French Leave (16 page)

There were a large number of pens in which dogs yelped and bounced with excitement as bowls of dry pellets were distributed by a girl in dungarees. She was too young and dark-haired to be Trish, but she gave a friendly smile and asked if he was expected.

‘No, but I'd like a word with Trish, if possible,' he said with a return smile.

‘Right. Go back to where you left your car, then follow the hedged path straight ahead. It'll take you up to the house,' she told him above the many-toned barks.

It was some house. Max estimated at least seven bedrooms, plus a grannie annexe, triple garage and a tennis court. He could not imagine a girl brought up here taking to the prospect of living in a junior officer's married quarters on a military base. Unless, of course, she was deeply in love. Will Fanshawe had had severe doubts about that.

The woman who came at his knock was in her forties, but liable to remain highly attractive through to old age. Good bone structure, as the knowledgeable said. Elegant in linen trousers and a pink spotted shirt, she smiled politely and asked how she could help.

‘Mrs Stannard?' Max asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Captain Rydal.' He showed her his military identification. ‘I flew over from Germany this afternoon, and I've made a detour from Heathrow in the hope of speaking to Trish.'

The woman studied him thoughtfully. ‘From Germany? You're a friend of Dan Farley?'

‘I am, yes. Is he here?'

‘No.' There was a moment's hesitation. ‘You know my daughter?'

He smiled. ‘I feel I do from Dan's enthusiastic descriptions, but Trish and I have never met.'

‘Yet it's she you've come to see.'

‘Yes.'

Her brow puckered as she clearly fought an inner battle. ‘If Dan sent you to mediate, you won't succeed. My daughter tried to revive the relationship, but there are irreconcilable differences. Trish is very upset.'

Honesty was now called for. ‘We had a strong suspicion that the meeting had not gone well. I'm not here as a mediator, Mrs Stannard. Dan failed to return to his unit yesterday. His Company Commander is very concerned. It's not like Dan to risk damaging his career in that manner. I had to come over on other business, so I offered to attempt to discover what had occurred to prevent his return. We contacted Lufthansa. Dan did not check in for any of their flights to Germany.'

‘Oh dear, he surely hasn't done something foolish. A very
intense
young man.'

‘But a highly-trained military officer,' Max returned. ‘As such, he would handle most situations calmly and competently.' Feeling he had been kept on the doorstep long enough, he said, ‘If I could have a brief chat with Trish?'

Mrs Stannard remembered her manners and stepped back, inviting him in. Max followed her along a wide hallway leading to the rear of the house, across a large sitting room, to a lofty Victorian-style conservatory housing period leisure furniture. There must be money in dogs, thought Max, then was diverted by his hostess's next words.

‘My husband is in his study chairing a meeting with his associates in Hong Kong and Shanghai, and can't be disturbed. Please have a seat while I tell Trish you're here.' Making no move, she said, ‘I'm certain she has no idea where Dan went from here. They quarrelled, you see. Very bitterly, as I understand it. My husband and I attended church, then went on to lunch with friends. When we came home we found Trish had locked herself in her room and was too emotional to tell us what had upset her.'

It sounded like the behaviour of a young adolescent, to Max, yet the photograph in Farley's room showed her to be around twenty.

Mrs Stannard made to leave the conservatory, then hesitated. ‘Dan is a perfectly pleasant young man, but . . . Trish is just nineteen, Captain Rydal. A beautician. Her father set her up in a salon in Lewes, which is doing very well. She now employs three girls. It's ridiculous to talk of marriage. She's far too young, and he's a
soldier
! What sort of life would she have?'

Max was getting a good idea of what Farley had been up against in this family. The girl had surely echoed her parents' views.

‘Then there's this terrible business of Afghanistan,' she said in protest. ‘How could he expect a girl like Trish to accept that? This family has strong views on our involvement there. Stirring up hatred in the Middle East has serious repercussions on global financial markets.' She apparently remembered who she was lecturing. ‘Of course, you're also a soldier, and wouldn't know—'

Breaking off, unsure how to finish that sentence, she said quickly, ‘I'll fetch Trish.'

