sometimes happen at work that stay at work,’ he suggested. ‘Things that never find their way home. You know what I mean?’ Everyone in the office did.
‘Not Louise,’ Gabby said firmly. ‘If anything like that had happened, we’d know about it for sure and I’d tell you now if it was. I wouldn’t risk lying to you.’
‘You’re her best friends, so I guess you would know,’ Sean encouraged.
‘We would,’ Gabby reaffirmed. ‘And there wasn’t. If Louise went out without John she would be out with us. We would’ve known. She loves John. All she ever talked about was John and how they were going to start a family soon.’
‘What about an unwanted admirer?’ Sean asked as a last procedural question. ‘Someone hanging around outside the office waiting for her? Someone other than the husband sending flowers, cards?’
The three colleagues looked blankly at each other before Gabby answered for them all.
‘No. Not that I ever saw and not that she ever mentioned.’
‘What about at home? Anyone making a nuisance of themselves?’
‘Same,’ said Gabby. ‘Nothing. If there had been, she would have reported it to the police.’
They were interrupted by Sean’s phone ringing on the borrowed desk. He glanced at the caller ID. It was Donnelly.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, snatching the phone up, turning his back on them for false privacy. ‘What’s happening?’
‘We’ve found the car,’ Donnelly told him.
‘Where?’
‘A place called Scrogginhall Wood, in Norman Park, Bromley.’
‘Bromley!’ Sean exclaimed. ‘That’s only a few miles from her home.’
‘You were expecting something different?’ Donnelly queried.
Sean realized he’d been thinking out loud. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘Not necessarily.’ He already had a strong feeling that whoever had taken Louise Russell was local. She hadn’t been snatched by some long-distance lorry driver or salesman on a trip down South. No, this one was from somewhere within the borders of this forgotten part of London. ‘What state’s the car in?’
‘Locked and secure, apparently. No signs of damage or a struggle. A routine uniform patrol found it in the car park while they were looking for local toe-rags who screw the cars there with annoying regularity.’
‘Are you already with the car?’ Sean asked.
‘No,’ said Donnelly. ‘I’m on my way. ETA about fifteen minutes.’
‘Fine. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. Travelling time from Forest Hill,’ Sean explained. ‘Make sure uniform preserve it and the car park for Forensics. And have the AA meet us there to get the thing open. I don’t want any over-keen constables smashing the windows in.’
‘It’ll be done,’ Donnelly assured him.
Sean hung up and turned to his waiting audience.
‘Have you found something?’ Montieth asked, his lips pale with dread.
‘We’ve found her car,’ Sean told them, seeing no point in keeping it a secret. Montieth’s eyes widened, while Gabby started to cry and Tina covered her mouth with both hands, as if pushing the scream of anxiety back inside her. ‘It’s just her car,’ Sean tried to reassure them. ‘There’s no sign of a struggle, nothing to suggest anything untoward has happened to her.’ Gathering up his belongings, he told them, ‘I need to get to where the car was found as quickly as I can, so I’m afraid I’ll have to cut our meeting short. Thanks for all your help. I promise I’ll be in touch if we find anything.’ During the long months without Sally at his side, covering for his abruptness, he’d had to learn to be a lot more subtle and polite with the public.
‘Of course,’ Montieth agreed. ‘Please, you do what you have to do.’
Sean headed for the door, only to be stopped by Gabby grabbing his arm and locking eyes with him.
‘If someone’s hurt her,’ she told him, ‘and you find them, you do the right thing by Louise. You understand?’
‘I understand,’ he assured her, resisting the temptation to rattle off a spiel about justice, courts and trials, knowing it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She continued to hold his arm and eyes. ‘I understand,’ he repeated, his gaze dropping to the fingers coiled around his forearm. She slowly released her grip. ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he promised.
The moment the office door closed behind him he broke into a run, virtually jumping down the stairs, desperate to get to the car before any more evidence could fade. Before the last lingering traces of the man he hunted drifted away in the next spring breeze.
Thomas Keller arrived for the afternoon shift feeling content and calm, almost happy. He walked through the gates of the Holmesdale Road Royal Mail sorting office in South Norwood and headed towards the large grey building he’d worked in as a postman for the last eleven years. It had changed little inside and out since he’d started there not long after leaving school at seventeen. To begin with he’d been restricted to menial jobs, working his way up to helping with the sorting. It took several years before he was finally given his own round. He’d never sought to go further in the Royal Mail and knew he never would. He entered the main building and clocked on, the same time-card-punching machine noting his arrival now just as it had done eleven years ago.
Without acknowledging his colleagues he walked to his station in front of the seven-foot tall wooden shelving system and began to prepare the mail for his round, placing the letters and parcels into pigeonholes according to postcode. He found the work easy and relaxing; its repetitiveness allowed his mind to wander to more pleasant thoughts and recent memories.
He was unaware that he was smiling until a voice too close behind him broke his reverie.
‘’Allo,’ the scratchy voice accused, thick with a south-east London accent. ‘Someone looks happy.’
Thomas Keller knew who the voice belonged to. Jimmy Locke was one of his regular tormentors.
‘D’you get your end away or something, Tommy?’ Locke bellowed, the smile broad on his face as he looked around at the other men working their stations for approval. Their laughter indicated that he had found an appreciative audience.
Keller looked sheepishly over his shoulder and smiled briefly before returning to his task, doing his best to ignore them.
‘Oi!’ Jimmy demanded, his face suddenly more serious, the Crystal Palace Football Club tattoos on his biceps stretching as he flexed the sizeable muscles that helped offset his growing beer-gut, his cropped hair making his head look small. ‘I asked you a question, Tommy.’
The room fell quiet as the men waited for an answer.
‘My
