Presumed Dead (19 page)

“So they did. On the night Anita disappeared, what were the last words she said to you?”

“I can’t remember.” He laughed at the stupidity of the question. “It’s thirteen years ago, for God’s sake.”

It was. But Anita hadn’t gone home and, within in a few days, Jackson would have known that. When someone vanishes, or dies, people always—
always
—think back to the last time they saw that person, and the last conversation they shared. Given that the two had been close for several years, Jackson would have thought back to that last conversation on more than one occasion.

“She went to the ladies’,” Jackson added. “Perhaps her last words to me were ‘I need a pee.’ Who knows?”

He was lying.

Or perhaps he wasn’t. Perhaps he was a selfish, uncaring bastard who had forgotten all about Anita Champion. Maybe he lived by the motto out of sight, out of mind.

“That night at Morty’s,” Dylan said, “who else did she talk to?”

“Anita? Can’t remember. She was anyone’s for a free drink. Now, I will say this for her, she could hold her drink.”

“But you said she was pissed.”

“She was drunk, yes, but no more than usual, and no more than anyone else.”

“And you can’t remember her talking to anyone but you?”

“No. And she didn’t say much to me. Just hello and goodbye.”

“But she didn’t say goodbye, did she?”

“Not in so many words, but you know what I mean. We had a quick natter at the bar, she went to the ladies and I went to chat to my mates. That was all there was to it.”

“I see.”

“We also heard,” Frank said, “that she had a bit of a thing going with Terry Armstrong. What do you know about that?”

Jackson’s eyes narrowed. “Never heard of him.”

“Really? He’s a bit of a crook. He’s from the east end of London, but he used to visit the area back then because his wife’s family were there. He moved up to Lancashire about eight years ago.”

“A crook? He’s your main suspect then?”

“Suspect?” Dylan repeated. “For what?”

“For doing away with Anita.” Jackson was definitely rattled.

“You think someone did away with her?” Dylan asked with a soft whistle.

“Who knows?”

The door swung open and Jackson’s expression changed immediately. Dylan turned in his seat and saw a tall, slim dark-haired woman approaching them. She had sunglasses resting on top of her head.

“My wife, Francois.” Jackson was on his feet, moving forward to kiss his wife on both cheeks. “Two English friends,” he told her, “and I would love to chat longer, but alas.”

Francois had no time to do anything but make a few polite pleased-to-meet-you noises.

“I hope we’ll meet another time,” Jackson said, “but now I must bid you farewell. We’re already running late.”

He took several large notes from his pocket, dropped them on the table and ushered his wife to the door. They were last seen striding across the road in the direction of the harbour and Jackson’s BMW.

“Must have been something we said,” Frank muttered.

“Must have. And what happened to his former wife, I wonder?”

“Traded her in for a foreign model, I guess.” Frank let out his breath on a sigh. “He is a lucky bastard. A boat worth nearly half a million and a wife like that.”

“Hmm.”

“You didn’t like him?” Frank asked.

Dylan had neither liked nor disliked him. Shallow was the word that sprang to mind. “It was a long way to come for that.”

“True. But now we know where he is, we can get him checked out a bit. And find out what happened to the girl he married.” He gave Dylan a knowing look. “Let’s hope she hasn’t done a disappearing act, too.”

Frank had echoed Dylan’s thoughts exactly.

“He reminds me of someone,” Dylan said, “and I’m damned if I can think who it is.”

“Oh?”

“It’ll come to me.”

“You’ve probably spent too long looking at his photo.”

“Probably.” Dylan pushed it from his mind. “And I’ve got a nice sample of his handwriting. It’ll be interesting to see if the same hand wrote on Anita Champion’s Valentine’s cards.” He nodded at the cash on the table. “Do you think there’s enough there for another bottle of wine?”

“Sure to be.”

As they formed their own opinions of Matthew Jackson, they enjoyed another bottle of wine at his expense.

The following morning brought more blue skies and sunshine, and Dylan was happy to sit outside the small cafe, warm in his overcoat, and enjoy his croissants. He wasn’t a great lover of French food, perhaps his palette wasn’t sufficiently sophisticated, but he adored freshly baked croissants and could easily eat half a dozen.

The miracle was that he had a decent mug of coffee to go with them. The young waitress, on discovering that he and Frank were English, had asked if he wanted “tall coffee.”

He couldn’t understand why he’d imagined that bringing Frank along would have been an act of charity. It was saving him a great deal of time and effort. Frank had called his friends on the force, they in turn had contacted French officials and, early this morning, it had been confirmed that Jackson’s former wife was alive and well and owner of this cafe in Cherbourg.

According to the young waitress, a girl whose English was as good as Dylan’s French, Julie had left the cafe for a hair appointment and would return shortly. At least, that’s what Dylan thought she’d said.

