No Good Reason (17 page)

Once in the car, Nelson opened the windows wide and stuck his head out of the closest one. “I reckon that rates at least a seven on our shithole scale,” he said.

“I was thinking more of an eight.”

“Ooh, controversial. That puts it on a par with Flat 4C, Smackhead Terrace, from Assault with a Deadly Weapon.”

Sanne fastened her seatbelt. “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe a seven.”

He manoeuvred the car onto the track and began to weave around the potholes. “I think we can safely say that Mr. Clegg is not a person of interest.”

“No, but Ned Moseley might be worth a closer look. Right age, good level of fitness, potential holes in his whereabouts, and an enthusiastic participant in the investigation.”

“I totally agree,” Nelson said. “But I’m having my bloody pasty first.”

*

The line at the bakery was halfway out the door. Sanne joined the rest of the prospective pasty buyers, her hood drawn up against the rain. It was always a nightmare trying to find a parking spot in Rowlee’s tiny, overcrowded back streets, so Nelson had dropped her off while he looked for one.

As the queue edged forward and she crossed the shop’s threshold, she pushed her hood down and ran her fingers through her matted hair. The gesture made the man beside her smile in recognition. He had obviously only just seen her face.

“How do,” he said. “I thought that wreck of yours was due in for a service?”

Geoff Cotter owned the local garage, out on Lower Bank Road. He was reliable, he didn’t try to rip his customers off, and he was fastidious about keeping up to date with scheduled work. He was also supposed to be Sanne and Nelson’s last house call of the afternoon.

“Hey, Geoff. I meant to book in on Monday, but this case…” She left the rest of her explanation hanging. She didn’t want to go into detail in front of a crowd of locals who were now paying her their undivided attention. Some of them undoubtedly knew her—she did most of her shopping in Rowlee, and the village was small and insular enough that the sight of lesbians still turned heads—while even those unfamiliar with her had visibly pricked up their ears at her mention of “the case.” There was only one case around Rowlee in which anyone was interested right now, and the village grapevine was extraordinarily efficient.

“I understand, pet. Just don’t leave it too long. One of your tyres was borderline on your last MOT.”

The woman behind the counter interrupted to take Geoff’s order, and another assistant prompted Sanne for hers. Sanne added sausage rolls to the pasties, and on a whim bought three jam and cream scones as well. Nelson would probably eat his straightaway, but the other two she intended to save.

She caught up with Geoff as they were leaving. “Are you around this afternoon?” she asked. “Only, we’re doing house-to-house enquiries, and you’re on our list. I could kill two birds with one stone: ask our questions and arrange a date to bring my car in. Say, in half an hour or so?”

The church clock in the centre of the village chimed twice, saving him the trouble of checking the time. “That’d be fine,” he said. “Make sure you have your dinner first, though. Billy and Joan will be home as well, if you need them.”

“Perfect.” Her phone began to ring as she returned his farewell wave. She had to fumble in her pocket for it and answer it while attempting to keep hold of her carrier bag. “They only had cheese and onion, so I got you a sausage roll to go with it,” she said.

“That’s lovely, dear.” It was Meg, sounding very amused. “I do like a nice sausage roll.”

Sanne laughed. “Bugger, I thought you were Nelson. The sausage rolls are all spoken for, but I did buy you a cream scone. Did you get any sleep?”

“Four hours. Could’ve been worse.”

“Could’ve been better. Are you okay?”

“Bit mopey,” Meg admitted. “I’ve got the day off, but I don’t know what to do with myself. Fancy coming round for tea?”

“Of course I’ll come round for tea,” Sanne said. “I already bought dessert, remember?”

*

“You should try this,” Nelson said. “Seriously, it’s a taste sensation. It’ll be on
MasterChef
before you know it.” Sitting in the driver’s seat with his sausage roll in one hand and his pasty in the other, he was taking enthusiastic, alternate bites of each.

Sanne gave him the special look she reserved for moronic criminals who were caught in the act and still trying to blag their way out. She supposed she should be relieved he hadn’t yet added his scone to the mix. “I’ll stick to my pasty, thanks,” she said. “You’re lucky to have that sausage roll. Meg was all for pinching it, a few minutes ago.”

