Imposition (DI Gardener 5)

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Cragg entered the room, closing the door behind him. “That was Sandra Pearson, the matron in charge of the care home between here and Bursley Bridge. One of their patients is an old lady by the name of Elizabeth Miller. She has Alzheimer’s. Not likely she’ll ever come out, has good days and bad days. Anyway, seems her daughter, Mary, visits everyday come rain or shine. Never misses, not even on Christmas Day.”

“Don’t tell me,” said Reilly, “she hasn’t been today.”

“That’s right. But Mary not only visits her mother every day, she also works shifts.”

“Maybe she’s not well, Maurice. Everyone has an off day.”

“Not Mary Miller.”

“I have the feeling I’m not going to like this,” said Gardener. “I’ll bet you’re going to tell us that she is somehow connected to the case.”

“Looks like it. She’s Manny’s next-door neighbour, and possible girlfriend.”

Chapter Forty-four

At nine the following morning, Gardener was in the incident room in front of the whiteboard. To his right he had a cup of tea, a bowl of cereal, and some fruit. Reilly was sitting opposite with two sausage, egg, and bacon sandwiches, and a large mug of coffee.

“That stuff will kill you,” said Gardener.

“So will that stuff,” said Reilly, pointing to Gardener’s breakfast. “It’ll just take longer.”

The pair shared a moment of comfortable silence.

“Penny for them?” Reilly asked his boss, taking a large mouthful of the sandwich.

“I’m thinking about Mary Miller.”

Her disappearance the previous evening sent shockwaves through the team, creating more questions.

Following a visit to the care home, Gardener and Reilly returned to the station around two o’clock in the morning, immediately setting a search in motion for Mary, which included all details of her and her car, alerting ANPR and CCTV. The pair of them then freshened up before grabbing a couple of hours sleep in an upstairs room, along with Cragg. The rest of the team continued to work through the night in shifts, allowing them a break as well.

“Employment in a care home must be very demanding,” said Gardener. “It can’t have been easy for Mary to complete her shift before spending time with her mother.”

“Knowing that one day you can have a perfectly normal conversation, and the next, your mother wouldn’t know you from Adam.”

“Do you think everything got too much for Mary?”

“Maybe,” offered Reilly. “Then again, maybe she just decided to have a day off after all?”

“Not according to Sandra Pearson,” said Gardener.

The care home manager was a slim, mixed-race woman with the most piercing dark eyes. Sandra’s calm nature and soft-spoken voice suited her vocation perfectly. The atmosphere within the building had been subdued as most of the residents were in bed. Sandra Pearson talked at length, had been a mine of information concerning Mary, even providing them with a photograph and car registration details.

The visit to Carpenter’s Yard brought little in the way of compensation. She had not returned. The car was nowhere to be seen. The flat was extremely clean and tidy, and early indications were not good.

“I don’t accept she just walked out of her life,” said Reilly, “unless she went out searching for Manny?” Reilly washed down the last of his sandwich with a swig of coffee.

“I’m not so sure about that, Sean. Manny’s been missing for days. She hasn’t reported it.”

“So, either she wasn’t used to that kind of shit from him, or she wasn’t his girlfriend.”

“It’s always possible he is running things. Perhaps he abducted her before we picked him up.”

“Bit too far out there for my liking, boss. From what we’ve seen in the two interviews, he doesn’t look capable of taking the skin from a rice pudding.”

“Which brings us back to Robbie. Has he got Mary so he can find out where Manny is?”