Tea and Truths

"Expensive tea doesn't fix anything. But it's better than cheap tea whilst your world falls apart. Small mercies."

I placed the teacup back onto its saucer with a small, delicate clink — the sound somehow too refined, too civilised for the circumstances we were navigating. The porcelain was expensive, part of what looked like an antique set probably passed down through family or acquired during one of those overseas trips that people like the Pafistises could afford. Fine bone china with delicate floral patterns rendered in gold leaf, the kind of thing you displayed in cabinets and only used for special occasions.

Though I supposed a police interview about your missing husband qualified as a special occasion of sorts. Just not the kind anyone wanted.

Rubbing at my brow, I realised with some dismay that this was already my second cup of tea. The warm liquid had done absolutely nothing to ease the tension knotted in my shoulders and neck, a physical manifestation of the mental strain I was under. If anything, the caffeine was making my exhaustion worse — creating a jittery, wired feeling layered over bone-deep tiredness.

I hadn't slept properly in... God, I couldn't even remember when I'd last had a full, restful night. Before yesterday's chase through Myrtle Forest? Before the Entertainment Centre? The past forty-eight hours had blurred into an endless sequence of emotional devastation punctuated by professional obligations, leaving me running on fumes.

My eyes felt raw and swollen, the kind of exhaustion that came from crying yourself to sleep and then waking up after only a few hours to face another day of pretending everything was fine. My body ached in ways that were both reminder and accusation — physical evidence of intimacy that had apparently meant nothing, marks on my hips that would fade faster than the hurt they represented.

And here I was, sitting in this beautiful house with this composed woman, trying to maintain professional detachment whilst internally falling apart.

"I'm sure your partner won't be too much longer," Sharon said, her voice attempting to offer comfort though I detected an edge of her own anxiety beneath the surface politeness. She was probably sensing my discomfort, reading the tension in my posture, wondering why I seemed so agitated.

I managed what I hoped passed for a reassuring smile, though it felt stiff and unconvincing even as I executed it. "Just doing his job," I replied, the words coming out perhaps more sharply than I'd intended. The bitterness leaked through despite my best efforts to contain it.

His job. Which apparently involved leaving me alone with witnesses whilst he pursued leads without me. Again. Creating patterns of abandonment that were becoming depressingly familiar.

I took another sip of tea — excellent quality, loose-leaf earl grey with just the right amount of bergamot, served at the perfect temperature — and tried to focus on the task at hand rather than my own spiralling thoughts. Sharon was watching me with those expressive green eyes, and I wondered what she was seeing. A competent detective? Or a woman barely holding herself together?

Probably both, if she was perceptive.

My phone buzzed on the table between us, the vibration loud against the stone surface. I grabbed it quickly, hope and dread battling in my chest as I checked the screen.

15:09 Karl: Claiborne has refused request to obtain either an arrest warrant or search warrant. Glen is on his way to collect you. KJ.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I blurted out, the profanity escaping before I could stop it. For a moment I'd completely forgotten where I was, forgotten that I was supposed to be maintaining professional behaviour in someone else's home. The frustration was immediate and overwhelming, a surge of anger at bureaucratic obstacles that felt deliberately designed to prevent us from doing our jobs.

Claiborne had refused the warrants. Despite the phone records. Despite the ATM footage. Despite Luke Smith's name appearing in connection with multiple missing persons including the woman's husband sitting across from me right now. He'd refused to authorise action, probably citing insufficient evidence or procedural concerns or some other administrative bullshit that prioritised paperwork over actually preventing additional disappearances.

The mention of Glen coming to collect me only added insult to injury. I was being retrieved like forgotten luggage, picked up because Karl had more important things to do than ensure I got back to the station. The casual dismissal of it — not even a proper apology, just initials at the end like he was signing off on a memo — made something twist painfully in my chest.

"I apologise," I said quickly to Sharon, trying to recover some semblance of professionalism even as frustration and hurt churned through me. "That was... inappropriate. I'm sorry."

Sharon's expression shifted slightly — not quite a smile but something that suggested understanding, perhaps even sympathy. "It's alright, Detective. I suspect we're both feeling rather..." she paused for a beat, "...frustrated with how things are proceeding."

