Vanished

Chapter 21

Jack woke to a silent house. Josh had made his way home around midnight, after making a friend for life in Penny. She adored his polite American way of calling her ‘ma’am’, and how he said words like ‘gosh’ and ‘heck’ instead of, as she put it, ‘the base words my son feels the need to use’. Josh had wholeheartedly agreed with her that cussing was a sign of weakness in a man, confident that Jack and Maggie wouldn’t snitch on him for effing and blinding in the lounge earlier that evening whilst they’d all been out of Penny’s earshot.

Maggie and Penny had taken Hannah to church. It wasn’t a weekly ritual for any of them but every now and then Penny felt the need to reaffirm her faith. With all of the recent wedding plans and with the big day getting closer, she was becoming acutely aware of the fact that she would not have her husband by her side. Maggie’s parents were lovely people, but there were two of them, while the wedding photos would show that Penny was a widow, which simply wasn’t fair. Not for her, but for Charlie. He should be by her side, crying with pride as their boy married the woman he loved.

Jack made a large mug of tea and checked his messages and emails. Andre Boogaard was now a name being traced by Laura in the UK and Anik in Amsterdam. Between them, they were checking births, deaths and marriages to track his family and personal history, and they were checking for any international movements over the past thirty or forty years. There was a possibility that Boogaard could be Adam Border’s father; this, in turn, could explain why Adam had been so hard to track down. Maybe he had been born and lived mainly abroad, regardless of what Hester thought? Maybe Boogaard was his birth name, explaining why they could find so little information for Adam Border prior to him attending Chelsea Art College. And why they couldn’t find him now. Jack called Anik.

‘Lieutenant Visser, Garritt, saved my arse yesterday ’cos he knew this guy, Sergeant Bosch, and he knew Andre Boogaard. Once we had the military link, it took ten seconds. But if I’d not had Garritt with me, I’d still be trawling through all the crap Laura sent my way.’ Anik was on a roll, so Jack didn’t interrupt. He just put his mobile on speaker and made himself some toast. ‘I’m still tracing his timeline from the photo, to now. The Chis — God, I hate telling people that someone’s dead — Garritt’s keeping in touch with them over the next day or two and he’ll help them sort travel to London. They definitely need interviewing again.’ Jack opened his mouth to ask if that was because they had information on Adam Border, but Anik spoke first. ‘Not because of Adam Border — they didn’t know much about him — but because of some stolen Rossetti painting they caught Jessica with.’ The toaster popped in Jack’s kitchen. ‘You only just having breakfast?’ Anik mocked. ‘I’ve been up and working for an hour.’

As Jack raced upstairs, he pointed out that Amsterdam was one hour ahead, so that made them quits. Anik mentioning a Rossetti painting had instantly jogged a memory in the back of Jack’s mind. Whilst Anik continued talking, Jack rushed into his office, grabbed Avril Jenkins’ red notebook from his jacket and headed back down into the kitchen.

‘The Chis are both artists,’ Anik continued, ‘so they knew this painting wasn’t a copy, as Jessica claimed, but the real deal. They told her to return it to the original owner. That’s why they thought I was in Amsterdam. They thought I was gonna tell them that I’d nicked their daughter.’ Anik’s mobile peeped in his ear. ‘Listen, Jack, my battery’s going. I’m about to send a full report of everything I just told you. I need to know how long Ridley might want to me to stay out here. Only my petty cash float has gone, so now I’m spending my own money and I can’t...’ Anik’s mobile died.

Before Jack settled down to work, and before he forgot, he sent Laura a quick text message:

Jack flicked through the red notebook until he found the list of items Avril had reported as stolen. Top of the list, which was ordered by value, was a Rossetti painting. Then a connected thought occurred to him. As he flicked through the notebook he was mentally kicking himself for not looking sooner... and there it was. On a torn page, close to the back of the notebook, was an art gallery address and a scribbled-out phone number for Jason Marks.

Currently, no one knew that Jack had Avril’s red notebook, and nor did he want them to. It was the one piece of evidence found at the house that seemed more relevant to the murder than the drugs, so Jack was eager to keep it away from Steve Lewis until he’d got everything he needed from it. And Ridley didn’t need to be bothered by unsubstantiated hunches. Jack would fill him in, in good time.

Jack wrote the name ‘Andre Boogaard’ on a piece of paper and slipped that inside the notebook. Then he went upstairs for a shower before his girls came home.

Jack cooked Sunday brunch for everyone, which consisted of sliced sausages, bacon and mushrooms being fried together. At the last minute, Jack broke eight eggs into the same pan so that the fried egg whites held the entire breakfast together as one, and he then slid the whole thing out onto a chopping board for people to slice up like a pizza. He made sure that each ‘slice’ contained one fried egg plus a good selection of everything else. Charlie had taught him to make breakfast this way and claimed that it made your basic fry-up look like a piece of artwork on the plate. In truth, it was so he only ever had to wash one pan. Hannah’s slice of breakfast pizza was laid face down in the still-hot frying pan for another thirty seconds, to make sure that the yolk was cooked through.

