The Girl by the River

by Sheila Jeffries

  ‘Mr Stape, I want to speak to you, and if you don’t let me in, you’ll be sorry,’ she called, and rapped on the iron gates with the bicycle pump, harder and louder. ‘I am going to count to ten, and if you’re not out here, I’m coming over that wall. One – two – three – four—’

  A door flew open at the side of the house, and a stocky little man emerged. He had broad, burly shoulders, wild grey hair, and the whites of his eyes glimmered under a bushy frown that made the top of his head look like a hat. His hands twitched at his sides and a ferocious pipe hung from his lips.

  Kate drew herself up and stood very straight, glad of the shoulder pads and the high-heeled shoes. She wasn’t tall, but she felt empowered by a sense of justice.

  Ivor Stape came towards her. She saw the ferocious pipe in detail, and it was a model of a bull’s head. An Aberdeen Angus, Kate thought. All part of the image. He stood inside the gate, puffing smoke, and trying not to look at the determined young woman who was searching the cobwebbed corners of his soul with magnetic, bright brown eyes.

  ‘I’m Mrs Barcussy,’ Kate said, ‘and I will not have a conversation with you through this gate. Will you please open it and let me in?’

  Ivor Stape fished in the pocket of his tweed jacket and produced a key. He unlocked the gate and held it open for her while she tried to get his evasive eyes to look at her. Once inside, she stood facing him, took a deep breath, and managed to be civil.

  ‘Mr Stape, I’d like you to tell me how my little girl came to be here yesterday, and why she was found on the other side of the bridge, freezing cold, frightened, and with no clothes on. And I want her clothes back, please, right now.’

  Ivor Stape looked at the floor, so that Kate only saw the top of his head. ‘You’d better come in,’ he mumbled, clenching the pipe between surly lips. ‘Follow me, and don’t mind the dogs. They won’t hurt you.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of dogs. I’m a farmer’s daughter.’

  Kate strutted beside him, her heart beating hard and fast. What would Freddie say if he saw her? But I’m doing it. You’d be proud of me, Daddy. Thinking of her dad helped Kate to imagine herself protected as Ivor Stape led her to the house and into a porch thickly covered in the glossy leaves of Virginia creeper. She heard a bird singing back in the garden as she followed him inside.

  The room he led her into was a complete surprise. So unexpected that Kate momentarily lost her iron resolve and stood in the doorway, her mouth open, her eyes gazing in disbelief at what she saw.

  Chapter Nine

  INSIDE THE MILL HOUSE

  ‘Where’s Kate?’ Freddie asked, sitting down at the table for his mid-morning cup of tea.

  ‘She’s gone off on her bike, dressed up like a dog’s dinner.’ Annie put the steaming mug of tea in Freddie’s hand. ‘She said it was private business, and she wouldn’t be long. But she’s been gone an hour already.’

  Freddie immediately had a nasty feeling about where Kate had gone. He’d taken a detour and called at the mill himself early that morning on his way to the quarry, but the gates were locked. The house looked closed up, its curtains drawn, and everything quiet in the morning sun. Freddie walked around the perimeter, looking for another way in, but there wasn’t one, only a narrow animal track going under the wall. Like Kate, he considered getting over the wall, but Herbie was waiting in the cab of the lorry, his elbow out of the window, his eyes puzzled and a bit impatient.

  ‘I wouldn’t bother going in there,’ Herbie advised. ‘He’s a curmudgeonly old crank. Got two bloodhounds, they say. Have yer arm off, they would.’

  Freddie hadn’t told Herbie why he wanted to go in there. He and Kate had agreed on secrecy. No one must know what might have happened to Tessa. Keeping a secret wasn’t easy in Monterose, and he wanted to talk to Tessa himself, find out the truth before taking action.

  Tessa was squatting on the lawn, painting a cardboard box with her Reeves paint box and a tiny brush. ‘I’m making Jonti a bed,’ she said, and Jonti wagged his tail obligingly.

  ‘Can I do a bit?’ Freddie asked.

  ‘You can do that bit,’ Tessa said, and she looked up at him. Her eyes were calm. ‘Paint an elm tree, Daddy.’

  Freddie took the brush and dipped it in the tablet marked Viridian. ‘An elm tree is like a cottage loaf,’ he said. ‘It’s got a big curly bit, then a small one on top, and a smaller one on top of that, and it’s not just green. It’s got light and shade in it.’

