Page 6 of Merrily Ever After
The drive to her dad’s flat in Bakewell usually took half an hour, but the heavy morning traffic slowed her down. Emily drove as fast as she could, her stomach tied in knots and guilt weighing heavy on her shoulders. Dad must be terrified. Why hadn’t she acted sooner? The signs had been there for a while; something like this had been inevitable.
At the word ‘police’, Emily had raced to the phone to take the call. The pounding in her ears had made it difficult to concentrate on what the police officer was telling her. But she heard the main points: her dad had turned up at the station, confused and with a nasty gash to his arm.
Thank heavens he’d been wearing that little capsule around his neck that she’d bought him. Inside was a slip of paper with his name on it, in case, like today, he forgot it, and her phone number because he had no chance of remembering that. She hadn’t included his address. That could lead to all sorts of issues if someone unscrupulous came across him when he was in one of his less lucid states. She’d furnished the officer with the address of her father’s ground-floor maisonette, which was a good half an hour’s walk from the station, and the police were meeting her there. She’d already warned Julia, his landlady, who lived upstairs. If they arrived before her, Julia had offered to let them in with her spare key. She’d called Diane too, who would have arrived to an empty flat.
Alison had told her to leave immediately and take as long as she needed. But Emily wasn’t daft, she’d detected the undertone, the same ‘not again’ face Alison had used for Robbie Evans. So much for her early start to the day.
With a pang of anxiety, Emily banished thoughts of work from her head, her father was the priority. She pulled up behind the police car and dashed to his flat.
‘Hello, Dad? It’s me, Emily,’ she called, letting herself in.
‘That’s my daughter,’ she heard him say from the living room. ‘She’ll soon get to the bottom of this nonsense.’
Her dad, Ray Meadows, was sitting in his armchair – a threadbare thing he’d hauled out of a skip. Skips were his obsession, he was forever putting things in or taking things out. She’d found an old birdcage covered in dried droppings in the kitchen last week.
Two police officers were with him: a man who was crouched down, turning on the electric fire, and a woman on the sofa, a notebook in her hand.
She hurried over to her dad and hugged him tightly. His face was cold to the touch and despite the blanket tucked over his shoulders, he was trembling. Hardly surprising, given that he was still in his pyjamas.
‘Dad! You gave me such a fright. Are you all right?’
Ray frowned. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
It struck her how much weight he’d lost recently. He’d always been lean, but now he was wafer thin, his wrists bony, his jaw and cheekbones sharp. She did her best to make sure he ate, but was it enough?
The male officer straightened up and smiled at her. ‘I’m PC James and this is PC Bright. I take it you’re Emily, Mr Meadows’s daughter?’
She nodded. ‘Correct. Thank you for bringing him home, I’m so sorry to have troubled you.’
‘The only thing wrong with me is these two,’ Ray continued and lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘I can’t get rid of them. I think they must be from some sort of religion. The woman with the big nose keeps asking questions. If they’re after my money, they’re going to be disappointed.’
‘They’re police officers, Dad. No one is after your money.’ Emily could hardly look poor PC Bright in theeye; her nose was certainly her strongest feature. ‘Sorry. He gets confused sometimes. Your nose is perfectly in proportion.’
‘For an aardvark,’ muttered her father.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ said PC James, muffling a laugh as he sidled out of the room.
‘You get called all sorts in this job,’ noted PC Bright, tugging her fringe down over her face.
‘Glad you’re here, love,’ said her father, grasping Emily’s hand.
‘Of course, I’m here.’ She swallowed. ‘I always will be, I promise.’
She shouldn’t make promises she couldn’t keep, but what else could she say?
‘What were you doing going out without getting dressed?’ she asked. ‘You could have called me if you had a problem.’
‘The car was gone,’ he replied, blinking at her. ‘I went outside this morning to get something out of it. I forget what, now. But there was no sign of it.’
‘You don’t own a car, Dad.’ Emily’s heart sank.
PC Bright took out her notebook. ‘So, there isn’t a missing car?’
Emily shook her head. ‘I’m sorry for the mix-up. But no.’
Ray frowned. ‘A blue Escort van. I sleep in it sometimes.’
A memory of a day trip to the seaside flooded back to her. They’d gone off in his van, just the two of them, and spent the whole day at the beach. Fish and chips, bottles of fizzy orange and free rides on the funfair because Dad had known one of the staff. Mum had been furious when they’d got home. Emily wracked her brains to remember why … Oh yes, Dad had taken her to the dentist early in the morning to have a tooth out. Afterwards, he wassupposed to take her back to school but decided to cheer her up with an adventure instead.
