‘’Bye, then,’ she said. ‘And thanks for showing me the film. It was great.’
And before leaving, she gave Jamie another kiss on the mouth: one which already foretold, in its briefness and politeness, the death throes of a relationship which had scarcely begun.
18
The silence had returned. As soon as the girls went to bed, as soon as their television was turned off and their friendly chatter came to an end, that was when the silence entered the house, climbing the stairs and wreathing its way into every room like a trail of mist.
Rachel tried to ignore the silence. Tried to pretend it wasn’t there. She turned on her computer and streamed some music. She Googled the Morecambe Bay cocklepickers and, after reading some old news stories about them, added a final few paragraphs to her memoir. Still she felt horribly apprehensive and uneasy. Every muscle in her body was taut with anxiety.
While she was online, she did some more browsing and read some of today’s newspaper stories:
HELP FIND OUR JOSEPHINE, one headline said.
Thinking that there was a distant, subtle noise outside, out in the garden, Rachel turned off the music and opened the bedroom window. The restless, eternal hum of London was all that she heard. She looked out into the night. She looked down at the pit. There was nothing. No sound. No movement.
The recent death of a seven-year-old girl on the Marshall Islands could have been averted, an expert has claimed.
Chris Baxter, operations director of SafeSpace Ordnance Removal, a small NGO which has been working to raise awareness of the dangers of unexploded WW2 ordnance on the tiny group of islands, said that the area where the girl was playing should have been cleared by now.
‘Our programme of clearing this area was 70 % complete,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately our operation was closed down when one of our competitors, Winshaw Clearance, was chosen to complete the contract. As of today, my understanding is that Winshaw have yet to commence any operations in the area.’
The CEO of Winshaw Clearance, Helke Winshaw, was unavailable for comment.
A flapping noise reached her from the garden. It looked like the corner of the tarpaulin had come loose again. How had that happened?
A rustling noise, a scuttling. Like legs on loose gravel.
All in her mind. All imagination.
Fears are growing for the safety of Lord Lucrum, chairman of the Institute for Quality Valuation, who has not been seen for ten days.
The flapping of the tarpaulin was more insistent now. Rachel decided that she would have to go outside and check on it. She tiptoed quickly down the first flight of stairs, not knowing why it felt so important to be quiet. The mirrored door was wedged open, as it had been for the last few days. She slipped through it and peeped around Sophia’s half-open bedroom door. The twins had both chosen to sleep in the same bed, for some reason, their arms wrapped around each other. She could hear their gentle breathing.
Down two more flights of stairs, and into the staff kitchen. She turned on all the lights. Then, very carefully, she unbolted and opened the kitchen door. The cold night air rushed in at once, confronting her, encircling her. She stood on the threshold, not crossing it yet, listening for the tiniest of sounds, her head cocked, as tense as a hunting dog sniffing for a hint of its prey.
She stayed like that for twenty seconds or more, until there was a sudden, unexpected noise which in the stillness of the night seemed deafeningly loud and almost made her jump in the air. It was the buzzer at the front door.
Clutching her heart, Rachel rushed upstairs to look at the nearest entryphone screen.
In her haste, she had omitted to do two things. She did not close the back door properly. And although, while standing in the doorway, she had looked all around her, she had not looked down. Had she done so she would have seen, a few inches from the ground, a thin length of silvery cord, sticky and glistening, stretched across the doorway like a tripwire, then twining itself around a drainpipe and disappearing back into the pit.
*
She did not recognize the two callers at the front door, but when she went down to speak to them they both produced identity cards proving them to be detectives. One of them looked to be in his early fifties; the other seemed much younger, about twenty years younger.
‘My name is Detective Constable Pilbeam,’ the younger one said. ‘And this is my colleague, Detective Chief Inspector Capes.’
‘Otherwise known as the Caped Crusader,’ said his companion, with a hopeful smile.
Rachel returned the smile, even though she found this rather an odd remark.
‘Come in,’ she said, and led them into the sitting room. Neither of them took off their coats, but they both sat down on the nearest sofa and seemed ready to make themselves comfortable.
‘I didn’t know they called you that,’ DC Pilbeam said to his colleague, in an undertone.
‘What?’
‘The Caped Crusader.’
‘Well, they do,’ he answered sharply.
Rachel wondered whether she should offer them a drink, then decided against it. It would have been a friendly thing to do, but they probably weren’t allowed to drink on duty.
‘Who does?’ said DC Pilbeam, apparently unwilling to drop the subject.
‘Mm?’
‘Who calls you that?’
‘Everybody.’
‘I’ve never heard them.’
‘I wonder,’ said Rachel, growing impatient, ‘if you’d mind telling me what this is about.’
‘Ah. Yes.’ DCI Capes sat up straight, and adopted a formal tone of voice. ‘We’re speaking to Ms Rachel Wells, I take it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you are employed as private tutor to the daughters of Sir Gilbert and Lady Gunn?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. We’re here to make some routine enquiries about a missing person. Would we be right in thinking that you’re acquainted with one Frederick Francis, Senior Partner in the firm of Bonanza Tax Management?’
‘I know Mr Francis, yes. Is he the person who’s gone missing?’
‘Mr Francis has not been home for several days, and nobody has seen him in that time. His friends are growing concerned. Does this come as a surprise to you?’
‘That he’s gone missing, or that he has friends who are concerned about him?’
DC Pilbeam smiled. DCI Capes didn’t.
‘Please, Ms Wells, this could be a very serious matter.’
‘What’s it got to do with me anyway?’
‘Last Thursday evening,’ said DC Pilbeam, consulting his notebook, ‘Mr Francis was having a drink at the Henry Root bar around the corner. He got into conversation with one of the ladies behind the bar, and told her that he was coming round to this house. To see you. She said that at this point in the evening, he was rather the worse for drink.’ He looked up. ‘Did he visit you that evening?’
‘Yes,’ said Rachel, ‘he did.’
‘At what time?’
‘About quarter to ten.’
‘Would you mind describing the encounter?’
‘Well, there was nothing very special about it,’ said Rachel, suddenly feeling nervous and evasive. ‘We … had a drink together. Talked about this and that.’
‘What was the purpose of his visit, in your view?’
‘He’d heard that I was here by myself, looking after the children, and he was — concerned about me, I suppose. Where did he go afterwards, do you know?’
‘What time did he leave?’
‘Probably about five to ten.’
‘I see. So it was a very short visit. Surprisingly short, one might say.’
‘Yes, I suppose it was.’
‘And did you see Mr Francis leave the premises?’