Presumed Dead (6 page)

“I heard he used to visit the area before he moved.” But why, Dylan had no idea.

“Did he? I never knew that,” Geoff said. “But even so, what the hell would he have been doing with someone like Anita? Sorry, Bill, I know she were a friend of yours, but even you have to admit she didn’t move in Armstrong’s circle.”

“What makes you ask about him?” Bill asked.

“Just something I heard. Well, something she told me once. It made me wonder if she had a bit of a thing going with him.”

“In her dreams!” Geoff laughed.

“No.” Bill shook his head. “We were close, me and her. She would have told me if she’d known a bloke like that.”

Dylan wasn’t convinced. He hadn’t seen two strangers discussing a dinner and dance or the weather in that photo. He’d seen two people with secrets.

“I suppose you knew her husband then,” Dylan said. “Ian, was it?”

“A good bloke,” Geoff said. “Moved to Wigan, he did.”

“Married a girl from there.” Bill nodded in agreement.

“Do you still keep in touch?” Dylan asked, but the pair shook their heads.

Ian Champion would be easy enough to find. At least, Dylan hoped he would. If people went missing, it was usually to avoid someone or something. A spouse, a loan, a lawsuit. Otherwise, it was easy enough to trace people.

A man was standing by the bar watching the three of them. In his thirties, Dylan supposed, with overlong dark hair, he was clearly a few pence short of a shilling. His left hand was slightly deformed and he was stooped. For all that, his clean, pressed shirt put Dylan to shame, and he was even wearing a tie.

Bill saw Dylan watching him. “Don’t mind Simple Stevie,” he said. “He’s as mad as they come but he’s harmless enough.”

“He used to work at Sainsbury’s,” Geoff said, grinning, “collecting up the trolleys in the car park, until he were found taking them for long walks. Tried to take one up the hard shoulder of the M65.” He put up a hand in Stevie’s direction. “All right, Stevie?”

Stevie nodded and grunted. Then he emptied his glass in record time and shuffled, limping awkwardly, out of the pub.

“Must have been something you said,” Dylan murmured.

Yvonne Yates’s choice of eating place was Chang’s, the Chinese restaurant on Market Street. Dylan, a huge fan of Chinese food, had been pleased about that until he’d seen the prices. Not that he was paying, it was all on expenses, but it didn’t seem right that Holly Champion should have to waste her money on a liar like Yvonne.

This evening she was wearing a short, figure-hugging black dress that showed off long, shapely legs and more cleavage than was good for him. He wondered if it was for his benefit. If so, it was wasted.

“The food and the service are always excellent here,” Yvonne said when they were seated.

Few things irritated Dylan more than that empty statement. It was talking for the sake of it. Presumably, if the food was crap and the service sloppy, people who had sampled the place already, like Yvonne Yates, wouldn’t return, and the restaurant would go out of business.

“I adore it.” She looked around her. “It’s not as tacky as most of them.”

“It’s very nice.” Crisp white tablecloths, thick red carpet, the interior devoid of the usual Chinese kitsch.

Dylan wasn’t a restaurant person. He would prefer to get a takeaway and eat it, feet up, in front of the television. He had to make small talk, too, something he hated and something he was exceptionally bad at.

“What would you do if I tore my clothes off?” Bev had asked the last time they’d been out for a meal.

“I don’t know.” If he hadn’t feared it was a trick question, he would have suggested she try it and find out.

“I wonder if you’d actually say something. You know, open your mouth and let words come out.”

As Dylan had suspected, it was a trick question…

“You said you’re going home tomorrow?” Yvonne broke into his thoughts.

“That’s right, yes. There’s nothing for me up here.”

He was going home, taking his son to the match, maybe getting his washing done, doing a spot of grovelling to Bev, hopefully moving back to the marital home, and then returning to Lancashire on Monday.

“Where’s home?” she asked.

