NATIONAL TREASURE Barry Faulkner (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📖

said before, ‘treasure’? The face looked haggard and was the part that needed restoration: lined, bags under her eyes, and a grey tinge to the skin. A worried face, very worried; sort of lady my mum used to call ‘mutton dressed as lamb’.

‘You want a coffee, Ben?’ Harry asked.

‘No, I’m fine thanks.’ I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked Harry to get a proper coffee machine, but the tight bugger still has his secretary use the rubbish from jars.

He spoke to Marcia. ‘As I told you earlier, Marcia, Ben has worked for me on a variety of occasions over the last ten years, and if anybody can find Janie he will.’

Ah, now I was getting the story. Who was Janie? Wayward daughter run off with boyfriend the family don’t approve of? Or maybe she was a much-loved dog that had been stolen?

‘Tell Ben what you told me.’ Harry sat back and puffed on one of his large cigars.

Marcia Johnson gave me a weak smile and a resigned look of worry, together with a small shrug of her shoulders, ‘Well, Mr Nevis, I really can’t tell you an awful lot. Janie is my daughter; twenty-two and a sensible girl, a serious actress, stage and screen.’ She paused as Harry stood and leant across the desk to pass me a 10x8 standard colour promo pic of Janie. She was a stunner; sharp chiselled features under a balayage lob haircut – Google again – a slim body in sensible blouse and skirt and a wide smile. Marcia Johnson carried on. ‘I haven’t heard from her for a fortnight, nothing. Her phone is dead and her flat is empty. It’s so unlike her, Mr Nevis, we talk every day, we shop together. She wouldn’t just go off without telling me, she just wouldn’t. I’m so worried.’

She was welling up. I can’t stand it when females cry. Harry stepped in offering a tissue across the desk.

‘Can you find her, Ben?’ He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘She opens at The National in a month – she’s missed rehearsals which she would never normally do. Something’s wrong, as Marcia said. This just isn’t like her at all.’

I put on my sympathetic face. ‘I can have a go. You could register her as a missing person?’

‘Should I?’ Marcia Johnson looked from me to Harry.

Harry waved the suggestion away. ‘I’d hold on a couple more days, give Ben a chance to have a look for her first.’

I liked his confidence in me. Or maybe it was his worry at the press getting the story and the National cancelling her contract, and with it his commission – probably the latter.

‘Married? Divorced? Any boyfriends?’ I asked, the usual ‘your starter for ten’ questions.

Marcia Johnson shook her head. ‘No, not married or divorced. As for boyfriends, I don’t know – none that she ever spoke seriously about.’

Looking at Janie Johnson’s picture I was bloody sure she had boyfriends; they’d be queuing up for this lady.

‘Close friends? Member of any clubs, or a gym? Car owner?’

‘Oh, so many friends – but I’ve called all those I know, and none have seen her. I think she belongs to a local gym, but I don’t know of any other clubs. She has a car but it’s still outside her flat. She has a parking space.’

‘Okay, well first off I’d like to have a look around her flat.’

Marcia Johnson picked up a Burberry handbag from beside her and fumbled inside it, bringing out a key with an ident attached. She passed it to me.

‘That’s the key, Janie insisted I had one just in case – just in case of what I don’t know. The address is on the tab. There’s an alarm system, the keypad is on the wall in the hall on the right as you go in – it’s 210666, my birthday. It’s the only way I would ever remember the code.’ She laughed to herself softly.

I had other questions, but I’d ask Harry later. I didn’t want to overload Marcia Johnson’s brain with nasty thoughts that her daughter may have been kidnapped or even murdered. I didn’t really know why I was thinking along those lines either, but in my game you do, you just do.

‘Okay.’ I stood to go. ‘I’ll get round to the flat sometime today or in the morning and get a few things going, put a few feelers out. Hopefully Janie will turn up and wonder what all the fuss is about.’ I gave Marcia Johnson a reassuring smile.

‘Oh, I do hope so,’ She did some more fumbling in the handbag, pulling out a card that she passed over. ‘My home address and phone, Mr Nevis. Please keep me informed, and please find her.’

I bade the pair of them goodbye and called an Uber to get home. I didn’t fancy the walk back; it was beginning to rain and my Quo T-shirt would probably run – it was a knock-off from East Street market. I gave the Gold Digger a call from the cab.

‘You working?’ She sounded out of breath.

‘No, at the gym.’

‘Marcia Johnson mean anything to you?’

A short pause. ‘Actress, good one – must be getting on a bit now, but if she was in it, you could bet it would be good. Did all those upstairs downstairs big-house-in-the-country dramas on TV.’

‘The ones where the Duke’s son gets the maid up the duff and she’s sent away, and in the end the child inherits it all and the nasty grandparents end up potless?’ I said. I can’t stand them. The Gold Digger and me have totally different tastes in entertainment. She lives in BBC4 and Sky Arts; I live in Netflix and Sky Sports.

 She laughed. ‘Yes, why are you interested in her?’

 ‘Harry Cohen called me in to meet her earlier. Her daughter’s gone