Vanished (4 page)

M
ICHAEL AND
M
OLLY
hurried from the car park behind the boarded-up station toward the Oceanview. He heard her boots pattering along just behind the thump of his—it wasn't her fault he had a longer stride—and slowed his pace. “You were saying you saw Naomi at the church?”

“Yes,” she replied, “right after we left the
Black Sea Pearl.
You remember, I wanted to show Angela at the Style Shop how well my dress fit.”

He smiled reminiscently at the “fit” of the dress.

“I was turning into Pelican Lane,” Molly continued, “and I noticed several tourists taking photos of the church. Aleister would love that, since old Charles renovated the place. Typical Crowe, taking what was probably a very nice medieval building and ramming Georgian windows through the walls and raising the steeple until it's out of proportion.”

Michael's eye strayed toward the foursquare steeple of St. Mary's, or Calm Seas as it was known to Blackpoolers, after one of the most frequent prayers uttered there. The spire rose above the roofs of town like an exclamation point.

“Naomi was sitting on the bench beneath the old yew tree, sketching the Crowe mausoleum. The row of columns can cast some interesting shadows. Although, judging by her Goth look, she was imagining the spooky stuff inside—coffins, cobwebs, a crypt.”

“It wouldn't be Blackpool without the spooky stuff. Here we are.”

The Oceanview apartment block was a slab-sided stucco building that clashed with every other structure in town. It had been erected by the town council in the 1950s, a decade not known for architectural sensitivity. But the inexpensive flats were homes, just as much as Thorne-Shower Mansion was home.

Dylan's anxious face peered over the concrete balcony that formed a gallery running in front of half a dozen doors. Michael and Molly raced up the steps toward him. With a wordless gesture of frustration, he led the way past the peeling paint into Willie's flat.

A short hallway, a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom and bathroom, all sparsely furnished and smelling of stale food and mildew—the tour took only a moment. Drawers were turned out, couch pillows upended, cabinet doors opened. Molly focused on the food-crusted dishes piled in the kitchen sink. “Yeah, it sure seems as if someone searched the place. Or vandalized it. But then, it wasn't very neat to begin with, was it?”

“I've never been inside before,” conceded Dylan. “Willie's never struck me as a tidy sort, no, and Naomi's got other things on her mind.”

“You mean her artwork?”

“She's good at it, talks about working as an illustrator. But that cow Temperance Collins at the gallery won't exhibit any of her work, and won't represent her to the Tyne and Wear Arts Council in Newcastle. Just about broke Naomi's heart, that did.”

As far as Michael was concerned, the work Temperance did exhibit was rubbish—but then, she'd made it clear that video and anime art was beneath her notice.

Dylan ran his hands through his hair, so that it stood
on end like ginger-colored antennae. He pointed toward an open door at one side of the kitchen. “I thought I heard someone legging it down the steps as I came in the front. But when I looked out, the yard was empty.”

Michael eyed a steep stairway leading down into a concrete yard dark with shadow. “We'll have to ask the other tenants if they saw anyone, although with the festival underway, I doubt anyone's here.”

“Liam and Holly McKenna certainly aren't,” said Molly. When Michael and Dylan regarded her with confusion she said, “Didn't you see the poster downstairs advertising Holly's fortune-telling sessions and seances? The number given is the apartment right below this one.”

“I'll talk to them. I'll talk to everyone in town if I have to.” Dylan plucked a yellowed copy of the
Blackpool Journal
from the kitchen table and threw it on the floor. Beside his thick shoes, a headline read, “Henry Humboldt Passes Away. Norrington Reveals Ownership of the Magic Lantern Theatre.”

That was an old newspaper, Michael thought. Archie Norrington had owned the theatre ever since he and Molly had lived in Blackpool.

“So who trashed the place?” Molly peered into a small closet that held little more than a broom and a dustpan, themselves in need of a cleaning. “A burglar searching for valuables in all the wrong places?”

“Willie himself,” suggested Michael, “packing up in a rush? No offense, Dylan, but if you tried to mop the cobblestones with me, I'd be getting out of town.”

“Willie's not afraid of me. Not so much as he should be, leastways.”

