Deborah Crombie - In A Dark House

As she gathered the tea things, Winnie looked round for anything odd or out of place in the small kitchen, but everything seemed the same as on her previous visits. Carrying the steaming mugs back into the sitting room, she pulled a worn wooden chair up to Fanny’s and sat down.

“Let’s go back a bit,” she said. “Was Elaine at home last night?”

“Yes. Although she was a bit late getting in from work, but she’s been late several times a week the past few months, and I didn’t think anything of it.”

“Was there anything else unusual? Did she seem upset or worried?”

Fanny wrapped her hands round the mug and frowned into its depths. “No, no, not really. She made us scrambled eggs on toast for supper, then we watched a bit of telly. She didn’t stay down to watch the ten o’clock news with me, but she made my milky drink before she went up.”

“Could she have been feeling unwell?” Winnie asked, remembering her earlier fears.

“Not that she said.” Fanny looked up, fear in her dark eyes. “You don’t think… Surely I’d know…”

“Why don’t I start by having a look upstairs.” Forcing a reassuring smile, Winnie found a spot on the mantel for her mug and crossed the room to the stairs, which rose from near the front door. She climbed quickly, trying to ignore the dread tingling at the base of her neck.

There were three doors in the upstairs corridor. She opened the first door on the right with trepidation, then gave a small sigh of relief. The room, obviously Fanny’s, with its inlaid mahogany bed covered by a lilac quilt, was tidy and had the slightly musty odor of disuse.

Winnie closed the door softly and tried the next. It was the bathroom, tidy as well. Both the towels on the rack and the soap in the dish on the sink were dry, and cold air poured in through the partially opened window. An escape route? Winnie wondered, but as she pulled the window closed she saw that it was a straight drop down to the small paved patio outside the scullery. Not unless Elaine had grown wings.

That left the third door, the room that faced the front of the house. Winnie knocked softly, then, realizing she was holding her breath, exhaled deliberately and pulled open the door.

The room might have been a monk’s cell. The starkness came as an almost physical shock after the cocooning clutter of Fanny’s house. A single bed stood against the wall, its worn white matelasse bedcover reminding Winnie of the one on her parents’ bed when she was a child. An unfinished pine nightstand held a clock and a small lamp – nothing else. The surface of a matching chest of drawers held nothing other than a faint layer of dust. Beside the chest, a straight-backed chair stood awkwardly, like an uninvited guest. No prints or pictures graced the magnolia walls, and there was no mirror.

The bed looked as if it had been made hastily, a lack of care that seemed oddly in contrast to the rest of the room. Winnie opened the wardrobe doors. A few hangers hung empty among the neat ranks of skirts, coats, and dresses, but she had no way of knowing whether the bare spaces indicated clothing removed for flight or the ordinary breeding of hangers in cupboards. There were no other signs of packing or of hasty departure.

Winnie left the room and descended the stairs more slowly than she’d gone up, wondering what could possibly have happened to Elaine.

“She’s not here,” she said when she reached the sitting room and saw Fanny’s anxious face. “And I can’t tell whether or not she’s taken anything away. Are you sure you didn’t hear anything in the night?”

“No.” Frowning, Fanny picked at the fringe of the shawl in her lap. “I only remembered sensing something wrong as soon as I woke this morning. It’s odd – I don’t usually sleep quite so soundly. Oh.” She looked up, her eyes widening. “I dreamed I heard a door close.”

“It must have been Elaine, as it doesn’t look as though she went out a window, and she can’t have vanished into thin air. Have you any idea what time this was?”

“No. I’m sorry. I’m not usually so groggy.”

“And you said you rang Elaine’s work and she hadn’t come in? Did they tell you if she’d called?”

“No. Only that she wasn’t there. They’re not allowed to give out more information than that over the phone.”

“Well, that’s the first thing, then,” Winnie said with relief, glad to have a goal. “I’ll go have a word with them. She works at Guy’s?”

“Yes, in medical records.”

“What about family? Does Elaine have anyone you could ring?”

Fanny shook her head and a strand of her fine dark hair came loose from its clip. “No. There’s no one. Her parents are dead and she hasn’t any siblings. That was one of the things that-” She stopped, her eyes filling with tears. “We were both alone.”

Winnie knelt by Fanny’s chair and gave her hand a squeeze. “You’re not alone. I’ll help any way I can.”

Returning the pressure, Fanny forced a smile. “Thanks. Sorry for being so wet.”

“You’re just fine,” Winnie reassured her, then added hesitantly. “Fanny, if we find that Elaine hasn’t been in touch with the hospital, I think we should call the police.”

“No!” Fanny jerked her hand free.

“Why ever not?” Winnie asked, startled.

“But… surely that’s not necessary. If she’s just out for a lark or something, she’d be furious.”

“You’re afraid that if she’s all right, she’ll be angry with you? Wouldn’t she understand that you were concerned?” Winnie was beginning to feel there was something very odd here.

“Yes, but… you have to understand. Elaine’s a very private person. She doesn’t like… I don’t think… I think we should wait. After all, she did leave of her own accord,” Fanny added, but she looked even more worried.

“It does seem that way, but-” Winnie stopped, deciding this was not the time to express her own uneasiness. And hadn’t she heard that the police wouldn’t allow a person to be reported missing until twenty-four hours had passed? She needed advice, and suddenly she knew exactly whom to call.

“Look,” she said to Fanny. “Don’t worry. I’ve a much better idea.”

There was no point taking her disappointment out on Duncan, Gemma told herself, regretting her hastiness as soon as she’d hung up the phone. She’d sounded a right cow, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t had to cancel out of family plans herself, especially in the past few months, but somehow that didn’t make being on the receiving end any easier.

She knew the investigation that had lately consumed so much of her time and energy had disturbed her balance, but that was no excuse for acting the harpy.

A child had gone missing on her patch, a six-year-old girl, and the current slacking of her workload was due not to a resolution, but to the fact that the case had gone cold. Not only was it the first time Gemma had dealt personally with such a case, but as SIO, she felt responsible for her team’s failure.

The parents’ grief and anger had been particularly hard to bear, and she’d not been able to shake off the case outside working hours, something she knew to be essential if one were to survive the job. Her fears for the missing child seemed to have transferred themselves to Toby and Kit, and she found herself worrying whenever they were out of her sight.

Which was all the more reason she should take the boys to Portobello on her own, where she’d have both of them under her nose for the day. She’d promised Kit they’d look for an antique specimen cabinet for his room, and having begun the redecorating project, she didn’t dare falter. They’d already framed sets of nineteenth-century botanical and zoological drawings they’d unearthed at one of the market’s print stalls; she’d painted the walls a strong aqua, and set up bookcases and a desk complete with microscope and dissecting instruments.