Chapter 3

I sat on the bed vacantly, at a loss as to what to do. Sally had left. If she had taken clothes and toiletries the police would not treat her as a missing person. She had gone somewhere. But where? At least she would not do anything silly if she’d taken suitcases with her. I felt a little relief at that. But I thought after twenty plus years we knew all each other’s friends.

The phone rang. I leapt to answer it. “Sally, what–?”

“Caleb it’s Colette again.”

“Oh, Colette. She’s taken a lot of her clothes with her. I think she’s left me.” My breaking voice conveyed my feeling of desolation. Why hadn’t she come to me?

“Caleb, calm down. She’s probably just embarrassed about the photo’s. She’ll take some time and then she’ll phone you and explain. You’ve not been at home today?”

“I was at the police station dealing with weekend drunks,” I said. “I’ve only just got in.”

She paused, perhaps trying to think of something encouraging to say. “I’d say don’t worry too much, Caleb. Give her time. She’ll ring.”

“I don’t understand ... If she hadn’t ... She wouldn’t run, would she? She’d come home and wait for me. She’d explain how it was a hoax. Or she’d at least leave a note! Wait! Did you say Tony had left the parish?”

“Yes, that’s what the priest said. He said he’d left.”

I might now be panicking; I might be feeling lonely and desolate, but I’m a lawyer and my mind was making connections. There was a growing feeling of dread.

“Colette?” I asked, to check she was still on the line.

“Yes, Caleb.”

“If the priest has left the parish suddenly, it means he’s guilty of something, doesn’t it? And Sally’s gone as well. Oh, hell! They’ve gone off together, haven’t they?” Now my insides were pitching, I was a welter of churning emotions and none of them pleasant.

“No Caleb, I can’t believe she’d do that! You poor man! What are you going to do? I don’t understand her at all. I’m sure she wouldn’t ... Oh dear!” and I thoughtI could hear her sob.

“Hey, Colette!” I called down the phone. “Come on! You’re not exactly improving my mood!”

She gulped, “Sorry Caleb. I’ll phone tomorrow. You know we’ll help in any way we can.”

“Thanks Colette,” and I rang off.

I went down and sat in the living room. I felt a wave of loneliness sweep over me. Out of the blue came a memory of a discussion with that same priest over dinner one evening (I refused to give the man a name anymore), about unfaithfulness and how difficult it would be to forgive or to trust a partner again. It was the age-old discussion I’d had with Sally many times about forgiveness or justice and punishment. I sighed, wondering briefly where I stood now I was in the middle of the crisis.

Suddenly those extra hours she spent at the presbytery had a different reason from that of ancient temperamental equipment. How long had it been going on? Was she really guilty? I had detected no change in her attitude to me, she had been still as affectionate, passionate as ever.

But it came back to the same thing: she would not have run away if she was innocent. There would have been explanations of the photo’s or questions as to their validity.

The actual unfaithfulness was now pushed to the back of my mind while I wondered how to find her. I started up and ran up to the bedroom. Yes, the two large suitcases had gone and so were a lot more of her clothes than would be needed for a short visit. So she had obviously gone off to stay with someone. Or she’d gone off with someone – the priest? Was the disappearance of the two of them at the same time just mere coincidence?

At least, I reminded myself again, she wasn’t going to do anything silly or dangerous, or she wouldn’t have taken the cases. Had she and the priest gone off together? If so, she wouldn’t be coming back! I picked up the phone even though it was now midnight.

The phone at the church rang until the answer-phone cut in. It was a strange voice, not the priest’s.

“This is St. Patrick’s Church. There is no priest here at the moment, please direct all calls to St Bernard’s until further notice.”

I slumped in my chair. So it seemed they had gone off together. After some searching, I found St Bernard’s number and rang it. The priest who answered sounded tired.

“Father, I’m desperately trying to contact Fr Tony Mulhern.”

“I’m sorry. He’s left St Patrick’s and I have no forwarding address.”

