Andrew was alarmed. He was not used to having his advice followed, and so expeditiously. He was not much used either to giving advice. It seemed to him a very dangerous practice. On the few occasions when he himself had followed someone else’s advice, something had generally gone wrong. But where had Jonathan gone?
Still dopey from sleep, he inquired, “Has he taken his passport?”
“His passport! Oh, my God, I didn’t think of that!”
Dorothea shot out of the room.
While she was gone Andrew got out of bed and put on his dressing gown. He felt as if something were the matter with his head. It felt thick and strange and stupid. After only two or three minutes Dorothea was back.
“I can’t be sure,” she said, her voice shaking. “I thought he kept it in a drawer of the desk in his room, and it isn’t there. But I haven’t really searched yet. He may simply have moved it. Why did you say that, Andrew?”
“Just that he and I were talking about his going away yesterday evening,” he answered. “But of course I never dreamt of his doing anything so precipitate. Hasn’t he left you a message of some kind?”
“Nothing at all. Why did you talk about his going away?”
Why had they? For a moment Andrew’s mind was a blank. Then he remembered.
“Oh, of course it was because of the possibility that the bomb was meant for him. You talked about that yourself.”
“Yes, but imagine, not to let us know what he meant to do!” She seemed about to say something more, then turned and went running downstairs.
Andrew washed, shaved and got dressed. No one was thinking that morning of bringing him breakfast in his room. Going downstairs, he found Dorothea sitting broodingly at the table in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee in both hands. When he appeared she got up and fetched another cup and filled it with coffee, tipped some cornflakes into a bowl and pushed it towards him, then sat down again and swallowed some coffee that was evidently so hot that she choked over it. She had no thought of supplying him with cheese.
“Where’s Colin?” he asked. “Does he know Jonathan’s vanished?”
“Oh yes, it was he who found Jonathan had taken his car,” she said. “He’s gone round to the Deardens to ask them if they know anything.”
“Why should they?”
“Well, one’s got to do something. I don’t expect they do know anything.”
“Perhaps you’ll get a message from Jonathan later on.”
“Do you think so? You mean, he might telephone from wherever he’s gone.”
“Or perhaps he’ll simply come back. He may have found last night that he didn’t feel like trying to sleep, and he thought of driving off somewhere on his own to think things out.”
“But you asked about his passport.”
“I was only half awake.”
“You don’t think he’s suddenly gone off abroad somewhere?”
“If he did, what would he use for money?”
She thrust her fingers through her hair, clawing at her head as if that might help her to think more clearly.
“I don’t know, but perhaps he had quite a lot. I mean, he might have got next month’s salary in advance, because of the holiday, and if he’d cashed the cheque…” She stopped, frowning. The lines across her forehead deepened. “But why should he have cashed it unless he was planning some days ago to go away, and that isn’t likely, is it? His salary usually gets paid straight into his bank account, and he gives me a cheque for his share of the housekeeping. He always insisted on doing that as soon as he started earning some money. And I suppose he gets out some ready cash for himself from time to time, but I don’t think it’s ever very much, certainly not enough to go abroad with. Though he does have one of those credit cards…” She stopped again. “You don’t seriously think he’s done anything like that, do you?” The thought of the credit card had shocked her. Her tone implored him to reassure her.
“It seems to me there’s nothing we can do but wait and see,” he said, “unless you want to tell the police he’s gone missing.”
“No—oh no, that would be the worst thing we could do! I mean, if he just wants to be left in peace for a little, we don’t want them thinking he’s run away from them for some reason. And it would be difficult to explain the actual reason why we think he might have done it.”
“I’m not sure that it would,” Andrew said. “I think that man Roland may have thought, all on his own, that Jonathan might have been the target for that bomb. And I think if he doesn’t appear fairly soon, or send you some message, it might actually be best to tell the police what’s happened. But I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm to wait a little.”
