Chapter 1

The bar was fairly quiet; it normally was at that time of day, just after opening time. I'd cashed my social cheque first thing that morning and I could afford a decent beer for a change, instead of the canned crap I was normally forced to drink.

Yeah, I was a drunk. Not an alkie quite yet, but probably not too far off it at the time. Folks were always telling me that the booze would kill me in the end. Not that I cared much, I didn't really have much reason to go on.

Why ... well, why do you think? Because of a woman and the way the police have victimised me since she'd been gone. If anyone wanted to buy me another decent pint I might be persuaded to tell them the story.

I suppose I'd better go back to the beginning. I'll try to keep the story as brief as possible. If I went on too long I'd be liable to get melancholy on folks and be unable to finish; the drink did tend to do that to me.

Cassandra was a quiet girl when I met her, kind-a shy; you wouldn't think she'd say boo to a goose. We met when she got a job in the office at one of the companies that I was subbing for. I had my own security business back then, installing fire and burglar alarms in homes, schools, offices and the like. Just about anywhere that needed a good security system really. The guys that I employed were good at their jobs and the gear we used was of the highest quality and state of the art. My little company had the reputation as being one of the best and was growing fast.

Cassandra had been employed as a bookkeeper or clerk or something by one of the electrical contractors that I regularly did sub-contract work for. They wired the mains and my company looked after the security installations, and latterly computer network wiring.

Anyway Cassandra caught my attention the first time that I clapped eyes on her. She did no more than glance up at me and an embarrassed smile briefly appeared on her face, before she quickly returned her attention to her computer screen.

You know, there was something about that little smile that I can't explain; but I knew that same instant that Cassandra was the one my mother had told me I'd find one day. The woman I was destined to spend the rest of my life with.

Yeah well, from that day forth I set about courting Cassandra. The odd visit I paid to that particular contractor's office became three or four visits a week. It took some time and a lot of persuasion but eventually Cassandra deigned to let me take her to lunch.

As I've already said, Cassandra was very reserved and appeared extremely shy. One would never say she dressed provocatively either, but no amount of dowdy clothing could ever hide that figure of hers.

After a couple of quiet lunches together, Cassandra seemed to relax a little when we were together. She even cracked the odd joke about me being a wolf in sheep's clothing; I never did understand what she was getting at there. Anyway from lunches we progressed to dinner dates and finally the theatre, cinema and going out dancing.

It was a bit unusual for me to date a woman for nearly two months before I got a first kiss out of her, but it was worth the wait. I was in no hurry, remember; I figured we'd have the rest of our lives for that kind of thing.

However after that first kiss, Cassandra loosened up surprisingly quickly and three months into the relationship we'd began to stopover at each other's flats for the night, a couple of times a week.

Cassandra's flat took me somewhat by surprise. It was almost brand new and exceptionally large. When I questioned how much it must have cost she mumbled something about a legacy. I enquired no further because I was already aware that her parents were both deceased. Killed in a road accident or something a few years previous and I was also aware that Cassandra preferred not to talk about them or their deaths.

The relationship progressed very quickly and within the year we were discussing getting married and how many children we both wanted. My business was growing very fast and as the wedding drew closer Cassandra quit her job and joined the staff of my company, where she was apparently a great hit with everyone.

I'd known Cassandra less than two years the day we walked down the aisle together. During those two years I'd seen a surprising amount of changes in her. Her shyness had disappeared almost completely and she'd adopted a much more modern style of dress. Nothing that could be considered over the top, but definitely more fashionable.

"Can't have everyone thinking I'm an old maid when I'm marrying a handsome and dynamic young business man," she'd replied with a smile, when I commented on how much her dress had changed, one evening as we were going out to dinner with an important client a few weeks before the wedding.

The wedding itself went off fine. It was a pretty small affair as far as relatives were concerned, because neither Cassandra nor myself had much in the way of relations still alive. Cassandra was given away by her uncle, who was — as far as I know, along with his wife — Cassandra's aunt - the only remaining members of her family.

