The Long Dark Road

by P. R. Black

  ‘I know that. You say that. I’ve been told that so many times. We have to keep an open mind, because we don’t know. But you must have an idea, or a suspicion.’

  ‘Gut instinct, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, if you like.’

  ‘I’m not qualified to make a judgement on that. But you are.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I go by facts. I back everything up with proof. It’s not an exact science, I leave that to forensics. But I have to make the events fit together. It all has to make sense – it’s a matter of times, dates, locations, corroboration. Physical evidence, of course, if I can have it. Your gut instincts can deceive you – that’s my experience. I’ve looked right into the eyes of killers, and you wouldn’t believe how trustworthy they can seem. How they can act innocent. Even if they’ve got one or two tells, they’d swear blind that they didn’t do it. But I would listen to other people’s gut reactions. They can give me a steer. They can open a door to something I hadn’t considered. Especially when it comes from the mother of a missing girl. So, go on. Tell me what you think happened.’

  ‘Well… the strong theory is that she killed herself.’ Georgia swallowed. That faint tremor began again, seizing both her hands. Her voice shook a little, as she continued. ‘Several people have said she seemed ill, withdrawn. She went to her GP and complained of depression, just after Christmas. I didn’t know this at the time. She was given a course of citalopram, which she collected from the pharmacy but didn’t take, going by the medication that was found in her room at the halls. She had been out of sorts. Something had happened between Martin Duke and her that might be related to a fight he had with Riley Brightman. Something that really upset her. She also had her end-of-term exams coming up, and she hadn’t been studying as hard as she might. It seemed her essay marks were mediocre and she had only just started cracking the books at Easter time. That’s not the girl I knew. And yes, she had seemed withdrawn in the Easter holidays. She stayed in her room, slept a lot. She was writing a diary. So yes, all these factors do fit in…’ she took a deep breath ‘…with the theory that she went up that road, on that awful night, with the intention of heading into the moors and taking her own life. And her body is still out there, somewhere.’

  Hurlford reached across the table and offered his hand. She took it, nodding once, choking back tears.

  ‘Then there’s the other theory. That at some point, on that road, in the six- or seven-mile stretch in between Ferngate Bridge and Raeside filling station, she came across someone who caused her harm. Maybe it’s one of those awful random events, a random bloke, someone who had a moment of madness, a guy with a time bomb in his head, something out of a horror film… Or worse, someone who’s done it before, someone who took a chance, and she was just very, very unlucky. Or maybe it was a hit and run. Somebody panicked, lifted the body off the road. But that’s the second scenario. I’m realistic enough. I don’t think she did a Reggie Perrin. She was a wilful, imaginative girl, but not that wilful. She’d have come back to me eventually. And she didn’t run off with a handsome stranger. She didn’t ride off into the sunset on a weird quest. She isn’t on a kibbutz somewhere, or paddling a log canoe up the Amazon. I imagine all these things, of course. I imagine all the good outcomes, the ways it could have worked. The ways she could come back to me. But suicide and abduction are the two realistic theories. Does that make sense to you?’

  He had let go of her hand by now. At length, he nodded. ‘Those are two common theories. But I’m always open-minded. Not exactly positive – I am not going to give anyone false hope without good cause – but I have to be open to every possibility until the facts change. And the facts are that your daughter vanished on that night. We have no new leads. It’s a terrible mystery. I am still working on it. I am still talking to people. I am trying to pick up new things. This…’ he held up the buff envelope, which held a scanned version of the diary ‘…did fill in a few gaps. But it didn’t give any definite clues. Not yet.’

  Georgia nodded. ‘You knew all this, in other words. Everything in the diary. It all came out in the wash, at the time.’

  Hurlford didn’t reply directly, but he said: ‘We spoke to everyone she encountered… everyone who was in the pub with her on the nights leading up to the disappearance… We retraced her every move, we saw her on CCTV from multiple directions, we traced every single bit of data we could on her. And we spoke to literally everyone. Her friends… their friends… the men she knew… Everyone, Georgia. We haven’t made any arrests, and we don’t intend to yet. We’ll keep looking. That’s what I can tell you. That’s a guarantee. We’ll keep looking. We’ll keep talking to people. We’ll keep going to the public.’

