Sandy, in a thick dressing gown and covered in a blanket, was lying on the sofa, cradling a glass of red wine and watching the news. A reporter was standing, holding a microphone, in a gutted, torched village.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ he said.
He smiled at her. She looked so beautiful, with her damp hair carelessly hanging around her face, and no make-up. That was one of the things he loved most of all about her, that she looked just as good without make-up as with it. Always an early riser, he loved some mornings to lie awake in bed for a few minutes, just watching her face.
‘Sorry about what’s happening in Kosovo?’ she retorted.
He bent down and kissed her. She smelt of soap and shampoo.
‘No, for being so late. I was going to help you with the decorations.’
‘Why aren’t you sorry about Kosovo?’
‘I am sorry about Kosovo,’ he said. ‘I’m also sorry about Rachael Ryan, who’s still missing, and I’m sorry for her parents and her sister.’
‘Are they more important to you than Kosovo?’
‘I need a drink,’ he said. ‘And I’m starving.’
‘I’ve already eaten, I couldn’t wait any longer.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sorry about Kosovo. I’m sorry about every damned problem in the world that I can’t deal with.’
He knelt and pulled a bottle of Glenfiddich from the drinks cabinet, then, as he carried it out to the kitchen, she called after him, ‘I’ve left you a plate of lasagne in the microwave and there’s salad in the fridge.’
‘Thanks,’ he called back.
In the kitchen he poured himself four fingers of whisky, popped in some ice cubes, retrieved his favourite glass ashtray from the dishwasher and went back into the living room. He pulled off his jacket, then removed his tie and plonked himself down in his armchair as she was taking up the whole sofa. He lit a Silk Cut cigarette.
Almost instantly, like a Pavlovian reaction, Sandy batted away imaginary smoke.
‘So, how was your day?’ he asked. Then he reached down and picked a pine needle off the floor.
A young, attractive woman with spiky black hair and wearing battle fatigues appeared on the screen, against a background of burnt buildings. She was holding a microphone and talking to camera about the terrible human cost of the war in Bosnia.
‘That’s the Angel of Mostar,’ Sandy said, nodding at the screen. ‘Sally Becker – she’s from Brighton. She’s doing something about the war there. What are you doing about it, Detective Sergeant, hoping soon to be Detective Inspector, Grace?’
‘I’ll start dealing with the war in Bosnia, and all the other problems of the world, when we’ve won the war in Brighton, which is the one I’m paid to fight.’ He put the pine needle in the ashtray.
Sandy shook her head. ‘You don’t get it, do you, my love? That young woman, Sally Becker, is a hero – rather, a heroine.’
He nodded. ‘She is, yes. The world needs people like her. But-’
‘But what?’
He dragged on his cigarette and then sipped his whisky, feeling the burning, warming sensation deep in his gullet.
‘No one person can solve all the problems in the world.’
She turned towards him. ‘OK, so talk me through the one you’ve been solving.’ She turned the volume on the television down.
He shrugged.
‘Come on, I want to hear. You never tell me about your work. You always ask me about my day and I tell you about all the weirdo people I have to deal with who come into the medical centre. But every time I ask you, I get some crap about confidentiality. So, soon-to-be Detective Inspector, tell me about your day for a change. Tell me why for ten nights running you’ve left me to eat on my own, yet again. Tell me. Remember our wedding vows. Wasn’t there something about not having secrets?’
‘Sandy,’ he said. ‘Come on! I don’t need this!’
‘No, you come on for a change. Tell me about your day. Tell me how the search for Rachael Ryan is going.’
He took another deep drag on his cigarette. ‘It’s going bloody nowhere,’ he said.
Sandy smiled. ‘Well, there’s a first! Don’t think I’ve ever heard you be so honest in all the years we’ve been married. Thank you, soon-to-be Detective Inspector!’
He grinned. ‘Shut up about that. I might not get through.’
‘You will. You’re the force’s blue-eyed boy. You’ll get the promotion. You know why?’
‘Why?’
‘Because it means more to you than your marriage.’
‘Sandy! Come on, that’s-’
He laid his cigarette in the ashtray, jumped up from his chair, sat on the edge of the sofa and tried to put an arm around her, but she resisted.
‘Go on. Tell me about your day,’ she said. ‘I want every detail. If you truly love me, that is. I’ve never actually heard a minute-by-minute account of your day before. Not once.’
He stood up again and crushed the cigarette out, then moved the ashtray to the table beside the sofa and sat back down.
‘I’ve spent the whole day looking for this young woman, all right? Just as I’ve been doing for the past week.’
‘Yeah, fine, but what did that entail?’
‘You really want to know the details?’
‘Yes, I do. I really want to know the details. You have a problem with that?’
He lit another cigarette and inhaled. Then, with the smoke jetting from his mouth, he said, ‘I went round with a detective sergeant – a guy called Norman Potting, he’s not the most tactful officer in the force – to see the missing woman’s parents again. They’re in a terrible state, as you can imagine. We tried to reassure them about all we were doing, and took down every detail they could give us about their daughter that they might not already have done. Potting managed to upset them both.’
‘How?’
‘By asking a lot of awkward questions about her sex life. They needed to be asked – but there are ways of doing it…’
He took another sip of his drink and another drag, then laid the cigarette down in the ashtray. She was looking at him inquisitively.
‘And then?’
‘You really want to hear everything else?’
‘I do, I really want to hear everything else.’
‘OK, so we’ve been trying to prise out of them everything about Rachael’s life. Did she have any friends or close work colleagues we haven’t already talked to? Had anything like this ever happened before? We tried to build up a picture of her habits.’
‘What were her habits?’
‘Phoning her parents every day, without fail. That’s the most significant one.’
‘And now she hasn’t phoned them for ten days?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is she dead, do you think?’
‘We’ve checked her bank accounts to see if any money’s been withdrawn and it hasn’t. She has a credit card and debit card, and no transactions have taken place since the day before Christmas Eve.’
He drank some more whisky and was surprised to find that he’d emptied the glass. Ice cubes tumbled against his lips as he drained the last drops.
‘She’s either being held against her will or she’s dead,’ Sandy said flatly. ‘People don’t just vanish off the face of the earth.’
‘They do,’ he said. ‘Every day. Thousands of people every year.’
