Deception and Desire (2 page)

They had been wrong, of course. Whatever his personal worries Mike was not the man to let them get the better of him. He had meted out exactly the same treatment he always did – a stinging reprimand for run-of-the-mill obstreperousness, a clip around the ear for the worst offenders. Some vengeful parent could have him taken to court and charged with assault for that, he knew, but he had never let it worry him and, oddly, they respected him for it, those tough cases from the most deprived areas. In their world the law of the jungle applied, they understood it and made an icon of the powerfully-built PE teacher who had played rugby for a hugely, successful club side and been capped twice for England before a serious knee injury had put an end to his glory days.

Mike crossed the road, dodging between the almost stationary traffic, and ran up the flight of steps and into the police station foyer. It was surprisingly busy. At the desk a middle-aged woman in a headscarf and mackintosh was reporting a lost handbag, her plump, paunchy face flushed and crumpled with anxiety; behind her a young man in the city office uniform of dark suit and trenchcoat, and two girls who might have been students waited their turn.

Mike joined the queue, loosening the zip of the waxed jacket he was wearing over his dark-blue tracksuit and dripping rainwater on to the tiled floor. One of the two girls turned round and glanced at him, her eyes brightening with interest as she became aware of the ruggedly good-looking face beneath the short cropped hair, already shot at the temples with more than a sprinkling of premature grey. Those first specks of silver had appeared when Mike was only twenty-two and he had been horrified. Though not in the least vain they had given him a stomach-churning sensation of time racing by and youth slipping away. ‘Don't worry about it, darling,' Judy, Mike's ex-wife, had said. ‘ Men who go grey don't usually go bald too.' And for once she had been right. No – not for once. Judy's indisputable habit of always being right had been, he thought, her most irritating trait, infuriating him even as he reluctantly admired her for it. But in this instance he was glad that, so far at least, it seemed her reputation for being right had not been sullied. He was thirty-three years old now, and unlike so many rugby players he still had a full head of hair.

The girl's eyes lingered now, noticing the slightly irregular jawline and the nose that had taken a battering in numerous scrums, the hazel eyes, green-flecked, the mouth with its deep, well-defined lower lip. Becoming aware of her scrutiny Mike returned her gaze and she looked away hastily, embarrassed by her own wishful thoughts. Mike saw the pink flush rise in her cheeks before it was hidden behind a curtain of hair, and instantly forgot it. Teaching in a comprehensive he had become used to being ogled by pubescent Lolitas and their seductive older sisters, girls who combined the freshness of youth with the alarming knowingness of modern teenagers. Their attentions had been a part of his life for so long now that he had come to accept it without much thought – except for keeping a sharp eye out for the traps that lay in wait for the unwary male teacher. And in any case, today he was too preoccupied to give any one of them a second thought.

The queue moved forward and Mike glanced at his watch, hoping he had put enough time on the parking meter. With the police station so close by the area would probably be crawling with traffic wardens returning to base at the end of their shift and he did not want the hassle – or the expense – of a parking ticket. As a teacher his salary wasn't so great that he could pay it and not notice. But if he got a ticket he got one. It was the least of his worries just now, barely of any importance set against the reason he was here.

Another policeman appeared and spoke to the girls, and Mike found himself at the counter where the original duty policeman made a note on a form and looked up at him. ‘Yes, sir?'

Mike cleared his throat, feeling slightly foolish.

‘I want to report a missing person.'

The policeman's expression remained implacable.

‘Oh yes, sir, and who is that?'

‘My girlfriend.' That, too, sounded stupid, he thought, like one of his sixteen-year-olds talking about his current date. But then how else did one describe someone who was as Ros was to him? They had been together for a good long while now but there was no formal relationship. She wasn't his wife or his fiancée, she wasn't even his live-in lover. Ros hadn't wanted to give up her independence. Like him she had a broken marriage behind her, like him she had been wary of committing herself again. Theirs was an adult relationship between two highly individual people, and it had worked well enough. Until now …

‘Your girlfriend.' There was a hint of a sneer on the policeman's almost expressionless face now, indicating that the ludicrousness of the term had occurred to him too. ‘ How old is she?'

