‘He struck me as sincere,’ I said.
‘It could be true. We have a vague report of a teenager getting into a van. But, unless her father was being more devious than I give him credit for, we now know that he’s back in a job and that he lives or works within an hour’s drive of here.’
‘So do a couple of hundred thousand other people,’ I pointed out.
‘True. I think it’s time we got the lawyers to disgorge his present address. Or you could send him that message . . .’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I promised.’
He gave a sigh. ‘Fair enough. I have my secrets, so you’re entitled to yours. It’s a pity you didn’t think to get a look at his car.’
‘But I did,’ I said. It was hard to know what was in Delia’s best interests. I was not going to betray any confidences, but Ian might as well benefit from my aid as an ordinary witness. ‘I hadn’t quite finished my story – or is it a statement? – when you sidetracked me on the subject of the Sempylene takeover.’
The last word was a blind guess, based on no more than a remark by Wallace that most major frauds took place during takeovers, but Ian didn’t react. He nodded to the constable again. ‘Let’s have it,’ he said.
‘Dark red hatchback,’ I said. ‘I think it was a Ford.’ I quoted the registration number from memory.
‘That’s more like it,’ Ian said with satisfaction. ‘When Thrower left home, he left his own car with his wife. Too easily traced, I suppose. If he’s using a hireling or a firm’s car, we can find him in minutes. Then, if his story stands up, we’ll have to give Delia the full treatment.’
‘Tomorrow’s Saturday,’ I said. ‘If you want search-parties . . .’
He smiled. For a moment he was the friend and husband instead of the anxious policeman doing difficult duty. ‘I’ll phone you later,’ he said. ‘Not that I expect to find a raped and murdered teenager on the outskirts of the town. Anyway, I hope to God that we don’t. But if we have to go through the motions, can I count on you to raise the volunteers? You and your family know all the keepers and beaters for miles around,’ he added apologetically.
‘I already offered. Just pass the word as soon as you can,’ I said, ‘and give me times and rendezvous points. Anything else?’
‘One thing. May I leave it to you to break the news to Mrs Thrower?’
‘At that point,’ I said, ‘I draw the line. Catch her between the bank and here.’
‘I was afraid that you’d say that.’
Mrs Thrower did not return to the factory that day and I was left to fetch money from the bank and deal with the pay packets. In the middle of that chore, Ian phoned. ‘Thrower seems to be in the clear,’ he said. ‘He was at work all day yesterday and his ladyfriend is accounted for.’
‘He could have had help,’ I pointed out.
‘He could. He may have hired somebody. We have another witness to the girl being persuaded to enter the van. The boy recognised Delia and gave a very good description of the man who got out of the van. He sounds very much like somebody known to us.’
I felt my stomach do something very peculiar. ‘Known to you as a sex offender, or as a kidnapper for hire?’ I asked.
He avoided answering. ‘We definitely need search-parties,’ he said. ‘Meet in the Square at eight tomorrow morning.’
I finished the wages and started telephoning.
Chapter Three
About seventy searchers turned out in the morning, a motley bag including old and young, mostly male, some expecting the worst, others enjoying a day out. Two estates had cancelled the day’s shooting so that keepers, beaters and members could lend their help. The morning was dry but a cutting wind swept down the valley. Winter was on the way. There would be no more trouble with midge bites or blowflies until another summer came around.
Ian was busy co-ordinating other lines of enquiry. He had left his sergeant in charge of the search, a stiff and pompous man who had once alienated me permanently by interrogating me about a twenty-bore shotgun which he wrongly believed to have been used in a post office hold-up. As with Mrs Thrower and myself, Sergeant Ferless clearly thought that he rather than Ian should have had the promotion.
Newton Lauder is a small town, set in a valley between the high moors. Mixed farmland and small woods surround the town, but these soon give way to open moorland. The Sergeant, rightly this time, decided that a single sweep round the whole town, taking most of the day, would be the most certain way to cover the farmland. If this failed, the enormous task of combing the miles of moors would be necessary; but it would take more than a party of volunteers to comb the miles of heather. Helicopters and thermal imagers would be necessary if Delia was still alive and to be found before she was an old lady.
