As soon as the man spoke, it was so obvious, John wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.
It was Tuesday. He’d motored over to Eastbourne and, having found the Sea View, he’d asked the manager and several members of staff about Dottie and Patsy but drawn a blank.
‘I’ve already told the police all this,’ Mrs Flint said tetchily ‘I don’t know what happened to the lady.’
After walking along the seafront and stopping a few people to show them the photograph of Dottie and Patsy that he’d taken at his mother’s place, he was still no closer to finding out what had happened to them. The police had, they told him, already tried all the hospitals but nobody of that name had been admitted.
By now he was almost sick with worry. People don’t just vanish into thin air, he told himself – but that wasn’t true. People went missing all the time, if they wanted to … Look what had happened after the war. Hundreds of people went ‘missing’. It was their one chance of a new life, a new start.
Even though she had been so adamant that they couldn’t become involved with each other for the sake of his career, he couldn’t bring himself to believe she would go off somewhere without even a word. Then he thought about that kiss under the ilex oak, and those precious moments in the attic … He did mean something to her, he knew he did. The more he thought about it, the more positive he was that she would have contacted him if she had decided to leave Reg.
As the evening drew in, he found his way to the pier, hoping against hope that she might have brought Patsy here to see the amusements. He’d planned to show the stallholders the photograph, but most of the stalls were already closed for the winter.
He sat on the seat next to an old man. He was just about to show him the photograph when an irate woman came towards them.
‘Father, I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’
The old man looked slightly bemused. ‘Do I know you?’
‘It’s Ivy, you daft bat,’ she chided. ‘Come on now. Let me take you back home.’
‘I was just putting the cat out,’ said the old man as she hauled him to his feet.
‘Course you were,’ she said, winking at John and waving her finger around in a circle next to her head.
‘Have we met somewhere before?’ said the old man.
Poor old chap, John thought as they walked away. Obviously gone senile and didn’t have a clue where he was. And that’s when the idea hit him like a thunderbolt. He’d been to the hospitals asking for her by name but perhaps Dottie didn’t know who she was. Perhaps she had lost her memory.
Sylvie sucked deeply on her cigarette holder and blew the smoke high above her head. Using the tips of her fingers in her still gloved hand, she moved a plate stained with dried egg on the top of another caked with the remains of a gravy-soaked dinner.
She had never seen Dottie’s kitchen look like this before. In fact, it was a complete mess. The whole table was piled high with the debris of several days’ washing up, the ashtray overflowed with dog ends and there were newspapers everywhere.
When he’d shown her in, Reg had to move a couple of very unsavoury-looking shirts from the chair on which she was now sitting. She shivered. The fire was barely alight and she could see it badly needed to be raked out and the ash pan emptied. She looked around, trying to gauge if there was some clue, something that might explain the state of her friend’s mind, but she’d drawn a blank. Dottie had been gone five days and already he had reduced her neat-as-a-pin home into a tip.
Reg was in the scullery, preparing her some tea. She’d been surprised when he’d invited her inside. She’d arrived unannounced and, because there was no love lost between them, she’d expected a doorstep conversation, probably peppered with abuse.
But when he’d opened the door, his expression was more of sadness than surprise and he seemed only too glad for someone to talk to.
His first question surprised her. ‘Is Dottie with you?’
As Sylvie shook her head, he’d turned away like a whipped dog, giving her the second surprise.
He’d been polite, throwing the shirts onto the easy chair next to the fireplace and holding the back of the kitchen chair as she lowered herself onto it. It had been years since she’d seen him being considerate and, for a brief minute, the old Reg was back. She remembered that it was his attentive and caring manner which had impressed Dottie so much. Back in 1942, most of the other boys used to horse around and the chaps in uniform, who were usually the worse for drink, wanted a final fling before going overseas; but Reg, for all his lack of education, had been a real gentleman. Flowers for Aunt Bessie, compliments and other considerations for Dottie, they had all added up to a very attractive package.
Sylvie had wanted to motor down to Worthing as soon as Mary telephoned but it wasn’t as easy as that. First, she and Robin had an important dinner party with the bank manager, and then she had to arrange for her three-times-weekly woman to come in daily so that Robin would be well looked after while she was away.
