Hey, Sherlock!

by Simon Mason

  MRS BRIGHOUSE: Sophie. The inspector needs to know exactly what happened.

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: We had a margarita at Chi-Chi. They were so expensive. At Wild Mouse we just had water.

  DI SINGH: Was Amy inebriated?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: No way. Neither of us was.

  DI SINGH: Did she take any illegal substances?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Of course not. We’re not stupid.

  DI SINGH: So, at the end of the evening, would you describe her as sober?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Completely.

  DI SINGH: Was she behaving normally?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Of course.

  DI SINGH: Did anything happen during the evening to upset her?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Nothing.

  DI SINGH: Are you sure?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Nothing happened. That’s why …

  DI SINGH: That’s why what?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: [pause] That’s why all these questions are pointless.

  DI SINGH: [pause] OK. Just a few more things now. After the taxi dropped her off, did you see her again that night?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: No.

  DI SINGH: [pause] Did you speak to her?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Why would I speak to her?

  DI SINGH: Did you?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Course not.

  DI SINGH: OK. Can you answer some more general questions about Amy now? What sort of girl is she, would you say?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Well, she’s really, really smart. You know her dad has, like, two brains, and her mum’s this top surgeon, well, she’s like them. But she’s really cool too. I mean, she’s completely her own person. And she’s loyal. If you’re her friend, she’ll stick with you, no matter what.

  DI SINGH: OK, that’s interesting. Is there anything particular that’s been on Amy’s mind recently?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Not really.

  DI SINGH: Anything you can think of will be helpful.

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Well. [pause] She’s in a bit of an angry phase.

  DI SINGH: Angry? About what?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: She argues with her mum.

  DI SINGH: Anything else?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Not really. But she’s got this whole guerrilla girl thing going. Like, you know, protest.

  DI SINGH: What does she protest against?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Injustice, poverty, repression, stuff like that.

  DI SINGH: I see. [makes notes] Has anything in particular upset her? Her mother said Amy was distressed by her divorce.

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Frankly, I think she’s glad her dad’s out of the picture. He’s a bit of a nut. He went abroad, I think.

  DI SINGH: What about Amy’s friends? Does she have many?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Everyone likes Amy.

  DI SINGH: What about boyfriends?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Boys especially like Amy. Boys are, like, queuing up. She doesn’t date, though.

  DI SINGH: No one she’s close to?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: No.

  DI SINGH: OK. Just before I go, let me ask again if you can think of anything – anything at all – that might have upset Amy last night. It needn’t be an obvious thing. Something she might have seen or overheard. Something that might have come up in your conversations.

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: I’ve told you. Nothing happened. It was a completely normal evening.

  DI SINGH: Thank you then, Sophie. I’ll give your mother my contact details in case you remember anything else later.

  Sophie Brighouse got up quickly from the kitchen table and hesitated with her hands on the back of the chair. In the light from the kitchen window she was quite startlingly blonde, with small features, creased mauve eyes and pale lashes. Her eyes were full of tears. She bit her pale pink bottom lip.

  ‘You’re going to find her, right?’ She had a lisp.

  Singh said, ‘That’s our aim.’

  ‘I mean, she’s going to be all right?’

  Singh made no response, and Sophie turned and went across the room with rapid, self-conscious steps.

  Singh turned to her mother sat at the end of the table. ‘Before I go, can I ask if you share your daughter’s view of Amy Roecastle?’

  Mrs Brighouse was one of those people who always pause before they speak. She kept her heavy-lidded eyes on Singh while she pursed her lips slowly. ‘Yes, I think so,’ she said at last. ‘Amy’s a bright girl. A bit wayward at the moment. I will say one thing, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’ve always thought she’s a girl who has her secrets. Although they’re all a bit like that at her age.’

  Singh nodded, made a note. ‘And what’s your opinion of her mother?’

  Mrs Brighouse blinked slowly, paused. ‘I think she’s an appalling woman,’ she said at last.

