Charlotte Plumier Gets Lost

This absurd tale draws heavily on the marvellous Hector Hugh Munro and his short story, The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh. Only the ending is significantly different, and it made me realise, when developing my own, just how difficult it must have been for him to write himself out of the wonderful hole he had dug!

*****

Twenty years ago, the wife of the Member for Cromer Heath went missing. One moment, she had been haranguing a shopkeeper in the market town where she lived with her husband and children, and the next she was gone. 

In the normal manner, (because it is a precept largely born of truth), her husband was the prime suspect. The papers were full of it, both home and abroad, but always with a circumspect undertow which had to be very lightly implied. The simple truth was that Charlotte Plumier was not the kind of woman anyone would want to find under their Christmas tree - and the implication was always present that she in someways deserved to be missing. 

You will see the difficulty with this unspoken stance, and how carefully all conversations on the matter were conducted. It is true that one in six women will meet with violence or coercion in their lifetimes, but is also true that one in sixteen men meet with the same - and Francis Plumier was of that number. It was widely known in the Chamber and in the broader echelons of society that this handsome, principled Member of Parliament, who had the steady knack of being liked even by those who disagreed with him, was an abused husband. 

She was a person, (and both sexes have their culprits), who completely intimidated everyone within their purview. Her children were immaculately dressed but largely catatonic. Nothing they did was ever right, and in this hothouse environment they, unlike the orchids, failed to thrive. Her staff were bullied to tears and invariably left without references, and she in all ways conducted herself in the manner of an unhinged dowager duchess in a gothic penny dreadful. Even the Prime Minister had been known to make a hasty exit on her stately entrance to a function, and it was widely known that Francis would have been a cabinet minister long ago were it not for her. 

There was not even the mitigation of beauty, which might explain how Francis had put a ring on her finger. She was built like a Welsh dresser without the ornamental embellishments. Friends suggest that she literally bullied him into it after he got her pregnant, although they wonder how he even managed that. The only conclusion was that she did come with plenty of money and a large parcel of land, and even pleasant MPs are not immune to such enticements. 

The day of her disappearance was investigated with a broad-toothed comb, (an afro comb as opposed to the ones you use to get rid of head lice or to brush up suede). Two decades ago there were no cameras in the car park, although it was known that she drove away, because she sat on her horn whilst an elderly couple attempted to cross the road. Two miles from town, her car was found abandoned in an access road surrounded by muddy, low-lying fields where the only witnesses were the crows and/or other corvids who, if they had the ability to speak, would probably have kept silent when it came to Charlotte Plumier. 

The driver’s door was open. The shopping had slipped from the back seat. There were traces of hessian in the footwell suggestive of a bag being placed over her head. There were no traces of blood or other violence. If a drug had been used, the open door and the chill day had dissipated its smell. All four tyres were punctured, which meant that a stinger, or spike strip, had been deployed. It was a classic kidnap scenario, and the authorities awaited the ransom note. 

None of this stopped Francis from being the main suspect in his wife’s disappearance. He was speaking in the Chamber of the House at the time, to which at least eleven snoozing MPs and Hansard could attest. The subject matter was whether a publicly shy great-crested newt should have the amphibian effrontery to prevent a new housing estate on greenfield land. Francis, because it was grass within his own constituency, believed that the newts should prevail, and argued eloquently in their favour. The estate was never built. But that didn’t preclude the obvious possibility that he had paid someone to do it - because quite frankly, very few people who had met his wife would blame him if he had. 

Smartphones were largely unknown when Charlotte went missing, but the police requisitioned all of Francis’ private and governmental devices, and could find no evidence of any collusion. He had a solid alibi and a sainted reputation. All he had was motive, and it could be argued, (and it was), that thousands of married couples could own the same. 

Body language experts were deployed by the police and the media, but none of the tells were telling in Francis’ case. There was no rapid blinking, no self-comforting, no glancing away at the shame of a lie. Liars are acutely aware of their calumnies, but Francis displayed no such attempt at guile. A week after Charlotte’s disappearance, she was being spoken of in the same breath as Lord Lucan and the racehorse, Shergar, although she had never murdered a nanny or won the Epsom Derby. 