She opened her window a crack, letting out the steam and the smell of grease, and feeling cooler air brush her cheek. Nelson had managed to find a parking spot beside the river. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were breaking up, letting flashes of sunlight through. On the near bank, a child was beginning to wail as a swan strayed too close to her fingers. The swan honked as the child’s parent shooed it away, and that in turn set all the ducks off quacking. Ignoring the feathered mini-riot, Nelson raised the last piece of sausage roll, but then he set it down untouched on the bag.

“San? Can I ask you something?”

“Yep.” She poured tea from their flask and offered him a cup. “What’s up?”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

“Will anything I say be taken down and used in evidence against me?”

He laughed. “No.”

“Right, then. Go ahead.”

“Okay.” Now looking nervous, he sipped his tea. “Okay. So, why the hell aren’t you and Meg a couple?”

The directness of the question caught Sanne off-guard. She choked a little on her tea and spent the next minute spluttering and coughing. Nelson slapped her on the back before offering her a napkin.

“Thanks.” She blew her nose. Then she wiped her mouth and blew her nose again. When she had run out of other ways to stall, she propped her feet up on the dashboard and hooked her arms beneath her thighs. “Did you know Charles Darwin made a list of pros and cons before he decided to get married?”

“No, I didn’t.”

She smiled. “You should look it up online. It’s quite funny. Meg and I sort of did the same once: we made a list of the pros and cons. Y’know, for moving in together or trying to make a go of it as a couple.”

“What happened? Did you end up with more cons than pros?”

“It was actually pretty balanced. She’d do the plumbing, I’d do the gardening. I’d cook, she’d wash up. We both wanted pets, and neither of us wanted kids.” Sanne poured herself more tea and refilled Nelson’s cup. “We weren’t taking it that seriously—Meg had had a lot of beer—but I think we were trying to figure it out for ourselves, all the same.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Just after we’d graduated. We were twenty, maybe twenty-one, and toying with the idea of sharing a flat.”

“Did you?”

“No, we’ve never lived together. We’d probably end up killing each other. She’d steal all my bloody clothes, laze around, mess up my books, and leave her journals everywhere. And I’d drive her mad, making to-do lists, trying to clean around her, or dragging her out for exercise. It just seems to work better for us the way it is. We might see other people, but we still manage to keep this status quo between us.” She hugged her legs closer. Nelson wasn’t daft. He was accustomed to a traditional family setup, but he must know that she and Meg were more than just friends. She wondered for how long he had been trying to puzzle their relationship out.

“Don’t you risk wrecking that status quo when you date other people, though?” he asked.

“I suppose, but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe we set such an impossible standard for prospective partners that no one measures up.”

“Unless one day someone does,” Nelson said quietly. “What happens to the one left behind then?”

The prospect brought a lump to Sanne’s throat. It was exactly what she lay awake fretting over, especially when she knew Meg was on a date.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I try not to think about it. I know we could commit, make ourselves exclusive, and still live separately, but even that would change things.”

“If it ain’t broke…”

“Precisely. Don’t rock the boat.” She rolled her eyes at her mangled proverbs.

“You’re not mad at me for asking, are you?”

Sanne shook her head. Sometimes it was a relief to try to work the logic through, even if all that did was emphasise the illogicality of it all. “To be honest, mate, I’m surprised you waited this long.”

An automatic plug-in air freshener sprayed the reception area of Cotter’s Garage every ten minutes, but its pungent floral bouquet did little to mask Joan Cotter’s chain-smoking. Nicotine tinged the wallpaper, and a phone that had once been cream was now a tarry yellow.

“A week on Wednesday. Would that be okay for you?” Joan spoke around her cigarette, puffing out smoke like a carcinogenic dragon.

Eager to retreat to a safe distance, Sanne agreed to the date and jotted it in her diary. “I’ll drop it off as soon as you open. Are you three able to spare us ten minutes now?”

In lieu of an answer, Joan opened the door connecting to the workshop and bellowed for her son and husband. Her lips never lost their grip on her cigarette. Sanne saw Nelson’s eyes widen in appreciation.

“Hey, Sanne.” Wiping his hands on a grease-stained rag, Billy Cotter greeted her warmly. “My dad’s on his way. Can I get you a drink?”