There was something in her tone that caught my attention — a careful phrasing that suggested she was choosing her words deliberately, that there was more she wanted to say but was holding back. I filed that observation away mentally.

"Mrs Pafistis," I began, then reconsidered the formality. We'd been sitting here together for over an hour now, drinking tea and navigating the strange intimacy that came from discussing someone's missing spouse. "May I call you Sharon?"

"Of course," she replied, and some of the tension in her shoulders eased slightly at the shift to less formal address. "Please."

"Sharon," I started again, leaning forward slightly, my teacup forgotten. "Can you tell me about Adrian's business? About the clients he typically worked with?"

It was a question I should have asked earlier, before Karl left, but his presence had created certain dynamics — his methodical approach, his focus on timeline and facts, his disapproval radiating whenever I deviated from standard interview procedures. Now, alone with Sharon, I could take a different approach. More conversational. More personal. The kind of questioning that sometimes revealed things formal interrogation missed.

Sharon's hands tightened slightly around her own teacup — a micro-expression that lasted only a second before she consciously relaxed them again. "Adrian ran a construction company," she said, her voice carrying the ease of someone who'd explained her husband's work many times before. "Pafistis Construction. He specialised in high-end residential projects — custom homes, renovations, heritage restorations. That sort of thing."

"And he'd worked with Luke Smith before?" I asked, keeping my tone neutral, conversational, as though this were idle curiosity.

"I... I believe so," Sharon replied, and I noticed the slight hesitation, the brief pause before answering that suggested either uncertainty or careful consideration about what to reveal. "Adrian mentioned the name a few times. I know he'd done some quotes for renovation work. But Adrian had many clients. I didn't... I didn't involve myself too much in the business side of things."

The statement felt both honest and evasive simultaneously — a truth that concealed as much as it revealed. She was probably being accurate when she said she didn't involve herself in business operations. But the specific phrasing — didn't involve myself too much — suggested she knew more than she was currently sharing.

"But you would have met clients sometimes?" I pressed gently. "When they came to the house, perhaps? Or at social functions?"

Sharon's gaze drifted toward the window, looking out at the manicured gardens beyond. "Sometimes," she acknowledged. "Adrian occasionally had clients here for initial consultations. He liked to show them our home as an example of his work — the renovation, the design elements, the attention to detail. It was... it was effective marketing, I suppose."

There was something wistful in how she spoke about the home, a pride mixed with current anxiety about what Adrian's disappearance meant for their future here. This house wasn't just property — it was a manifestation of their shared life, their combined vision, Adrian's professional reputation rendered in timber and stone and expensive finishes.

"So Luke Smith might have been here?" I asked, watching her face carefully for any reaction.

"Possibly," Sharon said, and her brow furrowed slightly as though trying to recall. "I'm sorry, I don't... there were so many clients over the years. The name is familiar, but I can't picture him specifically. Adrian would have his records — his office is upstairs if you'd like to..."

She trailed off, the offer hanging in the air between us. Access to Adrian's home office would be valuable — client lists, correspondence, financial records, all the paper trail that might reveal the nature of his relationship with Luke Smith. But without a warrant, anything I found might be inadmissible, and I'd already pushed enough boundaries today.

"That's alright," I said, making the decision to decline for now. "We'll need proper authorisation for that. But thank you."

The refusal seemed to relieve Sharon slightly, as though she'd made the offer out of obligation rather than genuine willingness to have police rifling through her husband's private papers. I understood that — the instinct to help warring with the desire to maintain some boundaries, some protection of what little privacy remained.

We sat in silence for a moment, the only sound the soft hiss of the kettle Sharon had put on again — apparently preparing a third pot of tea that neither of us probably needed.

"Sharon," I said carefully, "I have to ask you something, and I need you to be completely honest with me."

Her eyes met mine, and I saw wariness there mixed with desperation. She wanted answers as much as we did. She wanted her husband back. But she was also clearly afraid of what those answers might reveal.

"Of course," she said, though the words came out slightly strained.

"Were there any problems in Adrian's business?" I asked directly. "Financial troubles? Disputes with clients or subcontractors? Anything that might have created... difficulties?"

