One of them now looking at Callacter demanded of him, ‘Well, what have you got to say to that?’
And the man, who seemed to be foaming at the mouth now, said, ‘Big shot. Come up from the gutter. Scum. All he can do is bawl…’
The arms were on Bill again, and Barney was entreating him: ‘Steady, Bill. Steady. Let him go on.’
Callacter went on, the while rubbing his throat: ‘Marrying a lass young enough to be your daughter. Playing the big daddy to her kids.’
‘Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for you.’ Bert Ormesby was stepping forward now, which was surprising, for he was the churchman who neither drank nor smoked. And his threat was followed by someone else saying, ‘And I’ll help you.’
Bill now shrugged off the hand and picked up the phone without ever taking his eyes off the man. And when he got through to the station he said, ‘Bailey here. Is the inspector there?’ And the voice answered, ‘No, sir, he’s out.’
‘Well, get in touch with him and tell him we’ve got the man. Tell him we’re at the buildings. We’ll wait for him here.’
‘You’ll never find her until she’s rotten.’ It was a scream, and when Bill’s hand sprang to a heavy steel paperweight on the table, Barney McGuire and Harry Newton, as if of one mind, each took a hold of him and almost dragged him through the press of men and into the yard. And there they talked to him and at him until ten minutes later the inspector’s car, followed by two others, came into the yard.
Slowly, as if he was finding difficulty in forming the words, Bill explained to them what had happened. When he had finished the inspector said, ‘There’s barns there, but the men went right through them.’
It was when one of the sergeants said, ‘But he may not have left her there,’ that Bill turned his eyes on him and the man returned his look for a moment, then looked away.
It was half an hour later and they had searched the barns and all they had discovered were some of the window frames and doors and floorboards that had been missing from Bill’s stock. The rest had evidently been sold. Bill had not been with the police when they first went through the place or he would have recognised his own materials then.
The house was an old one, with steps, some going up, others going down leading into the different rooms and after searching it from top to bottom, the police and Bill were now standing in the yard once more. Suddenly, the inspector turned from Bill and went to the car where Callacter was being held and, bending down to him, said, ‘It’s no good, you know we’ll find her, so you might as well tell us now.’
‘I know nothing about it.’
‘I understand you’ve already made the statement that the child would be rotten when we came across her.’
‘I just said that to get one back on him. He’s a big mouth, no education, nothing. He’s a lout and I’ve always hated his kind.’
‘That’s as maybe, and your opinion, but you’ll help yourself if you tell us where the child is.’
The man now sat back into the corner of the car and there was a sneer on his face as he again said, ‘I know nothing about it.’
Returning to Bill, the inspector said, ‘I don’t think we’ll get any further here.’
‘She’s here.’
‘Well, we’ve searched, Mr Bailey.’
‘I’ve got a feeling that she’s here; I know it somehow. I want to go through the house again.’ The inspector sighed, then said, ‘Just as you say, Mr Bailey. Sergeant.’ He beckoned the sergeant towards him and he in turn beckoned a young policeman, and again they entered the house.
‘Where do you want to begin, sir?’
‘Upstairs somewhere, near the lumber-room.’
‘That’s at the end of the house.’
‘Yes, at the end of the house.’
They went into the lumber-room. And it was a lumber-room: there were a number of broken chairs, an old sideboard, two tables that had evidently been in a fire, some large empty boxes and a pair of steps. Just as they had done before they moved everything and examined the floorboards. They next went into a back room. It had one small window, and two of its walls were obviously cavity ones, but showing no sign of having been cut into.
Then they were standing in the bathroom. This must once have been a small bedroom. The fittings were old and dirty. The inspector looked at the sergeant, raised his eyebrows and was on the point of going out when Bill glanced up towards a trapdoor in the ceiling. Then he stared at it, his head back on his shoulders, his eyes fixed tight on it, and he said slowly, ‘That’s been moved recently.’
The inspector followed his gaze, saying quietly, ‘It’s hardly big enough to get through.’
‘Somebody gets through; there’ll be a tank cupboard up there…There were steps in that lumber-room.’
‘You’ll never get through there, sir.’
Bill turned and looked at the young sergeant and said, ‘Maybe not, but he could.’
The young policeman now glanced at his superior, and the inspector said, ‘Bring the steps.’ The steps had four rungs and a flat platform, and when the young policeman stood with knees bent on the top, Bill said, ‘I don’t know how long it could be since the wiring’s been done there but once you lift the trap up you might find a switch. Grope round and see if there is one.’
‘I have a torch, sir.’ The young man patted his pocket.
They watched him push up the trapdoor; they watched his shoulders moving as his hand groped around the side of the open space; and then there was a click and the dark hole was illuminated.
The policeman looked down towards them for a moment before hoisting himself through the hole. They waited, their heads back on their shoulders as they listened to the sound of his steps overhead; then his voice came muffled, saying, ‘There’s nothing up here except two tanks.’ Then again the sound of his footsteps and his voice once more: ‘And there’s nothing in the tanks except water.’…The next words that came were faint but sounded like, ‘Eeh! God!’ And they all had hold of the steps, when his face appeared above the hole. It looked whiter than the light around it and he brought out on a stuttering gaggle, ‘Sh…she…she’s here, be…be…behind the tank…trussed.’