“Father, I’m the husband of the woman involved in all this. She’s disappeared, and it seems so has he. I was hoping to hear that the bishop had moved him, rather than he and Sally have gone off together.”

“I’m very sorry for your situation but I really don’t know any more about it than you do. Can I suggest you ring the Bishop’s offices in the morning? They might be able to help you.” He gave me the number.

“Thank you Father,” I said, realising what time it was! “I’m sorry to be disturbing you so late.”

“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I hope you get some answers. You must be very worried. God bless you.”

I realised it was too late to do anything more and with a heavy heart I made my way to bed. I shut the wardrobe doors and the drawers. It felt as if I was shutting her out of my life, but I just wanted the room to feel ‘normal’ and hide their emptiness.

As I lay there, for a long time my mind raced on a circuit, with a multitude of thoughts about how to find her, and whether she had gone with that priest, so I did not sleep for a long time.

Monday

In a strange room, a strange bed, say in a hotel, there is a moment, only a brief moment, when on awakening everything is in the wrong place and one wonders where one is, and then the memories flood back. In one’s own bed the process is the reverse. I awoke to the feeling that all was normal in my life, but it was only for a brief moment. Then I realised the place next to me was cold and empty: Sally wasn’t there. She had gone and I was alone in the king size bed. Almost immediately the phone by the bed rang. It was my secretary Nicola.

“Caleb, have you remembered your nine o’clock appointment? It’s 8.30 and you’re normally in by now, and at ten thirty you’re in court.”

“Nicola, I’ve overslept. I’ll tell you more after the appointment. Give my apologies if I’m late.”

“What shall I tell them? Stuck in traffic?”

“No, tell them the truth. They need to have confidence that they”ll always get the truth from us.”

“Ok,” and she rang off.

I leapt from my bed, showered and shaved and was out of the house without any breakfast within quarter of an hour. A brisk walk saw me arrive breathless at the office ten minutes late, for which I apologised to the young house-buying couple who awaited me.

“Heavy night?” asked the young man, rather brashly, I thought, and with a broad grin which was immediately wiped from his face by my reply.

“Family emergency, very emotionally draining. Now where were we?”

The morning passed swiftly and indeed my lunchtime disappeared as the court cases were late starting so I was late back at the office and thereafter I seemed to be trying to catch up. It was after six before I was able to draw breath. Nicola came into my office with a smile.

“Jenny’s gone home. Wow! What a day!” she sighed. “You must have been more worn out than usual, and today hasn’t helped, has it?”

“Still, we got through it all, thanks largely to you.” I smiled.

“So?” she asked, an eyebrow raised.

“So what?”

“So why did you oversleep? You’ve never overslept in eight years, but you’ve been looking very tired, what with Gordon being off and all.”

I frowned, the memory of the day before replying “Sally’s gone.”

“What d’you mean, ‘gone’?”

“When I got home last night she’d packed a couple of cases and gone.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, and I’ve no idea where to start looking.” I knew my face betrayed despair and confusion, but I couldn’t mask it from Nicola...

“Caleb, please let me help you find her.”

“Nicky,” it was the first time in my recollection, or hers probably, come to that, I had ever used the contraction of her name, though my children often had. “You’ve got your own life to live, you don’t want to be saddled with me and my problems.”

“I have no ‘other life’ at the moment. I want to. Please. Tell me all about it.”

Her decisiveness overcame my reluctance, so I told her what I knew. “I don’t know where she’s gone, or who with, though I suspect she’s with the priest,” I finished.

She made no comment on my tale, but was all business. “Let me come home with you. You shouldn’t be alone. Together we might be able to work something out – don’t worry, I’ll go home after; we don’t want the neighbours talking.” she giggled.

“Oh!” She stopped in mid laugh. “Talking of nosy neighbours, have you asked Mrs Thingy across the road, you know, the single-handed neighbourhood watch woman? I’ll bet she saw something!”

“No! Nicky you’re a genius. Sure you don’t mind coming home?”

“Try and stop me!”

