A hint of colour came to the pale face. “Hardly ever. He likes to switch off when he gets home. The household jobs take over. He’s my only caretaker. And there’s usually a meal to cook.”
“I understand.” Ingeborg got the interview back on track. “We have officers checking all the chippies in Trowbridge. With luck they’ll have security cameras.”
Diamond added, “This will give us a time and we’ll know he definitely started for home. Is anything bothering him?”
“He’d have said if it is. We’re very open with each other.” Which sounded like a contradiction. She’d said a moment ago that they didn’t discuss his work.
“How long have you been together?”
“We met in 2012, before I got ill, before he started in television. He did deliveries for me. We were attracted to each other and it became... physical. I suggested Greg moved in. We keep to separate rooms except when...” Her eyes slid sideways and she bit her lip. “But you don’t need to know all this.”
“You’re doing well. Has he stopped driving for you now?”
“He stopped soon after he started with Swift and Proud. One of my clients happened to be the executive producer there and he offered Greg a job. Saltus Steven.”
Diamond remembered the photo montage in the executive room in the office in the Colonnades.
“So Greg took on the new job, but stayed on.”
“Yes, and I’m so lucky he did. Since my MS took hold, he’s become my mainstay. I couldn’t keep going without him. He saw what was needed and went online and found new equipment so I can work from the wheelchair. He does the heavy work, loads and unloads the kiln for me, and I’m still able to throw the pots. I was very traditional and loved my kick wheel, but he talked me into going electric and it’s the obvious solution.”
“You’re brave.”
“Greg is the hero. I can’t manage without him.”
Her dependence on Deans was a tragedy in the making.
“After what you just told us, this will sound churlish, but it’s a question we have to ask when someone goes missing. Have you noticed any change in his behaviour towards you?”
She frowned. “What are you suggesting — that he’s left me? That’s horrible. No, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.”
“I asked, ma’am, because it’s my job. I’m not suggesting anything. You’ve told me what I need to know.”
The nurse was quick to take this as a cue. She’d been a disapproving presence throughout. She took a step forward and said, “In that case, you’d better leave now. Natalie needs to rest.”
“Understood,” Diamond said, “but before we do we’ll take a look at Mr. Deans’s bedroom if we may. Has anyone been up there?”
Natalie said, “No one. It will be just as he left it yesterday morning. The stairs are through the door behind you. His is at the end of the landing on the left.”
A stair lift was installed but there was ample room for them to use the stairs. A second wheelchair was on the landing.
They found the bedroom and there were no surprises. It was nicely furnished in light oak. Apart from the high ceiling and the fireplace, it had a modern look. The duvet had been turned back on the bed and a pair of boxer shorts lay on the pillow. On the bedside table were a newspaper folded back to show a half-finished crossword, a paperback face down and a remote for the plasma TV on the opposite wall. More books were shelved to one side of the bed. Diamond opened the wardrobe and looked in the chest of drawers. Pants and T-shirts folded.
“What do you think?” Diamond asked.
“He expects to return,” Ingeborg said.
“Agreed. He hasn’t taken much with him if he’s done a runner.”
“Why would he, with a fantastic job, free lodging and someone who appreciates him?”
“I can only think he’s reached a crisis point. It’s become all too much — the caring, I mean — and he can’t face telling her. It can only get harder. They’re not in love. It was only ever an arrangement that suited them both, but it doesn’t suit him anymore. People who get stressed to breaking point sometimes take off.”
Ingeborg shook her head. “I can’t see Greg cracking up. He’s got a top job in television. He won’t put that at risk.”
“It’s not a rational decision, Inge. What’s your theory, then?”
“Well, he hasn’t cracked up and he isn’t dead. This is just about him and Natalie. He wants out and he doesn’t have the guts to tell her face to face. I expect he’ll send her a text to say he’s leaving the pottery. He plans to return for his things later, when she’s over the shock.”
“If you’re right, he will have turned up for work this morning.”
“Let’s find out.” She took out her phone. “I wonder if anyone’s thought of this.”
“Who are you calling?”
“His office.”
It became immediately clear from Ingeborg’s end of the conversation that the staff at Swift and Proud hadn’t seen Greg Deans or heard from him.
“But it doesn’t mean you’re right about the breakdown. They aren’t expecting him in,” she told Diamond after ending the call. “Yesterday was the last day of filming at Milroy Court, and some of the crew start setting up at a new location tomorrow. It’s all planned. For most of them it’s a day off. He picked his time to leave her, the shit.” Ingeborg at her most scathing. The phone in her hand pinged. “And now I’ve got a text from John Leaman.” She brought it up on her screen, stared, frowned and shook her head. “Time for a rethink, guv. Deans bought fish and chips for two at a shop in Trowbridge called the Codfather. The owners remember him talking about the show and they may have got him on CCTV.”
“So both of us are wrong. He was on his way here, and he did buy supper for Natalie. Not such a shit after all.”
“What now, then?”
“We step up the search for his car. I’ll get an all-units out. This sounds like bad news, Inge.”
20
Greg Deans’s Range Rover was found at 4:15 P.M. the same day in a field only two miles from the pottery and under a mile from Combe Hay. Because it was off the road, it hadn’t been sighted in earlier searches. It was unlocked and there was staining on the bodywork that looked worryingly like blood. On the passenger seat was a partly opened pack of cold fish and chips.
Diamond arrived forty minutes later with Ingeborg and Keith Halliwell. They had to park in a field opposite to avoid blocking the lane.
The missing vehicle was inside a gate and facing the lane in an area already cordoned with police tape. A tall hedge meant it had been almost hidden from anyone driving by, so the searchers had done well. The uniformed sergeant who had made the find admitted he’d passed the gate twice before taking a closer look. “When we had enough of us, we divided the lane into sections and got a result.”
“Was it you who put the tape in place?” Diamond asked.
“Yes, sir, and the crime scene guys are on their way.”
“Fingers crossed they can tell us the full story, then. Has anyone phoned his partner at the pottery?”
“No. Should we have done?”
“You did the right thing. I’d rather not break the news until we know more. Obviously, you approached the car to check what was inside.”
“Me and my mate, sir.”
“Opened the door, did you? I’m not knocking you, just noting that the CSI team will need your prints, fingers and shoes, to eliminate them from any others they find. Don’t leave before they get here, got it?”
He was eager to get a closer look, but held himself in check.
A short hiatus before the crime scene experts arrived allowed his jangled emotions to process the fast developing tragedy. His overriding concern was for that poor disabled woman waiting for news. Greg Deans wasn’t a man it was easy to like or respect, but he seemed to have treated Natalie with affection. It must have taken major efforts to manage his TV work and care for her as well, never off duty. And she was remarkably brave to have kept the pottery business going this far into her progressive illness.