Just then they heard the sound of the front door opening and closing, then footsteps coming towards the kitchen. Dorothea had looked up with hopeful expectancy, but the footsteps were unmistakably Colin’s.
When he came into the kitchen his face was sombre.
“Any coffee left?” he asked.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Dorothea sprang up to fetch another cup from the cupboard. “What’s happened, Colin? They don’t know anything, do they?”
“Well, that’s a bit of a problem,” Colin said. He sat down at the table and sipped the coffee that she gave him. “Yes, quite a bit of a problem.”
“What do you mean?” Her anxiety was mounting sharply at his obvious reluctance to talk.
“It’s just that Gwen’s gone missing too,” he said.
“Oh…!” She let out a long breath, and pressed a hand to her heart as if that might help to steady it, but an odd look of relief appeared on her face. “Well, that at least makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s a bit shattering, but it does explain… I mean, if the two of them were planning to go away together, it’s natural he might not want to leave a message about it. But he’s all right, nothing awful has happened to him, and we’ll hear from him as soon as they’ve made up their minds what to do. Of course I’m sorry about it, because for one thing I suppose that Nicholas—well, if he knew what they were planning, he might have gone out of his mind, mightn’t he, and done that fearful thing with the bomb? But for the moment anyway we needn’t worry about Jonathan.”
“It isn’t quite as simple as that,” Colin said.
She had poured herself out another cup of coffee, and now sat down again.
“What isn’t?” she asked.
“It’s just that Gwen doesn’t seem to have taken a suitcase or any clothes away with her,” Colin said. “She took her handbag, and Nicholas thinks she’d a fair amount of money in it, as she cashed a cheque when they were in Rockford, meeting Lyn. But if she and Jonathan were going away together, wouldn’t she have taken some clothes?”
“Who says she hasn’t?” Dorothea asked.
Colin looked puzzled. “I’m not sure. It was Nicholas who told me.”
“Look, if I were suddenly to disappear,” she said, “and I took half my clothes away with me, would you be able to tell the police just what I’d taken when you reported me missing? Think it over. This is mid-winter, and I suppose she and Jonathan are heading for somewhere lovely in the sun, and she’s got all her summer clothes out of the wardrobe. Do you think Nicholas is really able to say what she’s taken?”
Colin stared thoughtfully in front of him.
“I see what you mean. Perhaps not. But if it was you who’d gone, I’d remember that black and white spotted dress of yours. I’d be able to tell the police whether or not you’d left that behind. And I might notice it if a suitcase was missing.”
“Has she taken her passport?” Andrew asked.
He realised that it must sound as if he had passports on the brain, but they did seem to him to be more significant at the moment than black and white spotted dresses or even suitcases. He himself would notice if a suitcase of his own were missing, but he knew that a lot of people accumulate them in some attic when they have become too battered for use, and that after two or three years it would become impossible for them to say if one was missing.
“I didn’t think of asking,” Colin said.
“And they hadn’t thought of looking for it?”
“I suppose not, or they’d have mentioned it, wouldn’t they?”
“But when did she vanish?” Dorothea demanded. “This morning?”
“No, that’s a bit complicated too,” Colin said. “Nicholas went to bed quite early yesterday evening because he’d been feeling pretty bad all day, and Gwen gave him a sleeping pill and he was sound asleep by eleven or half past. He didn’t wake up at all till about eight in the morning, and then he saw that Gwen’s bed hadn’t been slept in.” He paused. “You understand, I’m only repeating what he told me.”
“Have you any doubts of it then?” Andrew asked.
“Not really. No, I’m sure it was the truth as far as he knew it, but we can’t be sure, can we, just how many pills Gwen gave him. He admitted that if he takes one, he always has it crushed up because he’s no good at swallowing. But I know I don’t really want to believe him. And Lyn Goddard said she’d heard Gwen go up to her room around midnight. She’d gone up earlier herself, but hadn’t gone to sleep. And she didn’t hear Gwen come down again, but that’s what she must have done.”
