A Wreath for my Sister (4 page)

She made a face. ‘No, I do not count shoplifting. One of the PCs can sort that one out.'

‘Don't you mean one of the WPCs?'

‘Why? What's been stolen?'

He looked at his pad. ‘A dress,' he said. ‘A red evening dress.'

Then he grinned again. ‘What did you wear last night, Inspector?'

‘A red evening dress.'

‘I don't think that would impress your solicitor friends.'

‘What?'

‘Wearing a stolen dress.'

They laughed together then, and the tension that had begun the morning was over.

Mike returned ten minutes later with a thick manila file and handed it to her.

‘Did you deal with the case?' she asked.

‘Yeah.'

Joanna looked up at him. Matthew had once given Korpanski the nickname of Tarzan, mocking his stolid attitude combined with extraordinarily well-developed muscles. Matthew had a keen if cruel wit, but as usual it was spot on. The nickname suited Detective Sergeant Korpanski. Prickly, sometimes quite obtuse, with a huge chip on his shoulder, but ... She smiled. She had grown used to working with him. They were a team – even if it was sometimes an uneasy team ...

She stopped dreaming. Mike was speaking to her:

‘As Dad was something of a mouthy bigwig,' he said, ‘we did a pretty fair job of hunting for Deborah.'

He produced a picture of the girl, a copy of the one Joanna had seen pulled from Randall Pelham's pocket.

‘These are the facts. She left her husband in Saudi Arabia six months before she disappeared, taking with her her baby son, Sebastian.'

Joanna gave Mike a questioning look and he nodded.

‘Yes,' he said. ‘You've guessed it. There was something going on in Saudi. At least there was a rumour – only rumour – but one or two of her friends said she'd had an affair out there.'

Joanna blinked.

‘The penalty for adultery in Saudi Arabia is something between public stoning and fifty lashes. She scuttled back to Britain – to Daddy's influence and the slightly more lenient laws of the UK.'

Joanna sighed. ‘No wonder he was a bit prickly when one of the police called her a “good time girl”. Then what?'

‘She'd managed to get a small council house in Leek on the Roaches Farm Estate.' Mike fingered through the file. ‘She seemed to settle quite well there – had a few friends. There are a few single mums living there and they support one another, look after kids, go out together ... She went out shopping, up to the market, that Wednesday, leaving the little boy with a friend – a woman who lived across the street. She said she was popping up the market to get some underwear and a pair of socks for Sebastian.' He grinned. ‘Don't know where some of these women get their kids' names from.'

‘And?'

‘She never came back. No one worried until late that night. And no one called the police for two days. Everyone kept thinking she'd gone off with a bloke for a couple of days and would eventually turn up.'

He paused. ‘But she didn't.'

‘She abandoned the child?'

Mike nodded. ‘It made us a bit suspicious, but he was a sickly kid. Thin and miserable. According to her closest friend, he cried a lot, especially in the night. I think she'd found life difficult. There was nothing particularly suspicious about her going.'

‘Is there more?'

Mike nodded. ‘She was more of a good time girl than her father had any idea of. There were stories of late nights and noisy parties. Two hundred pounds had been withdrawn from her building society account that afternoon, leaving it practically empty. A dress was missing from her wardrobe. It was a party dress – red. Some high heels and her bag of make-up were gone too, together with some toiletries – a toothbrush. We did all the usual enquiries, took statements. She'd been up the market that day. Bought some underwear all right, but we asked at all the stalls that sold kiddies' clothes, and she didn't buy the socks for Sebastian. Nothing for him at all. She wasn't seen after about two thirty. She'd just disappeared. There was a possible sighting on the Manchester train but it wasn't anyone who knew her. But her friend told us she'd been a couple of times to a gambling club in central Manchester. There was nothing suspicious at the house. After a couple of weeks of nothing we decided she'd met up with someone who didn't want the kid – and had hopped it –'

‘But no name was forthcoming?' she interrupted.

‘No. No name, but neither was any cause for concern ever unearthed.'

‘Yet her father wasn't satisfied?'

