Chapter 22: Jacqueline Howarth

Ashford: Monday, September 22nd

‘Have you told Richard?’ Jackie mouthed an apology to her sergeant at the same time as speaking to her aunt. ‘Yes, I’ll talk to him. Make sure he’s okay. Didn’t he have his interview today? Good.’ She twirled the cord of the telephone round her finger and turned towards the opaque glass partition in the corner of the charge-room.

Cupping her hand around the receiver, she whispered, ‘Auntie Mary, I can’t really talk now. Victoria’s not been gone a week yet. And she left a note. And she is eighteen.’ She listened for a moment before saying, ‘I’ll ring you back later. Let me make some enquiries.’ She nodded. ‘I know. It must be an awful worry. But if Uncle Peter has already contacted the local police I don’t know what else I can do.’ Jackie paused. Her aunt was crying. Her eyes smarted in sympathy. ‘Okay, I’ll try. Leave it with me.’

She tried three times to finish the conversation before she was finally able to put the phone down.

‘More trouble in the family, Constable Howarth?’ Sergeant Blackwood rocked up and down on his heels in front of the old-fashioned fireplace.

Jackie nodded. ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant.’ He was one of the old school, due to retire soon, and he stuck rigidly to the rules. She knew he was only too aware of some members of her family and wasn’t shy of letting her know, once telling her he was unable to believe she’d been accepted into the police force, given her relatives. But he wasn’t a malicious man, she thought: just totally behind the times.

‘Well who is it this time, Constable?’

‘That was my aunt in Wales.’

‘Ah, I remember that one – came in to accuse some bloke of killing her brother who was in an accident as far as I— ’

‘I know.’ Jackie cut him off. ‘She called … it was about my cousin, she’s missing.’

She saw the look of concern momentarily in his eyes, then he coughed and looked up to the ceiling. ‘Have they contacted the local station?’

‘Yes, but they thought we could help as well. With our family living in Ashford, I think they believe she might come up here.’

He rested his chin of his chest and then lifted his head to look at her. ‘A possibility,’ he nodded. ‘How old is your cousin?’

When she told him his shoulders relaxed. ‘One of those teenagers, eh? Probably turn up when she’s had her fun.’

‘She’s eighteen: still under age, Sergeant. Still a child.’ She waited a moment. ‘I wondered if I could ring around the stations in Manchester. Put them on alert, like?’

He cleared his throat. ‘It’s not something I’d usually allow, Constable Howarth. Still, I suppose it wouldn’t be a problem, seeing as we’re not busy just now.’

The typist opened the door from the telephone exchange and came into the charge-room with a sheaf of papers. Jackie heard the voices of the two women and caught sight of them sitting back from the switchboard and drinking tea.

So had Sergeant Blackwood. He pushed the door open again. ‘Nothing to do, ladies?’

They sat up straighter but the oldest protested. ‘What do you want us to do, Donald, pretend to take calls?’ She sat back patting her perm, which sat like a tight black hat on top of her head. ‘Anyway, we’re on our break.’

He backed out. Passing Jacqueline he said, ‘Find out which is the nearest station to your aunt and make those calls. Give them,’ he nodded towards the typists’ door, ‘something to do.’

‘Thanks, Sarge.’

He raised his eyebrows at that, but Jackie noticed the corners of his mouth twitching.

‘I’m going for a cuppa myself, Constable. Make sure you’ve finished with all this personal stuff by the time I get back.’

‘I will, Sergeant.’

‘He’s a surly old sod; always yakking on about something.’ The typist barely waited until he’d left the charge-room. She kept her head over the filing cabinet. ‘Don’t know how you put up with him, Jackie.’

‘Trisha … shut up, he’ll hear you. Sergeant Blackwood is okay – just old-fashioned in his ways.’

The girl slammed the drawer shut, trapping a leaf of the large spider-plant on top of the cabinet. ‘Huh.’ She held out her hand, admiring the bright red of her fingernails. ‘I’m just glad I’m in there with them two. Even if they do drive me mad with all their nattering.’ She wobbled back to her office on her red stilettoes.

When she’d gone, Jackie freed the leaf but the tip of it was damaged. She broke it off and threw it in the bin. Then she walked over to the phone. The sergeant was right; there was always some sort of bother in her family.