A Wreath for my Sister (3 page)

‘What a morbid fantasy,' he said, grinning. ‘You know, Joanna, you'll have to change the subject or I'll be having nightmares.'

They both laughed at that, then Joanna sighed and stared at the glass in her hand.

‘I thought Matthew looked happy tonight.'

Tom didn't know what to say. He shrugged and she looked at him. ‘He did,' she insisted. ‘You thought so.'

‘I couldn't tell.'

She drained her glass and set it down on the table. ‘Well, he isn't my province any more. And you, Tom, had better not forget. You promised to come to the police Christmas party.'

Tom laughed. ‘Fine,' he said. ‘But next time I'll drive.'

She also laughed. ‘I don't think even Korpanski would breathalyze anyone the night of the Police Ball,' she said. ‘He wouldn't know how big a fish he might catch. He might lose his chance of promotion.' She narrowed her eyes. ‘That is – if he's still got one after tonight.'

‘It's certainly been eventful.' Tom stood up and yawned. ‘Thanks for coming, Jo. I appreciate it – especially in the glamour dress ...' A mischievous look crossed his face. ‘You will be wearing it to the Police Ball?'

‘Maybe.'

He kissed her cheek. ‘Goodnight. I'll see myself out.' As he disappeared through the door a few snowflakes drifted in and landed on the mat, melting quickly in the warmth of the room.

Christine Rattle was peering out of the window at the silent whiteness.

The baby had woken up and she was cradling him in her arms. She bent and kissed the top of his soft head. ‘I just hope your mum's having a good time,' she whispered. ‘She deserves it. Life's been hard enough for her so far.'

She lifted the curtains and stared at the blank, black windows of the house opposite.

‘Damn it, though, she's late. She must be having fun.'

Her sharp eyes noted things. Not only were the windows still black. There was no car in the drive. ‘Must have gone back to his place, wherever that might be.'

The baby sucked at the rubber teat, taking the juice greedily. ‘I hope your mum's back before morning,' she whispered.

‘She's left me no milk. I don't know what you have, little thing, for your breakfast.'

The baby stared up at her. His eyelids began to droop, his mouth hung open slackly. Christine sighed, peered one more time at the dead house and dropped the curtain. She could put Ryan back in his cot now.

She shivered. It was cold tonight. The first snow of a long winter ahead. But she daren't put the gas fire on, spend a fortune she didn't have.

She touched the baby's hands, feet, nose. Stone cold. But he didn't seem to notice. Plump and red-cheeked, he lay against her shoulder, his breathing deepening to a soft snore. She left the window and laid him down in his cot.

And the woman in the snow coffin grew colder.

Dawn was bright and sparkling over the moor, the snow glistening purest white. It was quiet, too. The moorlanders had sense enough to stay inside. The animals took shelters; they had met this weather before and waited until the threat had passed. Motorists avoided the roads, putting off their journeys. The snow delayed everything, including discovery.

Joanna was up and feeling distinctly ‘morning-afterish' when the telephone rang.

Joanna?' It was Christine and she sounded hassled. Joanna could hear children crying in the background, and the unmistakable howl of a hungry baby.

‘Joanna, I'm really sorry ... I can't come in today. I was looking after a friend's kids, you see ... She was going out. I thought she might be a bit late so I said leave them here. I told her I'd look after them for the night and she could pick them up in the morning.' There was a pause. ‘Only she isn't back.'

‘I expect she had a good time,' Joanna said idly. ‘And it has been snowing.'

‘I'm so mad,' Christine said. ‘I did her hair for her. Her nails, too. And she doesn't even have the decency to get back when she said she would. Three kids she's got, too. I've a bloody houseful. I'll lose some of my wages.'

Joanna told her not to worry but Christine was still apologizing. ‘I'm ever so sorry to let you down. I'll be in tomorrow,' she said. ‘I promise. Just leave everything. I'll do it all in the morning.'

Again Joanna told her it didn't matter. The cottage wasn't dirty. The cleaning could wait.