Mike shook his head. ‘Definitely not. They never are. He was convinced we weren't doing all we could to find out what had happened to her.' Mike's eyes met hers. ‘Like a lot of fathers he simply didn't know his daughter. He kept saying she couldn't have abandoned the child.' He stopped. ‘I never met Deborah but I did see the child and judging from her photograph I would say there was a high chance she wanted a good time without the kid.'

She nodded. ‘Did you get anything from her friends?'

‘Apart from the woman who watched her kids she only really had one close friend – Leanne Ferry.' He grinned. ‘One of the spiky-haired brigade. A feminist. You know, I can never get inside the minds of some of these women.'

‘I know,' she said drily.

Mike grinned, for once refusing to take offence.

‘So what did this ardent feminist have to say about her missing friend?'

‘Not a lot. She said she'd been lonely ... and that the little boy had been getting on Deborah's nerves. It sort of confirmed our suspicions.'

‘You didn't chase up the Saudi connection – the affair that had led to the break-up of her marriage?'

‘We telephoned the husband. He couldn't help us with a name. He simply knew she'd been having an affair – anonymous letter. The usual thing – from a friend.'

‘Any other friends over there? Girlfriends?'

‘No help at all,' Mike said. ‘And we couldn't justify going there. She'd disappeared from here. And she certainly hadn't gone back there without the child. It all seemed like just another disappearance.'

‘Just another disappearance ...' She shrugged. ‘Well, I'll have a read of the file. See whether anything springs to mind. Did you tell her father everything?'

‘Most of it,' Mike said reluctantly. ‘And he didn't like it.'

Joanna nodded.

‘She was a good-looking girl.' Mike glanced down at the picture. ‘You can't blame her for running away.'

‘So she was filed as a missing person?'

‘Yes. We never found anything, Jo.'

She paused, scanned some of the reports. They all concurred with Mike. ‘What happened to the baby?'

‘I think he went to live with his father,' he said.

She frowned. ‘And Deborah's never been heard of again?'

‘A couple of supposed sightings. Nothing conclusive. Never anyone who knew her. We kept the investigation on a back burner for six months, but nothing.' He looked at her. ‘Really, Jo. Nothing. She disappeared into thin air. You know how many people do that every year. We can't keep hunting for them all.'

‘Quite,' she said and picked up the sheaf of papers. ‘Leave these with me. I'll read them through properly.' She crossed to the window. ‘The snow's starting to melt,' she said, watching the slow drip from the opposite roof. ‘I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it's gone by the end of the day.'

The warmth came from the sun and softened the snow. Inkblots of heath appeared and spread, growing larger each hour. And, as the snow melted, a thin, warm mist made the air damp and the view less sharp, more untidy. Drivers became bolder, assured by the local radio station that there was no chance of further snow. It was safe to travel. Shopping trips were resumed and the farmers hunted out their animals with tractors laden with silage and hay. Life got back to normal.

Except for her life.

The chill in her body prevented the snow from melting, so although the dark patches spread during the morning, even by early afternoon she lay in one of the deeper drifts, her shape still indistinct.

By the time the three children wandered home from school Christine had had enough. The baby had cried all day. She must have bought the wrong type of milk because he still seemed hungry. The last of the box of disposable nappies Sharon had left last night had been used and she had told the other two to come away from the window hours ago. There seemed no point in watching. By the time the second night fell she had almost given up hope that Sharon would come back at all. She was left with the children and she was fed up. ‘I'll give it one more day,' she promised herself. ‘Just one more day. Then I'm getting the Social Services in.'

At the end of the day Joanna came out of her office, found Mike and together they wandered across the road to the pub. She ordered a pint of beer and a glass of wine and they sat together and drank.

‘Not your evening at the gym, Mike?'

‘Not tonight.'

He eyed her over the rim of his glass. ‘You didn't really mind Parry breathalyzing you last night?'

She leaned forward. ‘You do realize, Mike, if I had been over the limit he would have been forced to prosecute.'

‘You wouldn't have been over the limit,' he said stoutly.

