by Vince Vogel
Halfway down the dirt track that led out of the camp, they turned east along the edge of a plowed field. It led them to woodland and they worked their way through the trees in pitch black, a thick cloud covering the moon. The two men were absolutely silent, as was Bess, whose nimble paws worked their way through the undergrowth with stealth-like agency. They could have walked up to a camp of men and been sitting beside them at the fire before anyone had noticed, if they’d wanted.
Another field, this one covered in corn stumble, was on the other side of the trees. They walked along its edge, shielded by the darkness and rows of plane trees. At the bottom of a vale on the other side of the field was a small, one story stone cottage with a thatched roof. A long lane joined it with the road some two hundred yards away. Buried in a divot in the land, it was snugly hidden from the rest of the world, as though this had been the purpose all along of its concealed location.
“My little hideaway,” Otis mumbled as they reached it.
“This where the car is?” Dorring whispered in the dark.
“Among other things.”
A light was on in a window with the curtains closed over. A warm glow like that of burning coals emitted from the cottage and gave it a homey feel. As their feet touched upon the flagstones of a small path, the front door swung open as though the person on the other side had been waiting specifically for them.
She had.
A woman of around sixty with curly, gray hair stood gazing down the pathway through thick-rimmed glasses that made her brown eyes three sizes larger than they were and added an odd, mole-like aspect to her appearance.
“Otis,” she said.
“May.”
She opened her arms to him at the door and Dorring stood behind, watching with the dog as they embraced warmly.
When they parted, May turned away from the old man and towards Dorring.
“This your new mate, is it?” she asked.
“It is.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m May.”
She moved forward and offered her hand. Dorring took it and she pulled him in with a surprisingly firm grip, throwing an arm around his shoulders and hugging him into her stout body as warmly as she’d hugged Otis moments earlier.
“Ol’ Bess,” she said, turning to the dog when she’d let Dorring go. The old dog turned over to reveal her belly and May bent over so she could rub it. “Still hangin’ about with this old rascal, I see,” the old woman said softly to Bess as her hand stroked the dog.
“I ain’t got long, May,” Otis said impatiently.
“So ya said on the phone.”
May came away from the dog and they went inside. Bess immediately ran to a door at the end of the hallway, scratching at it and whining. While May led Dorring into the kitchen, Otis let the eager mutt into the room before joining them around a round wooden table close to an AGA that let off a nice heat.
“How’s she been?” Otis asked when he sat.
“Same as last time,” the old woman muttered. “Same as every time.”
May served them tea from a white teapot with bluebells painted on the sides. When that was done, she left the room.
“You ain’t gonna ask nothin’?” Otis said across the table to Dorring after a while.
“Would there be any point?”
“Well, don’t you wanna know what this place is?”
“A cottage.”
The old man grinned. “Smart ass, this ain’t just any old cottage. This here is my little piece of heaven.”
“You own it?”
“I built it. Fifteen year ago when Jess were born.”
He still hadn’t explained anything about the girl. Yet he mentioned her as though Dorring should know every detail about her.
“It’s nice,” Dorring said.
May came back into the room and it was Otis’ turn to leave. The old woman sat her plump, aproned body down at the end of the table, close to the cast iron AGA, one of its doors hanging open and a mellow fire crackling within.
“Otis tells me you’re a good hunter,” she said as she sipped her tea.
“He’s a good teacher.”
“He says you don’t need teachin’ anything.”
“I learned a little in the army.”
“Oh, you’re an army lad, are you?”
“Yes.”
“My boy is in the army.”
“Oh. Which regiment?”
Before she could answer, Otis returned to the room.
“Dorrin’?” he said.
May and Dorring turned from each other to the doorway.
“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Otis added.
Without a word, Dorring got up from the table and met him at the door. He then followed the old man down a narrow corridor to the closed door the dog had scratched at.
“Now, I warn you,” Otis whispered in his ear as they stood on the threshold, “she’s not what she used to be.”
“I wouldn’t know what she used to be.”
The old man grinned underneath his beard.
“I s’pose I’ll have to let you in on it all at some point,” the old man said.
“Leave it for the car journey.”
Otis nodded in agreement and opened the door.
The room was coated in a soft light that was provided by several candles dotted about the tops of furniture. There wasn’t much furniture in there. A wardrobe in a corner. A chest of drawers. A dressing table with an oval mirror. Bedside cabinet. And a bed. It was this that Dorring’s eyes alighted on immediately.
Sitting up in it was a woman of humungous proportions. The bed was king sized and she filled almost every inch, the thing bowing underneath her. Without wanting to sound disrespectful, she resembled a pool of fat lying on the bed. The arms that poked out the top hung with layers of flab that moved like pendulums as she leaned over to the bedside cabinet and took a cup of tea from it. Her face was stuck in the middle of a round head coated in jowls. It was pretty. Even Dorring could see that the woman encased in so much fat was pretty. Even now. Her soft, blue eyes shone in the candlelight and gave her a benevolent look. Her long, black hair still shone and looked well kept and her high cheeks gave her a dainty quality regardless of the rest of her.
