AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Connie’s welling up, so Mary comforts her with an arm around her shoulders. I look at the clock again. The club is a stickler for punctuality, and if I miss my tee-time, Francis and I won’t get another one today. ‘Look, I’m sure Gwen will be fine and she’ll be home in no time,’ I say and begin to make my way towards the front door. I expect Connie to follow, and grit my teeth when she doesn’t.
‘She’s been getting worse lately,’ she continues. ‘I think part of her brain is regressing into her teenage years.’ Her face hardens. ‘She won’t leave Paul alone.’
‘Paul?’ I repeat.
‘The gardener and odd-job man.’
‘He’s the lad who cleaned the leaves out of the gutters for us,’ Mary adds.
‘Ahh of course,’ I say. ‘Very friendly young man. He said if we ever need anything doing in the garden to let him know as he’d be happy to help while he’s around.’
I think I spot Connie’s teary eyes narrow ever so slightly, as if praising Paul isn’t something she wants to hear.
‘He’s been spending a lot of time at Mum’s house,’ she says.
Mary tilts her head at this. If I’m the village busybody, she’s the village gossip. The world and his dog will hear all of this by the end of the day. ‘What do you mean?’ she asks.
‘She’s becoming dependent on him being around and it makes her confused. Half the time she thinks he’s Dad, which isn’t good for her. And it doesn’t help that he’s always there, creating more work for himself.’
‘And he hasn’t seen her either?’ I ask.
‘I haven’t seen him.’
‘Joe, I think you should call the police, just to be on the safe side.’
I grit my teeth. That’s my plans for the afternoon kiboshed.
‘But what if they think I’m overreacting?’ asks Connie.
‘Joe has contacts there who he reports his Neighbourhood Watch gripes to, so they’ll listen to him. If it was my mother out there on the streets I’d be worried sick too.’
I reach for my glasses and flick through the pages of my address book. ‘I’m going to organise a search party until the police arrive, and get a head start on finding her,’ I say. The right thing to do, certainly, and my playing a visible role in finding Gwen won’t do me any harm in my campaign to be elected chairman of the parish council this winter when Ken steps down. ‘If you’re happy that you’ve searched the village thoroughly, then we’ll start with the fields.’
I suppose I should try and comfort her but I’m not good at that sort of thing. Mary is, though, and puts her arm back around her.
‘I’m sure she’ll be okay,’ Mary says. ‘Mark my words, Gwen will be back before you know it.’
I hope we find her too. But perhaps not straight away. Not until I’ve been seen doing my bit.
CHAPTER 15
CONNIE
I hate her for doing this to me. I perch on the end of the bed in her room, angry, shattered, hungry and worried sick. I’m constantly on edge but I know it’s not her fault. She is my responsibility, and it’s on my watch that she’s gone missing. So this is on me, not her.
A day and a half has passed since I turned up here to find her house empty. But it’s hard to know for sure just how long she has been missing. Even moments after I left her the night before, she could have found her keys, unlocked the front door and vanished. Before the police arrived to search the house, I found all the pills she was supposed to have taken, wrapped in tissue and tossed in the bin. They included the sleeping tablets I’ve been adding to her cocktail of meds. Dr Chambers prescribed them to me but I started slipping them to her because it was taking her longer and longer to settle at night. I didn’t mention it to the detectives as I don’t need anyone else pointing the finger at me when I know I’m to blame.
Through her window I count a dozen uniformed and plain-clothed police officers making their way around the village streets conducting house-to-house enquiries and handing out flyers withher face, name and description splashed across them. They’re asking everyone to check their gardens, garages and sheds in case she is locked inside one, like she’s a missing cat. I also heard the humming of two police drones circling the skies above the village before making their way towards the fields and forest. Their thermal image cameras can locate people in undergrowth and woodland but have so far failed to pick up her body heat. To date, two neighbours think they might have spotted her shortly before I arrived at the house. Both say she was walking down the steep hill out of the village and towards the riverbank. But neither sighting has been confirmed. I’m told they won’t send divers to search the river until they have good reason to believe she might have fallen in.
The search began yesterday, soon after Joe contacted the police. Dozens of villagers started scouring the fields for her before the officers arrived and helped to coordinate and expand it further. I joined them this afternoon and my throat is still hoarse from shouting her name as we made our way through the forest. She’s known by more people than I thought because of her weekly church appearances. And I’m touched by how this kind, thoughtful community is bending over backwards to help us. It doesn’t matter that she and I haven’t lived here long; they consider us their own.
I move downstairs and take a cigarette from the packet I left on the kitchen worktop, lighting it from the gas hob. I ignore the photograph of the diseased lung on the front of the sleeve. I’m in no mood to be lectured. I promised myself I’d stick to vaping when I moved here, but last night I caved in and bought a packet. I’ll add it to the tally of other promises I’ve broken.
As well as her disappearance, there’s been neither hide nor hair of Paul. For weeks he’s been an unwelcome but constant presence I can’t shake, like a poltergeist or some other evil spirit. It’s too coincidental that the two of them vanished at the same time. When I told this to Detective Sergeant Krisha Ahuja, who has beenappointed my family liaison officer, she wanted to know everything I could tell her about Paul which, despite my best efforts, wasn’t much. We searched Gwen’s address book, but his number wasn’t listed under P and the page for surnames beginning with M, which may have included Paul’s surname, Michael, had been torn out.
Instead, I pointed her in the direction of the charity who inflicted him upon us. They must have his home address or a record of his van’s registration number so that roadside cameras might pick it up if he passes them. So far Krisha hasn’t let me know one way or the other.
‘Are you treating him as a suspect?’ I asked.
