Local Gone Missing(36)

“Why?” he said, all hurt last night when I came back from my walk. He hates sleeping alone. “I’ve said I’m sorry for going off on one about you going to London.”

“Look, I’ve got a terrible headache, that’s all. I’ll only keep you awake.”

It felt weird when we met on the landing this morning like we were guests in a hotel, but Liam just said: “How did you sleep through all that noise last night?”

“What noise?”

“The fire engines, Dee. The arson at the Old Vicarage.”

“Arson? What are you on about?”

“The gym that the illegals built on the sly has burned to the ground. I looked in on you when I left, told you where I was going, but you were dead to the world. I didn’t get back until the early hours.”

“Poor Millie.”



* * *



—

I feel like I’m on automatic pilot this morning when I get to Elise’s. She’s sitting in the window. As usual. I can’t imagine what she finds to look at all day.

“Hi, Dee,” she says. “I wasn’t sure you’d be working on a bank holiday Monday.”

“Oh, I work every day.”

Ronnie Durrant suddenly comes out of the kitchen with cups. She always seems to be here.

I get on with the kitchen floor so it can dry while I do the rest of the house and they sit together talking. Elise has left the radio on in the kitchen and I can’t hear what they’re saying properly. The fire, I think. But then I hear Charlie’s name. Is there news? Elise is a police officer. What’s she heard? I turn the music down a bit. Just enough so they don’t notice.

I keep swishing my mop but I’m cleaning the same tile by the door over and over.

“What do you think has happened?” Ronnie says. “If you were in charge, where would you be looking?”

They haven’t found him.

“The festival site initially—it was the last known sighting. I’d be fanning out the search, looking at footage from security cameras in the town. He didn’t have a car with him—it’s still parked on the drive—and you’ve checked with the local taxi firm. They didn’t pick him up, so he must have been on foot. Someone must have seen him. Or maybe taken him somewhere . . .”

I start coughing and they stop talking. I’ve made myself visible, so I come in and start wiping down the shelving unit. At least I’ll be able to hear properly.

“You clean for the Perrys, don’t you, Dee?” Ronnie says.

“Er, yes,” I say, and carry on.

“What do you think has happened to him?”

“No idea,” I snap, and Elise’s eyes narrow. “Sorry,” I say. “I’m just worried about him. He’s had a lot to cope with lately.”

“Like what?”

I take a deep breath and try to control the telltale squeak in my voice.

“Well, like that huge house they can’t afford. Pauline won’t let it alone. Nagging him all the time about the repairs and the cost of keeping his daughter in a home. And then there’s Bram. . . .”

“The man at the garden center,” Ronnie pipes up. “Always taking his shirt off unnecessarily.”

“Look, I never gossip about clients,” I carry on. “Ask anyone. But I’m worried about Charlie. All I’m saying is that people are saying Bram calls round to the caravan when Charlie’s out and the grass isn’t being cut.”

Elise looks at me hard. “Does Charlie know?”

“I don’t know. But he and Pauline row about sex a lot. She says terrible things to him.”

“In front of you?”

“People forget I’m there.”

“Right.”

And her eyes narrow and I expect she’s wondering what I know about her. That she takes antidepressants. That she’s got a vibrator in her bedside table drawer.

“How do you think Pauline is coping with his disappearance?”

“Well, she doesn’t seem that upset to me. She’s always saying she’d be better off without him. Poor man. Everyone says he’s a sweetheart except her. I just hope he’s okay.”

“We all do. . . .”

She’s looking too closely at me and I try to stop my hand shaking as I dust.





Twenty-seven


MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2019





Elise


Wow!” Ronnie said as soon as Dee left. “It must have been very tense in that caravan.”

“I know. There’s a lot to unpick,” Elise said, already reexamining Pauline’s earlier answers. “She said she was a woman with needs. What is this Bram like? Would I have seen him?”

“Probably. You’ll definitely have heard him—he drives one of those monster four-by-fours that shake windows. How much do you think Pauline knows about Charlie’s past life?”

“No idea but I think I ought to be talking to Caro about this.”

Elise picked up the phone and dialed. Engaged. “I’ll try again later,” she said.

“Well, I’m going to see Pauline,” Ronnie announced. “I said I’d take her my old buckets, didn’t I? Do you want to come? We could ask her who does her garden.”