“Are you still planning to go back on the two o’clock ferry?” Frank asked, and Dylan nodded.

“I think so. Unless anything else comes to light.”

Anything else? So far, nothing had come to light. He was no further forward than when he’d started on this case. He knew a lot more about Anita Champion, her friends and her habits, but he was no nearer to knowing what had happened to her.

A woman dashed inside the cafe, and Dylan thought it might have been Jackson’s ex-wife.

Sure enough, seconds later she was there, pulling out a chair at their table and sliding into it.

“Two English gentlemen waiting for me.” Her smile was warm. “How lovely!”

Her hair was longer these days, but the elfin features and large doelike eyes were just as Dylan remembered from the photo taken on her wedding day.

“Julie—Carrington?” According to Frank’s sources, she had reverted to her maiden name. “I’m Dylan Scott and this is Frank Willoughby.”

“Delighted to meet you both.” She shook hands with them, her fingers long and slender. “How can I help you?”

Her face was heart-shaped, Dylan noticed, and her expression was open, friendly and genuine. He just hoped it remained so.

“I’m a private investigator.” Dylan decided to come clean from the start. “My client has asked me to look into the disappearance of her mother, one Anita Champion. She lived—”

“Good heavens. That’ll be Holly, won’t it?”

“That’s right, yes.”

“Of course, she’ll be grown up now, won’t she?” She did a quick calculation. “She must be twenty-five. Heavens, that makes me feel old.”

“She’s working as a teacher now.”

“Good for her. She was always a clever girl.”

“Did you know Holly and her mother well?” Frank asked.

“Not really. My husband—ex-husband now—knew her better.”

“Ah, yes. We had a brief chat with your ex-husband yesterday,” Dylan said.

“Really?”

“Yes. He couldn’t help, though.”

“I don’t suppose he could,” she said. “It was a funny business, though. And if I were Holly, I’d want to know what happened, too. I can’t begin to imagine how it must feel to be—abandoned like that. She had no one, did she? Well, an aunt and uncle, but it’s not the same.”

“Quite.”

“I don’t suppose I can help you either. You see—well, you’ll probably know this, but Anita was Matt’s girlfriend on and off for years. I was always jealous of her.” She offered a self-conscious smile. “Anita was everything I wasn’t. She was very beautiful.”

In a far more understated way, Julie was beautiful, too. Deciding, however, that the words would sound insincere, Dylan didn’t say so.

“I always wanted to get Matt away from her,” she admitted with another of those self-conscious smiles. “I’d always fancied living in France, too, ever since—oh, I must have been twelve years old when my parents first brought me here on holiday. I thought it was a magical place. I still do. This—” she threw a proud nod at the cafe, “—is my dream come true.” With a quick wave to the girl inside the building, she indicated that more coffee should be brought out. “It’s chilly again, isn’t it? Still, it will soon be summer and then we’ll be complaining that it’s too warm.”

“No doubt,” Frank agreed.

“You say you were jealous of Anita?” Dylan said. “Surely, that was before he married you?”

“And after. I could never understand, you see, why Matt wanted someone like me when it was obvious to anyone that he could have had Anita.”

Dylan looked to Frank, hoping he’d make some suitable comment. He didn’t.

“He probably wanted me because I was the first girl to turn him down.” The grin she gave was childlike. “He asked me out and, knowing his reputation as a ladies’ man, I said no. I think that was such a shock to him that he couldn’t rest until he’d persuaded me to marry him.”

“I’m sure that’s not the case.”

“You met his third wife yesterday?”

“Er, yes. Briefly.” Very briefly. “His third wife, you say?”

“Yes. He met Juliet when we’d been living here about a year. From Julie to Juliet.” She tried to make light of it but it must have hurt. “They married within a very short time and it ended about six months later. Then he married Francois. She’s beautiful, too, isn’t she?”

“She is.” Dylan couldn’t lie. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for the two of you.”

“I have no regrets. We have two wonderful children, Jon and Toby, and I have the business. I love my life.”

She anticipated Dylan’s next question before he could ask it.

“Matt’s very generous. He invested his money well and he’s quite a rich man now. He won’t allow me or the children to go without.”

“We saw his boat,” Frank said. “He certainly is a rich man. He told us we’d have very little change from half a million.”

“Boys and their toys,” she said with amusement. “Yes, he’s done well for himself.”

“It must have been difficult when you first came to France, though,” Dylan said. “I take it you didn’t have jobs to come to? And your ex-husband didn’t make a lot of money when he sold the garage in Dawson’s Clough, did he?”

“Oh, but he did.” She was surprised at Dylan’s assumption. “He had it valued just after Christmas, realised exactly how much it was worth, and then sold it for a good sum in the New Year. That was 1998.”

