Free The Lady Vanished by Gretta Mulrooney

cup.
    ‘Not well, no. Carmen likes to chat about charities, news items, TV programmes, just light talk. I don’t know much about her except she was widowed. I met Rupert, the stepson, once when I was dropping something off to her. Struck me as a bit bombastic, self-opinionated. I tried once to get her interested in becoming a magistrate, after Neville, her husband, died. I sit on the bench and I thought it might be a new interest for her but she didn’t respond.’
    She paused. Swift swallowed his disgusting coffee, which became more tasteless as it cooled.
    ‘I don’t know if I should say this, in case something dreadful has happened to her but I never thought that Carmen really liked me. I felt that she was interested in me because my cousin is a viscount and vaguely related to the royal family. She’s very keen on people’s station in life, you see.’
    Ah, thought Swift, I was right about old money. ‘A social climber?’
    ‘Well . . . that’s a crude way of putting it but yes, perhaps.’
    ‘Did you attend her suppers?’
    ‘Yes, a few. Again, I felt they were held more for show than because Carmen really liked the company. Oh dear, I hope I don’t sound bitchy.’
    ‘Well, what you tell me tallies with some other views. Did you ever form the impression that she might have a gentleman friend?’
    Paddy picked up a cushion and smoothed the fabric, giving the question careful consideration.
    ‘No, I don’t think so. But you see, as I’ve said, she’s quite a closed person, gives very little away. Always polite and a bit formal, perhaps even guarded at times.’
    Swift thought he knew why: if, like Carmen, you were an emigrant who had risen from the lowly status of dental receptionist and managed to break through the class barrier via marriage, you would always harbour a lingering anxiety about your origins and the possibility of committing social solecisms. You would watch your step and especially so after your passport into your new world had left you on your own. Paddy was a pleasant woman but she was clearly secure in her class and station in life; her frayed furnishings spoke volumes about her confidence in her social position. He could imagine Carmen visiting here from her immaculately kept home, never quite being able to put her finger on how this effortlessness was achieved.
    ‘I really have no idea what can have happened to Carmen,’ Paddy continued. ‘Have the police got nowhere?’
    ‘Not so far. Do you know why Mrs Langborne might have written WP and Haven in her diary?’
    ‘As in appointments?’
    ‘Probably. She wrote them on the day she went missing.’
    Paddy shook her head. ‘No idea. Sorry I can’t be of more help.’
    As he left, Paddy coaxed him to buy a raffle ticket for Spiny Friends, the hedgehog sanctuary she supported. He parted with a pound and saw as he walked to the bus stop that the first prize was a visit to the sanctuary; he couldn’t wait. His phone rang as the bus trundled past The Albert Memorial and he heard Dr Forsyth.
    ‘Hi, Mr Swift, how are you doing?’
    ‘Fine, thanks. You?’
    ‘I’m fine too. You said to call if I remembered anything. Well, I was soaking in the tub last night and I thought of something. You know, the way you get a random memory?’
    Swift had a sudden image of Dr Forsyth’s elegant limbs stretched out in her bath and blinked. ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘Last autumn, September, I believe, Mrs Langborne took herself off to stay in a residential facility for a couple of weeks. She was convinced she needed to convalesce after a virus. A few long walks would have done her more good, but there you go.’
    ‘You mean like a home for old people?’
    ‘Sure. An upmarket one, I should think. A hotel in the sun would have been just as good but I guess a home for elders with uniformed staff at the call of a buzzer played more to her idea that she was feeling frail and needed looking after.’
    ‘Do you know where she went?’
    ‘Afraid not. She