Cold Light (9 page)

“Family?”

“We're in touch.”

Skelton squeezed the arms of his chair. He had never noticed before the way Alice's eyes followed him from that photograph on his desk; carefully, with forefinger and thumb, he angled her away until all she could see was the blackening brick of the city beyond the window. “How long since anyone saw her last?”

“Nineteen hours, give or take.”

“Around midnight, then.”

“I think, sir,” Resnick said, reaching down to rest his coffee on the floor, “the last person to see her, so far as we know, it was likely me.”

He had the superintendent's attention now, taking him through Nancy Phelan's unscheduled visit to the station, his chance meeting with her later in the hotel courtyard, the engine ticking over just beyond the edge of his vision, the car.

“Make? Number?”

Resnick shook his head. “Saloon, four-door probably. Standard size and shape. Astra, something close.”

“Color?”

“Black, possibly. Certainly dark. Dark blue. Maroon.”

“Damn it, Charlie, there's a lot of difference.”

“There wasn't a lot of light.”

“I know, and you had no reason to pay special attention.”

Which doesn't stop me, Resnick thought, from thinking that I should.

“We can't be certain, presumably, the car was waiting for her?”

“No.”

“You didn't see her get into it?”

“No.”

“So she could have been going back into the hotel?”

“It's possible, but from what she said … I'd guess she was about to leave.”

Skelton leaned back, locked his fingers behind his head.

“If the car, any car, had gone past me,” Resnick said, “between there and the castle, I think I'd have noticed. But all he had to do was turn right instead of left, I'd never have seen him.”

“He?” Skelton said.

Elbows on his knees, Resnick brushed a hand across his forehead, closed his eyes.

Eleven

Dana Matthieson was sitting on the edge of a chair in Resnick's office, trying to concentrate while he double-checked the names of people who had been at the dinner, the connections between them, making sure it had all been noted down. The door to the outer office was open a couple of inches, enough to let the overlapping conversations, occasional bursts of anger or laughter slide through. It was difficult not to keep thinking about Nancy, where she might be.

“This name here,” Resnick said, “Yvonne Warden …”

“Andrew's assistant. She'd have the list of invitations, everything would go through her.”

“And Andrew is?”

“Andrew Clarke. The senior partner.”

“He was there?”

Dana visualized Clarke's expression when he had asked if she wanted a lift home, did she want to pop in for coffee? The narrowing of those piggy eyes. How could she have been so naive? “Oh, yes,” she said, “he was there.”

Resnick wrote something on the sheet of paper. “We should talk to him, certainly.”

“Yes,” Dana said. “I think you should.” She was wondering if there were others in the office Clarke had tried it on with. Probably, she decided. Clarke and men like him. Carrying on as if sexual harassment was a headline they passed over in the morning paper, nothing to do with them. Men in authority and middle-age. She was looking at Resnick across his desk, tie twisted inside his shirt collar, worry lines pouched deep into his face. When she had been close to tears, earlier, blaming herself for persuading Nancy to go with her, he had been sympathetic, straightforward, done his best to assure her that her friend would turn up safe and well.

“Then why are we doing all this?” Dana had asked. “Going to all this trouble?”

Resnick had smiled reassuringly with his eyes. “A precaution. In case.”

Now he was standing, telling her there was nothing more. “The minute you hear from her, you'll let us know?” Dana assured him that she would.

Resnick had spoken to Nancy's parents several times within the past hour, the mother alternately tearful and bravely matter-of-fact, her father ever closer to anger, frustrated that as yet there was no one for him to aim that anger at. Resnick spelt out all that they were doing, wanting them to feel involved, not wishing that anger to be directed at him. If Nancy's disappearance proved not to be voluntary, they were going to need the parents on their side.

“Shall you not be wanting a picture? Her mother's bound to have something recent …”

Resnick explained they were getting one from Dana, taken only a few weeks before. A detailed description had already been forwarded to all stations in the city, all officers on duty.

“And shall you put it, like, on tele? On the news?”

He had discussed this with Skelton, Skelton with the chief superintendent. They had decided not to go public for another twelve hours.

“I thought you were treating this as urgent? That's my bloody daughter …”

“Mr. Phelan, we still think the most likely explanation is that Nancy decided at the last minute to spend Christmas Day with a friend.”

“Without letting anyone know?”

“It's possible.”

“Aye, and pigs might bloody fly!”

“Mr. Phelan, we have to—”

“What you've got to do is get off your arse and bloody find her!”

“Mr.—”

“Listen. Never mind your cock and bull theories. Whatever our Nancy took it into her head to do, Christmas Day she would have phoned her mother. And what about her friend, her as she lives with, she'd have got in touch, told her what she was up to, surely to God? I mean, how long's it take to make a phone call, after all?”

“The most likely assumption, the one we're working on, is that she met a man on Christmas Eve …”

“What man?”

“We don't know the answer to that yet. We're still—”

“What bloody man? Someone she knew or what?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Are you telling me my daughter's a whore?” A hundred miles or more to the northwest, a telephone receiver was slammed against the wall. Better a whore and alive, Resnick thought, than virtuous and dead.

Naylor and Divine were working through the lists that Lynn had compiled: men that Nancy had dated, those that she'd danced with, spent significant time talking to on Christmas Eve. No way had Dana been able to swear either list was complete.

There had to be easier things to do, easier times.

Receiver cradled between chin and shoulder, Divine fumbled another extra-strong mint from its pack; finishing the call, he checked off another name on his list.

