Vanished

Chapter 36

Jack was still hungry when he got home. On the kitchen top was a large pork casserole with one scoop missing, so Penny had clearly eaten earlier. Seeing as it was Wednesday, that meant that she was now at the college learning how to... Jack couldn’t recall. It was something to do with the garden, that’s all he knew.

As Maggie put two plates in the oven to warm, Jack was eager for the upcoming feast. This was the kind of food that suited him best: home-cooked, on its own plate and shared with the women he loved. The £6.99 bottle of Merlot was also far more to Jack’s liking than the £50 bottle Jason had so pretentiously chosen.

Jack’s mind was now firmly on Elliot Wetlock because he knew he wouldn’t be able to focus on all of the loose ends belonging to the Avril Jenkins case until the weight of accusation surrounding Tania’s death had been lifted from his shoulders. And the only way that was going to happen was if her killer was identified. Maggie didn’t understand why Jack was the only person who was referring to Tania’s death as a murder and not a suicide. But Jack wasn’t going to share his suspicions about Wetlock until it was far more than just a hunch based on the revelations of a fugitive. So far, all he had was Foxy’s evidence that Tania had taken drugs anally. Jack’s current theory was that she had taken a cocktail of drugs orally, but not enough to kill herself, then a second person had administered the lethal additional dose anally which brought on the OD.

‘How would you get a rat out of a hole?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Cheese!’ Maggie beamed. But the grin on his face suggested that she was way off the mark. ‘Oh, you mean a person rat. Not a rat rat,’ she said. ‘Well, swap cheese for whatever it is that your rat likes best. Then,’ Maggie continued, pouring two glasses of wine, ‘close off all escape routes barring the one you’re waiting at. Then scare the shit out of them and wait till they come to you.’ Maggie grinned, impressed with her own ingenuity. ‘I know, I should have been a copper. Also, for your information, Penny and I were discussing getting one of those doorbell camera things, and I am going to order one online, for the front and back door.’

‘Let me sort that out,’ Jack suggested. ‘But you’re right: lesson learnt from the bloody Tania Wetlock situation.’

‘OK. But don’t say you’re going to do it and then forget.’

‘I won’t, promise. Now let’s eat — I’m starving’.

Maggie went to bed around ten, as was her routine when she needed to be up at five in order to run in to start her shift at seven. At eleven, Jack was still lying on the sofa wide awake: all he could think of was Dr Elliot Wetlock. He was a rat who had been hiding for far too long.

Jack went into the kitchen, where Maggie’s rucksack was by the back door next to her running shoes ready for the morning. Inside the rucksack was her handbag. And inside her handbag was her mobile phone. Jack had never in his life looked in Maggie’s handbag, and he’d certainly never looked at her mobile. Yet he felt no guilt as he flicked through her contacts looking for Wetlock’s details. He could have asked Laura, of course, as she’d been to Wetlock’s house, but that would have made her an accomplice to what he was about to do.