We moved out on foot to the nearest boundary of the town, and there was a long delay while the line strung itself out up the slope to the main road. Grudgingly obeying orders, the Sergeant accepted my advice on the distribution of the available searchers; so the fittest went to the top of the hill, the more experienced had the woods close to the town, the beaters (who were used to working in a line and covering all the ground) and the sprinkling of local police were spaced out among the others. Those with dogs were also scattered but with a bias towards the town end.
I had brought old Sam along. He might not have much mileage left in him, but he could keep going in the colder weather and his nose was still among the best. We were among the group nearest to the houses and at first we were in thick woodland. The first frosts had gilded the leaves and the wind was beginning to fetch them down and sweep them into drifts that could have hidden a small corpse, so that there was no time to look around and chat.
The walkers had been reminded that this was a search and not a pheasant drive, but their dogs had not always got the message. There was some rabbit-chasing and the occasional pheasant burst up from the bushes and whirred away above the treetops. Sometimes a thumbstick would come to a shoulder or a soft voice would say ‘Bang!’ Thick clumps of rhododendron and alder had to be penetrated while the searchers on the spot, sheltered from the wind, steamed inside their waxproofed coats and messages were passed for the whole line to halt and stand.
We came out at last into open pasture where we could relax and call the dogs to heel. The middle of the line was now struggling across plough while the far end was among the broken ground and gorse-bushes below the main road. For those at the town end, it became a leisurely stroll.
There had been some changing of places in the line in the thicker woodland and I saw that my left-hand neighbour was now Sir Humphrey Peace. I had not seen him since my wedding day. On that occasion I had been very differently dressed; but I was now clad more in the manner in which he had seen me in the shooting field and I was surprised that he seemed either unable or unwilling to recognise me. His manner suggested that, reluctant as he was to slum it among the peasants, on this occasion noblesse did definitely oblige.
Something had been found at the other end of the line and we all halted while the nearest policeman panted up the slope to see whether it had any possible significance. Sir Humphrey had diverged from his straightest line to a gate through a barbed-wire fence and was only a few yards away. He seemed glad to mop his forehead and to seat himself on the shooting-stick with which he had been prodding hopefully into patches of cover. Common courtesy required that I speak to him, so I wished him a good morning.
In boots and trousers and an old shooting coat I was perhaps less than ladylike while he was very dapper in a soft tweed jacket and breeches, a club tie at the neck of his checked shirt and very expensive boots. He looked at me as though I had risen out of a cowpat, and returned my greeting without any great warmth.
‘I hear that you cancelled your shoot today,’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘The birds will still be around next week.’
‘All the same, it’ll be appreciated.’
He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll probably have to leave at lunchtime,’ he s
aid.
‘If we stick to the town end of the line, the afternoon will be easier,’ I said helpfully.
‘I do have other calls on my time,’ he said and he looked away towards the hills. Apparently he resented any suggestion that he was less fit than his own keepers and beaters.
We moved on for a hundred yards and stopped again. Two small helicopters were already scouring the moor beyond the main road. When I looked towards their clatter, I saw that Wallace James, Dad’s partner, was fifty yards to my right. I changed places with the intervening searcher, a lady from the dog club with a pair of spaniels, and walked over to meet Wal.
‘Dad’s minding the shop, is he?’ I asked.
‘I hope so,’ Wal said. ‘If he hasn’t handed over to the first passer-by and gone off on some ploy of his own. He’s supposed to come out at lunchtime and I’ll go back to the shop.’
I accepted the slur on my father. Even at an age which seemed, to me in my early twenties, to be almost senile, Dad had enough zest in life to seem totally irresponsible. Wallace understood and envied him without approving. ‘I’d have expected to see Sir Peter,’ I said. ‘He hates to miss a bit of excitement.’