“Yes, sir,” Naylor was saying across the room, “Phelan. P-H-E-L-A-N. Nancy. Yes, that's right.”

Deaf, Divine thought, or daft. Comatose. All those blokes having to haul themselves off the couch where they'd fallen asleep after a surfeit of mince pies and turkey. Divine hadn't surfaced till mid-afternoon himself, coming out of a bitter and Bacardi haze with a head like a rear tire in need of a retread.

“Hello, love. Yes. Can I speak with Mr. McAllister, please?”

Divine was at his desk against the rear wall, the wall where his
Sun
calendar used to hang before Lynn had lost her rag and torn it into little pieces. Pissed him off no end, that had. Kellogg getting into her hard-hat feminist routine every time her pre-menstrual cramps came visiting. Still, the one he'd bought for next year,
Page Three Lovelies
, that was already up in the bathroom at home: give himself a lift each time he stepped out of the shower.

“Hello, Mr. McAllister? DC Divine here, CID.”

When Andrew Clarke's wife told him there was a police officer on the line wanting to speak with him, he had just got back from a long walk with the boys along an almost deserted beach. Gulls low over the water as the tide turned and began to roll back in. Haze of moon in the sky and the light almost gone. They had walked briskly, as briskly as one could on sand, well wrapped against the cold. Later there would be mulled wine, sandwiches, snooker, cards.

“Sure it's for me?” Clarke asked, unwinding his scarf, feeling the first signs of panic tickling his gut.

His wife had raised an eyebrow and turned back to the kitchen table.

“Hello,” Clarke said, picking up the extension in the hall, “This is Andrew Clarke.”

At the other end of an imperfect line, Resnick identified himself and said there were a few questions concerning the Christmas Eve dinner-dance.

Oh, Christ, Clarke thought, I was right. The stupid bitch has only gone and made a complaint to the police.

“How can I help you, Detective Inspector?” he said.

“There was a young woman,” Resnick said, “one of the guests …”

Oh God, thought Clarke, here it comes. In his mind he was erecting excuses, explanations, I'd been drinking too heavily, under severe stress at work, she led me on.

“… as far as we can tell she left at around midnight, possibly accepting a lift, and hasn't been seen since.”

“Dana,” Clarke said.

“Sorry?”

“The woman you're talking about, Dana Matthieson.”

“No. Not Dana. Her friend.”

“Friend?”

“Yes. Nancy Phelan.”

Resnick clearly heard the gear change in Andrew Clarke's breathing. “You do know her then?” he asked.

“I'm afraid not, no. Dana, of course, she's been with us for quite a while. A good worker. Very good. Reliable, shows initiative …”

“Nancy Phelan,” Resnick said.

“No, not at all. That is, I may have met her. We may have been introduced. I'm afraid I can't quite remember.”

“You don't remember dancing with her, for instance?”

Andrew Clarke laughed nervously, more of a bark.

“Not much of a dancer, Detective Inspector. Not my style.”

“Even so, Christmas. Special occasion. I should have thought, just to show willing …”

“I did dance, of course. Once or twice.”

“And that would be with Mrs. Clarke?”

“My wife wasn't present, she …”

“With somebody else, then?”

“Of course. You don't think I'd make a fool of myself …”

“And this person you were dancing with, it couldn't have been Nancy?”

“No.”

“You're sure?”

“Haven't I said …”

“But if you're not certain you knew who she was, Nancy, isn't it possible she could have been …?”

“Inspector, I know the person I was dancing with.”

“And you wouldn't mind telling me, just for the …?”

“It was Dana Matthieson, as a matter of fact.”

“Dana.”

“Yes.”

“And at the end of the evening?”

“What do you mean?”

“As I said, to the best of our knowledge someone offered Nancy Phelan a lift in their car.”

“It wasn't me, Inspector.”

“You're sure of that?”

“Positive.”

Resnick let him have a moment of time; not too long. “Functions like that, Christmas Eve, it's easy to forget …”

“I assure you …”

“I mean, at first you
said
you hadn't danced, but then, when you thought about it, you remembered that you had.”

“Detective Inspector …”

“Mr. Clarke, it's important that we compile as accurate a picture of what happened yesterday evening as possible. You realize the potential seriousness of the situation, I'm sure.”

Clarke shifted his stance so that his back was towards the kitchen door. “As it happens I did give somebody a lift home …”

“I see.”

“Dana, actually.”

“Dana Matthieson.”

“Yes. She lives not so far away from me.”

“So must Nancy then.”

“I suppose so. I really don't know.”

“And you didn't see her when you drove Dana home?”

“No.”

“What happened exactly? I mean, did you just drop her off outside, did she invite you in, coffee maybe? What?”

The pause was too long. “Outside,” Clarke said. “I dropped her off outside.”

“And she'll confirm that? I mean, if necessary?”

“We didn't go directly there,” Clarke said, voice lowered, “we stopped off at my place on the way.”

“For coffee,” Resnick said.

“A nightcap, yes.”

“And then you drove her home?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“Not exactly?”

“She decided to walk.”

“Wasn't that, well, a little odd? I mean, having accepted a lift from you in the first place.”

“Perhaps she wanted to clear her head.”

“Is that what she said?”

“I can't remember.”

“You can't recall what reason she gave for wanting to walk home after accepting a lift?”

“No.”

“So you had, in fact, no idea that she got home all right?”