“Shepherd’s Bush. Well, usually. As I said, my wife and I are separated but usually it’s Shepherd’s Bush. Tomorrow, I’ll be taking my son to watch the match. Arsenal.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah.” It was always the highlight of Dylan’s week. Luke was the easiest person in the world to get along with, and they had fun. Until they got home, when the vocabulary Luke heard at the match often spilled out to send Bev’s blood pressure through the ceiling.

“You’ll be banned from going, Luke, if that’s the sort of language you’re listening to,” Bev had said once.

“I’m sure he’s heard worse in the playground.” Dylan never failed to be amazed at the language some children came out with.

“I’ve heard worse from you, Mum.” Luke’s quick response had had Dylan stifling a laugh…

“So you’ve given up trying to find Anita?” Yvonne was asking.

“No, but I know there’s nothing more to find out here. Maggie told me what happened. She said she wanted no part in it, but I suppose she would say that, wouldn’t she?”

Yvonne’s eyes widened to the size of ten-pence pieces. “She—she told you? Maggie did?”

“She did. I think she was under the impression that you had.”

“Well!” Yvonne took a sip of her wine and shook her head in amazement. “Maggie never says boo to a goose.”

“Really?”

“Believe me, she’s as quiet as a mouse.” She thought of something else. “And she said she wanted no part in it? That’s rich. I was the one who was against it. Me! That’s why I went home early. I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

“I suppose that the passing years have dimmed the memory. Anyway, never mind that. I promised we wouldn’t discuss Anita.”

As he had hoped, and gambled on, Yvonne couldn’t let it go so easily.

“My memory is as sharp as it ever was, thank you very much.” She squared her shoulders. “As I said, I was the one who didn’t want to know. God, I’m hardly likely to forget that, am I? I quite liked Anita. In fact, if we could ask her, I bet she’d say I was her best friend.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

“Well, there’s no need to discuss it—”

“She had her faults, but at least she was open about them. So she’d slept with Sandra’s boyfriend. So what? Eddie was a right tosser anyway. In my eyes, all it did was prove that Sandra was better off without him.”

“That’s just what I thought.”

No wonder Sandra Butler had seemed so bitter. Eddie had succumbed to her employee’s considerable charms.

“But, oh no.” Yvonne was in full flow now. “Sandra wasn’t going to let either of them get away with that. She wanted revenge and nothing I said could talk her out of it.”

Dylan shook his head in what he hoped was a sympathetic way.

“Brenda was all for it, too. Mind, she always was a complete bitch. As nice as pie to your face but, the minute your back was turned, she couldn’t find a good word to say about you.”

“Really? I haven’t had the pleasure. According to her neighbour, she and her husband are in Corfu.”

“Best place for them,” Yvonne muttered. “Of course, it was easy for her, working at the hospital I mean. I suppose things weren’t so strict back then. She could get hold of anything.”

Hospital? Dylan’s very acceptable red wine struggled to find its way down his throat. What in hell’s name had they done to Anita?

“What, um, was it exactly that she got hold of?” he asked.

“I can’t remember what it was called. All I know is that it made you ill if you mixed it with alcohol.”

Good God. These women—Sandra busy in her salon, Maggie walking her dog, and Yvonne downing wine and picking at chicken wings—were remarkably cool. “And did it make her ill?”

“Didn’t Maggie tell you?”

“She gave me her version, of course,” Dylan said, “but it seems she has a habit of stretching the truth a bit.”

“Too right she does. Fancy telling you it was her who wanted no part in it. Cheeky bitch.”

She emptied her glass and Dylan refilled it.

“Ta,” she said. “Well, like I told you, I wanted nothing to do with any of it. As soon as they put that—that whatever it was—in her drink, I scarpered. Went home and left them to it.”

So, regardless of what had happened to Anita, Yvonne was in the clear.

“I have proof of that, too,” she said. “As it was still quite early, I called in at the Commercial on my way home. Loads of people saw me.”

In the clear
and
with a convenient alibi.

Dylan tutted. “Maggie didn’t tell me that.”

“Well, it’s fact. I had to phone Sandra the next day to find out what had happened.”

