A Wreath for my Sister Read Online Free PDF Page B

feminist have to say about her missing friend?’
    â€˜Not a lot. She said she’d been lonely ... and that the little boy had been getting on Deborah’s nerves. It sort of confirmed our suspicions.’
    â€˜You didn’t chase up the Saudi connection – the affair that had led to the break-up of her marriage?’
    â€˜We telephoned the husband. He couldn’t help us with a name. He simply knew she’d been having an affair – anonymous letter. The usual thing – from a friend.’
    â€˜Any other friends over there? Girlfriends?’
    â€˜No help at all,’ Mike said. ‘And we couldn’t justify going there. She’d disappeared from here. And she certainly hadn’t gone back there without the child. It all seemed like just another disappearance.’
    â€˜Just another disappearance ...’ She shrugged. ‘Well, I’ll have a read of the file. See whether anything springs to mind. Did you tell her father everything?’
    â€˜Most of it,’ Mike said reluctantly. ‘And he didn’t like it.’
    Joanna nodded.
    â€˜She was a good-looking girl.’ Mike glanced down at the picture. ‘You can’t blame her for running away.’
    â€˜So she was filed as a missing person?’
    â€˜Yes. We never found anything, Jo.’
    She paused, scanned some of the reports. They all concurred with Mike. ‘What happened to the baby?’
    â€˜I think he went to live with his father,’ he said.
    She frowned. ‘And Deborah’s never been heard of again?’
    â€˜A couple of supposed sightings. Nothing conclusive. Never anyone who knew her. We kept the investigation on a back burner for six months, but nothing.’ He looked at her. ‘Really, Jo. Nothing. She disappeared into thin air. You know how many people do that every year. We can’t keep hunting for them all.’
    â€˜Quite,’ she said and picked up the sheaf of papers. ‘Leave these with me. I’ll read them through properly.’ She crossed to the window. ‘The snow’s starting to melt,’ she said, watching the slow drip from the opposite roof. ‘I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it’s gone by the end of the day.’
    The warmth came from the sun and softened the snow. Inkblots of heath appeared and spread, growing larger each hour. And, as the snow melted, a thin, warm mist made the air damp and the view less sharp, more untidy. Drivers became bolder, assured by the local radio station that there was no chance of further snow. It was safe to travel. Shopping trips were resumed and the farmers hunted out their animals with tractors laden with silage and hay. Life got back to normal.
    Except for her life.
    The chill in her body prevented the snow from melting, so although the dark patches spread during the morning, even by early afternoon she lay in one of the deeper drifts, her shape still indistinct.
    By the time the three children wandered home from school Christine had had enough. The baby had cried all day. She must have bought the wrong type of milk because he still seemed hungry. The last of the box of disposable nappies Sharon had left last night had been used and she had told the other two to come away from the window hours ago. There seemed no point in watching. By the time the second night fell she had almost given up hope that Sharon would come back at all. She was left with the children and she was fed up. ‘I’ll give it one more day,’ she promised herself. ‘Just one more day. Then I’m getting the Social Services in.’
    At the end of the day Joanna came out of her office, found Mike and together they wandered across the road to the pub. She ordered a pint of beer and a glass of wine and they sat together and drank.
    â€˜Not your evening at the gym, Mike?’
    â€˜Not tonight.’
    He eyed her over the rim of his glass. ‘You didn’t really mind Parry