Deborah Crombie - In A Dark House

She shook her head, cutting him off as if refusing to contemplate it. “He’s keeping something from me. He’s in some kind of trouble, and if he’s hurt Chloe-” As she clenched her hands, her nails scored the soft leather of her handbag.

Kincaid hesitated, as if trying to decide which point to address first, but before Maura could speak he said, “Why do you think he’s in trouble, Mrs. Teasdale?”

“He told me he wants to sell the house. He says he’s found a buyer.”

Maura frowned. “I’m not sure I under-”

“It’s a listed building. Just round the corner from the Tate. I’ve been trying to get him to sell it for years, even before the divorce, but he wouldn’t have it. Oh, no, he said, it was only fitting that the member of Parliament for the Borough should show respect for the old places.” Venom had crept into her voice. “Never mind that it was built for pygmies and the plumbing only works when it’s in the mood. Never mind that it’s worth a small fortune these days, and Trev – that’s my husband, Trevor – Trev and me could use the cash for our business.” She leaned forward and tapped a nail on the table with a brittle sound that made Maura’s teeth hurt. “I’m telling you,” Michael Yarwood’s former wife went on, “he’s into something, and he’s got our Chloe mixed up in it somehow. He’s gone out, and he wouldn’t tell me where he was going.”

Was the woman more interested in snitching on her husband than in finding her daughter? wondered Maura. Had she not understood that Chloe might be dead? She’d taken a breath to speak when Kincaid fixed Mrs. Teasdale with a sympathetic smile.

“Mrs. Teasdale – it’s Shirley, isn’t it?” he asked. When Mrs. Teasdale nodded, he went on. “Did you ever know your husband to have a problem with gambling?”

She stared at him as if he were daft. “Michael? Gambling? He was brought up Chapel – he can hardly bring himself to have a drink.”

“Then what sort of trouble do you think he might be in?” asked Maura, trying to emulate Kincaid’s tone.

Shirley Teasdale seemed to sag in her chair, her momentary umbrage forgotten. “I don’t know. He won’t talk to me, but I know him – I know he’s keeping something back. He’s never forgiven me for Trev, but this is our daughter. He keeps saying she must be all right, but… she’d have rung me, wouldn’t she?” The look she gave them was pleading. “I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t have rung me.”

“I’m sure Chloe must confide in you, about her life, boyfriends, things like that,” Kincaid said. “Do you know anything about the man she was with in the video, Nigel Trevelyan?”

Shirley hesitated, and it seemed to Maura that even the crisp lilac suit lost a little starch. “You have to understand. Chloe likes to tease her dad with things. I think… I think she likes knowing she can make him angry. It’s like waving a red flag under the nose of a bull. She said…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She said if her dad knew about Nigel, he’d kill him. But it’s not Nigel that’s dead, is it?”

As she drove the now familiar route between Borough High Street Station and Park Street, Gemma glanced at the dashboard clock and gave a little groan of dismay. It was already midafternoon. She should be home; the boys would be back from their outing with Wesley, and she’d let the weekend slip by without doing any of the things necessary to prepare for the coming week. Tomorrow would be especially difficult, as she planned to take the afternoon off for the court hearing.

“Are you okay?” asked Doug Cullen, beside her.

“The boys will be home on their own by now. I never meant to abandon them for the entire day.”

“If you need to go, go,” he said, with his usual earnestness. “I’ll do the search, then wait for Duncan. No one could expect you to do more on this case-”

“And I should mind my own business, at least according to Detective Inspector Bell.” She softened the words with a smile. “Can’t say I blame her.” She wasn’t used to encountering such obvious hostility from other female officers, and she was surprised by how uncomfortable it made her feel.

“She’s all right, really,” Doug said quietly. “When you get to know her a bit.”

When she glanced at him, he was studying the spots on her windscreen with great deliberation. Gemma seemed to remember hearing him say the same thing once about Stella Fairchild-Priestly, but with less conviction.

“I suppose you’ve not had much time for Stella this weekend,” she ventured, her curiosity roused.

“She’s away. Another country house party.” Doug didn’t meet her eyes. “And I suppose I’m in the doghouse for not joining her.”

Gemma had always wondered what the very polished Stella saw in a lowly detective sergeant who didn’t share her social aspirations, but if he was developing an interest in prickly Maura Bell, he might be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. “Doug,” she began, meaning to deliver the standard warning about the pitfalls of relationships on the job, then realizing how absurd that would sound coming from her. And besides, Doug and Maura didn’t normally work on the same patch, and who better to understand the demands of the job than another copper?

Having reached Park Street, she pulled up the car in front of Laura Novak’s house and said instead, “I want to come in with you, Doug, just for a bit. But thanks for the offer.” She’d come too far not to see for herself if the house held any clues that would tell them what had happened to Laura and Harriet.

Nor could she go home until she’d done one other thing. Fanny Liu would have to be told that her flatmate was alive, and that she might have abducted a child.

Gemma knocked and rang the bell, then stood listening for a response. The air was hazy and still, the neighborhood quiet, as if its inhabitants had all decamped for fresher climes. She heard the rustle of Doug’s jacket as he shifted beside her, and the quick rhythm of her own breath, but there was no sound from within the flat. Next door, the curtains were drawn.

Slipping on a pair of latex gloves, Gemma put the key in the lock and called out, “Police! We’re coming in.” Her voice echoed back at her, an intrusion into the close silence, and she felt a bit silly.

The door swung open easily and they stepped into the hall. The house smelled stale and a little musty, as if no one had been home in several days, but there was no dreaded hint of decay.

Gemma let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d held.

“No body, then,” said Doug, and she knew he’d been thinking the same thing. “There’d be no question, in this warm weather.”

“I thought, when Laura left Harriet with the sitter on Thursday night and lied about having to work, that she might have meant-”

“To kill herself?” Doug’s eyes widened behind his round glasses. “That hadn’t occurred to me. I was thinking more along the lines of Novak having conveniently forgotten to tell us he’d offed his wife when he stopped by on Friday morning.”

Gemma stooped to gather the mail scattered on the tile floor. There was nothing more personal than a few advertising circulars and credit card solicitations – one still addressed to Dr. Antony Novak – and a couple of bills. The postmarks bore Thursday’s and Friday’s dates, so Gemma assumed the mail represented both Friday’s and Saturday’s deliveries.

On a narrow table against the wall, more mail was neatly stacked, but when Gemma examined it she found only envelopes marked “Resident” and a few pizza delivery menus.

An umbrella stand in the corner contained a large black umbrella and a cricket bat, while a few pegs mounted on the wall held a woman’s fleecy jacket and a smaller Gap anorak in dark green. Harriet’s, Gemma thought, her heart contracting. Kit had one that was identical.