed in court,’ Mark observed dourly. ‘OK, I like Robyn, but I’m prepared to believe the worst of anyone at the moment. And there was something distinctly weird in management letting her join a team she simply couldn’t be part of.’ Spotting a minuscule smear on a glass – whatever Edwina had said, he’d put one out for her, if only for symmetry’s sake – he polished it with a napkin, which he carefully refolded. Into a neat fan.
Fran eyed his creation and passed him the other two linen squares. ‘Technical support arrives eventually. A plus. The evidence is negligible and today it comes and goes. And if something has disappeared, we don’t know because Stu’s summary is sketchy at best. It’ll be interesting to see if he comes in tomorrow, and, if he does, how good his memory is: will he know what – if anything, of course – has been removed? Thanks.’ She took the first napkin and put it on a side-plate. ‘Have you checked the iPad since it turned up? It’d be interesting to see if anyone had a go at your password.’ They’d installed software to warn them of tampering.
‘I’ll go and check now. It’s in your bag, isn’t it? But who’d bother trying to access it when they could simply have nicked it? After all, they didn’t have long, did they, to get the techies involved?’
‘Stealing it would have been too obvious. There’d have had to be a proper investigation. But you’re absolutely right: the CCTV will be the key. Assuming we can get hold of it.’
‘And assuming we can get in to work.’
‘There’s no problem there,’ Edwina declared, emerging from nowhere to make Mark drop his third napkin. ‘The medics don’t want me to drive for a couple of days. You can use my car. It would do it good to get its wheels wet.’
Mark gently removed the glass – gin and tonic – from her hand and placed it on the table, easing her on to a chair. ‘There’d be all sorts of insurance problems, Edwina – but we’re truly grateful for the offer. And before you offer to drive us in, no, you’re not going to treat the doctors’ advice about driving as cavalierly as you’re obviously treating their instructions about drink.’
‘Well, then, you’ll have to do what Eliza Doolittle did – take a bloody cab, darlings.’
But, thanks to their insurance company and the nearest Audi dealership, both of which came up trumps, they learned, via an email on the tamper-proof iPad, that they’d have a temporary vehicle by nine the next morning, floods permitting.
‘That’s the good news,’ Mark said, as they sipped their own, considerably weaker G and Ts. Edwina was back in the kitchen, leaving them to enjoy the warmth and comfort of the living room on their own. ‘The bad is that someone did try to break our password. Several times. And failed. What’s the betting they’ll have another go?’
‘No takers. There’s only one conclusion, isn’t there? That at least one person doesn’t want this case solved, and that this person has not just influence over the police, but access to Hindlip – directly or via the person they’re instructing. It’ll be very interesting to see how our request to see the CCTV footage is taken. And who acts.’
‘Assuming, of course, that the camera system didn’t have the same down time as the computer system. A big assumption, I’d say. Do we explain why we need it? In full?’
Fran pulled the sort of face that suggested she was sucking the lemon in her glass. ‘Remind me – does the iPad record the time someone tried to get in? We’d need to be able to say it wasn’t happening some time when we weren’t in the building.’
‘It does. It puts it fairly and squarely at a time when the CCTV cameras will show we were in the incident room without it. Will possibly show,’ he added. ‘This is the worst thing, Fran. Police corruption. I’m almost wondering if this isn’t too big for us – if we shouldn’t inform their police standards unit, assuming they have one, so they can give them a fully official high-powered going over.’
‘If we find there is corruption there’s no question we have to hand everything over. Tell me,’ she asked suddenly, ‘that wretched journalist woman. Bethan Carter. She really didn’t want to talk to me. She wanted to talk to you. She didn’t … there wasn’t …?’
‘Iris told me flat out that it was a very good job I hadn’t taken her out to lunch, though for some reason there was already a mini-rumour beginning to sprout that I had. So though you have a nasty suspicious mind, I have one too. And yes, I do suspect her motives. Why else make eyes at a deaf old wrinkly like me?’
‘I can think of several reasons,’ she said, kissing him emphatically enough to elicit a round of applause from their hostess, entering the room to tell them that their starters were on the table.
‘We have a WI meeting tomorrow evening,’ Edwina told them over decaf coffees. ‘Would it help you if I asked people for their memories of young Natalie? It isn’t just old stagers like me – we have younger members too. In fact,’ she continued, warming to her theme, ‘provided I make a few telephone calls, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t speak to the group yourself for a couple of minutes. And – we’re very broad-minded, Mark – we welcome male guests to our meetings now. Excellent. I’ll go and speak to Sandra Mould – that’s our chairwoman, though she insists on being known as Madam Chairman – immediately. Always best to strike while the iron is hot.’
‘And to prevent us raising
any objections,’ Mark said under his breath as she swept from the room.
‘Corn in Egypt!’ Edwina declared, returning within moments. ‘Our guest speaker is marooned in Somerset and we hate to cancel. You may even claim a fee – not generous, but a fee.’
‘What was he or she going to speak about?’ Mark asked, unable to keep the doubt from his voice.
Edwina gave a crack of laughter. ‘Preserving the legacy of our countryside. But any talking head is better than none.’
Fran raised a finger. ‘Just for the record, Edwina, we won’t be talking directly about this investigation: it’s simply not allowed. But we can talk about how we came to do the job, and maybe elicit information – discreetly, shall we say?’
‘Goes without saying, my angels. I think that calls for a little celebration, don’t you? You’ll find an interesting range of liqueurs in that cupboard, Mark darling, and a supply of regrettably minuscule glasses …’
TWENTY-ONE
Mark had never been much of a fan of Monday mornings. In his early career there’d always been an influx of weekend crime to deal with; in the latter half there’d been the first meeting of the meeting-crammed week. He rather thought that on balance he’d preferred crime to endless management speak. This morning all – all! – he and Fran had had to do was get in to work. Instead of nine, it was nearly ten when an exhausted-looking Audi driver had at last found Edwina’s cottage; he’d then needed a lift back to base.
While Mark did a quick stint in their office, dealing with emails, Fran obtained a new parking permit from Iris.
‘You don’t really need this anyway,’ Iris told her, updating the computer. ‘There: the car’s on the system already.’
‘Even so,’ Fran shrugged, and paddled out to stick it on the windscreen. She even remembered to email HR to tell them.
Green and Pleasant Land Page 19