Vanished

Chapter 1

Avril Jenkins was in her early 70s, but, tucked beneath an old heavy duvet in her king-size four-poster bed, she could easily have been mistaken for a child. Avril’s messy grey hair was piled up into a top-knot and held in place with a pink ribbon, then tucked beneath a hairnet. A frilly eye-mask finished her night-time look. She wasn’t snoring, but she was breathing loudly as the air escaped through her slightly blocked nose.

The thin hairs on Avril’s exposed arm suddenly stood on end, gently stirring in a new breeze — a window, or a door, had been opened. Avril lifted her eye-mask, held her breath and listened. Her eyes involuntarily flicked from left to right, as though it might help her to hear better.

The second she heard a landing floorboard creak, she flung back the duvet and sat bolt upright. Her toes landed in her fur-trimmed slippers. She bent quickly, put one finger behind each heel and pushed her feet home. As she stood, her hand slipped beneath her pillow and by the time she was upright she was armed with a fire poker.

Avril wore cream pyjama bottoms adorned with butterflies, and a pink vest top that was far too baggy for her old cleavage. Rather than being fearful, Avril was furious. She did not leave her bedroom with any degree of caution, rather she raced out, flicking on every light switch as she moved. She bolted along the landing towards a set of billowing curtains and slammed the sash window closed. For a second, Avril’s head spun as she tried to visualise her evening routine of checking all the doors and windows. Had she missed this one? Truth was, she couldn’t be certain of anything anymore. Floor-to-ceiling rosewood wall panels kept this landing dark, and even with the lights on, the heavy shadows taunted Avril’s imagination with the prospect of her intruder being close...

...and then the distinctive noise from the sticky door handle linking the hallway to the kitchen told her that he was one floor below. Her left hand grabbed the balustrade whilst her right hand wheeled the poker above her head.

‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’ she screamed. ‘I know it’s you!’

Avril tackled the wide imposing staircase as quickly as she could, shouting all the way. Each deep step down made her old knees click with a sharp pain and, by the time she was in the hallway, her right arm had dropped to her side with the weight of the heavy poker. Avril’s body could no longer keep up with her brave and fearless spirit, but at the bottom of the stairs, fuelled by rage, Avril summoned a second wind.

She headed along the hallway towards the kitchen, flicking every light switch on as she went. One of the switches lit a series of six antique brass picture lights which illuminated the extensive art collection adorning the hallway walls. Avril shuffled and shouted her way towards the kitchen door, which moved and creaked in the night wind from the open back door that the intruder must have used as their exit just seconds earlier.

As she burst into the kitchen, she could see the first twenty feet of back lawn lit by a semi-circle of light. Beyond that, the remaining five acres of land stretched out into the pitch-black night. By the time Avril reached the back door, she could hear someone running through dried leaves, which she knew were piled up against the east wall because she’d put them there earlier that day. Then she heard the scrabbling of feet on brickwork as he dragged himself up and over the ten-foot-high perimeter wall.

‘I’m not scared of you, Adam! You hear! This is my bloody home. MINE!’

Avril scurried back into her kitchen, slammed the back door shut and slid the top and bottom bolts into place. She stood with her back to the heavy wooden door and panted until her breathing returned to normal. All the while she listened in case he had a mind to come back.

Avril moved towards the dining room, leaning heavily on the large island in the centre of the kitchen. She flicked the light on and glanced around to see if there was anything obviously missing. Her display crystal was where it should be, as was her Royal Crown Derby dinner set. Avril looked at the poker in her hand — her cold white knuckles were frozen in place and, as she slowly uncurled her arthritic fingers, her joints felt like they might snap. Now much calmer and certain that she was, once again, the only person in the house, she walked through to the living room, constantly looking and checking for what he’d stolen this time. He’d have taken something. He always did.

Avril opened the large, ornate globe that stood next to the fireplace, to reveal an extensive array of half-full bottles of spirits, wines and those drinks that only came out at Christmas, such as Advocaat, Baileys and Cinzano. As she poured herself a large brandy, Rossetti’s Venus Verticordia looked down on her from above the white marble Georgian mantelpiece. It was only when she closed the lid of the globe that she noticed the space on the mantel where a silver-framed picture had once stood. Although her face gave away no trace of emotion, Avril’s eyes filled with tears. A precious wedding photo was no longer where it should be. It wasn’t the best picture of Avril and her late husband, Frederick, but it was her favourite. It captured one of those moments in time, in between the obligatory posing, when they had glanced into each other’s eyes and laughed at how deliriously happy they were. It was an impromptu snapshot of pure, honest, soulful love. And Adam had taken it from her.