She looked around her home while she finished getting ready for work. The old furniture was gleaming from years of beeswax and elbow grease. Some of it had been acquired through the local auction sales, the rest inherited from an aunt. She lived alone, was reasonably civilized in her habits.

The cottage was small and needed little cleaning. She could manage without a cleaner, really, but she loved to return to the scent of polish and the feeling of the place being cared for. And Christine was a meticulous cleaner who didn't mind spending half an hour removing a grease mark, whereas Joanna quickly grew bored.

She decided against the bike, and backed her Peugeot 205 out of the garage. This was no morning for freezing fingertips and chapped knees. And she didn't want to fall off on the ice.

The children were all awake now and clamouring to go home.

Christine stared angrily across the road. She had a good mind to dump them on the doorstep. She looked at the tear-stained faces and put some more bread in the toaster, then turned back to stare at the house. The curtains were still tightly drawn and Sharon's battered Fiesta was missing from the drive. Christine felt angry, not worried. She'd told Sharon not to be late back. Sharon knew she had work to go to. How the hell was she supposed to make a living cleaning with this lot to mind? Now she'd have to get the big ones ready for school. ‘Art,' she said sharply to her eldest. ‘You'll have to walk Sheila and Tarquine to school.' As he began to demur she hovered between coaxing, bribery and threats. ‘You've got to take them,' she snapped. ‘I can't take them – not with your Auntie Sharon's three to mind. Go on, I'll let you have a fifteen video out tonight.'

Arthur sulked. ‘Big deal,' he said, then screwed up his face at her. ‘Which one?'

‘Oh – I don't know ...' She had lost interest.

The baby started up, screaming for his bottle. ‘Shut up, Ryan, will you ...' Then she sat down on the brown settee and lit a cigarette. ‘I can't cope, Shaz,' she whispered, chewing at her nail. ‘I'll bloody kill you when I find you.'

The words held no pathos for her.

October was the oldest of Sharon's three children. She attended a small nursery school, mornings only. Once her three were safely packed off to school, Christine Rattle began to button up October's coat.

‘Where's my mummy?' she demanded. ‘She take me to school.'

Christine cursed but October was adamant. ‘I want my mummy,' she wailed and William Priest took up the chorus.

‘OK,' Christine said. ‘If you don't want to you needn't go to school today.' She pulled the cushions off the sofa and put them on the floor, facing the big picture window. ‘Look, you can sit here and watch for Mummy to come home. All right?'

The message even seemed to reach the baby Ryan. Solemnly the three children sat watching the street, waiting for the familiar green car to turn the corner. Ryan sucked noisily on his dummy. The other two watched, their mouths hanging open. When they saw the car they would jump up, shout... run to Mummy.

Christine switched on the television. Perhaps that would keep them amused. ‘Any minute now,' she said brightly. ‘Any minute now.'

Motorists were struggling along the main road to Buxton, tuned into the local radio station. No further snow was forecast but there was no sign of a thaw either and the roads were still bad. Some of the high roads had been closed. The DJ was discouraging motorists, asking the question, ‘Is your journey really necessary?'

Some were. Passing places had been carved into the snow by the snowplough, but the wind was blowing the snow back across the road and, once stuck, a motorist needed boots, a shovel and some of the salted grit thoughtfully placed by the council workmen.

One of the motorists, well prepared for the weather, was digging only a few yards from the frozen body. He'd pulled into the side to allow a tractor to pass and when he'd tried to move, his wheels had slipped round without gripping. The tractor had turned out of view and the motorist was left alone to struggle against the spiteful wind and snow, glad his wife had insisted he wear his thickest jacket against the weather. Up here there were two different worlds. The quiet, warm, heated place inside the car, where you could be lulled into false security by the warmth of the engine. And the other – the raw blast of nature, the battle against the weather that took place the moment he opened the car door. As he dug out his wheels, the weather challenged him to a fight, whining around his ears like a banshee. He struggled, his eyes and ears filling with the blown snow and his fingers numb with cold, even through the thick gloves.