  Singh did no more than raise an eyebrow. ‘And what is her relationship like with her daughter?’

  ‘It’s her relationship with her daughter that I’m thinking of.’

  He walked across the lane outside Cross Keys House, looking around. A typical village scene: a row of cottages, a post office, a bus stop and the Royal Oak pub, all picturesque, quiet and deserted. Beyond the pub was the entrance to a path into woodland. It came to him at once.

  Stopping abruptly in the middle of the lane, he turned and retraced his steps to the Brighouses’ home and banged on the front door.

  Mrs Brighouse opened it and looked at him in surprise.

  ‘The path,’ Singh said, ‘next to the pub over there. Where does it go?’

  This time she didn’t pause. ‘Through the woods,’ she said, ‘all the way to Amy’s house.’

  Singh said, ‘Please call down your daughter. I have some more questions for her.’

  Location: large, comfortable kitchen, farmhouse-style.

  Aspect of interviewer: tense, controlled, assertive.

  Aspect of interviewee: blonde, weeping.

  Aspect of interviewee’s mother: face in resting mode of disapproval.

  DI SINGH: So. She called you. She told you she was coming over.

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: [weeping] She told me not to tell anyone.

  DI SINGH: This is important, Sophie. You should not have kept it secret. What time was it?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Half past twelve. I was already in bed.

  DI SINGH: What were her exact words?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: She said, ‘I’m coming over.’ I was, like, ‘What? Now? What’s going on?’ I mean, it was totally out of the blue. I’d only just left her at hers. But she wouldn’t tell me any more. She just said, ‘No one must know this, Soph. No one.’ And then she rang off. I didn’t know what to do. I waited for her. I went downstairs and hung around the back door. But she never came. I kept calling her but she never answered. I assumed she’d changed her mind. About two o’clock I went back to bed.

  DI SINGH: Where was she calling from? Inside or outside?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: Inside.

  DI SINGH: What did she sound like, her tone of voice? Was she upset?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: No, but … there was something odd about the way she talked, something … [beginning to weep again] She sounded like she was trying not to panic. [sobbing] And that was the last time I heard her!

  DI SINGH: I understand how painful this is for you, Sophie, but it was really important you told me this. The more information we have now, the better our chance of finding Amy. Now, someone from our tech team will come to collect your phone. We will need to examine it.

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: OK.

  DI SINGH: [pause] You’ve told me that nothing happened during the evening to alarm her. Nothing at all. Yet no sooner has she left you than she calls you in a panic. How can we explain this?

  SOPHIE BRIGHOUSE: I don’t know. I really don’t. I don’t understand it at all.

  DI SINGH: OK. I have no further questions. But, Sophie, if anything occurs to you after I’ve gone, anything at all, please get in touch straightaway.

  At the fr
ont door Singh said to Mrs Brighouse, ‘I’m grateful to your daughter for her honesty. In the end.’

  She looked at him in her heavy-lidded way. ‘I’ll ask you now what my daughter asked you earlier. Will you find her?’

  It was Singh’s turn to pause before answering. ‘I have every confidence,’ he said carefully.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said after a moment. ‘That sounds ominous.’

  He made no response but turned, crossed the lane, entered the footpath by the side of the pub and walked into the woods, glancing at his watch.

  It was 10:30. Amy Roecastle had been missing for ten hours.

  7

  Garvie and Smudge stood together in the elegant hallway of ‘Four Winds’. Smudge was looking at a bright red tubular object on a plinth, and Garvie was looking at the shopping bag on the table.

  ‘Know what? It’s nothing like a sex toy.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Smudge.’

  ‘Sex toys don’t have ends like that. What would you do with an end like that? An end on a sex toy is like—’

  ‘Give it a rest, all right. She might be about.’

  Smudge moved across the hall to another piece. He pushed his face up close and scowled.

  ‘Back off, Smudge. You can just look at it. You don’t have to smell it.’