“But he must have had a mortgage on the premises,” Dylan said.

“Good grief, no.”

“Ah, that explains it then.”

It explained nothing, other than the fact that perhaps Jackson had lied to her. The truth was that he’d taken out a hefty mortgage to buy that garage. He’d sold it at a bargain price and most of the money had gone straight back to the bank. Any remaining funds wouldn’t have bought him a decent car.

“Matt came into a bit of money, too.” A small frown marring her features. “It wasn’t much, a winning bet apparently, but it helped. I remember we had an extravagant Christmas that year.”

“What sort of bet?” Dylan asked.

“He’d been given a tip for a horse race.”

“He’s one lucky man,” Dylan said, smiling. “Who gave him the tip?”

“Gosh, I’ve no idea. You’d have to ask Matt.”

Dylan wasn’t convinced. Was it possible that Jackson’s windfall hadn’t come from an obliging horse, but from someone who paid well for jobs carried out neatly? Someone like Terry Armstrong?

“You’ve got a prime spot here, haven’t you?” Dylan said as several more customers arrived for coffee and croissants.

“I love it.”

“A friend of mine was thinking of opening a restaurant in France,” Dylan lied, “but he couldn’t get the hang of the system over here. Mind, he didn’t have a clue about how to prepare his accounts in England, never mind France. Is it a lot more complicated?”

She laughed at that. “How would I know? I don’t do any of that. I have an accountant who deals with all that sort of stuff. Maths was never my strong point.”

So she was hopeless with money. It would have been easy enough for Jackson to lie to her about his financial status, if indeed he had.

All this speculation about Jackson’s wealth was getting him nowhere. It was Anita Champion he wanted to know about.

“Getting back to Anita,” he said, “can you remember the last time you saw her?”

“As clearly as if it happened yesterday. It was the day before she vanished. I’d been in Manchester, shopping, and when I got to the station, she was waiting for the same train back to Dawson’s Clough.”

“How did she seem?”

“Chatty. Friendly. But she always did. If she knew how jealous I was, if she had any idea how I longed for her to vanish off the face of the earth, she gave no indication. We chatted about the stunning Christmas decorations in Manchester and moaned about the lack of decorations in the Clough. I asked after Holly and she asked after Matt. The usual stuff.”

“You got your wish then.” Dylan watched her closely. “She seems to have done just that—vanished off the face of the earth.”

Her skin turned such a deep shade of red that Dylan was half expecting his first case of human combustion.

“God, what an awful thing to say. I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” Dylan said, and she smiled her gratitude.

“So you weren’t at Morty’s with your husband the following night?” he asked.

“No.” She didn’t elaborate.

“Why was that?”

“Oh, I rarely went. I’ve never been a clubbing sort of person. Besides, I had two young boys at home then.”

“Of course.”

She wasn’t a clubbing type, yet she ran a thriving cafe in a bustling street in Cherbourg. That wasn’t the action of a wallflower, was it?

“When your husband came home that night—the night Anita disappeared,” Dylan said, “can you remember if anything was troubling him? Did he mention Anita? Did he seem bothered about anything?”

“Not that I recall, no. He didn’t mention Anita, but he wouldn’t, not to me. No, he didn’t really say anything about it.”

“I see.” Dylan gave her his little-boy-lost smile. “And you can’t think of anything that might help me?”

“I wish I could. As I said, I was always jealous of Anita, but I wouldn’t have wished any harm to come to her. It’s just awful to think of poor Holly abandoned like that.” She brushed a crumb from the white tablecloth. “I remember the police asking questions at the time, and I really hoped they would find out what had happened, for Holly’s sake, I mean. They never did, though.”

“I’m hoping to be more successful,” Dylan said.

“Gosh, yes, let’s hope so.”

“One more thing, did you know a man called Terry Armstrong?” At her blank expression, Dylan went on, “He only moved to Lancashire about eight years ago, but he made the occasional visit back then.”

“No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the name.”

“Don’t worry, it was a long shot.”

Dylan really would have to get some cards printed. As soon as he was back in England, he’d do just that. He’d stop at the motorway services and get some printed on the spot. For now, he tore another page from his notebook, wrote his name and phone number on it and handed it to Julie.

“If you think of anything, anything at all, no matter how insignificant you think it is, will you give me a call?”

“Of course I will.” She took the page of paper, folded it in half and put it in the back pocket of her jeans. “I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

Dylan nodded. He was sorry, too.

He took his wallet from his pocket, but she pushed it away.

“This is on the house. And make sure you call again if ever you’re in France.”

Dylan and Frank promised they would, and she kissed them on both cheeks.

“Give my love to Lancashire!”