by Linda Coles
“No, nothing. I was kind of busy at the time.” She blushed. “Anyway, it’s so quiet and peaceful down there in the daytime – not many people around. That’s why I took him there.”
Relief flooded Madeline’s veins.
Yes, that’s why I went there, too, though for a different reason.
“Then leave it be and think of yourself. Only embarrassment could come out of telling them what they already know about. It was just an empty van. There’s nothing to be gained. And anyway, the bloke’s probably just gone off and doesn’t want to be found. He’s a grown man, not a child, so he can do what he wants. Thousands of people do it every year, you know. You just never know what goes on behind the closed doors of people’s lives.”
‘Behind closed doors,’ indeed. Oh, the irony.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was Friday and that also meant a trip to Sainsbury’s for the weekly shop. Some folks called in every two or three days, for fresh veg and the like, but not Madeline. There was no way on earth she could cope with going in there more than was absolutely necessary. She dropped in to get fresh stuff from the local butcher and greengrocer in the town. Even though the prices were better in Sainsbury’s, she liked the idea of supporting the little independent shops rather than the big chains all the time. It made her feel like she was doing her bit for the economy. It was the same with the recycling. She thought everyone should do what they could to make a little difference, however small it might seem at the time.
Driving down Purley Way on her way towards Sainsbury’s and ultimately home, she ran through her head what to pick up for dinner. It was part of her Friday afternoon ritual: she bought something quick and easy and put it in the oven to heat up. Gordon was usually home at a reasonable hour on a Friday, saying the week in London was long enough as it was without eating into the start of the weekend, and they usually had a gin and tonic together while they waited for whatever to reheat, and discussed what they might do over the weekend. That was invariably nothing more than a trip to the garden centre for Madeline and off to see Crystal Palace play if they were at home for Gordon, but they kidded themselves with the idea of doing something different, exciting even; they never did.
It was bucketing down. The lovely hot spell of summer seemed a distant memory, although in reality it was only lunchtime when she’d been hot and sticky waiting for Rebecca. But as its reputation goes, the British summer consists of a few hot days, then back to sodding rain. And that’s what the heavens were delivering right now – buckets of it. The only thing that really wanted rain was the garden, though it was a nice reprieve to feel a little cooler for a while.
She glanced into the back seat to make sure an umbrella was handy and headed into the car park. For a wet Friday late afternoon, it was absolutely mobbed and she slowly toured around near the front doors of the store to get a space as close as she could, not something she usually did. Normally she would rather walk a couple of extra metres and call it exercise. Today, though, she joined the mob in their quest for the space closest to the front door as the rain pelted down, not particularly wanting to get soaked to the skin. Cruising along, eyes searching through the frantic wash of the windscreen wipers, she spotted it. Up on her right, about ten cars up, the one and only empty space. She flicked her indicator on and prepared to swing in when out of nowhere a red BMW came suddenly around the corner from the opposite direction and swung straight in, right into the space, almost clipping her car. She saw red, literally.
“What the hell!” she exclaimed to the windscreen, and slammed the brakes on suddenly to avoid a collision. “That was my bloody space! Can’t you see by my sodding indicator that I’m turning in, you shithead?” This was followed by a screaming “Argh!” and a hard thump on the steering wheel. The car behind sounded its horn because she had suddenly stopped and, with no sign of further movement, its driver was getting impatient. But Madeline was having a tantrum, and not of the temperature variety, but the good old-fashioned sodding angry variety. She pulled slowly forward to see who’d been so bloody rude as to take her space, but could see only the colour of the vehicle and the private registration plate. It looked familiar, and with a jolt, she remembered why: POOPSY, it read. It was Pink Fluffy Woman, back to torment her again.
“We’ll see about this,” she said through gritted teeth, though she wasn’t sure how she was indeed going to ‘see about this.’ There was no chance of her getting out in the rain to have an argument or anything else at the moment. Growling, she released the brake, toured round a little further and resigned herself to a space three rows further back. Grabbing her bag and umbrella off the back seat, she set off at a slow jog in the rain towards the store. As she passed the red BMW she saw not Pink Fluffy Woman but rather quite a handsome-looking man emerging from the driver’s side. Her partner, Madeline assumed, and from the bit that was visible as she went past, definitely worth a second look. He was just making his way to the store, pulling his hood up against the rain on one of those fancy lightweight jackets you can get from expensive gents’ designer stores like Hugo Boss. Madeline was just guessing here, she didn’t know those brands well enough to be sure, but she knew it wasn’t from Walmart. And judging by the car, they probably did shop in nice places.
“It’s good to see his fancy jacket getting just as wet anyway. Should have bought a fancy umbrella to go with it,” she mused.