“Was it Naomi?” asked Molly. “Maybe she was trying to get back at Willie for causing her trouble.”

“She went looking for trouble.” Dylan braced himself
against the sink, his muscular shoulders quivering like jelly.

“Maybe we should call the police,” suggested Molly.

Dylan shook his head. “We don't know that this isn't exactly the way Willie left his flat. As for Naomi…I don't think they'd be overly concerned for her…. Our best bet is finding Willie.”

Sharing a sympathetic glance, Michael and Molly left him to collect himself and went back into the living room. “If only we had an idea what to look for,” she said. “Neither Naomi or Willie left a forwarding address.”

“Not as such, no.” Michael walked on into the bedroom. He considered the unmade bed, the gaping wardrobe, a chair loaded with clothes. Surely if Willie was planning to leave town, with or without Naomi, he'd have packed a suitcase.

Michael peered under the bed and saw nothing but dust kittens accumulating into dust lions. He inspected the wardrobe and found only odd bits of clothing and a jumbled pile of shoes. Perhaps Willie
had
packed a suitcase, then. Or a duffel or rucksack.

Dylan's heavy tread crossed the room. His voice steady, he asked, “Anything?”

“His shoes,” Michael began.

Molly's voice came from the living room. “Michael, I think I've got something.”

“Hold on, Molly.” Michael pulled out two athletic trainers and placed them side by side, then set two leather shoes next to each other, trying to ignore their smell. There was one bit of footwear left over, a wellie boot, its green rubber sides so battered it might have come out of a rubbish bin or even washed up on the beach. “Why would he keep one boot?” he asked Dylan.

“The other one's probably around. Maybe that's where
he keeps his drug stash. I'll have a look,” Dylan replied, and headed back to the kitchen.

Still clutching the boot, Michael walked into the living room to find Molly standing by a fiberboard desk. It was cluttered with odds and ends, from dirty cups to DVDs to a sleazy magazine and a dead plant. She pointed at several sheets of blank paper. “Those are pages torn from a spiral-bound notebook of drawing paper. I didn't notice if this was what Naomi was using when I saw her drawing by the church, but then, we're not trying to find out whether she was here, just where she's gone.”

Michael glanced toward the kitchen, where a thud indicated Dylan was eviscerating any remaining cupboards. “Is that your big discovery, then?”

“No. Look here.” She indicated the bracket clamping the lamp to the desk. From its protruding edge hung a long, thin, ragged strip of dark cloth, swaying in the draft from the partially open front door. “Maybe it's from a costume or coat worn by whoever was searching the flat but was startled away when Dylan knocked.”

“Or maybe it's from one of Willie's coats.”

“He wasn't wearing a dark blue coat or jacket when I saw him earlier today—he was wearing a Fair Isle sweater.”

“A what?”

“A Fair Isle sweater. One of those with lots of intricate colored stitching around the yoke. The top. This part.” Molly patted the area beneath her throat.

“Ah. Yes, that's what he was wearing, right enough. And there's no dark blue coat in the wardrobe, though that doesn't prove anything. For all we know, that thread's been there for months.”

“I doubt that. It's just about the only thing on this desk that isn't dusty, greasy or both.” She noticed the
boot in his hand. “I think I saw the mate to that under the couch.”

Michael squatted down to peer beneath the settee. Aha, there
was
a lump of battered green vinyl there.

He reached warily under a sagging spring, past a rancid fish and chips wrapper, and pulled out the second boot. It weighed a lot more than the first. Some of Willie's drugs?

Dylan emerged from the kitchen, using a dishtowel to mop a brown stain from the hem of his Motocross sweatshirt. “He left an open can of beans in the fridge…What's that?”

Michael sat down on the chesterfield, Dylan and Molly on either side. All three heads bent together as Michael pulled away the ragged T-shirt stopping the mouth of the boot. He tipped it up. Into his hand fell four coins, so heavy that he almost dropped them. Instead he let go of the boot, and turned the four coins over and over.

Each was polished to a shine that dazzled even in the gloom of the apartment. Three were gold with Latin and Cyrillic inscriptions—Michael could make out only the word
Transalpina.
The fourth coin was a huge silver disc stamped with a lion's head.

