Lost

Almost instinctively my fingers find the morphine capsules. My leg is hurting again but maybe it's my pride. I don't want to think about anything for a while. I want to forget and float away. Amnesia isn't such a bad thing.

This is where I interviewed Howard Wavell for the first time. He had been holed up in his flat for three days with people buzzing on the intercom and the media camped outside. Most people would have disappeared by then—gone to stay with friends or family—but Howard wouldn't risk bringing the circus with him.

I remember him standing at the front counter, arguing with the desk sergeant. He rocked from one foot to the other, glancing over his shoulder. The short sleeves of his shirt stretched tight over his biceps and the buttons pulled across his stomach.

“They put dog shit through my mailbox,” he said, incredulously. “And someone threw eggs at my windows. You have to stop them.”

The desk sergeant regarded him with an exhausted authority. “Are you reporting a crime, Sir?”

“I'm being threatened.”

“And who exactly is threatening you?”

“Vigilantes! Vandals!”

The sergeant pulled an incident pad from beneath the counter and slid it across the bench top. Then he took a cheap pen and placed it on the pad. “Write it down.”

Howard looked almost relieved when I made an appearance.

“They attacked my flat.”

“I'm sorry. I'll send someone over to stand guard. Why don't you come and sit down.”

He followed me along the corridor to the interview room and I pulled his chair nearer to the air-conditioning unit, offering him a bottle of water.

“I'm glad you're here. We haven't really had a chance to catch up. It's been a long time.”

“I guess,” he said, sipping at the water.

Acting like we were old friends I started reminiscing about school and some of the teachers. With a little prompting, Howard added his own stories. There is a theory about interrogations that once suspects begin talking easily about any particular topic it is harder for them to stop talking about other topics that you raise or for them to suddenly start lying.

“So tell me, Howard, what do you think happened to Mickey Carlyle? You must have given it some thought. Everyone else seems to be trying to figure it out. Do you think she just walked out of the front door without anyone seeing her or was she abducted? Maybe you think aliens whisked her away. I've heard every bizarre theory you can imagine over the past seven days.”

Howard frowned and moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. A pigeon landed on the ledge outside, beside the air-conditioning unit. Howard gazed at the bird as though it might have brought him a message.

“At first I thought she might just be hiding, you know. She used to like hiding under the stairs and playing in the boiler room. That's what I thought last week but well, now, I don't know. Maybe she went to sell cookies or something.”

“There's a possibility I hadn't considered.”

“I didn't mean to sound flippant,” he said clumsily. “That's how I first met her. She knocked on my door selling Girl Scout cookies—only she wasn't wearing a uniform and the cookies were homemade.”

“Did you buy any?”

“Nobody else was going to—they were burned to a crisp.”

“So why did you?”

He shrugged. “She showed a bit of initiative. I got nieces and nephews . . .” The statement tailed off.

“I thought you might have a sweet tooth. Sugar and spice and all things nice, eh?”

A wave of pale pink shaded his cheeks and his neck muscles tightened. He couldn't tell if I was inferring something.

Changing focus, I took him back to the beginning, asking him to explain his movements in the hours before and after Mickey disappeared. His blinds had been drawn that Monday morning. None of his workmates saw him mowing the covered reservoir at Primrose Hill. At one o'clock the police searched his flat. He didn't go back to work. Instead he spent the afternoon outside, taking photographs.

“You didn't go to work on Tuesday morning?”

“No. I wanted to do something to help. I printed up a photograph of Mickey to put on a flyer.”

“In your darkroom?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do after that?”

“I did some washing.”

“This is Tuesday morning, right? Everyone else is out searching and you're doing your laundry.”

He nodded uncertainly.

“There used to be a rug on the floor in your sitting room.” I showed him a photograph—one of his own. “Where is this rug now?”

“I threw it away.”

“Why?”

“It was dirty. I couldn't get it clean.”

“Why was it dirty?”

“I spilled some potting compost on it. I was making hanging baskets.”

“When did you throw it away?”

“I don't remember.”

“Was it after Mickey disappeared?”

“I think so. Maybe.”

“Where did you throw it?”

“In a Dumpster off the Edgware Road.”

“You couldn't find one closer?”

“Dumpsters get filled up.”

“But you work for the council. There must have been dozens of trash cans you could have used.”

“I . . . I didn't think . . .”

“You see how it looks, Howard. You cleaned up your flat, you took out the rug, the place smelled of bleach—it looks like you might be hiding something.”