  Tessa watched intently, her mouth open in awe as he painted the elm tree and added blue shadows and flecks of white. ‘Ooh, Daddy – it looks real,’ she said.

  ‘Me tea’s getting cold.’ Freddie gave the paint brush back to her. ‘You paint some grass underneath – otherwise it looks as if it’s flying up in the air, don’t it?’

  Tessa giggled, and set about painting the blades of grass, while Freddie sat on the lawn drinking his tea and stroking Jonti thoughtfully. The way to get Tessa talking was to work with her, painting, or gardening, or polishing wood. He needed time to spend with her, especially today. When her hands were busy, she would talk. Watching her carefully painting Jonti’s name in Prussian Blue, Freddie felt torn in two. Herbie was waiting for him up at the alabaster quarry, and Herbie was paying him. But right now, being a dad felt urgent and important. He was the one who best understood Tessa’s mysterious mind.

  ‘That man has got specimens all over his house,’ Tessa said, pronouncing the word ‘specimens’ with relish, ‘even in the bathroom.’

  ‘Oh, ah,’ said Freddie. He didn’t like the sound of ‘specimens’. His mind conjured up ghoulish body parts in jars. His brother, George, had had his appendix out, and the hospital had let him bring it home, pickled, in a jam jar. A horrible, grey, grub of a thing proudly displayed on George’s mantelpiece, so horrible that Freddie made sure he sat with his back to it when he visited George.

  ‘AND . . .’ Tessa’s eyes widened with the drama, ‘one of them is millions and millions and MILLIONS of years old.’

  Freddie kept quiet and listened in horror. An appendix that was millions of years old?

  Kate was disinclined to give Ivor Stape credit for anything, but she detected a surprising note of respect in his manner when he invited her to sit down. ‘Thank you, but I’d rather stand,’ she said, thinking she would look more intimidating standing up. ‘And first I’d like my daughter’s clothes, please. Where are they?’

  ‘I’ll get them.’

  She heard him go upstairs, slowly, as if his legs were painful. It gave her the chance to stare around the room which had quarry tiles and a beamed ceiling. Three windows on each side looked out into the garden, and there was an inglenook fireplace. There was one armchair, like an island in a labyrinth of tables. On one table was a black typewriter, piles of notebooks, and a bottle of Quink. On another was an electric flat iron, standing on a pad of linen, plugged in as if it had just been used. The basset hounds lay on a rug at one end, growling at each other as they gnawed loudly at two gigantic bones.

  What amazed Kate were the stones arranged over the table tops and window sills, some twinkling with crystal, some smoother, others with spiral patterns set into them. Kate’s education had included geography, but not geology, and she had no idea what crystals and fossils were. She gazed at the collection in awe, noting that each stone had a neatly written label. What did this man do with them?

  Then she looked at the walls and gasped. Every available space was lined with bookshelves, maps and charts. He had more books than Kate had ever seen: old, expensive leatherbound volumes with gold lettering, sets of navy blue encyclopaedias, shelves of poetry books and Shakespeare; new books stacked in toppling towers, piles of yellow National Geographic magazines. Kate found herself imagining how Tessa would be completely entranced by a room such as this. You’d never get her out, Kate thought. She glanced at a dark green book with gold-rimmed pages which was balanced on the arm of the chair. It was Hans Andersen. Had Tessa been in here, reading it?


  The room smelled of dust and damp dog, and a ripe winey aroma from a crowd of bottles stashed under one of the tables. But there was another smell, a faint whiff of something that alarmed Kate. She had noticed it on Tessa’s hair. It wasn’t tobacco. It was something Kate recognised from her nursing days. Gas. Chloroform gas, she was sure. What was this obviously educated man doing with chloroform gas? Kate couldn’t see any evidence. Where was it coming from? She itched to walk around and peep into corners and cupboards, but the man was coming downstairs.

  Again, she was dumfounded. He had put Tessa’s blue and white dress on a hanger. It looked freshly ironed. Her vest, knickers and socks were neatly folded and clean, and he had stuffed her wet sandals with newspaper. Just seeing how small her clothes were caught Kate off guard and made her want to cry.

