The Invisible Ones Read Free Page A

Mr. Wood—”
    “Call me Leon.”
    “I’m afraid I don’t take on missing-persons cases. I can pass you on to my colleague, though—he’s very good.”
    “Mr. Lovell . . . Ray . . . I need someone like you. An outsider can’t help. Can you imagine a gorjio going in, annoying people, asking questions?”
    “Mr. Wood, I was brought up in a house. My mother was a gorjio . So I’m a gorjio , really. It’s just a name.”
    “No . . .”
    He jabs a finger at me and leans forward. If there wasn’t a desk between us, I am sure he would take my arm.
    “It’s never just a name. You’re always who you are, even sitting here in your office behind your fancy desk. You’re one of us. Where are your family from?”
    I am sure he already knows about as much as there is to know. Jed would have told him.
    “Kent, Sussex.”
    “Ah. Yes. Know Lovells from there, too . . .”
    He reels off more names.
    “Yes, but as I said, my father settled in a house and left off the traveling
    life. I’ve never known it. So I don’t know that I would be of much help. And missing persons are really not my speciality . . .”
    “I don’t know what’s your speciality or not. But what happened to my daughter happened with us, and a gorjio won’t have the first clue about how to talk to people. They’d get nowhere. You know that. I can tell by looking at you that you can talk to people. They’ll listen to you. They’ll talk to you. A gorjio won’t stand a chance!”
    He speaks with such vehemence, I have to stop myself from leaning back in my chair. Flattery, and poverty, are on his side. And maybethere’s a touch of curiosity on my part. I’ve never seen a Gypsy in here before. I can’t imagine any circumstances in which someone like him would go outside the family. I idly wonder how many other half-Gypsy private investigators there are in the southeast for him to choose from. Not many, I imagine.
    “Have you reported her disappearance to the police?”
    Under the circumstances, this might sound like a stupid question, but you have to ask.
    Leon Wood just shrugs, which I take for the no it’s meant to be.
    “To be honest, I’m worried that something’s happened to her. Something bad.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “It’s been more than seven years. We’ve heard nothing. No one’s seen her. No one’s spoken to her. Not a phone call . . . not a word . . . nothing. Now . . . my dear wife recently passed, and we’ve been trying to find Rose. She ought to know about her mum, at least. And nothing. Can’t find a thing. ’S not natural, is it? I always wondered, I did, but now . . .”
    He trails off.
    “I’m very sorry to hear about your wife, Mr. Wood, but let me get this straight—did you say that you haven’t seen your daughter for over seven years?”
    “’Bout that, yeah. Leastways, she got married back then, and I never seen her since. They say she ran off, but . . . now I don’t believe it.”
    “Who says she ran off?”
    “Her husband said so, and his father. Said she ran off with a gorjio . But I had my suspicions then, and I have more suspicions now.”
    “Suspicions of what?”
    “Well . . .” Leon Wood glances over his shoulder, in case we’re being overheard, and then, despite the fact that we’re alone and it’s after hours, leans even nearer. “. . . That they done away with her.”
    He doesn’t look as though he’s joking.
    “You think they—you mean her husband—did away with her, seven years ago?”
    Leon Wood glances upward.
    “Well, more like six, I suppose. After she had the kid. Six and a half, maybe.”
    “Right. You’re saying that you suspect your daughter was murdered six years ago—and you’ve never said anything, to anyone, until now?”
    Leon Wood spreads his hands, turns his eyes back to me, and shrugs.
    I don’t often think about my—my what? Race? Culture? Whatever word the sociologists are using these days. The fact that my father was born in a field in