Cath Staincliffe: Stone Cold Red Hot

“Tell me about her – what was she like?”

He sat back in the chair for the first time since he’d arrived. “I can’t remember a lot. She was lively noisy I suppose. I can remember her arguing with my father at the tea table, getting sent to her room, going on about what a mess the world was in, teenage stuff like that. She was full of energy That was why it felt so quiet when she’d gone. If she was in a good mood she’d let me sit in her room while she got ready to go out or if she was just messing about. She always had the radio on. Radio Caroline,” he smiled suddenly, “she told me it was a pirate station and I’d this image of Captain Pugwash and Long John Silver playing music. I couldn’t figure it out. She had friends round sometimes but she went out more, I think their places were probably more easygoing.”

“Friends from school?”

“Yes. Oh, and there was a big place, I can’t remember the name, I’ll check it for you, it was a banqueting place, they did conferences and dinner dances and weddings. Jennifer used to waitress, there was a whole crowd of them did it at the weekends.”

“What was she studying at university?”

“English, I think.”

That hardly narrowed it down.

“And she left home in the autumn?”

“This time of year,” he agreed, “For the new term, I suppose. I don’t know if it was September or October. I was back at school. I wanted to go see her off on the train but one day I got in from school and my mother said she’d left for university. I felt so disappointed. Mainly about the train,” he said ruefully.

“And it was sometime after that they told you she’d left the university?”

“Yes, I think I must have kept asking about her and that’s when they told me that and said she was a disgrace.”

“What do you think happened?”

He took a breath. Looked across at the large, blue abstract painting on my wall. “I think she got pregnant. I can’t think of anything else that would have made them cut her off like that.”

Oh, I don’t know – coming out as a lesbian maybe or moving in with a boyfriend might have had a similar effect on the narrow minded – we were talking nearly a quarter of a century ago. Pregnancy seemed a pretty good bet though, good as any at this stage.

He carried on. “My mother still has a bee in her bonnet about marriage. I’ve friends at work who aren’t married and have children and she thinks it’s appalling.”

“Is she very religious?”

“Yes. She doesn’t get to church anymore but she keeps in touch. Her father was a lay-preacher. Very puritanical. Their church was connected to the Methodists but they were much stricter. All about rules and the proper conduct of a respectable life. ‘The right and proper way’,” he quoted. “They had a hill-farm up in the Yorkshire Dales, I think most of the surrounding farms joined the church. Like a separate community in a way.”

“And your father?”

“That’s how they met. He’d been to university and studied accountancy. Then the war broke out and he joined up. He was an officer. He returned to one of the army camps up in Yorkshire and got involved with the church, met my mother there. After he left the army he set up as an accountant in Manchester and they got married. They established a congregation here, he became the leader. He was very conservative. He thought we should still have National Service, wanted to bring back hanging and preserve the Empire.” He laughed nervously. Speaking ill of the dead? “It wasn’t all stern lectures though. He loved to garden. We’d help him. It was the one time we all seemed to be happy together.”

My heart softened pathetically. I was a fellow gardener. I resisted the temptation to start blethering on about planting schemes and pests and diseases and carried on making notes.

“So he had his own business?”

“A firm, yes. They did very well. He prided himself on their reputation.”

“And your mother looked after the house and the two of you?”

“Oh, yes. A woman’s place was definitely in the home.”

“Did they encourage Jennifer to go to university?”

“Yes, I think so. That would have been something to be proud of, a good education, qualifications.”

“But she let them down. And you?”

“Made up for it.” He grinned self-deprecatingly. I reckoned he was more perceptive than his nervous manner belied.

“I did computer sciences back when it was a new field. Had my own business for a while but now I work on a consultancy basis. Work on new programmes, look at IT packages for industry and commerce, do a bit of research as well – mainly artificial intelligence.”

His shyness evaporated as he talked work – he still avoided eye contact but there was a confidence in his voice and the emotional intensity in the atmosphere waned.

We talked a bit longer and he arranged to come back in two days time with as many starting points as he could find. He mentioned a neighbour he thought would be happy to help him recall the names of Jennifer’s friends.

I’d already outlined my fees to him and we agreed that I would do the equivalent of three days work and then report back to him. At that stage he could decide whether to retain me.

It was almost lunch time and my stomach had begun to growl but I decided to complete my notes at the office before walking home. Office may give the wrong impression; it’s a room in a cellar that I rent from a family who live nearby. When I first set up shop as a private investigator I knew commercially rented accommodation was way beyond my means. But Withington, where I live, has a mix of houses and as well as the council estate, the terraced rows and the estate of Hartley semis there are quite a few big Victorian and Edwardian semis like the one we live in. I thought someone might have a spare room going so I went door-knocking in the neighbourhood and the Dobson’s were happy to give me a try. Several years on I’m still there, the detective in the cellar. The rent’s unchanged and apart from the time when some suspects on a case of mine trashed the place it’s been a trouble free arrangement.

I read through everything I’d written during my meeting with Roger. I had a much clearer view of his parents than I did of his sister. Only to be expected. He’d been eight when she’d left home – his memories would be little more than a series of snapshots, particularly as he’d not have had the opportunity to share anecdotes and stories of her with the family in the intervening years.

Working a missing person’s case I like to build up a picture of the person; a feel for them. A character sketch to accompany the facts and figures. Their interests, likes and dislikes can be just as significant in determining where to look as their last reported sighting or hair colour. I once had to trace a man who had a passion for breeding fancy mice. His wife told me all about the new strain he had developed. On the strength of that I managed to track him down to Wolverhampton where he was living bigamously with a second spouse and was prominent in the fancy mouse community He’d changed his name, moved town and severed his roots but he couldn’t give up his obsession and it was his downfall.

I opened a new.file, labelled it and enclosed my notes. I didn’t intend to do anymore until Roger returned with the list of friends and acquaintances.

I must admit my first feelings about the case weren’t all that hopeful. Jennifer Pickering had been gone twenty three years. The trail would be cold as stone. She’d been estranged from the family for longer than she’d been part of it, If there really had been no contact in all those years then somewhere along the line Jennifer must have decided to stay lost: not to attempt a reconciliation, not to try building bridges. She’d cut her losses and got on with a new life and I couldn’t imagine she’d be all that pleased to be invited to her mother’s deathbed. Especially as her mother didn’t want her there.