Today was Maggie’s hen night. She’d insisted on it starting in the early afternoon, because some of her friends were on night shift and she would be up with Hannah at 5 a.m. There was no way she was still going to be awake past 10.30 so, to get in the required number of drinking hours, Penny and Maggie were starting with a film and a bottle of pink champagne at 2 p.m.

By 6 p.m, Maggie and Penny were ready to head out. Maggie wore a black T-shirt with sparkly pink lettering on the front boasting BRIDE, and Penny wore one announcing her as MOTHER OF THE GROOM. Jack and Hannah kissed them both goodbye, then they headed upstairs for Hannah’s bath, bedtime feed and story.

As she fought sleep, Hannah’s eyelids would close, and then her eyebrows would lift, dragging her eyes open again. Her stubborn refusal to sleep, even though she was exhausted, made him giggle. Eventually, Hannah’s body relaxed and felt heavy in his arms, and he knew she was asleep.

Jack slouched on the sofa with the red notebook, half a bottle of red wine left over from the previous evening, and half a bottle of Remy Martin brandy. He committed the rest of his evening to going through the notebook from cover to cover. Towards the back of the book, in tiny writing was a list: alcohol, steel stock pots, stainless steel rice cooker, electric cooling pan, plastic funnels, coffee filters, large syringe... then the list stopped abruptly where two pages had been torn out at the spine.

Maggie was cringing in the corner of a little pub in Richmond as her friends tunelessly shouted the words to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. The other customers had quickly moved on from smiling and congratulating Maggie, to now wishing the hens would leave. Penny was mildly embarrassed, but that was waning with each glass of prosecco. As the song hit the second chorus, two men carrying car keys and wearing Hackney Cab ID lanyards entered the pub and, in unison, their eyes settled on the raucous hen party and their hearts visibly sank. One young hen, spotting their drivers, leapt to her feet and screamed, ‘Party!’ then downed her drink and led the way out of the pub. Penny was last out and, as she passed their taxi drivers, she apologised in advance for how loud the journey to the Blue Bird Café in Chelsea was about to be.

Jack sat reading the red notebook, with his brandy glass propped on a cushion.

Hannah was sound asleep next to him, hanging on to the teat of her bottle with her teeth for comfort. Over the previous couple of hours, Jack had received several texts from Maggie:

...which Jack presumed was meant to be twenty.

At half past ten, there was a knock on the door. As he made his way across the lounge, Jack presumed that Penny had left her door key in her bedroom, as she often did, and that Maggie couldn’t find hers amongst all of the unnecessary items in her handbag.

Jack opened the door... to Tania Wetlock. Her dress was as skimpy as the last time she’d dropped by uninvited, and she seemed to be equally pissed, stoned, or both. ‘Don’t worry, Jack,’ she slurred, ‘I’m not here for you. I want to speak to Maggie.’

Tania tried to push past him, but he stood firmly in her way and told her to go home because Maggie was out.

Tania pushed his chest, but he didn’t move. There was no way Jack was going to let a drugged-up unpredictable teenager into his home when Hannah was asleep on the sofa.

‘I know she’s here. Maggie! Maggie!’ Hannah began to stir and grizzle. Jack gripped Tania firmly by the shoulders and pushed her back out onto the doorstep, then shut the door in her face. Hannah was now lying face down with her knees tucked up to her chest and her bottom in the air. Jack rubbed her back and made ‘Shhh’ noises in an endeavour to stop her waking up.

When Tania kicked the front door, Hannah and Jack both jumped. Hannah began to cry. Jack gently picked her up and, as she naturally put her head against his chest for comfort, he put his hand over her exposed ear and headed upstairs, while Tania continued kicking the front door and shouting for Maggie. Jack put Hannah in her cot but, as predicted, she immediately stood up and screamed to be held again. She had no clue what was happening and needed to be in the arms of her dad. Jack kissed Hannah several times on her cheeks, promised to be back, and then closed the bedroom door. Hearing her scream as he rushed back downstairs was heartbreaking.

Jack flung open the front door and stepped out, forcing Tania backwards onto the pavement. ‘If you don’t shut up, right now, I’ll have you arrested. Go home!’

Jack backed towards his front door, not wanting to take his eyes off her. He didn’t care about leaving Tania out in the cold this time, he didn’t care how vulnerable she might be, all he cared about was his daughter. And Tania could see that. She suddenly rushed him.

