Chapter 25
WEDNESDAY
Daisy wets the bed again that night.
She doesn’t scream this time and doesn’t mention a ghost when I go to her room to put her in new pajamas, strip the little single bed, and—inevitably—bring her into our bed for the rest of the night.
In the morning, when Jess has already left to drop Leah at school and Callum is skidding noisily up and down the hall in his silver-foil astronaut’s outfit, I pour milk on her Rice Krispies and ask gently if she had the bad dream again.
But she simply frowns and shakes her head, digging into her cereal with an orange plastic spoon.
Hopefully, she’s forgotten about the man behind the door.
Back at the house after dropping the two of them at school, I put a pot of coffee on and take a quick shower, digging my best suit out of the wardrobe and printing out a couple of fresh copies of my CV.
The job interview is only for a six-month contract but it will keep me going until I find something more permanent.
I still have half an hour to kill before I need to head into the city, so I sit at the kitchen table with a fresh cup of coffee and dial 101.
Maxine Parish may have given up on the police, but I could give them a try.
Fifteen minutes later, I’m still sitting with the phone pressed to my ear, on-hold music looping round and around as I peer out of the kitchen window at the gap low down in the side fence. I really needed to fix that.
My heart sinks slightly when I eventually establish that the police officer mentioned in the most recent news story about Adrian Parish’s disappearance has retired.
But no one seems to know who has inherited DC Phil Goode’s cases—or what to do with my call.
Finally, there is a click and an older female voice comes on the line, introducing herself as DC Tanya Rubin and asking—for the fourth time—about the nature of my inquiry.
When I’m finished going through the same spiel about Adrian Parish, the dog collar, and where I’d found it, there is a short silence filled only with the faint hubbub of other conversations happening at her end of the line.
“So,” DC Rubin says finally, “you’re calling to report that you’ve found stolen property?”
“No,” I say. “It’s not stolen, as such. I mean it might be. I found it at my house and I was googling the address and I found out there might be a link to this missing guy.”
“And is the gentleman a relative of yours or a member of your extended family?”
“No, I never met him. Just found him on the internet. But I did go to meet his wife, or ex-wife, or widow, or whatever she is.”
There is a moment of silence on the line and I imagine the officer sighing and shaking her head.
“Are you calling to report a criminal offense, sir?”
“No,” I say. “Not exactly. I mean, there may have been. Mr. Parish disappeared a while ago.”
“But you’re not next of kin?”
“No.”
“Not actually a relative of this individual?”
“No, I’m not but—”
“Sir?” The detective’s voice is on the edge of impatience. “Just to clarify, does this relate to a current or recent incident, to the best of your knowledge?”
“It was a while back; I mean it happened twenty-plus years ago but—”
“Twenty years?” she says. “Sorry, I thought you said just now that it was twenty days ago.”
“No, it’s from… a while back.”
In the background at her end, a male voice is calling a name. Tanya? Where’s Tanya? There is a pause for a minute, the sound muffled as if she’s put a hand over the receiver, before she comes back.
A note of exasperation is creeping into her voice. “So you think this item belonged to Mr. Parsons, do you?”
“Parish,” I say. “Adrian Parish. He lived in Kimberley, he had a dog called Woody, and he’s a missing person. He’s been missing for a while, as I said. I just thought it was curious that this thing turned up in my house and thought I should let the police know, that’s all.”
“Do you have any proof that the collar belonged to his dog, or in fact, that this gentleman is still actually missing and unaccounted for?”
“Well, no, not cast-iron proof, but I just thought it was something that the police should know about in case it might help to show where he went, what happened to him.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, sir, but are you a person who watches a lot of true crime on Netflix? Would you consider yourself a bit of an expert, something of an amateur investigator, perhaps?”
“No, not really.”
“And do you have any idea how many calls I get from people who think they are? From folks who think they know the job better than we do?”
“I really think there’s something more to this,” I say. “Something that’s never been uncovered.”
The sound at her end is muffled again.
“Right,” she says, her tone indicating the conversation is at an end. “Listen, we’re up to our necks in it here and I have to go. But thanks for getting in touch. Someone will look into it.”
She takes my name and number and says someone will call me back, cutting off the call before I can even say goodbye.