Free Wings over the Watcher by Priscilla Masters Page A

note to the front door, “Darling, if you read this…”
    Just in case.
    “Is there someone who can come and stay with you? One of your children, maybe?”
    She was sure his laugh hadn’t meant to sound so dry and cynical.
    But it did.
    There was a short pause before, “No.” The pedant had won. “It wouldn’t be fair to drag them in to all this. They have their own lives to live. I’m sure when Beattie comes back she’ll have a perfectly rational explanation.
    When Beattie comes back.
    It sounded an empty refrain.
    When
Beattie comes back. Not
if
.
    “It’s been two days now, Inspector,” he said. “I don’t know what to do next.”
    There is nothing, Mr Pennington. Nothing you can do except wait, hope and forgive.
    She felt action was expected of her. “Can you give me your son and daughter’s telephone numbers?”
    “But I’ve already–” He capitulated. “Hang on. I’ll just look them up.”
    He came back with the numbers.
    She asked then for a complete list of the telephone numbers and addresses of all of his wife’s friends, family and acquaintances.
    It was the least she could do.
    But under her breath she was already cursing Beatrice.
    Damn you, woman. How could you leave this mess behind you when a short note would have saved so much?
    He did not demur but read the list out mechanically.
    “If you do hear anything, Mr Pennington, you will let me know, won’t you?”
    “Of course. Of course.” He hesitated. “And if
you
hear anything, Inspector.”
    “Yes. Yes. Of course.”
    “And may I ring you again to find out how your investigation is going?”
    It was a mistake but she agreed anyway and gave him the number which led straight to the phone on her desk.
    Like him she wanted a neat solution to the problem.
    She put the phone down then picked it up again, struck with a sudden picture. Beattie’s bike, a Dawes hybrid, racing green, almost brand new. She detailed a couple of officers to go and detach it from the railings outside the library – if it was still there. Bikes were popular with thieves.
    To herself she was relating the small fable, that it could do no harm for the forensics team to give it
the once over.
    She could have gone home then, back to the empty cottage in Waterfall. It was late; she’d done a full day’s work. But there is something of the terrier in all detectives. She wanted answers, just to hear the end of the story. Not this unsatisfactory question mark.
    Obviously the library should be the next port of call. And it would still be open.
     
    Leek library is halfway up Stockwell Street, the road that runs behind, and parallel to, Derby Street. It is housed in a Gothic Victorian building called the Nicholson Institute. Marked by its green copper dome and like many libraries more of a cultural centre than a mere book-house.
    As Joanna mounted the stone stair case she was reminded of the strange story she had heard about the ‘ghost’ of Joshua Nicholson, its founder, said to walk here. Listening to her footsteps echoing as she climbed, she could almostbelieve it was true.
    And that was not the only strange story connected with the library. In 1965 the mummified remains of what had been thought to be a child were discovered in a barrel in the loft of what had been the museum. The fact that the discovery had been made on April 1st had not alerted the authorities that it was, in fact, the remains of a carefully dissected orang-utan, until after the National Press had run the story.
    Leek has more than its fair share of strange stories and odd legends. Maybe it is the moorland which surrounds it and seals in its people, isolating them from the rest of the world and not subject to its wider laws and rules.
     
    During the ten minute walk from the station to the library Joanna had toyed with the idea that Beatrice Pennington’s secret lover was possibly someone at work. In which case would he be there too? Or on a sudden “holiday”?
     
    As she reached the