At home, the children flourished. No longer Charlotte’s mannequins, they became a rambunctious tribe of feral children. They would straighten out given time, but in the immediate giddy joy of their mother’s absence, they had a lot of catching up to do. She was never mentioned, as though they feared the invocation of her name would suddenly transport her back from wherever she had gone. Francis, free of dodging plates and applying makeup to his face, became more handsome and desirable than ever before. Like his children, he too flourished, and although a lost wife was as much an impediment to a cabinet position as a found one, he had been given assurances that once the matter was resolved, he would gain his promotion. 

The months wore on, and there was still no ransom note. Eventually, the gossip concluded that Charlotte had been taken by a person or persons unknown whom she had at one point offended or enraged. It was a wide field, and the police lost interest in combing it. The feminist press stayed at it for a while longer, until other feminists patiently explained that they clearly hadn’t met Mrs Plumier. More esoteric thinkers suggested that some people are fated, like underwear, to simply disappear without trace. The matter of the stinger in the road and the hessian sack fibres were conveniently dismissed as too corporeal. 

A year later, Francis was passed a note by a lanyard-ed staffer in the House of Commons, who thrust it in his hand and swiftly walked away. With a vague thought to how successful Guy Fawkes might have been in the present day, he went to his small office and read the contents. 

“The dust has settled. We have your wife and she is alive and well on one of the countless islands in the Gulf of Bothnia. There are five whalers on the island and Mrs Plumier has decided to be in love with Olavi Heikkinen, who likes whales and being hit over the head with iron pans. We now demand £15,000 paid in US dollars for last year, and the same amount for this year. Furthermore, we demand the same sum every year on the given date. Please see to it that the payments are anonymous and untraceable. If you do not agree to our demands, we shall return her to you.”

Francis put the note down and then picked it up again. He did this three times before allowing a smile to dimple his cheeks.

It might be a good idea to insert into this text, to remove all traces of doubt, that Francis Plumier was entirely innocent of his wife’s disappearance, and until that moment, had not the faintest idea what had happened to her. Of course, he had never wished that some physical or tortuous harm had come to her, but it is certainly true that the hole she had made in his life was copiously filled by the buoyant sense of relief, calm and serenity which was the consequence of it. 

He called his accountant from the landline at home. Over brandy they discussed the note and the wider implications. ‘This is no time for coming clean,’ said his old friend, who had been his best man and had paid the local church to ring the death knell on the date of their wedding anniversary ever since. ‘The note clearly says she’s happy with the whaler, and I can easily organise the payments in a way that is not suspicious. In fact, the demand is relatively low. Charlotte spent that sum in Boden the tax year before last.’

In the twenty years since Charlotte Plumier got lost, the MP for Cromer Heath, (now on the opposition benches and a little greyer around the temples), paid the sum of £300,000 to whomever the entity was. Over time, he came to see her kidnap not as a criminal act but an act of compassion, and he fondly imagined the puppet master to be the Sultan of Brunei, on no evidence beyond recalling he had once met Charlotte and passed him a fleeting look of fraternal commiseration at the time.

After seven years, Charlotte was pronounced officially dead. Her money was released and put in trust for the children. Francis did not remarry, but he had a long-term dalliance with a striking widow who valued her independence and had a full set of crockery. He continued to receive notes from the Gulf of Bothnia, all of which assured him she was alive and well. He often wondered if the same could be said of the unfortunate whaler. 

On the twentieth year of Charlotte’s disappearance, the notes stopped. Quite by chance it coincided with an article he had recently read in the National Geographic in which it made clear that there were no whales in the Gulf of Bothnia. There had been one sighting of a humpback, and the excitement that aroused was equal to discovering a reindeer in the frozen north with a red nose. 

It began to dawn on the member for Crawley Heath that he had been played, but he was unclear on both the instrument and the player. Where was Charlotte Plumier? 