“Did you tell them that Jonathan’s missing?” Andrew asked.
“Yes, I had to, hadn’t I? It’s all too obvious what happened. She may or may not have packed a suitcase, then taken her handbag with what money she had in it, met Jonathan in the lane and gone off with him. And if I’d said nothing about Jonathan, Nicholas might have called the police to help find Gwen, but now he won’t, or not for the moment, so we’ve a little time to think out what we ought to do.”
“I’m not sure if you know that Jonathan met Gwen in The Running Man yesterday evening after she got back from London,” Andrew said, seeing no further virtue in discretion. “I believe he told you he was going to have a drink with a friend. Well, the friend was Gwen. I saw Jonathan getting out of her car as I was leaving the Deardens’ after handing over the manuscript, and when I caught up with him in the garden we talked about what he’d been doing.”
“So that’s when they planned it.” Dorothea sounded close to tears, but she drank some more coffee and made an effort to steady her voice. “If only he’d told us what they were going to do. We wouldn’t have tried to stop them. We haven’t been happy about the relationship between them, but we never dreamt of interfering. I mean, that sort of thing goes on all the time, one just has to accept that. But he might have left us a message or something.”
Colin stood up abruptly. For once he had lost his look of placid competence. He looked depressed and defeated.
“I’m going to get on with some work,” he said. “Sitting here trying to persuade ourselves we can sort out the problem by going on and on talking about it isn’t going to get us anywhere. See you later.”
“Oh, Colin, please—!” Dorothea began and stopped.
He paused in the doorway. “What is it?”
“No, go on,” she said. “You’re quite right, talking doesn’t help. Only everything seems so awful. I think I’ll go and rake up those dead leaves on the lawn that ought to have been cleared up weeks ago and make a bonfire—Oh my God, no, how could I think of that? A fire! But I’ll rake them up anyway and put them on the compost heap.”
She fetched a jacket from a peg in the hall, kicked off her slippers and struggled into Wellingtons, put on gardening gloves and went out by the back door. Colin went upstairs and after a few minutes Andrew heard the clicking of his typewriter.
As the things that had been used for breakfast were still on the table, Andrew thought he might as well wash them up. When he had done that, he set out to visit Mrs. Cambrey.
The bungalow, Elsinore, was a small, square white building with a red tiled roof, a bright blue front door and lacey nylon curtains in all the windows. When Andrew rang the bell he heard musical chimes inside and thought how desperately he would come to hate their melody if he had anything of the sort at his own door. A moment after he had rung he heard swift footsteps approaching the door, and it was opened.
A small, plump, friendly-looking woman stood there. She was about forty, he thought, had an abundance of light brown curls clustering around her round pink face, full cheeks and a neat little mouth with slightly protruding lips. She wore glasses with very pale pink rims over her soft brown eyes, a pale pink nylon overall over a dark dress, and pink bedroom slippers with furry trimmings. She began to greet him, with a surprisingly warm smile that showed sparkling teeth, then changed her mind abruptly and said, “Sorry, I thought you were the paper boy. I was going to give him something. But of course he won’t be coming on Boxing Day, will he? What can I do for you?”
“Mrs. Cambrey?” Andrew asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“My name’s Basnett,” he said. “I’m a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Cahill’s. I’ve been spending Christmas with them and it happens—”
“Christmas!” she shrieked at him before he could say any more. “In Stillmore Lane! Oh, you poor man, what a time you must have had. You were there, I suppose when—when that—that thing went off.”
“Yes, I was, as a matter of fact,” he said, “and it’s because of something that in a way has something to do with that that I’ve come to see you. If you’ve a few minutes to spare—”
“Me!” she broke in again. She was the sort of woman, he guessed, who very seldom let anyone else finish a sentence. “What information could I possibly have? Or Norman either. We were both in The Running Man when it happened and we heard it and someone said, ‘That’s thunder,’ and I said—But what am I doing, leaving you here? Come in, I know I can’t help you, but come in.”