‘How old?' Even given his earlier thoughts Mike was surprised by the question. ‘Twenty-seven. No, twenty-eight. She had a birthday last month.'

‘I see. And when did you last see her?'

‘Just over a week ago. Before I went off to camp.' Mike ran his fingers through his wet hair which was threatening to drip into his eyes. ‘Perhaps I should explain. I'm a teacher at St Clement's Comprehensive. We run a school camp every summer and I usually get talked into being one of the members of staff to go. We left last Friday week.'

‘Hardly camping weather,' the policeman observed. ‘Where did you go?'

‘The Isle of Wight. It rained practically all the time. Anyway, I saw Ros on the Wednesday before I left – I was too busy packing and so on to see her on the Thursday night. I tried to telephone her once or twice whilst I was away but got no reply, just her answering machine. I didn't think too much of it – she's a busy lady and out quite a lot. But when I got home and still couldn't get hold of her I began to wonder what the hell was going on. I drove over to her place on Saturday and she wasn't there. It looked as though she hadn't been there all week.'

‘What exactly do you mean by that, sir?'

‘Well – how do you usually tell someone hasn't been at home? Papers and post lying on the mat, milk gone sour in the fridge, dead flowers in the vases … you know the sort of thing. I have a key … when she didn't answer the door I let myself in.'

‘So the place was all locked up.'

‘Yes. Obviously. I told you – she wasn't there.'

‘Perhaps she'd decided to take a holiday – like you, sir.'

‘Without telling me – or anyone – she was going?'

‘Why not? She is twenty-eight years old, you say. At that age she doesn't have to answer to anyone.'

‘Well I know that!' Mike said, annoyed by the policeman's patronising manner. ‘But it's totally unlike her to just take off like that. Ros is a very organised lady. If she was going on holiday she would have cancelled the papers, thrown away any milk that might go sour and made sure everything was in order. She'd hate to come back to vases of dead sweet peas and tubs of mouldy yoghurt. And besides, there's her job. Ros has a very high-powered position as personal assistant to Dinah Marshall.'

‘Dinah Marshall.' The policeman looked up, eyes narrowing. ‘You mean … ?'

‘Yes –
the
Dinah Marshall. Vandina – you know?'

The policeman nodded, looking interested for the first time, and Mike experienced a moment's grim satisfaction. Even he would have heard of Vandina – worldwide fashion leaders in quality leather accessories and beautiful silkscreen-printed scarves, whose headquarters was just a few miles from the heart of the city, yet set in the open countryside that was its inspiration. Twenty-five years ago Dinah, together with her husband and mentor, Van Kendrick, had opened the first little factory in a barn at the rear of their farmhouse home and in a success story that might have rivalled a fairytale they had gone on to take the world by storm. Vandina bags, belts and wallets were sold now in exclusive stores from London to New York, Paris to Hong Kong (only the most exclusive stores were allowed to market them – a deliberate policy of Van's which had undoubtedly paid handsome dividends in terms of desirability). Vandina scarves graced the necks of the rich, the titled and the famous wherever they gathered at races or horse trials or point-to-point meetings. The Vandina slogan, ‘A Touch of the Country', appeared on double-page-spread advertisements in
Vogue
and
Harpers
as well as commercial publications such as the prestigious Peninsula Group magazine, distributed to those who patronised the most famous and luxurious hotel chain in the Far East, and fashion editors fell over themselves to get a scoop on details of the new season's collections or some fresh avenue Vandina planned to branch into.

‘Ros has been with Vandina ever since she left college and she takes her responsibilities as Dinah's assistant very seriously,' Mike said. ‘I contacted the company on Monday after I got home, and found her missing. They don't know where she is either. It seems she phoned the office first thing in the morning on Tuesday of last week and said she wouldn't be in. She wanted to take some emergency leave. They haven't heard from her since.'

The smirk was back on the policeman's face but it was a smirk of weariness rather than humour.

