Murder Among Us Page 13

  broidered chairback protectors depicting crinolined ladies in flower gardens.

  Markby was offered and accepted an exceedingly small glass of Cyprus sherry and sat uncomfortably trying not to crush the satin cushions or disarrange the flower ladies. It was fairly clear to him that his host lived in the home created by his parents more than fifty years before and had neither taken anything from it nor added anything to it except possibly a few of the books.

  "I really don't see how I can help you, ah, Chief Inspector," said Grimsby when hospitability had been dispensed. He peered at Markby as if reassuring himself that this really was a chief inspector of suitable demeanour and not some impostor.

  'Tm trying to find out as much as I can about Mrs. Bryant."

  Grimsby looked huffy. 'Tm sure I can't tell you anything!"

  "Then tell me about the historical society. Who formed it? Did Ellen belong to it for a long time?"

  "We formed ourselves," said Grimsby reproachfully. "Six years ago. Hope and I were original members together with others who for one reason or another fell by the wayside. Ellen joined us about three years ago. I had met her before in connection with the Chamber of Commerce but I had no close acquaintance with her. I really must stress that. Robin Harding joined us about a year ago and little Zoe only recently. I have to say I suspect that young lady is less interested in history than in her horses. You know Schuhmacher threatens to evict her and her animals, I suppose? Though not an animal lover myself, I have every sympathy as I feel it's typical of the man's high-handed way. I called on him in London to discuss our objections to his plans. I thought he would at least be civil to a fellow businessman. But he was extremely offensive."

  "Yes I know—about the horses, that is. But if you and Hope were friends—"

  "Colleagues!" corrected Grimsby stiffly.

  "But friends too, surely, after six years on the same committee?"

  "I admit I did get along well with Hope," Grimsby conceded grudgingly. His tone sharpened. "Did until she saw fit to stage that ridiculous demonstration. I have to say my view of Hope changed."

  In more ways than one, Markby found his alter ego whispering.

  "I cannot afford to be made to look either foolish or disorderly to the Chamber of Commerce! Neither could Mrs. Bryant. That, I imagine, was why she left the scene before Hope's exhibition. Why she went down to the cellars I can't even guess."

  "But until that Saturday you and Hope were friendly," Markby persevered. "The young people, Robin and Zoe, were drawn together—" Grimsby gave him a slightly furtive look. "So Ellen had no ally on the committee..."

  Grimsby had begun to look uncomfortable. ' * We were a committee. Committees are supposed to work together. The members do not, Chief Inspector, form alliances!"

  "In my experiences of committees, that's very often exactly what happens."

  "I have not your experience of committees, Chief Inspector. May I offer you another sherry?"

  This ought to have sounded like an invitation to linger and chat but in fact it sounded quite the reverse. Markby took the hint. He rose to his feet. "I really am anxious to find out about Ellen's friends and acquaintances, Mr. Grimsby. So anything you can remember, just give me a call."

  "I doubt there will be anything!" said Grimsby, opening the door for his visitor. "Goodnight, Chief Inspector!"

  Contrary to his habit, Markby stopped off on his way home for a pint. This murder was beginning increasingly to look like one of those which were resolved at the

  expense of unpleasantness throughout the local community as people's private lives were exposed to public scrutiny. Did Grimsby have a secret behind his lace curtains? Did Hope Mapple? Did Eric? Had Hope, more by chance than by any process of deduction, hit the nail on the head when she claimed Ellen had discovered something odd at Springwood Hall 9

  The mysterious money in the accounts of the craft-work shop begged explanation, but what? Eric was a wealthy man and might have attracted the attentions of a greedy and unscrupulous person in possession of some awkward information. But perhaps the whole idea of blackmail w ? as wrong. Ellen might have been a gambler and won the whole lot on the ponies. She might have been one of those people who saved their junk and took it to carboot sales; something Markby had been informed was quite profitable. Or she might have sold something more profitable still and in far greater secrecy. An attractive woman, Ellen. Why not a little discreet upmarket whoring? Had Ellen then been the victim of blackmail and not its instigator? Her accounts showed no large sums of money withdrawn. But there were forms of payment other than cash.