She entered the store, retrieved a trolley from just inside the door and waited, trying to look natural as he, too, entered the store. Obviously he’d no idea who she was or how she ‘knew’ either him or his Pink Fluffy Woman, so she didn’t need to worry about being recognised. Taking the shopping list out of her pocket, she pretended to study it, waiting the few moments for him to enter and get a trolley himself. Once he was inside, she then began her weekly shop, one eye on minding her own business and one eye on minding his business. She was watching him for no other reason than he’d robbed her of a closer parking space in the torrential rain, and you just never knew how opportunities would present themselves. She travelled up and down the aisles, filling her trolley with various items: lasagne and garlic bread for dinner tonight, ingredients for a nice chicken tikka masala on Saturday, and a leg of lamb she’d do something with on Sunday, depending on the weather. She’d been meaning to make an apricot crumble for ages, so apricots went in too, along with various staples. If it was too hot on Sunday, crumble would become a fool instead.
One thing she’d noticed over the last three or four years was her cravings: they now tended to be for the more old-fashioned and heavier styles of foods from when she was a child. Rice pudding, apple pie, any kind of meat pie, sausage rolls and kids’ party food in general, anything that was the home of large amounts of calories rather than simply a sugar fix or a bag of crisps. She’d even bought a large sausage roll last time she’d filled the tank with petrol, stuffed it into her mouth in record time and then hidden the bag in the rubbish bin before pulling off the forecourt. She didn’t even want to take the incriminating evidence home, not that anyone would have seen it.
And look at me now: I’ve got a whole lot more important incriminating evidence in my garden than a naughty sausage roll wrapper, for heaven’s sake.
And Madeline’s food cravings were not so good for the waistline either, something else she was finding harder and harder to control. Elasticated waistbands were starting to look appealing.
A quick check of the shopping list, then a check of where her latest ‘surveillance victim’ was: he was just turning down the aisle where she was standing, the wine and spirits one. Picking up a bottle of Bombay Sapphire and putting it in her trolley, she moved along slowly, her back towards him, to choose some white wine for the weekend. Nearby she could hear a man’s voice mid-telephone call. He sounded like he was wound up about something; his voice grew louder and louder as he got closer. But her back was to him, so she couldn’t see anything, though she was tempted to turn and look. Perhaps she should have.
&nb
sp; “Ah!” Madeline shouted, and stumbled forward. She turned to see who had hit her. It was Pink Fluffy Woman’s partner. “Watch where you’re going!” she fumed, and bent down to check the rear of her ankle. There was a trickle of bright red blood rolling slowly down it. It started to throb almost instantly.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I was so busy on the phone I didn’t see you. Are you hurt?” The stupid sod ran his trolley into my heel, which is now obviously bleeding, and he asks me if I’m hurt? Of course I’m sodding hurt, and pissed off! Stupid man.
“Yes, I am, thanks to you! Pay a little more attention, would you? Look what you’ve done to my heel!” She was tempted to hit him around the head with the leg of lamb that was in her trolley, but it was a bit too public for that. And look what had happened last time she hit someone around the head. She harrumphed and, turning her back, shoved her trolley down the aisle away from him.
“Once again, I’m sorry,” he called after her, but she ignored him. Huffing and limping, she managed to grab a bottle of white wine as she passed by. She had no idea what she’d just picked out; life would just have to be an adventure this weekend. Since Ruth had approved of her last ‘grab,’ she wasn’t unduly worried, but still. Without looking back at Mr. Pink Fluffy, she hobbled to the checkouts in one almighty huff.
She wanted nothing more than a quick exit right now, and briefly considered the self-serve checkouts. No, with so much stuff it’d be far too much work on her part, not to mention annoying and stressful, with the stupid automated woman inevitably advising there was “an unexpected item in the bagging area,” even though there never was, and then having to wait for someone to reset the robot, only to then try and get an oversized cauliflower or package of toilet roll into a plastic bag and be told to “please place your item into the bagging area.” She’d been known to yell, “I’m bloody trying! Shut the hell up, will you?” which always got a supervisor over quicker than quick.
She imagined the Tannoy announcement: “Menopausal woman at self-serve checkout needs assistance urgently. Please respond before she obliterates the machine.” No, Madeline was in no mood to deal with that stupid automated voice today, so, with a heavy sigh, she headed for a human checkout operator. She tried to guess how long it would take the cashier to ask if she had a Nectar Card, another game she played in an effort to make the whole experience a bit more pleasant. They beat her at getting the card out every single time.
My god, I need to get out of here.
Madeline joined the shortest queue, and thankfully the operator was an efficient one. She was soon by the door putting her umbrella up. She glanced down at her red heel which, though bloody, had started to dry, but was still throbbing to a beat of its own. She pushed her trolley out into the rain, driving it with one hand, the umbrella covering her against the elements in the other. She squeezed down the shortest route to her waiting vehicle. The rain sloshed into her shoes, soaking her feet but at least rinsing the blood off her ankle.
Then she saw The Car. Not her car, but the red BMW. Madeline the Mad raised her ugly head with an idea.
“Well, since I now have a red heel with a piece taken out of it, let’s see how you like something red with a piece taken out of it.” She did a quick reconnaissance of the car park. All clear. She pushed her trolley forward at an angle, scratching straight down the passenger side of the red BMW. She could hear the screeching sound as the trolley made contact and gouged the paintwork as it went. She was careful not to hit the innocent other vehicle on the other side.
“It can be hard pushing a full trolley with one hand,” she told herself. “Accidents can happen.” From the scraping sound as she’d gone down the passenger side, she knew there’d be damage, but she didn’t have time to hang around and look – or be seen doing so.
