by Sylvia Waugh
Amy ran down the stairs and was soon standing behind her mother. She looked out anxiously into the yard and was relieved to see it empty. It was hardly morning, but the snow enhanced the early light.
‘Been snowing,’ said her mother. ‘I thought it might. It was surely cold enough last night.’
She leant forward, looked out of the window and saw the arc of disturbed snow.
‘Looks as if we’ve had someone snooping around” she said irritably. ‘That back door should have been bolted. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you all! No wonder you have nightmares.’
‘It was probably a tramp,’ said Amy helpfully. ‘But he can’t have come right in. There are no footprints. He must just have opened the door, looked in, and shut it again.’
The lane was deserted. Nesta hurried along it to the main street, which was also quiet at that time on Saturday morning. There wasn’t a bus in sight. There wasn’t even anyone standing at the bus stop. Nesta made up her mind to walk to the station instead of waiting, though it was quite a long walk. But the train was not due to leave till ten o’clock. She would have plenty of time.
Just before nine o’clock she was passing a television store that had a set switched on in the window. She glanced towards the flickering movement and gasped as she saw her own picture on the local news. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could guess. Her feelings were in turmoil. I’ll have to keep my head down. I don’t want to be taken back too soon . . . They love me enough to look for me so publicly, at risk to themselves and their secret . . . Perhaps they have decided not to go . . .
Then other thoughts came to her as she hastened to the station. Perhaps everything has fallen apart . . . They have gone and it is the authorities that somehow are looking for me, and for them.
The thought was an abyss that she could not bear to look down into. She felt light-headed and unsteady. It took all her courage to continue to put one foot before the other. She looked down at her feet and thought, quite literally, one step at a time. That is all I can manage.
In the station she bought a local morning paper and saw her photograph, all grainy, in the bottom corner of the front page with a short, almost unnoticeable paragraph beneath it:
Nesta Gwynn aged twelve, height five foot two, slim build, light brown hair, grey-blue eyes, has been missing since Wednesday of this week. She is understood to have left home after a disagreement with her parents. They are anxious that she should get in touch, and they assure her that the problem can be sorted out.
It helped dispel the worst of her doubts, but it was too vague a promise to give Nesta complete reassurance. The only safe proceeding was to stay away until the deadline was past. Besides, whatever happened, she still wanted to meet those people who had known Thomas Derwent. She was determined to extend her knowledge of Ormingat beyond the tight little triangle of herself and her parents.
CHAPTER 27
* * *
Searching for Nesta
Alison half-expected the police to be constantly in touch even if no news were forthcoming. Yet Friday night passed without any contact.
‘I think I’ll ring them,’ she kept saying to Matthew.
‘No point,’ he said. ‘If they had any news we would be the first to be told. Things take time.’
On Saturday morning, when they looked out to see that it had been snowing overnight, Alison was more distraught than ever. She rang the police station and asked to speak to Sergeant Miller, the officer who had called the day before. He was not on duty. Another voice told her that everything that could be done was being done, and, yes, of course they were taking it seriously. A second voice confirmed that a withdrawal had been made from Nesta’s bank account on Wednesday afternoon.
‘So you see,’ said Matthew, ‘they are doing things, probably more than we know about.’
The police really had been busy on the Gwynns’ behalf. Quite apart from the visit to the bank, they had also contacted Mrs Powell and persuaded her to drive down to the school early on Saturday morning to find the address of Nesta’s best friend.
‘We do appreciate this,’ said Sergeant Miller. ‘There is every chance that this friend of hers will be able to give us information. To be honest, I don’t think there’s any real worry here: the kid’ll be hiding out somewhere making sure she gets her own way.’
‘What puzzles me,’ said Mrs Powell, ‘is that this is the first I’ve heard of their going back to Boston. It can’t be imminent.’
‘Kid must have thought it was,’ said the sergeant, ‘but you know what they’re like at that age. They overreact.’
‘Amy,’ called her mother after the policeman on the threshold explained the reason for his visit, ‘do you know anything about Nesta?’
Amy came along the hall with a feeling of relief that endowed total innocence. It was nearly noon. Whilst her mother was shopping, with Gerry in tow, Amy had rapidly disposed of the rubbish, and returned Grandpa’s greatcoat to the wardrobe in the spare room. She had even put Nesta’s school clothes in the weekend bag she kept on the floor of her bedroom cupboard. That was a lucky last-minute decision!
She looked suitably puzzled.
‘Nesta,’ she said. ‘What about Nesta?’
Sergeant Miller looked down at the stocky child who appeared much younger than he had expected.
‘Your friend’s gone missing. Her mum and dad are worried about her. Have you any idea where she might be, pet?’
Amy looked at her mother and then at the policeman.
‘I saw her at school on Wednesday,’ she said, trying her best to avoid the direct lie. ‘I did think she wasn’t feeling well.’
‘She didn’t say she might not be going home?’
‘No,’ said Amy (‘might’ didn’t come into it!). ‘She just went for her bus the way she always does.’
Amy’s face reddened, but at the same time her eyes filled with very convincing tears. Her mother put one arm around her shoulders. Nobody said, ‘Was that the last time you saw her?’ So there was no need to lie after all.
