Free The Vanishment by Jonathan Aycliffe Page A

Rudd snapped. "Don't have a daughter, we. Never have had. No children. Of either kind."
    I noticed that he did not say "sex." No doubt that, too, would have constituted "language." No language, no children, probably no sex. And, it would seem, no Miss Trevorrow.
    "No one who comes in?"
    "Who would?" Mrs. Rudd asked. “Who would come in?" It was not a necessary question, and Raleigh knew it. Still, he had his duty to do, his own questions to ask. He went on asking them, but I could see he had no heart for the task, not any longer. In the end, he gave up. Telling the Rudds he would still want them for a formal interview, he stormed out.

    We drove back to Penzance, puzzled and dejected. There was still no news of Sarah. I knew there was never going to be news. Wherever she had gone, she was not on any road that the police or I could follow her down.
    The house was quiet. As always, I filled the electric meter with coins. I had to be sure of light. Even while I slept I kept the hall and landings illuminated. I had one last night to spend.
    Raleigh rang about five that afternoon. Bill Rudd had been in touch.
    "He rang a few minutes ago, Mr. Clare. From a phone box. I thought you'd like to know what he told me—though I can't see what help it is to us."
    He sounded more distant than he had been.
    "What did he say?"
    "He remembered a Miss Trevorrow after all," Raleigh said—reluctantly, I thought. "Agnes Trevorrow. Seems she used to live in the house. In fact, she was the previous owner. She'd been there a long time, apparently; Rudd didn't know how long."
    "When was this?"
    "When?" He paused. "About forty years ago. The Rudds bought the house in 1953, the year of the coronation. It's about the only thing Rudd seems to remember."
    "They bought it from this Miss Trevorrow?"
    There was a short silence on the line. I could hear the faint sound of Raleigh's breathing. His voice when it returned was tense.
    "No," he said. "From her solicitor. Miss Trevorrow was dead."
Chapter 10
    Raleigh did not want me to leave, not right away. The next morning I moved into a hotel near Penzance, in a small place on the coast, Marazion. My room had a view of St. Michael's Mount, and of the sea beyond. This was the southern side of the peninsula. I had my back to Petherick House and that other water, the water in which Raleigh thought my wife had drowned.
    His sympathy for me seemed to have drained away. He simply could no longer believe my story.
    "Why would I lie?" I asked. "There'd be no point. You'd be bound to see through it before long. I'm not a stupid man, you know that."
    "Well, that's just it, isn't it? I know you're not stupid. That's why I think there has to be something else behind what I'd take for stupidity in anyone else."
    "The entry was in Sarah's hand," I said. "You can have one of your experts check that out."
    "They've already done so," he answered.
    I spent the first day sitting at my window, trying to write. The mood would not come here, in spite of the beauty of that view. Or, perhaps, because of it.
    Early one morning, Raleigh called. His faithful sidekick was with him as usual. What earthly use he was to the chief inspector, I could never tell.
    "I'd like you to come with us, Mr. Clare," Raleigh said. "Another trip. I'd like you to have a word with the solicitors who rented the house to you."
    "They won't know anything," I said.
    "They'll know who owns the place."
    We drove on a day of squalls to St. Ives. Raleigh talked about himself for the first time. He told me about his wife, who had divorced him five years earlier, messily, it seemed. He had two children, both at university, one studying philosophy, the other Sanskrit —matters of which he knew nothing and wished to know nothing. He was a sad man, I thought, someone for whom life had not worked out quite as it had promised. It seemed to me that it must be worse for policemen, as it is for doctors. They see our failures at first hand. The worst side of human nature