Free The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill Page B

Pauline’s house for her own, she would have to take the piece of paper, and when she had closed her own front door, she would be alone with it and the name and address and number.
    To make it easier, she glanced down quickly now at Pauline’s round writing.
Sheila Innis. 20 Priam Crescent. 389113
.
    The plainness of the woman’s name and the address, on a road she knew, were reassuring somehow, so that she took the paper and folded it away into her handbag quite cheerfully, scoffing at herself for having been worried.

Nine
    DS Freya Graffham stood in the entrance hall of the Four Ways Nursing Home, waiting to be directed to Carol Ashton’s office and wanting to flee. It was the smell – polish and chrysanthemums to the fore, but with heavy notes of antiseptic and stewing meat. It took her back to the corridors of her convent school, and, more recently and distressingly, to the care home in south London where hergrandmother had spent her last two miserable years. And there had not even been the disguising smells of the polish or the flowers to mask the stench. Coming into a nursing home again, however different this one might be, struck chill to her heart.
    Carol Ashton’s office was bright and pleasant with pictures, plants and a comfortable chair.
    ‘Have you found Angela? Do please sit down …’
    ‘I’msorry, I’m afraid we haven’t.’
    ‘It seems so long. I’m absolutely certain something must have happened to her …’
    ‘Mrs Ashton, I’m trying to build up a picture of AngelaRandall. I wonder if you’d mind going back over a couple of things again?’
    ‘I’ll do anything, of course I will.’
    ‘You told me that just going away without saying anything to you, or as far as you know to anyone else, just wasn’tin character.’
    ‘I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I’m sure. I know people sometimes behave unexpectedly but I truly do not believe Angela would ever have gone away like that. She wouldn’t have left her job and her home without warning, she simply wouldn’t.’
    ‘Do you know if she had any close relationships?’
    ‘You mean a man? A love relationship?’ The suggestion seemed to take Carol Ashtonaback. ‘I think I told you she isn’t the sort of person who talks about her private life. Do you know, I couldn’t even tell you if she owned a cat? But she’s never mentioned anyone.’
    ‘No one she might have bought expensive presents for?’
    ‘I doubt it. What kind of presents do you mean?’
    ‘We found a pair of gold cufflinks in the house, gift-wrapped and with a note indicating some sort of affectionaterelationship.’
    ‘Goodness.’
    ‘You can’t think of anyone?’
    ‘I can’t and I have to say, I’m very surprised. There just isn’t anything like that about Angela.’ She was thoughtful for a moment. Freya waited.
    ‘If I had to choose a single word to describe her, I’m afraid it would be “chilly”. I don’t mean to imply that I don’t like her because I do, and I respect her too. I respect anyone who worksas conscientiously and loyally.’
    ‘I understand what you mean, don’t worry.’ Freya gotup. ‘There really is every possibility that she will simply return home … the more private she is, perhaps the less likely she would be to confide in anyone if there was some problem in her life.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    Carol Ashton looked sceptical. Freya didn’t blame her, even she didn’t believe in the bland reassurancesshe heard herself babbling.
    ‘Will you go on trying to remember anything she may have mentioned, probably in passing, about someone she knew, someone she was close to?’
    ‘Yes, I’ll try. But I won’t come up with anything.’
    As they went out into the corridor a wail came from somewhere above. It was all Freya could do not to run for the front door.
    ‘Sergeant, there was something I wanted to askyou. The other day I turned on Radio BEV and there was an appeal for any information about a missing dog … someone’s prize