Stephen Booth - Already Dead

That was the trouble with cars these days. One looked and sounded just like another. A lot were even the same colour. There was no telling whether it was the right one until it stopped and you could see who was driving.

Ingrid Turner stared out of the window as the latest car passed. She knew she fussed too much sometimes. Glen told her himself often enough. ‘ You’re like an old mother hen ,’ he’d say, though he always said it with a smile and she knew he loved her to fuss over him really. She loved her son. So, yes — she was fussy about him. Of course, she tried not to get in his way too much and be a nuisance.

But there was no denying it. He ought to have been home by now.

Ingrid sat down in her armchair, then stood up again nervously. It was funny, really. She had often thought it would be a good thing if Glen didn’t come home one night. It would mean that he’d finally found himself a girlfriend. That would be such a relief. She’d worried about him for years, never been able to figure out why he hadn’t formed any relationships with women, and too scared to ask him the obvious question. Well, she couldn’t, could she? It was the sort of thing a mother shouldn’t ask her son. If he wanted to tell her, that was different. But if she pried into his private life like that, he would never forgive her.

She heard the sound of another engine in the street, a vehicle slowing down. But it was just the postman, stopping outside the house next door to deliver the stuff they’d bought off eBay. They seemed to be forever buying and selling. Taking parcels to the post office in West End, having more delivered. She couldn’t see the point of it herself.

Of course, she would have expected Glen to phone, if he’d met someone and wasn’t coming home. He wouldn’t have left his old mum wondering where he was. He’d know that she’d be worried and unable to sleep. She’d taken her pills last night, but still hadn’t slept a wink. This morning, she felt weary and her head was buzzing. She had a feeling it was going to be important to think straight today. She didn’t want to do anything hasty and mess it all up. On the other hand, she was terrified of hesitating too long.

She looked at her little patch of grass in front of the house. Somebody had walked across it during the night and left muddy prints from the bare flower beds. There was a beer can in the corner by the pavement. She’d go out and pick it up later, when it had stopped raining.

If he’d met someone and wasn’t coming home. When she thought about it baldly like that, it sounded so unlikely. She couldn’t imagine Glen picking up some woman in a club and staying the night at her place, getting up to goodness knew what. It just wouldn’t happen. Not in a million years. He wouldn’t have the confidence.

Now, all those scenarios that had run through her head during the night seemed like complete fantasies. They were so far fetched that she couldn’t believe she’d entertained them, even for a moment. Perhaps she’d been asleep after all, and dreamed the whole thing. Somehow, she’d convinced herself there was a rational explanation for the fact that Glen hadn’t come home. But there wasn’t one. Not one she could believe in any longer.

The postman ran back down next door’s drive and climbed into his van. Ingrid waited a moment, but he accelerated away. Nothing for her today. She was only putting off the moment.

She picked up the phone, and looked at the address book. She had the number of Glen’s office. She could phone his boss to see if he’d turned up for work or had called in with an excuse. But she was afraid of what they’d all say about her after she’d rung off. Afraid of what they would say about her Glen.

Ingrid put the phone down and looked at it, as if it might speak up for itself and give her the advice she needed. She dialled a ‘9’, then stopped. Weren’t you supposed to wait twenty-four hours before reporting someone missing? Especially if it was an adult, who might just be late home.

And was it really an emergency? She had no way of telling, but she didn’t want to get in trouble. There might be penalties for people who made non-emergency 999 calls. She’d read about them in the paper, all kinds of silly people who phoned to say they couldn’t find their glasses, or to ask for directions to Homebase. She didn’t want to be considered a silly woman. But she couldn’t do nothing either.

Instead, Ingrid began to dial a different set of figures. The non-emergency police number, 101. She heard a recorded message telling her that she was being put through to Derbyshire Police.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said. ‘I want to report a missing person. It’s my son.’

Luke Irvine was glad to get out of the office. He was always unsettled by change. He hadn’t been in Divisional CID long enough to get his feet firmly planted under a desk. Not the way Gavin Murfin had, and others like him.

Murfin had become the proverbial immovable object around E Division. He’d worked his roots so deeply into the carpet of the CID room that nothing had been able to shift him for years. The introduction of tenure had passed him by, performance reviews left him unscathed, the annual appraisal process had mysteriously found him doing exactly the same job each time round. None of it stirred him.

Well, not until his thirty years were up, anyway. Not even Gavin could resist that steamroller. Immovable object was meeting irresistible force. And suddenly the object wasn’t so immovable after all. In fact, DC Murfin would roll aside like so much tumbleweed under the impact of Clause A19, if the force decided to follow neighbouring Staffordshire and invoke the regulation forcing retirement of police officers after thirty years’ pensionable service. Most of those affected by A19 were senior officers, who’d worked their way up through the ranks over the past three decades and were at the top of their particular tree. Experience counted for nothing when it came time to cut costs.

And right now, E Division was down in numbers across every department — not just CID, but uniformed response, civilian support staff, even forensics.

Irvine decided to dodge down the narrow back streets and wind his way across town past the parish church and Edendale Community School to reach the Buxton Road. It should mean that he would bypass the traffic that always snarled up on the main shopping streets like Clappergate. Even the Market Square got congested, though the businesses in that part of town were mostly banks and building societies, estate agents and pubs. Everything else had moved into the indoor shopping centre.

Edendale was a magnet for tourists, and they seemed to come in greater numbers every year, whatever the weather. The Eden Valley straddled the two distinct geological halves of the Peak District — the limestone hills and wooded dales of the White Peak, and the bleak expanses of peat moors in the Dark Peak. Its position made a perfect base for exploring the national park, and all the usual services had developed to cater for the tourists — hotels, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, outdoor clothing shops. Some of the old-fashioned businesses were still there, the butchers and bakers and antique shops. But to Irvine’s eye, they looked more like antiques themselves, part of the picturesque scenery.

Gavin Murfin had been working in this area for so long that he knew a lot of useful things, and the best places to go. It had been Gavin who’d introduced him to May’s Café, just off West Street, the place where everyone nipped off to now that there was no canteen. It was one of the most useful lessons he’d learned during his first week in CID.

But it wasn’t the impending departure of Gavin Murfin that was bothering Irvine. He’d felt secure with Ben Cooper as his DS. You knew where you stood with Ben. He’d tell you the facts, give it to you straight, put you on the right path if you went astray. But you knew he’d always back you up. It was what you’d want from your supervising officer. It made you feel you were a valued member of his team.