The Missing Wife Read online

  THE MISSING

  WIFE

  An enthralling crime mystery full of twists

  (Yorkshire Murder Mysteries Book 2)

  ROGER SILVERWOOD

  Revised edition 2019

  Joffe Books, London

  www.joffebooks.com

  First published as “Choker” 2005

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The spelling used is British English except where fidelity to the author’s rendering of accent or dialect supersedes this. The right of Roger Silverwood to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  ©Roger Silverwood

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

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  Glossary of English Slang for US readers

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was two o’clock on a cold November morning. The sky was as black as an undertaker’s hat. A man hurried out of a house carrying a carpet on his shoulder. The roll was about eight feet long. He rushed up to a car with its boot already open and dropped the carpet into it. It hit the floor with a dull thud. He glanced around and then quietly pressed down the lid of the boot, jumped into the driver’s seat and drove swiftly away.

  Half an hour or so later, the car was miles from the house. The driver pulled off a country lane and slowly made his way down an unmade road. Wild elderberry bushes brushed the car doors as the driver pointed the bonnet towards a beck that led into an open reservoir. The car stopped at the water’s edge. The driver doused the lights and turned off the engine.

  The noise of the thrashing of the water, forcing its way through rocks, made a thunderous din exaggerated by the loneliness and darkness of the night.

  The man opened the car boot and took out a pair of wellingtons. He changed into them, slinging his shoes into the car. The sound of a breaking twig followed by loud, repetitive shrieks from a pheasant, as it flew disturbed from under a bush, sent his heart racing. He drew in a quick breath and froze for a few seconds, his back pressed hard against the side of the car, his pulse thumping. He stopped, looked around and listened. He fished in his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped his forehead and cheeks. After a few seconds, he made a determined lunge into the boot and struggled to get a suitable hold of the carpet roll. Eventually, he managed to gather it up and manoeuvre it over his shoulder, then he walked into the torrent. It was cold. The water was soon up to his knees. The load on his shoulder interfered with his natural balance. The noise of the water pounded loudly in his ears. Ever present was the sensation of someone watching him. His hot sticky hands were quickly chilled in the spray. He readjusted the carpet roll and, while doing so, lost his step on a stone in the rushing water. He staggered momentarily. At the same time, something lifeless, white and slim, slid out of the carpet into the chilling water. There was a slight splash. The current immediately took the body downstream away from the bank, the water lapping over the slim white stomach and blonde flapping hair as it glided away and disappeared into the dark, frothy water. He stared after it for a second. His mouth tightened. He swallowed with difficulty. The gushing water drummed even louder in his head. He hesitated for a second and then swiftly hurled the limp carpet off his shoulder into the water and bustled back to the car.

  *

  Detective Inspector Angel growled something unintelligible as he firmly closed the door painted with the words, ‘Chief Constable.’ Although a heavy man, he bounced down the stairs of the police station as fast as the youngest policeman in the station. He strode out along the olive green corridor and stuck his big pug-shaped nose into the CID room and surveyed the occupants.

  ‘Watson,’ he growled at a very slim Asian boy of about eighteen who was dressed in a smart dark suit. The young man looked up from a desk, puzzled.

  ‘Find DS Gawber, and bring him, yourself, and three teas into my office, pronto.’

  The boy stood up promptly, closed a file of papers he had been reading and said, very precisely, ‘I’ll do exactly as you say, inspector; but you know very well that my name is Cadet Ahmed Ahaz.’

  Angel stood looking at the dark, earnest young man for a second. He nodded and smiled. ‘I know, lad. No need to get so touchy.’

  Then the big man swept along the corridor into his own small office. He slammed the door shut and slumped in the padded swivel chair behind the cluttered desk. It groaned at his weight. He clasped his hands behind the back of his neck and pressed his head backwards. He let out a long sigh and arched his aching back. After a while, he shuffled the papers around his desk, sighed and stood up. He looked into a mirror on the wall. He peered more closely into it, and with one finger pulled down the fleshy part of his cheek under one eye. ‘What you need is a holiday, lad,’ he said to himself. After a few seconds he added, ‘And a bottle of Hennessy and a packet of fags.’ He slumped back down in the chair.

  It had been a long day and he had little to show for it. The crime figures were up. They were always up. The chief constable was complaining. He was always complaining. His eyes caught the clock on the wall in front of him. It was four o’clock. He’d be going home soon, to his wife ... and she’d be complaining. What was it all about?’ He shuffled papers around on the cluttered desk in front of him again. He glanced briefly at several letters, but one after another put them down without assimilating what they said.

  There was a knock on the door. It opened and there stood Ahmed with a tin tray depicting a grinning pageboy advocating the virtue of some patented beef cube as a hot, refreshing drink, with three plastic cups of tea perched contemptuously across the illustration.

  Angel swept three empty cups from the top of his desk into the wastepaper basket on the floor and pointed to a clear space for the tray. ‘There,’ he said to the young man.

