Stone Cold Red Hot - [9]

I rang the number for Frances Delaney but there was no reply. I glanced at the clock. She’d probably be doing the school run. It was that time already.

Chapter four

Lisa MacNeice rang me that evening. She sounded very cautious. Probably thought I was trying to flog her a new kitchen or a conservatory.

“I’m a private detective,” I explained, “I’m trying to trace Jennifer Pickering on behalf of her family and I’d like to come and talk to you if I may.”

“Jennifer! Is this a wind-up? What’s your name again?”

I told her. “You can check with Roger Pickering if you like,” I said, “he’s still living at home.”

She reeled off the Heaton Mersey number. “I can remember it after all this time. It’s OK,” she continued, “the private detective lark sounded a bit weird and I had some unwelcome attention from the press last year, dishing the dirt, you know. I thought it might be more of the same.”

“No, it’s not.” I was intrigued; what dirt had been dished? I was dying to ask but I bit my tongue. “In fact Roger’s been to see your parents. That’s how I got your number in the first place – you can confirm it with them if that would help.”

“No, it’s OK,” she said, “if you had been the press I’d be able to hear you squirming by now, spinning some yarn, either that or you’d have hung up. So you’re looking for Jenny, I haven’t seen her since I left home, I’ve no idea where she is now.”

Oh no. I was disappointed. I’d been hoping for a break, wanting to hear that Jennifer had kept in touch with her friend and that Lisa could give me her phone number and address. Just like that.

“I realise it’s a long time ago,” I said, “but as yet I’ve no recent sightings to follow up. I’m having to go way back. When is the best time for you, if I were to come over?”

“Evenings, I’m usually home by seven.”

“Eight o’clock,” I suggested, “tomorrow or the day after?”

“Tomorrow, yes.”

She gave me directions from the motorway and we said our goodbyes.

I was burning with curiosity about her references to the press? Perhaps I’d hear more about it when I met her. Or I could trawl around the news sites on the Internet, Ray was online now and I was having fun and getting frustrated at what I could and couldn’t glean from it. If all else failed my friend Harry who was an investigative journalist turned Internet whizzkid would help out. He got a kick doing that sort of thing for friends, said it was light relief.

It occurred to me that I could search for Jennifer Pickering on the Net too. If she had e-mail it could be quite easy to find her address. It was too late in the day to try it now, I always spent twice as long staring at the screen as I’d anticipated, but I made a mental note to give it a go the next day.

I went down to the cellar to ask Ray if he’d be in the following evening – he hadn’t mentioned anything but his relationship with Laura involved plenty of last minute arrangements. He had headphones on while he worked, he was varnishing a cherry wood corner cupboard. He’d used fretwork for the doors and it looked beautiful, intricate like lace.

“Ray.”

He straightened up and slid his headphones down.

“I have to work tomorrow night, someone I need to interview, I’ll be leaving about 7.15.”

He nodded. “I’ll be here.”

“I shouldn’t be too late back. That’s looking good.”

“Bugger to varnish.”

I waited a beat or two sensing a slight awkwardness in the exchange. Nothing obvious. Symptomatic of how things had felt to me since Ray and Laura got involved with each other. He was always preoccupied. As if the rest of us had become minor supporting characters, there in the background but taken for granted. We definitely spent less time together and talked less. The worst thing was not being able to work out if my observations about the atmosphere were objective or if it was just my perception. It bugged me, it bugged me a lot.

Things were bound to change with a serious relationship, I kept telling myself, new lovers were notoriously selfish, maybe I was jealous (of Ray or of what they had?) Come on! I’d talk to Diane about it, my best friend, my confidante. She wouldn’t shy away from being honest with me.

Thursday morning and I had an appointment with Mandy Bellows at the Town Hall. Withington is about four miles south of the City Centre and Wilmslow Road links the two in a straight line but I don’t like doing that journey by bike so I got the bus in. That stretch has the dubious reputation of being the busiest bus route in Europe and although there are cycle lanes for part of it they are often used as handy parking spaces by motorists. You end up weaving in and out of aggressive traffic and waiting for the inevitable moment when some nerd does a sharp left turn across your handlebars or opens their door into you. Painful.

The bus journey was complicated by the annual intake of new students who were clutching maps and trying to find their way about, trying to get on the right bus to the right site on the right campus. Manchester boasts three universities and a handful of colleges and the city’s population leaps by thousands every autumn.