Hey, Sherlock!

by Simon Mason

  ‘She doesn’t date.’

  ‘An argument with you?’

  ‘She argues with me all the time. Little things.’

  He thought about that. ‘Has she left home before?’ he asked.

  Tight-lipped, Dr Roecastle said, ‘In February she disappeared for three days.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We didn’t involve the police, we conducted our own enquiries. We were worried, of course. Searched everywhere. And in the end we found her checked into a hotel in town. Where she’d run up a not inconsiderable bill for room service. My daughter thinks she’s a rebel, Inspector, wearing all these goth-punk clothes, flirting with unsuitable boys, smoking weed at her exclusive school, protesting against politicians, but at heart she’s like any teenager. Thoughtless. Thinking only of herself. She’s discovered alcohol. The summer’s been an absolute nightmare. I’m a single parent, I have a senior position at the hospital, and it’s not possible for me to monitor her all the time. Because it’s still the holidays I’d allowed her to go out on the understanding that she would be back by ten o’clock at the latest. She wasn’t. Of course, I’ve been too liberal with her, I know that. She has her own credit card. We’re not poor. She’s extremely privileged, but she’s abused my trust. She did it before; now she’s doing it again.’

  Singh considered all this. ‘What was happening in February?’ he asked after a while.

  Dr Roecastle’s nostrils flared. ‘That’s when my marriage was falling apart.’

  Singh nodded sympathetically. ‘And Amy’s father lives elsewhere now?’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘Could she have gone to him last night?’

  ‘Amy’s relationship with her father is even worse than with me. They don’t talk. Besides, neither of us knows where he is. He’s a mathematician; he conducts research into string theory. The last I heard he was in California. Typically, he’s not around to give me support now. No. I warned Amy that if she ever did anything like this again I would not hesitate to involve the police, and I’ve been as good as my word. You could do worse than begin your search with the smart city hotels.’

  Singh nodded. ‘Thank you for being so frank. We’ll check the hotels, of course.’ He paused. ‘Is there anything else that might be relevant?’

  ‘I think I’ve said all that needs to be said. I’m handing this over to you.’

  He got to his feet. ‘May I look upstairs?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d like to see Amy’s room.’

  Dr Roecastle shrugged and led him out of the living room into the entrance hall.

  ‘Oh, one other thing,’ Singh said as they went. ‘Did anything else unusual happen last night?’

  ‘Unusual?’

  ‘Anything out of the ordinary.’

  She stopped to think at the foot of the stairs, and Singh waited, glancing round the hallway. Like the living room, it had been redesigned along artistic lines, the original dark panelling of the nineteenth century replaced by modern features in glass, pale wood and chrome. Now sunshine flooded in through sash windows, brightening the whitewashed walls and illuminating the artworks which rested on plinths in front of them, tubular shapes in glossy scarlet ceramic vaguely resembling sex toys. It was less like a room than a gallery, in fact – the result, Singh thought, of a firm, even rigid, mind. The only thing out of place was a Doc Martens shopping bag – buff-coloured, thick black lettering – dumped on its side at the end of a table. Otherwise, it was almost mathematically perfect.

  ‘Now you mention it,’ Dr Roecastle said, ‘by a strange coincidence there was another disappearance last night.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Our guard dog, Rex. A Dobermann. He sleeps in the outhouse. He was chained up last night as usual, but this morning he’s gone.’

  ‘Might Amy have taken him with her?’

  She looked at him with scorn. ‘I doubt the Astoria or the Hilton allows pets. No. In any case, Amy’s always been frightened of the dog. He’s a bit of a brute, in truth. The chain is old and worn; I expect it broke. Perhaps the storm agitated him and he pulled against it. Still.’ She reflected for a moment. ‘It is a coincidence. Two disappearances on one night.’

  She proceeded up the stairs, Singh following with a frown.

  As he went, he checked his watch – 08:00. Amy Roecastle had been missing for seven and a half hours.

