Gone in the Night

by Mary-Jane Riley

  Alex didn’t let her smile drop. She seemed to be doing a lot of that lately. ‘I can wait.’

  It must have been half an hour before David appeared, walking down the staircase like a celebrity from Strictly Come Dancing.

  ‘Alex,’ he said, his voice verging on curt.

  Alex brought back the smile. ‘I wonder if I might have a word?’

  ‘It’ll have to be quick.’ He stood expectantly.

  ‘Er – here?’

  ‘No reason why not, is there?’ The hostility came off his body in waves. Alex felt sorry for him, she must have really hurt his ego.

  She shrugged. ‘Okay. I wanted to ask you about some of the people on the streets. I believe they use your hostels too, on occasion.’

  ‘Most likely. But then we hardly take a register. That’s the whole point of our places. People who haven’t got anywhere else to go can come and have a good meal and a safe night’s sleep without feeling like they’re being monitored.’ He looked around, as though he was hoping for someone more interesting to come along.

  ‘I know that.’ Alex damped down her impatience. ‘I wanted to know if you’d heard any talk, any rumours, about people going missing?’

  ‘People going missing?’ He enunciated each word as if she were saying something extraordinary.

  Alex tried again. ‘Homeless people, disappearing off the streets?’

  He gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Alex, my dear. By their very nature homeless people move from one place to another. They get moved on, they decide to move on, they—’

  She waved her hand. He was a pompous prick. ‘I know all that, David. But this is more than that. Apparently a couple of men – usually well-dressed – speak to them and then a day or so later they’re not around.’

  ‘Like who? Who have these men spoken to?’

  ‘Lindy. Nobby. Martin. Rick.’

  He frowned. ‘Lindy. I know Lindy. Yes. She is pretty unstable. There’s every chance she could have hooked up with someone, she never did like to be on her own. So maybe she went off with a couple of men. Who knows? Rick? Post-traumatic stress I believe. His sister is a nagging bitch – so he told me. Nobby often takes himself off to Lowestoft for a few weeks and then comes back again. And Martin? I can’t believe he would “disappear”.’

  ‘Well he has. And left Ethel.’

  ‘His dog?’ He frowned, stroking his chin. ‘That does surprise me. Though maybe he couldn’t afford to feed her.’

  ‘You told me, David, that when you’re on the streets having someone, something, to love and look after can keep you sane. That you feed your dog before yourself.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So why would he leave Ethel?’

  David took her by the elbow and steered her towards the door. ‘Look, Alex. I have enough on my plate without you bothering me about two or three people who have decided to go walkabout. It happens. They don’t stay in one place all the time. You know that. I try my best but I can’t help everyone. Sometimes I’m – we’re, the charity I mean – able to help someone live a better life, but more often than not they slip through the cracks. Sometimes they go elsewhere. Like Nobby to the seaside, that’s a popular one—’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And sometimes they think that life just isn’t worth living. Have you thought of that?’ He stuck his chin out.

  They were standing on the step outside the building now. Alex looked at David. He was pale and he had lost weight from when she had first met him to do the original interviews.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course I’m all right, why shouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Because,’ she began slowly, ‘the David I interviewed for the paper was passionate about changing lives, and was passionate about his people. You seem … different. Worried.’

  ‘I’m fine, Alex, thank you.’ He sighed and his shoulders slumped. ‘We’re having a bit of trouble with funding at the moment, but it’ll all work out in the end.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I don’t mean to come over as unfeeling, but there are more than ninety people in Norwich alone without a home, and hundreds in Norfolk and Suffolk, so the whereabouts of a couple of them who will have gone off to pastures new can’t concern me at the moment. Alex …’ He hesitated. ‘I remember you telling me you wanted to do more in your life, more worthwhile journalism, find a big story. You don’t think you’re trying to make this something that it’s not?’

  Alex stared at him. Why had she said anything about that to him? ‘No, David, I’m not,’ she said finally. ‘I’m trying to help a friend, that’s all. Thank you for your time.’

  She walked away before she either hit him or burst into tears.

  The encounter with David had made Alex feel unsettled. Was he right? Was she helping Cora because she wanted it to be something more? Was she manufacturing a story? Maybe Nobby, Lindy, Rick and Martin had simply found somewhere else to go. But all of her instincts pointed to there being more to it. It didn’t smell right. It was no good having a hunch, though, if you couldn’t back it up with evidence.

  Why had David been so jumpy, so worried, so tired? What was it he’d said? They’d been having some trouble with funding? Then it clicked into place. She knew where she had seen the man who had almost knocked her over as she was entering the building. He was Lewis Rider, the eldest of the Rider brothers. She had caught a glimpse of him at the charity function and had seen his picture online. David had said the Rider family were great supporters of his charity, so it would seem logical that Lewis Rider was seeing David. Perhaps, though, the money troubles couldn’t be so easily solved.

  If David wasn’t going to be any help, then she’d have to find someone else who might be …

  ‘Why do I think this is only going to be trouble?’

