A Wreath for my Sister (2 page)

He whirled her twice around the room in an ungainly waltz before speaking again.

‘Would you mind telling me, then, Detective Inspector,' he said rather breathlessly, ‘what is the procedure for finding missing persons?'

She stopped in her tracks. The pretence was over and the question surprised her. He gripped her arm.

‘No, please,' he said. ‘Please don't tell me to make an appointment to come and see you at the station. I've plucked up courage tonight to do something I should have done long ago. Please, just tell me. What do I do?'

Joanna looked at the lines of unhappiness in his face. Deep lines – old lines.

‘Why don't we sit down?' she said. ‘So we can talk properly.'

He looked relieved. ‘Thank you, my dear. I hoped you would say that.' He flushed. ‘My wife says I'm not much of a dancer.' They walked towards an empty table and he pulled out a chair for her. ‘Let me get you a drink.'

She asked him for a Coke, remembering that she had promised Tom she would drive him home. While he was gone she sneaked a glance across the room and saw Matthew, still seated at his table. He and Jane had been joined by more friends, but as she watched he turned and looked at her. She looked away without acknowledgement. Not a nod; not a wink; not a word.

Randall Pelham returned with two glasses and set them down on the table. Joanna cupped her chin in her hand. ‘Now tell me,' she said, ‘who is missing?'

‘My daughter,' he said unhappily. ‘My only daughter. My only child.'

She sat back in her seat. ‘For how long?'

‘Two years,' he said. ‘Please, just tell me generally. What do the police do in such cases?'

‘Well,' she started slowly, ‘the way we tackle a missing person enquiry really depends on who is missing, and the circumstances surrounding their disappearance. Whether there's – as we call it – cause for concern. Everything hinges on that phrase. We have to gather the facts and work from there.' She stopped, not knowing whether she was telling Randall Pelham what he wanted to hear.

‘You must understand,' she continued. ‘Many people leave home for perfectly valid reasons and there is no cause for concern. The police couldn't possibly investigate every single missing person. There are thousands every year. It wouldn't be practical – or financially viable. So we have to single out the persons missing who give rise to concern and exclude situations such as domestic dispute, money worries, or suspicion of extra-marital affairs.'

‘None of those,' he said impatiently.

‘The nearest and dearest don't always know,' she said. ‘The police simply don't have time to investigate every single disappearance. But we normally visit the home – look for obvious clues: missing passport, clothes, money, talk to close friends, take statements. We do try to find out all we can, and we take notes of insurance numbers, national health numbers, tax codes, credit card details. We find out whether the person has disappeared before. While we're doing that,' she continued, ‘we take note of anything unusual at the house ... signs of a struggle, things missing – wheelie bins, blankets ... But as I told you, Mr Pelham, most people leave home for perfectly valid reasons.'

‘She didn't,' he insisted. ‘And would a woman leave her young child?'

‘It happens.' She was fumbling a little.

He shook his head. ‘Not in this case.'

‘We would determine mental state,' she continued, a little needlessly. Pelham looked unconvinced.

‘Would you arrest someone on suspicion?' His voice was thick with emotion. His hands trembled around the whisky tumbler.

‘Not usually purely on suspicion,' Joanna said coolly. ‘We'd want a bit more. Some definite evidence. But,' she added quickly, ‘we would probably do a more thorough search of a suspect's premises and car if we felt the disappearance was suspicious.'

The man nodded. ‘I see.'

‘But surely all this was done at the time of your daughter's disappearance? It's routine, Mr Pelham.'

He was silent, his eagle eyes fixed on hers.

‘Did you let the police know you suspected someone of being involved?'

He looked away. ‘No,' he said. ‘I didn't. Now ... Now I wish I had. There was someone, you see.'

Joanna stood up. ‘It's always best to be frank with the police,' she said rather primly and then, more kindly, ‘You really should come to the station if you want us to look into it.'

He looked downcast and she felt she hadn't helped as much as he had hoped she would.

‘By the way,' she said. ‘What's her name?'

‘Deborah.'