Her eyes were alight with curiosity. If Andrew had agreed with her just then that she would not be able to help him, and turned to leave, he would have found it very difficult to get away.
She took him into a small, square room furnished with a three-piece suite covered in some kind of very shiny bright blue synthetic velvet, a coffee table of black glass with metal legs, one or two other odd tables of the same kind and a television with a bowl of plastic flowers standing on it. There was a tiled fireplace with a fire laid very neatly in the grate, but not lit. It was depressingly cold, but she did not seem to feel this herself.
“You’ll have a cup of tea,” she stated as she invited him to sit in one of the gleaming velvet chairs.
“No, thank you, it’s very kind of you, but I’ve only just had breakfast,” he said. “But I might ask you—”
“As I was saying,” she interrupted once more, “ ‘No,’ I said, ‘it isn’t thunder, it’s a bomb,’ and we all started laughing. Imagine that! Laughing like mad as if I’d made the best joke in the world. A bomb in Upper Cullonden! And then later on hearing what had happened I felt terrible, I promise you. Of course we’d all had a few drinks and I didn’t mean anything, but all the same, to have that on my mind for the rest of my life! But that isn’t why you came to see me, is it, because there are lots of people can say Norman and I were there most of the evening and the police have been all round the village, asking questions, and I even told them how I said, ‘No, that isn’t thunder.’ ”
As she paused momentarily for breath Andrew adroitly slid in a few words.
“I believe you typed a manuscript for Sir Lucas Dearden.”
“That’s right, I did,” she said, hurriedly recuperating from her brief silence. “I often do odd jobs for people. I used to be a secretary until I married, and sometimes I get bored, just housekeeping and all that, and there’s the money too, of course. Sir Lucas paid pretty well, though he was a bit fussy about mistakes. He was what you call a perfectionist. He wanted everything to be perfect. Not that I ever make many mistakes, but now and then the odd one gets in, how could you expect anything else, but I think he got as clean a copy from me as he’d have got from anyone. If you do a job at all, it’s worth doing well, that’s what I believe, and if he recommended me to you, or you know of someone who wants something done—”
“No.” Andrew interrupted her by slightly raising his voice in a manner which in the past had often silenced troublesome students. “I want to ask you if you happened to notice if page 96 was missing from his manuscript.”
Her alternative to loquacity was a deep and thoughtful withdrawal into herself. She sat looking at one hand, which she held up before her as if to examine the pink polish on its nails.
“Well, now that you mention it,” she began, then paused.
“Yes?” he prompted her.
“It was kind of strange, though I never thought much about it, but if it’s important… Is it important?”
“I won’t know that till you tell me what was strange,” he answered.
“It was only that a week or so after I’d got started on the job—you understand, I only work at odd times when I’ve time to spare, so I may be slower than some people—well, I’d hardly got started on it when Sir Lucas turned up here and said he’d been having second thoughts about something he’d written and he wanted to change it. So I take out the manuscript and I give it to him and he turns to page—what did you say it was, 96?—and he just rips it out. I say, ‘But look, Sir Lucas, I’ve typed that already, do you want me to do it again?’ And he says yes, please, and of course he’ll pay me extra. So that was how it was. He tore the page out and crumpled it up and dropped it in the fire and said he was sorry to give trouble, but he looked at the manuscript and gave a kind of laugh and said, ‘It reads pretty well as it is, doesn’t it? I needn’t write anything different.’ So I typed the last few pages I’d done over again and sure enough, except that I had to change the numbers of the pages, it was all just as I’d done it before.”
“Then you’d already typed that page he tore out,” Andrew said. “Can you remember anything about it?”
