Missing (56 page)

The screen filled with an improbable happy family at breakfast, but Jacqueline’s thoughts remained with Kelsey and how excited she probably was now, not only to be there, at the auction, but to be so close to the event itself that she might even appear in shot.

She was glad for Kelsey, but her eyes were starting to glaze as her mind drifted on, like a restless spirit, to Miles, then Rufus, the church of St Anne, the Virgin Mary, and finally to the woman who’d resurfaced from the past, Elizabeth Barrett. Tomorrow her delusions would be released from obscurity to cover the front page of
The News on Sunday
. Her story would be told in
a
way to shock and unsettle, or there would be no point in running it. Once again people would start asking, what really happened to Sam Avery? Had he actually been in his mother’s car that day? How come no one saw him?

None of it had the power to hurt her any more. She only minded because it was prompting Miles to step up the search for her again. She didn’t want to be found yet. She had chosen her time and until it came she wanted to remain where she was, safe, in this place called missing. At her core there was only warmth and stillness; in her heart there was simply the memory of pain. The scars were fading like stars at dawn, blending with the light to become invisible, free of the darkness.

Her mobile started to ring. She looked down at it, already knowing it would be Kelsey making sure she was keeping her promise to watch. She let the call go through to messages. She’d speak to her when the auction was over, and assure her she’d seen every minute. She hoped Kelsey would be in shot. She hoped Miles, Vivienne and Rufus would be too. She’d like to see them all together before she turned off her phone and finished her letter.

That was when she would be ready to leave this place called missing.

‘Thought I might find you here, sir,’ DC Joy murmured as she came up behind Sadler at the back of the TV room, where practically the entire station was gathered to watch the auction. ‘I brought you a paddle in case you want to make a bid.’

Sadler cast her a sidelong glance.

Her eyes were all innocence. ‘Oh, your Christmas bonus already spoken for?’

Unable to suppress a smile, he said, ‘If my bonus came even close to where those bids began I’d be buying myself a DC with answers, instead of cheek.’

‘Sssssh,’ someone hissed from the front.

‘Oh my God. There’s Jamie Murray,’ a female voice cried out. ‘He was with the fire crew at my DUI in Marsh Barton last Wednesday.’

DC Joy looked at the dusty monitor where a delicious blond hunk with Herculean muscles, a fireman’s helmet, and salopette braces over his bare chest was swaggering up and down the catwalk in time to ‘Come on Baby Light My Fire’. The audience was responding wildly to his gyrations, while across the bottom of the screen the bids for his skills as gardener-cum-chauffeur – or Mellors, as he was letting himself be known – flipped up and up and up with the speed of Third World inflation.

‘Do you think that’s real?’ Joy whispered to Sadler. ‘I mean, are that many people really ringing in?’

‘Thankfully that is a mystery we’re not here to solve,’ Sadler responded dryly. ‘What news on Mrs Avery?’

‘DC Ball in Richmond says they’ve contacted all the agents now, and there’s still nothing coming up under the names of Avery or Cates.’

Sadler shook his head, more bothered than ever since Miles Avery had been in touch, worried about the possible effects of Sunday’s paper. ‘I take it they’ve tried Jacqueline Cates and Anne Avery,’ he said, knowing already this would have been done.

Joy gave him a look to confirm it.

‘What about her maiden name?’ he said, knowing it was idiocy even to go there at this stage.

Joy appeared slightly disconcerted. ‘I didn’t think of that, sir,’ she confessed.

‘Then think about it now, Elaine, there’s a good girl,’ he said. ‘Probably they’re ahead of you in Richmond, but we never know.’

Her eyes strayed back to the screen.

‘Scoot,’ he growled in her ear.

‘On my way, sir,’ she said with a cheeky salute. ‘Just please don’t blow the entire annual on TKS, because I don’t earn as much as you and I want him for me.’

One by one the firemen were dancing down the catwalk, each of them in various states of dress – or undress – as they performed to such numbers as ‘Wheels on Fire’, ‘Start the Fire’, and ‘Great Balls of Fire’. The female members of the audience were lapping it up, applauding and laughing delightedly as someone rotated a cheekily exposed shoulder, or gyrated his hips, or pouted winsomely into camera.

Reg was doing a valiant job, in spite of the noise, encouraging the audience – and viewers at home – to up the bidding for the firemen’s ‘back-room skills’ as he was calling them. His innuendos and double entendres were rife and hilarious, while the performances became raunchier and more expansive all the time. Most importantly, though, the bids were very quickly showing signs of surpassing everyone’s dreams. Twelve hundred pounds for a private chauffeur for a week; fifteen hundred for Spanish lessons; eighteen hundred for a gardener for a month; a whopping eight thousand for Percy to rewire a house; two thousand for Pete the plumber who roused the audience to a frenzy with his plunger, and another two thousand for Rick the DIY enthusiast whose bag of tools got Reg into an hysterical tangle of puns, alliterations and promises.