“This here is my wife. Molly,” Otis said to Dorring, coming beside the bed and taking a chair.
“Pleased to meet you, Molly,” Dorring said as he stood at the end of the bed.
She blushed and turned her eyes sheepishly away.
“You ain’t gotta be worried about him,” Otis said. “It’s only Dorring. He’s one o’ the alright ones.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, still unable to look up at the newcomer. “I just don’t get to see many folk these days, is all. As you can see, I ain’t been well.”
“There’s no need to ever feel you have to explain anything to me,” Dorring said in a solemn tone.
She blushed again.
“Now I wanted you here,” Otis went on, and Dorring gathered that he was referring to him, “because I need to tell Molly what John come an’ see me about today. And I wanna also explain what we’re gonna do about it.”
“You think that’s wise?” Dorring asked him.
“I do. She’s got a right to know.”
Otis began going over what he’d been told that afternoon by the dying ex-detective, John. While he did, Dorring’s eyes remained fixed to her face. It went through a series of motions. First it was shock. The news that her daughter may still be alive feeling like a truck hitting her. Then confusion as Otis explained about the murder. Then the prints. The fact that the police didn’t have her.
“So she’s still missin’?” Molly said.
“Yeah, she’s still missing. That’s why me and Dorrin’ are gonna go up there. Go to this club. See what’s up.”
Her wet eyes flickered over to Dorring. She looked utterly confused and he felt desperately sorry for her.
“Who is he?” she asked in a faint voice.
“We was angry,” she said dismissively. “Maybe it’s better if you let the police find her.”
“No!” Otis snapped. A look of anger erupted on his face and his jaw tightened beneath his scraggly beard. “The only justice they deserve is mine. No forgiveness. No surrender. These past ten years, I been dead. Dead inside. All I’ve had to keep me alive is the thought that one day they find something. They’ve found it now. I’m not hollow no more.”
“No!” she cried out, turning her eyes on him. “You’re filled with anger instead. Filled with hate. Let the police bring her back, Otis.”
He tore his hand from hers and stood up. Dorring got the impression that he was disappointed in her. That she had betrayed him somehow.
“We swore what I’d do,” he said in a growl. “We swore that I wouldn’t let the police mess this up again. That I’d get things done myself. Providence has sent me Dorring. An angel to help get me my revenge.”
“Then go,” she said bitterly to her husband. “Leave me be. Go to London and cause trouble. Go there and be a murderer. End up in prison till they bury you in the yard. Go on! Get out!”
She screamed this last part.
With a bitter expression, Otis turned and marched straight out of the room. Dorring heard the front door open and the sound of the old man’s bag being picked up from beside it. Bess quickly left the room after him. With nothing else, Dorring did the same, taking his own bag from the front door.
A few yards up the lane was Otis. He stopped by a car covered over in a sheet. He whipped said sheet off and tossed it into the grass. Opening the back door, he threw his bag onto the seat. Dorring opened the door on the other side and tossed his own bag next to it. Then he got into the passenger side as Otis was getting into the driver’s seat.
When he started the car and put it into reverse, May was standing at the bottom of the path, looking down the lane at them. Ignoring her, Otis reversed the car along a dirt track lane to the road at the end. He swung it around violently, put it into forward gear and sent the car speeding into the night.
London was at least three hours away. They would get there before dawn.
15
“…Twenty-eight… twenty-nine… thirty… Ready or not, here I come!”
The little girl took her hands away from her face, turned to the field of trees and ran off in pursuit. Behind her a young, black and white sheepdog followed attentively, sniffing the ground as though tracking. It wasn’t long before the girl and dog were passing a clump of bracken and heard giggling from within it. The girl stopped sharply and a smile spread across her lips. The dog began whining gently from its snout.
“Shh, Bessy,” the little girl whispered.
They investigated the bracken and upon coming around the back of it, the little girl easily saw the foot hanging out the back.
“Found you, Mummy!” she cried.
Gradually, her mother pulled herself from the bush, stood up and, smiling all over, hugged the little girl, spinning her around so that her feet swung out and the two fell to the ground giggling, all the while the dog barked and skipped about.
“Come,” the mother said after they’d rolled around on the grassy ground for some time. “Let’s go find Daddy.”
Holding each other’s hands, they walked off into the trees, excited to see where the patriarch of the family had hidden himself. They walked around the woods for several minutes, whispering to each other and gently scolding the dog whenever she whined, but couldn’t make out where he was. Then as they walked beneath the branches of a humungous oak tree, they heard whistling. A sharp sound that couldn’t be mistaken for a bird. Gazing up into the thick branches, they saw something move within the leaves.
“Daddy!” the girl cried out, and they screamed as the father jumped from the tree and landed right beside them.
“Ah-ha!” he cried, and, throwing his arms open, he enveloped them both and all three fell to the earth, where they rolled around.