As if he had been shot, Bill was now standing on the top of the steps, but when he attempted to get through the hole his shoulders stuck. And it was the sergeant who said tersely, ‘Take off your coats, sir.’
The next instant both his overcoat and jacket were thrown to the floor; and then he was squeezing himself through the aperture.
He had to bend double to get behind the tank, and what he saw brought his mouth wide and his eyes almost lost in the contortion of his face, for there was the child. She was lying on her side: her arms were tied behind her back, her ankles were also tied with a leather belt, and in her mouth was a gag held in place by a piece of cord tied around her face. Because of the sloping roof he could not lift her up from the position he was in, and so he pulled her gently towards him; and then she was in his arms and he was staring down onto her closed eyes.
His head went to her breast, and when he felt the soft beat of her heart it was as if his own had come back to life. There was no way he could untie her here and so, bent double, he passed her through the hatch into the arms of the sergeant. And seconds later he was kneeling beside her on the floor tearing the gag from her mouth while the inspector undid the strap on her legs. But when it came to freeing her arms it was the sergeant who said, ‘Don’t try to bring them forward yet, sir, they’ll be in cramp, just rub them gently.’
And this is what they did, the inspector at one side, the sergeant at the other, while he held her slight body and longed to cry his relief while at the same time the desire to murder the man who had done this to a child gathered pace…
When they reached the yard Bill had his jacket on, but Katie was wrapped in his overcoat. And at the car in which Callacter was sitting, he stopped just long enough to bend and look into the man’s face and growl, ‘I’ll get you! By God! if it’s the
last thing I do, I’ll get you.’
‘Come along, sir.’ The inspector touched his arm and drew him away, saying quietly, ‘He’ll get his deserts, never fear.’
‘Aye. Ten years; time off for good behaviour and come out and do the same again. I tell you, I’ll…’
‘Sir’—the inspector’s voice was firm—‘be thankful you’ve got her in time.’ And he added, ‘She must go straight to hospital.’
‘What! She’ll be better at home.’
‘The doctor will have to ascertain if everything’s all right with her, and she seems to be in an unnatural sleep. The sergeant has already got through.’ He motioned back with his finger. ‘They’ll be expecting us. You understand?’
Bill let out a long deep breath, then nodded. He understood.
The sergeant had taken over the wheel of Bill’s car, and he was about to take his place beside him when he turned to the inspector once again and said, ‘Will it be possible to inform my wife?’
‘Yes, we’ll do that, sir. I’ll get on to the station and they’ll do that straightaway. Don’t worry anymore. But let’s get her into bed.’ He smiled gently, then closed the door; and they drove off.
Chapter Twelve
After last night, Fiona naturally did not expect to see her mother again, at least for some time, but here she was and unbelievably still in fighting form, albeit quietly so.
‘You’ve never known any luck since you got entangled with that person,’ she said.
What was she going to do? She couldn’t tackle her; she was so tired. Oh, Katie. Katie.
But as if it were in another’s voice, she was saying, ‘He is not that person, he is my husband, Mother. Please don’t forget that. As for luck, I hadn’t much luck before.’
‘Well, no matter how ineffectual Ray was he was a gentleman.’
‘Oh, that’s news to me. I always understood that you saw him as a worthless, freelance journalist, who couldn’t look after his wife and family and left them penniless; even the roof over our heads was your suggestion because he was so useless he wouldn’t have thought about it.’
‘You’re exaggerating as usual.’
‘I can tell you this much, Mother, you never have nor ever will meet a man as good as and caring as Bill and who is my kind of gentleman.’
‘Good and caring, you say, when your daughter…’
‘Mother!’ Her voice was a scream now. ‘How could Bill help that? Don’t be such a fool.’
‘Calm yourself, girl; we want no more hysterics like last night, and I’ll overlook the fact of your speaking to me as you do because you’re in a state; but, in a way, it’s only to be expected that you now feel remorse for you’ve been so besotted with that man that your children have come to mean little to you.’
She was choking: she had the greatest desire to do what Bill had done recently, go for her, grab her by the throat and shake her like a rat. But what she said now from behind her clenched teeth was, ‘If I’ve no love for my children I’m following your pattern, Mother, because you never liked children, you never wanted children, you didn’t want me. The only love I ever had in my childhood was from my father. And when you were fighting your refined fights in the bedroom you told him once you had been forced to have me, but never again. So don’t talk to me of loving children. You’ve never loved my children; in fact, you don’t like them. You’re incapable of loving but not incapable of jealousy; jealous that I had three, and loved them; and now you are jealous that I have Bill because, let’s face it, you wanted him for yourself. And why you hate him is because he showed you up as a middle-aged or old middle-aged woman.’