‘Well there you are then, sir. She decided she wanted a bit of a break and took it. There's no law against that, you know.'

Mike felt his exasperation growing.

‘You're not hearing a word I'm saying, are you? That's not like Ros either. She lives for her job, thinks she's indispensable, and knowing what she puts into it she probably damn near is. When she takes her holiday, twice a year, she makes certain everything is set to run smoothly and she still frets about it while she's away. She'd never just leave them in the lurch unless something pretty catastrophic had happened. But she gave no word of explanation, no reason for wanting to leave, no indication of where she was going. Nothing. That phone call, as I say, was on the Tuesday morning. They haven't heard from her since. Frankly I'm extremely worried about her. There is something very odd about all this. That's why I've come to report her missing.'

The policeman sighed. He still looked unconvinced but he nodded resignedly and lifted a flap in the counter.

‘All right, sir, you'd better come through to the interview room and we'll take a few details.'

Mike followed him along a corridor to a small interview room furnished only with a bare table and two or three chairs. A clock on the wall showed 5.10, but the grey light filtering in through the small high-up window made it feel, somehow, much later. The constable flicked a wall switch and the room flooded with harsh white light.

He fetched a form and sat down, indicating Mike should sit opposite him.

‘Name?'

‘Rosalie Newman. Rosalie Patricia Newman.'

‘Address?'

‘Woodbine Cottage, Stoke-sub-Mendip.'

The policeman stopped writing.

‘Stoke-sub-Mendip. That's not our patch.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘It comes under the jurisdiction of another division. This is the city. You should be reporting this to your local police station.'

‘This is my local police station, damn it!
I
don't live in Stoke-sub-Mendip. And what the hell difference does it make anyway?'

‘There's no need to take that tone, sir. I'm pointing out that if the lady lives in Stoke-sub-Mendip this should be reported to her local police station.'

‘But since I am here …'

‘Since you are here I'll take the details and pass them on. Now, do you have a photograph?'

Mike reached into his jacket pocket and extracted his wallet. This, at least, he had anticipated. The photograph was the best one he had been able to find of Ros, taken by a commercial photographer at the Vandina dinner-dance last Christmas. He looked at it for a moment, at Ros's wide-set blue-green eyes and lovely clear-featured face framed by sharply bobbed dark-brown hair, and the smooth shapely line of her shoulders bare above the line of her strapless emerald-green evening gown. She was half smiling in that typically enigmatic way of hers, looking straight at the camera with a hint of challenge in her eyes. It was almost, he felt suddenly, as if she was reaching out to tease him. Abruptly he pushed the photograph across the desk and saw the policeman's mouth twist in wry appreciation.

‘This is her?'

‘Yes. It was taken about six months ago. It's a good likeness.'

‘Hmm.' The policeman eyed Mike, taking in his waxed jacket and tracksuit, and Mike imagined he could read his thoughts: What's a girl like that doing with a bloke like him? No wonder she's disappeared!

With an effort he controlled his irritation as the policemen fired off a seemingly endless list of questions. What sort of car did Ros drive, what was its number and was it also missing? Mike confirmed it was and the questions continued. What family did Ros have? Who were her friends? Names? Addresses? Was there anywhere she might have gone? Had she ever gone missing before? Any known problems? Debts? Family crises? Disagreements or even outright quarrels?

Perhaps amongst this plethora of information there was something relevant, Mike thought. And what had he expected anyway? He had been annoyed at not being taken seriously, then annoyed because they were doing their job. What had got into him?

At last it was over. The policeman put down his ballpoint pen.

‘Right, sir, I'll pass this on for enquiries to be instigated. But I think I should explain – if we do find Miss Newman there's no guarantee we shall be able to tell you where she is.'

‘What the hell do you mean?' Mike exploded.

‘It could be, sir, that Miss Newman doesn't want you to know,' the policeman said darkly. ‘ Often when people disappear it's for the very good reason that they want to cut contact with someone. And that, of course, is their right. We have to respect that in the case of adult persons.'