I was filled with gratitude for the unselfish young woman. We returned home and I cooked us a couple of steaks while Nicola made a salad. After the meal I made my way across the road.

The priest was not the only one with nosy neighbours, I thought, as Mrs Bradshaw opened the door on my approach. She was a good-hearted widow who watched over the road with eagle eyes. She seemed to have nothing else to do.

“Mrs Bradshaw, I wonder if you can help me?”

She knew exactly what I wanted without my elaborating further! “Sally left about midday yesterday in a cab. City Taxis I think it was. She had a large suitcase on wheels and another slightly smaller one. She seemed in a hurry. Is there a problem?”

I deliberated for a split second whether to tell her, but realised on one hand that her network might know where Sally had gone, but on the other I needed to limit any damage caused by unfounded speculation. The latter course prevailed. A lie was in order.

“I don’t know, Mrs Bradshaw. She’s taken off somewhere without leaving me a note where she’s gone. She’ll probably ring me when she gets round to recharging her phone, but in the meantime I’m trying to find some clue as to where she’s gone. Perhaps the taxi firm might throw some light on the matter.”

Mrs Bradshaw made all the appropriate noises, and I made my way back to the house. I phoned the taxi firm. After some time they were able to tell me only that she had gone to the station for a train, and from the time she had given them she could to be going for a train to either Birmingham or to Hereford or beyond. I asked if she were alone or with someone, and they said she was alone in the taxi, but obviously they didn’t know whether she was meeting someone at the station.

I realised that it was impossible to trace her from Birmingham – there were just too many divergent train lines from there, and when I looked at trains to Hereford and beyond, I found she could have gone anywhere between there and Carmarthen or Exeter in one direction and Manchester Airport in the other.

I thought of phoning Hereford Station but realised I didn’t know what she was wearing and in any case I was doubtful anyone would remember her among all the crowds. Nicola suggested I get a map of Britain and use our own phonebook to try to match any address with all intermediate train stations in both directions from Hereford as well as the destinations.

I did this but found only one. The woman who answered did not know Sally. Another dead end. I felt dejected at that, but Nicola then pointed to the blinking light on the answer-phone.

I pressed play. It was Declan Corcoran. “Caleb me old mate, you don’t know how sorry I am. Colette told me last night but it was too late to phone. Anything we can do, please let us know. Come over for dinner if you’re on your own. OK?”

It was good to know I had such good friends. I knew I’d need them. Nicola cut in on my thoughts.

“Phone Sally’s office first thing tomorrow,” she told me. “She’s bound to have contacted them. phone the Bishop and find out whether the priest’s just disappeared or if he’s been moved. See if you can phone him. I know he’s not your favourite person, but he might know something. You can’t afford to be picky.

“Give me her address book. Tomorrow I’ll make a start ringing all the numbers in there. If she’s not with Tony she’s likely to be with one of them. If not, I’ll ask them to phone back if she contacts them. All is not lost yet, Caleb. Now, what about Matt and Lizzy? She might have phoned them, perhaps?”

I was brought up short. Nicky was really organising me, and her mind was much sharper than mine. But if Sally had phoned Matt or Liz, they would have been on the phone to me immediately, wouldn’t they? So that was unlikely. What was I going to tell them? Obviously the truth as I knew it, but how much of the truth? I dreaded doing it, but it would have to be done. I’d take care of that after Nicola had finished phoning round. There was no point worrying them unnecessarily.

“They would have phoned me straightaway, Nicky,” I said at length. “It won’t hurt to wait a little to see if we can find her. They’ve got their university work to do. Mark has his finals after Easter; I don’t want to mess him up, worrying.”

“But they’ll have to know, Caleb.”

“Yes, I know,” I replied with some resignation, “but there’s no hurry. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”

She got up from her seat and went to the drinks cabinet, pouring a whisky with a dash of water for me. Showing how addled my brain was, I pointed out that I shouldn’t be drinking if I was going to run her home, at which she laughed uproariously, and I grinned sheepishly as I realised she had brought me home in her car!