‘I’m sorry we can’t help you, officer,’ said Mrs Brown. ‘I just hope you find her soon. You will let us know, I hope. Amy and Nesta are very friendly at school. They don’t see much of each other out of school of course: the Gwynns live a fair way from here.’
‘Would you mind if we have a quick look round the back of the house?’ said Sergeant Miller. ‘We reckon she must have found somewhere to hide out. And it’s routine to look at all possibilities, however unlikely, but I reckon you’ll know that already.’
Mrs Brown opened the door wider to admit the sergeant and his constable.
‘You can look, of course,’ she said, ‘but you’ve heard what Amy said. I doubt if Nesta could sneak in anywhere without her knowing. I am not even sure if she knows where we live.’
The two policemen went through to the backyard. They inspected the garage where a surly-looking young man was busy cleaning his motorbike.
‘My son, Jack,’ said Mrs Brown, who followed them. ‘He’s home for the weekend.’
Jack shrugged his shoulders and went on with what he was doing. That was the cool thing to do. Jack was cool. He had already seen Amy pottering about and had totally ignored her, as she knew he would.
The policemen found no sign of Nesta at all, not in the yard, nor the garage, not even in the Karaoke box, which they turned upside down. Amy stood in the kitchen doorway watching, and beneath her look of misery she found it very hard to hide a certain smugness. It was, after all, quite an achievement to have hidden her friend undetected for so long. The misery was genuine too, however, for now she was no longer Nesta’s protector. She might have helped her friend into danger. That was an awesome responsibility.
Just after the policemen left, Mrs Brown remembered the arc of disturbed snow, the evidence of a night intruder.
‘I wish I had told them about that tramp,’ she said. ‘They should keep a look out for people like that. I’ll have to
mention it to the Neighbourhood Watch. Mr Huddy should be told.’
To connect the intruder with the runaway schoolgirl never occurred to her. Amy breathed easy, but her conscience was beginning to supply her imagination with all manner of horrific scenarios. Sunday could not come too soon!
CHAPTER 28
* * *
Travelling North
Nesta looked up at the station indicator board, saw what platform the train for Casselton would leave from and made her way across the footbridge to where it was already waiting. She found her seat, a table seat in the corner of the carriage. Then she sat down and looked at the newspaper, carefully folding it so that the front page would not be visible.
Just before the train was about to leave, a plump, elderly lady with a large holdall took the seat opposite. Nesta kept her head down and pulled her hood over her brow. The woman put the holdall on the empty seat next to her and took out her knitting and a pattern for a man’s sweater.
‘As good a way as any of passing the time,’ she said, holding up the needles and smiling across at Nesta, who looked up cautiously, saw no real cause for alarm, and gave her fellow traveller a polite little smile. Then she found the crossword in the newspaper, took out her pen and began to work on the clues.
The ticket collector came past and very quickly checked their tickets, not looking at anything but the pieces of paper thrust at him. If the police are searching for me, thought Nesta, they aren’t searching very hard. When her hood fell back on to her shoulders she did not bother to pull it back into place.
The train soon left York and its environs behind it and was travelling through countryside. Nesta lost heart with the crossword. She looked out of the window at the bleak winter landscape. The day was turning a wishy-washy blue. Suddenly Nesta had tears running down her cheeks and her heart was saying, I want my mom.
‘Homesick already?’ said the old woman, looking at her over her knitting. ‘Those are homesick tears if ever I saw them. Want to talk?’
Nesta blushed and thought hard what to say. The truth was impossible. So it was necessary to think of a plausible lie.
‘I’m gong north to see my father,’ she said. ‘My parents are divorced. It’s his turn to have me this weekend.’
‘Divorce is a terrible business,’ said the woman ponderously. ‘It hurts everyone involved. But you’ll find in life that it is now always possible to avoid being hurt. People are always being faced with choices. The only thing to do, I think, is to bear the hurt and hope for better things. Your dad will be pleased to see you. After all, you aren’t divorced from either of your parents.’
‘No,’ said Nesta, but she found herself thinking, ah, but I am. I am divorced from both of them, and they are still married to each other.
She took out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes.
‘That’s better,’ said the woman. ‘Here, this might help.’
From the holdall she drew out a packet of crisps and a small bottle of orange juice. She pushed them across the table to Nesta.
‘I always come well prepared. You can’t depend on the trolley service these days.’
‘But you’ll want them for yourself,’ said Nesta.
The woman smiled a nice, jolly smile.
‘I’ve got plenty more if I do,’ she said, ‘but I am getting off at Darlington anyway. Not much further.’
Nesta sat back and ate the crisps, then drank the orange juice. When they reached Darlington, the woman got up from her seat, then bent over and gave Nesta a quick hug.
‘Life’s never as bad as it seems, love,’ she said. She left the carriage, struggling with the bulky holdall. Nesta thought, with adolescent cynicism, Little do you know, old woman, sometimes it’s worse!
