A Dish Served Cold

by Diney Costeloe

  “Bitch! Bloody Pam bitch!,” he fumed at Karen, “I’ll have to hire one for now,”.

  “Surely your insurance will cover that, too” she said.

  “Maybe it will,” he agreed darkly, “but it’s the hassle of the whole thing.” His eyes gleamed with hatred. “If I ever get my hands on that bitch, I’ll murder her.”

  “That wouldn’t help,” Karen laughed. Roger was beginning to sound far more like his old self and she was relieved. She had tried, again, to persuade him to go to a doctor, but he had refused, and she knew it was because he didn’t want to have to admit to anyone else what had happened.

  “You could simply say you fell downstairs,” she suggested, but Roger was having none of it, and Karen knew from experience that once he’d made his mind up there was no way she would be able to change it.

  She stayed the night in Cardiff Road and was pleased to find him much better the following day. There was no news of his car. Karen told him about the phone call the previous morning, but he seemed totally uninterested. “Could have been anybody,” he said. “Occasionally people do ring up and ask for her, that’s why I changed the message.” He told her about Pam’s friend Marilyn turning up on the doorstep.

  “What did you tell her?” Karen asked.

  “Told her Pam had gone and sent her packing.”

  “Do you want to look at the computer now?” Karen suggested, changing the subject. She was tired of Pam.

  “Might as well,” Roger agreed and led the way to the study. While Karen had been at the supermarket the previous afternoon, he’d checked the office to see if Pam had been in there as well. It was difficult to know, but as far as he could tell she hadn’t. The room seemed untouched, the computer monitor covered with a cloth to keep the dust off the screen, the keyboard tucked onto its shelf under the desk. He had checked the safe as well, even though he had already changed the combination. There was nothing missing, the pearl choker still rolled up in its black velvet. There’d be no need for him to open the safe again while Karen was with him.

  He pulled out the chair by the desk and Karen fetched her dressing-table stool. For the next hour she took him through the basics of connecting to the Internet, opening the new e-mail account she’d set up for him and sending e-mails. This was a laborious business as he could only type with one finger and had no idea as to where to find the letters on the keyboard. Never patient at the best of times, Roger soon grew frustrated with his progress and lost his temper, swearing at the computer and pushing the keyboard aside.

  “I can’t think why you don’t get some professional help with your secretarial work, Dad,” Karen said in exasperation. “I can do some of it for you, but it has to be on a business basis. You’ll have to pay for my time.”

  “Oh, you can do all this stuff,” Roger said ungraciously. “It’s my private files I need to get into.”

  “And did Pam type those for you?” asked Karen.

  “She did, but she didn’t know what they were about.”

  “And I don’t need to know either,” Karen said cheerfully. “I just need to know where to find them and to see if they are protected by a password. Let’s have a look at your files.”

  Roger had by now realised that he did, indeed, need help and had come to the conclusion that as he had to trust someone, it was best that it should be Karen.

  It didn’t take Karen long to find the files, and typing in the password, Porter-Jackson that she had used to access Pam’s e-mail account, she was soon able to open the directory marked simply ‘Roger’ and reveal the files stored there.

  “There seem to be six files here, Dad. Are these the ones you want?” She clicked on the first of them which was labelled ‘Sources’. “Seems to be a list of names and numbers.”

  “Yes, that’s one of them,” said Roger hastily. “Close it again for now.”

  “The others are called, ‘Contacts’ ‘Requests’, ‘Markets’, ‘Couriers’ and ‘International’. Shall I open those up for you? There’s another directory here marked ‘Accounts’. What about that one?”

  “Just show me how to get into them,” Roger instructed her.

  Before she let him loose on the computer, Karen backed up his files, so that if he deleted something by mistake it wasn’t lost. Then she left him to experiment. By lunch time Roger could open his files and copy documents to a USB pen drive. He could, following Karen’s written instructions, save and print a document. While she was downstairs getting them some lunch, Roger printed off his private files and stowed the hard copies, along with the backup USBs, in the safe. He would manage without outside secretarial help. Karen had said she would keep his accounts for him…the legitimate ones. Any other figures would be kept elsewhere and only Roger would deal with those.

