The Woman in the Wood

by Lesley Pearse

She seemed to remember being told you could last a couple of weeks without any food, but it took just three or four days without a drink. At first she’d tortured herself thinking about that. She didn’t know how many days she’d been in this place as she had no idea if the sleep she drifted in and out of was for just minutes or hours. The other thing she thought about was everything that had happened after Grace left the cottage to call the police. She so much wished she’d climbed out of the roof the way she’d got in and hidden up in the bushes until help arrived.

  But now she couldn’t even seem to think straight. At times she thought maybe she’d imagined Duncan and the other boy in the cellar, that the pain she was in, the hunger and thirst, was all part of a vivid nightmare. But then she’d get cramp in her leg or arm, she’d feel the wetness of her slacks and the hardness of the concrete beneath her, the biting cold, and she knew it was real. She just hoped her death would come quickly.

  The one thing that seemed worse than dying was that she would never find out if Duncan and the other boy had recovered. Nor would she know whether Grace was in trouble for not going to the police with her suspicions about Grainger. Would her grandmother and father mourn her death? She knew Duncan would, Janice and Mr Dove too, maybe even Linda, but so few mourners made her life seem pretty meaningless.

  Grace was in a very reflective mood that evening. She had parked up the van and fed Toby, and now she was eating fish and chips, with him sitting beside her in the passenger seat. So far in three days of searching she’d hadn’t found anywhere along the coast she thought Grainger could have hidden Maisy. And Toby hadn’t picked up on any scent.

  He went off full of enthusiasm, sniffing away at neglected old houses, sheds, stables and newer, smarter places too, but each time he came back to her with a look that said ‘She’s not here.’

  She was wary of drawing attention to herself by asking people questions. Besides, all the newspapers had pictures of Grainger on the front cover; there was even a picture of Maisy. She’d overheard people in cafés discussing what a monster he was; if any of them had seen anything, they would’ve gone to the police.

  Now she was growing very weary. She’d tramped so many miles, and she wasn’t sleeping very well in the van. She wanted to be home, to have a good wash and to sit by her fire. Perhaps it had been a little arrogant of her to think she and Toby could find Maisy when the police couldn’t.

  She let Toby finish her chips; she’d lost her appetite through worrying about Maisy. How was Duncan going to recover without her? He could probably overcome all the hideous things done to him, but he was always going to think he was responsible for putting his sister in harm’s way.

  Watching the sun slide down into the sea, she told herself that she’d get up really early tomorrow and search the shoreline on the other side of Lymington. She had read somewhere that it was wild and marshy there, a haven for birds, so she doubted there would be anything Maisy could be held in. Just a three or four hours’ search and then she’d go home to the forest.

  The first slivers of light were coming into the sky when Grace woke the next morning, and she saw it was raining. She was stiff and cold, she had difficulty getting out of the back of the van and felt grumpy as she pulled on her oilskin coat and hat. She stood for a few moments watching Toby rush about sniffing furiously and cocking his leg as if his life depended on it, and she considered driving home straight away. She was just too tired to go on.

  But that seemed like betrayal; another three or four hours wouldn’t hurt her. So she changed out of the soft shoes she’d worn in the van and into her old boots. Then, picking up her stick and Maisy’s scarf, she locked the van, called Toby and set off.

  Her stick looked like any ordinary walking stick, but she’d bought it in a shop that sold specialist hiking and mountaineering gear. It was very strong metal and had a spike on the end, intended to give more stability on uneven ground, but she had found many other uses for it: grubbing out plants, prising open stiff gates and scraping away soil when she wanted to know what lay below. She had even hung dead rabbits or pheasants on it that she’d shot, to carry them home.

  There was no one around and she went through the pretty little town of Lymington without seeing a soul. It was clearly too early yet for the Isle of Wight ferry.

  Both the left and right coastal parts of Lymington were wild and marshy. There were a few shabby beach huts where there was sand, but they’d be so easy for anyone to get out of, it was hardly worth looking at them. She gave Toby the scarf to smell. He ran off to sniff round the huts, but he came back from them immediately, looking up at her as if waiting for new instructions.

