‘We’d all been banned, you see,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘The moment the pond froze over, they told us in assembly that we weren’t to go anywhere near it. He probably wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been out of bounds. He was laughing and shouting and falling on his backside and us lot were all too, and he was daring us to do the same,’ the shopkeeper went on. ‘Though of course none of us would, even though the ice looked pretty thick.’
‘God, I very nearly went on myself,’ Eleanor said, shuddering.
‘You weren’t the only one. That’s what they said later. Said it coulda been a lot worse. Most of the boys had half a mind to follow him. But none of ’em did go in the end. And then, just as he was about to come back, the ice broke and he was under.’
The shopkeeper put her hands in the pockets of her housecoat and said, ‘He just disappeared. There was no warning.’
‘Just a noise,’ Eleanor said, looking straight at me, ‘like a gun going off and that was that. One second he was there and the next he was gone. If he’d been a bit closer to the edge, we might have been able to reach him and pull him out, but as it was he was right in the middle when the ice broke. Took us a few moments to react. We were just children. Then we started to throw things out there – someone threw their coat, I think – towards the hole, and someone else threw a branch, I think it was. But we were so young we didn’t really know what to do. And then we started to try and smash the ice, but it wouldn’t shift. Of course, by then someone had gone running off for help. But it was far too late already.’
The shopkeeper folded her arms and looked once more across the green. ‘He was dead by the time they dragged him out.’
I stared out of the window, across the road towards the green. The path leading to the thick wall of trees was nothing but a barely perceptible meandering line with thick leather leaves strewn in the snow all around it. But at that moment it was as if I were watching not Billy Mathews stepping on to the ice but the Taylor boys.
From above, it looked like they were playing in the jaws of some animal, its black endless throat rushing out of the cold hard darkness to envelop them. And all the while Rebecca Hurst, unable to help herself, laughed. Her laughter was loud in the sharp winter air; it echoed through the trees. And, revelling in the attention, they turned, and, like Billy Mathews, did a final pirouette, caught in the jaws of a trap that had already begun to close.
42
I slipped out of Lower Quinton in a matter of minutes, and before I knew it I was on the final stretch of road to Sam Griffin’s house. His village was tucked away high in the Cotswold hills, and the road was covered here and there with patches of black ice. It had begun to snow again.
When my phone rang from the passenger seat of my car, I slowed down and picked it up.
‘Looks like Brad Hooper was right,’ Graves said.
‘She was at home?’
‘Yes. According to the school records she was anyway,’ Graves said. ‘Rebecca complained that she was feeling unwell just after 11.00 – that’s when the kids have their first break. She went to see the school nurse. Then later, after lunch, she complained again that she was feeling sick. This time the nurse phoned her home. I’ve been asking around, and some of her old teachers think her stepmother Sarah might have come and picked her up just after lunch. Of course, no one’s really sure about that. She could have gone home on her own. She lived close enough, so they might have just sent her off.’
‘Are you sure it was the day Sarah Hurst died?’
‘Yes,’ Graves said. ‘They chuck away the attendance records after a while, but the medical records are different. They have to keep them for five years. So they’re all on the computer.’
‘So she was there, then. She was in the house all along.’
‘Well, I’m looking at a printout and that’s what it says. So either she was faking it, or she was genuinely feeling ill.’
There was a brief pause. The snow had been ploughed high on either side of the road, forming a long tunnel. The village looked like a big smear of light at the end of it. ‘I suppose you know you’re in the paper, sir.’
‘What?’ I said quickly.
‘It’s some damned journo,’ Graves said and sighed loudly. ‘They’ve got a picture of you. It made the late edition.’
‘Oh, Christ,’ I said. ‘What does it say?’
There was rustling in the background as Graves reached for the paper. ‘“Brave Mum Breaks Silence in Missing Murder Case”,’ he read out loud. There was another pause. ‘Gail’s mother. Bit of a hatchet job, I’m afraid,’ Graves said.
