Page 37

THIRTY-SIX

Gary Pritchard placed a cup of coffee on his tiny kitchen table. Gina sat in one chair and Jacob sat opposite. Gary leaned against his overflowing sink. The smell of fried fish hanging in the air turned Gina’s stomach, and the pile of empty bottles and cans told a tale of sadness. The yellow tinges to his features also told her he was possibly a drinker, or he had a bit of liver trouble. He stared at Gina. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘How long have you and Ruth Pritchard been divorced?’

He placed a large hand in his jeans pocket. ‘Two days.’ He huffed out a bitter-looking smirk. ‘We’ve been apart for most of the year, but the decree absolute has just come through. I won’t lie, I still love her, but I blew it.’ He paused. ‘We lost our daughter many years ago. By lost, I mean, she vanished, but you probably already had that on file.’

He began pulling at a dirty, torn nail before picking his calluses. ‘It was the start of a very long end. We tried for so many years to have another baby – not to replace Elissa, you understand. There was this huge void in our lives.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, it never happened. I couldn’t bear the sadness in our house. Every time I got home from work, Ruth would be walking around like some ghost of her former self, and I bottled up my feelings.’

He paused. ‘I had to try and be the strong one. We lost our child and then our babies. Our bond became one that was based on loss and we got unhappier by the day. It went on for too many years.’ He turned away from them and stared out of his kitchen window. ‘I’m sorry, I need a minute.’

‘We’re really sorry for your loss, Mr Pritchard. It sounds like you and Ruth went through a lot. Have you seen her today?’

‘I saw her yesterday. I had the day off work, so I popped over. Actually, I wanted to say I was sorry. On Monday night, Eric was there, and I noticed that his tyre was flat, so I knocked on the door to tell her.’

‘How did she seem?’

‘She was okay. I felt a bit bad for disturbing them on Monday night, but we spoke yesterday, she was friendly and she invited me in for a drink. I told her something, something about Eric, and she was really upset.’

He turned back around to face them. Jacob kept scribbling notes to keep up.

‘What was she upset about?’

‘I think I could have told her in a nicer way, but I was feeling really smug that I had this dirt on Eric, partly because I still love Ruth. I know it’s wrong, but I enjoyed telling her…’ He looked up and took a couple of deep breaths.

‘What did you tell her?’

‘Eric has a wife, grown-up children and a lovely family. From what I saw, he looks really happy with them. He’d been in a relationship with Ruth and lied about being single. The man is a womanising snake. I could see right through him, but she seemed to worship him with his designer clothes and shiny car. And there he was, Eric the liar. He’s a typical, smug, player. Just after a bit on the side.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I saw him from the other side of the pub, out with his family a month or so ago. It was busy but I just kept catching sight of him through the crowd. I was meeting a mate for a drink at a pub between Alcester and Redditch, and what looked to be his whole family were out celebrating his wife’s birthday. One of the staff nudged through everyone at the bar with a huge cake covered in sparklers. When I glanced over next, he was kissing the woman. He later came up to the bar, totally ignoring me. That’s when I spotted his wedding ring, the one he obviously takes off when he’s with Ruth. Can you believe he even tried to chat the woman up who was serving him?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I’m ashamed of what I did next, but I did it with Ruth’s interests at heart: I followed them home that day, keeping my eye on Eric the whole time. I knew I had to find a way to make Ruth see the truth. Without proof of his other life, she’d have just thought I was being angry and bitter. Anyway, they pulled up at their gorgeous house and the family all went back to there, too.’ He shook his head. ‘It took me ages to tell her. Every time I considered it, I backed out, but yesterday I saw she was wearing an engagement ring. I couldn’t let her humiliate herself, so I blurted everything out and she was really upset. I gave her Eric’s family home address – not the place he pretends to live, where he conducts his affair with Ruth.’

‘We’ll need the address of Eric Hathaway and the address of the house he’s pretending to live at.’

He grabbed a Post-it note and jotted both addresses down before passing them to Gina. ‘His real home is only about twenty minutes from here. The other one is on a holiday let rental site.’

‘Where were you yesterday evening from around eight to two a.m. this morning?’

‘Here. I’ve been home all night. I watched a bit of TV and went to bed.’

‘Can anyone corroborate that?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You could ask some of the neighbours. My car has been here all night.’

‘What do you drive?’

‘A white Honda Civic.’

‘Where do you work?’

‘Edmundson’s Farm. It’s a dairy farm.’

John Doe was found at Cawley’s Farm so she waited for Jacob to note Edmundson’s down. ‘Do you have access to any other vehicles through your job?’

