by Rona Halsall
He’d turned his head and kissed her in lieu of a reply, and they’d made love all over again. But he didn’t give her a definite answer until the following morning, when they were sitting at the breakfast table.
‘We’d better go shopping today,’ he’d said, wiping his mouth with his napkin, a smile in his eyes. ‘If we’re getting married tomorrow.’ He’d reached for her hand, his fingers interlaced with hers, the ruby glowing as if it was his beating heart. ‘We need to look the part, don’t we? And there’s a ring to buy for you.’
Honestly, she’d almost exploded with happiness. At last she’d found her man, the one who would father her children, the partner who would be by her side for the rest of her days.
And now he was gone, and the children with him.
She curled into a ball, her heart aching for him, for the children, the family she had waited so long to cherish, knowing from the lack of contact, the futile search, that something was terribly, horribly wrong.
Six
Monday
Mel woke stiff and bleary-eyed, shivering under the blanket in the lounge. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa and had a crick in her neck. But that was the least of her worries, she realised, as the events of the previous evening flooded into her mind, pouncing on her now that she was awake. Light filtered through a crack in the curtains and she sat up, rubbing her neck as she checked her phone, noticing the time was just after eight.
Her teeth chattered and she pulled the blanket around her, gazed at the blackness of the wood burner while she tried to pull her thoughts together. She checked again for calls and messages but there was nothing, and Luke’s phone went straight to voicemail, making her throw her phone down in frustration. She slid her hands over her face, rubbing her temples as she tried to massage her brain into action. What to do next?
Her head ached, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and she felt grubby. Inspiration was going to be elusive, she decided, until she’d got herself cleaned up.
She made up the fire and re-lit it before heading upstairs for a shower. As she stood under the pounding stream of hot water, she ran through the list of things she could do now that it was morning.
Having accepted that Luke and the children weren’t going to magically reappear, it was up to her to hustle things along, and make a nuisance of herself so people would take things seriously. The mountain rescue man seemed to think there was nothing to worry about, but Mike Brown didn’t know Luke like she did. And she knew that the lack of contact signalled a possibility she hardly dared to think about. Do not give up, she told herself as she took a deep breath and rang the police.
Finally, after being bounced around several people, she was told by an efficient-sounding woman that the matter was in hand; two police officers were already on their way and should be with her within the next half hour, traffic permitting.
Mel put the phone down, unsure how traffic could possibly be a problem in such a remote area, but at least she knew now that something was happening. She stoked the fire and went into the kitchen, nerves tugging at every sinew as she wondered if there was any news.
Did she even want to hear any news? Would it be better if there wasn’t any? No news is good news, isn’t that the saying?
She clicked on the kettle, fumbled some bread out of the packet and dropped it in the toaster, more for something to do than from any burning desire to eat. Feed your brain, she told herself as nausea threatened at the very thought of eating. How could she eat when her children and husband were out there somewhere?
The worst possible scenarios lit up her mind and her hands flew to her mouth.
No, no, don’t you dare think that. Don’t you dare.
Bile burned up her throat and she leant over the sink as her stomach threatened to empty itself. The toast popped up, the kettle clicked off and she concentrated on the act of making tea and buttering the toast until her nerves settled.
She functioned on autopilot, going through the motions of the morning, getting herself ready for the day, munching her way through the toast without tasting it, scalding her mouth on her tea as she gulped it down. She stared at her phone, willing it to ping into life; a new message, a text, the trill of a call, but it lay stubbornly silent on the table.
As she waited for the police to arrive, she scrolled through her recent photos and found one she’d taken of Luke just a week or so ago. A candlelit dinner she’d made for him, a selfie she’d taken of the two of them, heads pressed together. She was grinning, but Luke… She studied his face. Was there something in his eyes she should have seen? A sign, a clue that everything was not as it should be?
A knock on the door startled her so much she dropped her phone on the table with a clatter. She snatched it up and reassured herself that it was still working before pushing her chair back and hurrying to the door. A man and a woman stood on the doorstep.