  ‘People don’t just…’ Vanish, she was going to say. But she knew that was false. Of course people vanished. She’d read the Wikipedia pages. She’d seen the smiling faces of those who’d disappeared, the passport photos, the school portraits, the graduation gown mantelpiece images. Analogue smiles, blood reds faded to ochre. And she’d seen the faces of those who’d lost them. The mothers and fathers, gaunt, drawn, haunted. Like her.

  ‘Don’t give up on us. We are working on it.’

  ‘You’re not magicians, I know.’

  ‘Are you here for the appeal? I think the Megiddos are playing. Very big deal – they’re an up and coming band. Riley Brightman’s done well for himself.’

  ‘I haven’t met him. But I think I’m going to.’

  ‘He’s a nice lad.’

  ‘Stephanie thought a lot of him.’

  ‘Cornfed… yeah. It could be him. But it’s vague. We can’t be one hundred per cent. She was very keen on Cornfed, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Cornfed could be the one. The person who took her.’

  ‘The men you mentioned – including Riley Brightman – have alibis for that night.’

  ‘Alibis can collapse. Loyalties can change. So can the big picture.’

  Hurlford took a sip of water, never taking his eyes off Georgia. He placed the cup down on the table, then said: ‘I would caution against approaching Riley Brightman.’

  ‘I can hardly avoid him at a concert, can I?’

  ‘I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to approach people. Every angle in this case has been explored. Ones you’ve thought of, ones you haven’t.’

  ‘And ones you won’t tell me about.’

  ‘For very good reason. Now, it’s not a big warning, or an edict, or anything like that. I just think it’s not healthy for you. How long have you been in town?’

  ‘Since last night.’

  ‘And when are you going back?’

  ‘In a couple of days, maybe. I’ve got things I want to work out. In my head.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Places I want to go. Steps I want to retrace. Places I want to pay a visit. Memories I want to kindle of the times we spent here. Moving her in. Taking her to lunch. Coming over to check on her. Things parents do.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you?’ She said this a trifle sharply. ‘You know as well as I do, Stephanie’s probably dead. She’s in the ground, somewhere. Or in a freezer in someone’s garage. Or worse still. I won’t see her alive again, I know that. But until I have her body back, there’s a tiny doubt. A little flaw in the logic. I know this because I dream about her. Sometimes it’s… not so good.’ She shuddered, at the thought of her dream earlier. ‘Other times, it’s lovely. She’s alive. She tells me she’s fine. We have a little chat, and I give her a hug. “Don’t leave it so long,” I tell her. Usually this is about the time an alarm goes off in my head, and I wake up. Once or twice, I even screamed.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Georgia.’

  ‘Because you can’t really know. There’s a doubt. And your brain will seize on anything. If you’re lost in the woods, and you see a plume of smoke, then you’ll go towards it. You don’t know who lives in that house. It could be a wicked stepmother. But you’ll go. You’ll take any ho
pe that’s going. Once or twice, in the past two years – I don’t mind admitting this – I’ve had a little bit too much to drink. And I had this fantasy of ways that she could be still alive. Each one sillier than the last. It’s the old kibbutzes and canoes idea. Maybe she was pregnant, and decided to raise the child off-grid, an earth mother. Maybe she became a self-sufficiency buff. All sorts of fantasies. Because you can’t know for sure; even though, of course I do know. That’s my gut instinct, as a scientist, as a doctor, as a person who deals in the harshest realities. And it’s also my gut instinct as a mother. But I still hope. Though it’s wrong and it’s stupid of me. I hope. I can’t exactly grieve. And I can’t exactly be optimistic. I’m stuck. I’m in limbo. That’s why I’ve come here.’

  ‘Leave it to us. Trust in the professionals. This is pretty much what I told your husband. I’m sure you know.’

  ‘What? When was this?’