It was another twenty minutes before the solo police car arrived, driven by a weary young officer who had drawn the short straw. He diligently took Avril’s statement and added it to the other thirteen which all claimed exactly the same thing: that Mrs Avril Jenkins’ ex-lodger, Adam Border, was on a mission to slowly drive her insane. And when he finally got bored of doing that, Adam would put an end to her torment by murdering her in her own home.

Maggie looked at her reflection in the black screen of the monitor. Operating theatre 1 was so high-tech, Maggie thought it could probably fix Mr Thornton’s heart all by itself. With its perfect, sterile steel lines, it looked like it had come from the imagination of a sci-fi writer. Four screens, two robot arms, numerous computers and seven people were about to come together to save the life of a 47-year-old man; it was a fabulous and terrifying feeling to be part of something so special. This was the first week of Maggie’s surgical rotation, but she knew exactly what she was doing and so really had nothing to be nervous about — except for the fact that the lead surgeon was none other than the great Mr Elliot Wetlock. And he made her blush like a schoolgirl.

Wetlock’s reputation preceded him, and the very mention of his name brought on palpitations in male medical staff as well as female. He wasn’t a tall man, possibly the same height as her husband-to-be Jack, and he was slightly overweight, but he had a velvety voice and pale blue eyes framed by a perfect pattern of crow’s feet. His beautiful eyes, above a black surgical face mask, was a vision made for a global pandemic! In fact, Maggie thought that he looked better in a face mask, because he also sported a rather outdated goatee, which was the only bit of his appearance that didn’t make her go weak at the knees. She imagined that his 60-odd-year-old body probably left a lot to be desired, too, but it looked magnificent inside a grey waistcoat and a silk shirt with sleeves rolled up high until they were tight around his biceps.

The black monitor blinked into life, and the operating table in front of Maggie appeared on the screen. Soon, the screen would show Mr Thornton’s chest cavity being penetrated by numerous needles and tubes, making him look like a cyborg. It never ceased to amaze Maggie what the human body could endure, and still keep going.

Mr Wetlock entered the operating theatre and the male scrub nurse behind Maggie audibly swallowed at the sight of him. ‘Good morning, Mr Wetlock. It’s an honour to be working alongside you. I’m grateful for the opportunity.’ Maggie had been practising speaking out loud in his presence, so she didn’t stutter, or run out of breath, or do that inexplicable thing of choking on her own spit. Maggie beamed with childlike pride at her ability to open a conversation with the greatest heart surgeon in London.

Wetlock, however, was not impressed. ‘It’s 1.30. Morning has been and gone.’

Surgery took seven hours. Wetlock didn’t take a break, so neither did anybody else. By the time they were ready to scrub out, Maggie’s pale blue scrubs were patterned with sweat patches around her neck, under her armpits, down her spine and, most embarrassingly, beneath one breast where the material had become trapped. Wetlock’s scrubs, being dark blue, didn’t look sweaty at all. He still looked angelic.

As they stripped off their PPE and binned it, Wetlock spoke to Maggie for the first time about something other than heart surgery. ‘Your husband’s a policeman, isn’t he?’

Maggie hid her disappointment. She’d just done seven hours in an operating theatre, in the cardiac field, which was not her speciality, and she’d not put a foot wrong... and Wetlock was more interested in whether or not Jack was a policeman.

‘Can I rely on your discretion, please, Maggie?’

Maggie’s attitude shifted from offended to serious. Wetlock sounded troubled. He perched on the large windowsill of the scrub room, folded his arms and considered how to start. ‘My daughter has potentially got herself into a little trouble. She’s 17 and has her heart set on being a movie star. Not a television actress, you understand, an actual movie star.’ Wetlock smiled and his perfect crow’s feet appeared. ‘There’s been this talent scout on the scene for the past few months. He’s promised her the world and, because she’s so young, she believes he can deliver it.’ Wetlock dropped his gaze and rubbed his forehead as he prepared himself to open up further. ‘She has her own flat as well as a bedroom in my home. I’m a little closer to town, so she stays over sometimes.’ When he looked up again, he had two new lines in between his eyes that Maggie had never noticed before which instantly made him look his age. ‘I hardly see or hear from her anymore and, when our paths do cross, we don’t speak. Not properly. I feel like I’m losing her. Bit by bit. And I’m concerned that I might be losing her to a man who hasn’t got her best interests at heart.’