And as he dug behind the wheels he found the shoe. He bent and picked it up, laughed at its flimsy high heel with diamanté buckle. He could not have dreamed up more unsuitable foot gear for this Arctic waste. He glanced around him, wondering whether some girl had been stuck in the snow, lost her shoe, been forced to limp back to the car. He shivered in the biting wind and looked around at the white wilderness, his eyes glancing over the lumpy contours of the moors. No sign of the car now – or the girl. She must have escaped, somehow.

He stared at the shoe and frowned. It was new, quite a pretty shoe, for a small, feminine foot. It couldn't have lain in the snow for long. He wondered what to do with it. The stocking salesman grinned. If his wife found that ...

Then he should throw it away. But it was clean and new. The tips of the heels were unworn and the toe was quite clean ... The maker's name was still legible. The shoe had come from one of the local factory shops and must belong to a local girl. He stared at it and was aroused by it. He thought he would like to see its owner. He pictured her ... small and slim with shapely legs and pretty feet.

She had been all of these things.

He frowned across the white expanse. What had she been doing up here? Then he thought, maybe the girl would come back and look for it. And as he held it he felt superstitiously bound to its owner. Perhaps if he kept it he would find her.

So instead of tossing it back to the snowbound landscape he placed it very carefully in a small box in the back of his car. He didn't know what he would do with it. It was enough simply to know it was there. Then he finished digging out his back wheel, put the shovel in the boot of his car, next to the box, eased the vehicle carefully out of the snowdrift and moved out on to the road.

All the time the stocking salesman was aware of the shoe in the box.

When Joanna arrived at the station at half past nine she marched up to Korpanski's desk.

‘What's the bloody game?' she demanded.

He said nothing. He was a big man, muscles encouraged by body building, with dark eyes and jet black hair – a reminder of his Polish ancestry.

‘For goodness' sake,' she said. ‘I might have been over the limit.'

‘Good morning, ma'am,' he said formally.

‘Don't ever try that on me again, Mike.'

He grunted.

‘I mean it, Mike. It was a rotten trick.'

She paused. ‘And how long had Parry been sitting outside waiting for me to come out?'

He stared straight ahead.

She took a deep breath. ‘Nothing to say?'

There was no mistaking the hostility in his dark eyes when he looked up.

‘So grumpy, Mike,' she flared. ‘Now what's the bloody matter?'

‘Nothing,' he said finally. He bent towards the computer screen and faked total absorption.

She looked around the room. One other officer busy at his work. She sat on the edge of Mike's desk. ‘All right, Tarzan,' she said. ‘What's the problem?'

He leaned right back in his chair and stared at her, with something very like hurt at the back of his eyes.

‘Hobnobbing at the Legal Ball,' he said, looking at her.

‘Mind your own business,' she said. ‘It's nothing to do with you.'

His eyes gleamed. ‘Have a good time?'

She nodded. ‘It was all right.'

He looked at her, eyebrows raised.

‘I met Tom's senior partner,' she said. ‘He asked me to look into the disappearance of his daughter. She vanished two years ago. Do you remember the case?'

‘Women are always going missing,' he said, scowling. ‘What was her name? I'll dig out the file.'

‘Deborah. Deborah Halliday. Her maiden name was Pelham. It was roughly two years ago. She disappeared leaving a child behind – a little boy. He was only eight months old.'

She hesitated, then put her hand on his arm. ‘Mike,' she said awkwardly, ‘don't make things difficult for me.' She weighed up whether she could confide in him and decided against it. He would not be sympathetic. He had never liked Matthew. So she sighed and said nothing about having seen him. Instead she concentrated on the missing girl.

‘Her father seemed a nice man,' she commented, ‘if a trifle forceful. Still very upset at his daughter's disappearance.' She stopped. ‘I'd like to help him.'

Mike said nothing.

‘Please,' she said.

Mike nodded briefly and pushed past her. ‘I'll get the file, then,' he said. ‘I wouldn't want your legal friends disappointed.'

Her temper, already stretched by the tensions of the night before, snapped. ‘Oh, for God's sake ...'

And, unpredictable as ever, Mike grinned. ‘Well,' he said. ‘There's nothing much doing here this morning. Not unless you count shoplifting. I suppose we may as well open up an old case.'