Frank Sterling got up from his desk and wandered over to the sash window that overlooked the small market square. Business was not brisk that late afternoon in early September. As he looked down, he saw a young woman negotiating the door of the small Spar supermarket just opposite, struggling with her wispy hair, a pushchair and its mardy contents, a grizzling toddler. Down on the same side as his office, there was a small queue in front of the cash machine – people topping up their money for the week. In Jack’s Café a few doors down from the supermarket, one or two old folk were finishing their tea as things were packing up. A few leaves whirled half-heartedly in little flurries in sheltered parts of the square. They blew in, settled, and then no breath of wind was enough to get them out again.
A small cloud that had momentarily hidden the early autumn sun scudded quickly on, releasing a burst of beautiful, sharp sunshine onto the sparkling, eye-catchingly green sward of the churchyard, and glinting off a bauble on the belt of the young girl sitting huddled with her boyfriend on Sterling’s favourite bench. The grey and green of the market place and churchyard was a perfect counterpoint to the delicate blue of the sky.
Soon it would be the time of day he looked forward to most, that bit at dusk just before night really took over from day and the contrast between the black of the roofs and the leached light of the sky was at its starkest. He wondered if that was the time he liked best because of the sudden evening coolness and the smoky smell of autumn, or because his first pint at the Cinque Ports Arms beckoned. It was a close call.
His office wasn’t big, but he had made it comfortable. From the door down in Market Street next to the library, a narrow flight of stairs led to the first floor and the office door. Inside, the desk opposite was old and cheap, but large enough, with a telephone on the right and a computer in the middle. The computer was one of the latest, and his main concession to technology. Everything else was in its place – paper for the printer, pens, pencils and notebooks – all the tools of his trade. Someone had once suggested he was borderline OCD. He couldn’t argue with that. To the right of the desk, the two-drawer filing cabinet had a long way to go before it would ever be filled up with case files. But he didn’t mind that. He had plenty of time.
In quiet periods, as an antidote to boredom, Sterling worked the lever of his high-backed chair, gas pressure letting him move smoothly up and down. There was a chair for clients in front of the desk and against the wall by the filing cabinet was a sofa for their associates, if there were any. The editor’s lamp on the desk with its green shade and faux-gold stem convinced him he might be on the way to success.
He kept the walls white for optimism’s sake. There were pictures of hop farms and scenes from the Stour and Medway – not many, just enough to avoid a completely bare look. If the radiator under the window (connected in some mysterious way to the library below) stopped functioning, a two-bar electric fire supplied enough supplementary heat to make it almost cosy on cold winter days. A globe on a little table in the corner between the desk and the window was a reminder of the world beyond Sandley.
Some ancient quirk had caused the office and the stairs that led to it to be inserted into the building as a kind of afterthought, as if the local government powers-that-be had decided the library’s resources would not fill it all, and that separate premises would generate extra revenue. They were right about that, and it was Sterling who was providing it through his lease. There was a room behind his, with access by a separate flight from the ground floor, which held local archives.
He was about to turn away from the window when he noticed the black BMW and its tinted windows pull deftly into the only spare parking space in the narrow roadway. I never have that kind of luck, he reflected. His eyes flicked automatically to the number plate. It was new but not personalised, so there were no clues there.
The woman who emerged from the car was fully aware of the eyes that turned in her direction from all around the square, from the man waiting for his money at the cash machine to the woman coming out of the dress shop on the corner. Sterling put her in her early thirties, a bit younger than him. The neckline of her black dress was low, at least from his viewpoint, and the hem was just short enough at the bottom to indicate class, but not vulgarity. Her pale skin contrasted with the sheen of her long, almost-black hair and the sparkling rubies at her ears. Describing her as slim overlooked the fullness of her figure. The woman from the dress shop seemed exasperated at the display, as if a sister was letting the side down. The man at the cash till lingered for a longer viewing. His look was sly and appreciative.
Sterling thought of Andy Nolan, always for some long-forgotten reason referred to by his full name and never just as “Andy” or “Nolan”. In the many long hours they had spent together in police patrol cars and pubs, back in their early days on the force, Andy Nolan had thought up a classification system for men and women. A man’s man liked the company of other men, spent time in rugby club bars, drank beer and talked about sport. A woman’s man preferred the company of women, listening to them and taking an interest in them, discussing hair, fashion and soaps. It was easily possible, in his classification, to be a gay man, for example, and still be a woman’s man. A woman’s woman might spend her working days as an investment banker amid the banter of an all-male office, but prefer to spend non-working time with other women. Then there was the whole Pandora’s Box of the man’s woman.