  "Funny old job you've got!" Robin Harding had said to him, quite rightly. Funny old job, indeed. Suddenly the urge to go to McVeigh and ask to be taken off the case became overwhelming. He no longer wanted to know any more about Ellen, to ask anyone any more questions or deal with people who manifestly didn't want to talk to him and regarded his arrival as an unwarranted intrusion. He wanted to go home.

  But home, when he got there, was an empty 7 place. The resounding echo of the front door as it shut behind him, the rustle of uncollected post under his feet, the unwashed breakfast cup and plate still where he'd left them on the draining board in the kitchen, all these things added to his sense of isolation.

  He wished very much that Meredith were there. He

  wondered what she did in London when not at work. He wondered about her friends. He wondered about them quite a lot and especially if there were any particular person. She hadn't said so. He fancied she would tell him if she met anyone else, anyone special. But why should she? She was not accountable to him for what she did nor he to her. But he did wonder, all the same.

  Markby cooked up a packet of fish fingers and ate them with bread and butter for his supper. Paul was always telling him how to make quick, nutritional and eye-pleasing meals from fresh ingredients. But Paul liked messing about in the kitchen and Markby didn't. He read the newspaper and then turned on the television for the news, but dozed off before it came on with his feet on the camel saddle footstool he'd gained when he and Rachel had split up. Neither of them had wanted it and Rachel being Rachel, items neither of them wanted ended up forming his share of their divided goods and chattels.

  The persistent double buzz of the telephone awoke him. He opened his eyes with a start and looked at his watch. It was a little before midnight. He got up, switched off the television and picked up the receiver. 4 'Hullo?"

  "Thank God, Alan, you're there!" It was Paul, his brother-in-law, clearly agitated.

  Markby asked quickly, "Is something wrong with Laura?"

  "No, it's Emma—she's gone! She's not in her room! Laura looked in on the kids on her way to bed as she always does and Emma's gone—just vanished!"

  "Hold on!" Markby interrupted firmly. "I presume she went to bed as usual?"

  "Yes, yes! Just as usual! Where on earth—"

  "Have you checked the house and garden and are any of her clothes missing?"

  "Yes, yes and yes!" Paul shouted down the line. "She's not in the house and she's wearing her jeans,

  boots and anorak as far as we can tell. She'd folded up her pyjamas and put them back in her bed—" At this point Paul's voice became unsteady.

  Markby said, "Take it easy, old chap. I'll be right over."

  A missing child. One of the worst experiences to suffer. For him this was a special pain, not only because Emma was his niece and godchild but because she was for him the daughter he'd never had and probably now never would. He was in his forties with a childless marriage and long years of being single behind him and he didn't suppose that now, even if he ever managed to persuade Meredith to marry him, there would ever be fatherhood. Nor that now, at his time of life, could he be sure he would be able to cope with the reality of babies, wet and squawling and being sick on one.

  Besides the pain and alarm as he drove, he knew too fast, towards his sister's house, he also felt anger. Anger with himself for all the times he'd kept silent when he'd wan
ted to say that they encouraged Emma in an independence she was too young to manage, and anger with them, Paul and Laura, because they'd let this happen. And yet he knew he was being cruelly unjust, even as these jumbled thoughts filled his brain. Because Emma had not vanished from that lonely country bus-stop or the lane to the stables, but from her own bed beneath her family roof and there was no rhyme, reason or anything comprehensible in it.

  Unless it was a childish prank. He found himself clinging to the idea. Yes, a midnight adventure, hiding in the garden, daring herself to be brave .. . She'd come indoors soon, probably by the time he got there she'd be back already. He'd walk in and see her sitting at the kitchen table drinking cocoa and being scolded and kissed alternately by her relieved parents.