She poured herself a tonic water and we sat together in the living room sharing a long silence, which was not in the least uncomfortable. I had nothing more to say, and she was content to simply be there with me, keeping me company and mitigating the loneliness I was feeling, for a while at least.

I had a thought. “You know, Nicky,” I said, breaking the silence, “I’ve sat in that office of ours many a time, and listened to folk coming to start divorce proceedings. I don’t think until now I had the faintest idea what they were going through, especially the ones who had been deserted by their partners. Do you know, my smugness embarrasses the hell out of me now. I was so sure of Sally.”

“Caleb, I would never have believed it of her either.”

“You know the question they practically all asked at some point, and I always felt impatient with them for asking it, was ‘Why’? Now I’m asking it as well.”

“Well, you’ll only get the answer to that one when we find her, then you can ask her yourself.”

“I’ve been asking myself how I’ve failed her that she needed to go after someone else; why she had to deceive me – why not tell me up front?”

“Have you thought that it may not be you at all?”

“If I had been enough for her she would have no need to go elsewhere.”

“You know Caleb the thing I’ve heard most often when boyfriends of mine dumped me? ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ That’s what they said. I wasn’t lacking, they simply found someone different and lusted after her instead. I was brunette; she was blonde. I had medium boobs; she had big knockers. I was old hat; she was new and different. I was attainable; she had to be pursued. Or she was a simply a bigger turn on. I’ve got used to it now. Don’t start blaming yourself. Wait until you get an explanation.

“That said, Caleb, You are sure she has had an affaire with the priest?”

“Nicky, she has a very strong sense of justice, and if that poster was a hoax she’d have been waiting at home for me full of indignation. She wouldn’t have packed her stuff and moved out!”

“No, I suppose you’re right. Even if she went away for a while, she’d have told you where she was going and why.”

“Exactly.”

She was talking sense, and asking the right questions, and while it was keeping my mind busy, emotionally I felt demeaned, inadequate and empty.

Nicola decided to go home; after all it was another workday tomorrow, and we both would have to turn in. At the door she hugged me tightly, and I have to say the feeling of her firm young body against me was very pleasant, indeed arousing, her breasts in particular were much in evidence rather to my enjoyment. A brief thought crossed my mind that her ‘medium boobs’ which she had derided earlier, were certainly big enough to make an distinct impression. She made me feel a lot better at least for that brief moment!

However, as I finished securing the house and preparing for the morrow, the desolation of my position struck back and cooled the warm feeling with which Nicky had left me. I felt hopelessness: about finding Sally, and about the future if we did find her. Perhaps she had settled in her mind that she’d be happier with the priest. With such depressing and arid thoughts I made my way to bed, where, exhausted, I slept immediately.

Tuesday

The next day there was a sizeable and welcome gap in my morning appointments. I phoned Sally’s Accountancy Office, to be told that she had resigned suddenly yesterday and that they knew nothing of her whereabouts. Indeed they had assumed she was still at home with me.

They put me through to the General Manager who confided his worries about her state of mind. My heart sank as I realised that her going seemed like a permanent one. I asked if the GM thought she was alone. He replied that there was someone else near the phone with her, but he thought it was a woman.

I felt an illogical sense of relief, because it wasn’t a male, and also because it was therefore probably a friend who might be traced. We promised to keep each other in the picture if there were any developments, and he rang off.

Next I phoned the Bishop’s office. This proved much more difficult. The woman who answered the phone affected to know nothing about the matter and did not seem inclined to put me through to someone who would.

It was only when I began to mention civil suits against the diocese for obstruction and various other aspects of the matter, to say nothing of my mentioning some of the more scurrilous Sunday papers, that something got done. A priest answered, I did not catch his name because he did not give it.

“Yes?” The tone was abrupt and forbidding.

“Fr. Mulhern has had an affaire with my wife. Both he and she disappeared on the same day. She has left no indication where she is. Your office won’t give me any information. I do not want to confront the pair, only to know that she is safe. I want you to tell me if you know whether they are together or not.”