‘You have such faith in my integrity? After all that's happened?'

His eyes flickered and he said nothing. But talking about the drive home last night had reminded her of something else.

‘Does a white Merc, number plate RED 36, mean anything to you?'

Mike nodded. ‘Charles Haworth,' he said. ‘Flash accountant. Why?'

‘He passed me at speed in a blizzard last night,' Joanna said drily. ‘Just before PC Parry did me the honour of treating me to the breathalyzer.'

Mike grinned. ‘You fancy nabbing him?'

‘Just out of pique because he drove faster than me in a blizzard? Certainly not.' Then she laughed. ‘Is he easily nabbable?'

Mike shook his head. ‘Not really. For his reckless driving Haworth's well known. He's had quite a few cautions. But apart from that he's clean – as far as any accountant's clean.'

She wagged her finger at him. ‘Naughty, Mike. Prejudice. I think I'd like to meet this accountant.'

Mike's eyes flickered. ‘Not your cup of tea,' he said. ‘Not a bloody lawyer – or a doctor.'

She let herself into the cottage to the sound of the phone ringing.

It was Matthew. ‘It gave me a shock last night,' he said, ‘seeing you there. I'd forgotten Tom is a solicitor.'

‘Did you and Jane enjoy it?' Even to her own ears she sounded formal and unnatural.

‘Yes.' His voice seemed strained.

‘Matthew, why did you ring?'

‘I wanted to tell you ... I thought ...' he said. ‘I thought ...' There was a long pause. ‘You looked wonderful. I really thought you looked wonderful.'

She took the compliment coldly. ‘Thank you.' And then all the closeness between them seemed to flood back. ‘Actually,' she said, laughing, ‘I felt a bit overdressed.'

‘Well,' and he laughed too, ‘not many women would have turned up to the Legal Ball wearing a dress that wouldn't have looked out of place at the Oscars Ceremony.'

‘Oh dear,' she said. ‘Was it really that bad?'

‘No. Not at all. But everyone will have noticed what you wore.'

There was another pause, then Matthew said, ‘Jo.' He spoke very softly. ‘Please, can I see you?'

‘No.'

‘Darling. You can't avoid me forever.'

‘No,' she said again and dropped the phone like a hot brick.

She sat motionless for a while, in turmoil after Matthew's call. Then gradually she became aware of her surroundings again. And as she did so often when she was upset she opened the door of the glazed cabinet in the corner of the room. She had inherited the cabinet from her aunt when she was twenty-one, newly graduated from university with a psychology degree that had always been meant to lead her to a greater understanding of the criminal mind as well as a career in the police force. She knew the decision had been a disappointment to her parents, her mother bitter from the divorce, her father struggling to match his new wife in age and shed twenty years.

But the aunt had understood Joanna's career plan – and had approved, too. So her death came as a shock. And the pieces of antique furniture, together with the real treasure – a quantity of nineteenth-century Staffordshire pottery figures – she had left to Joanna were doubly precious. Sarah, her sister, called them her ‘dolls' and taunted her when she found Joanna fingering them. But to Joanna they were her rogues' gallery, hardened criminals made locally in the last century when the pious Victorians had had such fascination for evil and crime. Joanna's aunt had started the collection and now whenever Joanna was free she would scour the local flea markets and salerooms as well as the antique shops for some new criminal figure.

She picked the nearest one out. Palmer the villain, Palmer the poisoner. But not even he could distract her from the welcome memory of Matthew's voice. And now she wished she had said yes.

It was a cloudy night on the moors, the temperature a little above freezing. A fine rain washed the ground, rinsing the snow off the red dress, washing her face, her legs, her hair. When the first light broke, the body would be visible from the road.

The stocking salesman smiled to himself as he remembered the shoe he had so carefully placed in the box in the boot of his car.

It was a farmer, driving his tractor to reach sheep sheltering from the weather, who was the first to spot her. He peered through the morning gloom and saw a patch of red in the melting snow. Shouting to his dog, he pulled off the road, switched off the spluttering engine and crossed the field.