  And yet some cold frightening little voice inside his head whispered no, that this was a fulfilment of the pre-

  monition he'd been harbouring three or four days now, an inexplicable sense of foreboding. He had sensed, know, that some threat hovered over Emma. And he hadn't been able to stop it reaching her

  All the lights in the Danby house were ablaze as he drew up. The front door stood open and he strode in. Laura, pale as death, shot out of the sitting room and hugged him wordlessly. He put his arms round her and said, "All right, Laurie, don't break down now. It'll be all right."

  What a stupid, feeble encouragement, he thought, but he couldn't manage better.

  As his sister broke away and sniffed into a damp handkerchief, he spotted from the corner of his eye his nephew sitting on the top stair in his dressing gown. "Hullo, Matthew!" he called up. "You've got no idea where she's gone off to, I suppose? No secret adventure plan? Nothing she swore you to secrecy about? Because it won't be breaking a solemn oath to tell now. Now's the time to speak up."

  "No," said Matthew. "I told Dad and Mum she didn't say anything to me." Passionately he added, "But she's pinched my bike! Dad checked the shed to see if she was hiding there and it's gone! She's got my bike! I bet she writes it off. She wrote off hers—"

  "All right, all right!" Paul had come into the hall. "You hop off to bed. Go on!"

  Matthew got up and trailed morosely along the landing. "Bet she falls off, bet the chain comes off, bet she scratches the paint—"

  His bedroom door closed on this litany.

  In the sitting room Markby asked, "You've checked with immediate neighbours? How about her friends? They might have planned some midnight jape as kids do. You know, a feast in someone's garden shed." He heard his voice repeat his hoped-for solution and fought to keep the anxiety out, the desperate desire to hear his own fears assuaged.

  mger

  "Feast!" Paul's face turned pale with consternation. "Bloody bell! The apples, the baked beans, half a of bread! Stuffs been going missing for a week! She must have been squirrelling it away!"

  We have checked the neighbours and her firienc Laura spoke, tense but confrollnd

  have gone? You're sure she didn't leave a note?"

  ied even-where 1 Of course we're Matt's bike, she could be any-

  "Al sure! .And she's take where!''

  Markby was only "The chances are dK trusts. Was she in tat herself, been told off high dudgeon but ge known it to happen.'

  "Not Emma!" U trouble a: home "

  Maridbj frowned. har^ 5;m m is m/. bks?"

  The parenti excha: Smuhnmcner giving saad. "Bur she wank n:gh:. sure a' Tne pi; to bed . . . damn it, -Bui Emma woman'

  ~"Ol id Ma

  vs and

  next daw I

  in ve

  ura said firmly. i% She wasn't in

  N:t a: .. me but elsewhere, per-on holiday. What about the sta-

  ge-d glances. ""She was upset about die stables notice to quit," Lama n': have gene mere at this time of ;e •-• ... :e ■ ma m mm Zm :mm le's mot no nhone m that caravan. go there in die middle of the

  :kbv. "I'll phone the stau

  now

  "No!" Pam snapped "She's on a bike, anyway!" Fair enough. This still could be some childish pranL Famous Five stuff.'' Maridby dialled through and relayed

  request "Yes. bicycle, we dunk. She has long fair hair and is probably

  wearing jeans, gumboots and a blue anorak. That's right. Yes, her friends have been checked. No, no, I don't think so ..." He glanced at Paul. "Did you try the local hospital?"

  "No," Paul said dully and Laura sat down on the nearest chair and put her head in her hands.

  After that it was a long wait through the darkest, chilliest and loneliest stretches of the night, a wait for news which didn't come. At four in the morning, the hour when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb, Markby went to Bamford police station to make sure everything was being done which could be until light. The town was empty and desolate. Everyone was abed even the cats. Empty fish and chip wrappers floated down the gutters and a few aluminium lager cans rolled noisily across the shopping precinct. There was a supermarket trolley wedged among bushes on the roundabout and the window of an electrical goods store was cracked. He supposed the night patrol had already seen and reported that.

  At the station they were professional and reassuring. He realised with a mixture of irritation and despair that they saw him at this moment not as one of themselves, much less their chief, but as another worried member of the public.

