The Disappeared

'You think I need my hand held?'

'Mrs Jamal could have done with it.'

Jenny tried not to let the shudder she felt pass through her show on her face.

Chapter 16

McAvoy smoked and dozed during the hour-long journey to the former coal-mining town of Cwmbran. Once or twice Jenny tried to make conversation, but he barely responded. With eyes half-closed, he stared out at the grey landscape, the ever-present drizzle turning to sleet as they headed deeper into south Wales.

She asked if there was something on his mind. He responded with a moody and disconcerting 'Mmm.' His mood was impenetrable.

The car-rental franchise was on the edge of town, on an industrial estate in sight of evenly sloped hills which had been fashioned from the slag heaps formed when the former mines turned the earth inside out. McAvoy woke as she pulled up, and followed her inside. There were no customers, only a fleshy desk clerk chewing a sandwich. He wiped crumbs from his mouth as they came through the door. McAvoy ignored his corporate hello and fetched himself a free cup of coffee from the machine while Jenny dealt with business.

She produced one of her calling cards and told the clerk she needed to know who, if anyone, was renting the Toyota on the night of 28 June 2002. The clerk said he didn't have access to those kind of records. It was a matter for head office in Cardiff. He searched his computer for the right number to call and said he didn't hold out much hope - the company only kept their vehicles for a year, two at the most.

From behind her, Jenny heard McAvoy say, 'The fuck's that got to do with it?'

'I beg your pardon, sir?'

'What's how long you keep the cars got to do with your records? You keep them for the tax man. Where are they?'

Jenny saw the clerk waver as he measured McAvoy up.

'There's no need to swear.'

McAvoy strolled over to the counter, set down his coffee and glanced at him with red, puffy eyes. Jenny felt her stomach turn over.

'I do apologize,' McAvoy said. 'The company I keep in my profession sometimes causes me to use inappropriate and intemperate language. Please ignore my earlier outburst.'

Cringing, Jenny lowered her eyes in embarrassment. The clerk turned warily back to his screen. McAvoy sipped his coffee, throwing him a malevolent glance.

'Here's the number, ma'am,' the clerk said, warily. 'Oh- one-two-nine-oh—'

McAvoy interrupted. 'The paper records, the forms you sign when you hire a car - where do you store those?'

The clerk glanced at Jenny, who said, 'It's OK, I'll call the number.'

'What's through there?' McAvoy said, pointing to the door at the back of the office. 'It's where you keep the files, right? VAT man comes, that's where he goes to check you're being straight with your paperwork.'

'I'm not authorized to release those documents, sir.'

'What you said was, you don't have access,' McAvoy said quietly, but with a murderer's menace. 'That's not quite true, is it, son?'

The clerk wiped a bead of sweat from his upper lip, his eyes flicking to the phone on the counter.

McAvoy said to Jenny, 'There you go. No need to go round the houses,' picked up his coffee and strolled outside.

Jenny and the clerk looked at each other. He was waiting for her lead now.

Jenny said, 'I think it might be easier if you just fetched me the records for those dates.'

He snatched a key from a drawer and disappeared into the back office. While he rummaged in filing cabinets she looked over her shoulder and saw McAvoy strolling over to the pond and aquatic supplies outlet opposite. He stopped to help a young woman who was struggling through the door with a baby in a buggy and unwieldy shopping bags. He said something that made her laugh, then bent down and tickled the child's cheek.

The clerk reappeared with several sheets of paper. He said, 'If you want I can copy them for you. It went out on the 24th for a two-week hire to the Fairleas Nursing Home - signed contract and credit-card slip. Anything else you want to see?'

Jenny flicked through the faded documents. 'No. That's fine.'

She swung out of the estate with a screech of tyres and headed out of town. McAvoy sat impassively in the passenger seat, taking in the view. Gaps had appeared in the clouds and beyond the rows of identical modern houses there was a pretty dusting of snow on the hilltops.

Jenny accelerated angrily out of a roundabout, pushed the Golf up to seventy in third and slammed straight across into fifth. The car lurched as she mistimed the clutch. McAvoy rocked forward in his seat but said nothing.

'Is that how you always behave?' Jenny said.

'You were going to let him fob you off to some hopeless shite in customer services.'

'How did this happen? You shouldn't even be here.'

'What's more important?' McAvoy said. 'Getting to the truth of this thing or upsetting some guy who couldn't care less?'

'I'm a coroner, I can't behave like that.'

'You think he's never heard the f word?'

'For God's sake - you were intimidating him. And undermining me.'

'You were doing pretty well at that yourself.'

'You've got no business interfering with my investigation. If you can't understand that, you can get out of the car now.'

'You're going to make me walk home?'

'You can freeze to death for all I care.'

McAvoy shrugged, then peered sideways at her as if he were arriving at a judgement.

'What?' she barked.

'You need to calm down, Jenny. You're a bag of nerves.'

'Oh, really?'

'I saw that when you were sitting outside that hall, all huddled up like the whole thing was nothing to do with you . . . I thought, there's someone who's had the confidence knocked out of her.'

Jenny said, 'If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it.'

McAvoy said, 'Why don't you get the tears out now? Clear the air between us.'

'Fuck you.'

Anger was one emotion that kept tears at bay. She held onto it throughout the drive across country to Hereford. McAvoy sat silent and unnervingly still, squinting out at the patchwork fields. His shifting moods frightened her. He reminded her of some of the more sinister wife-batterers she had confronted across courtrooms in her former career: men who flipped from charm to violence and back again without warning. Their hapless partners always said the same thing: when he's in a good mood he's the nicest man in the world. She cursed herself for ever having let him come with her.

Hereford was a city, more of a market town, that she'd visited occasionally over the years and seen degenerate from charming and unspoiled to paved-over, litter-strewn and leached of its character by chain stores in its historic centre and US-style retail barns on its margins. It was yet another casualty of the same small minds that had systematically wrecked most British towns. Only the thousand-year-old cathedral and handful of surrounding streets had maintained their character, but the philistines were slowly claiming them too: a pizza chain had taken over the Victorian post office and tacky shops with cheap plastic signs had replaced once dignified family-run businesses.

The car-hire firm was an ageing cabin and area of hard- standing in a former railway goods yard, hidden behind a row of electrical and home-improvement warehouses. It was a rare survivor in this barren landscape: St Owen's Vehicle Hire established 1962, the sign announced. Opposite was a noisy backstreet mechanic's cluttered with dismantled vehicles and stacks of spent tyres. To the right was a carpentry shop. A handful of workers on their break stood outside it, gathered around a fire they'd lit in an oil drum and stamping their feet against the piercing cold. It reminded Jenny of places from her own small-town childhood: the smell of damp bricks, engine grease and wood smoke.