She shouldn’t be saying this. She didn’t care a scrap what her mother thought of the children; all that was consuming her at that moment was the loss of her daughter. So why was she talking like this? Why was she bothering? She was so tired, so tired. She wanted to drop down and sleep but her eyes wouldn’t close; they were staring as if into her brain, looking at the pictures there that presented the different ways her daughter could have died…But her mother was talking again. What was she saying? She had become deaf to her voice for the moment. She was saying: ‘You have become utterly vulgarised by that individual, and it’s a sort of comfort to you to imagine that other people might have wanted him and are jealous of you. But let me tell you, Fiona, I would never have demeaned myself to allow a man like that even to touch me. There is such a thing as dignity and you are utterly without it. What you have said doesn’t upset me, it only makes me sorry for you and pity you that you are so in need of a man that you had to take that ignorant, brash, loud-mouthed individual.’
Fiona did not see her mother leave the room, for she was leaning against the mantelpiece trying to stop herself from passing out. She had never fainted in her life, but she knew she was near to it now. And as she gripped the mantelpiece, endeavouring to steady herself, she asked if there was anyone in the world who had a mother like hers. Other mothers, she imagined, would be comforting their daughters, or would be upstairs in the playroom assuring the children that Katie would come back.
When the phone rang she had to pull herself from the support of the mantelpiece and her hand was trembling when she lifted the mouthpiece.
‘Mrs Bailey? I…I have news for you. Your daughter has been found.’
Her head drooped forward onto her chest, then jerked up again as she stammered, ‘All…all…I mean, is she…?’
‘As far as I can gather she is all right. Your husband is with her. She has been taken to the General.’
‘Tha…thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you.’ She rammed the phone down; then, as if imbued with new life, she sprang up the stairs, thrust open the playroom door where Mark was sitting looking out of the window, Willie curled up in the corner of the couch and Mamie doodling with some blocks on the low table.
‘She’s found! She’s found! They’ve got her!’
They were all hanging on to her at once, all gabbling: ‘Oh, where? Where?’
‘Is she all right, Mam?’
‘Katie coming back?’
She lifted Mamie up into her arms and, hugging her, she said, ‘Yes, yes, she’s coming back. She’s coming back. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.’ She put the child down, then put her arms around the three of them now and pulled them towards the old couch. And speaking directly to Mark, she said, ‘You’ll see to things, won’t you? Nell’s had to go into Newcastle, but I’ll ask Mrs Paget to come in and give an eye to you.’
‘No need, Mam; there’s no need.’ The boy moved his head from side to side. ‘I can see to things. They’ll both stay up here’—he thrust his finger from one to the other—‘and I’ll answer the phone. And I won’t open the door to anyone except if I know them. So please don’t worry.’
Gently she touched his cheek, saying now, ‘No, I needn’t worry when you’re in charge. So I’ll go now, but I’m sure I won’t be long.’
‘And you’ll bring Katie back?’
She looked down on Willie, saying, ‘Yes, yes, I’ll bring her back.’
‘I’m going to give her my Ching Lang Loo book.’
‘Oh, she’ll love that, Willie. She always liked to read your Ching Lang Loo book.’
The small fair-haired boy nodded at her, then said solemnly, ‘And not for a lend; she can have it for keeps.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Willie. I’ll tell her.’ She smiled down at them, then hurried out, and into her bedroom, where she grabbed up a coat; but then, about to leave her room, she stopped at the door and, looking upwards and very like a child, she said, ‘Thank you.’
Chapter Thirteen
It was three days later and Katie was still in hospital: the doctors’ reports were that she hadn’t been interfered with but that she was still in a form of shock, so much so that as yet she hadn’t spoken a word.
The police had ascertained from their questioning of Callacter that he had given her strong sleeping tablets, solely becau
se she had been kicking her heels against the tanks. And the local papers had run headlines suggesting that he had abducted the child to get his own back on her stepfather because he had bawled at him about his work, and then questioned whether the man would have let the child die up in that tank room, for he showed no remorse. One newspaper headlined the case: ‘SCENT TRAIL FATHER RECOGNISES KIDNAPPER THROUGH PERFUME SMELL.’
Now, three days having passed, the headlines had changed; and there were no more reporters coming to the house or waiting outside the hospital for them. The only reference to the affair today was in a small paragraph at the bottom of the middle page which said, ‘Kidnapped child still unable to speak.’
Bill and Fiona were now talking with the doctor, and it was Bill who said, ‘Once she’s back home with her brothers and sister she’ll have more chance of coming to.’
‘Yes, perhaps you’re right; but she’ll still need careful attention.’
‘Oh, she’ll get that.’ Bill pursed his lips in confirmation, then asked rather tentatively, ‘How long does this state generally last?’
The doctor looked down at the pad on his desk; ‘There’s no knowing,’ he said.
‘You mean, it could be permanent?’ Fiona’s voice was small.
‘As I said, there’s no knowing. She’s had an awful shock. I won’t say another kind of shock could bring her speech back, but love and contentment which, summed up, means living in a happy atmosphere, could work wonders. But there’s no guarantee. Subconsciously she feels that if she talks she will create the experience again. Anyway’—he rose to his feet—‘you may take her home. I’ll get in touch with your local man and he’ll pop in on and off for the time being to see how she’s doing.’
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