When she finally got here, nobody knew what to do, but they all felt they had to do something. She had been worried herself. Dottie had promised to ring again on Sunday but she hadn’t. Had Reg attacked her again? Had something happened to Patsy? According to Mary, the police from Worthing Central had washed their hands of everything, although Kipper was doing his best to be helpful.
The women had met at the farm, sitting around the big oak table in the big farm kitchen while Edna plied them with tea and buns. As Mary, Ann and Edna unfolded the story about the well and the dead chickens, it crossed her mind that in years to come, there would a logical explanation and they would laugh about it, but right now, it didn’t seem so funny.
‘I think I should go and talk to him,’ Sylvie had said.
They’d all protested loudly.
‘That’s what a concerned friend would do, isn’t it?’ Sylvie insisted. ‘If we carry on as if everything was normal, he might let something slip.’
‘Oh, Sylvie,’ Mary gasped. ‘You know how much he hates you.’
‘I’ll front it out,’ said Sylvie. ‘It’s the only way.’
‘But supposing he gets angry?’ Ann whispered.
‘Even if he’s up to something he won’t do anything to me,’ Sylvie had told them. ‘He wouldn’t dare do anything,’ she added with a grin, ‘except shout a little.’
She took a long drag of her cigarette as Reg came back with two cups of tea. The saucers didn’t match and he’d overfilled the cups, slopping tea into them. Sylvie moved some papers out of the way and onto the chair next to her so that he could put them down. Reg put a cup down in front of her and, apologising for the mess, scooped up the rest of the papers into a ragged bundle and dumped them onto the dresser. Sylvie pulled off her gloves.
She let him talk. He was only too eager to tell his story. The trip was to be a surprise. Dottie had found it difficult to adjust to having Patsy … oh, she was a good little girl but Dottie wasn’t used to kids, and she found it hard to accept her.
Sylvie didn’t believe a word of it but wisely she held her tongue.
They’d gone to their honeymoon hotel. She could check it out if she wanted, he’d give her the address. He’d arranged to meet Dottie downstairs in the foyer and then they were going to go out. But first, he’d popped out to buy a paper and when he got back, there was no sign of Dottie and Patsy. He’d walked right along the seafront. He’d asked everyone, but no one had seen her. She’d simply vanished. He hung his head and looked so dejected, Sylvie felt compelled, for the sake of appearing to be the concerned friend, to lay a comforting hand over his.
‘You and she were close,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘What d’you reckon? Did she have a fancy man?’
‘Of course not!’ cried Sylvie indignantly. ‘How can you possibly think that? You know perfectly well Dottie is utterly devoted to you.’
Reg stared at her. What was that glint in his eye? And could she see a ghost of a smile on that cruel mouth? Sylvie was about to pick up her cup when she noticed her hand was trembling. She took a long drag on her cigarette instead.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said, lowering his head again, but not before she saw something playing at the corner of his mouth. There it was again. It was only a fleeting movement, a twitch of a muscle – that was all, but all at once, Sylvie realised this was a game. What should she do? Go along with it or front it out?
‘You can stop play-acting, Reg,’ she said coldly.
His head jerked up and he stared at her with a wounded expression.
‘You don’t fool me,’ she said, drawing on her cigarette in an attempt to look calm and in control. ‘I can tell you’re up to something.’
‘How can you be so cruel, Sylvie?’ he protested. His voice had a catch in it. ‘My dear wife has …’
‘You forget,’ she went on. ‘I stayed in your house the night of Michael’s wedding. I heard what you did to your ‘dear wife’. I wonder what the police would say if I told them you used to rape her?’ His eyes narrowed and Sylvie felt her heartbeat thumping. ‘So you needn’t come all that perfect marriage stuff with me.’
He rose to his feet menacingly.
‘Be careful, Reg,’ Sylvie went on, willing her voice to stay strong. ‘At least four other people, including PC Kipling, know I’m here.’
She expected him to demand that she get out but to her surprise, Reg lowered himself back down in the chair with a smile. ‘Well, my dear,’ he sneered. ‘I don’t know what you have in mind, but I would think very carefully before you start making any wild accusations. You may not have enjoyed listening to our robust lovemaking, but what a man and his wife get up to in the privacy of their own bedroom is nobody else’s business but theirs.’