My mother — and my only living blood relative, my father having passed away from influenza when I was very young - and my stepfather flew in from the antipodes where they'd been living for many years.

That was the first time I'd met Cassandra's uncle and aunt and I have to say that — with hindsight - I'm of the opinion that they didn't like me very much from the moment they met me. An opinion, that was reinforced by their actions over the following few years.

Of course we had all of our friends, most of our — the company was in the process of being converted into a partnership — employees, and representatives from quite a few of our clients there. On the whole I thought everything went off very well.

Cassandra and I spent our first night as a married couple in the honeymoon suite of the same hotel we'd hired for the reception. The following day we set off on a tour of the country. We'd talked about going abroad, but for some reason decided to visit some parts of the UK that Cassandra hadn't been to before. Cassandra seemed to have a fascination with ruined castles and all things medieval. It was whilst discussing our honeymoon that I discovered that Cassandra had studied history at university.

Yeah, all right, it did mean that I/we could phone into the office everyday and check that disaster hadn't struck. Not that we didn't trust the people we'd left in charge.

Anyway for the next eighteen days we travelled around middle England and most of Wales visiting said castles and a few civil war battlefields, etc. I learnt a lot more about English history than I thought I needed to know. But Cassandra was enjoying herself; so if she was happy, then I was happy. Especially at night, when we looked out the best hotels in the locality, and spent the night in their honeymoon suite.

It was a Thursday, the nineteenth night on our honeymoon, twenty days since we'd walked down the aisle together. We'd booked into a rather plush hotel in Bristol for the night; but for some reason that escapes me, we were trying to enjoy our evening meal at a restaurant in the city centre.

As far as I knew everything was fine, Cassandra had been joking about not going back home as planned that weekend, and maybe us running off to Scotland and spending some time seeing the sights up there. Of course we both knew that we needed to get back to the office the following week, but it was fun pretending that we didn't have to.

About the only thing that spoilt the evening was a large party of people, maybe twenty or thirty who were eating at the other end of the restaurant. They were foreign, rather loud and appeared to be celebrating something. Later in the evening they took it in turn to stand up and give a little speech in their own language or possibly propose a toast to some unknown person. Anyway, we tried to ignore them as much as we possibly could.

Cassandra and I finished our meal and were enjoying a couple of — what are often referred to as - liqueur coffees, mine being rum and Cassie's Tia Maria, which is a rum based drink anyway so you could say that even our tastes were compatible.

But suddenly I noticed that Cassandra was sitting there staring into space; and that her face had almost completely drained of colour.

"Are you all right, sweetheart?" I asked, concerned about her because she was seeming to sway in her seat a little. I honestly thought that she was about to faint on me.

"I feel that I might be sick," Cassandra said as she rose from her seat and headed - very quickly - towards the ladies room, that wasn't very far from where we were seated.

I went to go with her, but she insisted that I remained at the table, telling me that she'd be back in a few minutes.

So at the table I sat.

Ten minutes later Cassandra hadn't returned and I began to get worried.

After fifteen minutes - and voicing my concerns to our waiter - I threw caution to the wind and entered the vestibule that led to both ladies and gents conveniences.

Getting no reply when I called Cassandra's name at the door to the ladies room, I charged inside followed by a waitress who been obviously been sent to investigate with me.

The ladies conveniences were empty; there was no sign that Cassandra had ever been in the place.

Further panicked investigation informed us that the fire escape that led outside from the vestibule had been opened recently and the catch hadn't reengaged properly.

A quick search of the back alleyway the emergency exit led into showed no sign of Cassandra. I was in panic mode by then, because I could think of no reason - other than to get a breath of fresh air - for her to go out into the alley. And if that was the case, then she should have been right outside the door.

The police were called, but they didn't attend until nearly three quarters of an hour had past. And to start with, they didn't appear to be very interested, suggesting that Cassandra had probably decided to walk back to our hotel on her own.