‘I’ll scream on your doorstep, Jack Warr. Me and your kid will have a screaming competition. And I’ll win. I’ll scream things you don’t want the neighbours to hear. RAPE! RAPE!’ Jack grabbed Tania by the wrist and dragged her indoors. The instant his front door was closed, she fell completely silent. She’d got what she wanted. Jack dragged her to the sofa, pushed her down, leant in and shoved his finger in her face.

‘You move, touch anything, shout out, and I’ll shut you up. You’re trespassing now, and I have every right to defend myself and my property against intruders.’ The smirk slowly dropped off Tania’s face as she tried to decipher whether Jack was seriously threatening her. He held her stare. He needed her to be scared of him. Because he needed to go and comfort his crying daughter.

As soon as Hannah was in his arms, she stopped crying and settled. She was emotionally exhausted and within two minutes was back asleep. When Jack returned downstairs, Tania was also asleep, curled up on the sofa in the foetal position, with her knickers on display. As Jack looked down at the small, vulnerable teenage girl, he knew he should feel sorry for her; but he couldn’t. She frustrated him beyond comprehension. She was a spoilt little bitch and she was disrupting his life. He had zero responsibility for her, yet here she was again, invading his home. Jack took himself into the kitchen to make a cup of strong coffee and calm down.

He leant the palms of his hands on the kitchen top, fingers splayed, knuckles white. He closed his eyes and listened to the comforting sound of the coffee machine dribbling out a double espresso.

‘I’ve changed my mind.’ Jack’s eyes shot open. He spun round to see Tania leaning against the kitchen doorframe, finishing the remnants of his brandy. ‘It is you I want after all.’

Jack hadn’t counted to ten in his head since he was at school, but he was doing it now. He took the espresso from the machine, calmly walked up to Tania and swapped it for the now-empty brandy glass. She looked him straight in the eye and launched the small coffee cup across the kitchen, smashing it against the wall. Her throw was so cack-handed that she spilt most of the coffee all over herself and him.

That was the last straw. He grabbed her arm and dragged her through the lounge towards the front door. Rather than go with him, Tania dug her heels in and fought. She grabbed at the cushion on the sofa, and her handbag fell onto the floor where the contents spilt out across the carpet. Jack stopped in his tracks: amongst the expected items such as make-up, mobile, purse, and keys, there was also a bundle of cash held together with a small black clip. Tania wriggled free from Jack’s grasp and dived onto her knees to collect her belongings. ‘You’re a bastard!’ she screamed. ‘Just like the rest of them. A fucking hateful bastard!’

From upstairs, Jack could hear the distinctive sound of Hannah crying and knew she would be standing up in her cot. He hauled Tania off the floor, opened the front door and threw her out — just as Maggie and Penny were stepping out of a taxi.

Tania stumbled down the driveway, toppling off her heels, already trying to call someone on her phone. But when she saw the cab, she dropped the call and thrust the top half of her body in through the taxi window. ‘Take me home,’ she whimpered. Then she climbed in the back seat and the taxi sped away.

Penny walked straight past Jack and upstairs. She didn’t care what had happened, she just wanted to hug Hannah and stop her from crying.

Jack closed the front door and double-locked it. No one else was going to invade their home tonight. ‘I told him about her, Jack... I... swear I did,’ Maggie slurred. ‘How bloody dare she come round...’ Maggie suddenly became transfixed by a smudge of lipstick on Jack’s shirt. She poked it hard with her finger. ‘Bitch.’ Then she effortlessly shifted from being furious to practical. ‘Whip it off. I’ll soak it.’

Jack took Maggie by the hand and walked her upstairs. Once in the bedroom, she became clumsily amorous, trying to remove his shirt, catching it on his nose as she yanked it off over his head. ‘Now you undress me.’ She dropped onto the bed and lay back. Jack knew she was trying to be sexy, but as he took her skirt and tights off her flailing, unruly legs, he couldn’t help but think that this was akin to changing Hannah’s nappy! By the time he’d thrown Maggie’s clothes across the room towards the linen basket, she was asleep. He swung her legs onto the bed, her head onto the pillow and covered her with his half of the duvet. He then tipped the contents of the plastic wastepaper bin onto the carpet and put it next to the bed in case she woke in the middle of the night and reached for something to be sick into. He stood looking down at his lovely drunk wife-to-be — and realised how quiet it was.

Penny stood in the nursery, rocking from foot to foot with Hannah asleep on her shoulder. She was staring at the photo of Charlie on the wall: Jack had put it up before Hannah was born, so that his dad could watch over his daughter in the night. ‘I should probably move out, darling.’ Penny’s words came as a total shock. ‘You’ll be a proper family soon. I can’t live in your attic forever.’

‘We’re already a proper family,’ Jack said. Penny lowered her eyes and Jack knew she was crying. He turned her to face him, shaking his head as if he had no clue why she didn’t understand. ‘This is your home, Mum.’