A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [154]
Dan came out of the phone box, turned up his coat collar because the wind was so cold, and began walking to the police station.
Mr and Mrs Brown had said they were leaving home immediately and they would stay in a London hotel until Fifi was found. Patty wanted to come too, but they’d said she was to stay in Bristol with her brothers, just in case Fifi phoned.
Dan was finally shown into an interview room with Detective Inspector Roper, the same officer who had taken Fifi’s statement after she found Angela Muckle. It had taken Dan a while to convince the desk sergeant that this was the man he needed to see. Fifi hadn’t actually liked Roper much, but she’d spent quite some time with him, and Dan didn’t want to waste any more time talking to people who didn’t know his wife.
The detective’s suit was still as crumpled as it had been that day in August, and Dan wondered how such a small man had got a job as a policeman. He didn’t look more than five feet seven, and he was in desperate need of a haircut and a dentist. His hair looked as though he’d had an electric shock, and his teeth were brown. But on the plus side, he did have a commanding voice and a firm handshake, and he had agreed to see Dan.
‘I understand your anxiety, Mr Reynolds,’ Roper said after Dan had explained that since last contacting the police he’d spent his entire time trying to trace Fifi without any success. ‘But you said yourself you had a row and you walked out. You were gone the whole weekend! She could just be giving you a taste of your own medicine.’
‘I might believe that of any other woman, but not Fifi,’ Dan retorted. ‘She isn’t a tit-for-tat person. She wrote to me and begged me to come back. Why would she do that if she was going to run off?’
‘To frighten you?’ Roper suggested.
Dan shook his head. ‘She isn’t like that. She left for work on Tuesday morning but never showed up. She took nothing with her. Do you know any women who skip off for a few days without even taking their toothbrush?’
‘She may have set off for work, and then changed her mind,’ Roper said. ‘She might have suddenly got it into her head to have a bit of a break to think things through.’
‘You’ve met my wife,’ Dan said, raising his eyebrows. ‘You must have formed an opinion about her?’
‘Yes, a very caring young woman. Intelligent and forthright.’
‘She’s all those things,’ Dan said. ‘She’s also nosy and impulsive. But above all she’s a person who needs people and when she’s troubled she likes to talk. She’d no more take off to some strange guest house on her own than fly to the moon!’
Roper shrugged. ‘I’ve been called to see men who have been married for thirty years or more, then one day their wife just ups and goes without a word. Every one of them has always been convinced she’s been killed or abducted. But the truth almost always turns out to be that the wife just got fed up or found a new man. I find that women are not as predictable as us men.’
‘Fifi isn’t predictable at all, but she’s too caring to just light off without a word,’ Dan retorted with indignation. ‘And another thing! The Frenchwoman at number 12 has disappeared too. Of course that could be just coincidence, just like John Bolton’s body being hauled out the Thames, but she hasn’t been seen since Monday night.’
‘Is she a friend of your wife’s?’
‘Yes, but then Fifi’s everyone’s friend.’
‘Could they have gone off together?’
‘Yvette never goes anywhere overnight,’ Dan snapped, irritated that Roper hadn’t even risen to his sarcasm about John Bolton’s murder. ‘Fifi might like Yvette, but she’d hardly be her choice of partner for a little holiday. The woman’s a recluse; she’s frumpy and a lot older than Fifi.’
‘Has anyone been into the woman’s flat to check it?’
‘No. They’d have to break in. But you could do that.’
‘Okay, I’ll get someone round there. There is something I wanted to ask you, Mr Reynolds. The man your wife saw near the council depot last Friday – did you ever see him?’
Dan didn’t know what Roper was