Her mission accomplished, Madeline carried on walking so as not to draw attention to herself and pulled up at her own car three rows further on. She quickly loaded her bags of shopping into the boot then returned the trolley to the trolley park. She grabbed a couple of straggler trolleys sitting close by that other people had dumped in the rain and shoved them in after her own. That neatly buried the offending one, stowed away within the pack. Anyone looking at CCTV footage would just think she was a good sort for tidying the trolley bay up in the pouring rain. By the time she’d got back in the driver’s side of her own car, she was soaked. Whoever Pink Fluffy Woman had lent her car to wouldn’t even notice the damage when he got back in the driver’s side, so they would probably never know when or where it had been done when they did eventually find it. Madeline, on the other hand, knew exactly where and when. She started her engine and slowly drove out of the car park and back towards home, the thought of a large G&T, lasagne and garlic bread on her mind, and the fact that once again she’d won. It made up for the throb in her heel.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Week 4
Monday
Every time she looked out of the kitchen window, Madeline was reminded of the day last week when she’d turned into ‘Madeline the Mad’ and done something a bit crazy. A lot crazy, actually. Though since that day, she had found herself in a number of situations where she quite possibly could have done it all again, given the amount of aggression and anger that bubbled to the surface with surprising ease, taunting and goading her to do something else dumb. But the damn Great Orange Thing stared back at her, silently reminding her of her sins buried beneath it in the corner of the garden.
Gordon had come home that night as usual. She’d poured him a glass of wine and they’d made small talk about the day while she’d cooked spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. He’d asked about the landscaper and she’d stuck to her story, telling the truth to a certain extent: he’d turned up, started digging the hole, and then vanished. Never heard from him or saw him after that morning. Strictly, she hadn’t lied; he had been in the hole after that, so no, he hadn’t been ‘seen’ or ‘heard from’ again. It would pass a lie detector. Hopefully.
She’d promised Gordon she’d call him the following day and see when he was coming back, and had even left a message, though one thing she hadn’t gleaned from CSI was whether the police could actually retrieve texts and voicemail messages from a phone that was turned off, and without the actual phone. She suspected they couldn’t, as yet. If they could, there’d be people screaming privacy issues all over the place, thinking that the FBI or CIA or MI5/MI6 or some such would be listening in to their non-important and no doubt extremely dull everyday conversations. And they weren’t. So she felt sure she was safe there. But just in case, in the name of honesty, she called him once again and left a message, knowing full well it would never get played. Des would never hear it. And Gordon hadn’t said much more about it – how could he? There was nothing else to do: he knew she’d called him and not heard back, so that was that, in his eyes.
Madeline did, however, guess correctly that the police would want to question the last person to see him alive. And that was her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Tuesday
“Afternoon,” Madeline said politely to the two plainclothes police officers at the door. Their identification cards were displayed ready for her as she opened it. “Oh,” she said in surprise as it registered who they were. “What can I do for you both?” She wiped her hands on her leafy printed apron; flour was dusted down the front from rolling pastry in the kitchen.
“I’m Detective Jack Rutherford, and this is Detective Amanda Lacey. Are you Mrs. Simpson?”
She nodded at him. This looked serious and she knew why – and she hoped she wasn’t about to show it.
“We are investigating the disappearance of Des Walker, a local landscaper. We believe he may have been working here recently. May we come in and ask you a few questions?”
She nodded again, unsure of what else to do or say at this point. She opened the door wide and let them both inside.
Relax, Madeline. It’s just routine and you’ve been expecting them.
“
Can I offer you both some tea?” she asked, smiling at them both in turn as they walked down the short hallway towards the lounge.
“No, thank you. We won’t keep you long.”
“Please, go through to the lounge,” she said holding her arm out to the left by way of direction for them. Entering, they both hovered, waiting to be seated. “Please, take a seat,” she offered, and everyone sat. Madeline perched on the arm of the sofa. She took the opportunity to size them both up. Jack was stockily built and had the most hideous moustache she’d ever seen, but was smartly dressed in a navy suit that, while it had been well kept, was obviously quite old because it was double-breasted. She’d not long since cleared Gordon’s old suits out of the wardrobe and taken them to the charity shop, so she knew it was all single-breasted nowadays; the charity shop volunteer had enlightened her with that titbit.
“Now, how can I help you both?” she asked, and then resumed her summing up of them. He looked a bit older, fifty-five maybe, with hair that was more salt than pepper, and had a bit of a brusque way about him, like he was really trying hard to be nice, but it was something he might be struggling with. Conversation and friends might be tough for him outside of work, she noted. The deep creases around his eyes told her he’d spent a good deal of time laughing, and that settled her inside somehow. Maybe he laughed in his own company.
“We are just doing some routine enquiries at this stage about Mr. Walker. You may have seen the story of his disappearance in the local paper?”
“Oh Lord. Yes. It’s terrible.” Madeline looked away, wondering what they would want to ask next.
“So he did come here, then?” Detective Lacey asked.
Tell the truth, Madeline, as best you can without putting your foot in it.