Vanished

Chapter 29

As Jack hit the M40 back to London, his radio display changed from RADIO 4 to MAGGIE. He thought that he should alter it to say WIFE and that made him grin. Jack was in a good mood. His visit to Julia had been unexpectedly positive and productive: he’d learnt that she was not back in the UK to ruin his life, and that the enigmatic Elliot Wetlock used to be a drug dealer and was still possibly a drug user. It made Jack happy to know that the doctor whose eyes and voice could make Maggie swoon was not perfect after all. But Jack would not tell Maggie any of this for now.

‘Hi, Mags. ETA 7 p.m. I’ll sort the takeaway as soon as I’m home. You want your usual?... Listen, Mags, what does canteen gossip tell you about Wetlock’s private life? From way back. Possibly from before he came to work.’

‘Are you driving?’

Maggie sounded sad and Jack’s mind immediately leapt to his mum. ‘What’s happened? Everyone OK?’

‘Everyone’s OK. We found out why Elliot Wetlock has gone AWOL. He found Tania’s body late last night. She’d been dead for days.’

‘Jesus, I’m sorry. I know she was a pain in the arse, but... sorry, Mags. He must be devastated.’

Maggie said that she’d still be home at the expected time and that she’d be needing a hug that might have to go on all night, depending on how depressing the rest of her shift turned out to be. Jack asked if Maggie wanted to be picked up from work, but she was actually looking forward to the run home as a way of clearing her head. Maggie didn’t volunteer any of the details surrounding Tania’s death, so Jack assumed that she either didn’t know or didn’t want to go into the gruesome details over the phone. So, Jack didn’t ask any questions. He simply kept saying ‘I love you’ until Maggie felt strong enough to hang up.

Jack assumed that Tania had OD’d, as he’d only met the girl twice and she was high both times. His drive home flew by as his mind raced to make sense of everything he now knew. Jack wondered whether Wetlock was her supplier. But, if he was, would he really bring the police into their lives? No, Jack thought Tania had been more than capable of ruining her own life. She was clearly a deeply unhappy girl, who dreamed of being rescued from a life she couldn’t escape on her own. That’s why she lived in a fantasy world — because it was better than reality.

Before Jack had spoken to Maggie, he’d been under no pressure to share what he’d learnt about Wetlock’s lifelong connection to drugs, but now, with the death of his drug-abusing daughter, it would all have to come out. Jack knew that he’d have to think of a way to explain how he’d come by the information.

As Jack’s family car sluggishly made its way back along the motorway, his thoughts shifted to a second car. Something nippier, more sexy and less homely. Seeing Julia again had reminded him that on a couple of occasions he’d stumbled across money during a case which didn’t belong to him but which he’d gratefully taken, on the basis that it didn’t belong to anyone else either. He’d been drip-feeding this money into his daily life ever since, his wedding’s free bar being the latest example. A new car would certainly be an asset now that Hannah was getting bigger and would soon be taking part in more and more social events such as Caterpillar Club and Buzzy Bees Gymnastics, both of which Penny had found being advertised in the library. Jack spent the rest of the journey home figuring out how to raise the subject of a new car with Maggie, who he knew had her heart set on a luxurious honeymoon. He wasn’t convinced they could do both — not in style.

When Maggie walked through the front door, flushed from her run, she saw Jack standing in the kitchen doorway and her eyes instantly glistened with tears. Jack held open his arms and she walked into them. He squeezed her tightly. ‘Takeaway will be here at nine. Go grab a shower. I’ll open the wine.’

Maggie had taken to wearing Jack’s dressing gown because hers had permanent crusty patches on both shoulders where, over the months, Hannah had dribbled or puked into the fleece. Jack thought there was something very sexy about seeing the woman he loved wrapped in his oversized clothes.

Maggie, wine in hand, sat cross-legged on the sofa, facing him.

‘He was coming down from the third floor where he’d been getting the Management up to speed, and I got in the lift with him on my way back from x-ray... God, he looked awful. She’d stopped answering his calls or responding to his text messages about three days ago. And because it wasn’t unusual for her to go off the radar, he never thought anything of it. Then yesterday... oh God, Jack. Imagine finding your own daughter dead.’