‘Nothing about Rebecca?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
A few kids on bikes were calling out to one another in the village. One stopped, packed a snowball and threw it at the car. It missed and went skittering to the other side of the road and disappeared down a drain.
‘All right, go back and talk to Hooper,’ I said finally. ‘Or, better yet, try and get hold of him on the phone. It’ll be quicker. I want you to find out if he saw anything else. And I want to know if things between him and Sarah Hurst were really as casual as he makes out. He says it was just a fling. But I want you to see if he’s lying. Put the wind up him if you have to. You did a pretty good job of that last time. But I want to know exactly how serious it was and I want you to ask him if he’s ever been out to the graveyard in Lower Quinton. Have you got that?’
‘Yes,’ Graves said. ‘The graveyard in Lower Quinton.’
I shifted gear, my eyes straining, as I searched for the lane that led to Sam Griffin’s house. ‘And if he has been up there, ask him if he’s ever visited the Hurst family plot. Right?’
‘Right,’ Graves said.
‘And I want you to ask him – and it’s important – I want you to ask him if he ever put flowers on Sarah Hurst’s grave.’
43
Sam Griffin’s thatched cottage was small, and had thick black beams that stood out unevenly within the whitewashed walls. It lay beyond a series of dreary-looking cul-de-sacs at the edge of the village, and it was the last property at the end of a very narrow lane.
Griffin’s wife ushered me in and led me through the cottage to the kitchen at the back of the house. Her husband, she told me, was out in the shed. I thanked her, slid open the back door and made my way across the lawn. I peered through the door of the shed. Griffin did not see me straightaway. He was busy cheerfully placing bulbs in pots on a broken-down kitchen table. A large plastic bag of potting soil stood open by his side, and a radio was playing softly in the background near an electric heater.
Griffin looked up, surprised when he saw me. He smiled a little sheepishly. He was wearing an old tweed jacket and a baseball cap. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me, while Griffin snapped off the radio. He was big and had to crouch a little as he walked around the table. He stretched out his hand, then, noting the earth on it, smiled again, wiped it roughly on the back of his coat and offered it again.
‘So,’ Griffin said, ‘that’s where you found old Frank. On the top of that hill?’
I nodded.
‘Just like him to do his own labouring if it would save him a quid or two. Careful with his money, was old Frank.’
‘You two fell out?’
‘Oh, no, nothing like that. Just stopped seeing each other, really. He sold his share of the farm one day and ’a course I were out of a job. Didn’t fancy working for his brother. They knocked down Frank’s buildings, you know?’ Griffin said incredulously. ‘There’s a bunch of offices over there now.’
‘You must have been in and out of his house quite a few times,’ I said, ‘over the years.’
Griffin shrugged.
‘What about his daughter? Rebecca,’ I said carefully. ‘Did you see her often?’
Griffin made a contemptuous snort. ‘Not if I could help it,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
Griffin didn’t answer. He was silent for a few moments longe
r. He seemed gloomy and tense. He stared down his long nose at his wellington boots. He took off the baseball cap and tapped it against his knees.
‘I want to ask you something,’ I said. ‘When Sarah Hurst had her accident by the swimming pool, you were with Frank, weren’t you? You were helping him pick out a pony for Rebecca. That’s what Frank told us after the accident. He told us that’s where he was when his wife drowned, and we talked to you later, if you remember.’
‘Yes,’ Griffin said. ‘We’d gone to Launton village. Near Bicester. A fella I used to know had a new-born foal on his farm, and we went to look at it. Rebecca had been nagging at him about one for ages. And so Frank had given in. But he wanted me to have a look at it as well. We were out all day.’
‘And you heard what happened when you were out there?’
‘When they found Sarah, Nancy the housekeeper called here. She knew Frank was off with me, so the wife gave her the phone number of the farm. We were out there looking at the foal, and he gets the call. The next thing I know, and he’s running, calling me over. We got into his old banger and drove straight back to his place.’
‘And did he say anything on the drive back home?’ I said.
