Chapter 1.3

Shaking himself from his stupor, Ronny knew that the only way he was going to find his wife was to start at the beginning and even the most junior rookie knew that the first thing was to talk to the family and friends. Had any of them known what she’d been planning for today, had she confided with anyone, had they seen her today or even heard from her.  The longer he sat doing nothing the colder the trail would get.  But he also knew that how he asked the questions would be as important as the questions themselves.  He had to appear calm and unconcerned, the last thing he wanted to do was start some kind of panic when Sandra could walk back through the door at any time.   

‘Hi Wendy, sorry to bother you but is Sandra there?’

‘No’ his daughter in law answered hesitantly ‘I thought that she was meeting you for lunch today’

‘Yes so did I but she didn’t turn up, in fact she didn’t go to work either, apparently she phoned in sick.’

‘Sick?’ asked Wendy ‘she didn’t say anything about feeling ill when I spoke to her last night.’

‘No, she didn’t say anything to me either when she was leaving for work this morning’ said Ronny trying hard not to sound as exasperated with the situation as he felt.

‘What, she left for work and then phoned in sick?  What’s going on Ronny, where is she?’

‘If I knew that I wouldn’t be looking for her would I.’ he snapped

‘Sorry Ronny, I didn’t mean to upset you, it’s just not like Sandra to go off and not tell anyone.  Do you want me to phone George to see if he has heard from her?’

‘Yes please love, if you do that I’ll ring Kate to see if her or Martin has heard anything.’

‘What about Sandra’s friends, do you have any of their numbers.’

‘Only those she‘s written in the book and I can’t be sure how many are in there, Sandra usually phones her friends from her mobile and she took that with her.’

‘Don’t worry Ronny, I’m sure that there’s rational explanation for all this.’

Ending the call Ronny wondered how many times he was going to have to repeat the same thing over and over again.  How many different ways were there to say that his fifty three year old wife had kissed him goodbye and left for work as usual that morning.  How could he explain to people that his dependable, quiet, loyal wife had left him sitting waiting and worrying all afternoon without a word.  

Hearing the muffled whimpering of his dog long abandoned in the kitchen, Ronny reluctantly stood up and made his way down the stairs.  It was only when he switched the lights on in the gloomy hall that he realised how late it was getting.  Poor Buster must be starving he thought to himself and busying himself in the kitchen he set about filling the dog’s water and food bowls.  As Ronny bent to put the bowls on the floor Buster fell on them as if he hadn’t seen food for as week and had polished off the food before Ronny had walked across the kitchen to open the back door.

With the evening sun slowly fading behind the trees, Ronny walked out into the darkening garden. Sandra loved to be out in the garden at this time of day.  The fruit trees, she had so carefully planted when the boys were little, were catching the last of the sunlight and transforming it into spidery shadows across the well tended lawn. 

 

Ronny had never had much time for gardening, it had been his wife’s domain, her passion and even in the winter months the borders that in the summer were full of bedding plants were still full of colour from the evergreen shrubs.

Walking down the path to the small pond at the end of the garden, Ronny, hunching his shoulders against the cold, remembered back to when the boys were young and Sandra had despaired of ever having a beautiful lawn. They loved nothing more than kicking a football about and in the end she had given in and resigned herself to the fact that she would have to wait until they had left home before she have a lawn instead of the scrub grass that was more child resistant.  Sitting down on the wooden bench beside the pond Ronny wondered when all this work on the garden had happened.  How many hours had she spent tending the flower beds and sculpting out the lawn?  How had she managed to lay a path and build the greenhouse without his help? 

Not for the first time that day, Ronny wondered how much he really knew about his wife. It seemed that for so long their lives had run along parallel lines, each had their own friends, their own hobbies and their own responsibilities.  His had been work, golf with colleagues and drinks with the few close friends that had been around since his rookie days at the police college in Maidstone.  The force had been his life for as long as he could remember and even now since his retirement, he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of friends he had who weren’t associated in some way with the job.  

But what of Sandra, where all her friends the same women she had met at the boys’ school gates or had she made new ones over the years?  Apart from her part time job did she have another life that he didn’t know about, did she have any hobbies or interests that didn’t involve the family home. It frightened him to realise that he really didn’t know his wife very well at all.  Frightened and embarrassed him.

That’s the truth of it, he thought, this whole situation is just one huge embarrassment.  He was an ex-Detective Inspector for god’s sake and he couldn’t even list all his wife’s friends. 

‘What are you doing sitting out here in the dark?’

Ronny looked up with a start to see his youngest son walking down the garden.

‘I tried ringing the front door bell but there wasn’t any answer and I was getting worried that something had happened to you as well.’

‘What do you mean me as well, what’s happened, have you heard something?’

‘No Dad’ answered George as he sat down on the bench ‘I haven’t heard anything and I’m guessing that you haven’t either.’

Ronny sat with his head bent staring at his hands as he slowly rubbed them together.  How many times had he seen other people do this sitting staring without seeing, unable to focus on even the most mundane of actions?

‘Dad what’s going on, where’s Mum?’ 

’I don’t know son, I really don’t know.  I’ve phoned everybody I can think of and nobody’s seen or heard from her today, well not since she phoned in sick this morning. I’ve tried phoning her mobile but it kicks straight to answer phone so she must have switched it off.  I’m getting worried George’ he said looking at his son. ‘It’s getting late and you know how your Mum hates driving in the dark. What if she’s had an accident or something, I can’t think of any other reason for her to be out so late.’ Hesitantly rising from the bench, Ronny turned to his son; ‘I’d better start phoning the hospitals.’ 

George was shocked as watched as his dad got up and make his way back to the house, it was as if he had aged ten years in the past two days.  George couldn’t understand why his Dad was making such a drama out of his Mum being a few hours late, and yet he was behaving as if she had been missing for days.

When he’d been growing up, George had always thought of his Dad as a man who could solve any problem. His Dad was strong, tough, a man’s man, a man other men respected.  But there had been times when George had wished that he had a Dad like his friends had.  One that worked regular hours, played football in the garden with them, turned up at parent’s evening in a car that didn’t have a blue light on the top.

He had often wondered if his Dad would have been so much different if he hadn’t been a copper. Would he have spent more time with his family?  Or was the job an excuse to use when they were young.  All George could ever remember was his Mum being there for them.  She was the one who stood on the touchline cheering him on when he scored the winning goal of the Under 15’s cup final.  It was his Mum he phoned when he skidded on the mud and crashed his first car through the hedge into the farmer’s field.

It was always his Mum because his Dad was busy chasing the bad guys.  His Dad’s job was so very important, but more important than his family?