Keen to get back to the office and type up their reports, she and Nelson declined the offer. When Geoff joined them, they pulled up chairs in the office, Joan lighting another cigarette from the stub of her last. Sanne introduced Nelson and began to run through the questions. The family’s answers were simple and unembellished: Billy spent most of his days in the garage or on call outs, and in the evenings he was either at home or at the pub. Geoff’s routine followed an even more straightforward pattern: garage, home, and a visit to the Working Men’s Club on a Tuesday. None of them recognised Rachel, and no one but locals had used the garage in the past two weeks. Both men were willing to volunteer DNA samples if that would help exclude them from the enquiry, and Billy offered to double-check the diary and computer records, to make absolutely sure they hadn’t dealt with anyone from out of the area or who might fit Rachel’s description.

The Cotters already had Sanne’s mobile phone number on their database, but she was in the middle of giving them her work number as well when her phone rang yet again.

“Excuse me,” she said, remembering to check who was calling this time. It was Eleanor’s mobile. “Hey, boss. We’re just finishing—”

Eleanor cut across her. “Scotty and Jay found the vic’s car, shoved into a riverbed off the Snake. They tracked it back to a rental agency in Sheffield. The manager there confirmed that a Rachel Medlock had signed the rental agreement. He couldn’t give a positive ID from the photograph, but she’d provided a local address for the paperwork: a holiday cottage out in the sticks.”

“Jesus.” Acutely aware that she had an audience, Sanne turned away from the Cotters. “What’s the address?” Trapping the phone with her shoulder, she scribbled down the details.

“You’re closest,” Eleanor said. “The owner of the cottage has agreed to cooperate fully and will meet you there in twenty minutes. I’m en route with Duncan and SOCO, but the traffic’s gone to shit in the rain. Approx ETA is one hour. Update from scene ASAP, please.”

“Yes, boss.” Sanne was already gathering her paperwork. She hung up and turned to Nelson. “We have to go.”

He didn’t stop to ask why. “I’ll bring the car around,” he said, heading for the door.

“Is everything all right?” Joan asked.

“Uh, yeah.” Functioning on autopilot, Sanne fell back on her training. “Sorry to have to cut this short. Please get in touch if you remember anything you might have overlooked.”

Nelson pulled up the car outside the office. She heard him rev the engine in an unsubtle hint.

“Did something happen on the case, Sanne?” Billy sounded intrigued.

“Yes, you could say that.” Giddy with the promise of real progress, she smiled at him and ran out into the rain.

*

Rowan Cottage was a picture-perfect example of a holiday retreat. Pink roses arched across its whitewashed exterior, and a gravel path meandered through a well-tended garden, whose flowers filled the air with scent and the buzz of bees. Its owner, Mrs. Martindale, had met Sanne and Nelson with trepidation, and taken two attempts to unlock the front door. It was little wonder she was nervous, having watched her visitors don Tyvek suits, gloves, and protective booties. Sanne politely requested that she stay outside and then followed Nelson into the hallway.

The door clicked shut behind them, leaving them in the beams of multi-coloured, late-afternoon sunlight shining through the door’s stained-glass panels. Dust motes danced in the air, and the pendulum of a grandfather clock marked time in a soothing rhythm.

“You okay to take the upstairs, and I’ll stay down here?” Nelson asked quietly.

“Fine,” she said, impatient to get started before SOCO arrived en masse and claimed ownership of the scene.

At the top of the stairs, she pushed open each door in turn, finding a double bedroom, a tiny single, and a bathroom. The single bedroom had obviously not been used. Its patchwork quilt was folded back to welcome a guest, and complimentary toiletries were arranged on an untouched stack of fresh towels. She left everything as it was and went across to the double room, stopping just through the doorway to observe its layout and contents. As she did so, her heart rate sped up, and she took an unconscious step forward.

Rumpled sheets and pillows told her that both sides of the bed had been slept in. The pillow on the left bore a folded pair of plaid pyjamas, but the occupant of the right side had discarded their nightclothes in a more haphazard fashion. Sanne knelt by the bed and picked up the satin nightdress, the fabric slipping in her gloved hands to reveal its mid-thigh length and the intricate lacing on its straps.

“Jesus,” she whispered, all her theories around a stranger-abduction beginning to unravel. If Rachel’s husband or boyfriend was the culprit, EDSOP would have a face to look for, and the case might be solved within days.