Stone Cold Red Hot - страница 43

A squirrel raced along the wall at the bottom of the garden, paused and sat on its haunches, then scampered back up the tree in the corner. Jennifer Pickering had been on the brink of returning home, half-way over the wall, when she’d become upset. Thinking perhaps about her parents and the baby and how everything was going off the rails. The stifling atmosphere that awaited her even before she told them about her pregnancy. Did she run away then, leaving her precious troll behind?

I’d have to keep on searching for more clues as to what had become of her. Roger might ask me to drop the case then what chance would I have to prove my suspicions either way? I didn’t want to give up. Even with so little to go on I was determined to try everything I could think of to find out what had befallen Jennifer Pickering. My intuition told me that I wouldn’t find Jennifer alive – but I had been wrong before. Maybe I just wouldn’t find her at all.

I wrote down what further enquiries I could make if Roger Pickering wanted me to carry on. High on the list was a talk with Mrs Pickering. Perhaps she could clear it all up. Had they bundled her off to some far flung relative for the duration? Could she come up with an old address for Jennifer, something she’d kept secret for all these years because her daughter had disgraced them by getting pregnant out of wedlock, by having a mixed-race child? Perhaps. Had she ever heard from her daughter? A car alarm shrieked, shattering the silence. I gathered up my things and got ready.

The office felt claustrophobic, the sun, low in the sky, streamed in the narrow window, spreading a wide beam in which the dust swirled. After banging a few times on the window frame I managed to open it and let some air circulate. I had my notes all ready, the kettle had boiled. I straightened the rug. I sat down again and stared at the blue abstract that Diane had done for me, letting different patterns and pictures emerge from the shapes of the inks. The bell rang. I went up and greeted Roger Pickering, escorted him down to my office. He didn’t want a drink so I got straight down to business. “First of all, there’s your photo. I’ve had copies made so you can take that with you. Now, I’ve made notes of what I’ve done so far,” I began, “I’ll type them up for you and you’ll have a copy to keep but I thought I should bring you up to date and discuss whether you want me to continue.”

“You’ve not found her?” He shook his fringe away from his eyes, his voice hesitant. Of course I hadn’t. Did he really think I’d go through all the preamble if I’d successfully traced his sister? It was hope that made him ask, I think, relentless optimism and the need to have his wildest dreams quashed before he could sensibly concentrate on anything else.

“No. And I’m not any nearer knowing where to look than I was last week. But I have established a few new facts. I heard from Keele University this morning.”

He glanced up keenly.

“She never went there, they have no record of her.”

He looked stupefied, even his mouth was open. “But she was doing English…”

“I checked with the Faculty. She never attended.”

“I don’t understand. My mother said…” he trailed off.

“I need to talk to your mother – she’s the only person who can clear this up.”

He shook his head, slowly building up to a refusal.

“Let’s come back to that. I have established a couple of other facts. First of all, Jennifer was pregnant.”

“Really,” his whole face lit up at the prospect.

“But she may not have had the child,” I cautioned him. “Her friends say she was very unsure what to do; whether to go ahead or to have an abortion, whether to have the baby adopted or keep it.”

“You could check that though, couldn’t you? If she had a baby there’d be a record of that, wouldn’t there?”

“Yes.” And it would probably be easier to find than Jennifer was.

“I want you to find out,” his eagerness was poignant. I realised with a rush of understanding that Roger was re-inventing himself as an uncle, with nephew or niece to his name. Though they’d be in their mid-twenties by now.