Pix (Volume Book 24) (Harpur & Iles Mysteries) by Bill James Page B

city,’ Jill said. ‘Not findable yet, though.’
    â€˜He definitely came here,’ Meryl said, ‘but suddenly he’s not in touch. That’s entirely unlike him.’ She’d be about thirty-two, tall, frizzed fair hair, fresh-faced, wearing jeans and a three-quarter-length navy fabric coat.
    â€˜So, she’s arrived from London, looking,’ Hazel said.
    â€˜Of course, someone who’s grown up and seems to go missing – well, your people at headquarters wouldn’t think much of that, would they, dad? They’d think he can do what he wants.’
    â€˜This is different,’ Meryl said.
    â€˜Yes, it sounded different to me, Mr Harpur, ‘Kate said. ‘That’s why I –’
    â€˜Kate was around Reception at headquarters, dad,’ Jill said, ‘waiting to see one of your officers about an article they’re doing in the
Register
, and heard Meryl report this missing person, and obviously upset.’
    â€˜I expect Kate can tell me herself,’ Harpur said.
    â€˜Yes, we talked a bit,’ Kate said, ‘and I felt it sounded like something that could be . . . it could be something that would need a senior officer to look into. Not routine.’
    Meaning, Kate wondered whether it might make a news story for her. He would have liked to ask Meryl whether her partner wore Paul Mixtor-Hythe suits and Charles Laity shoes, but didn’t.
    â€˜I knew you were in the phone book, so we came out here and waited,’ Kate said.
    â€˜We told them you’d be glad,’ Jill said.
    â€˜Of course,’ Harpur said.
    â€˜Her partner’s in property development,’ Hazel said. ‘Kate believes he came here to see some intermediaries.’
    â€˜Yes, intermediaries,’ Jill said.
    â€˜Do you know who they are – the intermediaries?’ Harpur said.
    â€˜No,’ Meryl said.
    Harpur would have bet on it.
    â€˜And then silence,’ Kate said.
    â€˜It’s a worry,’ Meryl Goss said.
    â€˜Meryl works in a big London office but she’s taken some days off because of this search,’ Jill said.
    â€˜We’d better have a name and description,’ Harpur said. ‘And pictures?’
    â€˜Graham Trove,’ Meryl said. ‘Thirty-five, middle height, dark, short hair.’
    â€˜They live together in Camden Town,’ Hazel said.
    â€˜He nearly always wears a suit,’ Jill said.
    Harpur would have bet on it.
    Meryl was sitting in an armchair, a cup of tea provided by the girls on the carpet near her and alongside her handbag. She bent down to the bag and produced two photographs. Harpur, who’d remained standing near the door, crossed the room and took them from her.
    â€˜And Meryl left one with Reception at headquarters,’ Kate said.
    â€˜Have you got one, Kate?’ Harpur asked.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜I didn’t want that,’ Meryl said. ‘I’d rather not have anything in the Press at this stage.’
    â€˜Right,’ Harpur said.
    â€˜We probably couldn’t publish yet, anyway,’ Kate said. ‘It’s not really a story so far.’
    But Harpur saw she sensed that soon it might be – how good reporters got to be good. He looked at the pix. In one Graham Trove stood alone smiling outside what appeared to be a front door, perhaps the entrance to the Camden Town house. He wore a suit and collar and tie. Harpur tried to stop a vision of him with his throat cut supplanting the actual snapshot. The other picture showed Meryl and Trove conducting a comic kiss in a garden, perhaps at the rear of their house. They stood far apart, both bent over from the waist and stretched forward, like a couple of doves billing.
    Hazel said: ‘Graham has phoned her several times, saying he’d arrived and so on and that things were going well. If he used a mobile these would be traceable, wouldn’t they, dad?’
    â€˜Not all.