Randall Pelham covered his face with his hands. ‘She left her home two years ago.' He looked at Joanna, and she sensed the pain in his eyes almost as if it were her own. ‘She left her little boy behind. Abandoned him.' He stopped. ‘She would never have done that – if she'd been alive.'

Joanna sat down again. ‘There must have been an investigation.'

‘There was. They didn't find anything. She'd been out shopping in the afternoon and never came home. We knew she'd been finding things difficult, but surely ... surely she wouldn't have abandoned her son?'

‘Sometimes women do.'

‘I can't believe it of her.' He fumbled in his jacket pocket and tugged out a crumpled photograph. It was of a lively-looking girl with dark curly hair and a huge smile. ‘This is the picture the police used,' he said, suddenly bitter. ‘They said she looked like a girl who enjoyed a good time. Does she look to you as though she liked a good time?'

‘It's just a phrase,' Joanna said lamely.

‘I know what it means.' He put the photograph back in his pocket.

‘Randall.
Randall
.' Elspeth Pelham was standing over her husband, her hand gripping his shoulder.

He gave her a half-smile. ‘Sorry,' he said. ‘Sorry, my dear.'

Elspeth Pelham tightened her lips.

‘This is Detective Inspector Piercy,' he fumbled.

‘I know who she is.' Her eyes were hard and hostile.

Joanna turned back to the husband. ‘I'm quite prepared to look into your daughter's case,' she said. ‘But you'll have to come to the station and make a statement if you'd like us to pursue the matter. Think about it, Mr Pelham. But if there was a full investigation two years ago and they turned up nothing I don't hold out a lot of hope unless you can produce new evidence. Many missing persons are never found.' She met his eyes. ‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘But I don't want to give you false hope.'

The man's face tightened. ‘Don't you realize?' he said. ‘Even false hope's better than no hope.'

She crossed the room, back to Tom.

‘Well,' he said ‘what was all that about?'

She glanced back at the unhappy man sitting staring into his glass. ‘Did you know that his daughter disappeared two years ago?'

‘No,' Tom said. Then he stopped. ‘Hang on a minute – I do remember something. Something about ...' He frowned. ‘She'd recently been divorced. As I remember, her husband worked in Saudi Arabia ... I didn't really know her. The general feeling was that she'd gone off with some bloke.'

‘And left her baby son behind?'

Tom shrugged his shoulders, then grinned at her. ‘Come and have another dance with me,' he urged. By the time they sat down again Matthew and Jane had disappeared.

Her body was completely covered now – a vague bump in the dim snowscape. No one would guess the lump had lately been a woman in a wine-coloured dress.

It was late when they left the dinner dance. The snow was falling in soft flakes on her hair. Tom watched her climb into the driving seat. ‘Thanks,' he said. ‘It's a luxury not to have to worry how much I drink.'

‘My pleasure.'

He eyed her long legs as she depressed the clutch and started the car. ‘It was bad luck, Levin being there.'

She nodded. ‘I wouldn't have gone, Tom, if I'd known there was any risk of bumping into him – especially with Jane.'

‘But you said you couldn't avoid him for ever.'

She gave a rueful smile. ‘I only really work with him on murder cases. And thank God there aren't many of those.'

They were quiet as she moved the car up the road.

Tom broke the silence. ‘I suppose you wish you could learn to dislike him.'

She looked at him briefly. ‘Dislike Matthew?' she said, then stopped and pondered. ‘No. I don't think so. I really don't. I just wish I could learn to stop loving him – at least quite so much.'

She gave him a quick glance, then touched his hand. ‘But then you know all about loving the wrong person.'

The car slithered uneasily over the freshly fallen snow, gliding precariously round the corners.

She turned to Tom. ‘I hope we get back all right.'

‘Just drive ...' he said, grinning.

It was late and few cars were still on the road, but as they rounded the corner in the centre of the town a white Mercedes shot past them.

Joanna gave an involuntary ‘Bloody hell.'

Tom watched her with an amused look.

‘Not going to report him, Jo? High-speed chase?' He was gently mocking.

She gave a wry exclamation. ‘Something will catch up with him. Driving like that in these weather conditions he'll be lucky if it's just the police.'