There were faults in Andy Nolan’s system, and blurs between all the categories. Back then, they were callow, overconfident young men with no inkling of how little they knew of people and life, and guilty of all kinds of dubious, sexist, assumptions. But in that first glance at the figure below, Sterling had no doubt about which category she fitted into.
She looked around her as she slammed the car door with a gentle clunk. She clearly knew what she was looking for as she focused on the library and the small doorway just next to it. Sterling pulled his head back, the habit of long hours of surveillance, as her eyes moved from the sign above the doorway below to his window. It seemed he was going to get a visit. He looked around the office with a new eye. Everything was more or less in its place, but the sunlight highlighted one or two patinas of dust on various surfaces, which he quickly wiped down. He had just stationed himself in his chair and reactivated the computer screen when there was a brisk knock on the door.
‘Come in,’ he said, not shouting, but projecting his voice so that he knew it would clearly be heard, and through she came, preceded by the scent of what he thought might have been Samsara.
‘Mr Sterling?’ she asked, displaying the same confidence and self-awareness as when she’d emerged from the car.
‘That’s right,’ he replied, half-rising from his desk and trying to look as if he had been engrossed in something important, rather than daydreaming by the window.
‘And you are….?’
‘Gloria Etchingham, Mr Sterling’, she said, as her eyes, a clear light blue, took in the surroundings.
He offered his hand from over the desk and received a distant, light handshake from slender fingers – one of those less than hearty affairs involving finger and thumb grasping finger and thumb, rather than whole palms. He could see a small mole above her left breast that acted as a kind of optical lure. He tried hard not to stare. He indicated her seat and sank back into his own. He steepled his fingers as he leaned back, realised immediately that it looked pretentious and shifted his hands down to his lap. There was a pause.
‘So, Ms Etchingham….’ he began, leaning forward, ‘how can I help?’
‘Mrs Etchingham’, she said firmly. ‘Mr Sterling, my problem is rather delicate. Before we get too much further, I need to know more about your credentials, and most importantly, of course, your ability to be discreet.’
That’s blunt, he thought, but it usually happened at some point. He spread his hands on his desk, palms upward.
‘Well, I’m in the Association of Private Investigators, and I am a former policeman. I expect I could get some endorsements from former clients. But actually trust develops, in my experience, from how we get to know each other in the initial interview. As for discretion, well, that is guaranteed from the moment you engage me.’ Sterling smiled and tried to rustle up a sense of being solid and reassuring.
The trouble was that the API was a casual, slack organisation far more interested in subscriptions than regulation; being an ex-policeman might be more a danger signal than a source of confidence; and he had no former clients, or indeed any clients at all, to endorse him.
But something worked, either in Sterling’s manner, or in what he’d said, shifting things for the woman in front of him. Now she leaned forward with a sudden intimacy that caused a flush to creep up from his neck to his face. A small smile replaced the previous frown.
‘It’s not a police matter,’ she said. ‘All I need is a small operation – someone with a bit of determination and imagination. Someone with a never-say-die attitude.’
Some of the elements she identified applied to Sterling and some didn’t. He did not believe his attitude could be described as never-say-die, but his operation was certainly small. Whatever assumptions she was making, it was not the time to hold back.
‘OK, Mrs Etchingham. I think I’m your man. What’s the problem?’
‘I recently lost my husband,’ she said. ‘You may have read about it in the papers. He disappeared three months ago. The police found his blood in our garage, but they never found his body.’
‘He loved me, Mr. Sterling, so if he was still alive, I’m sure he would have contacted me. If he’d been kidnapped, I would have got some kind of ransom note. I’ve heard nothing. I think he’s dead. There’s no other explanation.’ Her eyes pooled momentarily with tears. When she had recovered a little, she continued. ‘He ran a clothing import company very successfully for many years, and one or two other things. He was a little bit older than me, but we got along well. I miss him.’
