Elizabeth Is Missing (10 page)

A woman in a padded body-warmer the same colour as the cups comes towards me with a tin of biscuits. “We haven’t seen you before,” she says.

“No,” I say. And then I go blank. I can’t think where I am. Or why. I wobble slightly on the flagstones and my breath catches. I take two biscuits from the tin, balancing them on my saucer.

“Are you local? Or visiting?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, feeling foolish and panicky. “I mean, where are we exactly?”

She smiles. It’s a kind smile, but it’s full of embarrassment. “This is St Andrew’s.”

The name means nothing. I don’t like to ask any more.

“Perhaps you usually go to the chapel?” she suggests. “There’s one just a couple of streets away.”

I shake my head. I haven’t forgotten my religion, I know I’m not a Wesleyan or Baptist or anything. I’m not even really a Christian.

“Sorry,” I say. “I’m a bit forgetful.”

The woman looks as though she thinks this description doesn’t quite cover it, but she nods and takes a sip of tea before introducing me to the vicar. Luckily, I have been practising my name in my head.

“How do you do?” the vicar says, shaking my hand. His hands are incredibly soft, as if they have been worn smooth by the amount of handshaking he has had to do. “I hope you enjoyed the service.”

I wasn’t aware that it was the sort of thing you were supposed to enjoy, so the question rather takes me by surprise. “Oh,” I say.

He and the woman in the body-warmer start to move away, frightened off by my inarticulacy, and I look down at my tea and biscuits, uncertain what to do with them. I watch as a man takes two sugar lumps from his saucer, drops them into his tea and stirs. And, with a sigh of relief, I do the same with my biscuits, stirring the pulpy mixture round and round. When I look up, everyone in the little group of people is staring at me, except the woman in the body-warmer, whose eyes are fixed on the ceiling.

She nudges the man next to her and he coughs. “No, she wasn’t well at all,” he says. “It was Rod who found out about it. He used to pick her up. Didn’t you, Rod?”

A small man with a comb-over nods. “Yes, that’s right,” he says. “So, naturally, her son rang me. I told him we’d pray for her . . .”

“Of course, of course.”

“Actually, I’d been to the house several times needlessly before I got a call. Rather annoying. Stood outside waiting, and no answer.”

“Elizabeth,” I say suddenly. I hadn’t meant to.

The woman in the body-warmer looks at me, finally.

“Elizabeth,” I say again. “She’s missing.”

“Yes. That’s right, dear. She
is
missing from our congregation. Never mind.” She turns to the others.

I bite my lip in humiliation, but I must catch at the chance before I forget. “No,” I say. “I’ve been looking for her. She isn’t at home.”

“Not at your home?” the woman asks, careful with each syllable. She really is very irritating. I suppress the urge to scream.

“No, no, she’s a friend of mine. She’s gone missing.”

The comb-over man frowns and smoothes a hand over his head. The long, thin hairs seem to be embedded in his scalp. “She’s not missing—”

“Where is she then?” I ask. “I’ve been to her house.”

“Well, dear,” the woman says, looking at the group. “Perhaps it was the wrong house.”

Her voice is quiet, as if she doesn’t want anyone to hear her suggestion, but her words are very clear, and they are listening closely. The vicar coughs and shifts his feet, and the other man smoothes his head again. Her tone is final and I can already feel the conversation moving on. In a moment someone will mention the weather. I get a flash of heat. How dare they dismiss me, these people who are supposed to care about Elizabeth? How dare they?

“I didn’t go to the wrong house,” I say quietly, steadily, the assertion making me feel like a small child. “I’m not stupid. Elizabeth is missing.” I take a shuddering breath in the silence. “Why don’t you care? Why won’t anyone do anything?” I think I’m beginning to shout, but I can’t help it. “Anything could have happened to her. Anything. Why will no one do a thing to help find her?”

Frustration constricts my breathing. I squeeze the cup in my hand and then throw it at the ground. It smashes easily on the stone floor of the church and the sound rings through the building as the syrupy, crumb-filled tea soaks into the mortar between the flagstones. The woman in the body-warmer puts down her cup and picks up the broken remains of mine.

“Perhaps I’d better take you home,” she says.

