Read The One a Month Man for Free Online Page A

been drained dry long, long ago. ‘What good will
that
do? It won’t help Tina. It won’t bring back the others, or my Ronnie.’
    ‘
Ronnie
?’ I said, puzzled.
    ‘My husband.’
    ‘I’m sorry, but you’ll have to explain,’ I said.
    Mrs Marlowe must have been in her eighties, but seemed to have aged even further since my arrival.
    ‘Tina didn’t continue at Oxford; I suppose you know that?’
    ‘No, I didn’t,’ I admitted; there was nothing about that in the file.
    ‘She came home
that
Christmas and didn’t go back. She wouldn’t talk to us about what had happened. We thought it advisable not to badger her for details. And the police could disclose only so much. We learned more from the reports in newspapers than from Tina. The police were very helpful. They arranged counselling for Tina, but she didn’t stick with it; said it made her feel worse. She also refused to see a psychiatrist . She withdrew into herself … completely. Spent days and nights in her room, endlessly. Wouldn’t eat with us. Sent out for pizzas. Lost weight, then ballooned. Up down, up down, but never upbeat in mood. Always a cloud over her. We tried to focus on the future. You know, about what she intended doing with her life. After all, it had been her ambition, since she was about eleven, to become a politician, a Member of Parliament, and perhaps even make it to prime minister one day. But we never managed a rapport. I so much wanted to connect with her. But all we ever got from her were blank, vacuous looks. Emptiness.’
    ‘It must have been frustrating for all of you.’
    She gazed mistily at the portraits, reliving the past thirty years in a few seconds, I suspected, before she said, ‘Then she just upped and left.’
    ‘Without warning?’ I said.
    ‘Not a hint. Middle of the night. Gone before dawn. Just a note on the kitchen table.’
    ‘What did it say?’
    ‘“Goodbye. Thanks for everything. I know you tried. The fault has been all mine, not yours.”’
    Tears flowed freely now.
    ‘And you’ve never seen or heard from her since?’
    ‘I haven’t. Ronnie gave up his well-paid job to go looking for her. He was a civil servant in London with the Ministry of Defence. Commuted daily by train. After quitting, he travelled the country searching for her. He even hired someone from one of the country’s top private detective agencies.’
    ‘Didn’t you report her missing to the police?’
    ‘Oh, yes, straightaway. But because of the note she left, there was nothing to suggest she’d come to any harm or was in danger. She was an adult who’d flown the nest. Nothing the police could do unless anything untoward came to light.’
    ‘The Salvation Army’s very good at finding people who’ve cut themselves loose from their families,’ I said, really posing another question.
    ‘They were one of Ronnie’s first ports of call and they were very supportive. In fact, they did better than the PI.’
    ‘They found her?’
    ‘They did, but not until two years after she’d vanished.’
    I knew the sequel, but I allowed Mrs Marlowe to tell me.
    ‘They made contact with her, but she didn’t want us to know her whereabouts or circumstances. They agreed to act as a conduit, passing messages from us to Tina. We implored her to phone us, so that we could hear her voice, learn directly from her own mouth that she was all right, and find out if there was anything she needed.’
    ‘But the call never came?’ I prompted her.
    ‘Never.’
    ‘Was the Salvation Army able to reassure you that she was OK and not at risk?’
    ‘No.’ This was uttered with considerable desolation. ‘So Ronnie continued his crusade. We’d both benefited financiallyfrom inheritances a few years previously, so our finances were pretty sound. We could manage without incomes. I was a teacher, but I was too wrung out to face a classroom of children, happy and bright, just how Tina had been at their age. So I quit, too. Just sat at home, here,