Staying on his feet, Max contemplated the immaculate lawn and borders giving out early evening fragrance. Dan Farley must have been wearing rose-tinted contact lenses during his dealings with Trish Stannard. This entire set-up was at odds with a military life. Had he been besotted enough to actually offer marriage to the girl?

When Trish appeared, Max initially understood the subaltern's infatuation. Long legs, tantalising figure, long blonde hair and arresting blue-green eyes. At a second glance, Max was aware of her petulant mouth and disdainful expression; they marred the near perfection.

There was no greeting, merely a haughty ‘I don't know why he sent you here.'

‘He didn't.'

His cool tone apparently threw her slightly. ‘Mummy said you're from Dan's unit in Germany.'

Max decided she needed to know the serious business behind his visit. ‘I'm with the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police, Miss Stannard. Lieutenant Farley failed to return to Germany after his visit to you. I'm here to ask you about what occurred before he left you yesterday.'

Alarm, affront, defensiveness were all apparent in her mien as she sank on a chair with studied grace. ‘Military Police? What Dan did after storming out has nothing to do with me.'

‘Or her family,' added Mrs Stannard, entering at that moment.

Max's eyes narrowed as he studied this pair. ‘Something concerning you certainly led to him “storming out”. What was that?'

‘I don't have to answer questions from you,' she said. ‘I'm not a soldier. You can't order
me
about.'

‘Perhaps you're not aware that if Dan fails to report back by tomorrow morning, he will be classified as absent without leave. His picture and details will be posted on HOLMES, the worldwide police network. The case will then be taken up by the Sussex police. Two of their uniformed officers will come here in a marked car, possibly with blue lights flashing, to question you. On the other hand, you could give me a lead on where he might have headed from here. I'd follow it up and maybe switch interest from Brighteye Kennels elsewhere. I'm not ordering you about, Trish, I'm advising you on your options.'

The girl looked up at her mother. ‘We need Daddy here.'

‘He can't be disturbed, darling.' She appealed to Max. ‘Must you harass her like this?'

Max counted to ten. ‘A man your daughter has been in a close relationship with is missing. He has not called in and his mobile is switched to voicemail. His last known contact was with this family. Whatever the situation between Dan and Trish when he “stormed out”, you surely wouldn't wish harm to have come to him. He was a guest in your house, Mrs Stannard. Don't you care what might have befallen him when he left it?'

Trish burst into tears. ‘He shouldn't have been so beastly.'

Max waited silently, guessing it would all come out now. She was spoilt and pampered; quite immature. Farley was better off without her and, if he had behaved irresponsibly enough to land himself with a serious charge on his record, he was equally immature. Yet he had seemed well in control of himself, and dedicated enough to make that unofficial search for Smith. His guts told Max Dan Farley was in trouble somewhere.

‘Everything was so lovely; he was so
sweet
,' Trish wailed. ‘He's always known I'm not happy about him being in the Army. I said I'd accept that if he changed to an office job.' She peered at Max through a curtain of wet hair. ‘They can do that in the Army, can't they? He wasn't happy about it, but he said he'd think about it when he got back from Afghanistan.'

A further tearful outburst. ‘He knew how we feel about what's happening out there. Daddy put him in the picture.'

‘The
wider
picture,' said her mother.

‘He's so blind to what happens outside his precious regiment,' the girl complained. ‘Wouldn't listen to my side of it. That's when he got really nasty and said things I couldn't believe I was hearing. I told him it wasn't being a coward to refuse to go out there. There are plenty of other things he can do as a soldier without killing innocent people.'

Max was not prepared to listen any longer to this diatribe. ‘Was that when Dan left?'

The girl nodded. ‘I don't know where he went, and I don't—'

Max cut her off. ‘Was he driving a hire car?'

‘No, I met him at Heathrow in mine.'