  ‘Well… six or seven months ago. Start of the last academic term, this would be. He told me you knew?’

  ‘What did he say? Did he find out anything?’

  ‘Um… no, he didn’t…’ Hurlford blinked, then reached for the water. Discomfited, for the first time. He hadn’t looked nearly so uncomfortable when modelling death scenarios. Interesting that he did not know this. ‘Rod didn’t provide any new information. Just checking in, really. Much as you are now.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  Hurlford sat back and folded his arms. ‘I’m going to give you… an opinion.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since I last saw you.’

  ‘I try my best. Not easy once you get to fifty.’

  ‘It wasn’t a compliment, Mrs Healey. It looks like the kind of weight loss that you get through stress, anxiety… and depression. I’ve seen it in mothers, fathers and partners before. You say you can’t grieve, but you look like a person in grief, to me.’

  ‘I’m a general practitioner with more than twenty-five years’ experience. I know these signs better than you.’

  ‘Then I would hope that you’ll recognise them in yourself, and take any help that’s offered. If you’ve split from Rod… divorce in itself can be hell. I remember my parents splitting up well enough. My advice… I mean, my opinion… that’s all it is… is that you should go to the concert, leave nice and early, get out of Ferngate, and have a holiday. Somewhere you can be distracted – somewhere very loud, or somewhere very peaceful. Because I can see the change in you. I can see what Stephanie’s disappearance is doing to you. Above all, I want you to stay away from that road.’

  ‘I didn’t mention the road.’

  ‘You mentioned retracing steps, and those are the obvious ones. It’s not a good road. It’s the kind of place you’ll find flowers tied to trees every few miles. I attended a lot of RTAs on that road, when I was in uniform. That’s before we think about what happened to Stephanie. So will you promise me that? Stay away from the road. And stay off the moors, too. Particularly the ghyll. Will you promise me that? Don’t go near the ghyll. It’s not safe.’

  Now she was angry. ‘I’ll go where I please. Unless you’re giving me orders, now?’

  ‘Of course not. Georgia…’ He was exasperated. He raised his hands, as she got to her feet.

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not planning on staying here long. And I think I’ll see myself out.’

  7

  There’s a place of adventure – somewhere in my head, quite separate to whatever physical spot I happen to find myself in, and I can’t help but feel drawn to it. I need to reconcile this need for romance in my head with a physical reality. I feel this is the essence of Cornfed’s appeal. I was such a quiet, withdrawn girl. All the excitement took place in my head. Now I find myself living these quests and romances, and it is delightful to me. If there’s a source of all adventure then I have to make my way towards it. But I’m rambling here.

  From the diary of Stephanie Healey

  Georgia took a room in a small apartment block, an unlet student property that did well on the online pop-up room services. It was at the top of the building and seemed all quiet, despite the presence of young people below. A bed, en-suite bathroom and a TV stand were just about all it permitted, but Georgia was glad of the close confines. A bigger room would have given her imagination space to play, and that was something she didn’t need in the dark, with the heavy curtains blotting out everything but the dull glow of her fitness tracker. She imagined she was at sea, tightly packed but secure in a cabin, nothing outside but cool waves.

  The next morning, she put on her walking trousers, a good base layer and a training top, cinched the laces of her new boots, and set off on the road her daughter was last seen.

  It was a bright morning, and she congratulated herself on having the foresight to pack sunblock. Its coconut smell was treacherous, a reminder of foreign holidays from long ago. She fit a baseball cap over the top of her tied-back hair, and made her way through the town centre. The market was set up over by Slumbers’ Yard, with its intriguing mix of fresh fruit and veg, seafood and bongs. From here there was a lane that ran alongside the river. Here, surely, was the place Stephanie would have entered the water. Even now, in dry conditions, it ran fast here; there had been up to nine inches of rain on those two days, a freak hangover from an Atlantic storm that had battered Britain. The river would have been close to bursting its banks, and treacherous. There had been a suggestion that Ferngate Bridge might have been washed away. But the only thing that had been taken away had been her daughter.