Having played about on the ground for some time, the little girl’s giggles and dog’s barks echoing in the wood, they lay together, gazing up at the clouds for several minutes; mother nestled into the flank of father and little girl nestled into her, his arm reaching around both. While the dog sniffed about and chased squirrels up the trunks of trees, they watched the clouds, pointing up at different ones.
“That’s an elephant,” the little girl said as a large, bulbous one floated between a gap in the canopy.
“I’d say it’s more like a hippopotamus,” the father said.
“No!” the little girl snapped. “It’s an elephant. Look at the trunk.”
“That’s not a trunk,” the father insisted. “It’s a hose. He’s waterin’ his garden.”
“Hippos don’t do gardening!” the little girl exclaimed.
“You ever seen one?”
“Yes. In the zoo.”
“Yeah, but not in Africa. Not where they live. They live in houses. Bungalows. On account o’ them being too heavy for a staircase.”
The little girl turned her face sideways so she could see the smirk on her father’s face.
“Daddy! You’re just joking.”
He turned to her and began chuckling. The little girl burst up from the ground with the energy that her youth permitted her.
“It’s your turn to catch me and Mummy,” she said. “Count to thirty.”
The father placed his hands over his face and continued to lie there as the girl and her mother got up from the ground and ran off into the trees, the dog chasing after. They came to the edge of the woods, the stubble of a recently harvested corn field spreading out on the other side of the trees, rolled bales of straw dotted along it like grazing animals.
“There, Mummy,” the little girl said. “We should hide behind one of those.”
“Okay.”
They both ran into the field. Twenty yards away was a length of green hedge, on the other side of which was a road. A gap at the corner of the field was the only place you could actually see the road, the bracken hedge too thick to see through. The last the mother saw of her little girl was as she ran towards a bale of straw close to the corner, the dog following behind. She herself chose a bale closer to the woods. There she ducked down and awaited a sign of her husband. It wasn’t long.
“Girls!” he cried out, his voice getting nearer. “I’m a comin’ for ya! Gonna get ya!”
The mother smiled. Not at the thought of capture, but at the thought of her daughter’s reaction to hearing his voice. It would make her giggle in excitement at the prospect of being discovered. It was always this that gave her away. The fact that she couldn’t keep her elation inside and would make sounds.
The father entered the field and began checking behind the bales. At the fourth one, he found his wife. She smiled up at him as she sat with her back to the straw and he helped her up, pulling her into him so that she landed against his chest. There they stood for a moment, gazing into each other’s eyes. It’d been ten years together, five with Jess, and to describe that time as bliss would not have been an overstatement. In the dark world, they had found each other and with it, light. Both had experienced harshness from all other corners of the world, except with each other. With each other, the world was full of hope and joy. If the world wanted to tear itself apart, so be it. Their own world would stay intact, no matter what.
The two kissed and only parted when they heard the sound of barking. They glanced sideways. At the far corner of the field, the dog barked at the gap in the hedge. For the first time it seemed, they heard the sound of an engine running on standby. Through the tight gaps in the hedge, they could see the outline of a vehicle parked there.
Then they heard the scream. Bloodcurdling and sharp, it had f
elt like a dagger piercing their hearts. They stood in shock for a few seconds. It had sounded familiar, but foreign at the same time. The pitch and sound known, but the way it was screamed, not.
Shaking himself, the father darted towards the gap. It was at least thirty yards away. He threw himself forward as he heard more screams.
“Daddy!” she screeched from the road. “Daddy, please! Help!”
By the time he reached the gap, the back doors of the white van had slammed shut and the vehicle was driving away. By the time he emerged onto the road, all he saw in the distance was the terrified face of his daughter as she banged her little fists on the back window.
It was the last time he ever saw her and the image would stay with him the rest of his life.
16
It was seven o’clock in the morning when Detective Sergeant Bob Barker arrived at the house of Charles Carter. At the end of a long driveway that snaked through plush, striped lawns stood a large manor house covered in ivy that glittered in the sunbeams.
On the carriageway, a tall man with a morose face waited patiently while Barker parked his car. The gangly figure was dressed in a neat suit and Barker gathered it was the butler.
“Detective Barker,” the guy said in a nasal voice as he got out of his car. “Mrs. Carter is awaiting you in the lounge.”
He guided the detective into the house, through a hallway of white stone and marble, and underneath a large chandelier whose shadow they stepped across. The lounge was at the back of the property. The far wall was lined with tall windows. Many of them were open and the thin, white curtains billowed about in the soft breeze that came in. Beyond the windows stood tennis courts and a swimming pool and more striped lawns. On a long, red cushioned chaise longue sat a middle-aged woman and a middle-aged man. The woman was slim, very attractive and wore a white blouse done up to its frilly collar, a lime green tweed suit jacket over the top and a knee length skirt of the same design and material. For all intents and purposes, she resembled the wife of a president or some other dignitary. Her gray eyes glanced worryingly at the doorway as the butler led the detective into the room. This was Jaqueline Carter.