  She walked about another mile, then in the distance, half set into a sand dune, she could see something that might fit Duncan’s description of ‘a kind of shelter or shed’. She remembered seeing pictures of these things at the start of the war. They were gun emplacements in case of invasion.

  Beyond that was a small, almost broken-down jetty, the kind that someone who lived close to the sea would erect themselves to moor their boat. She could see no house now, though, just windswept grasses and a few straggly bushes growing out of sand and shingle. The whole area looked very forlorn in the rain – even the seabirds appeared to have taken cover – but she guessed on a warm, sunny day it was a lovely place to walk.

  She carried on, and once she was within a few hundred yards of the ‘shelter’ she gave Toby the scarf to sniff again and sent him off. At first he was criss-crossing the beach, continually looking back at her, but then suddenly he took off, straight for the shelter.

  Grace’s heart leapt; all at once her tiredness left her. Toby had definitely got wind of something; he was pawing at the door and barking. She speeded up and called him back before she got there to have him under her control.

  ‘What is it, Toby?’ she asked. He jumped up at her, clearly excited that he’d found something.

  Then he barked again, this time turning towards a man walking along the beach towards them. He was a good six or eight hundred yards away, much too far away to make out his face. But as a precaution Grace shushed Toby, put him on his lead, then turned and walked away, over a sand dune.

  Once there she lay down to watch the man, holding Toby tightly because she sensed the dog didn’t like something about him. Could it be Grainger?

  It was odd for anyone but dog walkers or keep-fit enthusiasts to be on a beach at this time of the morning. He surely wasn’t exercising – not wearing a black waterproof coat and a sou’wester – and besides, he was carrying a small holdall. He was also looking out to sea, as if he was expecting a boat.

  It was frustrating not to be able to see the man’s face, but then she didn’t know if she would recognize Grainger anyway, as she’d only seen him fleetingly while driving, and from the pictures in the press. But whoever this man was, why was he waiting here for a boat? There was a marina in Lymington.

  Toby had definitely got the scent of something. He hadn’t reacted like that anywhere else. But of course it might not be Maisy. It could simply be smelly rubbish.

  Just then, she saw a small cabin cruiser out at sea but coming in to shore, and the waiting man stiffened and moved in the way people did when the expected lift was in sight.

  Grace decided she would go round the back of the dunes and then hide behind the shelter to watch what was going on. As she approached the shelter, out of sight of both the man on the beach and the small boat, Toby got excited again, straining to get to it.

  This made her feel it probably was Maisy in the shelter, but she held on tight to Toby, making him lie down and be quiet. She knew she had to watch the man on the beach to see what he was up to. If it was Grainger, she had to think things through before acting, or she might be hurt and then she wouldn’t be able to get help.

  When she peeped round the edge of the shelter again she saw the boat owner was mooring it to the small jetty. He disembarked from the boat to speak to the other man, and she saw that he was also in a black
oilskin coat and sou’wester.

  The men’s voices were raised as if angry, but they weren’t clear enough for her to hear what they were saying.

  She slunk back behind the shelter. She could tell they were coming up the beach now towards her because their voices were growing louder and clearer.

  ‘I am not taking her,’ she heard one say.

  ‘You are, you don’t have any choice,’ the other one responded. ‘We can weigh her down and chuck her overboard. Problem solved.’

  Grace felt a chill run down her spine. There was no doubt now. They were talking about Maisy. But what could she do? She didn’t even know which of the men was Grainger now. She assumed it had to be the one first on the beach, but when she risked a quick peep around the wall again and saw the two men together, coming towards her, she didn’t know which was which in their identical oilskins. She strained to hear what they were saying, hoping that would make it clear which was Grainger.

  ‘I’ll open the door and you be ready to grab her in case she’s untied herself.’

  ‘I can’t, I won’t,’ the other man said, his tone pleading.

  ‘You’ll do it or else. Getting away in that boat is all that matters. Now stop being so pathetic.’

