Read Online Aftermath by Peter Turnbull - Free Book Online Page A

radiant. She had little to eat, she didn’t eat enough especially in the winter when we need more food than in the summer, but like all young women she was figure conscious, continually weighing herself, but she was not anorexic, I saw to that. That is something else you see in A and E, young women, girls even, who have collapsed in the street or at work or at school and when you peel off their clothes for the initial examination, you find that they are nothing but a skeleton covered in skin, but Veronica was not even close to that stage. I can be a bit ferocious when I have to be and if she didn’t eat at least one substantial meal and two snacks each twenty-four hours, I would get ferocious with her . . . and she knew it. So that day she ate, changed into her finery and went out with her friends.’
    ‘Do you know the names of her friends?’
    ‘Susan Kent.’
    Carmen Pharoah wrote the name in her notebook.
    ‘Veronica and Susan were very close, as close as sisters . . . they were school pals.’
    ‘What is her address? We’ll have to speak to her.’
    ‘Her mother lives at the end of the street . . . that way.’ Philippa Goodwin pointed to the left-hand side of her house, as viewed from the outside. ‘You know, I don’t know the number but it has a loud . . . a very attractive red door.’
    ‘Loud?’ Carmen Pharoah queried.
    ‘As in colour, a “loud” colour, a colour which leaps out at you is a “loud” colour . . . apparently. That’s something I learned from my husband, Veronica’s father, he was an art teacher but only in his sober moments. So the Kent house has a “loud” red door . . . scarlet, fire engine red. You can’t miss it.’ Philippa Goodwin forced a smile. ‘The colour caused comments but they still repaint it every five years. Anyway, Susan said that she last saw Veronica waiting for a cab at the rank in the station. It’s a very short journey, walkable, but for a young woman alone on a dark night a taxi is very sensible, and so Susan didn’t worry about her.’
    ‘Understandable.’
    ‘But she didn’t return home. I started to worry by about ten a.m the next morning. If she was going to stop out overnight she would have phoned me, but by ten a.m. I had received no phone call so I phoned the police. They were very sympathetic but they told me that they could not take a missing person report until the person concerned had been missing for twenty-four hours.’
    ‘Yes, that’s the procedure unless it’s a child or young person under the age of sixteen.’
    ‘They said that as well. So I went to the police station at one a.m., just after midnight, by which time she had been missing for twenty-four hours . . . gave all the details, a recent photograph and gave them Sue Kent’s name and address. They agreed to visit Susan.’
    ‘And they did. The visit was recorded but Susan Kent didn’t, or couldn’t, tell the officer anything that she didn’t tell you . . . Veronica was last seen getting into a car, which apparently drew up at the taxi rank as though she and the driver knew each other . . . but no details . . . dark night, and the other girl Veronica was with was full of booze and couldn’t tell one car from another anyway.’
    ‘Then nothing until now, but at least I know what happened to her. She was always so sensible, such a sober minded girl, always let me know where she was. So now I know . . .’
    ‘Yes . . . we are very sorry. Do you know of anyone who would want to harm her?’
    ‘I don’t, I’m sorry but Susan Kent might. She’s married now, she’s moved away from home but still in York, though.’
    ‘We will ask her, we’ll find her easily enough.’
    ‘Veronica didn’t seem troubled by anything or anyone, just a happy young woman in her early twenties, just watching her weight and bemoaning her height and the scarcity of tall men in York . . . that was my Veronica.’
    Carmen Pharoah recorded her and Thomson