The Vanishment by Jonathan Aycliffe Read Free Book Online Page B

unmistakable shape of a child's hand.
Chapter 7
    I rang the police early the next morning. The night I passed was difficult. There were bad dreams. Or, rather, the same dream as before. And when I woke, bad thoughts. There were noises somewhere in the house, but I did not investigate them. I knew Sarah had not made them, and I did not want to know who had.
    The policeman who took my call suggested that I ought to call at the station in order to file a missing-person report. After checking with Tim and Susan that Sarah had still not turned up in London, I drove to St. Ives. The main police station was in Will's Lane, next to Trewyn Gardens. A desk sergeant showed me to a side room. About ten minutes later a young policewoman came to take details of Sarah's disappearance. I had brought a photograph, one of the shots we had taken at St. Just's church. It had been developed at the pharmacy in Tredannack. They noted it and filed it away, together with a detailed description and an account of my efforts until then.
    "It's well over forty-eight hours," the policewoman said. Her voice was neutral, there was no hint of accusation in it that I can remember. That was what I feared, of course: accusation, the leveling of guilt, the implication that I had done something to Sarah and that my innocence was mere posturing.
    At this time of year my limbs ache. I am sometimes afraid without reason of small things, of shadows, of movements spied from the eye's corner.
    'I'm sorry?" I said.
    "Why did you take so long before notifying us?"
    "It's not so long," I said. "I had every reason to think she'd turn up by now. Why not? She's not a child. It isn't as if she was in obvious danger."
    "But you say she took no money, no spare clothes. By the next day that must have been a great inconvenience for her."
    "I don't know. She may have had money. She has her own bank account. I don't know how much she had in her handbag to start with."
    "I think she'd have taken the bag. Most women would. Did she have credit cards?"
    I nodded.
    "And are they still in the bag?"
    "Yes."
    "All of them?"
    "Yes, I think so. I'd have to check. There's Visa, Access, one or two shop cards."
    "Normally we wouldn't investigate an adult disappearance at this stage," she said slowly, watching me, as though expecting some reaction. "People often walk out on their spouses. If your wife wants to be on her own, that's her business. You do understand that, don't you?"
    "She hasn't walked out," I insisted. "She would have taken her things."
    "Yes, I understand that, sir. That's why I think we may have to take a closer look. I'll get in touch with headquarters at Camborne. If the super agrees, he'll send someone out this afternoon to take a look around. They'll want to see if there's anything you've missed."
    I looked at her, not knowing what to say or do. My name had meant nothing to her. I was a stranger. Just a man whose wife had walked away into darkness.
    Small movements in the half shadows frighten me, and the voices of small children.

    Two constables came and searched the house. One of them took a walk through the grounds. Birds were singing.
    "Did you have a fight?" his colleague asked, back in the house, in the library. I had been writing, and papers were strewn across the table.
    "No," I said. "Not a fight."
    I tried to explain, to make him understand.
    "The house, you say? She was afraid of it?"
    "Yes. It's an old house. It has memories. She thought something had happened here, something unpleasant."
    "This woman, the one in the pub. What did you say her name was?"
    "Trebarvah. Margaret Trebarvah. But you can ask any of the locals. They all know about the house."
    He jotted down the name in his notebook.
    "I daresay. But it's your wife I'm interested in at present."
    He was young, with a fair mustache. For all his pleasant manner, I could see the seeds of suspicion.
    Perhaps, he was thinking, I am sure of it, perhaps the terrible thing had happened more recently. Perhaps I