  Grace’s heart was thumping so loudly she thought they’d be able to hear it. She heard a key scrunching in a lock, the door being hauled back over stones, then a sharp intake of breath from one of the men.

  It was that horrified gasp that made her forget her fear and move. She let go of Toby’s collar and, holding her stick firmly in both hands, she leapt out from behind the wall to face the men.

  Toby clearly saw them as a threat to her. He sprang at one of them, knocking him to the ground and pinning him there. The other man just froze, and Grace went for that one, bringing her stick down with all the force she could muster on to his head. Then, pulling back, she whipped it round, hitting first one side of his head and then the other.

  Although he reeled back from the blows, the stick wasn’t heavy enough to do serious damage, and all at once he ran for it, right down the beach and on to the boat.

  To Grace it was a relief that the boatman had gone. Toby had bitten Grainger’s face, which looked like a piece of steak now, and although he was trying to fight the dog off, Toby wasn’t going to let him go.

  That was when she saw Maisy.

  She was curled up on her side, her hands and feet bound, filthy dirty, and clearly no longer conscious. There was no time now to check her pulse or even try to speak to her. She reached down, picked the girl up in her arms and took her outside the shelter, laying her down on the ground. Then quickly she returned to the man, dragging him further back into the shelter with Toby standing by growling as if he wanted to tear his throat out.

  ‘You’re going to get a taste of your own medicine now,’ Grace snarled at him. She glanced around the place, saw the patch of wet where Maisy had been lying, felt how cold it was, and the lack of food or water. ‘Let’s see how you like it in here. Come, Toby!’

  She was out of there in a second, praying that Grainger had left the key in the lock. Thankfully, he had, and she locked the heavy door behind her. The small boat was sailing away now, and finally she could breathe.

  She dropped on to her knees beside Maisy. Rain on her face had brought her round, but it was clear by her vacant expression she didn’t know where she was. ‘It’s me, Grace,’ she said. ‘I’m going to cut these ropes off you now, and get you away from here. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.’

  ‘Grace?’

  The barely audible question made a lump come up in Grace’s throat. ‘Yes, it’s me. Hold on, I’ve got a knife somewhere.’

  She rummaged in her coat pocket and pulled out her penknife. ‘I wish I had a drink for you too, but it’s not far to go to the town.’ She cut through the ropes on Maisy’s wrists and chafed them between her hands to bring the circulation back, then turned her attention to the ones on her ankles.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said as she finished. ‘You’re like a block of ice, but do you think, if I stand you up, that you could walk?’

  Maisy didn’t answer. Grace lifted her up, and with her arm around her supporting her, she tried to get her to walk, but Maisy seemed unable to even try. So Grace hauled her up in her arms and began walking with her.

  Grace was strong, but by the time she’d gone five hundred yards she couldn’t carry Maisy any longer and she laid her down on the ground again. She didn’t know what to do. She was afraid to leave her to get help, and besides, Maisy needed urgent medical assistance.

  After a brief rest, she stood Maisy up again and this time lifted her on to her shoulder, like a sack of potatoes. It was hard going over shingle and sand, but she staggered on until she came to the path leading into Lymington Town. There, to her relief, she saw a young woman coming towards her with a dog.

  ‘Please go and call an ambulance and the police for me,’ she begged the girl. ‘This is Maisy Mitcham – she was taken by Donald Grainger, the murderer. I’ve just found her.’

  The astonishment on the young woman’s face would have been funny if the situation wasn’t so serious. ‘Of course,’ she said and immediately turned and began running back to the town.

  Grace carefully let Maisy down to lean against her chest, and with one arm holding her tight, she wriggled out of her own coat and then wrapped it around the girl to try and warm her.

  ‘Am I safe now?’ she heard Maisy whisper.

  Tears sprang into Grace’s eyes. ‘Yes, you are, my little love. No one is ever going to hurt you again.’

  18

  Smiling broadly, Alastair Mitcham strode across the hospital waiting room to the dishevelled middle-aged woman sitting there and took her rough-looking hands in his.