  The weather factor about that night irritated her. It complicated things. It meant that there could have been a more mundane explanation. Treacherous conditions, very easy to slip, lots of ways she could have entered the water along the river. There had been extensive searches, but…

  Georgia passed some dog walkers and runners on the path alongside the river. One of these was a rather alarming young man with eyes screwed tight shut who was reciting things to himself, point by point, counting on his fingers. Finals coming up, Georgia supposed. She remembered this well enough.

  Stephanie hadn’t been that way inclined. She did have an intense, swotty phase around about the time she’d started secondary school, and she’d been top of the class for a while. The onset of the teenage years had changed that. Not that Stephanie had tried to fit in with the wrong people, but more that she learned not to stick out too much. That to compete and to try to reach the top was to draw unwanted attention. Tall poppies tended to suffer the same fate, even though the school Georgia had sent her daughter to was far less razor-edged than the one she’d attended. Much better to miss out the homework occasionally; to forsake the studying for a night out with Mel or Izzie, the two girls who’d stuck around for the early years. But not the latter ones.

  Though both girls had come to see her after the disappearance and their tears had been real enough when they saw Georgia, they had lost touch in the senior years, the make-up years, the boyfriend years. Stephanie had not followed them. She’d gone strange; gone into herself. Tall, with good legs and sharp features – a model, Georgia had said to her, more than once; you could be a model – Stephanie had never made the most of it. There had been one comically nervous lad who came around for studying and tea one night, only once, but never again, and never anyone else. Stephanie had taken more to writing, scribbling in her diaries, branching out into short stories and plays, none of which she’d ever attempted to have published.

  To Georgia’s dismay, her daughter had pursued this into higher education, putting her disappointing exam results to some use, if not good use. Oxbridge was out of the question – something Georgia had never known she wanted for her girl, until it became something denied – but she had followed in her mother’s footsteps and ended up at Ferngate. At the time, of course, this had seemed cute.

  Journeys and quests; adventures, castles and magic. These had been some of Stephanie’s fleeting obsessions as a youngster. She hadn’t join
ed the hillwalking society, but she had instead taken journeys on her own. This was something that had been pieced together later, by the police, but it hadn’t surprised Georgia. There was a walking route through the town, and Stephanie had gone on it, enjoying the exercise and her own company, as usual.

  Weirdo was the nasty verbal spit Georgia often resorted to. It was always there, a spear ready to throw whenever things grew tense. To Georgia’s shame, she’d even said it to her daughter during some of the worst teenage rows. If you won’t study properly, then you could at least go out more and get a social life, like a normal girl your age!

  Then Rod’s voice, meant to be soothing, but always slightly arch: ‘Let her develop at her own pace, Georgia. She’s her own person. She’ll find her own path. She’s not going to go into medicine. Forget it. That’s not what she wants. It never was. Never will be.’

  ‘Then she could do something useful, for God’s sake! A writer… how do you become a writer? Who studies to be a bloody writer? Poetry? Tone poems? What in God’s name is a tone poem?’

  ‘Well, someone’s got to do it,’ Rod said. ‘Writers are out there, and people read. So why not Stephanie?’ And maybe he’d have sighed. This would have become a condescension too far. And that would have triggered another row.

  The path grew more crooked, with the metal barriers at the edge of the riverbank seeming to become warped, as if remoulded at an idle moment by a giant with twitchy hands. This emptied out onto the road itself, with a narrow pathway also marked for cyclists on one side of the road. Taking this path, Georgia trooped past a mix of big houses and bungalows on the opposite side, with smart driveways and immense gates. Some of the houses were hidden behind trees and bushes, the odd window appearing through the gaps like a nosy neighbour. Millionaire’s row, Georgia supposed.

  Every single door knocked. Every single person interviewed. Every single movement traced, checked to the minute, noted, accounted for, logged. They knew what they were doing. What had Hurlford said? Hundreds of officers, thousands of hours. The answer was not to be found in these homes, these people. Knocking these doors was a waste of time.