She leads me gently away from the vicar and puts me in her car. And she is very patient when I give her the wrong directions to my house and we have to go round the one-way system a second time. As she drives along I write a note to myself:
Elizabeth not at church
. The woman sees me writing it and reaches over to pat my hand.

“I shouldn’t worry if I were you, dear,” she says as she helps me out of the car. “God looks after his flock. You must look after yourself.”

She offers to collect me for church next Sunday, but I tell her I’m not really up to it. She nods in understanding and there is a touch of relief in her smile.

T
he police station is still in its original building. The stone front, with “1887” carved above the door, and the big glass hallway lantern, are somehow reassuring, but the floor inside looks as though it’s wet and I’m not sure about stepping on it. I stand for a moment at the threshold, wondering how “drunk and disorderlies” manage on the slippery surface, and I put a hand against the wall when I go in, keeping to it as I walk round.

After a few steps I find I am leaning on a noticeboard. I stop and read out the words of a poster pinned in the middle: “Cash-machine criminals operate twenty-four hours a day.” I wonder what a cash-machine criminal is and how they manage to stay awake for so long. The thought makes me feel tired. There’s a wooden thing for sitting, a long wooden seat, next to me, but I can’t sit down, I must keep on. I must do the thing I came to do. For a moment I can’t think what it is. My mind is blank. My arm starts to shake and my heart beats in my stomach. I take a deep breath and put a hand into the pocket of my cardigan, looking for a note. I must have written it down, whatever it was. There must be a reminder somewhere.

I pull out lots of coloured squares of paper, the edges curling against the skin between my thumb and forefinger. I don’t like having to take my other hand away from the wall to shuffle through them. I don’t feel I can trust my balance. I find a pink square with today’s date—if it is today’s date; I’m not sure. And a yellow square with my daughter’s telephone number on it, in case of emergencies. There’s a recipe for vegetable soup, though most of it seems to be missing, and the ingredients list stops at “onions.” But I can’t see anything to tell me why I’m here.

“Hello, Mrs. Horsham,” a voice says.

I look up. There’s a desk on the other side of the room with a sign saying
POLICE RECEPTION
. I read it aloud. A man is behind the desk, but I can only just see him through the shine on the glass divide. I push the notes back into my pocket and walk past a bench, worn and wooden. Is that where they put the newly arrested people, I wonder? Is this place full of drunks and prostitutes and street thieves at night? Doesn’t seem possible. Now, in the middle of the day, it’s all quiet, and I can hear the echo of my footsteps as I walk towards the desk.

When I get closer I can make out the dark epaulettes, like tiny wings, on the man’s white shirt. He smiles up from his computer screen and I find myself smiling back, the way I used to with Frank, the muscles around my lips automatically obeying his. I can’t think how he knows my name.

“Same as usual?” he says, his voice sounding metallic through the speakers.

“Usual?” I say.

“Elizabeth, is it?” He nods, as if encouraging me to say a line in a play.

“Elizabeth, yes,” I say, amazed. Of course, that’s what I’ve come for. I’ve come for her. “Do you know about Elizabeth?” I ask, feeling a rush of relief. Perhaps someone is investigating after all. Someone is looking for her. Someone knows about her disappearance. A weight lifts from my shoulders. How long have I been struggling to make anyone listen?

“Oh, yes, I know all about Elizabeth,” he says.

Tears of relief come into my eyes and I smile through them.

“Missing, right?”

I nod.

“Probably that no-good son of hers, don’t you think?”

I move my shoulders in helpless agreement.

“And no one else seems to think she’s missing. That it?”

“That’s it exactly, Officer,” I say, clinging on to the counter.

“Thought it might be.” He grins at me for a couple of seconds. I have a sinking feeling. “This’ll be the . . . let me see”—he clicks at the computer a few times—“the fourth time you’ve been in.”

Fourth time? “So,” I say. “Is someone looking for Elizabeth already, then?” I know as soon as the words are out of my mouth that it’s hopeless.

He laughs. “Oh, yeah. I’ve got every man on the force out. Sniffer dogs, forensics, flying squad. They’re all out there”—he pauses to skim a hand through the air—“looking for your friend Elizabeth.”

I go hot at his words. My armpits prickle. I can see what he thinks of me now, and I feel sick. The tears spill over, finally, and I turn away so he won’t see them.

“Forget the drug dealers and the rapists and the murderers, I told the team,” the policeman says. “What about that no-good son of old Lizzie . . .”

