Page 37 of Then She Vanished

‘What, that you’ve been sneaking around my garden when I’m alone in the house, watching me like some sad creep?’

‘Here we go again. Don’t you think I have better things to do than stalk you?’ She stared at him, hoping for some clue as to whether he was lying, but he didn’t crack. ‘If someone is sneaking around the garden, maybe you should call the police.’

He smirked. It was slight, but she saw it. She’d drop it for now and hopefully catch him in the act, or maybe she’d ask Eric to put another camera up out the back.

‘Go on, then, what did you want to tell me?’ She rolled her eyes. Gary had already kept her longer than needed.

‘I came around yesterday, in the morning while you were at work. I wrote a note, well an angry note, so I’m glad I didn’t post it. I was always a bit impulsive, but you know that already. There was something on your doorstep. I came around later to tell you,but just saw red when I kept hearing Eric in the background, so I didn’t mention it.’

‘What was it?’

‘A chess piece. The white queen.’

TWENTY-THREE

Gina walked with Jacob along the high street after parking in the supermarket car park. She glanced up and down, spotting the two police cars. ‘Everyone’s in position, guv.’ He popped his phone in his pocket as they approached the betting shop.

She pushed the door open, her attention flitting across the several screens showing various sports – mostly horse racing. A man shouted before throwing a betting slip in the bin. Gina headed to the kiosk, passing the many roulette machines that sat against all available walls. Coins dropped, people banged the sides in fury at lost money and others studied form on their phones. ‘I’m DI Harte, this is DS Driscoll. We need to ask you a couple of questions about someone who frequents this establishment.’

The middle-aged man in a tracksuit scrunched his brow. ‘Who?’

Straight to the point, she liked that. ‘Someone called Colson. We’ve been told he’s a regular here,’ Gina replied.

‘I don’t know that name. Do you have a photo?’

She pulled the artist’s drawing of John Doe out of her bag. ‘Do you recognise this man?’ She pushed it under the plastic divider.

He stared at it. ‘I’m not sure. We get a lot of people in here.’ Gina took the picture back and wondered how accurate the drawing was. It looked a lot like John Doe to her.

‘Do you work here every day?’

‘Yes, apart from Saturdays.’ He glanced along all the flashing machines, all the way to the TVs at the back, then he scratched his forehead. ‘There’s a regular called Col, I always thought his name was Colin, but actually it could be Colson.’

Gina glanced back. ‘Is he in here now?’

‘No, I had a word with him last week. It was a bit sensitive, if you know what I mean.’

‘Sensitive?’ Gina needed more than that.

The man exhaled. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this because it really is personal, but I’m guessing that you’re here for a good reason. Col has a problem. He’d been particularly agitated this past month, then he came in really drunk and said he’d lost everything. His flat, his savings and his girlfriend. He wasn’t spending that much here, just small amounts on races, like a pound at a time. He confessed he was gambling online all day. I told him to go and sort his life out. He took a couple of leaflets for charities that help people with gambling addiction.’

Gina wanted to make a sarcastic quip on the lines of,I’m sure you did. She knew these gambling companies didn’t care at all about the lives they destroyed.

‘I refused to take his bet and he got all shirty with me and hit the divider, so I told him to get out and not come back, then he kept shouting that he didn’t have a home anymore. I didn’t know what else to do with him.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘I don’t know, probably last Thursday.’

‘Do you have CCTV?’

‘The only CCTV that was working that day was the camera pointing to the safe. There was a bit of an outage, but thatcamera works off a different system. It was only fixed yesterday, so no.’

A cascade of coins began to fall from a machine, and a man fell to his knees to pick up the spewing money.

‘Did he ever mention anyone called Marie?’

‘No, we didn’t talk, really. It’s not like we were friends. He came in to feed the slots and put a bit on the gee-gees. I used to befriend people when I first started, but it always ends in tears when they’re on a losing streak, so I keep to myself behind this screen.’

---