Grey’s look, though rooted in beguilement, may have appeared to his ever-enthusiastic colleague instead as slight consternation: a consternation demanding of his Sergeant an explanation of why such a routine matter, one easily within the ken of their able uniformed division to handle, at least at this early stage, should have been felt important enough, and by as capable an officer as herself, to be brought to his busy door?
‘Sarah came to speak to me,’ Sarah Cobb that was, the team’s administrative support officer. Cornelia continued, slightly downcast, as if having to explain away some indiscretion, ‘she said you were interested yesterday in anything we had had in relating to Aubrey’s.’
Before she said anymore Grey’s heart seemed to leap up in confirmation,
‘And this has? Has to do with Aubrey’s, I mean?’ He knew deep in his old officers’ bones that this could be the point of revelation that any case started with.
‘Yes, he works there. It’s his mother who’s come in.’
‘Have they started interviewing her yet?’
‘Soon. They’re just making her a cup of tea right now,’ she said as she turned to walk with him downstairs, he having left his papers pretty much where they were. ‘So do you want to take over?’
‘Perhaps not,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know if there’s anything in this yet.’
‘What’s on your mind?’
He was quite used to his subordinate asking after and indeed questioning his own thought processes, he appreciating her insights as much as his own, and having noted before how her own opinions and his had often worked together to form a complete picture.
‘It might be nothing… I met some men from Aubrey’s the other night.’
‘Okay,’ she said, for Cori (for everyone always called her Cori) knew there must be more to it than that, and that this would be imminently forthcoming.
‘Well, they were upset and angry. They spoke as if the place was in chaos, that their jobs were gone.’
‘I didn’t know anyone had lost their jobs there.’
‘No, nor did I, and nor does anyone else it seems — not that you can call the place up and ask if they’re having troubles; but nothing’s been announced. That’s what is odd. But they were so honest in it. They were mourning their jobs, plain and simple, or so it seemed to me after. It was peculiar, very intense. Dignified even.’ Even as he said this Grey shocked himself to realise how strongly those few angry words in the pub, and carried notes of singing heard as he walked home had impressed themselves on his mind that evening.
‘But nothing we know this missing person is associated with?’ Cori speculated, in a voice which urged caution, knowing how her boss could get carried away.
‘No, nothing at all. But I just get a feeling about it, nothing explainable yet. It was like a commiseration: they seemed to know the game was up.’
‘Well, you don’t need to justify your hunches to me.’ They pushed through a series of doors, through to the staff area of the ground floor, and leading on to the various spaces public and private in which they worked; and eventually on to where a young female Constable, having supplied the requisite tea and biscuits, now led a lady of a visibly nervous disposition into a room usually reserved for interrogating suspected muggers and thieves.
‘Just you go in,’ Grey instructed Cornelia, ‘it won’t make her any less nervous to have a mob of detectives in the room.’
‘No problem, boss,’ she answered, as Grey, there being no way he could return to his paperwork now with all this going on, planted himself down at an empty desk in the office, to wait until his Sergeant had something to tell him, those working there attempting to continue their tasks without reference to his brooding presence; before he instead opted for the smaller room next door, where a monitor would let him watch the interview take place.
Cori noted that the lady, even in her time of worry, had still made the effort to turn herself out smartly, perhaps she being of that dying breed that saw a civic institution like a police station as a place to dress up for and to approach in a spirit of good conduct.
‘So, Mrs Long,’ began Cori, once they were all sat down, she having been quickly briefed in the corridor, ‘I’m Sergeant Smith. We’ll be recording our conversation just so we can write it up for our records, if you are okay with that?’ The lady’s nervous nodded assent was all Cori needed to continue. ‘So, you told the Constable that your son has not been home for… twenty-four hours now?’
‘Yes, well, since yesterday morning. He goes out to work you see.’
‘How old is Thomas?’
‘Twenty-four.’
‘He lives at home still?’
‘Yes. Flats are so expensive for young people these days.’
‘And where does he work?’
‘Aubrey Electricals.’
‘And how long has he been working there?’
‘About six years. He started straight from the sixth form.’
‘And how does he get on there? Does he enjoy it?’
‘I think so. Yes.’
‘So, you last saw him yesterday morning?’
‘When I saw him off to work.’
‘First thing in the morning?’
The lady nodded.
‘I need you to keep answering “yes” or “no”, Mrs Long, for the tape.’
‘Sorry. Yes, about seven o’clock.’
‘And this was the time he usually leaves?’ Cori’s early questions were for the most part an exercise in confirming the obvious.
‘Yes.’
‘And so you were expecting him home in the evening?’
‘Yes, always.’
‘And you wouldn’t expect him ever to spend a Tuesday night out?’
‘No, not Tom, he never does, not any evening. He always comes home.’
‘I wonder, had he mentioned anything he might have been doing that evening? Perhaps somewhere he was going or someone he was seeing?’
She answered in the negative to each suggestion.
‘Mrs Lane, does Thomas have a girlfriend?’ Cori’s instinct was the answer would be no, and so it proved.
‘No, Sergeant, Tom has… never shown much interest in that area of things, in fact I wish he would. I do worry about him sometimes. I mean, he can’t stay at home forever. Not that I’d ever throw him out!’
‘Oh no, Mrs Lane, I’m sure there’s no suggestion of that. I have to ask quite a difficult questions, sorry.’
‘No dear, I understand.’
Cornelia admired the way Mrs Lane faced up to the questions at what must have been such a tough time for her.
‘And I know it is hard to think about areas of your son’s life you may not know as much about, but can you think of anything that Thomas may have been involved in, that could have worried him? Any trouble…’
‘My dear, believe me, if you had grown up with a brother like mine, notorious at every pub and shady haunt in his time, bringing the police to our door like clockwork… If my Tom was in trouble I would be the first to know it, and the first to still love him whatever it was he had done.’
Cornelia couldn’t help but feel that the lady sat across the table from her, so worried for her son lost somewhere in the world, and speaking of such sad and serious things, nonetheless was glad to have a chance to talk of her boy. Her pride in him was obvious, as were her concerns,
‘It isn’t so much that he isn’t out with women very much that worries me,’ she said, ‘but that he isn’t out very much at all. I try and encourage him, suggest he goes for a drink after work — I know the other lads there do. Philip tells me.’
‘That’s your husband?’
‘Yes, he works as Aubrey’s too. Didn’t I tell you?’
‘I think you may have mentioned it outside,’ said the young Constable beside Cori, smiling sympathetically.
