The clock said five to ten and despite what Gary had said she knew he wouldn’t be back till chucking-out time. Gone. She made up her mind that by then she would have the children tucked up down here, the kettle on in case Gary fancied a last-minute cup of tea, and be ready herself for bed.
At least Gary didn’t get riled up when he had a drink or two inside him, not the way it was with some. Didn’t get randy, neither. She’d heard from Brian’s wife about him stumbling home late, not able to get the key in his own front door, but still expecting her to do it with him the minute he got into the house. What Gary did was fall asleep. Get a bit cuddly first, he would, snuggling up to her back and mumbling away, nothing she could ever understand, and then after a while he’d roll on to his back, fast off. Sweet, he looked then, lying there with a sort of smile on his face, young, too, really young.
The news was on now, Michelle thinking she would get up and switch it over, switch off. But little Natalie’s head was just so, her breath warm close against Michelle’s skin. Missing since before Christmas, the newscaster said, and there was a photograph of her there, dark hair, down past her shoulders, the woman she and Gary had been to see together at the Housing, the one who, after a lot of prodding and pushing and form-filling, had found them the place they were now. Nancy Phelan.
Michelle was on her feet, pacing, the baby whimpering a little, upset at being disturbed. All of the questions that policewoman had been asking. Have you seen her? When have you seen her? At the Housing Office? Not later? Not later?
The news had moved on to another item, a tanker aground somewhere north of Scotland, but Michelle could still hear the newscaster’s words: last seen late on Christmas Eve, shortly before midnight.
Gary standing up to her, the policewoman. “I came in and I never went out. Not till morning. Right?”
Michelle’s hands around the baby were clammy and cold.
“You didn’t see Nancy at any other time?” the policewoman had asked.
“I told you, didn’t I? I never went out.”
Michelle pressed her mouth softly against Natalie’s head, hair that was light as feathers and faint. “If you need someone to talk to, get in touch.”
Michelle’s legs were beginning to shake.
Seventeen
Robin Hidden put through a call to the police station at ten-thirty-five on Boxing Day Night. He had been sinking a pint of Boddington’s in a pub in Lancaster; earlier that day he had been climbing on the east side of the Lakes and then driven back, muscles pleasantly aching, to his friend Mark’s place near the university to dump their boots and change their clothes. They were sitting in the small bar, in front of them plates that had once held pie and chips and gravy, now wiped clean with doorsteps of bread and butter. The beer was going down a treat, backs of their legs just beginning to stiffen. The television set had been on in the other bar, attached to a bracket high on the wall, and Mark had chanced to glance over his shoulder as the picture of Nancy flashed on to the screen.
“Hey! Isn’t that …?”
By the time they had hobbled through into the main room, Robin fumbling with his glasses, the program had moved on and scarcely anyone they asked had paid much attention to what had gone before.
“Christ knows, pal,” someone had said, “but whatever it was, it weren’t good, you can bank on that.”
“That lassie,” the barman said, pulling a pint, “gone missing. Didn’t know her, did you?”
Robin Hidden pulled a five-pound note from his trouser pocket and placed it on the counter. “Ch-change please, as m-much as you can. For the phone.” The constable who took the call wouldn’t give a lot of detail, only the facts, such as they were known, simple and unadorned. He listened when Robin said that he had known Nancy, known her well, wrote down his name and asked a few questions of his own.
“When would it be convenient for you to come into the station, sir? I’m sure one of the officers dealing with the case would like to talk to you, face to face as it were, possibly make a statement.”
Robin’s first reaction had been to drive back down there and then; but he’d had two pints of beer, as Mark pointed out; and driving all that way in his condition, he’d be lucky not to get cramp in his legs.
“You’ll fall asleep at the wheel,” Mark said. “What’s to be gained from that? Far better to sleep now, set the alarm for half-five, get an early start.”
“Mid-morning,” Robin Hidden told the officer. “I’ll be there by mid-morning at the latest.”
“Very well, sir. I’ll be sure to pass that on. Goodnight.”
Mark gave his friend’s shoulder a sympathetic squeeze. Not that he wanted anything awful to have happened to Nancy, of course, but the way Robin had been mooning on about her all the time they were walking … Besides, they’d never really been suited, anyone who knew Robin could tell that.
James Guillery’s parents had tried contacting their son in Aosta, but the hotel he was supposed to be staying at denied all knowledge of him; there had been a mix-up with the travel agency, overbooking. They were given two other numbers, one of which seemed to be permanently engaged, while dialing the other resulted in a high-pitched, unbroken tone which suggested it was unobtainable. The travel agency was closed and its answering machine swallowed the Guillerys’ message halfway through.
“I don’t know how he met her,” Mrs. Guillery said. “Nancy, that is. Wherever it was, he went out with her a few times …”
“More than a few,” Mr. Guillery put in.
“Do you think so? Yes, well, I suppose it was. Though I don’t think it was ever what I’d call serious.”
“He wasn’t going to marry her, that’s what she means,” Mr. Guillery interpreted.
“No, what I mean, James seemed to like her well enough, that is, he spoke well of her, but, as I said, it never occurred to me they were what I’d call serious.”
“What she doesn’t understand,” Mr. Guillery confided, “young people today, it’s not the same. Not like it was even in our day. Young people today, they can be serious without being serious. If you see what I mean.”
Eric Capaldi’s neighbors in Beeston Rylands knew very little about him, beyond the fact that he was an engineer for BBC Radio Nottingham. Or was it Radio Trent? He owned a sports car, not new, one of those little jobs, close to the ground; forever stretching an old blanket and a piece of tarpaulin on the street, he was, then crawling underneath the engine.
One person thought he might have recognized Nancy Phelan from her photo as someone he’d once seen Eric with, but he couldn’t swear to it. How could he? Late evening it had been and the street lights down there, all very well for the council to be saving money, but when you could hardly see a hand in front of your face without there was a moon, that couldn’t be right, could it?
The woman on the switchboard at Radio Nottingham confirmed that Mr. Capaldi was on a fortnight’s leave and she had no idea where he had gone. Yes, certainly, if it was important she would try to find out. Who was it calling?
Andrew Clarke kept a half-size snooker table in the room that was still called the breakfast room and he shut himself in there with a bottle of sherry and practiced running through the balls on the table, all the reds and then the colors, right up to the black. Steadying each shot, remembering to bend low, eye along the cue, right hand firm.
“You don’t think, Andrew,” his wife said when she found him there, “you ought to go back down?”
“Whatever for?” The brown was a fraction too close to the cushion and he chipped it back next to the D.
“Well, you are sort of involved.”
“Nonsense.” Better shot now, let the cue ball spin back for the green.