‘And you didn't even get his number,' he teased.

She took her eyes off the road for a second to look at him. ‘Oh, yes I did,' she said. ‘RED 36.'

The dazzle of a flashing blue light distracted her and it took a minute or two until it had overtaken her for her to realize she was being stopped.

A tall policeman wandered around to her window.

She pressed the button to lower it. ‘Parry?' she said, puzzled.

‘Evening, ma'am.' His tone was wooden. It was as though he didn't recognize her.

‘Parry?' she said again.

‘Have you had anything to drink tonight, ma'am?'

She sighed. ‘What do you take me for?'

He repeated the question, in the same, zombie tone. ‘Have you had anything to drink tonight, ma'am?' Then he produced a breathalyzer kit and she knew she had been set up.

‘Would you mind blowing into this bag, ma'am?'

‘Yes, I bloody well would,' she said, then glowered at him. ‘Who put you up to this, Parry?'

He avoided her eyes. ‘The bag, ma'am.'

She tapped the steering wheel, unable to look at Tom, but she could sense his amusement.

She grabbed the bag from Parry, gave a quick puff into it and handed it back. ‘Satisfied?'

He looked at the digital display.

‘
Satisfied!
'

‘Right, madam,' he said.

She put the car into gear, narrowed her eyes. ‘Who put you up to this?' she asked again.

He blinked and she sighed. ‘While you're bloody well at it solving vendettas amongst the police force why don't you charge after the damned Merc?'

‘Sorry?'

‘Never mind. Don't trouble yourself. I can guess.'

He stared back at her without a trace of humour.

She pressed the switch for the window, muttering, ‘And you can forget about your bloody promotion, Parry, my boy.'

As they moved off she glared at Tom and they spoke the name together: ‘Korpanski.'

Then she added, ‘I might have known. He's always had a complex about the people I mix with.'

‘The Nobs?' Tom laughed. ‘A bit old-fashioned, isn't it.'

‘Mike
is
old-fashioned – in many ways. I'll kill him in the morning.'

Tom was still laughing and after an angry pause she joined in. ‘Blowing in the bag,' she said. ‘Blowing in the
bag!
What a night.'

She looked at Tom. ‘I watch Matthew having a ball with his wife, have your senior partner request I find his long-lost daughter ... get breathalyzed. Look at the snow. And it's only September.'

They both laughed.

She paused for a moment to concentrate on the road. ‘I bet it's lying thick on the moors,' she said, peering through the space galaxy of swirling snowflakes.

She changed gear carefully. ‘I wonder where that car did come from. It was coming from the direction of the moors, but there was no snow on the roof.'

Tom yawned and leaned back in his seat. ‘Stop being a nosey policeman, Joanna,' he said. ‘Probably came from one of the side streets.'

‘Still, no snow,' she said, thoughtfully.

The orange flash of a snowplough illuminated the car as it drove past, leaving the road clear, Moses parting the Red Sea. She accelerated and they were back at her cottage in under ten minutes.

At three a.m. the snowplough struggled along the moorland road, carving a lane into the drifts. It tossed a shoe into the pile of snow pushed from the road but did not go within six feet of her freezing body.

She parked the car outside and locked it, then turned to Tom. ‘Nightcap?' she asked. ‘Or have you had enough?'

He grinned. ‘I can manage a small brandy,' he said, ‘if you're offering.'

‘Just one,' she said, ‘and I'll join you. I need it. Then you're back next door where you belong.'

When they were sitting down, glasses charged, she turned to Tom. ‘Tell me a bit about Deborah Pelham,' she said. ‘My curiosity is aroused.'

Tom screwed up his face. ‘I didn't really know her. Only met her once. She lived abroad. Deborah Halliday was her married name.'

Joanna sipped a little brandy. ‘I wonder what did happen to her.' She met Tom's eyes. ‘I sometimes wonder about the long lists of missing persons we've circulated. How many of them are alive – perhaps living alternative lives – an existence away from previous family and friends. And how many of them are dead. How many lie somewhere undiscovered.'