Sharon's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "No," she said, but the answer came too quickly, too defensively. "Adrian ran a successful company. We were... we're financially comfortable. There were no problems."

The present-past tense correction happened again — were becoming are, that same unconscious slip that suggested some part of her brain had already begun processing Adrian's absence as permanent even whilst her conscious mind insisted on hope.

"I notice you corrected yourself," I said gently. "From 'were' to 'are.' You did that earlier too, when talking about your marriage."

Sharon's face flushed slightly, embarrassment or anger or both colouring her cheeks. "I'm under considerable stress, Detective Lahey. I'm sure I'm not speaking with perfect grammatical precision."

It was a deflection, delivered with enough sharpness to suggest I'd touched something sensitive. But I couldn't let it go — not when those small linguistic slips might indicate larger truths trying to surface.

"Of course," I acknowledged. "I understand. But Sharon, if there's anything — anything at all — that you think might be relevant to finding Adrian, now is the time to tell me. Even if it seems unimportant. Even if it's... uncomfortable."

She looked at me for a long moment, those green eyes searching my face as though trying to determine whether I could be trusted with whatever she was holding back. I tried to project competence and compassion in equal measure, tried to look like someone who would understand rather than judge.

"We had a good marriage," Sharon said finally, and there was something almost defiant in her tone, as though she was arguing against unspoken accusations. "Adrian was a good man. A good father. He worked hard, he provided for his family, he loved his daughters. Whatever... whatever has happened to him, it wasn't because of problems at home."

The emphatic insistence felt like protestation — too strong, too defensive, suggesting that Sharon herself had doubts she was trying to suppress. But about what? Adrian's fidelity? His business dealings? Some secret she'd discovered or suspected?

"I'm not suggesting otherwise," I said carefully. "But sometimes good people get caught up in situations beyond their control. Sometimes they make small compromises that snowball into bigger problems. Sometimes they..."

I trailed off, unsure how to articulate what I was trying to say without essentially accusing Adrian of criminality or poor judgment when he wasn't here to defend himself.

Sharon's expression had gone carefully neutral, the kind of studied blankness that required significant effort to maintain. "Adrian kept his business and his family life quite separate," she said, the words emerging slowly, deliberately. "He didn't... he didn't burden me with work concerns. That was his domain. The salon was mine, the children and home were shared, but his business was... his."

The separation she described felt familiar in an uncomfortable way — Karl's gift for keeping his emotions in boxes that never quite touched. Apparently it was a common trait amongst men who took their work seriously.

Or maybe it was just a common trait amongst men who had things to hide.

"Did that bother you?" I asked, genuine curiosity mixing with professional inquiry. "The separation?"

Sharon considered the question carefully. "Sometimes," she admitted. "There were occasions when I felt... excluded. When Adrian would be preoccupied with some project or problem, and I'd know something was wrong but he wouldn't discuss it. He'd say he didn't want to worry me, that it was nothing I needed to concern myself with."

The familiar excuse — protection framed as consideration, exclusion justified as caring. I'd heard variations of it countless times, from spouses who'd discovered secret gambling debts, hidden affairs, criminal enterprises their partners had kept carefully concealed behind walls of "protecting the family."

"And you accepted that?" I asked, keeping judgment out of my voice even though I wondered how someone as clearly intelligent and capable as Sharon had tolerated being kept in the dark about significant aspects of her husband's life.

"I trusted him," Sharon said simply, and there was pain beneath the words — past tense again, that unconscious acknowledgment that trust had perhaps been misplaced. "Adrian had always... he'd always taken care of us. I had no reason to doubt him."

"Had?" I echoed gently, picking up on the verb tense shift.

Sharon's composure finally cracked slightly. "I don't know," she said, and for the first time genuine emotion leaked through — confusion and fear and anger all tangled together. "I don't know what's happening. I don't know where my husband is. I don't know if he's hurt or... or worse. And I don't know if there's something I should have seen, something I should have questioned, some warning sign I missed because I was too busy with my own life to pay proper attention to his."

