‘Well. The initials in the text are L.O., but I’m afraid that means nothing. And the private diary follows the same notation. But yes, I do know, I think, and I contacted the university – there’s an advice desk there – to ask what I should do. They seemed to think I should tell the police but ask them to respect the confidence as far as is possible, so I’ve put a note with the photocopies.’
Dryden tried to break in but she spoke over him. ‘The skeleton in the cellar is that of a man, isn’t it? So I don’t think we’ll ever find my mother.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Dryden, aware that part of her had wanted her mother to find peace at last.
‘Mrs Lisle, if I asked you to tell me…’
‘I’d have to say nothing, Mr Dryden. The young woman would be – what – in her mid-thirties now. I don’t think it’s any time for the press to be asking questions again. The rules laid down by MO are quite clear – there must be no general identification. The police are an exception, and although I suppose technically I’m not bound by the rules, I think Mother would have wanted me to respect them. So I’m sorry.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Dryden, lying. ‘But can you tell me what day this was, when she talks about confronting the mother of the child? About going to the family?’
‘It’s the last entry, the night before the evacuation, the night she went missing.’
20
The car park of Richardson’s cash ’n’ carry held three large Volvo estates, three super-size abandoned trolleys, a forklift truck and a squashed hedgehog. Dryden pushed open a large metal swing door and found himself in the swaddled hush of the vast store, the silence polluted only by the tinny, bassless crackle of muzak. There was one woman in a cubicle till waiting for a customer to appear. She had red hair piled high and held in place by clips and she was reading something just below the counter. Dryden’s footsteps made her look up through myopic eyes, her squint drawing together the wrinkles in her face. She shuffled the book sideways and Dryden saw it was a romance, a heroine fleeing a house with battlements.
‘Hi. Sorry – I’m looking for someone.’
‘Only trade customers. I’m sorry – you know, you have to have a card,’ she smiled. She flicked a finger across a pile of forms. ‘You can fill one in now if you like, but we need the VAT number of the business.’
‘My name’s Philip,’ he said, ‘Philip Dryden.’
‘I’m Ena, but you still need a card.’
‘I don’t want to shop.’
Ena looked sideways like she was planning something. At the far end of the aisle of empty till boxes was a glass office, and within that the cone of light from a desk lamp pointing down.
‘Mr Newall’s doing the books,’ she said.
‘It’s Elizabeth, Elizabeth Drew. I wanted to talk to her.’
Ena pulled the wrinkles together again, the shortsighted eyes searching his face for a clue. ‘She’s in charge at the back – Goods In – through the store. I shouldn’t let you really.’
She retrieved a pair of spectacles from around her neck and began to shuffle with the forms.
‘Thanks,’ said Dryden, setting off down an aisle flanked by metal shelving twenty feet high loaded with catering packs of soup, tinned vegetables and beans. At the end there was a crossroads where one aisle cut the store in two – a clear vista 150 yards long. In the distance a shelf stacker in khaki overalls was drop-kicking empty boxes over the top of the shelving. As Dryden watched a shopper crossed the aisle pushing a large flatbed trolley piled with boxes, cans and film-wrapped packs. Something flapped over Dryden’s head and looking up he saw a pigeon in the metal rafters of the roof, shaking free a fall of dust. The tannoy system bing-bonged and Dryden recognized Ena’s pinched voice: ‘Can I have a stacker at the tills, please. A stacker at the tills.’ Stress made her lengthen the final word into a small cry.
The shop worker stopped his game and headed for the tills, pausing to stoop down and pick up the shredded remains of one of the boxes he’d been kicking. Dryden set off again for the back of the warehouse, the air heavy with the smell of broken soap-powder boxes and the papery scent of several thousand toilet rolls stacked in towers along the rear wall.
Goods In was shielded by stacks of wooden pallets and a steel wall. A juggernaut was parked through a bay in the rear partition, the doors folded like a concertina, the engine and onboard refrigeration unit silent. There was another small glass-walled office dominated by a large colour calendar of Wicken Fen nature reserve, a wedge of swans caught at sunset replacing the usual splayed limbs of the Playmate of the Month.
A woman with round shoulders was leaning over the desk checking a document, a large lunchbox open beside her revealing a neat stack of sandwiches and what looked like a pastry. Dryden leant against the door jamb.
‘Mrs Drew?’
She looked up, the face without make-up, pale white Fen complexion, the brown wispy hair tucked back into an ethnic headscarf of chaotic Caribbean colours. Dryden guessed that food was a substitute for her, and wondered how long she’d been overweight.
‘How can I help?’ The voice was lighter than he expected, a decade younger than the fifty years he would have guessed from her face. ‘I’m interested in Jude’s Ferry – you rang in when I was on the radio. I work for
She smiled. ‘How’d you find me?’
Dryden looked around, avoiding the question. Through the HGV’s offside mirror, he could see the driver asleep in his cab. ‘Chummy on break?’
She nodded. ‘Tachograph. He needs to stop still for an hour. So… late lunch break.’
Dryden thought about his first question, balancing the phrases to avoid antagonizing his witness, taking time to get it right. ‘You were a rural officer for the county council. I don’t know much about the job, but it must have been a tall order keeping places like Jude’s Ferry going, getting everyone to work together. I was just trying to get a feel
