The police station is still in its original building. The stone front, with “1887” carved above the door, and the big glass hallway lantern, are somehow reassuring, but the floor inside looks as though it’s wet and I’m not sure about stepping on it. I stand for a moment at the threshold, wondering how “drunk and disorderlies” manage on the slippery surface, and I put a hand against the wall when I go in, keeping to it as I walk round.
After a few steps I find I am leaning on a noticeboard. I stop and read out the words of a poster pinned in the middle: “Cash-machine criminals operate twenty-four hours a day.” I wonder what a cash-machine criminal is and how they manage to stay awake for so long. The thought makes me feel tired. There’s a wooden thing for sitting, a long wooden seat, next to me, but I can’t sit down, I must keep on. I must do the thing I came to do. For a moment I can’t think what it is. My mind is blank. My arm starts to shake and my heart beats in my stomach. I take a deep breath and put a hand into the pocket of my cardigan, looking for a note. I must have written it down, whatever it was. There must be a reminder somewhere.
I pull out lots of coloured squares of paper, the edges curling against the skin between my thumb and forefinger. I don’t like having to take my other hand away from the wall to shuffle through them. I don’t feel I can trust my balance. I find a pink square with today’s date—if it is today’s date; I’m not sure. And a yellow square with my daughter’s telephone number on it, in case of emergencies. There’s a recipe for vegetable soup, though most of it seems to be missing, and the ingredients list stops at “onions.” But I can’t see anything to tell me why I’m here.
“Hello, Mrs. Horsham,” a voice says.
I look up. There’s a desk on the other side of the room with a sign saying POLICE RECEPTION. I read it aloud. A man is behind the desk, but I can only just see him through the shine on the glass divide. I push the notes back into my pocket and walk past a bench, worn and wooden. Is that where they put the newly arrested people, I wonder? Is this place full of drunks and prostitutes and street thieves at night? Doesn’t seem possible. Now, in the middle of the day, it’s all quiet, and I can hear the echo of my footsteps as I walk towards the desk.
When I get closer I can make out the dark epaulettes, like tiny wings, on the man’s white shirt. He smiles up from his computer screen and I find myself smiling back, the way I used to with Frank, the muscles around my lips automatically obeying his. I can’t think how he knows my name.
“Same as usual?” he says, his voice sounding metallic through the speakers.
“Usual?” I say.
“Elizabeth, is it?” He nods, as if encouraging me to say a line in a play.
“Elizabeth, yes,” I say, amazed. Of course, that’s what I’ve come for. I’ve come for her. “Do you know about Elizabeth?” I ask, feeling a rush of relief. Perhaps someone is investigating after all. Someone is looking for her. Someone knows about her disappearance. A weight lifts from my shoulders. How long have I been struggling to make anyone listen?
“Oh, yes, I know all about Elizabeth,” he says.
Tears of relief come into my eyes and I smile through them.
“Missing, right?”
I nod.
“Probably that no-good son of hers, don’t you think?”
I move my shoulders in helpless agreement.
“And no one else seems to think she’s missing. That it?”
“That’s it exactly, Officer,” I say, clinging on to the counter.
“Thought it might be.” He grins at me for a couple of seconds. I have a sinking feeling. “This’ll be the . . . let me see”—he clicks at the computer a few times—“the fourth time you’ve been in.”
Fourth time? “So,” I say. “Is someone looking for Elizabeth already, then?” I know as soon as the words are out of my mouth that it’s hopeless.
He laughs. “Oh, yeah. I’ve got every man on the force out. Sniffer dogs, forensics, flying squad. They’re all out there”—he pauses to skim a hand through the air—“looking for your friend Elizabeth.”
I go hot at his words. My armpits prickle. I can see what he thinks of me now, and I feel sick. The tears spill over, finally, and I turn away so he won’t see them.
“Forget the drug dealers and the rapists and the murderers, I told the team,” the policeman says. “What about that no-good son of old Lizzie . . .”
I don’t hear any more because I’m hurrying out of the building and into the street. The cooler air catches at the wet patches on my cheeks. I stand by the bus stop and cover my mouth with the sleeve of my cardigan. This was a last hope. If the police won’t take me seriously, what chance is there of ever seeing Elizabeth again?
I don’t remember going to the police station about my sister; Dad went on his own to report her missing, and again after we’d spoken to her neighbours. He and Ma went often after that, to find out what was being done, what might have been discovered, but they never took me with them. I do remember a policeman coming to the house, though, to ask us about Sukey. He was there when I got home from school.
“I did say I’d pop in,” he said, sitting at our kitchen table, the plate in front of him loaded with slices of cake. He had shiny brown hair and dark shadows under his eyes. And he wasn’t in uniform. “But this screaming business seems to be totally unrelated, happened weeks and weeks ago, according to neighbours—I had a constable check. And it’s like they told you at the station: people are being reported missing left, right, and centre nowadays. The men can’t get used to being back on Civvy Street, or the women can’t get used to having their husbands home again, and so they’re off. And we get the poor abandoned folk crying to us.”