The man was tall and broad with a big belly hanging over the belt of his trousers, his shirt buttons straining to accommodate his girth and his jacket clearly not large enough to fasten anymore. His cheeks were ruddy, hair thinning on top to a sparse fuzz. He surveyed her with earnest brown eyes. His companion was small and slight, with a plain oval face devoid of any make-up, her thick brown hair tied in a short ponytail. She looked matter-of-fact, and competent.
‘Oh, thank God you’re here,’ Mel said before they could speak. ‘Have you found them?’
He held out a hand. ‘Inspector John Stevens, Cumbria Police, and this is Sergeant Ailsa Lockett and no, I’m sorry to say that we haven’t found them yet, but there’s plenty going on behind the scenes.’ His voice was brisk and assured, friendly in an ‘I know what I’m doing’ sort of way, his handshake firm as he grasped Mel’s clammy hand. ‘We’d like to get a bit more information, and if you have some photos we could use, then that would be very helpful.’
They haven’t found them.
Her brain froze at the thought, scalp prickling as though it was shrinking, tightening round her skull.
‘Come in, come in,’ she said, holding the door open, already walking down the hallway as they were wiping their feet on the doormat, wanting to get things moving. She led them into the kitchen and seated them at the table while she put the kettle on. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘Tea would be lovely, thank you,’ Sergeant Lockett said, giving her companion a sideward glance. Mel scuttled around, placing mugs on the table along with a carton of milk and a bag of sugar. ‘I’m sorry, not very refined,’ she said, impatient to get started, ‘but we’re basically camping here and I can’t find a milk jug or sugar bowl anywhere.’
‘Just like my house.’ The sergeant smiled and loaded a couple of heaped teaspoons of sugar into her mug. Mel gazed at her for a moment, then picked up her own mug in both hands and took a sip, holding it in front of her face as she fought back tears. In her mind, she’d willed them to have news. Good news.
‘We’d like to start at the beginning, if you don’t mind?’ Inspector Stevens said. Mel nodded and blinked a couple of times while she got her thoughts straight. ‘I know you’ve told Mountain Rescue but we’d like to hear for ourselves.’ Lockett got out her notepad and the inspector gazed at Mel, nodding his encouragement as she started to speak.
‘Well, I had to work this weekend.’ Mel’s eyes were restless, flicking between the inspector and the sergeant, then looking down at her drink. ‘And I was delayed so I was late getting here. They came on Friday, and should have been here when I arrived, but the house was unlocked, all the lights on and they…’ She bit her lip to stop the tears from coming, and took a deep breath before carrying on. ‘They weren’t here, just a note saying they’d gone hiking.’
The inspector nodded. ‘And what is it that you do, Mrs Roberts?’
‘I’m a management consultant. I help organisations with change management and run workshops and training weekends to help them to work out how to do things differently. More effectively.’
He nodded and gave her
an encouraging smile. ‘Right. So, you have to work weekends?’
‘Not often. But this was a new client. And there was some… urgency, let’s say. I can’t say too much, but financial problems were forcing a bit of a radical restructuring. So we arranged an event to work through the suggestions and weed out the most promising ideas.’
‘And the family came up here before you?’
‘Yes, that’s right. They arrived on Friday sometime. That’s changeover day, apparently.’ Mel put her mug down, her hands still cupped round it. ‘My husband booked it.’
‘Okay. So, they’ve been here all weekend?’
‘Yes, yes. As far as I know, anyway.’
Lockett frowned. ‘As far as you know? You mean you haven’t spoken to them?’ Mel caught the glance she sent to her boss and chewed on her lip.
‘Friday. I know they got here on Friday. Luke sent me a text to say they’d arrived safely.’
‘But nothing since?’
