Spider Light(32)
‘My headache was still quite bad,’ said Donna, frowning in an effort to report the precise details. ‘So I took a couple of paracetamol and went upstairs to lie down. That was probably about half past one. My mother said she’d bring up a cup of tea later on. But I fell asleep and when I woke up it was four o’clock and that’s when I realized they weren’t here.’
‘And neither of you heard your parents go out?’
‘No. I told you, I was asleep for most of the afternoon.’
‘And I was listening to the Walkman. I was at the far end of the garden anyway,’ said Don. ‘They might have called out to say they were going somewhere, but I don’t think I’d have heard them.’
‘No. Loud things, those Walkmans,’ said the sergeant, rather feelingly. ‘So seemingly, they went out somewhere between half past one–say, quarter to two–and four o’clock, when you came downstairs, Miss Robards?’
‘Well, I can’t absolutely swear to the minute, but it’s near enough. And Don came in from the garden when the rain started. Half past four or quarter to five.’
‘Neither of you thought it especially odd that your parents might have gone out without telling you, or leaving a note?’
‘No,’ they said together. Donna felt the same thought form in both their minds: after what happened our parents would never have gone out and left us alone. But this could not be said. Not now and not ever.
‘Could they have been mugged or anything like that?’ asked Don, suddenly sounding rather endearingly young and uncertain. ‘Or even kidnapped?’
But it appeared there were not many cases of mugging in Amberwood, and as for kidnapping…
‘Are they wealthy enough?’ asked the sergeant. ‘Not meaning to pry but—’
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Donna. ‘My father’s quite successful, but we’re not in the millionaire bracket. I don’t think he’s high-profile enough for a kidnapper: he’s not a politician or a celebrity. He just imports and exports stuff.’
She saw the words, arms dealer, form in the sergeant’s mind, and to dispel ideas of Iraqi terrorists or IRA gunmen, said, ‘Mostly porcelain and good-quality pottery. Delft and Wedgwood and so on. He deals with Holland and the Low Countries in the main.’
‘Oh, I see. Then,’ said the sergeant, glancing at the young police constable who was with him, ‘I think what we’ll do next is to take a look around the cottage, if that’s all right. Oh, and we’ll arrange for someone to go to your house. Just as a routine check, you know.’
He said this rather offhandedly, but Donna saw he was thinking there might have been some sort of family row, and that their parents had gone home in a fury.
‘But after that,’ said the sergeant carefully, ‘I think we’d better start searching the immediate vicinity. I’ll call Area and get a few extra men.’
Once the Robards’ home had been checked and found entirely innocent of any leads, the nightmare that Donna was living in ratcheted up several notches. Over the next twenty-four hours the police asked questions in shops and houses, showing hastily copied photographs taken from the snaps Don had in his wallet. Have you seen this man or woman recently? Some of the restaurant owners remembered Maria and Jim Robards, who had been in for lunch once or twice, and some of the shops remembered them buying provisions. Holiday people they were, staying up at Quire. Pleasant enough. But no one had seen them in the last day or so.
It was a nightmare that teemed with police officers tramping across fields and copses, peering for wisps of clothing or shoelaces, looking for signs of disturbance or for footprints, although as Don said, footprints after all the rain seemed wildly optimistic. Donna wanted to go with the searchers, but the police said best not. Best stay at the cottage with your brother, my dear, then we’ll have a base, so to speak. A checkpoint. And who’s to say that your parents mightn’t turn up at the cottage when we’re least expecting it?
A policewoman stayed at the cottage with them, offering to make cups of tea every ten minutes, trotting out little reassuring stories about people who had turned up after being lost for days on end. They wouldn’t believe the odd things that happened in life. Amnesia and so on. And how about a bit of lunch? They had to keep their strength up, didn’t they?
On the third day, the police brought in dogs, and Donna was asked to provide items of recently worn clothing that would be imbued with their parents’ scent. She found a pair of her father’s socks and some of her mother’s underwear which the inspector said was exactly what they wanted.
Donna thought you heard a good deal about the agonies families went through when people vanished, but nobody ever mentioned that you had to burrow sordidly in linen baskets to find unwashed knickers to wave in front of police tracker dogs.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Inevitably, the police search for Maria and Jim Robards included Twygrist. Donna had told them about their mother’s interest in the place; there had been no reason not to tell them. Her parents liked local history, she said, determinedly speaking in the present tense; they often had a project like this when they were on holiday. They had stayed at Charity Cottage for several summers, so they were sufficiently at home to enjoy delving around in the area’s past.