Truth Will Out by Pamela Oldfield

husband outside a church. She said, ‘I’m the one in the wedding dress!’ and tried to laugh but something caught in her throat and the laugh was choked off.
    The detective said, ‘Maybe I could speak to your husband.’
    ‘You’ll be lucky. He packed his bags years ago, silly sod!’
    ‘So there’s just you and your son?’
    ‘My daughter’s married with three kids. Jem was a late arrival, as they say. He’s a good kid. A bit young for his age but that’s no bad thing. He’ll get himself a job before long and that’ll give him something to do. Keep him out of mischief.’
    ‘I’ll call back later then, Mrs Rider, but if Jem comes back, please tell him to come down to the police station as he might be able to help us with this missing person enquiry.’
    She nodded and showed him out. So this chap who’d gone missing was staying at the Romilees Hotel. A bit posh, then. She found it impossible to care about people like that. Rich people. ‘Fat cats’ her husband had called them. They had too much. Too much luck. Too much money. Too much everything. Served the blighters right if they got burgled now and again. They could afford it.
    As she closed the front door the cat slipped back into the front room and leaped on to the armchair. Emily went back into the kitchen and stared round sightlessly. Where the hell was Jem, she wondered, and what had he done – if anything? It wasn’t like him to stay out all night. He liked his home comforts, did Jem. Please God he wasn’t going to turn out like his father.
    Her anger was turning into anxiety.
    Biddy and Alice were eating their lunch when they heard a car draw up outside.
    Alice said, ‘Oh no! Not the police, please! But it might be Lionel!’
    Biddy almost choked on her cold sausage and salad while Alice sprang to her feet and rushed to the front door. It was not the police, nor was it Lionel. Instead it was Maude, who stood on the front step waving to two people who drove off in their car.
    ‘Maude!’ cried Alice. ‘Oh, let me look at you! How thin you look!’
    As Maude stepped into the hallway, Alice threw her arms around her neck and hugged her. Biddy arrived and Primmy went mad, dancing round Maude’s feet and whining hysterically until Maude disentangled herself from Biddy’s arms and bent to make a fuss of the dog.
    Biddy cried, ‘Oh, Maudie love! Thank goodness you’re back. You’re much better off here than stuck in a hotel with a lot of strangers.’
    ‘I’m going back later today,’ Maude told her as she sank on to a chair in the kitchen and looked round the familiar room with pleasure. ‘I began to feel that I’d never see my home again,’ she confessed. ‘I know that sounds melodramatic but . . .’
    Biddy stared. ‘Going back? But why?’
    Alice put the kettle on and prepared cups and saucers, and then she and Biddy finished what was left of their lunch while Maude explained her situation.
    ‘Mrs Cobb, the hotel’s owner, is in Folkestone for a few hours to visit her mother who’s rather unwell. Derek Jayson, Mrs Cobb’s brother, has driven us over and will take us back some time this evening. The police insist that I stay nearby in case of – of what they call developments. If Lionel had gone missing from here the Folkestone police would handle it but as we were in Sussex the Hastings police have to deal with it.’
    ‘Which makes sense,’ Biddy said, ‘although I’d feel happier if you came home.’
    ‘I can’t, I’m afraid. They feel I should be on the spot. I did wonder whether to ask one of you to stay with me in the hotel but it wouldn’t work.’
    ‘I’d come,’ said Alice.
    ‘That’s kind of you but then Aunt Biddy would be here on her own and that would worry me.’
    Biddy muttered something about ‘not liking hotels’ and Maude said, ‘I know how you feel. And there’s no way round it. You two are here – safety in numbers. I’m being looked after in Hastings.’
    Primmy rushed up with an old