  5

  In the garden, above the rise and out of sight, Smudge’s brother stepped across to give Garvie an earful.

  ‘Something’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Your fucking useless bit of fence.’

  The garden of ‘Four Winds’ was an extensive affair half an acre in size, rising beyond the stone-flagged patio up three levels of trimmed lawn to a picturesque fringe of shrubbery. The new fence, half finished, would be just as extensive, a graceful, encircling stockade, disappearing at points above the rise, threading its way through the edge of woodland. Classic featherboard in red cedar, comprising twenty-nine taper-sawn pales per 2.4 metre section on 150 mm traditional cured gravelboard, with 2.70 metre inter-posts capped with custom ball-and-collar finials. Not insignificant. Not cheap either.

  The section along the side of the lane had been erected by Tar and his team, the section from the gate to the pond by Butter’s team, and the section between pond and shrubbery, furthest away from the house, by Smudge’s brother, with Smudge and Garvie’s help. All of these sections stood complete, trim and upright – except for Garvie’s single 2.4 metre span, in the middle of Smudge’s brother’s section, which had somehow collapsed.

  ‘Three days,’ Smudge’s brother said. ‘That’s how long you were working on it.’

  Garvie said nothing.

  ‘Well?’

  Garvie said, ‘Two days, four hours, fifty minutes.’

  Smudge’s brother stared at him. ‘Two days, four hours and fifty minutes of complete fucking uselessness.’

  Garvie took a drag on his cigarette and blew out smoke. ‘It was standing last night,’ he said.

  ‘You understand they’re meant to last longer than a day, don’t you? We don’t do pop-up fencing, you know that, right?’ Smudge’s brother walked around the fallen panel while Garvie finished his cigarette. ‘How many times did I tell you about the depth of the post holes? What did I tell you about the ballast? Did you even use a string line?’

  Garvie gazed down the garden to the shrubbery, where Smudge had stopped working and was looking at him anxiously. He lifted a hand and waved.

  ‘Well, Wonder Brain?’ Smudge’s brother said. ‘What’s the news?’

  ‘Remind me what a string line is.’

  Smudge’s brother went a little apeshit, and Garvie lit another Benson & Hedges, and waited until the noise stopped. When he looked again, Smudge’s brother had gone back down the lawn, where he was talking to Tar and Butter. Garvie sighed. Without looking at his fallen panel, he walked across it, stepped over the remains of the previous wire fence at the perimeter of the garden, and stood there for a moment, smoking. Ahead of him, to his left, was rough pasture. To his right was woodland, a thick black tangle of birch and sycamore. A footpath, coming up from the direction of the road, curved at the fence where he stood and ran away between pasture and wood into the distance.

  It was peaceful, the birds in the trees sounded pleased with themselves, and Garvie stood there envying them. As he turned to go back into the garden his attention was caught by something on the fallen panel of fence. He bent down and removed from a nail head a long scrap of black fabric.

  Like the rooms downstairs, Amy’s bedroom was beautifully decorated. Unlike them, it was chaotically messy. Alternative lifestyle and music magazines were scattered across the floor. The wardrobe doors were open, and clothes had spilled out onto the floor, where they lay in heaps, punk and goth-wear, mainly black, combat gear, T-shirts, belts with silver studs, aggressive-looking shoes and lace-up boots.

  Singh stepped through the mess, looking round
alertly.

  Little details struck him: on a high wooden shelf above the bed, a row of tiny hand-painted papier-mâché models of people in strange poses; on the desk, still lit by the anglepoise lamp, a half-finished picture of a woman in war paint; next to it a school exercise book open at an advanced maths problem. The impression of an artistic, clever, rebellious person.

  For a moment he hesitated by some flowers in a jug on the mantelpiece. They looked out of place, thin and dirty, not the usual immaculate bouquet from a shop.

  He went to the window and looked out across the garden below, then stood again in the room, looking around. Something in the wardrobe caught his eye, and he went over to it, pulling on his latex gloves.

