He stowed that line of thought firmly away as he parked at the allotments and met Mrs Keeling. She repeated for him what had happened the day before. ‘Has there been any word yet?’ she asked. ‘I’ve asked around here but he didn’t say anything to anybody about going away – but then he was never down here very much.’
‘Things like this always take time,’ he said. ‘More so these days, what with all the cutbacks. The regulars are going through his things, trying to track down any relatives. What we can do right now is have a quick look in his shed, just to make sure.’
Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh God, you don’t think…’
‘No, I don’t think. It’s just something to cross off the list for the investigating officers, that’s all.’
He’d already called Angie Robotham, who met them at Overton’s plot with a pair of bolt-cutters. It wasn’t likely that the missing man would be in there if it was locked from the outside, but David liked to be thorough. From the frosty way the two women greeted each other there was obviously something going on between them, but that was their business. Overton’s shed had seen better days; the tar-paper roof was mossy and torn in several places and the windows were green with mould. Hard to see what was inside, whether it was empty or if, God forbid, the missing man was lying in there. His plot wasn’t in a much better state – mostly overgrown with weeds except for the one patch that he’d started to clear. Angie cut the lock free and David pushed the door open, bracing himself for the smell of rotting flesh.
The shed was empty – if shelves teetering with towers of old flowerpots, a ragged cane chair with a mouldering cushion, boxes of slug pellets, and cobwebs garlanding rusty rakes and trowels could be called empty. On the chair was a book, its pages open and bloated with damp, over which a large black spider ambled. My place now.
‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Dennie said.
‘Except that we still don’t know where he is,’ Angie replied.
‘Okay, well,’ said David, closing the door. ‘I’ll put a message out through the OWL for people to keep their eyes open and tell us if they know anything. Realistically it’s all we can do at the moment.’ And he still had to get home to help Becky with dinner. He’d messaged her that he was going to be a bit late, but he didn’t want to push it.
* * *
There were no silver linings to his daughter having acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, none whatsoever. She was into the maintenance phase of her treatment which meant that at least she was being treated on an outpatient’s basis and able to come home, and was utterly exhausted and in bed by eight in the evening – but the fact that this left David and Becky with some time on the sofa to catch up with each other’s day wasn’t much of a consolation.
‘Her white cell count is still a bit down,’ she said. ‘So, Dr Barakhada has said that he’s going to up her antibiotics just in case, but apparently her MRD results are good which means that she’s on track for the summer. I told her that she might be able go swimming again, and you should have seen her face.’ Becky snuggled up against him, resting her head on his chest, and he stroked her hair.
‘Maybe I should book some time off and take us to the beach,’ he said. ‘I wonder if Cornwall is still there.’
‘I would hope so! I can’t wait to be able to do normal family things again.’
He hadn’t meant to take the conversation in that direction, except maybe he unconsciously had because now all he could think about was that Cornwall holiday when it had just been the two of them, in their twenties, spending long days in the sun and Becky had worn that backless one-piece swimsuit that had slipped off so easily.
‘I’ve got an idea about a normal family thing that we can do right now,’ he suggested, moving his hand down to stroke the back of her neck.
She sat up and looked at him in amazement. ‘Seriously? I’m thinking of what a relief it’s going to be not to have to take my daughter into hospital to have drugs pumped into her stomach and your take from that