  DI Sam Slater answered his mobile with his customary laconic tone. He made Alex smile. And had done ever since she met him at a ‘press meet the police’ PR kind of day – excruciating for all sides, though it did at least mean that officers and journalists were more than voices at the other end of the phone to one another.

  ‘Have you got a minute?’ She didn’t wait for Slater to answer, but launched straight into her story, telling Slater all that had happened, right from the very beginning. ‘So can you send someone out to look at the Land Rover site? I think it would be worth it.’

  He sighed. ‘Look, I’ll see what I can do. But—’

  ‘Thanks, Sam, I owe you.’ And she cut the call.

  Good. She had someone on their side. But she wanted to see the crashed Land Rover for herself, see if she could find anything that might help pinpoint Rick Winterton’s whereabouts.

  This was turning out to be a long day.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DAY TWO: LATE AFTERNOON

  The home was an almost elegant building, with three sides set around a lawn and well-kept flower beds – there was always colour in them, whatever the time of year – the pink and purple of cyclamen, the yellow of winter aconites, the red of Japanese quince. He knew these flowers and shrubs because he had made it his business to know, so he could talk to Rosie about them. She had always loved her flowers and her garden, and Sam Slater fancied he saw animation in her face when he took her outside to see them here.

  He put his phone back in his pocket, knowing he would have to cut this visit short. Luckily, he wasn’t too far away.

  As he walked into the front reception he was struck again by how unlike any of the depressing care homes he had trudged around when trying to find help for Rosie this was. So many were institutions, with harried staff, good care but the bare minimum. No time to spend with the people living there. Institutional food, institutional entertainment. And he had wanted her to be somewhere special, where she was cared for and cherished because she was Rosie, not because she was another ‘client’. He wanted paintings on the wall, thoughtfully chosen, a restaurant, Farrow & Ball paint. The smell of fresh air. And he had found it here at Lime House. There was even a hair
salon and Jo Malone toiletries, for Christ’s sake.

  ‘Hello, Sam. Rosie’s looking forward to seeing you,’ said Marcia on the front desk, all cheerful smiles and cheerful demeanour.

  He signed himself in and went along the corridor to Rosie’s room. He stood at the doorway, looking at the cheerful space that, when the sun shone, was full of light.

  Yes, he had chosen well. It was all worth it. It had to be.

  She was sitting, well wrapped up, in her specially adapted wheelchair, waiting for him. At least that’s what he liked to think, that she knew he was coming and was looking forward to it.

  He fixed a smile on his face and went in. He kissed her cheek.

  There was no reaction, and hadn’t been for some time. Rosie was in the last stages of Huntington’s. How he hated that single word and the way it had taken his beloved wife away from him in a few short years. Would he have married her if he had known this was coming down the tracks?

  Hell, yes.

  He loved her fiercely, and although in the last couple of years he knew he had to start living again, his love for her had not diminished.

  His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out, looked at the screen, his expression darkening. He pressed ‘decline’, turned it off and jammed it back in his pocket. That particular devil would have to wait. He didn’t want this visit spoiled.

  He sat down, took his wife’s hand, and began chatting to her about the flowers and the rain, which had begun to softly fall.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  DAY TWO: LATE AFTERNOON

  The road from Riders’ Farm towards Woodbridge was slick with water, and big puddles had formed at intervals along the side. Alex had to drive carefully. The afternoon light was already threatening to fade.

  She tried to remember how far along the accident had been. What landmark did she remember seeing?

  None, was the honest answer. She hadn’t been taking a lot of notice, more intent on listening to Sasha’s happiness than anything else. Was that oak tree familiar? What about the hole in the hedge? That gate? Hang on. She thought hard. There had been a T-junction with a signpost to Gisford. And only a few metres past that one of those road signs warning drivers to beware of deer. She knew only too well they could leap out of the hedgerow right in front of the car.

  It was around here somewhere.

  There. The sign to Gisford and then the one depicting a deer. It had a hole through its centre where someone had been practising with their air rifle.

  Alex pulled onto a convenient farm track.

  She was glad she’d had the foresight to bring her wellie boots with her, as the side of the road was wet and muddy. She wrapped her scarf tightly around her neck and jammed her bobble hat on her head. The wind was getting up and the sky was threatening to unleash a deluge.

  She walked on, brushing up against the thorny hedge, sometimes catching her coat on a bramble. She stepped into the road, hoping to see police tape fluttering like a banner in the wind somewhere up ahead. Not for the first time she asked herself why she hadn’t had her wits about her when she came across the crash originally. Why hadn’t she picked up the trainer in the puddle? Maybe it would still be there.

  She stopped. Surely she should have come across the wreck by now?

  She crossed over. There was a ditch and a line of trees along this side. She thought hard. The Land Rover had turned over by the last tree in the row, the driver – Cora’s brother – having swerved to avoid a head-on collision with its trunk. Or that was how it looked.

  But there was nothing. Nothing at all. No sign of a Land Rover. No sign of a crash. No skid marks – though with the amount of wet mud on the road from farm vehicles, they would have been covered up or washed away within hours of the crash.

  She looked carefully at the tree where she thought the vehicle had overturned – she was certain now this was the place. She began to feel excited. Was that a scrape in the bark? Or just nibbles from deer? She traced the mark with her hand.