‘If you know the man’s name, I can ask Jack to check into him for you.’

As soon as Maggie had spoken, the two deep furrows vanished, and the crow’s feet returned.

During her run home, Maggie felt a mixture of emotions. Wetlock had been embarrassed not to know the name of the so-called talent scout, so she would not only have to ask Jack to look into something that was currently not a crime, she’d also have to ask him to try and persuade Tania Wetlock to give up the name of a man she clearly cared for and trusted. But Maggie’s overriding emotion was one of contentment at the last thing Wetlock had said to her before they parted company: ‘Thank you, Maggie. I realise it’s an imposition. And well done on your performance in theatre today. I’d like you to consider a six-month rotation onto my surgical team. Let me know by the end of the week.’

Maggie didn’t need until the end of the week to decide — it would mean she would be learning from one of the most brilliant cardiac surgeons in the country. It was an easy ‘yes’. But she decided to take at least three days to tell Wetlock that. As for persuading Jack to help her new mentor with his wayward daughter, Maggie was certain he’d say ‘yes’, too.

‘No! Of course, no. What were you thinking?!’ Jack wasn’t angry. It was worse. He was laughing. ‘Every time I log into HOLMES, it’s recorded. So, it has to relate to something.’ Jack quickly spoke again before Maggie could interrupt and argue her case. ‘Something other than your boss not liking his daughter’s new boyfriend. And why doesn’t he know the bloke’s name anyway? I’ll make it my business to know everything about everyone Hannah meets.’ Maggie tried to be indignant, but Jack was right. And when her look changed to self-pity, he knew exactly what she’d done. ‘You’ve already said “yes”, haven’t you?’

Jack was in the middle of making a chicken curry with leftover meat from the Sunday roast. He’d thrown in a pack of sausages to bulk it out and was now at the stage of measuring the rice. He did this in silence. Maggie knew she’d annoyed him and so, whilst she waited for him to be ready to speak again, she opened the most expensive bottle of red wine they had, a San Martino Toscana.

As the rice began to simmer, Jack turned down the flame and refocussed on Maggie. ‘How worried is he?’

‘I think he’s out of his depth. He’s a single dad with a teenage girl. Imagine working the hours you do and having no one else to constantly reassure Hannah of how loved she is. I think their relationship is severely damaged and Mr Wetlock’s only just seeing it. He’s terrified he may have lost her already.’

‘I could ask Laura to go and speak to... what’s her name?’ Maggie smiled in relief as she reminded Jack that Wetlock’s daughter was called Tania. ‘Laura used to work in Juvie and, way back, she also did a stint in Victim Support. It’ll have to be logged as something, though, Mags. And of course, when Laura turns up to talk to Tania, she’ll immediately know it’s her dad who’s sent us. There’ll be domestic fallout for him.’

Maggie said she was sure it was a risk that Wetlock was willing to take, because the alternative was far worse: the thought that his daughter was being groomed by an older man.

Jack let out a long, heavy sigh. ‘I’m dreading Hannah growing up.’

Jack stood by the overworked, knackered old coffee machine in the corner of the squad room, listening to it make a noise like someone dragging phlegm from the back of their throat. Then he watched it dribble out a flat white as he re-tuned his ears to Laura, who had finally started speaking again. She was on the phone to Wetlock and, for the past five minutes, had been silent apart from the odd ‘mmm’ and ‘I see’.

‘I can promise discretion for now, Mr Wetlock, but if it turns out that your daughter is in any danger, this will escalate beyond me... OK... yes, sir. You have a good day too.’

DS Laura Wade hung up the phone and looked at Jack, eyes wide, mouth open. ‘He sounds gorgeous!’ Jack handed his partner the flat white and broke the news that Wetlock was, in fact, short, fat and old. Laura grinned. ‘Maggie tell you that, did she? I’ve got his home address. Today, he’s expecting Tania to be there at five, ’cos at six she’s having her hair bleached by a mobile hairdresser friend and she hates her small flat stinking of ammonia. She likes to look like Marilyn Monroe.’ Laura rolled her eyes. ‘The silly kid can’t even know who Monroe is. Anyway, I’ll get there for a quarter past six. Once she’s got the bleach on her hair, she’ll be going nowhere for a good forty-five minutes, so she’ll have to speak to me, won’t she?’ Laura asked Jack what his afternoon looked like.

