After

Chapter 2

Two

Marie took the Missing Persons report back to her office. In cases like this, once she had released the photograph to the patrols, she would usually file the report and wait for the person to turn up. It wasn’t a crime to disappear for a day of peace and quiet, even if a few people got upset about it. Most women came home again without any help from the police if there was no domestic violence involved.

Today she made an exception. As she processed the details against her twenty years of experience, she was left with a nagging feeling that would not subside. She couldn’t put her finger right on it but something said this one was not going to be like most of the others. She had met Josie Ford, worked with her at the last school fair. She didn’t seem the type to up and disappear. Something was wrong here.

She called PSS, the public security service that monitored the CCTV cameras covering the bus interchange, and asked for a copy of this morning’s footage for the period between seven and eight and for them to save the footage for the previous week. Hard experience had taught her that if you didn’t get in early with your request for CCTV footage it wouldn’t exist when you wanted it. With so much of it these days there was no way they could keep it all.

Then she ran a database search on the Fords. No records. So, she was dealing with law abiding citizens or, at most, with people who had not been caught doing anything illegal. There were plenty of criminals who were still outside the system, so to speak, simply because no-one had caught up with them yet. Still, she had nothing to suggest that the Fords were in that class.

Fifty minutes after placing her order, a DVD containing the CCTV footage arrived by courier. With the A4 photograph of Josie on her desk, she inserted it into the DVD drive of her computer and clicked on the play symbol once it had loaded. She watched it at normal speed until the counter informed her it was up to 07:35:00. Picking up the telephone on her desk, she put in a call to the front counter and asked John to come to her office. When he arrived, she turned the monitor so they could both see it.

‘John, I’m going to show you the CCTV footage from the bus interchange for this morning. Mr Ford told us his wife left home at seven and that it would take her about fifteen minutes to walk to the interchange. He said she normally caught a bus around seven twenty.’

‘I’d have to check my notes, Sarge. That interview was over an hour ago.’

‘You’re going to have to do better than that, John, if you ever want to get out from behind that counter.’

‘Yes, Sarge.’

‘Anyway, we can work on your long-term memory later. Let’s work on your short-term memory for the moment. Take a good look at this photo of Mrs Ford.’

John studied the photo. He couldn’t help thinking she was a stunner, even if she was forty something.

‘Stop drooling and pay attention.’ She smiled. He was such a boy.

‘You asked me to take a good look.’ He grinned back at her.

He put the photograph back on the desk.

‘Now, watch this and see if you can spot her.’ They watched an intermittent straggle of people wander into the bus interchange, gather in a rough line at the stop for the city buses, and then disappear into the five buses that arrived in the period between seven and seven thirty five.

‘I didn’t see her, Sarge.’

‘I can’t see her either. Wherever she went this morning, it didn’t include the interchange at the time her husband thought she would be there. Let’s just watch the rest up to eight.’

There was no sign of Josie in the footage up to eight. Marie wondered if Paul Ford had lied to her about his wife’s movements.

‘John, get yourself over to PSS. I’ve asked them to hold footage for the last week. I want to know if Mrs Ford caught a bus yesterday morning and on all the school days in the last week. Make sure they keep the footage. If she doesn’t show up tonight, we may need to see if there are any signs of her meeting someone or being followed. Get them to hold footage of the bus stop outside the North Terrace gate to City Park, where she usually gets off, as well. We might need that too.’

John started to leave.

‘John, don’t you think you’d better take this photo with you?’ She held out the A4 photograph of Josie Ford.

‘Thanks, Sarge.’ He took the photograph and set off to get a patrol car and drive to the PSS control room in the city.

Marie smiled and shook her head. That should keep him out of trouble for a few hours. He was keen but a little too green for her liking. No wonder they had assigned him to her. What was it the Chief Inspector had said? Something about the lad needing an experienced mentor. She wondered whether what he really meant was that the boy needed someone to keep him out of trouble, and what she had done to be lumbered with the responsibility.

