“I’m doing my stretches. Look, Charlie Perry—”
“Missing. I know,” Ronnie said.
Elise tried not to look disappointed. She’d been expecting to be breaking the news, but of course Ronnie already knew. She was always swapping intel with her network—from the moment she woke up most days.
“I thought he looked upset last night,” Elise went on. “Did you notice that? And I found his wallet as I left, so he may have been robbed. Did he say anything to you?”
“No! Poor Charlie. He did look terrible—one of the walking dead—but doesn’t everyone under those lights? However, I do know that he has money troubles,” she said. “Postie Val, who delivers up there, says there’ve been letters from a debt agency and the bank, and I hear Pauline’s been doing her dying-swan act in town. I shouldn’t be unkind but she does love a spotlight. She’s telling people the police aren’t interested in finding him.”
Pauline was probably right—Caro had been pretty dismissive when she’d told her—but Elise was immediately defensive. This was her tribe that was being bad-mouthed. “He’s only been gone overnight—and they’ve got their hands full finding out who gave Tracy Cook and Dave Harman’s kid the dodgy ecstasy and keeping the townspeople from marching on the Old Vicarage with pitchforks.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Why don’t we go and have a chat with Pauline?” Ronnie perked up. “Maybe we could help her find him?”
“But I’m on sick leave.”
“We’re concerned neighbors. . . .”
Elise rolled her eyes—she suspected it wasn’t the first time Ronnie had adopted this role. But she felt a little flutter in her stomach.
“Come on,” Ronnie urged, “what else were you going to do today?”
Ten
SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019
Elise
They screeched up to the Perry residence in Ronnie’s ancient Mini. Elise had left her Mazda convertible—a post-Hugh present to herself—in the car park at HQ. She hadn’t been able to drive after the operation and it was more secure than leaving it sitting on the street. But somehow she hadn’t had the energy to pick it up. Caro had sent her a couple of pictures of it, crusted with sand and bird shit. “Your brain will be in the same condition if you don’t come back to work soon,” she’d written as a caption.
Ronnie hadn’t stopped talking all the way. “Pauline used to be a model—she’ll tell you. She tells everyone. She’s Charlie’s second wife and she’s been married twice before. I’m not sure why I’m still on my first.”
She’d left Ted a cheese and pickle sandwich and hidden the telly controller. “So he can’t go on the shopping channel—last time he bought a beard-grooming kit! I said ‘Ted, you haven’t got a beard,’ but he said he was going to grow one. Just to annoy me. . . . Anyway, this is great—a couple of hours away from him and his model railway. Oh, God! I’m married to the Fat Controller,” she said, and Elise prayed they’d get there quickly.
The door to the caravan opened as they drew up. Minis were not built for women of Elise’s height and she tried not to show her knickers as she unfolded herself from the passenger seat.
“Hello, Pauline,” Ronnie called, and waved. Elise raised her hand too.
“Come in, Ronnie,” Pauline shouted. “You’ll have to take me as you find me. . . . I look a mess. Oh, who are you? Sorry. I usually make more of an effort,” she added when she spotted Elise. “I used to be a model, you know.”
Elise managed to avoid Ronnie’s eye.
“Elise is my next-door neighbor,” Ronnie said. “She bought last year from that snooty couple with the dalmatian. We wanted to see if there’s been any word from Charlie.”
“No,” Pauline said sharply, and slumped down on a chair.
“When did you decide he was missing?” Elise said gently.
Pauline shrugged. “When he didn’t come back.”
“Okay. Have you tried his friends?” Elise said.
“That’s what the police officer said,” Pauline muttered.
“Elise is a police officer too,” Ronnie offered. “A murder detective.”
“Are you?”
Pauline looked at Elise properly for the first time, and Elise wondered if she’d remembered to brush the wayward tufts growing back since the end of chemo. You got out of practice.