‘I’m off to see an elderly lady who claims she’s being threatened by her ex-lodger. Kingston nick has had fourteen reports in total, with insufficient evidence to support any of her claims. But she’s just made an official complaint about them, so her case has come to us. They want it closed one way or the other.’

Jack parked outside the large wood-and-iron gates and pressed the buzzer which was set into the brickwork. Nothing happened. No noise sounded and no light came on. The thick wooden parts of the gate were embossed with studs which made the front of this property look like a prison. Even the main private road that the narrow lane to Mrs Jenkins’ house veered off had a red-and-white striped barrier, clearly telling passers-by that this area was access only. Jack had had to flash his badge at the private security detail pacing the end of the street looking bored out of his wits.

Through a thin gap in between the heavy wooden gates, Jack could see a wide gravel driveway and a parallel flagstone footpath that cut through a substantial garden of at least two acres. The driveway curved round to the right, so the house itself was obscured from the roadside. After waiting for another minute, Jack pushed the wooden gate to see if it was even locked. It wasn’t. He wondered if it had been left unlocked specifically for him because the buzzer didn’t work.

The garden to either side of the flagstone footpath was overgrown and untamed, but somehow managed to look as though it was meant to be that way. Jack noted that the main gravel driveway looked like it had been battered by heavy vehicles with wide tyres — goods lorries? Grocery deliveries?

By the time Jack reached the house, the front door was open, and Avril was waiting for him. She wore a knee-length frilly dress with puff sleeves, white buckled shoes and white ankle socks with a double frill around the top. Her hair was in a high bun and adorned with a flowered scrunchy that matched the dress. She had her hands on her hips and, as she looked him up and down, Jack could tell that she was already disappointed. ‘I know they told you I’m mad, but I’m not.’ She sounded as gruff as a forty-a-day smoker. ‘So, are you going to believe them or me?’

Jack walked up the three wide stone steps leading to Avril’s front door. ‘I thought I’d make up my own mind, Mrs Jenkins. How about you? Are you going to assume that my visit is nothing more than a placatory paperwork exercise, or do you want to tell me about Adam Border?’

The inside of Avril’s house made the back of Jack’s eyes hurt. There was so much information to take in, with an array of different patterns, textures, styles and colours. Avril led Jack through the house and out of the back door, into a sprawling wild garden contained by a crumbling, high brick wall.

‘He knows my home is full of antiques and collectables, the best of which are slowly going missing. I made a list. You have it on file. He knows my routine, although he also follows me. You see, he’s playing games and trying to scare me.’ Avril picked up a pair of shears from an old wooden bench with broken slats and randomly snipped at something that looked like a white aster. Avril threw the daisy-like flowers into an already full wheelbarrow, then headed away from the house along a stepping-stone path and disappeared behind a row of fruit trees. ‘Bring that, would you?’ Jack grinned as he obediently followed with the wheelbarrow. He liked Avril already.

As Jack emerged out of the trees, the garden opened up again. To his left, still about twenty yards ahead of him, was an extensive greenhouse with filthy, cracked windows, some of which had been whitewashed on the inside. To the left of that was a solid wooden gate leading God-knows-where, and next to that was a sprawling compost heap which was where Avril waited for him. ‘His intention isn’t purely to rob me, you see, otherwise he’d bring a van and get it over with... it’s to torment me. The biggest torment being that sometimes when he breaks in, he walks past a £5,000 painting, and steals a £5 ornament just because he knows it’s full of sentiment. It makes me sound mad when I report that!’

‘Avril...’ Jack couldn’t think of a subtle way to ask his next question. ‘How secure is your property? I ask because...’

‘I lock up! I have my routine and I stick to it.’ Avril sounded like a petulant child. ‘And, yes, I have changed the locks since he left. But maybe he can pick locks? How do burglars normally get into places?’