She turned her thoughts to Josie. Why would an apparently happily married mother of two teenage boys disappear first thing in the morning? Well, she was a teacher. The things they had to put up with would be enough to push anybody over the edge. Teachers didn’t get much respect these days and it was becoming fashionable to blame them for everything that was wrong with today’s young people. So much for parental responsibility. Now it was all some teacher’s fault for not disciplining little Johnny or not teaching him properly. Parents were even going into classrooms and threatening teachers when their little darling was called to account for his latest outburst of anti-social behaviour, and it wasn’t just the boys mucking up in schools. Just last week she had attended the local high school when an angry parent had turned up and threatened to shoot the principal.

She took out her notepad and made a note. Josie Ford: teacher - check out any recent parent problems/threats at St C’s.

She wondered if the Ford’s relationship was all Paul Ford claimed it was. He wouldn’t be the first man to lie to her about the state of his marriage when reporting his wife missing. You never really knew what went on behind closed doors until you got the opportunity to look. Unfortunately, she’d had that opportunity on a few too many occasions. Still, he didn’t seem a bad type and he appeared to be genuinely concerned for his wife’s welfare, and she hadn’t heard any comments from her daughter, who spent a lot of school time with Matthew Ford, that suggested there were any relationship issues in the Ford household. Still, if Matthew kept secrets from his father maybe he kept secrets from his friends as well, but she doubted he’d be able to keep any secrets from Maggie. She’d have to watch those two, especially since Maggie had started going home from school with Matthew and his brother.

Maybe Josie was bored and just wanted a bit of excitement in her life or maybe she felt she needed some attention. She wouldn’t be the first woman seeking relief from the mother martyr syndrome. But that didn’t ring true either. From what she knew of Josie, she would do anything for her boys. She didn’t strike Marie as someone who would decide to do something on impulse that would cause her family a lot of stress. Time would tell.

She looked at her watch: 13:23. Time for some lunch. She looked at the map Paul had highlighted. She picked up her handbag and went out to the car park, got into her car and drove to the shops opposite the bus interchange. After buying a ham and salad sandwich and a bottle of mineral water, she walked over to the interchange, eating the sandwich as she walked, and strolled down the sidewalk that led to the pathway along the river that Paul had described earlier as Josie’s intended route to the bus stop. She continued until she reached Whitbread Avenue. Nothing out of the ordinary.

She looked around. Josie had several alternatives to walking to the bus interchange. She could have turned left and walked along the path that followed the river several kilometres up into the hills. There were plenty of secluded places up there where she could spend a quiet day. Or she could have turned right when she left the house and headed in that direction instead of coming down to the park. Marie could see a street sign not far down Whitbread, so it wouldn’t have taken her long to disappear from view or to walk around the corner into the next street and meet a friend with a car.

Marie turned to walk back to the interchange, but instead of using the path she walked along the river bank until she was forced to move back up on to the path. No sign of any bodies floating in the river today, at least, not along this stretch.

When she got back to the car, she took out her note book and added to her notes:

•Early morning walkers/joggers on river pathway

•Neighbours both sides

•People in street joining park to interchange

•Two streets - possible vehicle interception points

When she arrived back in her office, she called Detective Inspector Carl West to discuss her uneasy feelings, and alert him to the possibility that she would be calling him later if Mrs Ford did not turn up. When she explained to Carl that she knew Josie Ford and that her disappearance was out of character, he asked her to send him a copy of her photograph and to call him before she went home.

Carl had been a colleague of her husband, Steve, before Steve had transferred to Special Operations and got himself killed. Talking to Carl always made her think of Steve. He had been dead for five years but sometimes it felt like only yesterday that he had been killed. She knew it was probably time she moved on and met someone else. It was lonely being on her own even if she had Maggie to distract her. At least she hadn’t fallen for another policeman. There was no way she was going through that again.

She took a deep breath, said a silent prayer of thanks for the blessing Steve had been in her life, and prepared a quick action plan to follow in case Josie Ford did not turn up. Then she turned her attention to her inbox to see what else had happened since she had left her office to interview Paul Ford. The world didn’t stop just because one woman was reported missing.