Already Dead(30)

11





It was an old cottage, with walls that bowed outwards to an alarming extent. Its roof seemed ready to collapse, its upper windows about to drop into the street if someone didn’t push them back pretty quickly. In any other structure or object – a car, a bridge, an aircraft – this would be considered a dangerous level of deterioration and would call for immediate repairs, perhaps even demolition and replacement. But people loved that sort of thing in property. It was called having character.

Inside the house, Ingrid Turner was showing a bit of wear and tear too. She must have been in her sixties, which wasn’t a great age. She would only recently have starting claiming her state pension. Many people were ridiculously fit and healthy well into their seventies these days – Fry saw them striding about the Peak District in their shorts and bush hats every weekend. But Mrs Turner had been worn down over the years, and looked an old woman. No doubt the worry about her missing son hadn’t helped.

She was holding herself together, though. When she appeared at the door she was hugging her arms around her body as if afraid her disintegration could start at any moment and there would be no one around to pick up the pieces.

Mrs Turner invited Fry and Hurst in straight away, and sat them down in her little sitting room, around a small table covered in a white lace cloth. Place mats were already laid out as if she was expecting visitors at any minute.

Fry broke the news in the best way she could. There was never a right way, she’d found. People had so many different reactions to this kind of situation that you could never hope to anticipate every one. In Mrs Turner’s case, there was stone cold denial. She’d turned a deaf ear to what she was being told. She was still waiting for someone to find her son and bring him home.

‘Do you live here alone?’ asked Fry, wary about what the next stage of her reaction might be. It was always best to keep people talking. A family liaison officer would be in Wirksworth shortly. But, like everyone else, the FLOs were busy, their services too much in demand for the staff available to cope with. For now, it was just her and DC Hurst trying to deal with it.

‘There’s just me and Glen,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘It’s been that way for years, just the two of us. Why would he want to live anywhere else? I’m his mum, after all. I look after him well.’

‘What was Glen’s job?’

‘He works for an insurance company in Edendale. Prospectus Assurance, they’re called. He’s been there about twelve years. He’s very good at his job, Glen. Very good. Everybody appreciates his work.’

‘I’m sure they do. What exactly did your son do?’

‘He’s a claims adjuster. It’s a very responsible position.’

‘We’ll have to talk to his employers.’

‘They’re in the address book. I phoned them, but they haven’t seen him today. I suppose he’ll be in trouble when he gets into work tomorrow.’

It was so disorientating, this way of holding a conversation in two different tenses. Every time she mentioned Glen Turner in the past tense, his mother answered as if he was still alive and about to walk through the door at any moment. It was like being a time traveller, living in the past and present simultaneously.

Fry looked at the white tablecloth. There was an extra place mat laid, an extra coaster, another cup and saucer, standing waiting for tea to be poured. None of them had taken sugar, but the bowl was there, filled and ready. She would take a bet that Glen had taken at least two spoonfuls in his tea.

‘What about friends?’ asked Fry.

Ingrid looked round, puzzled. ‘There’s Mrs Jones across the road. Or Pat Mercer. Pat and I go to the WI together. She’s got a little car. All I have is my Mango card for the Sixes bus. I often use the 6.1 service to Derby via Belper.’

‘No, I meant friends of your son’s,’ said Fry impatiently.

Hurst leaned forward to speak to Mrs Turner. ‘It is something we ask, you know. I mean, when we have to give news of a death. We suggest contacting a friend to come and sit with the bereaved relative—’

Fry stared at her. ‘Yes. Thank you, DC Hurst…’

Mrs Turner was looking from one to the other. ‘He is dead, then? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘Yes, Mrs Turner. I’m afraid so. That’s what we told you.’

The last thing Fry wanted was to let Becky Hurst take over the interview. But Ingrid Turner seemed to respond to her. It was as if the woman hadn’t heard anything that Fry had said to her when they arrived at the house. Yes, your son is dead. She must have imagined something like this when she decided to report him missing.