“Not very much. I didn’t see really why he wanted to tear it out, but he said it was too personal and it said something that might upset his daughter and son-in-law. I couldn’t see that myself. It was only a mention that she’d got engaged to a young man whose name I’m sorry I forget, but you could tell from the way he wrote about him that Sir Lucas didn’t think much of him. The man was an actor or something, I think, and seemed to be mainly out of work, then he was killed in a car crash and right away she goes and gets engaged to Mr. Haslam, who’s got plenty of money and a senior job in some firm he works for, and Sir Lucas is a bit afraid she’s doing it on the rebound and that it won’t work out, specially as this second man is a good bit older than she is. But then it all turns out very well because this Mr. Haslam is a really good sort of chap and crazy about her. And that’s all, so far as I remember it.”
“Thank you,” Andrew said, “that’s very interesting. Am I right that it’s your impression that he only wanted to cut out what was on that page because it made a little too much of a purely personal event?”
“That’s it,” she said. “That’s it exactly.”
“Most of the book is pretty impersonal, isn’t it?”
“Well, that’s what I thought myself, I mean, I didn’t find it interesting. But I don’t claim to be a judge. I know Sir Lucas was a very clever man and perhaps there are people who like to read that sort of thing. And he paid me promptly and said I’d done a very nice piece of work. I wish all my clients were as thoughtful. I mean, one does want to be appreciated.”
“Of course. But there was really nothing else on that missing page but the reference to his daughter’s former engagement?”
She gave a slow, thoughtful shake of her head, once more appearing to have withdrawn deeply into herself. She frowned a little, as if she were trying to capture some memory.
“Now you mention it…” she said at length.
“Yes?” Andrew said.
“I don’t remember it exactly, it was only a line or so, but there was some mention of Miss Dearden having been engaged to someone before the actor chap. I don’t think it said who it was, but only that she’d got engaged when she was much too young to think of marriage and it was lucky it got broken off. I think Sir Lucas was very relieved when he saw her safely married to Mr. Haslam. But I wonder if Mr. Haslam knew about any of that, and if it was perhaps because he didn’t that Sir Lucas felt he ought to tear out the page. After all, what does being engaged mean nowadays? You can easily say you’ve got a boyfriend or what have you, and it may mean anything. All this getting engaged—does it sound at all queer to you?”
“I don’t think so,” Andrew said. “It’s a habit some people get into. I had an aunt who got engaged nineteen times.”
“Ah yes, but that was long ago, wasn’t it? Things are different now.”
“That’s true.” Yet under the surface how different were they, he asked himself. His Aunt Madge had been a very beautiful woman who had attracted men round her like the proverbial flies round a honeypot, had eventually got married, divorced, remarried and then had died in childbirth. That last perhaps would not have happened now. Some antibiotics might have saved her. But the life that she had lived had not been so different from the life of the young and the beautiful nowadays. He had been told that Erica Haslam was beautiful. He thought that he would question Nicholas about her, then he remembered that Nicholas’s wife had gone missing that day and that he was unlikely to be much interested in a sister.
On his walk back to the Cahills’ house Andrew saw that the portion of the lane that had been roped off was now clear. He had not noticed it when he set out. Letting himself into the house, he heard voices in the sitting room. They were men’s voices. One was Colin’s, but the other was unfamiliar. For a moment Andrew thought that it belonged to Detective Inspector Roland, and that after all Nicholas had reported the disappearance of his wife to the police, and that Jonathan’s disappearance not unnaturally had been linked to it and that that was why they were here. But it was not Roland in the room. It was a man whom Andrew had not seen before.
Colin introduced them to one another.
“This is Henry Haslam, Andrew. Professor Basnett, Henry.”