  A fresh-faced man of around thirty appeared at the open door. ‘You wanted me, sir?’

  It was Detective Sergeant Ron Gawber.

  ‘Come in. Shut the door. You’re harder to find than the Loch Ness monster.’

  Angel looked towards Ahmed. ‘You stay as well. You might learn something. Take a pew.’

  The inspector pointed to the tray of tea. ‘Help yourselves.’

  Angel noisily slurped the hot tea, then put it down on the desk. ‘I’ve just had a right bellyful from him upstairs.’

  ‘Oh, what’s getting at him?’ Gawber asked, sipping the tea. ‘Is it this off-licence robbery?’

  ‘That, and the shoplifting, and the burglaries, and the drugs, and the rape case, and the inspection that’s coming up, and ... well, you name it!’ He put the plastic cup down. ‘Are you getting anywhere with this job?’

  ‘We’ve finished the house to house and nobody saw anything.’

  ‘They never do.’

  Angel’s thoughts stayed with the meeting he’d just had with the chief constable. He rested his hands on the desktop. ‘Have you got a cigarette, Ron?’
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  Ron Gawber smiled. ‘You know I don’t smoke, sir.’

  ‘Ah!’ he snarled. Then he glared at Ahmed. ‘I know it’s no good asking you.’ He turned away. ‘Fags are getting as scarce as underpants on “Top of The Pops.” ’

  ‘My mother does not approve of smoking,’ he replied politely.

  ‘And you always do everything your mother says, don’t you?’ Angel said testily.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ahmed said, subdued but not ruffled.

  Angel had given up smoking quite recently, but at times like these he missed the nicotine and the business of doing something with his hands. He reached up and clenched them behind the back of his neck and arched his back.

  ‘I could go to the shop and get some for you, sir,’ Ahmed said brightly.

  Angel softened. ‘No thanks, Ahmed. I’m not supposed to smoke, anyway,’ he said. Then, banging his fists on the desk, he fumed, ‘These doctors nearly drive you mad. I’ll bet you in a year or two, someone will come out and recommend that everybody should smoke from being a week old. My grandfather smoked forty fags every day of his life from being eleven years old and it never did him any harm.’

  Ron Gawber smiled sympathetically. ‘And I bet he lived to a ripe old age.’

  ‘He died when he was forty-nine,’ Angel said sullenly.

  Ahmed smiled.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Angel bellowed.

  It was a young uniformed police constable. He stuck his head through the open door.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, sir. There’s this man at reception who says he’s lost his wife.’

  ‘Lucky devil,’ he said quietly, then he leaned forward gripping the arms of his chair and said, ‘Well, what does he want us to do about it? This isn’t the lost property office!’

  ‘I know, sir, but — ’

  ‘There’s people going missing every day. Glad to go missing some of them. You know the drill, constable. What are you bothering me for? Tell him to try their milkman, or her mother’s, or the Salvation Army or ... Maybe she’s joined the Foreign Legion — I hear they’re taking women now!’

  The young constable flushed at the verbal torrent.

  It was Gawber who came to his rescue. ‘Is there some special reason why you’re reporting it to the inspector?’

  Grateful for an opportunity to say what he came in to say, the young constable entered the office and closed the door. ‘Yes, there is, Sarge. He’s sort of — untidy — like grubby, needs a shave, dishevelled — you know what I mean.’

  ‘Send him to the cleaners then lad,’ Angel said impatiently.

  The constable shook his head. ‘And it’s not like him, sir,’ the constable said urgently. ‘I know him. It’s Sir Charles Millhouse, our MP.’

  It was as if a bomb had been dropped in the little office. It wasn’t that anybody normally took precedence over anyone else in Bromersley police station, but this MP was just about the most conspicuous MP in the House of Commons. Always immaculately dressed. Always ready to give an irreverent opinion on an irrelevant subject of the day or night. Always involved with high profile glamorous women and the big political and business set. Always seeking publicity. Always wore a top hat on Budget Day, in keeping with age-old tradition; and unfailingly wore a carnation in his buttonhole. This wasn’t your average man off the street!

  Angel leaped to his feet. ‘Why didn’t you say so, lad. You’re like the Millennium Eye. You go round and round without going anywhere. And when you do stop you’re back where you started from. Get back to him. Wait two minutes and then show him in here.’

  The constable left hurriedly.

  Angel put the unfinished plastic cup of tea on the tray and handed it to Ahmed. ‘Take this, lad. Go and do something useful. See if you can break that computer again.’

  ‘It wasn’t me, sir,’ Ahmed muttered as he sailed off through the door bearing the tray.

  He turned to Sergeant Ron Gawber and said rapidly, ‘See what you can do about digging up a witness for that shop job. If you could find the weapon it would help. I’ll ring you later.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘And close the door on your way out.’

  Angel hurriedly scraped all the papers on his desk together and pushed them in a drawer. He looked around the room and put a chair back against the wall.

