Abigail: Chapter 5
When the door was answered by a young, thin woman I almost asked if her mother was home, she certainly didn’t match the image I had of the bingo playing wife of the man on the phone, but thankfully years of putting my foot in it gave me an element of caution.
“Hi, I’m Charlie Diamond, plumber?” I indicated to the bag in my hand. “I’m here about your shower.”
“Oh thank goodness! Come in, come in.” She stood to one side. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It’s been playing up for a little while, the knob was all stiff, you know?”
“Sounds like the valve’s gone.” I hovered in the hallway waiting for her to show me to the bathroom.
“Would you like a cup of tea or something?”
I smiled. It was the unwritten rule of employing tradespeople that they must be offered beverages on arrival. “Not for me thanks. Just had one. Let’s take a look at this shower shall we?”
I followed her up the stairs, zoning out as she waffled on with apologies for the mess. I went to a job once where the bathroom had been so thoroughly cleaned before my arrival, the fumes made it impossible to work for about half an hour. Give me a couple of hours and a decent Internet connection and I was fairly confident I could build you a minor explosive device out of the contents of most people’s cleaning cupboards.
As anticipated, the bathroom was immaculate with a faint whiff of lemon in the air. I hid my smile and got busy with the shower hose. Five minutes later I was back downstairs and saying my goodbyes.
I handed her my card. “If it happens again, give me a ring and I’ll pop back.”
“You mean it’s all done? What was wrong with it?” The woman looked surprised but relieved. I knew that look. It was the look of someone who’d been expecting a huge bill.
“Looks like your shower valve is on its last legs. If you come up to the bathroom I’ll show you what to do if it happens again.”
She watched as I unscrewed the hose and gave a little poke around with my finger. “When the valve goes for real the water will stop. When that happens, ring me.” I pointed at the card in her hand. “It’ll be cheaper to replace the whole shower unit so I’ll order one in and keep it safe until you need it.”
“Okay I will. Thank you!” She showed me to the door. I knew I’d be back in about a week’s time, maybe two if she was lucky, but I couldn’t justify fitting a new shower today when it was all working again. I climbed into the van and glanced at the dashboard. Thanks to that quick job I definitely had time for lunch before meeting Abigail but first, I decided to do a loop back round to the white house I’d been staking out. I knew that if I was patient enough I’d be sure to catch someone going in or out of the property. Waiting around for hours yesterday hadn’t brought me any luck so maybe it was time to change tactics. This was my bread and butter that paid the bills while I played with the fun stuff like missing people. A bit tedious but totally necessary.
An hour later I was home again. I’d knocked on a couple of doors, peeked into the letterbox, and even found my way round the back so I could press my nose up against the glass but nobody had seen anything or anyone for days. If this had been in the rough part of town I’d have convinced myself they were all lying but they couldn’t be in cahoots, could they? I shook the thought from my head and turned my attention to lunch. Cheese and onion toasted sandwich, the lunch of champions. The toasted sandwich maker had probably seen better days but having decided that a few germs were good for building up the immune system, I cut the sandwich in half and took both it and my phone into the front room. Ignoring Missy’s dinner dance (she seemed to live in hope that I’d one day drop the whole lot on the floor and determined to improve the odds by dancing under my feet any time I came into the room with food) I settled on the sofa.
In between bites I tapped on my phone, searching for anything newsworthy related to one Toby Rogers. There was a short article in the local paper dated around the time of his disappearance and a frankly terrible company photograph on a website that looked like it was circa the turn of the century. The photo was so awful, I couldn’t even be sure it was the right man but made a note to check with Abigail when we met. Otherwise, Toby Rogers was the invisible man. No social media profiles to stalk. No public records. If he’d chosen to disappear, he’d been very thorough. When a quick search on the Companies House website drew another blank I decided to call it a day and instead go and speak to the woman herself.
As I drove out of the village towards Abigail’s house my thoughts turned to yesterday’s meeting. She’d been so sweet, adamant that theirs was a happy marriage. I wanted to believe her, if you couldn’t trust your client, what basis was that for a working relationship? There was something niggling at the back of my mind though, something that I just couldn’t shift. What loving family man in his right mind would just vanish like that? And if he didn’t vanish, surely the police would have had some kind of breakthrough by now? And who would want to harm an invisible man? Something didn’t make any sense and I feared that even after I went through some of the details on the form I’d left her overnight, I’d still have more questions than answers.
I pulled up outside Abigail’s house and hesitated before getting out of the van. The excitement of a new case had given way to the jitters. I knew I had to pull myself together, I just wasn’t sure I was ready for another onslaught of love’s young dream and happy families. I took a deep breath, walked up to the front door and was about to give it a gentle tap when, from somewhere inside the house, I heard a scream.