After Darlington, Nesta had the table to herself. She rested her head on her arms and dozed. She was hardly aware when the train stopped at signals that had jammed, causing a delay of forty-five minutes. The train had been slow to leave York, slow on its journey north, and this further delay meant that it would not arrive at its destination till half-past one. Some passengers grumbled. Nesta just slept.
The next stop is Casselton Central Station. This train terminates there. Will passengers please make sure to take all of their luggage with them.
We shall be arriving at Casselton Central in five minutes. Passengers are reminded to check their luggage . . .
Thank you for travelling with GNER.
Nesta woke with a yawn as the train drew into the station. She looked with surprise at her watch. It was much later than she had expected. There were things she wanted to do in daylight. She left the train quickly and went straight to the station bookstall where she bought a street map of Casselton. The first thing to do was to find Hedley Crescent.
Before leaving the station, she did check on the times of trains running west to Belthorp and found, to her relief, that most of the Carlisle trains stopped there. At this rate she would be travelling at dusk, but that could not be helped. She would take no risks. She did not intend to go down any back alleys.
CHAPTER 29
* * *
Suspicious Circumstances
On Saturday afternoon, the police received a visit in person from the resident of Number 10 Linden Drive. Her high heels clicked on the tiled floor as she came to the desk. The duty officer looked up to see a smartly dressed, elderly woman smiling down at him.
‘I would like to see whoever is in charge of searching for Nesta Gwynn,’ she said very precisely. ‘That’s the girl who has gone missing from Linden Drive.’
The duty officer nodded.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘If you have any information, we would be very pleased to know about it.’
He pressed the phone on his desk. A voice answered immediately.
‘There’s a lady here would like to speak to you about Nesta Gwynn.’
The duty sergeant pressed another button on the desk and said, ‘Just go through that door there, madam. Sergeant Miller will see you.’
‘Do sit down, Mrs . . .?’
‘Mrs Jolly,’ said the lady as she sat down quite elegantly on the chair in front of the sergeant’s desk. ‘I live next door to the Gwynns. I would have come earlier, but I feel a little foolish about this. It is probably something or nothing. And I do feel treacherous coming here. The Gwynns are such a nice couple. But things do happen, even with nice couples. I mean, they do, don’t they?’
‘Yes,’ said the sergeant slowly, ‘I suppose they do.’
Mrs Jolly seemed to him to be fluttery and unreliable and he hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about.
‘Just take your time,’ he said, ‘and tell me what it is that is worrying you. Have you seen Nesta today or yesterday maybe?’
‘No, no,’ said Mrs Jolly. ‘I haven’t seen her all this week. But that’s not unusual. I don’t often see her. It’s just that when I saw on the local news that she was missing I was niggled by something odd I saw from my bedroom window on Thursday. It baffled me at the time. Now it seems to me that it might even be somehow sinister. I hope you’ll tell me I’m stupid. I honestly don’t mind being stupid.’
‘You might be mistaken,’ said the sergeant, ‘but there is no way I would say you were stupid. Tell me what you saw and perhaps we can consider it together. Two heads, they say, are better than one.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Jolly, leaning forward and feeling much more relaxed now that the introduction was over. ‘I was just closing my bedroom curtains. I always close them before I put the light on, an old habit. My late husband used to insist upon curtains being closed before the lights were switched on. It used to annoy me, but I got so used to it that now I just do it automatically even though Edward died five years ago. You know how it is . . .’
Sergeant Miller took the chance to interrupt her.
‘So what did you see when you looked out of your window?’
‘Them – Mrs and Mrs Gwynn, out in the back garden near the pond with that great ugly frog o
n top of it. They were fiddling around somehow. I couldn’t see properly, of course, because our fence is quite high and then there are the trees at the end of their garden. They are quite old trees, you know, older than any of the houses. I just have one. They have three of them. And we aren’t allowed to cut them down: they’re protected.’
Sergeant Miller plunged in again when she stopped for breath.
‘So the Gwynns were out in the garden in the dark engaged in some activity near the old trees?’
‘Or the pond,’ said Mrs Jolly firmly. ‘They’re always having trouble with that pond. Just last week they had to drain it. But if it weren’t there we might have water coming into our place – I still say our place, even though there’s just me now. And the two cats. My son lives in Scotland and, I’ve got to say it, I hardly ever see him.’
‘So the Gwynns were down by the pond doing something. Can you be more specific? Did they have spades or anything? Were they carrying any sort of bundle?’
‘Not that I could see,’ said Mrs Jolly. ‘Nothing like that. I am not suggesting they were burying a body! Heaven forbid! They seemed to be leaning over and talking. Couldn’t hear what they were saying, of course, not through the double-glazing, and you wouldn’t want windows open at this time of year, now would you? To be honest with you – and I know this’ll sound daft – I thought they were having some weird sort of prayer meeting! Especially when they lit the blue taper and it flared up.’
‘A blue taper flared up?’ said the sergeant. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Just what I say,’ said Mrs Jolly. ‘I mean, I couldn’t make anything out properly, but that’s what it looked like to me. Then they practically ran into the house and that was the end of it.’
‘You saw no more?’ said the sergeant.
‘I closed the curtains,’ said Mrs Jolly primly. ‘I don’t spend my time spying on my neighbours!’