Mel picked up her mug and took a sip of tea. ‘He didn’t want to disturb me. I have to stay focused when I’m working, you see. We agreed that’s how we’d do it, unless there were problems.’ Mel put her mug down again, drew a pattern in the wet ring that it had left on the table. ‘He’s a very capable man, you know. Ex-forces. He doesn’t need me babying him, or bothering him about whether they’re coping. He’s in his element outdoors, it’s his natural habitat.’
‘So, when did you arrive?’ Stevens asked.
‘I think it was about eight last night. Something like that.’
‘Quite late then?’
‘Yes. Well, I… I should have been here sooner, but the traffic…’ Mel’s voice tailed off.
‘And then…?’
‘Well, when I got here, all the lights were on and the door was unlocked, like they’d just gone out for ten minutes or so.’
‘The place was unlocked?’ Stevens looked at his sergeant, who underlined the word in her notes.
‘Yes. But then if they’d locked it I wouldn’t have been able to get in.’
‘They could have hidden a key and told you where it was.’
Stevens looked Mel in the eye and she glanced away, wriggled in her chair. ‘Yes, I suppose they could have done that, but it’s not what we agreed. We agreed that they’d be here when I arrived. Simpler that way.’
He frowned. ‘You didn’t think it was strange, then, for the house to be empty?’
Mel was quiet for a moment. ‘Well… no, not really. I thought they’d just gone out for a bit of fresh air, you know. Up and down the road a little way, or something.’
‘In the dark?’
‘Well, they could have been looking for bats or… or, I don’t know, a creature that only comes out at night.’ She shrugged, a little impatient at the speed of progress, but told herself she had to keep calm. Just answer the questions. This was the police she was dealing with now. They knew what they were doing.
‘And your husband does that sort of thing often?’
‘Sometimes, yes. He was brought up on a farm, you see. He likes nature and Tessa loves it.’ Mel picked up her mug again, hid behind it.
‘Ah yes, the children.’
Mel nodded, eyes widening as she thought about them, out there all night somewhere. ‘Tessa and Callum.’ She took a sip of tea and swallowed down the surge of worries that saying their names unleashed.
Lockett checked her notes and looked up at Mel. ‘Can you confirm their ages for me?’
‘Tessa’s almost eleven and Callum’s nine.’
The inspector nodded and gave her an encouraging smile ‘So, let’s go back to yesterday evening, shall we?’
Mel put her mug down and started fiddling with a teaspoon. ‘Well, I got here at eight. I thought they were hiding at first, playing a trick.’
‘And do they do that often?’ the sergeant butted in, and the inspector’s mouth tightened as his line of questioning was interrupted.
Mel gave a rueful laugh. ‘Oh yes, they like their practical jokes.’
‘And after you got here?’
‘Well, I looked all over the place, but there was no sign of them. The fire was cold, and I realised later that meant they must have been out a while. Maybe they went out in the morning? But then the lights were on, so perhaps it was early evening?’ Her chin wobbled and her voice cracked. ‘I honestly don’t know. There were no clues as to how long they’d been out. Just the note on the mantelpiece.’
Stevens nodded. ‘Ah yes, the note. Can we have a look at that please?’
Mel got up, glad of an excuse to wrestle her emotions under control. She left the room, snatched the note off the mantelpiece and hurried back into the kitchen, passing it to the inspector, who read it and handed it to his colleague. Mel noticed now that the writing was a slanting scrawl, like it had been written in a hurry, an afterthought.
‘Hmm.’ The inspector’s mouth moved from side to side. ‘Not very enlightening. But it shows that they intended to be back last night.’
Mel nodded.
‘And when did you start to get worried?’
‘Well, it was ten o’clock when I rang 999.’
‘Two hours?’ said Lockett. ‘That’s quite some hike. In the dark. And it got dark before six p.m. yesterday, probably earlier given the bad weather.’ There was a slightly caustic note to the sergeant’s voice, Mel thought, as she watched her flick back through her notes. ‘And remind me, what time were you supposed to be here? You said you were later than you’d intended.’
‘I was aiming for… for six. Six o’clock I said I’d be here.’