He leaned back slightly and looked at her for a moment before answering. ‘Well, we have several tractors, vans, two Land Rovers, but I don’t use them often. I mostly use the tractor.’

‘Do you play chess?’

‘No, that’s an odd question.’

He had hesitated before answering, just for a second, and Gina wondered if he was thinking about what to say next, but he closed his mouth and waited for her to speak again.

‘You say you went over to speak to Ruth yesterday – did you see a chess piece in her house?’

‘No, I went to see her to tell her that her fiancé was cheating. The last thing I was looking for was whether Ruth was having a game of chess.’ He paused and breathed out slowly. ‘Has this got something to do with Elissa? Where is Ruth?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Can you tell us a bit about Elissa’s disappearance?’

He began to breathe rapidly. ‘I knew it. This is all happening again. You have to find Ruth. Has the psycho who took Elissa now taken Ruth? Is he back?’

‘He?’

‘I just think it must have been a man because Elissa could stick up for herself.’ His hands began to tremble.

Gina knew there were ways and means that didn’t need physical strength. Elissa may have been drugged or manipulated, and one surprise blow with something like a bat would take even the strongest person out.

‘We’re doing everything we can right now, but we need your help.’

He nodded and leaned against the sink again. ‘Whatever it takes, I want her back. I want them both back. Elissa was only a kid. She’d left school for a job in a café and we had so many arguments. I wanted more for her; I didn’t mean to shout at her back then, but she was a typical teen, thought she knew it all. One day, she just never came back. We were worried sick so we called the police. No trace of her was ever found. It made the news, but with no new leads, her story soon vanished. We tried everything we could to keep her disappearance alive and to keep her in the public eye, but nothing came of it. Also, no one tells you how exhausting that is, dealing with all the cranks and the false sightings.’ He exhaled and looked at Gina.

‘Does the name Luna ring a bell?’

He shook his head.

‘Did Elissa have any facial birthmarks?’

‘No. She has a scar on her right hand. She fell over carrying a jar of her nan’s home-made pickled onions from the car. The glass smashed and she put her hand in it. She had to have stitches and the scar never totally faded. I told the police when they interviewed me back then.’

Gina pulled a photo up of the red cupcake scarf on her phone. ‘Do you recognise this scarf?’

He blew out a breath. ‘I don’t know. Not really. Maybe Ruth had one similar.’ He shrugged.

Gina swallowed. ‘We believe Ruth has been taken and that it has something to do with the disappearance of your daughter. If there’s anything at all you can tell us, that might help…’

‘I told the police everything I could think of at the time. I told them about her friends who smoked weed, and about the horrible couple who owned the café. The woman’s husband had made a pass at Elissa, and she’d had a go at her and I told her not to wear skirts to work anymore. Elissa obviously got angry at me telling her what not to wear and looking back, I can see she was right. I don’t know why she blamed my daughter and not her pervert husband. That wouldn’t happen now.’

‘Do you know the couple’s names?’

‘Their surname was Sellers and the name of the café was The Singing Kettle. The police investigated them at the time, and apart from being arseholes, there was nothing on them.’

Gina watched as Jacob jotted those details down. She wondered if the Sellers were still around. ‘Do you know where they are now?’

‘There’s only Patricia Sellers. I see her crop up on social media sometimes. She attends a lot of community meetings and is always complaining about dog muck. Her husband died about ten years ago and, at a guess, I’d say she was in her seventies, maybe even eighties now.’ He pulled his phone out and began to scroll. ‘Here she is, on Facebook.’

Gina took it and passed it to Jacob, who wrote down the details for a community meeting she’d RSVP’d to attend the next day. ‘That’s really helpful, thank you.’

‘Do you think you’ll find Elissa? We never once gave up hope.’ He began to breathe in and out, anger seething through him. ‘I want her back. I want to hold her and tell her how much I love her; how I’m sorry that I shouted at her and that all I want is the chance to see her again. I feel her’ – he pointed to his chest – ‘I feel her here. She’s still my baby and I know she’s close. This is all happening for a reason, and I have to believe it’s because she’s out there waiting for you to find her and bring her home.’ He let out a roar and hit the draining board. A collection of badly stacked plates and cups bounced.

PC Ahmed knocked. ‘Guv, one of Ruth’s neighbours wants a word.’

She walked over to him and went outside into the garden. ‘Did they say what about?’

‘She saw Ruth rushing out yesterday and she looked really agitated. She said hello to Ruth from her drive, but apparently Ruth didn’t even see her. She also said Ruth and Gary looked like they were having words yesterday, too. Things got heated and Gary didn’t look happy.’