Chapter 66: Mary & Peter Schormann

Manchester, evening: Friday, October 17th

Peter took off his old trilby, rested his head against the red plastic seat – and stifled a yawn. He looked around the Berni Inn, a place they had got to know quite well; it was the sixth time they’d eaten here in the week they’d been searching Manchester. He was exhausted and over the last day or so he’d had an ache in his shoulders. He rolled his head from side to side. He knew Mary was aware of his every move and was grateful she didn’t say anything about him being so tired.

Knowing how Peter disliked fuss, Mary carried on reading down the list Jacqueline had given them. Her lips moved silently as she read the notes she’d put alongside each address. It made depressing reading, she thought. Some places so squalid, with the people living there so aggressive she’d been afraid and they’d left before they’d even managed to find a way into the buildings. Some, mostly young kids, gathered together and made their living conditions in disused stores and churches almost attractive, believing they were making a better society for themselves.

But nowhere did anyone know anything about Victoria. Or so they said.

‘You look tired, Mary.’ Peter put his trilby on the seat next to him and unfastened the buttons on his black overcoat.

‘I am, love. Exhausted, if truth were known.’ She made a rueful face that hid the despair she felt. ‘Like I said before, that’s the lot, there’s nowhere else on Jacqueline’s list. We’ve been to them all.’

All around them families were laughing and chatting as they ate. The all-pervading smell of steak and chips mingled with cigarette-smoke and the sweet aroma of sherry.

‘And Victoria has not been in one of them,’ Peter said.

‘No. I think we both knew it was hopeless, really.’

‘But what else to do? And we have shown her photograph at all the police stations.’

Mary studied him; he was sallow. ‘I think we have to presume she doesn’t want to be found.’

A waiter came towards them. ‘What can I get you?’ He brushed back his pageboy haircut, fingered his drooping moustache. He smelled heavily of Brut aftershave.

All at once Peter felt cold. ‘I am not so hungry now, Mary.’ His voice was a whisper.

She looked at him again. There was a line of sweat along his hairline.

‘No, nor me, love.’ She looked apologetically at the young man. ‘I’m sorry; we’ve decided not to eat.’

With a long drawn-out sigh, the waiter closed his order-pad and stomped towards the bar.

Peter settled his trilby on his head and stood up. He felt shaky. Mary tucked her arm through his.

Outside, although the air was filled with the smell of exhaust fumes it was still better than inside the restaurant, where the smell of food and smoke nauseated him. With the evening had come heavy clouds and it was almost dark. Shops threw oblong light across the pavements, neon lights above advertisement-boards flickered. The headlights of cars left short bursts of gloom as they passed.

They stepped away from the doorway into the stream of people, arms still linked. ‘Let’s go back to the B&B,’ Mary said. ‘You can have a rest over the weekend and then we’ll take Richard to the university and get him settled.’

And then they could go home. All at once Mary felt homesick for Llamroth, for the peace of their home and for the sound of the sea.

She didn’t know what else they could do to find Victoria. For the first time she allowed herself to concede that even if they did find her, they wouldn’t be able to make her go home with them.