  Chapter 13

  By the time Marilyn Ross reached home after her day in Bristol she had decided that she ought to try and discover where Pam had got to.

  “It’s very odd,” she told her husband, Paul, over dinner that evening. “She seems to have vanished into thin air. Roger insists he doesn’t know where she is and clearly couldn’t care less. All he’ll say is that she’s left him…and I certainly don’t blame her for that. But supposing she hasn’t.”

  Paul looked puzzled. “Hasn’t what?”

  “Hasn’t left him. Supposing something’s happened to her?”

  “Like what?” Paul put down his knife and fork. “What can have happened to her, Marilyn? She’s left him. She doesn’t want him to know where she is. You’ve always said she was afraid of him, so having plucked up the courage to leave, she’s not going to risk him finding her, now is she?”

  “No, I suppose not.” Marilyn was clearly unconvinced. “But where can she have gone? Why didn’t she ring me? I’m not going to tell him where she is, am I?”

  Paul shrugged. “I don’t know, love, she must have gone to someone else. She probably thought you were still in Norfolk with your mum and went to other friends.”

  “She hasn’t got other friends.”

  “She must have.”

  “I don’t think she’s got many,” Marilyn said. “She hardly even knows her neighbours.” As she picked at her food, Marilyn told Paul about Margaret Hillier and repeated their conversation. “This Margaret Hillier woman said that Roger had been married before and that his first wife disappeared. That’s suspicious, don’t you think?”

  “Is it? She probably walked out on him, too, if he’s as awful as you say?” He looked over at his wife. “You’re not suggesting something happened to her, are you?” And when Marilyn didn’t reply immediately he said, “Oh come on, love, you don’t believe any such thing.”

  “I don’t know what I believe,” Marilyn said crossly. “All I do know is that I’m very worried about Pam. She’s disappeared, she’d nowhere to go and virtually no money. He never gave her anything, that Roger. She told me once that she had a debit card but was only allowed to use it for groceries, you know, at the supermarket. She had to ask permission to buy clothes, can you believe that?”

  “What would happen if I tried that, I wonder?” murmured Paul.

  Marilyn continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I think Roger is a control freak, that’s what I think.”

  “Well then,” said Paul bracingly, “she’s well out of the place. Look, love, there’s nothing you can do. You’ll just have to wait until she gives you a ring, that’s all.”

  “Supposing she doesn’t?”

  “I’m sure she will, just give her time, eh?”

  But Marilyn could not get Pam out of her mind and by Saturday morning she decided that she had to do something more.

  “I thought I might give Gavin a call,” Marilyn said casually to Paul at breakfast.

  “Gavin?” Paul looked from his paper.

  “Yes, I think I’ll just tell him about Pam.”

  “Marilyn,” Paul was fed up with the whole thing, “what on earth do you expect him to do about her?”

  Marilyn shrugged. “
I don’t know. Nothing probably, but I’d just like to discuss things with him, that’s all.”

  “Well then, certainly ring him,” Paul said as he gathered up the paper and headed for the sitting room. He heard the ting of the telephone as he turned to the sports page and thought with relief that perhaps his brother-in-law would be able to convince Marilyn that there was nothing to be done…always a difficult thing once she’d got a bee in her bonnet.

  Marilyn was surprised and pleased to find her brother at home, and when they had exchanged family news she came to the point of her call.

  Gavin listened to her without interruption and when she finally came to a halt, said, “Let me get this straight, Marilyn. You think your friend has disappeared in suspicious circumstances and you want to know what I can do about it?”

  “Yes. No. Not exactly. Look Gav, I know she’s disappeared. Roger, the husband, says she’s left him and he hasn’t a clue where she is.”

  “Is he making any effort to find her?”

  “No, I don’t think so. He didn’t seem to care where she was.”

  “Well, maybe he doesn’t,” Gavin pointed out patiently. “Maybe he’s glad that she’s gone, you know? Marriage over, good riddance?”