‘I’m sorry that things are so difficult for you, Mrs Etchingham’, said Sterling. ‘It’s particularly hard when things are unresolved. I have actually read about the case, and I know the police haven’t made much progress, but I also know that I simply haven’t the resources to match what they can do. I’m not sure they’d welcome outside interference, either. Imagine the reception I’d get trying to muscle in.’
‘Oh it’s not that, Mr Sterling. I’m not confident about the police, especially after all this time. But there are some things that haven’t been sorted out. It’s not just about Keith’s disappearance, or money issues and things like that. After all, whether he is alive or dead, I haven’t been left destitute.’
She was silent for a moment, whilst Sterling thought, no, destitution must be a long way away, taking into account the customised BMW outside, the expensive perfume and the sophisticated dress.
‘I think something happened in Keith’s family that really bothered him, and he wanted to find out more about it. It was a question of honour. Now he’s gone, I want to know the truth.’ She sniffed and got out a small, embroidered handkerchief to dab at her eyes. ‘That way,’ she said, ‘I can put everything behind me and start to move on. Keith would have wanted me to. So I decided to go through all his papers from scratch.’
‘And what can I do that the police can’t, Mrs. Etchingham?’
‘I want you to provide the discreet service that you promised when I first came through that door. I think what I’ve found could be important, but I can’t make head or tail of it.’
She moved to her handbag and got out a sheet of her husband’s company notepaper. She clasped it instinctively to her chest. Her eyes met the detective’s. Then she made her decision and pushed the paper across the desk. He leaned forward. Excitement brought a sudden tightness around his ribcage.
‘Find out what this means, Mr. Sterling.’
He looked at the sheet. Apart from the name, address and details of the company, only a few letters and numbers were printed in a bold, masculine hand in the middle of the page.
CFC EF 9174 II.G.14
Mrs. Etchingham’s eyes shone. Sterling could not tell if it was because they had just brimmed with tears, or because she was excited. ‘That’s my husband’s writing. I’m sure it means something – but what?’
‘I’m sure I can find out,’ he said. ‘But couldn’t you do this yourself? Anyone with access to a computer would probably be able to find out something. I’m not sure why you’ve come to me.’
She looked down at the desktop. ‘I’ve never really needed computers. I left school at 16, Mr. Sterling, and Keith and I got together not long after that. He used to say that I had different talents.’ Her eyes met his with a sly smile. ‘He didn’t trust computers himself, either. He did everything by telephone in the early days before he built his companies up, and when he was really successful, he got other people to do the computer work.’
Sterling offered no more objections. If the woman wanted to hire him, that was fine by him. Nothing else was occupying him. If it meant more meetings with her, that might be a bonus.
‘You’ll need to know my terms,’ he said, giving her his daily rate. ‘There will be expenses, too, and of course, VAT. I think we should start off with two days and a review at the end of that. I can start tomorrow. If I don’t find anything, and honestly, Mrs Etchingham, I can offer no guarantees, at least you’ll get a full report about what I’ve been up to. I may need to run something by one or two trusted associates, but of course they will only know a fraction of what you’ve told me.’
Her face fell, but Sterling knew he couldn’t do everything on his own. He took a few more details, and then the interview was coming to a close.
‘It’s good to have met you, Mrs. Etchingham,’ he said as he rose from his desk.
‘You must call me Gloria, please’, she said softly.
Sterling did not in general believe that an investigator should get too close to a client and vice-versa, and he certainly did not believe in being on first-name terms. In this case, he believed first-name terms after just a 30-minute interview had the potential to make things go very badly.
‘And I’m Frank,’ said a voice he barely recognised.
‘I look forward to an update at the end of Thursday … Frank.’
The click of her heels down the narrow staircase and along the passageway to the door below felt lighthearted, almost relieved. Sterling moved involuntarily to the window to peer down. She knew that’s what he’d do. As she unlocked the car and opened the door she looked up with a small smile. Her hand came up in a tiny, shy, jerky, shoulder-high, open-palmed wave – just for him. Then she was gone.
A song came from nowhere into his head from the popular music of a previous generation, the music he was locked into. It was the David Bowie version of “Sorrow” that he remembered, not the Merseybeats’.
The girl in the song was a blonde and Gloria Etchingham was a brunette, but there was plenty of sorrow she could cause. If Sterling had known how much, he might have grasped the opportunity she put in front of him with less careless speed.