  ‘My daughter is seven years old.’ She glared at Ivor Stape. Then she lost control and snatched Tessa’s clothes from the chair where he had carefully put them. She clutched the little dress to her heart, and felt the edges of an emotional tidal wave lapping at her strength as if suddenly she was made of sand.

  ‘I tried . . .’ Ivor Stape’s eyes looked at her for the first time. Guilty, Kate thought.

  ‘Don’t SPEAK to me.’ She held up her hand. ‘You – you DISGUST me.’

  A wave of giddiness overwhelmed Kate. Her skin went cold and sweaty with terror. What if she passed out on Ivor Stape’s floor? No one knew where she was, and she had no control of the giddiness. Clutching Tessa’s clothes, she sank into the chair, taking deep breaths, trying to hold onto consciousness.

  She glimpsed Ivor Stape standing there looking alarmed, and oddly helpless. He started to talk fast. ‘I didn’t take your little girl, if that’s what you think,’ he said. ‘She came into my garden, through the tunnel. She was dripping wet and clearly terrified. The dogs scared her. I carried her in here and gave her a blanket and a cup of cocoa, and hung her wet clothes by the stove.’

  Kate looked at him sceptically through the waves of giddiness. Then her heart almost stopped. The basset hounds erupted into deafening barking, and the stones in his collection rattled and trembled with the weight of the dogs’ powerful bodies charging through the table legs to reach the door.

  ‘LIE DOWN!’ Ivor Stape clambered after them and dragged both dogs, at an angle of forty-five degrees, across the floor and shut them in the kitchen.

  In the shocked stillness, heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel, and three figures plodded past the window.

  When Freddie walked into Ivor Stape’s extraordinary room, he saw only the haze of golden light around the one chair. Kate turned her beautiful eyes to look at him, and so did her father, Bertie, who was standing beside the chair, earthy and twinkling with humour as he had always been. On the other side of the chair stood a silver-haired lady who looked like Sally. He recognised her as Kate’s grandmother, from photographs he’d seen. Between them was a phosphorescent column of light stretching to the ceiling. Rays of light rippled from it, yet the light didn’t illuminate the crystals, or the books, or Kate’s glossy hair. It was sacred light which didn’t come from the sun, and Freddie was certain that if he stared into it for long enough, he would see the radiant face and shimmering skirts of an angel. He was transfixed. To walk into a place he had considered to be evil, and find this shining capsule of truth was overwhelming. Not only was it totally unexpected but, he thought, stunned, it was exactly as Tessa had described.

  Tessa had told him about the stones. She told him about the Hans Andersen book with the gold-rimmed pages. Clearly and fluently, she described Bertie and Kate’s granny, down to the last detail, as if it was normal. Her pale blue eyes were translucent with honesty, and Freddie believed her. It confirmed what he suspected. Tessa was seeing spirit people. She had the gift.

  He didn’t know whether to be happy about it, or worried.

  Kate was trying to stand up. ‘It’s all right, Freddie. Don’t look so worried.’

  ‘I told you not to come down here.’ Freddie took her in his arms. She was quivering, and white-faced.

  ‘I know you did – but I felt compelled,’ she said. ‘Nothing has happened. I only had a little giddy turn. Too much excitement.’

  ‘You sit down.’ Freddie led her back to the chair, not convinced that she was well. She sank into it, and he sat on the arm, holding her hand tightly and looking up at Bertie. Should he tell her? The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. ‘Your dad is with you, Kate,’ he said, ‘and your granny – in spirit. I can see ’em, clear as daylight.’

  Kate stared at him in astonishment. ‘Well, I can’t see them.’

  ‘I know you can’t – but I can,’ Freddie said, and added, ‘just between ourselves, Kate.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful!’ She beamed and the colour began to return to her cheeks. ‘Someone was giving me strength.’

  Ivor Stape was blustering, and they both turned to look at him standing between the two policemen. He pointed at Freddie. ‘Your wife is an extremely courageous woman,’ he said. ‘You should take better care of her, and your little girl. What was she doing all alone, paddling up the stream? She ought to have been in school. She’s a highly intelligent, interesting child. I’m a lonely old man, you see, and Tessa brought a bit of sunshine into my life.’

  Freddie and Kate looked at each other. It was the first time in seven years that anyone had said something so positive about Tessa. As for taking better care of her – Freddie shook his head at Kate. ‘Don’t argue with him,’ he whispered. ‘They’re writing it all down. He’s gonna drop himself in it in a minute.’