Henry Haslam was standing in front of the fireplace. He held out a hand. He was a large, powerful-looking man with heavy features in a ruddy, almost unwrinkled face, but with a considerable paunch that made him look older than he probably was. What hair he had was grey, and there was not a great deal of it. He had straight eyebrows that almost met above his short, thick nose and slightly protuberant eyes. His dark brown worsted suit was very well cut; his shoes looked expensive. There was an air of opulence about him that Andrew recognised at once, though he would have found it difficult to say why he did so. It was not purely the result of the suit and the shoes, but something to do with the man’s air of physical confidence, of being a man who had always eaten and drunk well, and had control of others.
“I’ve often heard about you, Professor,” Henry Haslam said. “Colin and I are old friends. My wife and I often come down here and of course we met long ago. But it’s never been for an occasion like this.”
“How is your wife?” Andrew asked. “I’ve heard about her accident.”
“She’s as well as can be expected,” Haslam said. “Doing pretty well, actually. She’s very tough. And the hospital’s a good one. She’ll soon be over the worst.” His voice was deep and resonant, with an accent that had been acquired at one of the better public schools. “I’ve only come down for the day, or anyway, that’s what I intended, but finding the state Nicholas is in I can’t help wondering if I ought to stay longer. But perhaps I might come back tomorrow. I haven’t brought any clothes with me, so staying wouldn’t be too easy. And the drive takes only about an hour and a half—less today, because of course being Boxing Day there wasn’t much traffic. But even tomorrow when everyone’s going home I could get here quite early. Only I’m not sure if it’s necessary. That girl Lyn Goddard seems to have everything under control.”
“Is there still no news of Gwen?” Andrew asked.
“No,” Colin said.
“Or of Jonathan?”
“No.”
“What a thing for them to have done!” Haslam exclaimed. “Not that I’m altogether surprised. I’ve known for some time that Nicholas and Gwen weren’t really hitting it off, but I never connected her with Jonathan, or with anyone else for that matter. Forgive me, Dorothea, I know it’s painful for you to talk about it, but it’s best to face it. They’ve chosen this extraordinary time to disappear together and it makes one wonder… I don’t mean I’m wondering if either of them had anything to do with the bomb, but I can’t help thinking how wrong one can be about people, even people one thinks one knows well. You know, I’m very sorry for Nicholas, because I believe some people are suspicious of him, but of course there’s no possible doubt it was that man Waterman who did it. And all my fault too.”
“Why do you say that, Henry?” Dorothea asked. As usual she was on the sofa with her feet up. “How can you have had anything to do with it?”
Haslam waved one of his thick hands in the air in a gesture that might have been an apology.
“My crass stupidity,” he said. “Waterman rang me up just a short time after I’d got Erica settled in St. Raphael’s and got home, and he asked me when I thought he could see Lucas. I thought the man was in London, that was the mistake I made. I didn’t trouble to ask him where he was ringing from, and I said he couldn’t see Lucas because he’d gone home.”
“So Nicholas was wrong about that,” Colin said. “He told the police he was sure you wouldn’t have said anything of the sort because you’d have remembered the business of the threats Waterman shouted from the dock.”
“I did, I did,” Haslam said, “and that’s precisely why I said Lucas had gone home. I thought I was getting rid of Waterman, when in fact I was doing just the reverse. But I was in a pretty shattered state after Erica’s accident and not thinking too clearly. All the same I blame myself very seriously. I only hope the police have got the man.”
“He’s denied having been in touch with you,” Colin said.
“Well, he’s lying. I’m going into Rockford to see the police directly. But I wanted to see you before I went because I wanted to find out if you’d mind if I said something about Gwen and Jonathan having gone off together, or if you’d sooner I said nothing about it.”
Colin turned to Andrew.
“What do you think?” he asked. “We won’t be able to keep the thing hidden for long.”
“No, no!” Dorothea cried. “It’s got nothing to do with what happened to Lucas. It’s an altogether private matter. Please don’t say anything about it, Henry.”
“But what do you think about it, Andrew?” Colin repeated.