  ‘This one here,’ Smudge said, tapping the ceramic shape with a stubby finger, ‘this one is more like a sex toy. Now, with an end like that, if you were fit enough, you could—’

  There were rapid footsteps in the living room, and Dr Roecastle appeared at speed through the doorway with a fierce expression, clearly keen to shout at someone.

  Smudge put his hands behind his back and stepped away from the sculpture. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said pre-emptively.

  Dr Roecastle avoided looking at him. She said to Garvie, ‘I’ve told you before, that sculpture is valuable.’

  Garvie looked at it. ‘Why?’

  That seemed to catch her off-guard. She closed her mouth to think. ‘It’s an Emily LeClerk,’ she said. ‘One of her early pieces. Now, listen to me—’

  ‘Late,’ he said.

  That caught her off-guard too. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Done 2008. LeClerk was born in 1951. Makes her fifty-seven. I call that late.’

  She stared at him for a moment. ‘Are you telling me that you know this piece?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve read the label.’

  She was suddenly angry. ‘I will not have workmen coming into my house picking up the art. I shall inform your line manager.’

  For a moment they stood there facing each other, radiating hostility. Then Smudge the peacemaker stepped forward.

  ‘By the way, I just wanted to say, on behalf of the boys, about your daughter … We’re sorry.’

  She glared at him. ‘You needn’t concern yourselves about it,’ she said indignantly. ‘Or indeed talk about it, thank you.’

  Smudge nodded understandingly. ‘No, but I know you’ll be suffering, right? Maybe it’s just a terrorist hook-up in that hotel of hers. But I been thinking. Could be kidnap. Brainwashing. Or, you know, a flit with some gangster, who’s got her pregnant maybe. I mean, let’s face it, you don’t even know if she’s dead or alive. Or, you know, in-between.’

  Garvie said in a low, warning voice: ‘Smudge.’

  Ignoring him, Smudge went on. ‘I’m just saying to the lady. You’re lucky you’ve got Garv here.’

  ‘Smudge!’

  ‘Can’t trust the police – you know that, I know that. But Garv now, he like totally sorted the Chloe thing, and the thing with the Gimp. All right, he arsed it up for that copper, but the cases got well solved. He can help.’

  ‘Help?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s like one of them bloodhounds. And he’s really, really good at maths.’

  ‘Are you seriously—’

  ‘Yeah, top set and everything.’

  Garvie took hold of Smudge’s arm, not lightly. ‘Thanks, Smudge. Appreciate it, mate. Let’s go.’

  ‘Yeah, but. I was just—’

  ‘Forget it, she’s not listening.’

  Dr Roecastle gave a twitch. ‘Not listening? This is my daughter we’re talking about. What could you possibly tell me I don’t already know?’

  Garvie shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What? Tell me.’

  ‘All right.’ He turned to face her. ‘You ought to be a lot more scared than you are.’

  Dr Roecastle’s eyes bulged; for a moment she was speechless. ‘On the contrary,’ she said at last, ‘I could be a lot angrier.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve a very good idea what’s happened. Without a thought for anyone else, she’s just decided to storm off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because of some little thing. As usual.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Like the shoes?’

  She hesitated, frowned.

  He nodded towards the table by the living-room door where the shopping bag still lay. ‘What’s in the Doc Martens bag?’

  ‘A type of boot. Lace-up. The sort of thing a thug wears.’

  ‘Which you were insisting she took back to the shop, right? Ongoing argument for the last three days.’

  She stared at him angrily. ‘Have you been eavesdropping?’

  ‘I got eyes. I been here all week. She must have bought them at the weekend, right? Give her a clothes allowance, do you? Monday, the boots were in their box, in the bag on that table; you must have put them out for her to take back to the shop. Tuesday, the box was gone, the empty bag in the bin; obviously she’d taken them back up to her room. Wednesday, the day she did a bunk, they were back on the table, in the box, in the bag, this time with a post-it stuck to it, DO IT NOW in really angry writing. If you want a bit of maths, it’s a periodic sequence with oscillation. 1, -1, 1, -1. Going nowhere. Someone’s bound to throw a fit, storm off.’