  After a moment he called Dr Roecastle in.

  ‘Is this the jacket she was wearing last night?’ he asked.

  Stuffed into the back of the wardrobe’s top shelf was a short olive-green jacket, still soaked through.

  Dr Roecastle peered at it. ‘Yes, I think so.’ She frowned. ‘Though I don’t know why she would have taken it off before going out again. The rain was torrential.’

  ‘Does she have another coat?’

  ‘She hates coats. I didn’t even know she had this one. She has a budget with which to buy her own clothes.’ She gestured around the room. ‘You can see for yourself what the result is.’

  They went out onto the landing.

  Singh said, ‘The bedroom is now an area of police interest. It will be sealed so that Forensics can carry out their work. Please avoid going into it.’

  ‘Another inconvenience.’

  ‘And now I’d like to look in the garden, if I may.’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Her bedroom window is unlatched. Does your alarm monitor only the ground floor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I assume your daughter knew that when she climbed out.’

  Leaving Dr Roecastle there, he went down the stairs and out of the front door round to the patio at the back of the house. There, he saw immediately the clear impression of footsteps visible in the flower bed directly below Amy’s bedroom window. The soil was still wet from the rain the night before. Mud footprints led across the patio onto the grass, and Singh followed them up the rise, bending occasionally in his usual methodical way to examine marks on the ground, watched warily all the way by the men doing the fencing.

  Only one of the fencers did not stop work to watch him. But it was towards his length of collapsed fence that Singh made his careful way.

  As he reached it, Smudge’s brother reluctantly went over and Singh immediately began to question him.

  ‘All this fencing is new?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘All of it erected before last night?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Including this panel?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you notice anything different this morning?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well? What?’

  Smudge’s brother finally took his cigarette out of his mouth and pointed it diffidently at the fallen panel. ‘It’d fallen down.’

  Both men looked at Garvie, who had continued all this time with his back to the policeman, whistling quietly to himself.

  ‘Anything else?’ Singh asked Smudge’s brother. ‘As you arrived this morning, for instance, did—’

  Without turning round, Garvie said, ‘Probably it fell down when she climbed over it.’

  Smudge’s brother frowned and opened his mouth.

  Singh said, ‘Why would she have climbed over?’

  ‘To get to the other side.’

  ‘What’s on the other side?’

  ‘The path.’

  Smudge’s brother looked in bewilderment from one to the other. ‘Listen—’ he began anxiously.

  ‘You can see the worn line in the grass as well as I can,’ Garvie said to Singh, who looked back across the lawn.

  ‘So you think she came this way often? Why?’

  ‘’Cause it’s quiet. ’Cause it’s better than having the bother of going through that securitized gate down there. ’Cause it’s where she was heading.’

  Singh nodded. He looked across the fallen panel at the dark woodland, dense and faintly steaming beyond. As soon as he saw it, he felt a sensation of foreboding.

  ‘Where does the path go?’ he asked.

  Smudge’s brother said, ‘I don’t know.’

  Garvie said, ‘Somewhere she wanted to get to. She must have been pissed off to find someone had put a fence up here. Especially,’ he added, ‘such a sturdy one.’

  Singh reflected on this. ‘Your post holes aren’t deep enough,’ he said at last.

  Garvie shrugged. He looked at Smudge’s brother, who was furiously smoking a Marlboro as he looked from one to the other. ‘Anyway,’ Garvie went on, ‘I can’t stop to help you, I’ve got to get on, mate. We’re all busting a gut to get a job done here.’

  Singh gave him a look, nodded briefly and moved off. Smudge’s brother, who had remained in an attitude of confusion all this time, gave Garvie a long and hostile stare, then went the other way. And Garvie stopped work, leaned against the one upright fence post and lit up another Benson & Hedges.

  He was joined a few moments later by Smudge. Together, they watched Singh intercepted at the bottom of the lawn by Dr Roecastle.

  She seemed to be giving him a hard time.