Elliot Wetlock threw his house keys into the wooden bowl on the hallway table. As he took off his coat, he looked at the space in the row of shoes beneath the table. Tania’s shoes had not been there for three days. Nor had her coat. He went into the lounge and poured himself a glass of brandy, which he took into the kitchen and sipped whilst he made himself a chicken and avocado sandwich. He flicked on the TV and watched the ten o’clock news. Wetlock tidied as he moved, so by the time he’d settled to the breakfast bar to eat his supper, the kitchen looked like it hadn’t been used. It looked like part of a show home. Soulless and unloved.

As the news ended, Wetlock put his plate in the dishwasher, popped into the lounge to refill his brandy glass, then headed upstairs. This was his routine. He used the hallway, lounge, kitchen, his bedroom and his en suite which, together, constituted a quarter of the property. The remaining three quarters were unused, except when Tania deigned to come home. Father and daughter lived separate lives under the same roof, and he hated it. But he had to endure it because otherwise, she’d never come home at all.

When Tania was not squatting back with Daddy due to lack of funds, she was in her own flat across town. Tonight, for some reason, his usually well-hidden fatherly conscience made him put his coat and shoes back on and actually head over there to see if his daughter was OK.

Wetlock had always had a spare key to Tania’s flat but rarely used it. He allowed her to live her own life, but in recent months she’d been behaving in a way that made him worry. At the top of the stairs on the third floor, he turned right towards Tania’s flat which was the last on the left and occupied the highly sought-after corner suite. As soon as he opened the front door, his nostrils flared in response to the heady smell of drains. He opened the bathroom door first, because it smelt like he might be faced with a backed-up and overflowing toilet. Everything was normal. Except for the now heightened smell of faeces coming from the next room.

He ventured towards Tania’s bedroom and — never imagining that she’d actually be on the other side amid such a terrible stench — opened the door. The smell instantly intensified. Wetlock brought his hand to his mouth and nose, and his gaze locked on Tania. She lay in the centre of the bed, curled up in the foetal position, shoes and coat on. The white floral duvet cover beneath her body was stained with urine and excrement. Wetlock stared at his daughter in abject horror — not because her bladder and bowels had emptied, but because her skin was white apart from the cheek that lay against the pillow. He couldn’t see it fully, just enough to notice it was purple with lividity, telling him that she’d been dead for more than eight hours.

Despite this certain knowledge, Wetlock raced to his daughter’s side and pointlessly felt for a pulse. Then he shook her by the shoulders and screamed her name. Her ice-cold body moved freely beneath his hand. His doctor’s brain now also knew that she’d been dead long enough to go into and come out of rigor — that meant three days — but his father’s brain was telling him to never stop shaking and never stop screaming.

Maggie pushed her noodles round her bowl, while Jack couldn’t help but tuck into his because he was starving after his expedition to Wales. But he ate quietly, taking small mouthfuls, in case he needed to say comforting words.

‘She’d been there three days and he had no idea. She’d OD’d. The paramedics had to leave her there, in her own excrement, because the police want a post-mortem.’ Maggie found a small piece of chicken which she decided to nibble at as she continued. ‘Apparently, there was one locked cupboard in her bedroom which Elliot gave the police permission to force open. They found a couple of half-empty champagne bottles, some prescription pills, some illegal drugs and a diary. I don’t even know why he told me all of this, Jack. I didn’t know what to say. Maybe he wanted me to relay it all to you.’

‘Did he tell the police about the talent scout?’

‘Oh, he’s probably still telling them about him... Poor man. Poor, poor man.’ Jack now knew that Wetlock might not be a ‘poor, poor man’ at all. But Maggie didn’t need to learn the truth about her mentor tonight. She looked up at Jack for the first time since she’d started relaying Wetlock’s terrible ordeal. ‘He told them about you.’ Jack froze mid-chew. ‘They know Tania came round here a couple of times. That she threw herself at you and—’

‘Wetlock told them that his daughter threw herself at me? And how exactly did he know that?’ Jack knew that the information could only have come from Maggie. Instead of defending herself, she began to look tearful, so Jack stopped himself before he lost his temper. He couldn’t believe it: with one misplaced conversation, he was suddenly a person of interest in the suspicious death of a teenage girl who had been to his house twice and offered to have sex with him both times.

He recalled her first visit — and the taxi driver who’d seen her crying and dishevelled as she left his home. And her second visit had been even more damning because she’d stood on his doorstep and screamed, ‘RAPE!’ And the only way he could shut her up was to drag her inside his house. It would only take one of his neighbours to have witnessed that and he’d be up shit creek. The job he loved would be gone in the blink of an eye.