“I’ve got another registered letter for Charlie. I need his signature.”
“He’s out,” Pauline snaps. “I’ll do it and give it to him when he gets back.”
Val chats like she always does while Pauline tries to sign with her fingertip, fishing for goss, but she isn’t getting anywhere. And I watch the postie walk back to her van through the window as I hoover. Pauline comes through and slumps on the sofa with the brown envelope on her lap. A registered letter is never good news, is it?
* * *
—
When I’m done, I take the full bin bag out to the dustbin and it splits as I lift it in. A bottle clatters out and I hold my breath in case it breaks but it just rolls around. It must be one of Charlie’s—Pauline puts her fizz empties in the recycling box but he’s hidden his brandy bottles since Pauline said it was affecting his performance in bed. Poor Charlie. She must know he’s still drinking. I’m sticking it in the bin when Pauline comes out and nearly catches me.
She’s talking into her mobile. “Did my husband call in last night? I’ve mislaid him.”
“Dee, the most terrible thing has happened,” she shouts when she finishes her call, and I swallow hard.
“What? What’s happened to Charlie?”
“No, not him. Two teenagers overdosed on drugs at the festival last night.”
“Yes, I know,” I call back, and open my car door. People who take drugs deserve everything they get. No one’s forcing them to take them.
But she puts her hands over her face. “No one’s seen him,” she says, and her shoulders start shuddering. But when she takes her hands away, her eyes are dry.
“I want you to drive me into town,” she announces. “He must have stayed over with someone.” And she goes to get dressed.
* * *
—
The police are by the Old Vicarage gates when we arrive and there’s yellow-and-black tape flapping about farther up the drive.
Pauline tells me to stop and gets out and does her walk across to them, all teeth and tits.
“I’m looking for my husband,” she says in her silly, breathy Joanna Lumley voice. “He didn’t come home and we have an important appointment. I thought someone might have seen him last night.”
“Umm, well, there were about eight hundred people milling around for the festival,” a woman police officer says. “And we’re a bit busy with an ongoing incident.” She sounds tough but she’s got a hair slide with little hearts in her hair. She must have kids.
“I thought the police were supposed to look for missing people,” Pauline snaps.
“We are,” the officer says. “Sorry. Let’s start again. I’m DS Brennan. Why don’t you tell me why you are worried about your husband? How old is he? Is he in poor health?”
“Charlie’s seventy-three—some years older than me,” Pauline simpers, but it’s clearly wasted on the officer. “And he’s fit and well.”
I want to say he takes blood pressure tablets—the silver blister packs sit on the bathroom shelf beside a dusty box of Viagra—but it will mean being part of this. So I stay silent.
“I see. And has he ever gone off before—”
“Well, there has been the occasional evening when he’s stayed out. When he’s bumped into old chums,” Pauline says.
“I see. And the appointment—is it medical?”
“No, he’s supposed to be taking me shopping in Brighton today.”
The police officer stops making notes and sighs. “Okay. Well, I’d try the chums if I were you and we’ll keep an eye out for him. Perhaps you could let us know when he gets in touch.”
But she’s not looking at Pauline anymore. A tight knot of people is walking fast toward us. At the center is a raw-faced man who looks like he hasn’t slept for days.
“Where is he? Where is the bastard?” he bawls, pushing past me in his search.
DS Brennan reaches into the group and takes his arm, steering him to her side.
“Leave me be,” the man shouts. “My daughter Tracy’s lying unconscious in hospital. . . . The doctors say she might never wake up.” And his voice breaks. “She’s only eighteen!” he croaks. “Someone did this to her. Gave her this filthy stuff.”
“Yeah,” one of the others adds. “We knew this would happen, didn’t we? Nobody wanted this bloody festival in Ebbing. Except Pete Diamond, of course. He’s the one making money on the bodies of our kids.”