“It sounds as if you were better off out of it.” Dylan tried to sound sympathetic but it was difficult.

“Too right I was.”

The waiter came to clear away their plates and Dylan endured the usual “Was everything to your satisfaction?” and “Can we tempt you to a dessert?” routine with as much patience as he could muster.

He ordered a coffee and a brandy. Yvonne, after a great deal of deliberation, which included flirting with the young waiter, settled for coffee.

Dylan had thought he might find it difficult to return to their discussion, but Yvonne couldn’t let it rest.

“Do you think Sandra might have lied to me?” she asked, pulling a red serviette to pieces.

He gave her a smooth smile. “How can I answer that? I don’t know what she told you.”

“Just that they—Maggie and Brenda—left Anita in the alley at the side of Oasis. And that she was throwing up. But, according to Brenda, she was in the recovery position so wouldn’t have choked or anything.”

“I hadn’t realised she was a doctor.” Dylan somehow managed to keep the amazement from his voice.

“She wasn’t. She was a nurse. But fully trained and everything.”

Dylan was struggling to take in any of this. They had put something in Anita’s drink, something they knew would make her ill, and then, when she was vomiting, they had abandoned her to her fate.

“Did it never occur to you that something might have happened to her?” he asked.

“No.”

Their coffees and Dylan’s brandy arrived. Now Yvonne was too preoccupied to spare the waiter a second glance.

“Well, yes,” she said at last, “of course it did. But they heard someone, which is why they legged it. It was a bloke and they heard him talking to Anita. If there had been anything wrong, seriously wrong I mean, he would have taken care of her, wouldn’t he?”

“We have to assume so,” Dylan said, adding a dark, “if there was time.”

Frightened eyes darted to his. Yvonne Yates could say what she liked but, for the past thirteen years, she had been haunted by the disappearance of Anita Champion. Presumably, all four women had.

Dylan was trying to look as calm as Yvonne, but it was damned difficult.

“I suppose all four of you have worried that revenge might have escalated to murder?”

“Murder?” Her voice was a whisper, almost too quiet to catch. “No. No, of course we haven’t. That stuff, the stuff Brenda gave her, it was harmless. It only lasted a couple of hours at most.”

“Did Brenda know Anita’s medical history? Did she know what, if any, medication Anita was taking at the time?”

Yvonne blew on her coffee and took a sip before answering. “Probably. But either way, it didn’t matter. It was only something harmless. It was just a joke.”

“Not very funny as it turned out, was it?”

She began picking at the serviette again. “Anita was healthier than any of us. Nothing Brenda did caused her any harm.”

“I see.” All Dylan saw was the female at its most lethal. God, it was no wonder he had misogynistic tendencies. “If there really was a man trying to talk to Anita that night, does anyone know who it was?”

Yvonne shook her head. “The girls didn’t recognise the voice. Well, they didn’t hang around to find out.”

Serviette fragments were scattered across their table like drops of blood.

“Anita brought it all on herself.” Her voice was harsh. “Sandra’s bloke wasn’t the first. Ask anyone. Ask Alan Cheyney what she was like. It was thanks to Anita that his wife walked out.”

The name Alan Cheyney was familiar.

“He’s got a fishing shop on the main street,” she said on seeing his puzzled expression.

“Ah, yes.” Dylan had been in every shop on the main street, showing Anita’s photo to staff and asking questions, but Cheyney’s angling shop had been closed. He made a mental note to call again first thing in the morning.

Yvonne pushed her empty cup away. “It’s time I went home.” Her voice was flat and suddenly weary.

“What? Oh, no. Listen, we’ll go somewhere else and I promise not to mention Anita.”

“But you will. Or I will. That’s how it always is. Always will be, I suppose.”

There was no arguing with her, and Dylan didn’t try too hard. He had learned all he was likely to, and he wanted to be rid of her.

He believed her story. He believed that the lesson they had wanted to teach Anita had gone horribly wrong. Whether that lesson had ended as murder, he didn’t know.

