Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (86 page)

“You could. Or you could visit her first thing in the morning on your way into work.”

“We’ll see. You know what I’m like.”

“Yep.” Brian started pounding his keyboard again.

Right, what have we got on Jasmine Salter?
Nothing much, would appear to be the answer. Ellen dialled the contact number she had for the next of kin of the missing woman.

“Hello?”

“Hi, is that Rob Turrock?”

“It is. Who’s that?”

“Sorry to trouble you, Mr.Turrock. I’m Ellen Brazil. I’m working alongside the National Missing Persons Bureau on a case that might be connected to Jasmine’s.”

“My God, you mean you
are
still looking for her. It’s been ages since someone contacted me. She went missing back in July.”

“I know. I’m sorry about that. Have you had any contact with Jasmine at all in that time?”

“None. What do you mean you’re looking at another case?”

“Well, we’re actually looking at five or six probable cases that could be perceived as similar.”

“Why hasn’t someone told me about this before? You know the police accused me of harming her, don’t you?”

“This line of enquiry has just come to light in the last few days. I’m sorry the police did that. As you can imagine, they have to look at all aspects of your girlfriend’s life. It’s never anything personal.”

“I guess. Hold on a minute. Are you saying there is a possibility that Jasmine is still alive?”

“I’m not sure. Unless we find proof otherwise, then you mustn’t give up hope. I’ve spoken to the other families, and I’d like to ask you what I asked them.”

“What’s that?”

“Whether there was any reason why Jasmine would just up and leave. Any debts? Added stress that you can think of that she had to deal with at the time of her disappearance?”

The man was silent for a moment or two, then said sadly, “No, unless you count the stress of organising our wedding. We were due to get married back in September. I had to cancel everything and go through the ordeal of letting a hundred people know the reason why the wedding had been cancelled, amid much suspicion, as you can imagine.”

“That’s awful. Did Jasmine’s family help break the news to the guests?”

He coughed slightly. “No. They blamed me. They still blame me, for their little girl going off.” Ellen was about to apologise again, when he added, “Every day. Every bloody day since she disappeared, I’ve been out there searching for her. If I’m not at work—you’ve just caught me. I finished my shift early today—I’m out there. I’m going to grab a quick sandwich, then go out again to search yet another area.”

She could hear the devastation in his voice. He obviously loved Jasmine very much and was desperate to get her back. “She went missing in the town centre, didn’t she?”

“That’s what we think, yes. She was on a night out with the girls. They always went out on a Friday night. She went out with the girls while I met up with the boys down at the local.”

“If Jasmine was out with her friends, didn’t any of them see what happened that night?”

“No. I asked and asked, but no one could tell me anything.”

“No clues at all? Someone suspicious hanging around, maybe?”

“I asked. They were all pretty drunk and said they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Of course, they were all upset, felt they had let her down in some way. We all feel like that, really.”

“I’m following a new line of enquiries. Did your girlfriend—sorry, Jasmine. Did she frequent anywhere weekly or monthly?”

“You mean like a club or something?”

“Exactly, either during the day or in the evening?”

“She used to go into town, Gypsy’s nightclub most Fridays. Other than that…”

He drifted off as he thought over Ellen’s question. She prompted him further, “Did she belong to a swimming club, a gym, or attend college on an evening course, something like that?”

“Not that I can think of. She spent—we spent—all our spare time together, other than Friday nights, of course. Wait a minute. She started going to the gym with one of the girls from work during her lunch hour. That new gym over at Powick. What’s it called again?”

Ellen knew exactly which gym he was referring to. “Jack’s Gym. Is that the one?” She looked over at Brian, who had raised his head, along with his eyebrows.

“That’s it. She had only been a couple of times. She said she wanted to tone up before the wedding. She’s always been a perfect ten in my book. I told her she was wasting her money.”

“Thanks, Mr. Turrock. You’ve been a great help. Try and stay positive. I’ll be in touch if we manage to find out anything more.”

“I’d appreciate that. It’s no comfort when you think you’re on your own in a search like this.”

“I understand completely. I want to assure you that you’re no longer alone in this. We’ll do our very best to reunite you with Jasmine.” Ellen gave him her office and mobile number, then hung up.

“So we have a couple of connections now, by the sound of things,” Brian said as she put the phone down.

“We do, indeed. Three, actually. The gym, Worcester town centre, and the nightclub. How did you get on with the manager of the club, by the way?”

“Damn, I knew there was something I had to chase up. When I rang, they told me he was in a meeting. I’ll get on to it first thing in the morning.”

Ellen noticed Brian’s cheeks go red. She checked her watch. “You’ve got time to ring him before we call it a day. It would probably be better ringing him now instead of first thing anyway.”

He nodded and winked at her. “Slave driver.”

Yes, she was, especially when women’s lives were at risk.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The rain was coming down harder when she pulled up outside the house. Ellen hadn’t made an appointment, thinking she would call in on the off chance that Mrs. Falk would be at home. The porch light guided her up the path of the detached home on the new estate in St. Peters.

She rang the bell, and a woman answered, “Just a minute.”

Ellen tucked herself farther under the covered porch, out of the rain, and waited. A well-dressed woman who appeared to be in her early sixties opened the door.

“Mrs. Falk?”