  He dusted off some invisible cigarette ash from the front of his suit, fastened one button on his coat and straightened his tie.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ Angel called.

  The door opened.

  ‘Sir Charles Millhouse, Inspector,’ the police constable announced.

  ‘Thank you, Constable,’ Angel responded.

  The young constable nodded and disappeared down the corridor.

  There stood a very tall, slim man.

  Angel observed the jet-black wavy hair, probably dyed he thought, the tailored camel hair coat, the handmade silk shirt, the plain bright blue tie, and the pasty cheeks pushing their way through a fading Caribbean suntan, and, unexpectedly, the need of a shave.

  ‘Come in, sir,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Angel. What can I do for you?’

  Sir Charles approached him to shake his hand. The policeman noticed the smell of tobacco. He could have eaten a cigarette.

  ‘Are you the man in charge, Inspector?’ Sir Charles said in an accent somewhere between Eton and Oxford.

  ‘Please take a seat, Sir Charles. I’m the most senior officer available,’ he lied. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I want to see the top man: the chief constable.’

  ‘He’s out. Now what can I do for you?’

  ‘Isn’t there an assistant chief constable I can see?’

  ‘We don’t have one.’

  He pointed to the chair in front of his desk. They both sat down. Sir Charles grunted his displeasure, pushed a lock of shiny black hair back from his face, crossed his legs elegantly, displaying his handmade calfskin boots. Angel noticed that they were muddy not only on the soles but also the uppers. That was unexpected.

  ‘As I tried to explain to the man on the desk — he wouldn’t let me past the barrier — my wife has disappeared. I got back from the city last night — she wasn’t in the house. It was very unusual. I have been phoning all the places where I thought she could have been — even the hospital. I wondered if she had been taken ill. My son has not heard from her at all this week. I have been everywhere looking for her. We have a housekeeper and a gardener. They left at four o’clock yesterday afternoon, as they always do. They said that everything was as usual. I am at a loss … ’

  His voice trailed away to nothing. He shrugged and then shook his head.

  Angel said, ‘You’ve tried her friends, family, the hospital?’

  Sir Charles nodded.

  ‘You have just the one son?’

  ‘Yes. He’s my son. Yvette is my second wife. He has an antique business.’

  Angel nodded and moved on. ‘Could she have taken it into her mind to go away for any reason? A holiday, or to visit a friend you don’t even know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you considered that she may have left you deliberately?’

  Angel could see by the twist of the man’s mouth that he didn’t like that question.

  There was a short pause before he replied. ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘Did she leave a note?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have looked in all the likely places?’

  He shook his head. ‘There is no note, Inspector,’ he said firmly. ‘I am completely bewildered.’

  There was another pause. For some reason, Angel had difficulty in raising sympathy for Charles Millhouse. Perhaps it was envy of his wealth, fame and glamour. The newspapers would have you believe he was a playboy who cared very little for anyone but himself. Perhaps he really did care about his wife.

  Angel flashed his big teeth in a forced smile. ‘Per
haps when you get home, sir, there she’ll be — waiting for you, with some perfectly reasonable explanation of it all.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ he replied quietly and then he added, ‘And there’s something else. Very odd. It may be irrelevant. Seems ridiculous. But a hearthrug is missing.’

  ‘A hearthrug? A carpet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Angel pursed his lips. ‘It wasn’t valuable was it? A work of art?’

  ‘No. No.’

  ‘About what size?’

  ‘Oh,’ he began impatiently. ‘About eight feet by fifteen feet, I suppose. It was in front of the hearth in the drawing room at the Hall. It had been there as long as I can remember.’

  Angel pursed his lips. ‘What colour?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maroon background, I think. Jacobean pattern with blue, purple and so on. It’s been there for so long, I can hardly remember what it looked like.’

  Angel noted the details. ‘Strange. And that’s all that’s missing?’

  Sir Charles waved the question away. ‘Well, what are you going to do about finding my wife, Inspector?’

  The policeman gripped the arms of his chair tightly. ‘Obviously, she isn’t a minor. It would be extremely serious if she was. There’s no signs of violence, no note. Your wife is perfectly entitled to leave the house whenever she chooses.’

  Sir Charles’s lips tightened. ‘Of course she’s not a minor,’ he roared. ‘And it is still extremely serious! My wife hasn’t left the house in the ordinary course of events.’

  ‘She was at home yesterday?’ Angel asked evenly.

  ‘According to my housekeeper, she was.’

  ‘So she has not been missing twenty-four hours yet?’

  ‘No. She was at the house at four o’clock, yesterday afternoon. The gardener was at the house all day too. He can confirm that.’

  Angel made the decision he had been trying to avoid. He had about as much work on his plate as he could manage. ‘Right. I’m going to take a full description of your wife and I’ll need a photograph — a recent one — and I will initiate preliminary enquiries.’