‘So he was on foot. What's the nearest bus route?'

Mrs Stannard answered that. ‘They leave the village centre every hour, on the hour, to Brighton.'

‘Passing Lewes railway station?'

‘Near enough.'

Max turned back to Trish. ‘Did he have his overnight bag with him?'

‘Yes, it was ready by the door.'

‘What time did he leave this house?'

‘Around two thirty.'

‘So he could have reached the village in time to catch the three o'clock bus.'

She put her hand to her mouth. ‘No, it would be the Sunday service, every
two
hours.'

‘There's a taxi firm in the village?'

‘On Sunday you have to call from the phone on the wall outside the office. Jem Hawkins comes out from the farm to pick you up.'

‘Unless he's already booked,' said Mrs Stannard. ‘He often is on Sundays.'

Max left Brighteye Kennels sloughing off a sensation of claustrophobia. He had come upon that kind of set-up before, and had felt the same way. The husband was usually a mini-mogul living for the fast buck, the mega-deal, the element of power the world of international commerce gave him. The women hung on his coat tails, filling their days with shopping, visits to beauty salons, lunches with friends and participation on committees of local charities. Max thought one comment from Mrs Stannard had said it all. ‘Dan is a perfectly pleasant young man but . . . he's a
soldier
!' Whatever had led Farley to believe he could ever enter the Stannards' world?

Jem Hawkins was heading for the black and yellow car that was the local taxi when Max drew up outside his office. Max wound his window down and leaned out.

‘Mr Hawkins?'

‘That's me,' he replied genially, stepping across to Max's hired vehicle. ‘You don't need my services, I can see, so how can I help?'

Max smiled. ‘I've no wish to keep you from picking up a fare.'

‘Don't you worry. I'm just off for my supper before the late evening calls start coming in.'

‘I drove down from London on the off chance of catching up with a friend I've not seen in a while, but he left yesterday afternoon around fourteen . . .' He pulled himself up. ‘Around two thirty. Did someone call you to take him to the airport?'

‘Oh, aye,' he said with a nod. ‘My boy, Phil, radioed through to me when he received the call on his mobile. He was parked waiting to pick up a party of old dears at the Nag's Head in Dunderton, so he couldn't accept the fare.'

The silver-haired man, thin as a greyhound and suffering from halitosis, was apparently in no hurry for his supper. He leaned on the roof of Max's hired car and bent to puff rancid breath over him. ‘I says to Phil to tell the caller what the boy should've done right off, that we don't do the airports. He does this, then the fare says how about Brighton rail station? Well, we don't do long trips on Sundays, d'you see? Sundays is always busy with regulars, but it turned out I was collecting a couple from the Golden Hynde way over to Meerston Ford. So I says to Phil I could take the fare to
Lewes
rail station, if he cared to start walking towards Meerston. Soon as I'd dropped Mr and Mrs Flint home, I'd drive down to meet the fella and take him on to the railway.'

‘So you dropped him there?' asked Max, breaking into the long-winded answer.

‘Well, I woulda done, you see. My Phil said as how the fare had told him he were desperate to get to a rail station, which I were prepared to do, but I never saw hair nor hide of him.'

‘You missed him?'

Hawkins shifted his feet and leaned on his other arm. The movement did not lessen the stench of his breath. ‘No, that weren't it. See, Meerston is out on the Lewes Road. Phil tells me the caller described himself as a young, dark-haired man carrying a blue holdall, but I drove all the road back to the village without a sign of him. There's only one way straight up to Lewes, so it couldn't have been that he took another route.'

‘But it's possible someone stopped to give him a lift all the way to Brighton.'

‘Oh, aye. Guess that's what it must of been.'

Leaving Hawkins to head for his supper, Max drove first to Lewes and then on to Brighton, knowing the chances of finding anyone who recalled seeing the young officer at rail stations were slim. If Farley had hired a car from one of the towns, there would more likely be some recognition by office staff. There might also be a clue to Dan's destination if the vehicle had been registered as returned.