right. She passed me my cup.
'You came all the way from Scotland?'
'I took the train down from Glasgow this morning.'
Sheila looked confused.
'Gloria never went to Scotland.'
'I know.' I smiled. 'I just happen to be based there at the moment.' I took a sip of tea.
'It’s good of you to see me. Many unsolved cases like Gloria’s are under review at the moment, but sometimes it needs a bit of outside pressure to get the police to reopen them.'
Sheila rubbed her thumb nervously over her chin and then folded her hands in her lap as if someone had told her it was an irritating habit.
'My husband’s always said that they never shut cases like Gloria’s.'
I leant forward putting a note of sincerity into my voice.
'He’s right, they don’t. But, as I’m sure your husband will tell you, the police are undermanned and overworked. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have a bit of press attention.'
Sheila nodded silently. 'I know it must still be very painful to talk about Gloria’s disappearance even after all these years. Are you willing to give me a brief interview?'
Sheila looked at me.
'I’d walk barefoot into Hell to get my sister back, or even just find out what happened to her.'
'OK,' I smiled but there was no answering smile on Sheila Bowen’s face. 'I’ll get straight to the point. In all the press reports at the time of Gloria’s disappearance, there seemed to be an underlying suggestion that it was her husband Bill who was responsible. Do you agree with them?'
Sheila Bowen looked over towards the picture of a Cotswold scene hanging above the living gas fireplace. It was a restful view across green fields to a little thatched cottage inside a neatly fenced country garden. It looked like the kind of place where nothing bad ever happened. There were even roses round the door. But who could guess what horrors might lie inside its rustic walls? At last Sheila met my gaze.
'Well, you’re certainly direct.' She poured more tea into her cup then left it untouched on the table. 'This is difficult. There was a period after Gloria disappeared when I didn’t…
couldn’t talk about her at all. I was suspicious of everyone, especially men.' She looked at her lap and began twisting the cheap silver ring on her right hand. 'But as time passed I began to realise that by shutting out memories of her I was denying the life that she had had. And by giving in to constant suspicion I was ruining my own life as well.' Shelia paused as if trying to order her thoughts. 'Her son’s dead too, Billy.' I nodded to show that I already knew and she carried on talking, her voice level. 'He was a sweet boy but after Gloria went it was hard to keep in touch with him.' She shook her head. 'There was a lot of bad feeling between his father and me after the investigation. I suspected him and he accused me of sending the police on the wrong track. It was hard to come back from that. Maybe I should have pressed more, but I wasn’t in the best of health myself… then I got married. Jim hated to see me upset and it became easier to shut that part of my life up.'
'Perhaps you had to, to protect your own sanity.'
'That’s what Jim said, but now I wonder; if I’d been around more, if I hadn’t been so determined that his father was guilty, maybe Billy would still be alive.'
'You can’t torture yourself with what-ifs. You did your best.'
'You and Jim should get together. That’s exactly what he says. Jim’s always wanted to protect me, he encouraged me to forget.' She took a sip of tea. 'When my children were young it was easy for a while. I was so busy. Then they began to grow up and I realised I was ready to talk about Gloria again, but by then no one was interested.' She looked into my eyes. 'You’re the first one who’s asked about her in a long while.' Sheila put her cup back on the table and straightened her back ready to get on with answering my question. 'Gloria’s husband, Bill, was very handsome and compared to the family that Gloria and I grew up in, very comfortably off. Perhaps she should have asked a few more questions about where his money came from, but Gloria was young and pretty and wanted a good life. I never blamed her for marrying Bill.'
'But he hit her?'
Sheila looked at her feet again.
'I only saw evidence of it once.'
'The time Bill claimed Gloria had fallen down the stairs?'
Sheila nodded.
'Yes, and I believed her. Bill was in the nightclub business. You don’t get anywhere in that world without knowing how to throw your weight around, and why should Gloria lie?
Yes, of course I believed her.'
'I’m sorry. Some of these questions are going to touch on difficult ground.'
Sheila nodded and gave me a brave smile.
'Do you smoke?'
'Yes.'
'Then let’s go outside and have a ciggy.'
We went through French windows onto a small terrace. Life had proved itself unreliable, but Sheila had managed to inflict order on nature. Her garden was an almost symmetrical arrangement of lawn and well-disciplined flowerbeds. There was a wrought-iron table and chairs beside us on the patio, but Sheila led me down the lawn, stopping occasionally to deadhead plants or pull a reckless weed from a border. Perhaps it was too chilly to sit