  It told her nothing.

  The trainer. That had been in a puddle nearby.

  Too many puddles. Of course the rain would have washed so much away.

  There was the sound of another vehicle coming fast down the lane. A door slammed. DI Sam Slater sauntered into sight, hands in his pockets, dressed casually in jeans and a leather bomber jacket.

  ‘Sam,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you.’ She stood up.

  He shrugged. ‘I had a bit of spare time, so I thought I would come and see what you were on about.’

  ‘I’m honoured.’

  ‘Don’t be. I didn’t want to take an officer off a really important job, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t think—’ she was about to say she didn’t think his comment was fair, but from his point of view, it probably was. She smiled. ‘Thank you. The trouble is, I can’t find it.’

  ‘You’re at the right place?’

  Alex nodded. ‘Look.’ She pointed to the tree. ‘There’s a scrape on the bark, where it has come away.’

  Sam went up to it, felt the mark as she had done. ‘Could be a deer. They like bark, particularly from young trees.’

  ‘But it could also be from a vehicle.’

  He looked more closely. ‘No sign of paint.’

  ‘There’s no sign of anything. And I’m sure this is the place.’

  ‘Shall we walk up a bit further, just in case?’ He strode on ahead. Alex had to run to catch up with him.

  ‘You think this is a waste of time, don’t you?’

  Sam stopped and looked at her. ‘Alex. You’re a good journalist, one of the best. If you believe something’s happened, then I’m almost inclined to believe you. That’s why I came out here today. I can’t afford to waste time, not with budgets as they are. Christ, we’re not even investigating some crimes like shoplifting and criminal damage these days. But—’

  ‘But what?

  ‘Alex, people like him disappear all the time. I know you reported him missing, and that was the right thing to do and wheels can be put in motion, but a lot of the time they don’t want to be found. And you’ve given me absolutely no reason to think he’s a bona fide missing person. He moves around and he’s disappeared before, always turning up.’

  ‘“Wheels put in motion”. I see. Because he’s homeless you don’t bother.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Alex,’ he said quietly. ‘Look.’ He waved his arm around. ‘We’ve walked a long way and there’s nothing. All I can say is if there ever was anything here, someone has done a bloody good job of tidying it up.’

  ‘Exactly, Sam. That’s what’s happened.’ Surely Sam could see what she was getting at? ‘Somebody has cleared it all away.’

  ‘And why would they do that?’

  ‘Come on, Sam. You’re the copper.’ Why couldn’t he see? ‘To cover something up of course.’

  ‘Alex, we’re not on a TV show, you know.’ There was impatience in his voice.

  ‘I know that, DI Slater.’ Alex tried to damp down her irritation. She sighed. He was right, though. There was nothing here.

  When they got back to the tree, Alex hunkered down to examine the ground around it. There had to be something.

  ‘I must to go now, Alex.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Alex—’ he hesitated. ‘I know you believe there was a crash, but—’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘You had been at a party. Perhaps your thoughts are a bit muddled.’

  She bristled. ‘My thoughts were not and are not muddled, party or no party.’ She paused. ‘Could you at least find out if anyone reported a Land Rover being stolen?’

  He sighed. Heavily. ‘I’ll have a look, Alex. I can’t promise anything.’

  She nodded. ‘Thank you for coming anyway.’

  ‘See you around, Alex.’

  She heard him walk away.

  Well, sod him.

  Alex started scrabbling about in the undergrowth, but there was nothing there – not ev
en a sweet wrapper. Then the heavens opened and rain came gushing out of the sky. It soaked her hat, her scarf and her coat in minutes. She could even feel water trickling down the inside of her wellies. Rivulets of water were running down the road and the light was well and truly fading now.

  Bloody hell.

  She didn’t want to give up.

  One last look.

  She switched on her phone torch and shone it around and about the tree. She was about to give up when she saw something reflected in the light. Crouching down, she put her hand on the wet grass at the side of the road. Two small pieces of glass. She thought back to the crash. The windscreen had been smashed, so had the indicator lights. Glass had been everywhere. This could be from that. Something the clear-up boys, for she had no doubt there had been clear-up boys, had missed. She scooped up the glass with a hanky she found in her pocket, and wrapped it up carefully before making her way back to the car. The afternoon hadn’t been entirely wasted, after all. She would see what Detective Inspector Sam Slater said now she had some actual evidence.

  She started the engine, put the car into reverse and let off the handbrake. The wheels spun, the engine roared, and her little Peugeot didn’t move. She gritted her teeth and tried again. Useless. The pouring rain had made the farm track a mud pit and the car was well and truly stuck.

  Now what?

  She got out and squidged her way to the boot, taking out a red and blue striped picnic blanket. She’d never used it on a picnic, but it could help here. Kneeling in the mud, she laid it as close to the back wheels as possible, went back into the car and tried again.

  Nothing. Apart from spinning tyres and a ruined blanket. She banged the steering wheel in frustration. Well, that was great. Just what she could do without. She lowered her head on to the steering wheel.

  A knock on the window made her jump.