Local Gone Missing(70)

She didn’t say she couldn’t bear to miss a moment of the town’s descent into depravity. The police were sticking to “unexplained,” but “murder” was all anyone was talking about and Janine had found a new tribe—the women of Ebbing who’d always known this was coming to their town: Liz, who’d sold them the Gulls; Karen, who occasionally did her hair; and even flirty little Millie Diamond. The Sodom and Gomorrah girls, Kevin called them secretly as Janine recounted their latest inanities.

“Liz says Charlie always had a haunted look in his eyes. Did you see that?”

“No. And nor did you. You wouldn’t have been able to pick him out in the street until this week.”

“Rubbish. I definitely noticed him,” Janine insisted. “The word is that the wife’s involved.”

“Oh, do stop this nonsense,” he snapped. “Everyone in this town is suddenly Sherlock fucking Holmes.”

“Kevin! There’s no need for that sort of language.”



* * *



—

The twins had finally gone and Janine sat down opposite him. Here we go.

“Look, I know things aren’t right,” she said. “Is it the business? Is there something I should know?”

“No, nothing,” he said, slamming down the computer lid. “Look, everything’s in hand. I’m going outside for a cigarette.”

He could smell summer dying in the air as he stood looking at the sea. Autumn just round the corner. He’d kept the feeling that the year began in September from school days. All that bustle about uniforms and protractors had been about renewal and looking forward. Not like the dead hand of New Year’s Day.

And drawing a line under things was his goal today. The money was gone. He would put the Gulls on the market next week. And then never come back to Ebbing. Janine would go mad but he could weather that—there’d be worse things to come. Bankruptcy. Having to ask his in-laws to pay the twins’ school fees. The impending shame burned his throat. There had to be another way.

He pulled out his pay-as-you-go phone and dialed.

“Hi,” he growled, and cleared his throat.

“Have you heard anything?” Toby croaked at the other end.

“No. You?”

“Nothing. How are you feeling?”

“What sort of question is that? Look, Toby, all you’ve got to do is hold your nerve. You’ll be on a plane tomorrow.”

“I’m trying.” But the wobble in his voice told another story.

“You need to try harder,” Kevin said, and ended the call.

Toby Greene was cracking up. Kevin wasn’t going to stick around for that.





Fifty-three


FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019





Elise


I feel like we’re just pulling at loose threads here,” Caro said as she fastened her seat belt. “Where is this leading?”

“To Charlie. He was clearly bent. The people he scammed carried on looking for him for years. ‘His old tricks,’ Pauline called them, but he’d been at it before he even met her. But how does this tie in to the burglary? You heard the neighbor—there was something off about the whole thing. Could he have been involved? Who would know? There are no witnesses now. Birdie’s memory was wiped by the attack and the boyfriend is dead.”

“There’s always the killer,” Caro muttered, and swung the car into the traffic.

Elise slammed her hand on the dashboard and Caro did an emergency stop, shooting everything off the backseat and the dregs of a cold cup of coffee onto her feet.

“What the hell is it?” she shouted.

“Sorry,” Elise said, feeling ridiculous. “I’ve just had a thought.”

“A thought? You’ve ruined my new shoes. What?”

“It’s eighteen years since Stuart Bennett went inside. He could be out. He could have been the man loitering in Addison Gardens.”

Caro parked and pulled up the information on her tablet. “Okay, good call. He was released on license, December fourteenth, 2018,” she said. “His current address is a hostel in Paddington, a couple of streets away.”



* * *



—

“You’d better come through to the office,” the duty manager said when they announced themselves and were buzzed in.

“Is there a problem?” Elise said.

“We haven’t seen Stuart Bennett for a week. There’s been no contact since he left here last Friday. He was supposed to see his probation officer but he didn’t turn up.”

Elise could feel her heart pick up the pace. That was the first night of the festival. The night Charlie went into hiding.

“Any family addresses? Do any of his mates know why he’s disappeared?”

“He doesn’t have any family listed—or mates. Bit of a lonely boy. He’s had only one visitor since he came here.”

“Was it an elderly man?” Has Charlie been here? Elise felt her fingers crossing.

“No—a young woman. She came a couple of weeks ago. She didn’t stay long.”

“Where is he? Where would he go?” Elise said when they got outside. “We need to talk to someone from the case.”