And unless he could find the unknown man from the alley, if indeed that man had ever existed, he never would know.

The following morning, Dylan called at Cheyney Angling for the third time. Today, the Back in 10 Mins sign had been replaced by a large white card that declared the shop Open.

He stepped inside and found himself in a jungle of fishing rods, reels and metal stands with dozens of small packs of hooks dangling from them. There wasn’t room to swing a minnow.

“Morning.” The man behind the small and equally cluttered counter had been opening mail. Bills, by the look of it.

“Good morning.” Dylan inched his way forward without getting hooked. “I’m looking for Alan Cheyney.”

“Oh?” A wary look came into his eyes, and he flashed a quick glance at the street.

“Is he around?” Dylan asked.

“I’m Alan Cheyney.” Reluctance at revealing his identity had turned to defiance. “Who are you?”

He didn’t look Anita Champion’s type. Whatever that was. He was about five feet nine inches tall and his brown hair was thin. He was wearing grey trousers and an ill-fitting green sweater. He gave the impression of being more interested in catching trout than attractive women.

“My name’s Dylan Scott. I’ve come to Dawson’s Clough to try and find a woman I used to know. Anita Champion.”

Cheyney’s gaze travelled the length of Dylan. He looked as if he wouldn’t trust him as far as he could cast a line.

“I heard someone was asking after her,” was all he said.

“Did you know her?”

“I did.”

“And I suppose you’re going to tell me the same as everyone else? That she vanished one Saturday night and hasn’t been seen or heard of since?”

“That’s about the height of it.”

“Did you know her well?”

“Fairly well at one time, yes.”

Dylan waited for more. There was no more. “Close, would you say you were?”

“Depends on your definition of close, doesn’t it?”

He was a cagey individual.

“I heard she was responsible for the break-up of your marriage,” Dylan said.

“Then you heard wrong.”

“Oh?”

“Marriages break up without any help from outside. My marriage was over long before my wife caught me and Anita together.”

“So you had an affair with Anita?”

“It’s common knowledge. My ex-wife made sure of that.”

It might be “common knowledge,” but, in the same situation, Dylan couldn’t imagine telling a stranger he’d had an affair without first asking a few questions. As yet, Cheyney hadn’t shown the slightest interest in
why
Dylan was looking for his ex-lover.

Perhaps, as news of Dylan’s interest was spreading through Dawson’s Clough, Cheyney had heard the story of the love-struck idiot trying to find a ring he’d foolishly given Anita.

“How long ago was that?” Dylan asked.

“It was over about a year before Anita left the Clough.”

Left the Clough. Not vanished or disappeared, but left the Clough.

“Any idea why she might have done that?”

“No.”

“Odd, isn’t it? Her leaving the Clough, I mean, when she had a daughter waiting for her.”

“It’s not the action of a normal woman,” Cheyney said, “but Anita wasn’t like anyone I ever knew.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean she needed to be having fun. All the time. The Clough bored her. Everyone in the town bored her.”

“What’s your theory?”

“I don’t have one. I’ve no idea where she went, and I’ve got far better things to do with my time than invent stuff.”

“I knew Anita, too,” Dylan said.

“Oh?” Perhaps he hadn’t heard the story of the lovelorn southerner.

“Yes. About fifteen years ago. She said something to me about Terrence Armstrong. Did she mention anything to you?”

At the mention of Armstrong’s name, Cheyney flinched, Dylan was sure of it.

“No,” the man said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Do you know him?”

“He owns the ground you’re standing on.”

“Really? Ah, I heard he had a bit of property in the town.”

“You heard right then. Look, I can’t help you, and I’ve got things to do.”

“Fine,” Dylan said. “Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.”

Walking back along the street, Dylan ran a word-for-word replay of the encounter in his head. Mention of Terry Armstrong in the past had brought blank looks and the conviction that Anita couldn’t possibly have known him. Cheyney, though, had visibly flinched at mention of the man’s name.

Why?

He knew something, Dylan was sure of it.