  “Maybe.” Marilyn was clearly still unconvinced. “But where would she go?”

  “Lord, Marilyn, how should I know? She probably went to friends.”

  “She hasn’t got any,” Marilyn said stubbornly.

  “She must have.”

  “That’s what Paul said.”

  “There you are then,” Gavin was reassuring.

  Marilyn was not reassured. “That man, Roger, he hardly let her out of the house.”

  “How did you get to know her then?” asked Gavin.

  Marilyn sighed. “I told you. I met her at a computer class. He sent her to that so that she could do his secretarial work for him. But apart from that, she hardly went out at all. We used to chat in the coffee break. She’s no money of her own.… I used to have to buy her coffee for her.” Marilyn sounded outraged. “I told her, I said ‘you should leave him,’ but she said she couldn’t because she had no money and nowhere to go. Gavin, do you know she told me once that he’d taken the money she’d got from the sale of her mother’s house and she’s never seen it since. Told me Roger said he’d invested it for her. Propped up his own business with it more likely. He’s a bloody thief, Gav!”

  “Now Marilyn,” Gavin said, “you don’t know that.” He sighed and said in the reasonable voice that infuriated his sister, “Look, I know you’re worried, Marilyn, but listen to me. People disappear every day of the week. If you’re determined to it isn’t very difficult. You just go somewhere where you’ve never been before, where nobody knows you, and start again.”

  “His first wife disappeared too,” Marilyn said. She hadn’t meant to tell Gavin that and regretted it immediately she had.

  “Are you suggesting that he’s a serial killer, Marilyn?” Gavin sounded amused.

  “No, of course not. God, Gav, you sound just like Paul!”

  “Glad Paul’s taking a sensible line on this,” said Gavin cheerfully. “OK, so you’re worried something has happened to her. What were you hoping I could do about it?”

  Marilyn sighed again. “I don’t know really, nothing, I suppose. I just hoped you’d be able to make a few discreet enquiries.”

  “The problem is, unless she’s reported as a missing person, there’s not a lot I can do.”

  “Well, I am reporting her missing,” Marilyn pointed out.

  “I mean officially. Look, Marylou,” he always called her Marylou when he was in big brother mode, “It’s my weekend off, but when I go in again on Monday, I’ll check and see if she has been reported missing, all right? I’ll see if anyone knows anything about this Roger Smith, but I can’t push it or do anything officially. If the circumstances were more suspicious, or we had more to go on…but as you said yourself, you had told her she ought to leave him and it simply sounds as if she has. Sorry, but that’s the best I can do.”

  Marilyn rang off at last, not much reassured, but at least Gavin had said he would ask about unofficially and get back to her. For the moment that was all she could do and she tried to push her worries about Pam to the back of her mind.

  Inspector Gavin Crozier replaced the receiver his end in mild exasperation. He couldn’t seem to make his sister understand that there was very little he could do. However, on Monday morning he was as good as his word and had missing persons checked on the computer. There was no Pamela Smith listed as missing from Bristol; no one had reported her missing. He’d get someone to go round to the address and make some enquiries, but he doubted if they would amount to much. He turned his mind to other things, far more important things as far as he was concerned.

  Gavin Crozier liked to keep his finger on the pulse and as soon as he had arrived, the duty sergeant, Sergeant Harper, had brought him the sector’s crime print-out for the weekend. Crozier skimmed his eye down the list of crimes that had been reported since he had left on Friday evening, and there it was. The name leapt out at him. Roger Smith. A Roger Smith had reported his car stolen on Saturday, taken from his front drive sometime on Friday night.

  Coincidence? Crozier wondered. It’s a common enough name after all. He checked the notes he’d made on the Roger Smith Marilyn was on about. Roger Smith of 12 Cardiff Road. Same address. It must be the same man. He summoned the sergeant again.

  “This car theft,” he said pointing at the entry. “What do we know about it?”