  For a moment she could only look at him blankly.

  ‘Well,’ she said finally. ‘There we are then.’

  He shook his head. ‘Doesn’t explain it.’

  ‘Doesn’t explain what?’

  ‘Doesn’t explain why she was so terrified.’

  An awkward silence grew in the room.

  ‘What on earth makes you think she was terrified?’ Dr Roecastle said at last.

  ‘Why else would she take the dog?’

  She stood there for a moment without moving or speaking, or, apparently, breathing. Her face was white with fury and alarm. Then she turned at last and swept away to the safety of the kitchen.

  In the hall there was a moment’s silence. Smudge said regretfully, ‘Got to work on your people skills, to be honest, Garv.’

  Garvie said nothing.

  ‘We could chat about it.’

  No reaction.

  ‘Garv? Don’t let it get to you, mate. We’ll talk it all out, it’ll be OK.’

  But Garvie seemed to have instantly forgotten what had just happened. He stood staring at the shopping bag on the table, frowning. Smudge opened his mouth, hesitated, looked all around the hall, as if he might find something else to say hanging on the wall somewhere; and when he’d finished doing that he found that Garvie had gone. He really was a strange boy. No people skills at all.

  Sighing sadly to himself, Smudge went back to the sex toys for another look.

  8

  Garvie went back up to his stretch of fencing. Smudge’s brother shouted something to him, and Garvie waved a hand, nodding politely, stepped over his fallen panel and continued onto the path beyond. Lighting up, he stood there a moment, breathing out smoke, admiring the country scene, the sunlit green pasture to his left, the placid green trees on his right.

  It had been very different for Amy last night. He thought about that.

  Dark, unstable, ferociously wet. The pasture would have been a rough screen of racing shadows, the flattening marsh grasses obscured by the driving rain, the tre
es a heaving mass of blackness. She’d had the dog with her too, complicating things, slipping and sliding about.

  What had she been up to? What was she scared of? Something bad. Bad enough to make her take the dog for protection.

  He went down the path. Thirty metres on, poking at the edge of the path with the toe of his boot, he noted some streaks of kicked-up earth, still damp in the shadow of the woods. Further on, a skid mark.

  He proceeded, smoking.

  Another thirty metres and he stopped again. Here, where the path curved to the left, there was a break in the thorny undergrowth at the side, almost invisible. A narrow animal track disappearing into the trees. And on some brambles just inside the tree line, another scrap of black fabric.

  He frowned. Again he imagined the chaos of the woods last night, rain lashing down, branches clashing, drenched blackness shaking the packed trees.

  Why had she left the path?

  He threw away his cigarette butt and pushed his way into the undergrowth. It was hot among the trees, steamy, still wet underfoot from the rain. He slithered as he went, bending and twisting, parting low thorny stems, stepping over trailing creepers. Birds called around him. After a while the track became more distinct. He went along it warily, glancing about him, checking the ground. There were scratch-marks here and there that could have been made by a large dog’s paws scrabbling for purchase, deep prints in the mud churned up by running feet.

  Why had she been running?

  He went on through the tangled vegetation. The track forked; he hesitated, found more footprints, and went on again, following them, off the path now, deeper into undergrowth.

  Gradually he began to feel afraid.

  She’d run through the trees, then she’d run off the path into the thicket. Why?

  He pushed his way through it carefully. Everything was quiet. All he could hear was the noise of his own shallow breathing. These signs – scraps of fabric, footprints that may have been hers, branches she may have broken – were all that Amy had left behind. But he began to have the feeling that he was not alone. As if something was there with him, now, in the woods. As if his fear was slowly leading him to it.

  He stopped and looked around him, and listened, and went on again.