By the time the amateur weight-lifter – a huge, bald-headed
man
in skimpy trunks, protective boots and a yellow standard-issue helmet – had brought the house down with his mincing and flexing, the amount raised from the auction was already standing at close to thirty thousand pounds.

‘It’s amazing!’ Vivienne cried to Alice, applauding wildly along with everyone else, and catching the choreographer’s eye across the catwalk, she gave her two robust thumbs up. ‘Fabulous,’ she mouthed. ‘Sensational.’

The choreographer was beaming, while Reg laughed heartily as he waited for the applause to die down behind the weight-lifter. ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen,’ he announced like an end-of-pier compère, ‘please get those paddles waving and pound notes flying for our very own golden boy, the free-styler extraordinaire, the fastest man in Speedos, and hottest hunk in a hairy chest, Mr Theo Kenwood-South.’

‘Who’s writing his script?’ Alice demanded as the place erupted with a rapturous welcome for Theo.

‘I think he’s making it up as he goes along,’ Vivienne answered, laughing as Theo came swaggering onto the catwalk in luminous silver shorts and an enormous pair of madly glittering goggles. The music paused as he struck his opening pose. Everyone fell silent. Then up came the opening bars of ‘Hey Big Spender’ and the audience exploded into laughter.

His routine was so camp and outrageous that before long it became virtually impossible to hear Reg over the din, as everyone whooped and cheered him on. However, the production team was keeping a close watch on the bids, relaying information to relevant sources, signalling to Reg and urging everyone to dig deeper and deeper. Then suddenly, like a stripper,
Theo
tore off his Velcro-held shorts, swirled them a few times round his head, and sent them sailing into the audience. Wild shrieks filled the air as literally hundreds of eager hands rose up to grab the trophy. He was now in gold sparkly trunks and dollar-sign goggles that someone tossed in from the wings, dancing up and down the catwalk to ‘Money, Money, Money’.

‘It must be like this at a Chippendale show,’ Alice shouted into Vivienne’s ear, as Kelsey and Martha leapt up to join those who were already dancing on their chairs. ‘Someone’s going to throw their knickers in any minute. You wait.’

‘Just don’t let it be you,’ Vivienne warned, struggling to hold onto a delirious Rufus.

‘Not wearing any, darling.’

With a gurgle of laughter Vivienne released Rufus into Miles’s stronger grasp, then promptly jumped up with Alice and Kayla to join in the dancing.

‘Look at how high the bids are going,’ she shouted, pointing to the off-air monitor. ‘It’s already at nine thousand.’

At that moment the screen changed to a shot of a WI lady receiving a call which upped the figure to ten thousand. ‘I wonder who’s on the other end?’ Alice yelled as a massive cheer went up and Theo gave an exaggerated bow, followed by a couple of bicep flexes.

‘Probably his mother,’ Vivienne replied and they burst out laughing.

‘Oh my God, he’s shameless,’ Alice shrieked, as Theo began a very suggestive simulated swim.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Reg boomed into his microphone, ‘do we have any advances on ten thousand for private time with this swimmer sublime?’

‘Oh God,’ Vivienne groaned, as a hundred paddles rose up and as many voices yelled, ‘Eleven, twelve, fifteen,
twenty
.’

‘Come on now, ladies,’ Reg cautioned, ‘don’t start what you can’t finish.’

As they screamed with laughter, Mrs Kent, a local businesswoman known to have a penchant for young men, upped the bidding to ten thousand five hundred.

‘Thank you, Mrs Kent,’ Reg shouted above the crowd, and as everyone cheered the monitor switched back to a shot of the WI lady, whose caller took little time to increase the figure to eleven.

‘Eleven thousand,’ Reg cried ecstatically. ‘Friends, we are making history today. I have eleven thousand so far for private coaching and a day using the fantastic facilities in Bath with Britain’s very own Olympic gold-medallist. Now, do I hear twelve? Come on, ladies, let TKS help ease the PMS.’

‘Please tell me he didn’t just say that,’ Vivienne winced as a stream of voices yelled, ‘Me, me, me.’

‘Don’t knock it,’ Alice laughed, ‘he could end up with his own show at this rate and he’ll be our client.’