Andrew felt his usual deep reluctance to give advice. He had sat down in a low easy chair, and this made the heavy figure of Henry Haslam seem to tower above him. Yet Andrew felt some pity for him, because powerful and sure of himself as he appeared, his distress at what he had done seemed genuine.
“I don’t really see why the subject need come up,” Andrew said. “Of course if Roland asks Mr. Haslam about it, the only thing to do will be to tell the truth. But you can easily explain later why you didn’t say anything about it before. That is, that you felt it was a private matter and you were still waiting, hoping to hear from Jonathan or Gwen.”
“And that’s just what we’re doing,” Dorothea said, “so please say nothing about it, Henry, unless they ask you directly, when I agree you must tell the truth. Andrew, did you see that woman this morning, that Mrs. Cambrey?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And had she anything of interest to say about that missing page?”
Everything that she had had to say about it concerned Henry Haslam’s wife, and Andrew did not know how much the man might know about it.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
“Who’s Mrs. Cambrey?” Haslam asked. “Is she someone involved in all this?”
“She’s just a woman who typed Lucas’s memoirs,” Dorothea said. “I suppose there was nothing about Waterman on that page 96, was there, Andrew?”
“Not according to her,” he answered.
“I wonder where he is now?” she said. “Perhaps the police have taken him in for questioning.”
“Or perhaps he’s slipped through their fingers and is in France or somewhere by now,” Colin suggested.
“Well, I must go and tell them my share of things,” Haslam said. “I find it difficult to understand now how I could have been such a fool, but I was, and the sooner they know about it, the better. Goodbye, Professor. I’ve always hoped to meet you sometime, after hearing Colin and Dorothea talk about you, but not like this. Another time, perhaps.”
He and Colin left the room together.
Dorothea swung her feet down from the sofa and leant tensely forward, gazing at Andrew.
“What did that woman really say?” she asked.
“Mrs. Cambrey? Not much,” he replied. “She remembered the missing page. Dearden came to see her and tore it out after she’d typed it, and she had to do some of the job over again. His reasons appear to have been that he felt it was too personal. It was simply about Mrs. Haslam having been engaged twice before she married Haslam. One of her fiancés was apparently killed in a car accident. I don’t know anything about the other.”
“Oh, everyone knew about that!” Dorothea exclaimed. “She had an affair with a married man which she flaunted everywhere. She told us all he was going to have a divorce and marry her. Then he decided not to have the divorce but to stick to his wife, and the two of them went off together, I believe to New Zealand.”
“And does Haslam know all about that?”
“Oh yes, it was a very public thing. Poor kid, I think she was only about nineteen at the time and didn’t know anything about the disadvantages of being ‘the other woman.’ ”
“So page 96 really tells us nothing—” Andrew broke off as the telephone rang.
Dorothea leapt towards it almost as if she had known it would ring at that moment.
“Yes,” she said excitedly, “yes, of course it’s me. But where are you, darling?… Heathrow! You can’t mean it… But why?… Where are you going?… No, isn’t she with you?… She isn’t? But she must be. I mean, where is she if she isn’t with you?… No, Jonathan, she’s disappeared too and of course we all thought you were together… But of course that’s what we thought. It’s what Nicholas thinks too. Poor man, he’s going nearly mad with worry, but if she isn’t with you… Oh, Jonathan, please come home at once, it’s the only thing for you to do… Yes, do that, we’ll expect you in about an hour, it won’t take you much more than that to get here. And I’m so sorry, darling, if things have gone wrong for you, but I just don’t know anything about what’s happened except that she’s missing… All right then, we won’t say anything to Nicholas until you get back, but it might be a case for the police… Yes, yes, we’ll wait.”
She drew a deep breath as she put the telephone down. For a moment she stood staring blankly at the wall before her, then she turned to Andrew.
“He’s been at Heathrow all night and he’s been expecting Gwen to join him,” she said. “But she hasn’t come. I think that’s something to be thankful for. But what can possibly have happened to her?”