Vanished by James Delargy (free novel 24 TXT) 📕

It was shuffling in the gentle breeze holding back precisely no one from entering. But it was correct protocol. She hoped they had been smart enough not to contaminate the scene. ‘Seal it, log it and step away’ as her staff sergeant had taught her.

‘Anything inside?’

‘No bodies,’ said Barker.

An instant leap to the most severe outcome. He had already made up his mind. Not good practice. Or wise at this early stage.

‘And what do we know about the mispers’ last movements?’

It was Rispoli’s turn to speak. He was maybe a year or two younger than Emmaline and hitched his back a little straighter to answer her. Maybe a military background. Maybe good etiquette. Maybe taking his cue from his more experienced partner. She didn’t get a confident feeling from either. They looked frightened, overwhelmed.

‘The father’s family called it in. Last contact was a phone call on Christmas Day.’

‘So, ten days ago.’

There was a joint nod from the officers.

‘No contact since?’

‘None. The father stated that he and his wife had been scheduled to visit Boxing Day but that his son, Lorcan Maguire, phoned on Christmas Day and cancelled.’

‘Pretty odd.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Anything on how the mispers were acting?’

Rispoli continued. ‘I quote: “I could hear that wife of his in the background. There seemed to be some tension but nothing more than normal.” ’

Which raised the immediate question: what was normal? It meant different things to different people. Her own aunt and uncle in Cape Town fought all the time but that was what they needed to be sure that they were listening to each other. They had been married forty years. And had never once disappeared off the face of the earth.

‘Seamus Maguire also noted that his son asked for a couple of thousand dollars to help pay for some materials for the house. But overall, the impression he got was that the family seemed determined to make a go of it.’

So a family determined to make a go of life out here but with an underlying tension in the air. Emmaline took a deep breath. It was time for action. The last contact with the family had been ten days ago. It was time to uncover something more recent.

‘I want you to dig up any transactions or use of bank cards during the last few weeks. Phone logs too. See if there has been any movement. If they’re somewhere else, we can track them.’

The officers nodded.

Emmaline glanced around. Something important was missing. Transport.

‘Find out what vehicle they own. And put out a KLO4 on the number plate.’

Emmaline studied the house again. It would take a day or two to gather the information. Right now all she had was what was in front of her.

9

Emmaline

Emmaline couldn’t believe that anyone would choose to live here. She had seen more structurally sound – and tidier – crack dens. What had it been like before they started work on it? It probably said a lot about the family. They weren’t afraid of hard work, or afraid of very much at all. Coming all the way out here and building a life. It made their sudden disappearance all the stranger.

In addition it would have taken patience to build a house. A patience she lacked, perfection hard to attain and fleeting when reached. This she blamed on the ballet lessons her parents had pushed her into when she was nine years old. The only black kid in the class, wearing flesh-coloured ballet pumps that didn’t match her skin colour and made it look like she was some burn victim wearing hideous bandages on her feet. Nowadays of course they made pumps for a range of skin tones. As ever, the world was twenty years behind where she needed it to be.

Ballet had been the ‘in’ thing at the time and her parents – new to the country, him Black South African and her English Rose pale – had wanted Emmaline to fit in so that they could develop connections. As a result she had spent four years prancing around, pimped out for the aspiration of middle-class anonymity. But ballet was a tough gig. Where nothing but perfection was acceptable. In other arts and sports results were prized over perfection but a missed step was like murder. It eventually tore her away from ballet and left her with the stanza that achievement was more important than perfection. Which she took into her police work. How the job was done played second fiddle to getting the job done.

Overall, the house was a mess. It looked to have been ransacked, cupboards and drawers scattered across the floor, camp beds flipped onto their sides and the thin mattresses slashed. A wardrobe in what she guessed had been Dylan’s room was torn apart, the contents strewn. Someone had been looking for something. Something not of obvious value either; personal items, pictures, ornaments and even a small box of jewellery untouched. As if the family had left in a hurry. Or been taken without warning.

The kitchen was in a similar state. At the far end the roof sagged, a missing sheet of tin allowing the blue sky to peep through. In the corner was a pile of swept rubble and a collapsed table. Something violent had occurred here. The blood smeared on the pieces of smashed mirror all but confirmed that.

Emmaline turned to Rispoli. He had been following her around the house like a shadow, while Barker called in the details she had requested.

‘Have you bagged and tagged a sample?’

‘Already done.’

Emmaline leaned in closer. The blood was smeared across the glass and ingrained with dust, washing the threatening red to a harmless brown. The quantity wasn’t enough to suggest significant injury but any loss of blood was cause for concern. Especially as no attempt had been made to clean it up. Forensics would check the rest of the house for residue. A visible patch of blood was worrisome, but a larger patch of cleaned-up blood elsewhere in the house might signal something