The woman looked her up and down. “Yes. And you are?”

“I’m sorry to trouble you.” Ellen extended her hand. “I’m Ellen Brazil. I run the Worcester Missing Persons Hotline. At the moment, my partner and I are working on a case that has similarities to your daughter’s case. We’re helping out the National Missing Persons Bureau. I wondered if you would mind going over what happened the night Abbie went missing?”

“Goodness. Please do come in out of this awful weather.”

Ellen followed the woman through the house, to a beautiful oak-framed kitchen cum sunroom, not that there was much sun to enjoy in December. Mrs. Falk filled the kettle and placed it on a hotplate on the fire-engine-red range cooker before turning her attention back to Ellen.

“Please take a seat.”

Ellen sat down on the bench at the large kitchen table and dropped her handbag on the floor. She opened Abbie Falk’s file in front of her. “The last thing I want to do is upset you, Mrs. Falk. I want to be clear about that from the beginning. If you want me to stop at any time, please just say so.”

“Thank you. Just to warn you, I still get very emotional when I think about Abbie.”

“That’s understandable. There’s nothing more powerful than a mother’s love.” Ellen glanced at the photo of a beautiful blonde girl that had pride of place in the middle of the table.

“It was so unexpected. I’m not really a churchgoer, but I’ve prayed every night that she’ll come home safe one day soon.” The kettle whistled, and Mrs. Falk stood up to withdraw it from the heat. “Tea or coffee, dear?”

“Tea would be lovely, thank you.” Ellen waited for the woman to join her before she started asking any questions.

Mrs. Falk placed the china cups and saucers down on the table and sat on the bench opposite.

“Can you tell me the circumstances leading up to Abbie’s disappearance?”

“She’d just been out for a meal with her boyfriend, Richard. They decided to go into town afterwards to a nightclub. Do you know, I’ve completely forgotten the name of it.” She shook her head, looking embarrassed.

“Gypsy’s maybe?”

“That’s right, Gypsy’s. Richard said that he left Abbie on the corner while he went to try and track a taxi down. It was one o’clock in the morning. Everyone had the same idea about getting a taxi at that time, so Richard decided to go to the rank to try and find one, apparently.”

“Did Richard find one?”

“No, he spent a good thirty minutes searching for one. He even rang several local taxi firms, with no success. He gave up and returned to the nightclub to find Abbie had gone. He thought she had grown frustrated with hanging around and stormed off.”

“So what did Richard do then?”

“He went home. Abbie was prone to having tantrums, you see, if something or someone annoyed her. The first we heard about this was the following morning, when Richard rang up to apologise.”

“That call must have come as a shock.”

Her eyes misted up, and she reached for her daughter’s picture and held it close to her chest. “It was one of, if not the, worst moments in my life.”

“Did your daughter have any reason to just want to take off, to leave all this behind her?”

“Never. Not even when…”

“When?” Ellen prompted gently.

“When she had run up all those debts. She still faced up to her actions, eventually.”

“Can I ask what kind of debts?” Ellen sensed she was getting somewhere at last.

“The usual kind of debts young girls have when they like to shop. She overspent on her credit cards, forgot to put money aside to pay back the bills when they came in at the end of the month. These banks make it so easy for people to rack up debts. They should be shot.”

“How much were the debts? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“Let me see. It was going back a year or so. She was living with Mike back then. Somewhere in the region of thirty thousand pounds, I think.”

“And how did Mike take that?”

“Oh, you couldn’t ask for a nicer chap. He offered to pay off the debts for her. I think he paid about ten thousand off, but, in the end, the guilt proved to be too much for Abbie.”

“What do you mean?”

“She left Mike. We were all devastated by her decision. He was distraught for months. However, they remained friends. He even came round here, you know. When the story of her disappearance hit the newspaper, he came round to offer to help look for Abbie. That didn’t go down too well with Richard at all. They almost came to blows in this very room. I had to scream at them to make them stop arguing. I’m sure if I hadn’t broken down, they would have knocked seven bells out of each other.”

“I see.” However, Ellen didn’t fully comprehend the ex’s actions. She trod carefully. “Isn’t that a little strange, Mike coming around like that?”

“Not really. He’s been a close family friend for years. He and Abbie went to school with each other. They didn’t get together until long after they left school, though. To be honest, I thought—hoped—that they would marry one day. But I didn’t interfere when they broke up. They had their reasons, and it was no concern of mine.”

“So there were no clues as to why Abbie left? Did you check her room for any missing bags or clothes?”

“That was one of the first things I did. She merely vanished.” Mrs. Falk clicked her fingers to emphasise her point.

“Do you think her boyfriend, Richard, would talk to me?”

“I don’t see why not. He’s still extremely upset, like us all. All we want is some form of contact. For her to pick up the phone to tell us she’s alive and well. It’s the not knowing that hurts the most. I walk up the street and see people pointing at me. Either that, or they cross the road to avoid talking to me. That can’t be right, can it?”

“People sometimes find it hard to believe that people just disappear.”

“You mean they think that we had something to do with her going missing? I hadn’t thought of that before.” She placed the picture back in the centre of the table and ran her shaking hand over her face. “My God. How could people think such a thing? What do you think happened, Ms. Brazil?”