‘I watched her from the window as she left and given that she was in quite a hurry, she stood by her car and spoke on her phone for a couple of minutes. She looked frustrated, pacing back and forth, arms up and down. Actually, she looked fed up more than anything. It’s probably nothing. The amount of phone calls I make that make me fed up, this could mean nothing, especially when I’ve been talking to my infuriating family, but I thought I should mention it.’
‘Thank you,’ Gina replied with a smile. ‘If you remember anything further, call me.’
Maybe their next stop on the list would enlighten them as to what had made Susan so angry on the afternoon she went missing.
Sixteen
With Rory at nursery, Mary had a few hours to delve into her daughter’s life. She hadn’t come to check out Susan’s paperwork or to look for diary entries; she’d come to find out who Susan really was. Was she the downtrodden wife who had no freedom? Or, was she having an affair and using her children to get what she wanted from Ryan? She removed the rubber gloves and enjoyed the fresh smell that flowed through the house now that she’d given everything a good scrub and polish.
Gazing around her daughter’s bedroom, she felt a little easier about seeing it again given how messy and cold it had been. Mary had changed the bed, cleaned everything up and left the heating on a timer to warm the house a little. The musty smell had been replaced by that of furniture polish, fresh laundered sheets and lemon bleach. At least when Susan did return, she would come back to a clean house.
She opened the large door of the fitted wardrobe and slammed it closed again. It felt like an intrusion. Taking a deep breath, she opened it once again, peering through as if something may burst out from the back. Mary may have cleaned up the room but she hadn’t gone through the cupboards or looked under the bed. With shaking hands, she pulled back a few hangers that had dresses dangling from them. Under the crumpled up hemlines, piles and piles of random clothing that didn’t belong began to slip onto the floor. Bras tangled in T-shirts. Odd socks and yoga pants. Nothing was in an orderly fashion. Why had Mary not seen how chaotic Susan’s personal life was becoming? She leaned down and picked up the crumpled clothes, stuffing them back amongst the others in the hope that they would remain in the pile.
She fished through the slot at the top. Jeans, old jumpers and even a kitchen apron were stuffed together. Next to those, Mary pulled out a pile of socks and noticed the faint smell coming from them. Dirty items contaminated the crumpled clean items and were all mixed up, making it almost impossible to tell one from the other. Her mind wandered back to a couple of years ago when Mary was helping Susan to declutter a little. Her dirty clothes hadn’t been mixed with her clean ones back then, so why would they be like that now?
What had happened to Susan to cause such a big change?
As Mary gripped a T-shirt with what looked like a blueberry stain down the front she had a flash back to the week following Susan’s fifteenth birthday. Mother and daughter had been in battle for what felt like years over the state of Susan’s room. It was as if adult Susan had regressed back to this period. Mary remembered gripping the little green shoebox all those years ago.‘If you don’t clean up this mess, I’ll clean it up myself, starting with the rubbish in this box,’Mary had shouted, knowing full well that Susan hated her even being in her bedroom. After tugging the green box, back and forth, Susan finally won the battle. She’d clung on to that box like her life had depended on it. She’d sobbed in a way that everyone in the house would hear, and then she’d cleaned her room. When Susan went to school the following day, Mary went back to her bedroom in search of the box, but it hadn’t been there. What was in it had remained a secret to this day.
Mary left the wardrobe behind and headed over to the bed and sat. Maybe this was her opportunity to turn over every nook and cranny of her daughter’s house. She had nowhere to go and no one was expecting her until five thirty, when she would pick Rory up. Howard and Clare could fend for themselves. She closed her eyes, taking in the silence – something she’d not had the luxury of enjoying for a long time. With Harrison always creating drama amongst the household, quietness was a rarity.
Mary flinched as a flurry of hailstones scatter-bombed the bedroom window. Darkness had fallen and it was still early afternoon. She switched the bedroom lamp on, suddenly able to see everything more clearly.
Kneeling on the floor, she slid out the bed drawer and her shoulders dropped. There was nothing but stacks of crumpled bedding. Running her fingers through all the linen, something prevented her from reaching the edge of the drawer. Cardboard: a box. Dragging everything out, the scruffy object was in full view. Not the green box that Mary remembered, but a smaller blue box. But still it was a box, a box that Mary hoped would contain all of Susan’s innermost secrets, secrets that could lead her to understanding where Susan might be.
Seventeen
‘I hate this weather, guv. I’m like a cat. I prefer dry and warm, preferably cosy.’ Jacob grabbed his scarf from the back seat and wrapped it around his neck. Gina noticed that he had missed shaving a bit of his jawline. Action Man had missed a bit. Jacob would always look like an Action Man to Gina with his short, sprayed on hair look and handsomely chiselled jaw. ‘Do you think there’s anyone in? It looks dark in there.’
‘I guess we’ll find out in a minute.’ She glanced down at the printed information sheet she had on their next interviewee. ‘So we know where we’re at. His name is Dale Blair, thirty-five years old. O’Connor checked him out. He has an online social media presence, but only for his business. There’s not much that he shares on a personal level. In fact, he doesn’t have any personal information on view on any of his profiles. However, he is friends on Facebook with Susan and lots of other local people. Business: Dale’s Plastering Services. At least we know what he does for a living. We need to know if Susan arrived here and if so, how was she when she left. Dale could well be a person of interest in this case.’
Jacob took her notes and glanced over them. ‘Bookkeeping. I suppose this is the type of job that makes a person vulnerable. Going to people’s houses, people you don’t know and trusting that they don’t turn out to be maniacs.’
Gina chuckled slightly. ‘A bit like ours.’
He snorted out a laugh as he popped a rhubarb custard sweet into his mouth. ‘Want one?’
‘I didn’t even know you could get these any more. No, I best not. You’ll regret having that filling your mouth while we’re speaking to Dale.’
He began to crunch it swiftly. ‘It won’t last that long.’
‘I still haven’t seen any movement. If he’s out we’ll have to leave a card.’
Jacob’s hand reached his cheek. ‘Damn it! I think I’ve broken a tooth. No I haven’t – phew. That could have been both painful and costly. Both, I could do without.’
As Gina opened the car door, a gust swept past them. Hail had turned to rain and now the seats were getting wet. ‘Race you to the porch.’
The detectives ran over to the front door, Gina knocking as she made it first. Rain bounced off the driveway, almost dancing in time to the rumble of thunder that clashed above. Lightning filled the skies.
Gina flinched and stared at the rain crashing into the window and tried to ignore her quickening heartbeat. Deep breath.The thunder is nothing. The thunder is nothing.Images of her husband Terry flashed through her mind, followed by the sight of him at the bottom of the stairs in his dying moments. The thunder had clashed then, just like now. Another clash. She flinched, stepping back from Dale Blair’s front door. Her old front door had a half-moon window at the top, just like this one. She imagined the door opening and then seeing her younger self stooping over Terry, waiting for him to die before she called the ambulance. Hannah’s cries competing with the distant rolling of thunder that was building up to an almighty crash.
Clash!
‘Guv, stand under here. You’re getting drenched.’
She stared at him for what seemed like forever. ‘Yes.’ She hurried back into the porch. That was a long time ago, over twenty years. She shook her head and knocked again. The only thing behind that door was Dale’s dog, not Terry, not her younger self; she couldn’t say the same about her memories – they seemed to hide behind every door she ever opened.
‘I don’t think he’s in.’ Gina pulled a card from her bag and posted it through the letterbox. ‘Let’s get out of here. I need to dry off.’