  They offered him tea. They said, "It's all right, sir! We've had experience of this kind of thing before! Most runaways return home within twenty-four hours. I expect the little girl will be back in the morning. After all, she couldn't have got far, could she?"

  He lost his temper at that, crashing his fist on the counter and yelling, "Don't give me that! She's eleven years old and she doesn't play damfool tricks like this every day of the week! She's got a bike and could have got miles! That's if she hasn't had an accident, been knocked flying by a car which might not even have seen her in the dark! So get moving! This is my niece and I want her found! Got that? Put in a request for that hel-

  icopter to be sent up in the morning! Make some use of the taxpayers' money!"'

  Driving back to Laura's he paused before the dark front of Needles craftshop. Engine idling, he contemplated the windows of Ellen's flat as the steel grey fingers of dawn touched them. Ellen's death was his main case at the moment but now Emma was missing, how to concentrate on it? Impossible.

  He sighed and tapped his fingers on the rim of the steering wheel, a wave of discouragement sweeping over him. It had been a salutary experience to be on the wrong side of the counter in his own station. How many worried relatives were plied with tea and platitudes, unable to do as he had done and bawl out the night team? One thing for sure, he thought grimly, from now on, any worried parent coming to Bamford station was going to get maximum practical assistance and pronto! He'd see to that!

  He drew away from the silent shopfront and went to reassure his sister, sounding, he knew, much as the night team had sounded when mouthing their reassurances to him, seeing the frustration and anger on his sister's face and knowing how the parents of the missing child felt, unable to do anything more about it.

  When it was light he went home, showered and shaved and prepared to go back to work. He was just drinking a quick cup of coffee when his phone rang.

  Markby seized it. "Paul? Has she been found?"

  ''No. Alan, it's me. Meredith ..."

  Puzzled, he tried to adjust, slurring his words with tiredness and mental confusion. 'Tm sorry, I was expecting ... I thought Paul or Laura might. . . why are you ringing?"

  'Ts something wrong?" Meredith asked. "I'm sorry to call so early but I'm just off to work . . . Alan?"

  He said simply. "Emma's missing."

  There was a barest pause. Then Meredith said, "I'D

  phone in and tell the office I'm taking a few days off 111 be back in Bamford later on today " y

  "Thanks .. . thanks . .." he mumbled, and putting the Phone back on the rest, went into work to org Js? the

  Eleven

  When Markby walked in
to the police station, Wpc Jones was on the telephone. He had plenty on his mind without anything new added to it so he walked briskly past her, heading for the stairs. But as he reached the bottom tread, the word "stable" fell on his ear. Markby wheeled about and strode back, signalling his query to Jones.

  She put her hand over the mouthpiece and said, "It's the young woman who runs the Alice Batt Rest Home. She's calling from a public phone box on the old Bam-ford road. Someone's stolen an animal, a donkey, and she's in a real old state. She's says the animal's worthless. It hasn't strayed. It was taken from their stableblock last night sometime."

  "Let me have that!" Markby almost snatched the receiver from her. "Zoe? Chief Inspector Markby here. What's all this about a donkey?"

  "I can't understand it," came Zoe's distraught voice. "Maud's very old and quite valueless. Who'd want her? She's very bad-tempered too and I can't understand her going quietly with a stranger. And another odd thing. There's a bicycle in the barn. It wasn't there last night. It's a boy's bike, quite a nice one. It looks as if someone rode it here last night, took Maud and left the bike. Is it some horrid practical joke? Because if so, it's not funny. But if it isn't, well, it just doesn't make sense!"

  "It does to me!" said Markby grimly. "I'll be right there, Zoe!"

  Zoe was waiting for him at the gate to the yard. She looked more than usually dishevelled and as he drove

  up began to point wildly at the barn and mime her misfortune. The animals were wandering about the yard in a desultory fashion. Markby got out of his car and she dragged the gate open.

  "It's awfully good of you to come so quickly and in person!" she began. "I thought just a constable—"

  "There's something you don't know!" he interrupted. "Emma's missing."