‘It doesn’t give you the right to force her.’
‘I think you will find, that in the eyes of the law, I have every right,’ he said silkily. ‘Dottie is my wife.’
‘You make me sick,’ Sylvie retorted.
‘But
I
believe in the sanctity of marriage,’ he went on piously. ‘Now, if I were to go outside of the bounds of my marriage, that would be a different kettle of fish, so to speak.’
He was staring at her in such a strange way, Sylvie could feel her colour rising. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ she snapped.
‘If I were to have
a little fling
…’ Reg said quietly. ‘Just a bit of
fun
, you understand …’
Sylvie went cold all over. He knew about Bruce! Had Dottie told him? No, no she would never betray a trust. But how else did he know? She stubbed out her cigarette and picked up her gloves. ‘I don’t have to listen to all this …’
‘And if someone, say an old friend, discovered what I was doing,’ said Reg leaning into her face, ‘it might be a real problem, if say, my spouse was hoping to be a Member of Parliament one day.’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about,’ she said haughtily.
Reg leaned forward, his eyes glittering. ‘It never did take much to get your knickers off, did it, Sylvie?’
‘You are despicable,’ she snapped, her lip curling with disgust.
‘Now, now, my dear.’
Sylvie picked up her cigarette case and slipped it into her bag. ‘Is this an attempt to blackmail me?’
‘Perish the thought,’ he said brightly. ‘I was just supposing, that’s all. A friendly warning to be careful what you say outside these four walls.’
‘I don’t give a stuff about you, Reg Cox,’ Sylvie snapped. ‘My friend is missing and I’m going to find her.’
‘I wonder if Robin would be so cavalier about his marriage?’ Reg mused.
As she turned to leave the room, her arm brushed against the dresser and the papers he’d thrown so carelessly on the top cascaded to the floor. As Reg bent to pick them up, Sylvie felt the blood drain from her head but she said nothing. As he opened the door to let her out, she willed her legs to move effortlessly and refused to even look at him.
‘Thanks for coming, Sylvie,’ he called after her. ‘As soon as I hear something, I’ll give you a call.’
Climbing into her car, her hand was trembling as she turned the key in the ignition. Bastard, bastard! What a hateful little prick he was. Tears were welling up in her eyes. He thought he had her over a barrel. He reckoned that she wouldn’t dare to say anything because if she told the police about her fears, he would tell Robin about Bruce. Well, that was a risk she would have to take. She dare not risk her affair coming out into the open, but how could she turn her back on her dearest friend? Something bad had happened to Dottie, she knew it. Those papers she’d knocked to the floor told her Reg had been going over his life policies and you only do that when you are positive that someone is dead.
Dottie moaned as the feelings came back again. Were they real or just a dream? The first time it felt as if it was real, but everything kept repeating itself.
It began with torchlight as the door had been eased open. Dottie felt a stream of cold air and a beam of light was played on her face. She had screwed up her eyes and tried to turn her head away.
‘No, Ada!’ a man’s voice had yelled. ‘For God’s sake, don’t switch on the light. You’ll blow us all to kingdom come. Open the window and get some air in here.’
Dottie had heard the sound of someone drawing back the curtains.
‘It’s all right, dear.’ The man’s voice was close to her head.
The woman screamed. ‘The window, it’s nailed shut!’
There was a rushing sound in her ears and the man’s voice faded away but there was no mistaking the urgency. ‘Quick, get them out of here.’
‘You’re safe now,’ said the soothing voice close to her ear. Not the man this time but a woman and Dottie realized she was actually in a bed. She tried to make sense of it all. How had she got from the room where Reg had left her to this one? She remembered being manhandled at one point. Someone had hold of her shoulders and someone else her feet. The rocking movement as they carried her turned her stomach. She had heaved and vomited. It tasted of gas and hit the floor with a light splashing sound. She remembered the sound of opening doors and then the cold air hit her and she knew she was outside. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear the sea. She remembered taking in great gulps of fresh air which was so sweet but it made her head hurt.