During the course of the long Christmas recess, Francis became burdened with distraction. He felt that he ought to own up, to come clean. The whole affair marked him as initially blameless, but clearly culpable of deceit in the aftermath. His old friend the accountant urged less brandy and more caution. His children, on hearing his confession, urged the same. They did not want their mother back, arguing that although they were too old for her tempers, the grandchildren were certainly not. 

To put his mind at rest, a period of intense and discreet internet sleuthing followed. No names were mentioned, but certain particulars were alluded to. The hunt was on for a broad-beamed Englishwoman with a violent temper, a tendency to reorganise, meddle and infuriate in equal measure. There was an avalanche of leads, from Rannoch Moor to Tuscan mule tracks and windswept Atlantic islands. Photographs of plausible suspects were emailed and dismissed. All trails led nowhere. 

When the next instalment was due, Francis paid it, and he resolved to continue paying it just to keep on the safe side. He was often wedded to the truth, but in that matter of his lost wife he was prepared to make an exception. 

And this is where it might have stayed, but in that year’s general election, Francis, much like a polo player, found himself unseated. With time on his hands, he began to slip into the kind of dwelling his old friend and family had warned him against. But just as he was on the point of wiping the slate clean by writing a memoir, a letter came through the post. The handwriting was immediately familiar. 

“Dear Frankie,

Bad luck on losing your seat. Still, as often quoted, all political careers end in failure. 

I expect you’ll want to know where I have been all these years. I was briefly sent to an island off the coast of Finland, but the small community there didn’t want me for any amount of money. There was talk of sending me to Brunei but the Sultan put his foot down, so eventually I was sent to an Albanian convent. After several weeks, the nuns decided that my reorganisation of the conventual library was a meddle too far, but I did enjoy the mountain air ….”

(Francis skimmed through the lengthy descriptions of all the places Charlotte had been sent to and removed from on closer acquaintance). 

“The Finland ruse worked quite well until you left that National Geographic in the conservatory. As I often used to say to you, Frankie, never trust an accountant. It was your dear friend Robert who had me kidnapped - although they were very polite about it. My accountant, rest his soul, was equally devious. The money left to the children was a mere gesture on my part. I always was, and remain, a very wealthy woman. Your annual contribution to my upkeep was all rather irrelevant, and although I was initially put out by your ready acceptance of the reverse ransom, I came to realise the moral dilemma it put you in, and that amused me. By the way, are you aware that there is a Friends of Francis Plumier group? Your contributions were small fry compared to what they chipped in. I can’t say I haven’t lived well. 

My name has been changed of course. As I say, my accountant was a clever soul who initially created the escape route for tax avoidance purposes. If only he’d have known how useful that decision would become. I am also a rather plain woman, and plain women can hide in plain site, don’t you think? Don’t worry, dear. I forgive you. It’s been an interesting life and I have been able to exasperate so many more people by being kidnapped. I shouldn’t bother looking for me. I am officially dead, after all. And although I wouldn’t have you down as a killer, I suspect you’ve dug a deep hole beneath the cherry tree just in case I turn up out of the blue. 

There is no need to send any more money. You’re going to need it more than me now. I have a little hotel, right in the heart of the capital. London is always the best place to disappear, don’t you agree? I have a lot of cabinet ministers for clients, but you wouldn’t really know them, would you? And of course, high court judges. Certain men rather like a certain type of woman. It is a lucrative niche which doesn’t mind if you are fat and old and plain, because a good thrashing is all they really want. 

Of course, I suppose I could have returned at any time. I was never ill-treated or imprisoned, but as I say, I rather enjoyed it in the long run. I think your accountant friend knew me better than I knew myself. Don’t be too hard on him. He loves you more than I ever did. 

Charlotte”

Francis poured a brandy and walked into the garden, breathing in the redolent spring air. He came to the cherry tree, just losing its blossom. There was no hole there, of course. She clearly didn’t know him at all - to imagine he would think of such a thing. 

The hole was under the walnut tree.