  “Not a lot, sir,” Sergeant Harper replied. “Baron took the call Saturday afternoon. The chap said he’d come home on Friday night, about half ten, left his car on his driveway and in the morning it had gone. Swore blind he locked it, but of course you can’t tell. He said there was no broken glass or anything.”

  “Anyone been round to see him?” asked Crozier.

  “No, sir, not yet. We were very busy with the student demo yesterday.”

  Crozier looked back at the sheet. The call was logged at 2.30 pm. “Is Baron in today?”

  “Yes sir, he’s downstairs.”

  “Send him up to me would you? I suppose you can spare him to me for an hour or so?” It was less of a question than a statement and Harper agreed that he could.

  PC Peter Baron went up to Inspector Crozier’s office wondering what he could want. The sarge had said something about a stolen car.

  “Ah, come in Baron. Now I’ve got a little job for you.” Gavin Crozier explained what he wanted Baron to do.

  “Take Cooper with you and find out what happened. Go this evening when he’ll be home from work. Take a statement from him in the normal way, but keep your eyes open. I want to know who else is in the house, what sort of state it’s in, that kind of thing. If possible mention his wife and see what he says about her.”

  “His wife, sir?” Baron looked puzzled. “What sort of thing?”

  “Well, ask if she was in the in house at the time, whether she heard anything. See how he answers. I want to know what sort of bloke he is.”

  It was Karen that opened the door to the two uniformed men.

  “Good evening, madam,” one of them said extending his warrant card. “PC Baron from Hatfield Road police station. My colleague, PC Cooper. Is Mr Roger Smith at home?”

  Karen didn’t answer the question but called back over her shoulder, “Dad, policemen here to see you.” She then stood aside to allow the two constables to come into the hall, closing the door behind them.

  Roger emerged from the kitchen. “Well,” he said, gruffly, “have you found my car?”

  “No sir, not yet. We’d just like to take a statement from you, if you don’t mind.”

  Roger shrugged. “If you must, but I told the officer I spoke to on the phone all I know.”

  “Yes, sir, that was me,” Baron said. “But we like to do a follow up visit and to get it all down in writing, sir.” He smiled at Roger, adding cheerfully, “That�
��s a nasty bruise you’ve got on your face there, sir. Had an accident did you?” Baron spoke with a Welsh lilt that Roger immediately found irritating; he’d never liked the Welsh, and he certainly didn’t like this line of questioning. Was Baron implying that he’d had a road accident and was now reporting the car stolen to cover it? He didn’t reply immediately and Karen said, “He fell downstairs.”

  Roger glowered at her, but he did not contradict her,

  “That could be nasty,” sympathised Baron. “How did that happen, then?”

  “I simply missed my footing,” Roger replied tersely. “Can we get on with this?” He led the way into the kitchen. Briefly he told the two constables how he and Karen had discovered the car to be missing on Saturday morning after he parked it in his driveway on Friday night.

  “Have you got the keys, sir?” asked Cooper, speaking for the first time.

  “Of course I’ve got the keys,” snapped Roger.

  “Two sets?”

  “What?”

  “Two sets of keys, sir,” said Cooper. “Most cars have two sets of keys.”

  “I’ve only got one set,” Roger told him. “I lost the others years ago.”

  “Could someone have found them and used them to take the car?” Cooper suggested.

  “I doubt it.” Roger was terse. “I told you, I lost them years ago, soon after I bought the car.”

  “And your wife, has she got a set?” asked Baron.

  “My wife doesn’t live here,” Roger said shortly. “We’re separated.”

  “So she couldn’t have borrowed the car?”

  “I haven’t seen her for months,” Roger said. “The car is mine and she doesn’t have any keys, right?”

  “And you, Miss Smith,” Baron said, turning to Karen. “Do you have keys to your father’s car?”

  “For God’s sake,” Roger rounded on the constable. “I’ve told you there’s only one set of keys, and they’re mine. Do you want to see them?”

  “No, sir,” Baron said soothingly, “that won’t be necessary.”

  “There’s a motor bike parked outside,” Cooper said. “Is that yours, sir?”