“I cannot tell you where Fr Mulhern is.” He sounded almost bored.

“I don’t want to know where he is!” I snapped. “I want to know if he is with my wife or not.”

There was a silence. Then an audible sigh. “All right Mr Latimer. I can assure you that your wife is definitely not with Fr Mulhern. There are no women where he is at the moment. He will not be able to contact any women apart from his own mother. Does that satisfy you?”

“Yes, thank you. It simply gives me an idea in which direction to go in search for her. Good day.” And I disconnected. Relief flooded through me: she was not with him. Was she with anyone else? Unlikely, since her going was occasioned by the poster in the church porch.

I called Nicola into my office and told her the news.

“Ok,” she replied. “Time to start ringing round. Sounds hopeful if her boss thought there was a woman in the background, she’s possibly with a friend. I’ll make a start if I get a spare minute.”

But the rest of the day was busy and Nicola had no time to make more phone calls, so she ended up back at my house to begin her search through Sally’s address book. After our evening meal, and before she would even begin, she made me phone Martin.

When Martin answered I hesitated a moment, unsure of what to say. I opted for the truth. “Martin, have you heard anything from Mum?”

“No, Dad, why?”

“There’s no easy way to put this, Martin, but she’s left me. She’s been having an affaire with someone else, and now she’s gone.”

The gasp at the other end assured me the message had gone home.

“Where’s she gone, Dad? Is she with the bastard?” As I expected Martin sounded hurt, angry and distressed.

“I’ve absolutely no idea. I thought she would phone or text you at least. She’s not left a note or anything, she’s just taken a couple of suitcases with her clothes and things and gone.”

“Dad, shall I come home? You shouldn’t be alone.”

“No Martin,” I hastened to reassure him. “You’ve got finals coming up. Actually Nicola is helping me try to trace Mum, so I’m not alone. Colette and Stephanie, and of course Corrie, are also looking out for me, and lots of others will rally round.”

“Well, keep in touch, Dad. I’ll let you know straightaway if she gets in touch. I just can’t believe this.”

“Sorry, son, It’s pretty certain. She’s been gone since Sunday.”

“No, Dad, I meant I can’t believe Mum could do such a thing to us.”

“Neither can I, Martin. Neither can I.”

We concluded our call, and I sat head in hands for a while before stirring myself. “I didn’t enjoy telling him that, Nicky. Not at all.”

She came to me and put her arm round me. I felt her breast against me again and there was an involuntary twitch down below. After a short while she stood up and took the phone, but she was prevented from beginning her evening task as it rang. This time it was Elizabeth in tears. Nicola passed me the phone without saying anything.

“Dad, are you there? Are you all right? Mark’s just phoned me. Is it true?”

“‘fraid so,” I answered. “Don’t worry, pet, I’m sure she’ll get in touch soon.”

Elizabeth was more concerned with my state of mind, and like Martin, asking if she should come home to be with me.

“Don’t worry, Lizzy,” I hastened to put her off, for I knew she had work to do at university. “Nicola’s helping me out more than I deserve. She’s going to ring round all Mum’s friends and she’s keeping me cheerful.”

There was a silence at the other end.

“No Liz!” I laughed, “Not like that! Mum and I are still married, you know.”

Elizabeth’s embarrassment could almost be heard. “Oh Dad!” she sighed, “How can you be so cheerful? I’m coming home at the weekend. No arguments.”

What could I do? I gave in gracefully. It would be comforting to have her around for a couple of days. I might have lost my wife, but I still had our children.

Nicky then started her marathon phone calls. I was impressed with her energy, the more so since I felt totally drained after two phone calls, but she was firing on all cylinders. She sat by that phone and began to work her way through the book. After three-quarters of an hour without success she put the phone down and sat back. She had completed the list from the book with no success. We both felt depressed at the failure, and Nicola dejectedly made her way home. Even though it was early, I had no interest in staying up any longer and went to bed.