“But Frank always was home,” Ma said, putting the teapot down and sliding on to the chair next to me.
“Eh? Didn’t fight?” The policeman looked up from his cake, a crumb falling from the corner of his mouth.
“Runs a removal firm—Gerrard’s,” Dad said, looking at the crumb where it lay on the table. “Reserved occupation. And, anyway, Frank’s gone missing, too.”
The policemen nodded slowly. “Oh, yes, yes, that’s right. Gerrard’s. I know it. He helped my aunt move a few things after she was bombed, matter of fact. It was that air raid over the school, d’you remember that one? Yes, he did us a real favour there. Still”—he cleared his throat and pressed a few stray currants together with his fingers—“I knew he’d gone because he’s wanted for questioning.”
“Is he?” Dad asked.
The policeman gestured with fingers still pinched around the currants. “Coupon fraud,” he said, putting the dried fruit into his mouth. “A serious business. It’s helping people to more than their fair share. And that in turn encourages others to buy things on the black market.”
Ma cut more slices off the cake and refilled his cup of tea.
“Black market, eh? Something else I imagine Frank knows all about. So you haven’t found him?” Dad said.
“No. And that does put another spin on things. Him being wanted.” He took a slurp of tea. “I suppose they might have decided to do a runner together? You said something about him having a suitcase.”
Dad leant away from the table and put his hands into his pockets, gazing at the ground. “I really can’t believe that Sukey would have gone along with anything criminal,” he said.
I kept my eyes lowered and fiddled with the handle of my cup, remembering Sukey’s fur collars and new snakeskin bag, the boxes of British Army rations in the old stables and all the extra food we had for dinner whenever she and Frank came round.
“Well, no, it would hardly be worth running, anyway,” the policeman said, reaching for another bit of cake. “There’s not much of a case, if I’m honest. But if it’s not that, then . . .”
“Then Frank’s done something to her and made a break for it,” Dad said.
“Frank never would!” Ma said, jumping up and throwing her teaspoon into the sink.
Dad lifted his head to look at her and must have caught sight of Douglas in the hallway, because he called his name. “This is Sergeant Needham, Douglas, come about Sukey. Sergeant, this is our lodger.”
Douglas stepped down into the kitchen, leaning awkwardly against the shelves by the door. He nodded at the sergeant and then shook his head when Ma offered him some tea.
“Did I hear you talking about Frank?” he said, turning his head sideways and tugging at the hem of his pullover.
“Yes,” said the sergeant. “Mrs. Palmer here doesn’t think he can have anything to do with her daughter’s disappearance.”
“Doesn’t she?” Douglas asked, looking at Ma where she stood, still facing the sink. “Well, I do. He’s a jealous man, is Frank. Got a temper on him, too.”
“Jealous, is he?” said the sergeant. “Why’s that then? Anything to do with you, is it?”
“No,” Douglas said, pronouncing the short word slowly and carefully. “But Sukey’s told me he can be jealous.” Douglas kept his eyes fixed on the sergeant. His face seemed stiff, like a mask, and I had the mad idea that when he spoke he did it without moving his lips. “Jumps to the wrong conclusions, she’s said.”
Dad took his hands out of his pockets and rubbed them over his face, and Ma turned and leant back against the sink, gripping the edge behind her. I wondered why Sukey would tell Douglas anything and why she hadn’t told me. I wondered if it was true. “When did Sukey say that?” I asked, not meaning to. Immediately, Dad told me I should go upstairs.
“This is no discussion for you,” he said.
I left the table, but lingered at the top of the steps up to the hallway. The kitchen looked cosy and bright, the light from the range competing with the overhead lamp. I could almost believe it was a normal family tea, with the cups out and the teapot steaming. Except, of course, there was a policeman in Ma’s usual place, finishing off the cake and writing things down in a little book.
“Yes, when did she tell you that?” he asked Douglas, turning a page of the notebook.
“Lots of times. She told me lots of times, Sergeant,” he said. “Over the summer . . .” I could only see a section of him, from chest down, but his arm moved and I guessed he’d shrugged.
“What, when she came for dinner?” Ma asked, her legs still visible against the cupboard under the sink. “I never heard her.”
Douglas’s pink jaw jutted out below the top of the door frame as he bent forward, and I thought he was going to say something, but the sergeant swallowed the last dregs of his tea and scraped back his chair.
“Time I was off,” he said. He pushed his cup away, wrote something in his notebook, and stood up. “Thanks for the tea, Mrs. Palmer. I will let you know if anything presents itself. But don’t worry. People are moving around all the time at the moment. Can’t keep still. More than likely they’ve gone off to try another town for a bit and will be back when they realize everywhere’s the same. Anyway, the law’ll catch up with Frank before long.”
He stood on the spot for a few more seconds, facing Douglas, before following Dad to the front door. I moved quickly into the sitting room and heard Ma say something to Douglas about not having any cake left.
“That was the last of the dried fruit Frank got for me,” she said, and I imagined the face Douglas would make at the mention of him. “How was your film?” she asked, changing the subject before he could start on Sukey’s marriage. There was a murmured answer too low to catch.