‘He had a meeting in Edinburgh.’
I was still resenting the pitiful attempts of my friends and family to keep me in the dark. The occasion seemed propitious for digging a little more. ‘If it’s about the Sempylene business,’ I said, ‘I’m surprised that he didn’t take you with him.’
Wallace’s eyes popped and he made a faint shushing sound and a silencing gesture. He moved closer, seeming to look past my shoulder. ‘Keep your voice down,’ he said in what was barely more than a whisper. ‘I forgot how thick you are with the old boy.’
‘So are you,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t he take you along. Is it too confidential for us peasants?’
That needled him, as I intended. ‘Nothing like that. He usually likes to have me along to interpret the figures and translate the jargon into basic English. All the accountants in the world seem to be working on this one. Board of Trade, Fraud Squad, you name it, along with the firm’s own Finance Department. They form a clique. Plus the fact that the financial whizz-kids resented it when Sir Peter, who was a non-financial director, was kicked up into the chairmanship. So they try to talk verbal shorthand and blind him with technicalities. It gives them a giggle to force him to ask elementary questions so that they can look patient and explain in words of one syllable. But today’s meeting is legal and procedural and he can give as good as he gets in that quarter. Believe me,’ Wallace said reverently, ‘he’ll be taking no prisoners today.’
‘And how’s it coming along?’ I asked. Just a friendly, social enquiry.
Wal shrugged. ‘We’re getting there,’ he said. ‘So far, no evidence of sweeteners. Just buying with inside knowledge.’
‘That’s serious enough, isn’t it?’ I suggested.
‘Very serious, very common and very difficult to prove if they’ve used nominees. It probably wouldn’t have come to light at all if their chief financial cook and bottle-washer hadn’t done a vanishing act. Now they’re having to check out every purchaser for connection with those in the know. Not a word to anybody,’ he added seriously. ‘If this gets out before we’re ready there’ll be a financial crash and thousands of jobs up the spout. That’s what Sir Peter was put in for, to try and save the jobs.’
‘I won’t tell anybody,’ I promised.
The line moved on. In the extraordinary way in which a body of people always knows more than the sum of the knowledge of its individuals, it was understood that nothing useful had been found. By twelve thirty we had converged on the road to the south of the town. Everybody had brought sandwiches, but a van was waiting in the mouth of a farm-road with soup, tea, coffee and beer – Sir Peter’s doing, I discovered later.
Wal took his meal at the roadside while watching the road. I trod down some nettles, spread a plastic bag, sat down on the verge beside him and shared my sandwiches with old Sam.
‘What did you think of my figures?’ I asked Wal.
He thought it over for a minute. ‘All right,’ he said at last.
‘The supermarket chains are sitting up and taking notice,’ I said. ‘And, according to Sir Peter, we could sign up most of the shoots if we set about it. We could be a lot bigger. But that would mean bigger premises, refrigerated vans and so on.’
‘I wondered how long it would be before that idea took hold,’ Wal said. ‘I don’t know. A lot of small, local operations might be more economic than one big one. Leave it with me.’
I was content. Those words meant that Wal would, in the course of time, produce a beautifully costed feasibility study and let me claim most of the credit. I gave Sam half of another sandwich.
‘If you give him food now, he’ll be too lazy to work this afternoon,’ Wal said. ‘Not that it’ll matter, probably.’
He could have been suggesting that Sam was too old to be of much help, but I thought not. ‘You don’t think we’re going to find her? Or anything?’ I suggested.
Wal looked round but there was nobody nearby. ‘It seems unlikely.’
‘You think she’s with her father?’
‘Either that, or she’s been taken in order to shut his mouth.’
Quickly, I sifted through what I knew and found a little more of the pattern. ‘Of course, that must be it,’ I said. ‘I just hadn’t thought of it that way round. His evidence would be important, wouldn’t it?’