Griffin was quiet for a moment. ‘He said there had been some kind of accident. Sarah had been hurt.’
‘And did you see Rebecca?’
‘No,’ Griffin said. ‘I’d left my car at Frank’s, and I just drove on home. I hung around for a while near the front gate. Talked to one of your men. He said I could go, but he took my address and phone number.’
‘And when you two drove back to his house, did he say anything about Rebecca? Did he mention her at all?’
Griffin paused, remembering. ‘No, I don’t think so. Why would he?’
‘No reason,’ I said. ‘But what do you know about her?’
Griffin moved around the table. ‘This is about her, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I think it is.’
Griffin laid his hands on the table and absently brushed away some more soil from the palms of his hands. ‘Well, Frank spoilt her. But I expect you know that already.’
I nodded.
‘And she could be a right bloody handful. You probably know that too.’
‘Well, we heard she could be difficult.’
‘Difficult? Christ she was always in trouble,’ Griffin said, putting the baseball cap back on his head. ‘That boarding school … she didn’t last long. Frank couldn’t do a thing with her – never could. And you know what Frank was like. He was tough when he felt like it, and he had a temper on him an’ all. And Christ help you if he had it in for you. But her,’ Griffin said, ‘Rebecca, she could do no wrong.’ Griffin paused. ‘She reminded him of her dead mother, you see. Diane. And when Diane died, it was just her and him for a while. And that suited Rebecca just fine. Oh, they were great pals. Went everywhere together. Did everything together. Anything she wanted, she just had to name it and Frank would get it for her. Then Sarah came along.’
Griffin paused again and pressed his body against the table. He folded his arms.
‘And things changed then?’ I said. ‘When Sarah came on the scene?’
‘She didn’t like it,’ Griffin said. ‘She didn’t like it one little bit. So she started being difficult again. Started playing up as soon as Sarah moved in.’
‘You’re saying,’ I said, surprised, ‘that she wasn’t happy about the marriage.’
‘Yes. She didn’t like it.’
‘That’s not what I heard,’ I said.
‘She wasn’t happy about it at all. And when Sarah had her accident, she thought that things were going to be just like they were before. But they weren’t. Things had changed, but she were too selfish even to see it. For one thing, Frank was mourning again. Because, despite what Sarah did to him, he’d forgiven her. And he’d got heartily sick of Rebecca acting up all the time. And so he sent her away to that school. She refused to go, but he packed her off in the Land Rover, dropped her inside the school gates and drove off. Left her there.’ Griffin shook his finger in the air. ‘And she never forgave him for it. Ever. And when she walked out on him … well, he kind of gave up after that. The life in him went out.’
Griffin stood up a little straighter and wandered around the side of the table. He reached into the bag of bulbs on the floor. He seemed unable to remain still or inactive for long. ‘But you know what,’ he said. ‘I was damned pleased to see the back of her. And I was glad. Glad she’d gone. And I was glad when she never came back at all.’
Griffin delved into the bag and pulled out a bulb. He held it in the palm of his hand, threw it once into the air and then held it in his hand, as if sensing its potential.
‘What about her accident?’ I said. ‘Out on the pond. Frank very nearly lost her. Maybe that’s why he spoilt her.’
‘That were just like her. You told her not to do something and she’d go right ahead and fucking well do it. Everyone in that village knew that pond was dangerous, and that was long before those two lads fell in. Of course, Frank said that was why she was like that – because of what happened to her out there. Load of rubbish. She was always a bloody pain in the arse. After the pond she just got worse. He were just making excuses for her as usual. He even got some bloke to try and sort her out. Didn’t do her any good.’
‘Victor,’ I said. ‘Victor Lang.’
Griffin shrugged and said dismissively, ‘A shrink.’ He put the bulb to one side and reached for another in the bag. He looked at me, contemplating me critically for a moment. ‘I never told him, though,’ Griffin said.
‘Told who?’ I said quickly.
‘Frank.’
‘Told him what?’