  ‘How on earth can I ever thank you enough for saving both my children?’ he said, his voice shaking with emotion.

  ‘No thanks are necessary,’ Grace said. His gratitude was a little unnerving and she couldn’t quite meet his eyes. ‘I’m just waiting to hear that Maisy is all right and then I’m going home with Toby. It’s been a long, tiring three days.’

  ‘Please come home to Nightingales with me afterwards?’ Alastair begged. ‘Duncan and my mother would be so thrilled to see you and you can stay the night, have a hot bath, a good meal and be looked after. We’ll welcome Toby too, of course. I’m told he was the one who actually found Maisy.’

  Grace appreciated his offer and she would’ve liked to see Duncan, but she knew she’d feel awkward with his snobbish grandmother. ‘Yes, it was Toby. I gave him Maisy’s scarf for her scent, and he held Grainger down while I got her out of that place. Thank you for your kind offer, but as soon as we know about Maisy, I’d rather go home. I’m not one for company.’

  Alastair was ashamed, remembering when Grace was a suspect in Duncan’s disappearance. She went through hell, her garden dug up, her home searched, and was vilified by people in the village just because she was a recluse and different from other people. He would always feel indebted to her for finding both his children, and he wished he could do something for her now to show her how he felt.

  Before he could say anything more a doctor came into the room. ‘Mr Mitcham?’ he asked, looking at Alastair.

  ‘Yes. How is Maisy?’

  The doctor smiled reassuringly. ‘We are rehydrating her and treating the many cuts and contusions on her body. Her forearm is cracked so we’ve put that in plaster. But she’s going to be fine. A good long sleep, a hot meal and seeing her family again will soon put her to rights.’

  ‘Had she been—?’ Alastair couldn’t bring himself to say the word ‘raped’.

  ‘No, she wasn’t. We think her attacker beat her purely because she put the police on his trail. She told me that once he’d shut her in that place he didn’t come back at all.’

  ‘She would’ve died if Miss Deville hadn’t found her, wouldn’t she?’

  The doctor looked at Grace and smiled.

 
‘Yes, you were a real live heroine by all accounts. I don’t think she could’ve survived another day without water. But all Maisy’s questions have been about her brother. The staff who took care of Duncan, and now Maisy, are so very relieved they are both safe. I’ll take you in to see her now, but only for a few minutes, please, as she needs to rest.’

  Alastair gestured that Grace was to go first. ‘No, you go,’ she said. ‘She’ll only want her family.’

  ‘I believe you are more important to Maisy than family, so you’ll come in with me and no arguments.’ Alastair put his hand on the small of her back and nudged her forward.

  Maisy was in a side ward as Duncan had been, in her case mainly to protect her from unwanted attention from other patients, their visitors and journalists. With her right arm in plaster, a drip in her left arm, a bad bruise on her cheek and her face as white as the pillow, she looked frail. But she managed a bright smile for Grace.

  ‘I thought I was dreaming that you’d come with Toby,’ she said. ‘What happened to Grainger?’

  ‘I locked him in there once I’d got you out,’ Grace said, a little smile playing on her lips. ‘Toby mauled his handsome face too. Now you rest up, eat everything they give you and get better. Duncan will be wanting you home.’

  ‘As I am,’ Alastair butted in. ‘I was so relieved and happy when the police rang me at Nightingales to tell us Miss Deville had found you. I do hope you aren’t in too much pain, Maisy?’

  ‘Just aches, really,’ she said. ‘But shouldn’t you be getting back to your lady friend, Father? She’ll be missing you.’

  Grace cringed and backed towards the door to leave. She hated family confrontations; they unnerved her.

  ‘Yes, I saw you together at the hotel in Brighton,’ Maisy went on, two angry red spots coming up on her cheeks. ‘You must have known I was working just further along that same road, but you couldn’t spare the time to come and see me.’

  ‘I’m going now, Maisy,’ Grace said. ‘I’ll see you when you get home.’