Forty-Eight
Matt slumped against the side of the car as relief washed through him. For some reason, he thought he was going to find Sally’s cold, dead body lying there in the rain. The feeling, however, was brief because if she wasn’t there, and she didn’t appear to be in the house, then where the blazes was she?
He swept the beam of the torch over the ground and saw something glinting just underneath the car. He bent down for a closer look and saw it was Sally’s phone, the glass front and casing all smashed. He resisted the temptation to lift it for a closer look and instead straightened up, looked back at Flora who was still standing by the boot of the Focus and said, ‘We need to call the police.’
‘Right, Mr O’Brien, if I could ask you to just clarify some points again, please.’
Matt tried to refrain from sighing. This was now the third time he’d given the boys in blue the pertinent details of Sally’s mysterious disappearance and they didn’t appear to be making any kind of moves towards finding her.
‘We were chatting on the phone when suddenly Sally stopped talking mid-sentence, it all went silent and a few seconds later, the call cut off. I tried calling back but kept getting her voicemail. I then tried calling the landline several times, but still got no reply. Due to the remote location of the B&B, I decided to come out to check everything was okay. That’s when I found the handbag still in the car and the phone underneath.’
‘And you haven’t touched anything?’
‘Only the handle on the passenger side door when I was checking if the car had been locked.’
‘Why did you feel the need to do that, Mr O’Brien?’
‘To eliminate the possibility that Sally may have locked her bag inside by accident. It was one of those “hunch” things that you guys normally get.’
‘Are you being sarcastic, Mr O’Brien?’
‘No,’ he replied, in a weary tone, ‘I’m just tired of repeating myself and feeling that no one is taking this seriously.’
‘Oh, we are taking it seriously, sir, we just need to process all the information we have. You may think we’re being troublesome by asking you to repeat what you’ve already provided but sometimes, going over it all again can help bring forth small details you may have previously missed.’
‘I see. Well, I really do think I’ve told you all I know.’
‘Thank you. Now, is there any chance that Mrs Edwards could have decided to walk somewhere rather than take the car?’
Matt stared at the police officer and it took all of his best efforts to keep the look of incredulity off his face. Was this guy really that stupid?
‘Sergeant—’
‘Detective.’
‘Sorry, detective… the weather conditions hardly lent themselves to going out for a nice, leisurely, stroll. At the time of losing contact, it was blowing a gale and the rain was thundering down. I appreciate this has now eased off but it was wild two hours ago, and the only place Sally was planning to go was indoors.’
‘Is there anyone else living close by? Where are the nearest neighbours?’
‘Err, there’s Jools, I mean, Juliet, who lives in the cottage on the far side of the courtyard.’
‘Is it possible Mrs Edwards may be with her?’
Matt suddenly felt like a prize idiot. He hadn’t even thought to speak with Jools to see if Sally was with her. He’d immediately drawn up the worst conclusion and had called in the cavalry.
‘Yes, now that I come to think of it, there is every chance she could be with Jools. They’ve become good friends and hang out regularly.’
‘Right. And you say she lives just over the courtyard there?’
‘That’s correct.’
Matt groaned inwardly as his stupidity – why hadn’t he thought of that first?
‘Okay, I’ll get one of the boys to go over and check. In the meantime, can you think of anyone who may have had cause to harm Mrs Edwards?’
‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘I can’t.’
‘Err, Dad, what about that Darren Connors bloke who used to work for you? Is it possible he could have come for Sally?’
‘What’s this?’
Matt turned to the detective.
‘In the summer, when Sally first moved here, she lived in a motorhome in the barn while the house was being renovated. One of my employees took an interest in her and it went a bit too far. When I informed him he was being moved to another site, he didn’t take the news well and took his anger out on Sally. I ended up sacking him.’
‘I see. Do you have the details of this person – just so we can check and hopefully eliminate him as a person of interest?’
‘Erm, I do, but his personnel details are back at my house. I’ll have to go and get them.’
‘No, you don’t, Dad. Remember I nagged you to save all your files onto the Cloud so they wouldn’t be lost if anything went wrong on your PC?’
‘I do. Why?’
‘You can access them now from your phone. Give it here, I’ll get the info for you.’
Matt pulled his mobile from his pocket and handed it over. Within a couple of minutes, Flora was passing it back with the information they needed on the screen. He showed it to the detective who noted down what he required.
‘Right, sir, miss, if you can just wait here, we’ll look into this.’
‘Can we go up onto the porch, out of the rain?’
He pointed behind him.
‘Sure, that’ll be fine. I’ll come and find you there.’
He grabbed a couple of blankets from the Land Rover and led Flora under cover.
‘Wrap that around you, love, to keep you warm. And tell me, is anyone looking in this direction?’
‘No, why?’
Matt walked over to the security light which was situated at the edge of the porch roof. He still couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t coming on and as he could reach it easily enough from here, it was a mystery he planned to solve.
He reached up and carefully unclipped the clear plastic cover which he handed over to Flora. He then gently ran his fingers over the bulb. It was intact and not broken as he’d suspected it might be. It did, however, wobble under his touch and when he gave it a small twist, the parking area was suddenly ablaze with light.
‘Here, what do you think you’re doing?’
The detective ran over and glared up at him.
‘Helping you out I would think, now that you have some light to see with.’
‘That could have been evidence you’ve tampered with.’
‘The bulb was only slightly loose – it may have been jolted by the wind.’
The detective gave him a hard stare for another few seconds before he was called away by a colleague.
To Matt’s dismay, he wasn’t out of sight for long and he was soon back, clumping noisily up the wooden stairs of the porch.
‘Right, first up, we’ve checked on the neighbour across the yard. There’s no reply but we did hear her dog barking. The curtains are closed so we’re unable to tell if there’s anyone in.’
‘She’s the local vet – it’s possible she may have had a call-out, especially in this bad weather.’
‘Fair enough. Now, the other bit of news I need to ask is, how much do you know about Mrs Edwards’ husband?’
Matt frowned as he looked first at Flora and then back to the detective.
‘Not much. Only that he died in a road traffic accident.’
‘I see. Then you don’t know that it was Darren Connors’ brother who killed him!’
For a moment, Matt’s head spun and he had to grip the balustrade to keep himself upright.
‘I’m sorry, detective, come again…’
‘Billy Connors, Darren’s kid brother, is doing a ten-year stint for killing Steve Edwards. Mr Edwards had just bought a swanky sports car and young Connors thought he’d try and do some kind of drag racing up the dual carriageway of the A38 near Burton. Mr Edwards was having none of it but Connors lost control of his vehicle, tapped Edwards whose car hit the central reservation, causing it to flip over the barrier directly into the path of a lorry coming the other way. Mr Edwards was killed at the scene.’
‘Oh, my goodness…’ Flora gasped as her hand flew up to her mouth. ‘Poor Sally, she’s never mentioned a word of this. I’m guessing she didn’t say anything to you, Dad.’
‘I knew the bare bones of what happened but she never went into any great detail and it didn’t feel right to ask.’
‘There was a court case, obviously, and it’s very likely that big brother was in the courtroom when Mrs Edwards was there. If he saw her then, and recognised her now, it’s not inconceivable that he could be planning something untoward.’
‘But, why now? After all this time?’
‘You say you sacked him?’
‘I did.’
‘Well, if he’s struggling to find new employment, then he could perceive her as being to blame and if he’s already holding a grudge because of his brother…’
The detective let his words tail off and Matt didn’t need to be a genius to know what he was insinuating.
He looked at Flora who was looking back at him in horror. He knew they were both thinking of the same thing…
The third job reference request that had recently been sitting on his desk.