Emma Page - Hard Evidence

Mrs Eardlow had the kettle already on and she brewed the tea right away. She moved slowly and with difficulty. Her husband walked with the aid of a stick, his hands were swollen and knobbed. In Lambert’s estimation neither of them would see eighty again. He felt a pang at the thought of all the painful domestic activity on the part of this frail old couple that must have taken place in the little dwelling after his phone call.

He didn’t ask questions to start with, he didn’t press them in any way. Over an excellent tea they began to relax. They stopped treating him as if he were minor visiting royalty and began to unload their worries.

The missing relative was a girl of twenty. As soon as they told him her name, Julie Dawson, bells began to ring in Lambert’s brain. By the time they added her address, Honeysuckle Cottage, near Millbourne, he was almost certain. He asked if he might see a photograph.

They couldn’t produce anything very recent but showed him some snapshots taken during Julie’s last visit two years ago. Lambert looked down at the pretty face, the impish smile, the beautiful hair.

‘I’ve met this girl,’ he told them. They looked startled. He gave them a brief sketch of his encounter with Julie by the roadside near Calcott House. After a burst of astonishment the Eardlows took up their story again.

It seemed that Julie was an only child, born late in her parents’ marriage. Her father – fifteen years older than her mother – had been a first cousin of Mrs Eardlow. Both Julie’s parents were now dead and the Eardlows were her only living relatives. Julie worked for the Millbourne Advertiser as a telephone sales clerk; she had been there three years.

During her first year in Millbourne she had visited the Eardlows two or three times. Two years ago she had moved into lodgings at Honeysuckle Cottage. Since then she had written a few lines occasionally and had sent cards at Christmas and on their birthdays, but she had never once visited them.

They had replied without fail to her letters and cards, giving her their bits of news, repeating the invitation to come for a visit, a weekend, or a longer holiday. They had always been fond of Julie, had always been on good terms with her and her parents. As far as they knew, Julie was happy in her job, had settled down well at Honeysuckle Cottage, liked her landlady, a Miss Audrey Tysoe.

The Eardlows had celebrated their golden wedding in the first week of June. Julie had long known about the planned gathering of friends. She had definitely told them she would be there. Not only would she attend the party but she would stay with them for a night or two. This had been settled months ago and had been referred to on both sides more than once since then.

‘We were very disappointed when she didn’t come.’ Mrs Eardlow looked on the verge of tears. ‘Very surprised, too. She didn’t even write or phone.’ They had thought at first that the date had somehow slipped her mind, but she would remember after a day or two and they would hear from her.

But the days went by and they didn’t hear. They began to wonder if she was ill, or had met with some accident. In the end Mrs Eardlow rang Honeysuckle Cottage, not without misgivings. The Eardlows came of a generation who had grown up without telephones. It was only in very recent years, since their health had grown frail, that they had had a phone installed. They regarded it as an instrument to be used in emergencies and with due respect for the cost of calls. Nor had they any wish to appear to be prying into Julie’s life.

It was the first time Mrs Eardlow had spoken to Miss Tysoe; she had found her pleasant enough. Miss Tysoe told her Julie wasn’t there, she hadn’t been there for some time, she was on indefinite leave from her job at the Advertiser . She had gone for a holiday to Calcott House in May. Miss Tysoe didn’t know her present whereabouts but she wasn’t anxious; she was confident Julie would turn up again when it suited her.

The Eardlows were at first reassured by this but after mulling it over for a day or two their uneasiness surfaced again. Why should Julie have decided to go on indefinite leave? Had there been difficulties at work? And what about the money side of it? How was she managing?

So they finally rang the Millbourne Advertiser and spoke to the proprietor, Mr Fielding. He told them Julie had not been in touch with the office since going on leave in May. She had given no reasons for wishing to take extended leave and she had not been pressed on the matter. She had always been a good worker and the Advertiser was happy to accommodate her in this instance. They were sure she would return when she had resolved whatever it was that had made her ask for leave. Her job would certainly be waiting for her; the Eardlows need have no worries on that score. Fielding had no idea of her present whereabouts.

Again, when the call was over, the Eardlows felt reassured to some extent, but again, after a day or two, their anxieties sprang up as strongly as ever.

This time they phoned Calcott House and spoke to Mrs Marchant. She told them Miss Dawson had stayed at the hotel from May 10th to May 16th. There had been no trouble or upset of any kind during her stay; she paid her bill on the day she left. The only address the hotel had any note of was her Millbourne address, Honeysuckle Cottage, but Mrs Marchant seemed to remember that Miss Dawson had said something on leaving about going to a caravan. No, Mrs Marchant had no idea where the caravan might be. She couldn’t even be certain she was correct in associating that remark with Miss Dawson; it could have been some other guest. No, the hotel had had no communication from Miss Dawson after she left; there had been no mail or phone calls for her since then. Nor had anyone come to the hotel asking to see her.

By now the Eardlows found themselves very far from reassured. They talked it over for another couple of days, arguing back and forth. Probably there was nothing at all amiss – but if it later turned out that there was, they would never forgive themselves if they had just let the matter go.

In the end they decided with a good deal of trepidation to write to the Cannonbridge police and leave it up to them to judge if any inquiries were necessary.

Lambert told them he would report back to his Chief. ‘I’ll let you know what’s decided,’ he added as he stood up to leave. ‘In the meantime, try not to worry. Young women can be very impulsive. Julie could turn up any day, astonished to hear you’ve been so anxious about her.’

‘I dare say you’re right,’ Eardlow agreed. ‘We’re not able to get about much these days, we do tend to sit and chew things over. I suppose we’re inclined to get things out of proportion.’

They thanked the sergeant profusely for coming over to see them. They insisted on going with him to the door, shaking his hand on the threshold. Mrs Eardlow looked up into Lambert’s face as he took her frail old fingers into his strong, warm clasp.

‘I’m still not happy in my mind,’ she told him earnestly. ‘Whatever kind of sudden notion Julie may have taken into her head, she’d never have forgotten our anniversary.’ She shook her head with feeble force. ‘Not Julie. Never in a million years.’

CHAPTER 5

Chief Inspector Kelsey was about to drag himself off to a conference for a few days and wasn’t looking forward to the prospect. He certainly wasn’t disposed to feel overmuch concern for Miss Julie Dawson. ‘Skittish young females,’ he said to Lambert on a note of trenchant censure. Over the years he had come across many of the ilk, light-minded creatures who woke up one bright morning and took it into their heads to skedaddle without a word to relatives or friends – to give those same relatives and friends a good fright, as often as not, or merely to gain attention. Or indulging themselves in a fit of the sulks after a few cross words. Or scarpered with the latest boyfriend. Or simply decided to cut loose for a while. Needless work for the police, needless worry for the family. ‘All it takes is a postcard,’ he said sourly. ‘Or a phone call. Never enters their silly heads.’ No doubt Miss Julie Dawson would stroll blithely in where she belonged when she’d had enough of the sulks or the boyfriend.