The guilt was palpable — that particular torture spouses inflicted on themselves when something went wrong, the retroactive examination of every moment searching for the clue they'd missed, the question they should have asked, the concern they should have voiced.

I knew that guilt intimately. Had experienced my own version of it countless times — examining my interactions with Karl, searching for the moment when I should have recognised that his feelings didn't match mine, that I was reading intimacy into actions that carried no such meaning.

"Sharon," I said, and my voice came out softer than I'd intended, more personal than professional. "This isn't your fault. Whatever has happened to Adrian, whatever circumstances led to his disappearance — that's not on you. You're not responsible for protecting a grown man from his own choices or from things beyond anyone's control."

She looked at me with those expressive eyes now shining with unshed tears. "But what if I could have stopped it?" she whispered. "What if there was something I could have done, some question I should have asked, and I just... didn't?"

The question hung in the air between us, and I had no good answer for it. Because the truth was that sometimes there were warning signs. Sometimes people did miss crucial details that might have changed outcomes. Sometimes asking the right question at the right moment could prevent tragedies.

But more often, hindsight provided false clarity — making people believe they should have seen patterns that were only obvious after the fact, punishing themselves for failing to predict the unpredictable.

"You can't know that," I said finally. "And torturing yourself with what-ifs isn't going to help find Adrian."

Sharon nodded slowly, wiping at her eyes with fingers that trembled slightly. The composed woman who'd greeted us at the door had been replaced by someone more vulnerable, more real — someone dealing with impossible circumstances whilst trying to maintain enough stability to function.

I recognised that feeling too. The desperate attempt to hold yourself together whilst everything inside screamed chaos.

We sat in silence again, the weight of unspoken things settling around us like dust after a demolition. Glen would be here soon to collect me, and this strange, intimate interlude would end.

Part of me wanted to press harder, to ask more direct questions about Adrian's business dealings, about finances, about whether Sharon had noticed anything unusual in the weeks before his disappearance. But another part of me recognised that we'd reached a threshold — that Sharon had revealed as much as she was capable of revealing right now, that pushing further would only cause her to retreat back behind defensive walls.

And honestly, I was too tired to push. Too emotionally depleted to maintain the careful balance between empathy and interrogation. Too raw from my own recent wounds to effectively probe someone else's.

"The tea is lovely," I said finally, offering something normal and mundane to fill the silence. "Thank you for your hospitality under such difficult circumstances."

Sharon managed a weak smile. "My mother owned a tearoom in Cornwall," she said, and there was something wistful in her voice. "I grew up learning that tea could fix most problems. Or at least make them more bearable for a little while."

"Your mother sounds wise," I replied, and meant it.

"She was," Sharon agreed. Then, after a pause: "She died three years ago. I miss her terribly. She would have... she would have known what to do in this situation. How to cope."

The confession carried the weight of accumulated grief — not just for Adrian's disappearance but for the mother who might have provided comfort during this crisis, for all the support networks that distance and circumstance had eroded over the years of building a life far from where she'd started.

"I'm sorry," I said, and the words felt inadequate but genuine. I understood loss, understood the particular ache of wanting guidance from someone who was no longer available to provide it.

Before Sharon could respond, the doorbell rang — a melodic chime that echoed through the house with expensive acoustics. Glen had arrived.

Sharon rose to answer it, composure reasserting itself as she transitioned back to hostess mode. I remained seated for a moment, finishing the last of my unnecessary tea whilst gathering my emotional resources for whatever came next.

Glen would drive me back to the station in uncomfortable silence, probably wondering what had happened to make me look so wrecked. I'd have to face Karl eventually, pretend everything was professional between us, continue working a case that seemed to get more complicated with each revelation.

And somewhere out there, Luke Smith remained free whilst bureaucratic processes ground slowly forward, whilst more people potentially disappeared into whatever web of criminal activity he'd constructed.

But for this moment, in Sharon Pafistis's beautiful kitchen with its expensive appliances and family photographs, I let myself simply exist in the exhaustion and confusion and quiet desperation that seemed to connect me and this stranger in ways neither of us would have chosen.

Two women, both dealing with absent men and unanswered questions, sharing tea and truths in the fading afternoon light.