  ‘And I get the blame,’ Ivor Stape continued, as one of the policemen scribbled down every word in his notebook. ‘You don’t think, do you? If I go to prison, what happens to my home, and my dogs – and my life’s work – sitting in here going damp, gathering dust – years of dust? Ruined. All because you can’t look after your child.’

  Freddie heard tears in the man’s voice and momentarily felt compassion for him. He’d seen his own father cry those kind of tears many times in his childhood. The bittersweet tears of someone who couldn’t be the person he’d like to be. Tears of failure and frustration.

  ‘I think you’d better calm down, sir. It’s no good attacking Mr and Mrs Barcussy,’ said the sergeant. ‘And I think it’s time for you to come to the station with us and make a statement.’

  Ivor Stape snorted. ‘Make a statement!’ he mocked. ‘What good is that?’ He took the Aberdeen Angus pipe out of his pocket and lit it with a match, his hands shaking. He looked at Freddie and Kate, and loneliness echoed in his eyes, like a shout in a railway tunnel. ‘You remember this when you blame an old man like me,’ he said. ‘Folks like you – you’ve got each other. I’ve got no one.’

  ‘Come along now, sir.’

  Ivor Stape looked intently at Kate as the two policemen bundled him out of the room. ‘You remember what I said,’ he told her, turning his head. ‘That little girl – Tessa – she is a treasure.’

  Kate had one last question she needed to ask. ‘Did you give Tessa a dog – a white terrier?’

  ‘No, I didn’t and I’ve never seen a dog like that here.’

  Freddie found himself looking again at the spirit of Kate’s father and he could have sworn that Bertie winked at him and said something. It sounded like: ‘Look in the bureau.’ He would have liked some time to focus on talking to the spirit visitors, but he was concerned about Kate. She looked pale and had shadows under her eyes. He wanted to take her home, get her out of this extraordinary room. Yet another part of his mind wanted to linger and examine some of the fascinating collection of stones.

  The two policemen escorted Ivor Stape outside.

  ‘Will you follow us out please, Mr and Mrs Barcussy? – and close the door behind you.’

  ‘What about the two dogs?’ Kate said. ‘Who’s going to look after them?’

  ‘We’ll take care of that, rest assured,’ said the sergeant. ‘The i
mportant thing for you is to go home to your family and get some rest. You can come down to the police station tomorrow morning and make a statement.’

  Freddie was eyeing the police car, a large black Wolseley. He couldn’t resist touching it, and dreaming.

  Once Ivor Stape was inside the police car, the sergeant got out again to speak to Freddie and Kate, in confidential tones. ‘Between you and me, unless you can get Tessa to tell you what actually happened, we’ve got no reason to charge him. I know she’s only seven, but you must sit her down and make her talk.’

  Making Tessa talk was the beginning of the destruction of a hypersensitive soul. The more she was pushed, the more she recoiled into her mysterious shell.

  ‘Just let her be,’ Freddie advised, sensing Kate’s determination to get the truth out of her. He refused to take part in any more interrogation sessions. Tessa needed him to be a safe, quiet, loving presence, a rock of ages where she could hide herself. ‘I’ve got work to do,’ he said to Kate. ‘You sort it out. You’re good at that kind of thing. You’re the best person to do it.’

  So Kate took Tessa down to the school, with the light of battle in her eyes. ‘Don’t you DARE run away,’ she said. ‘You stay in the playground with Lucy while I talk to Miss O’Grady.’ It was the end of the school day, and Tessa’s classroom was empty.

  Kate sat down on a hard chair, facing the metallic grey figure of Miss O’Grady. She searched her cold eyes for a spark of love and found them chillingly barren.

  ‘I believe in my daughter,’ Kate said warmly. ‘Tessa doesn’t talk a lot, but she’s bright, I’m sure she is – and artistic like her father. And she can be VERY kind. There’s nothing wrong with her at all, and I would like you to give her another chance, please.’

  ‘I see.’ Miss O’Grady picked up a wooden ruler and smoothed it with her chalk-ingrained fingers. Her nails were cut sensibly straight, the cuticles dry and peeling.

  ‘What is it that bothers you about Tessa?’ Kate asked.