I don’t hear any more because I’m hurrying out of the building and into the street. The cooler air catches at the wet patches on my cheeks. I stand by the bus stop and cover my mouth with the sleeve of my cardigan. This was a last hope. If the police won’t take me seriously, what chance is there of ever seeing Elizabeth again?

I don’t remember going to the police station about my sister; Dad went on his own to report her missing, and again after we’d spoken to her neighbours. He and Ma went often after that, to find out what was being done, what might have been discovered, but they never took me with them. I do remember a policeman coming to the house, though, to ask us about Sukey. He was there when I got home from school.

“I did say I’d pop in,” he said, sitting at our kitchen table, the plate in front of him loaded with slices of cake. He had shiny brown hair and dark shadows under his eyes. And he wasn’t in uniform. “But this screaming business seems to be totally unrelated, happened weeks and weeks ago, according to neighbours—I had a constable check. And it’s like they told you at the station: people are being reported missing left, right, and centre nowadays. The men can’t get used to being back on Civvy Street, or the women can’t get used to having their husbands home again, and so they’re off. And we get the poor abandoned folk crying to us.”

“But Frank always was home,” Ma said, putting the teapot down and sliding on to the chair next to me.

“Eh? Didn’t fight?” The policeman looked up from his cake, a crumb falling from the corner of his mouth.

“Runs a removal firm—Gerrard’s,” Dad said, looking at the crumb where it lay on the table. “Reserved occupation. And, anyway, Frank’s gone missing, too.”

The policemen nodded slowly. “Oh, yes, yes, that’s right. Gerrard’s. I know it. He helped my aunt move a few things after she was bombed, matter of fact. It was that air raid over the school, d’you remember that one? Yes, he did us a real favour there. Still”—he cleared his throat and pressed a few stray currants together with his fingers—“I knew he’d gone because he’s wanted for questioning.”

“Is he?” Dad asked.

The policeman gestured with fingers still pinched around the currants. “Coupon fraud,” he said, putting the dried fruit into his mouth. “A serious business. It’s helping people to more than their fair share. And that in turn encourages others to buy things on the black market.”

Ma cut more slices off the cake and refilled his cup of tea.

“Black market, eh? Something else I imagine Frank knows all about. So you haven’t found him?” Dad said.

“No. And that does put another spin on things. Him being wanted.” He took a slurp of tea. “I suppose they might have decided to do a runner together? You said something about him having a suitcase.”

Dad leant away from the table and put his hands into his pockets, gazing at the ground. “I really can’t believe that Sukey would have gone along with anything criminal,” he said.

I kept my eyes lowered and fiddled with the handle of my cup, remembering Sukey’s fur collars and new snakeskin bag, the boxes of British Army rations in the old stables and all the extra food we had for dinner whenever she and Frank came round.

“Well, no, it would hardly be worth running, anyway,” the policeman said, reaching for another bit of cake. “There’s not much of a case, if I’m honest. But if it’s not that, then . . .”

“Then Frank’s done something to her and made a break for it,” Dad said.

“Frank never would!” Ma said, jumping up and throwing her teaspoon into the sink.

Dad lifted his head to look at her and must have caught sight of Douglas in the hallway, because he called his name. “This is Sergeant Needham, Douglas, come about Sukey. Sergeant, this is our lodger.”

Douglas stepped down into the kitchen, leaning awkwardly against the shelves by the door. He nodded at the sergeant and then shook his head when Ma offered him some tea.

“Did I hear you talking about Frank?” he said, turning his head sideways and tugging at the hem of his pullover.

“Yes,” said the sergeant. “Mrs. Palmer here doesn’t think he can have anything to do with her daughter’s disappearance.”

“Doesn’t she?” Douglas asked, looking at Ma where she stood, still facing the sink. “Well, I do. He’s a jealous man, is Frank. Got a temper on him, too.”

“Jealous, is he?” said the sergeant. “Why’s that then? Anything to do with you, is it?”

“No,” Douglas said, pronouncing the short word slowly and carefully. “But Sukey’s told me he can be jealous.” Douglas kept his eyes fixed on the sergeant. His face seemed stiff, like a mask, and I had the mad idea that when he spoke he did it without moving his lips. “Jumps to the wrong conclusions, she’s said.”