‘Vital,’ Wal said. ‘It was his disappearance that really started the alarm bells ringing. We still don’t know whether he accidentally chose the most delicate moment to elope or whether he took fright at what was going on. We don’t even know how much he knew about it. But the dates are critical. Many of the firm’s records have vanished. If he didn’t take them with him, as the firm’s senior accountant he’s the only person who can be categorical as to who knew what when.’
‘I think you’re right,’ I said.
‘Here’s your father coming,’ Wal said. ‘I’ll leave you to your country stroll. It has to be done. It’d be too damnable if it turned out later that she’d been lying in a coma somewhere near here.’ He paused and looked at me with anxious eyes. ‘I think you should steer clear of Sir Humphrey. If he speaks to you during the afternoon, stick to the weather.’
Dad arrived beside us before I could ask him what Sir Humphrey had to do with it. Wal took over the jeep and headed back to open the shop. He could have omitted his final warning. Sir Humphrey was speaking on a cordless telephone and soon afterwards a large and glossy car collected him and swept him away.
My father sat beside me. ‘Any luck this morning?’
‘Not to my knowledge,’ I said. ‘Some bits and pieces have been collected but I suppose it’ll take time to find out whether any of them are relevant. I mean, it’s not unknown for a pair of knickers to be left behind in the woods.’
‘I just hope that none of them can be traced back to you,’ he said. Since I got married he felt free to make that sort of joke.
‘If they can, I didn’t leave them there,’ I said. ‘I’m too thrifty. I get it from you. Dad, when did the Sempylene takeover happen?’
‘So Ian’s been talking freely! I wondered how long it would be before he found out how impossible it is to keep you in the dark. It was while you were on your honeymoon.’
We moved off before I could think of any more questions that might add to my knowledge without revealing how very little I knew.
Apart from the excitement when one of the younger searchers became fascinated with the frogmen who were scouring the bed of the canal, got too close and fell in, the afternoon passed without incident. I stayed next to Dad, but either he knew less than I did about Mr Thrower and Sempylene or else he was guarding his tongue carefully. We came round the northern extremity of the town. The further end of the search reached almost as far as Briesland House and in the distance I saw Mum attach herself to the line. I found myself b
eside Mum’s brother for a while, but Uncle Ronnie seemed to know less than nothing, which was about par for the course. If it doesn’t swim or fly or grow antlers, it is of no importance to him and he refuses to waste mental energy on it.
We finished where we had started and were gathered together for a rather stilted word of thanks from the Sergeant. One of the officers brought me a message, relayed over the radio, to say that Ian had been called into Edinburgh.
Dad swept us off for a meal in the pub, which suited me very well. I was in no hurry to get home. I had no fancy to make a meal for one and I had a hunch that I would have time to myself next day.
*
My hunch proved correct. Ian was out for most of the Sunday. Occasional messages, relayed from different places and promising ever later times for his return home, suggested that he was chasing down scraps of information. Once he phoned from Edinburgh and I guessed that he was keeping his superiors well posted.
I kept my curiosity at bay until I had caught up with the week’s housework. When the flat was thoroughly cleaned, Sam had been walked, the laundry was tumble-drying and preparations had been made for our one good meal of the week that evening, I dug into the collection of old newspapers. Ian, who insists on keeping abreast of the world’s news, had allowed the delivery of his daily paper to be continued during our only too brief absence. Between my sudden change of status and residence and the distraction of starting a new venture, I had missed the intervening paper collections and the space beneath the stair to the flat above was becoming full of neatly stacked columns of newsprint. Luckily for me, they remained in approximate order of date.
If the result of my search was not very informative, at least it spurred me, after clipping out all references to Sempylene, into tying the papers up into bundles and putting them outside for the next collection which was almost due. The council’s men would probably have to send for another van, but that was their problem. The sudden void under the stairs enabled me to stow away some boxes containing wedding presents that I rather hoped never to see again.
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