Griffin didn’t answer. ‘Thought he’d been through enough already,’ he said. Griffin reached for a much larger pot on the side of the shelf and began to pour in earth directly from the bag. ‘Don’t like thinking about it even now.’
I waited. Griffin shoved the top of his baseball cap higher on to his head. He reached into the bag again and saw my impatient eyes fixed on him in the gloom.
‘When?’ I said quietly.
‘Winter,’ Griffin said straightaway. ‘Out by one of the old barns.’ Griffin shifted slightly on his feet and sniffed loudly. He blinked and then nodded to himself, making up his mind. Then he told me.
44
‘I didn’t expect to see anyone,’ Griffin said. ‘But her bike was out there, leaning against one of the barns. There were no sign of Frank, which was odd, so I reckoned she must have come out alone. But I couldn’t figure out why. But I could hear her,’ Griffin said. ‘She was in there all right. And she was talking. So ’a course I thought to begin with she must have been with someone else – some mate of hers from the village. But there was no other bike and I couldn’t see anyone else.’
‘She was alone?’
‘Yes. But I could hear her going on and on. And when I went in it was just her. There was an old water trough on the other side of the barn. And she was standing in front of it with her back to me. Then she kind of stopped and started giggling to herself like a silly little girl. But she weren’t a little girl no more.’
‘How old was she?’
‘Around fifteen or sixteen, I suppose,’ Griffin said. ‘Back for the holidays, I think this was.’
‘So after her stepmother’s accident?’
‘Yes, it musta been. So I went in there. The barn was empty. We used to use it for storing feed, but we hadn’t stored anything in it for donkey’s years. But that didn’t mean she had any business being there. So I were going to tell her to clear off and go on ’ome. But for some reason I stopped myself. I just watched her for a while, and then I took a few steps inside. I wanted to see what she was up to.
‘There was this old sack with a piece of rope tied to the top of it next to her feet, and when I got closer I saw that the bag was kind of … moving. It were, like, squirming. She didn’t even seem to notice it. And all the time,
she just kept on talking. And suddenly, and I don’t know why, I nearly turned back and left right there and then.’ Griffin paused. ‘I think I did stop for a while. Might have turned round, but I kind of made myself go on. I felt silly, I suppose. She were just a little kid, really, wasn’t she? But there was something about that voice. And I suppose I knew … I knew that something was up and part of me already knew what she had in that bag.’
Griffin clutched the pot with both hands and stared across the table. ‘So I kept on going. Wish I bloody hadn’t now. I kept on walking towards her. And all the while she kept on talking. Then she reached towards the bag.
‘First thing she does is she kneels down by the bag. And then she reaches for it. The bag starts moving straightaway, like they could sense her out there, and there was this damned awful wriggling. She seemed to think that was funny. So she keeps on doing it. Kind of reaching for it. Then she does it one more time and then quick as lightning she opens up the bag. I saw then that the rope was kind of tied in a loop at the top of it. She reached in. Then she closed the bag again. I saw she had something in her hands. It was big and thrashing about. I could see its tail. It reached almost halfway down her waist. She’d been bitten, but she didn’t seem to care. It was a rat. It made this bloody horrible noise, and then she plunged it into the water and held it there. The bag next to her kept on moving.
‘I suppose I froze. She started laughing again. My mind, well … for a second or two it kind of went completely empty. Like I was … I don’t know, watching myself – that it wasn’t really me standing there at all. Then I felt this kind of numb feeling all over my body, and I couldn’t make myself move. Then the next thing I knew I was marching right up to her and looking down into the water trough. The water.’ Griffin paused and closed his eyes. ‘The water, it were full of ’em. She must have filled the trough from the well just so she could do it. I didn’t know what to say. Could hardly breathe. She must have been there for hours, and the one she was holding under the water was still thrashing about. The damned thing wouldn’t die. The next thing I knew I’d grabbed her, and was spinning her around and her face … well, Rebecca’s face, it looked different somehow.’
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