“That's it,” hissed Molly. “Willie was trying to show Trevor Hopewell one of those gold coins.”

Dylan whistled. “So where'd a bloke like Willie get those? No one woulda ever given him those for drugs.”

“Maybe we were right when we thought the place'd been sacked. Maybe they were searching for these?” Michael asked. “Who knew they were here?”

Before she could react, the front door slammed open. They all jumped, startled, and instinctively Michael clutched the coins to his chest.

Down the hall and into the living room came Douglas
Fotherby, his fleshy shoulders coiled beneath their epaulettes like a bull entering a china shop. “Making yourselves at home, are you? Stewart, I thought I told you to leave Willie alone.”

This time Dylan was steady enough to stand up and lean into Fotherby's face. “Willie's not here. I'm looking for my wife.”

“Ah,” said Fotherby, puffing himself up. “Churchay la femme, is it?”

Wincing at Fotherby's French, Michael stood up, as well. Fotherby turned on him. “Graham, don't you know better than to interfere with the scene of a crime? Looks to be a burglary in progress.”

“What makes you think this is a crime scene, Constable? Did Willie complain to you again?”

“I've not heard from Willie,” Fotherby said.

Molly, too, rose to her full height, such as it was, and demanded, “So on what basis are you accusing us of a crime? Can you tell if anything is missing?”

“You just said, Stewart, that your
wife
was missing. Gone away with Willie, has she? Thought you'd turn the place over, like she was hiding under the bed?” Fotherby's eyes grew so large they reflected the glitter of the coins in Michael's hands. “Well, well, well. She's not the only thing walking off, hmm? Good job one of the neighbors reported your break-in.”

“We didn't break in,” said Dylan. “The door was open.”

“Hand over those coins,” Fotherby ordered.

With a sigh of frustration, Michael did as he asked. “Here you are. Evidence. Of something.”

“There's a bit of cloth caught in the desk lamp, too,” Molly told him.

Fotherby held the coins against his navy blue uniform
coat, not sparing one glance for the desk. “Off you go, the lot of you. I'm securing the crime scene.”

“It's not a crime scene,” insisted Dylan, even more anxiety creeping into his voice. “I'm looking for Naomi is all. Just 'cause I don't know where she is doesn't mean there's been a crime!”

“Oh, so Willie invited you here? Push off!”

Michael steered Dylan toward the hallway. Beside him, Molly's lips twitched—she was no doubt trying to come up with a crushing retort.

Outside, on the balcony, an older woman in a pinafore apron and pincurls backed hastily away from the open door. Dylan pounced. “Daisy Coffey, isn't it?”

“That's me, yes.”

She was another member of the Coffey clan, then. Margaret and Randall Coffey ran the grocer, Alice Coffey ran the Historical Society and Daisy ran the rumor mill. Her distended nostrils reminded Michael of Alice.

“Have you seen a girl in black clothes, black spiky hair, red lipstick?” Dylan asked.

“The scraggy vampire lass? She was here this morning, right enough—had a row with Willie that set my crockery to rattling. Screeching like a gull, she was. So was the round blond one last night.”

Willie had more than one girlfriend? Michael wasn't sure whether Dylan's wince registered that fact or if his reaction was to “scraggy vampire.”

“Although,” Daisy added, her pale eyes above her plump cheeks narrowing in reminiscence, “the women's voices were never so loud as the man's. ‘You've got no choice,' he was shouting, and there's Willie saying, ‘Hush, the walls have ears.' The walls don't need ears, not with that sort of to-do.”

“A man?” asked Dylan. “When was this?”

Daisy shrugged. “This afternoon. I'd just come in from the shop—I help Margaret at the grocer's, don't I, when there's a crowd in town—and I'd had me a look at that posh yacht of Trevor Hopewell's. Could be a film star with that face, though not one of those going about with the dirty hair and whiskers…”

“Did you see who was arguing with Willie this afternoon?” Molly asked.

“No. I heard the door slam and steps going down the stairs, is all.”

Michael and Molly exchanged glances. Had someone confronted Willie, then come back after he left?

Dylan asked, “When was the last time you saw Willie?”