‘So, when you arrived, you were two hours later than you should have been? And you waited until four hours after your husband thought you were going to arrive to notify anyone that they weren’t here?’ The sergeant’s voice made it clear what she thought and the inspector visibly winced.
‘Yes, well, I went out looking for them in the car, then I rang round pubs and the hospitals. And when none of that worked, I rang Mountain Rescue.’
Mel’s cheeks were glowing and she was feeling increasingly flustered, as she wondered why the spotlight was on her when they should be out there looking for her family. A tear tracked down her cheek and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.
‘Don’t you worry, Mrs Roberts,’ the inspector said, his face softening at her obvious distress. ‘There’s plenty of reasons why he might not have come back from a walk. Let’s not think the worst just yet.’
‘We could do with a photo though, to help with—’ Lockett stopped mid-sentence, then started again, ‘We need to ask around, see if anyone has seen them.’
‘Does he have any friends in the area? Might he have gone to visit someone and forgot to tell you?’ Mel turned to look at the inspector, frowning as she thought about it, annoyed that she hadn’t asked herself the question the previous night. Is there anyone? She didn’t know a lot about Luke’s friends, if she was being perfectly honest. In fact, there were whole swathes of Luke’s life, things that happened before they met, that she knew nothing about.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. But there may be ex-forces people…’ Her chin quivered. ‘Did I tell you he was in the air force? He doesn’t really talk about that period in his life.’ Mel buried her face in her hands to hide the onset of tears, gulping them back as she spoke. ‘I’m so worried now. Luke’s at home in the outdoors, so competent, I can’t imagine what would have happened to stop them coming home. Please find them. Please.’
The inspector’s phone rang and he excused himself while he walked into the hallway to take the call.
‘Try not to worry too much, Mrs Roberts.’ Lockett gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Missing people normally turn up safe and well. It’s probably a misunderstanding of some sort.’
Mel closed her eyes as her emotions swelled inside her, filling her chest and threatening to burst out in a fit of sobbing.
‘That was our colleague,’ the inspector said when he came back into
the room.
Mel took her hands away from her face and looked at him, hope flickering in her heart. Tell me they’ve found them. Tell me they’re okay.
‘It seems we’ve located your husband’s phone. In Grizedale Forest.’
Mel’s eyes widened. ‘Just up the road?’
‘That’s right, we’ll just pop up there and see what’s happening. If you could give us your phone number –’ he nodded to his sergeant – ‘we’ll keep you up to date.’ Mel dashed into the lounge to find her handbag and one of her business cards, all the while wondering what this new development might mean. That’s not good, is it? In the forest? She handed her card to the sergeant, who put it back in her pocket, along with her notebook.
‘I’m coming. I’m coming with you.’ Mel hurried into the hall and slipped her feet into her wellingtons, the only footwear she had to hand.
‘It might be better if you just wait here, Mrs Roberts.’ The inspector glanced at his colleague, who frowned, just for a moment, before her face cleared. ‘Sergeant Lockett will stay with you and finish getting all the details.’
‘No!’ Mel’s voice was louder than she’d intended, magnified by her desperation to do something. ‘No, I want to come. Please.’
‘But it might be a mistake,’ the inspector said. ‘It’ll be better if you stay here and let me deal with this. We need to expand our enquiries and to do that we need you to give us contact names and numbers. Honestly, it’ll speed up the operation if you talk to Sergeant Lockett.’ He gave them both a firm nod, signalling the end to any arguments. ‘I won’t be long.’
Mel watched him as he walked down the driveway, saw him take a quick peek through the windows of Luke’s 4x4, then her Audi TT parked behind it. She frowned and wondered what he might be looking for.
‘Let’s have another cup of tea, shall we?’ Lockett said, when they were back in the kitchen. She filled the kettle and clicked it on, taking charge in a way that made Mel bristle. ‘You can tell me about any family or friends who might know something.’ Mel was aware that she was being studied, every move of her face noted and analysed. ‘Does Luke have family?’