AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘There’s a couple of things I should probably tell him. The electricians came today, so that’s good, but I’m afraid you won’t have internet until the end of the month.’
I felt like I’d been shoved on to a stage in the middle of a Chekhov play. I hadn’t studied the script and I had no idea how to ad-lib my way out of it. ‘I don’t know what on earth you’re talking about.’
‘Mushroom Cottage,’ Amelia Holmwood said, as though that cleared up everything.
‘What does Mushroom Cottage have to do with anything?’
The line went quiet for a long moment. ‘Shit,’ Amelia said. ‘Shit. Shit. Shit. I’ve ruined it, haven’t I? He hasn’t told you yet, has he?’
‘Hasn’t told me what?’
‘About the sale of the property and its new owner.’
‘Why would that have anything to do with me?’
‘Because it’syou,’ Amelia said, sounding close to tears herself. ‘The cottage is in your name. Finn bought it for you as a surprise wedding gift, and he’s going to present you with the keys when you get back from your honeymoon, only now I’ve gone and spoilt everything.’
If I hadn’t been sitting down, I doubt my legs would have been able to keep me upright. The weight of this much information was buckling me.
‘Finn bought the cottage?’
‘Yes. We completed on the sale just before your wedding.’
It was finally my turn to provide Amelia with some earth-shattering information. ‘But therewasno wedding. Finn never showed up. He’s been missing for the last six days.’
*
Ten minutes of rapid explanations later, and it was still hard to know which of us was the more shocked.
‘I thought it was weird when I went there today to let the electricians into the property. Finn had made arrangements for me to oversee various tradesmen and whatnot, so everything would be perfect by the time you came back. Anyway, I’d left the keys for the house in a key safe for Finn to pick up, before you went off on your honeymoon. But today, when I checked the box, they were still there.’
‘This is really important,’ I said unnecessarily, because I was fairly certain Amelia had worked that out for herself by now. ‘Was there any sign at all at the property that Finn had been there?’
‘No,’ she replied, emphatic in the way I hoped she would still be when Inspector Graham put this question to her very soon.
‘The driveway is being redone, and it’s really muddy at the moment. It gets churned up whenever a car arrives, but now that I think about it, the only tyre tracks I’ve seen on it over the last week have been mine and the electrician’s. I can’t tell you where he is, but I don’t think Finn ever made it to the cottage.’
33
I was talking too fast. Each word was running into the one that followed, as though breathing was now optional and I’d simply decided not to do it.
‘Slow down, Miss Fletcher – Gemma,’ pleaded Inspector Graham. It was his fourth request for me to do so. I drew in a much needed gulp of air and forced myself to be silent. ‘Okay, can you go back to what the manager of the garage said.’
My sigh was impatient. Every minute – every second – we spent on the phone was one less that could be spent searching for Finn. But this wasn’t the right time to lose my temper, not now, when – finally – it looked as though something was going to be done. With a real effort, I forced myself to speak slowly and clearly as I answered each of the officer’s questions.
‘Is it enough?’ I asked anxiously, speaking over the satisfying sound of his pen scratching on paper. He’d been making notes as I spoke. From the sound of it, a great many notes.
‘It’s not a lot,’ Inspector Graham began. My dismayed gasp was like a scythe, cutting down my hopes. ‘But itisenough to get things started. Well done, Gemma. You’ve given me something I can work with now.’
Hot tears of relief stung my eyes. ‘So what do we do next? What’s the next move?’ I glanced worriedly skywards as yet another enormous crack of thunder exploded overhead.
‘Wedo nothing,’ Inspector Graham said, giving me no chance to interject. ‘But as soon as we’re off the phone,Iwill start setting things in motion. We have procedures and protocols for these things.’
‘And they are…?’
I’m sure we both heard the frustration in my voice. He didn’t challenge me on it, and I certainly didn’t apologise.
‘First, we’ll contact the garage and the estate agent, to see if there’s anything more we can learn from them. We’ll also study the CCTV footage. There may have been other customers at the petrol station who might have seen something useful.’
