Chapter 11
Of all the officers the station could have sent, why did it have to be this one?
In his pristine uniform and thick padded stab vest, Graham Smithers might have looked the part, but I knew him from old.
The man was a walking disaster. If there was a crack in the pavement, he’d trip over it.
Give him a tube of superglue and he’d stick his fingers together.
He’d faint at the sight of blood and despite being a know-it-all, he had the IQ of a jellyfish.
I’d long suspected there’d been a shortage of officers when he was accepted into the force.
My faith in Graham’s abilities sank even further.
With a full utility belt around his waist, and a police radio, cannister of Pava spray and heavy-duty quick handcuffs clipped to his person, I could see why he’d earned the nickname All the gear and no idea.
As we both sat at the kitchen table, the man couldn’t even get his pen to work.
I watched him invisible scribble on the corner of the form attached to his clipboard. It was painful viewing and the corner of my eye began to twitch.
‘Here we go,’ he said, when its ink at last flowed. He looked at me direct. ‘We’ll start with the missing person’s name.’
My irritation grew. Not only was Settledown the kind of place where everyone knew everyone, Graham and I had attended the same school.
The very school that had once employed Mum as a dinner lady, who happened to give him extra scoops of mashed potato and added shovels of chips all those years ago on account of his skinny frame. ‘Graham, you know full well…’
‘PC Smithers, if you don’t mind,’ he interrupted. ‘I’m on duty, remember.’
I scowled. Thanks to Callum and Rory, my tolerance levels had been tested enough that day and as my patience wore thin, Graham was in danger of tipping me over the edge.
I took in his condescending expression and suppressing the desire to slap the man, told myself the quicker I got through his questions, the quicker he’d be out there looking for Mum. ‘Maeve Jones.’
‘Date of birth?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Thanks to a combination of worry, the couple of drinks I’d had with Hattie and Joyce, and the shocker of a day I’d been subjected to, my brain refused to do the maths. ‘She’s seventy-nine.’
‘Description?’
‘Grey shoulder-length hair. Blue eyes. Five-foot-two… ish.’
‘Ish?’ Graham shook his head. ‘And what was she wearing at the time of her disappearance?’
‘I don’t know.’
Graham’s responding sigh told me he didn’t appreciate that answer either. But considering I was at work or out Christmas shopping at the time, it was all I had.
I shrugged. ‘A coat, I presume.’
Enunciating every syllable as he wrote, Graham repeated my words back to me. ‘A. Coat. I. Pre. Sume.’ He looked at me direct. ‘And what makes you think Maeve has gone missing?’
‘The fact that she’s not here,’ I replied.
‘Respectfully, grown women are allowed to leave the house.’
I swallowed hard. ‘Of course they are. But respectfully, Mum chooses not to.’
Graham cocked his head. ‘That’s not quite true though, is it?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Well I know for a fact Maeve visited The Beanery two days ago. I saw her with my own eyes. Enjoying a mug of hot chocolate and a slice of red velvet cake, if I remember rightly.’
News to me, I wondered why Mum hadn’t mentioned it.
Or maybe she had and that was another occasion where I’d been too busy to listen.
I fidgeted in my seat. ‘Calling in at the local café after picking up a pint of milk is hardly the same. That wasn’t after dark.
Three days before Christmas. In freezing temperatures. ’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘I spoke to her this morning.’
‘Not quite what I asked.’ Graham made a note regardless.
Wondering what he was insinuating, my hackles rose. Unlike him, we didn’t all still live and work in Settledown. Some of us had moved on. Popping round to see our parents on a whim was no longer an option. We had jobs and lives that kept us busy.
‘And how did she seem?’ Graham asked.
‘Fine.’
‘You didn’t sense any worries? Pick up on any strange behaviour? Did the two of you argue?’
I considered that morning’s conversation with Mum. We might not have agreed on the old folks’ home issue, but we hadn’t fallen out, and our call had ended pleasantly enough. Mum had even joked about me, Hattie and Joyce being in a Mulled Wine Club. ‘No nothing like that.’
Images of Mum talking to the winter heather flitted through my mind. ‘Although there is something I should men–’
BANG! BANG! BANG!
I fell silent and spinning round in my seat, stared down the hall to see a huge shadow on the other side of the opaque glass door pane. My heart raced and with my feet refusing to move, I looked from the shadow to Graham, aware that knocks like that could only have come from another police officer.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
‘Aren’t you going to answer?’ Graham asked, failing to match my concern.