  ‘Posh girl gone missing then,’ Smudge said, as they watched.

  ‘Not before flattening my fence.’

  ‘I think your post holes could have been deeper.’

  ‘Don’t start.’

  They watched Singh take out a notebook and make a note.

  ‘Couldn’t help overhearing on my toilet break,’ Smudge said. ‘She took the dog. Bit of a monster, seems like. Went off to one of them funny hotels that cater for pets.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘That’s the rumour. Could be something else.’

  ‘Got any ideas?’

  ‘I’m toying with terrorism. It’s an angle. Posh girls go for terrorists. What do you think?’

  ‘I’d keep working on it.’

  Smudge looked at him. ‘Hey, Sherlock. You really ought to give plod a hand. You know, like last time.’

  ‘Not sure he’d appreciate that, Smudge.’

  ‘What I’m saying is, he needs it. With these coppers it’s always one step forward one step back. Or sideways,’ he added after a moment’s reflection. ‘One minute they’ve worked it out, next minute they’ve lost their bicycle clips.’

  Garvie looked at his piece of fallen fence and sighed.

  ‘Tell you what,’ Smudge said, ‘I’ll give you a hand getting it back up, then you can show me those things in the house you told me about. You know the ones I mean.’ He winked.

  Garvie sighed. ‘They’re not actually sex toys, Smudge. You know that, right? They’re art. Sculpture.’

  ‘I just want a look,’ Smudge said in an injured voice.

  ‘OK. Later. But no touching. And you’ll have to keep your voice down. We don’t want that woman on our backs.’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that, mate. I’m good with people.’

  ‘You’re not good with her. Trust me.’

  Down by the driveway Dr Roecastle said something sharply, turned abruptly with a gesture of impatience and marched into the house, leaving Singh to walk thoughtfully back to his car. Garvie stubbed out his Benson & Hedges and looked up at the shimmering blue sky. It was, unfortunately, a glorious day for fencing. Smudge handed him a hammer and they got to work.

  6

  Location: large, comfortable kitchen, farmhouse-style.

  Aspect of interviewer: calm, neat, careful.

  Aspect of interviewee: blonde, nervous, defiant.

  Aspect of interviewee’s mother: face carved out of wax.

  DI SINGH: Thank you both for agreeing to talk to me at such short notice. You know why I’m here?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE:
You say Amy’s gone missing.

  DI SINGH: I’m afraid that’s the case.

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: But I don’t understand what that’s got to do with me.

  DI SINGH: I’d just like to ask you some questions about last night.

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: But nothing happened last night.

  DI SINGH: You went into town?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Market Square. We didn’t stay there long. We had a drink in Chi-Chi, on the corner of Well Street, and then we went over to The Wicker and got in at Wild Mouse, the underground place. We weren’t there that long. An hour, an hour and a half. They started playing all that psychedelic stuff so we left and came home. That was it.

  DI SINGH: And how did you get home?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Cab. We always get cabs – that’s part of the deal. Amy got out at hers, and I came on here.

  DI SINGH: And what time did Amy get out?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Around midnight. Just before.

  DI SINGH: That’s late to be getting home, isn’t it? How old are you, Sophie? Sixteen?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: I’ve got my own key so it’s not a problem. I’m allowed out twice a week so long as my grades don’t drop.

  MRS BRIGHOUSE: [drily] This is an arrangement that’s currently under review, Inspector.

  DI SINGH: You didn’t go to the rave that was taking place in The Wicker?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Of course not.

  DI SINGH: You weren’t in Market Square during the riot?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: No.

  DI SINGH: OK. Did you meet anyone at Chi-Chi or Wild Mouse?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: No. I mean, we talked to some guys, but we didn’t know them or anything.

  DI SINGH: You don’t know who they were?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: [shakes her head] Just guys.

  DI SINGH: Did Amy talk to anyone on the phone?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Not that I remember.

  DI SINGH: How much alcohol did you both drink?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: [hesitates]