In the second it took Avril to inhale ready to continue her rant, Jack spoke. ‘Why is Adam Border trying to scare you, Mrs Jenkins?’ His polite, caring tone stopped her in her tracks. She breathed a heavy sigh and her body visibly relaxed. ‘That’s the first time anyone’s asked me that. Everyone else said, “Why would he try to scare you?” not “Why is he?” Them at Kingston station may as well have called me a liar straight to my face.’

Avril paused to lop the head off a sunflower and throw it onto the compost heap. By the time she turned back to Jack, her façade of ballsy old woman had returned, and she set about taking her frustrations out on a bed of perfectly good plants at the base of an ornate pillar. By the time she’d finished, she’d chopped everything into pieces and was left with a big ugly hole in the ground. ‘He’s scaring me because I kicked him out. And I kicked him out because he was scaring me.’

Avril’s large eyes suddenly locked with Jack’s and he got the distinct impression that she was about to say something that meant his report would make her sound just as potty as the previous fourteen.

‘I’m a single woman, DS Warr. I think Adam Border wants to destroy what he can’t have. Have you heard of gerontophilia? It’s when a younger man has a sexual preference for much older women.’

Jack quickly promised Avril that he’d find her list of stolen items, check out Adam Border and discuss home security with her on his next visit. He then left her with his card and retreated before she could accuse him of being sexually attracted to her too.

Back in the safety of his car, Jack read a grammatically perfect text message from DCI Simon Ridley:

Jack didn’t mention her theory about gerontophilia in his reply. Instead, he said that he’d start by doing his own background check on Adam Border and see where that took him.

Laura stood by the open window of Elliot Wetlock’s living room, as the stench of peroxide was making her eyes water. Tania’s hairdresser friend had left the room to give them privacy, with the promise of returning in exactly twenty-eight minutes, otherwise Tania’s scalp would start to burn.

Tania was a beautiful seventeen-year-old who could easily have passed for mid-twenties, especially in her low-cut white dress. She was petite, very pale-skinned with stunning aqua-blue eyes, and she spoke with a Monroe-esque breathiness. She also had a beauty spot above and to the left of her upper lip, just like her idol. On the mantelpiece, pride of place, Elliot Wetlock had one framed photo of his daughter, aged about fifteen, and she looked like a different girl. Back then, she had a far more natural appeal, with long red hair, no beauty spot and a far healthier weight to her. Laura felt saddened by the fact that this lone photo seemed to represent a daughter long gone. There were no photos of this new version of Tania Wetlock, who was not a daughter to be proud of, it seemed.

Laura had been right to turn up during the bleaching phase of Tania’s hair appointment, because if she’d been able to flounce out, slam the door and totter off down the road on her too-high heels, she certainly would have done. Not that talking was getting Laura very far at all. Tania used the word ‘fuck’ as a verb, adjective and noun whilst flatly refusing to betray the confidence of her beloved talent scout. ‘I’m not stupid, Miss Police Lady. I tell you his name, and my dad pays you to scare him away. This is my life, and I can spend time with whoever the hell I like.’ She was also convinced that with his help she was on her way to Hollywood. Laura didn’t stay the full twenty-eight minutes. She stayed ten, leaving before she lost her temper.

Laura’s handover to Jack had been littered with expletives, which he omitted when he reported back to Maggie that night at home. As he spoke, Jack loaded the dishwasher whilst, by his side, Maggie visually quality controlled his work and, when necessary, took a dish or a plate back out and rinsed it properly.

‘There’s no doubt Tania’s vulnerable,’ Jack clarified, ‘but Laura doesn’t think it’s a police matter. A therapist matter, maybe.’ Jack could see Maggie was disappointed. He knew that the last thing she’d want to do was go back to her new mentor with no solution to his problem. ‘She’s almost eighteen, Mags. We can’t make her cooperate if she doesn’t want to. And she doesn’t appear to be a danger to herself or others, so any therapy would have to be voluntary. And it would have to be suggested by Wetlock. Not us.’

Maggie grabbed a bottle of red from the wine rack, plus three glasses.

‘Please tell Laura I’m grateful.’ She smiled. ‘I think Mr Wetlock’s attempted to persuade Tania into therapy already, but she was having none of it.’ She stepped close to Jack and kissed him. ‘Thank you for trying. Forget about them for tonight. We’ve got a wedding to arrange!’ Jack raised one eyebrow. ‘OK,’ Maggie corrected. ‘Me and your mum have got a wedding to arrange. You just nod in all the right places.’