Theo was boogieing forward, twirling and teasing, urging the audience to clap and dance along with him until, to a rousing cheer, he reached out to haul Stella up onto the catwalk. The brazen old eccentric immediately began stealing the show with an hilarious freak-out not at all in time to the music, while Theo pirouetted around her before turning to grab Kelsey’s and Martha’s hands to pull them up too.

Vivienne swung round to Miles and burst out laughing at the look on his face.

‘That’s my daughter,’ he stated indignantly, but his
eyes
were shining, and seeming to decide that his son could no longer be stopped from joining in, he stood up so Rufus could try and clap his hands as high as everyone else.

‘This is amazing,’ Vivienne cried, as Reg announced that the redoubtable Mrs Kent had taken the bids up to twelve thousand.

Before Miles could respond Rufus gave such an almighty leap that he almost broke free. ‘My God, that could have been expensive,’ Miles laughed, grabbing him more securely.

‘Look, look, the phone caller’s just taken it to thirteen,’ Alice shrieked excitedly. ‘You’re right, Vivi, it has to be his mother. Angus, try your sister’s number, I’ll bet it’s busy.’

For the hell of it Angus did so, and when the engaged signal came down the line they dissolved into laughter.

Seconds later the place was in uproar again as the music changed to the cancan and all eleven firemen, in black fishnet stockings, frou-frou skirts and feather boas, came high-kicking back onto the stage. On the catwalk Theo, surrounded by his impromptu troupe, created another line, while Reg informed whoever could hear that the bids had now gone up to ‘an incredible fourteen thousand’.

‘What are we going to do if Mrs Kent wins?’ Vivienne shouted to Alice. ‘The woman’s a sex maniac by all accounts.’

Though Alice laughed she saw the problem right away – for Theo it would be a horrible embarrassment, for them it would be a PR disaster. As she started to answer, the phone caller took the figure up to fifteen thousand.

‘Oh my God!’ Vivienne cried. ‘Where is this going to end?’

The camera swung back to Mrs Kent. ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it,’ Vivienne pleaded.

‘Do I hear sixteen thousand?’ Reg sang out.

‘No, no,’ Vivienne muttered.

‘Sixteen thousand?’

Vivienne was holding her breath.

‘I have fifteen thousand for the fetching fellow in faux lamé trunks,’ Reg informed them.

Vivienne and Alice groaned at Reg’s unstoppable corniness.

‘Fifteen thousand. Going once. Going twice …’

Vivienne willed the hammer to go down before Mrs Kent’s libido got the better of her again.

‘Sold to our mystery caller,’ Reg announced, with a resounding thump, and Vivienne’s breath came out in a rush of relief.

‘Of course, it could be another sex maniac for all we know,’ Alice shouted above the applause.

‘Don’t even think it,’ Vivienne shouted back.

When the cheering eventually died down and transmission switched back to the studio, Miles said, ‘Unless my maths is out, we have a grand total of forty-three thousand from the auction, with a further twenty-four already pledged, so the kitty’s standing at somewhere around sixty-seven thousand.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ Vivienne replied, ‘but not enough, because some high-flyer in the City has promised to double it if we get to a hundred.’

‘We still don’t know how many straight pledges came in while we were on air,’ Alice reminded her. ‘So we might have made it.’

They looked round in search of Al Kohler, and
spotting
him climbing up on stage to take over the mike, Vivienne struggled her way through to Sharon, whose cheeks were glowing.

‘This is a long way beyond what we were hoping,’ Vivienne beamed as she hugged her. ‘You’re going to be so well taken care of now, you’ll think you’re a princess.’

Sharon was smiling all over her face as she swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘It’s been brilliant,’ she declared. ‘And will you just look at that old trollop up there dancing. What is she like?’

Vivienne laughed as Stella gave them a wave. By now the catwalk and stage was crowded with frilly-frocked firemen, as Reg was calling them, and as many of the audience as could fit themselves on.

Suddenly the music dipped and Al Kohler could be heard asking for everyone’s attention.

A camera tracked in to get a better angle on him as the studio switched back to the auction, and when the noise had completely died down, he said into the mike, ‘Good morning, everyone. My name is Al Kohler, I’m the executive producer, and it’s my great pleasure to be able to tell you that in addition to the sixty-seven thousand pounds raised by the auction and private donations before we went on air, we have received further pledges amounting to just over twenty-seven thousand. This makes a grand total of almost ninety-five thousand pounds, which I know far surpasses the dreams of Sharon’s WI friends, who came up with the idea of this auction in the first place. So congratulations to you all, ladies, you must feel very proud of what you’ve achieved here today.’