by John Harvey
No matter. They ate wonderful food everywhere they went, hired bikes, walked up into the hills, slept—and occasionally made love—in the heat of the afternoon, then sat out in the evening with glasses of chilled Sancerre, gazing into the haze of purple dusk. Heather, in her campsite on the Cornish coast, seemed all the miles away she was and more.
There were two public telephones at the site and, after that first evening, it had been Ruth or Simon who had phoned at an appointed time, Heather waiting inside the box for the call. Sometimes, if both phones were occupied, there was a short wait but no more. Alan Efford, who had a mobile for his work, had said Heather could use it if there were a problem, but so far there'd been no need.
'I want to send you both a card,' Heather said one evening, 'but I don't know where to send it to.'
'Send it home,' Ruth said. 'Then it will be there when we arrive.'
Simon suggested stopping off in Paris on the return journey, prolonging the holiday for two more nights. They stayed at a comfortable if fading hotel on the Île St Louis and after a long, slow breakfast in the small courtyard, Simon allowed himself to be dragged across Paris to the Musée Marmottan Monet, Ruth having discovered, more or less by chance, that two large paintings by the American artist, Joan Mitchell—one of her especial favourites—were temporarily on display. Huge canvases, ripe with purples, greens and blues: Monet's garden at Giverny, conceived in the most abstract of terms.
Ruth stood in front of them, quite still, until her calves ached, marvelling at the skill of eye and hand that could make something so coherent, so perfect, so much more than itself, while Simon paced, less than patiently, from room to room, coughed discreetly and tapped, from time to time, the face of his watch.
'Thank you,' she said outside, kissing him impulsively on the cheek. 'Thank you, that was wonderful. It really was.'
That evening they ate duck with honey and figs in a small restaurant in the Marais and, walking back to their hotel, close to the Seine, she took Simon's hand. 'We should do this more often.'
'Hold hands?'
'You know what I mean.'
'I know. And now Heather's getting older, maybe we can.' He gave her hand a squeeze.
The bar on the western end of the Île looked inviting, with its wicker chairs and round, marble-topped tables set out on the curve of pavement.
'It's still early,' Simon said. 'We could have a nightcap, what do you think?'
'That would be nice.'
'Warm enough to sit outside?'
'Yes, I think so.'
Simon asked the waiter for cognac and coffee, Ruth a glass of white wine. A boat went slowly by, barely seeming to disturb the near-black water, music playing, couples waving from the side. It was several moments before Ruth realised that her phone was ringing inside her bag.
'Hello?'
She would always remember that moment, the coloured lights reflecting in the water, the marble of the tabletop cool beneath her wrist, the words that, despite the distance and the slight tremble in Alan Efford's voice, were impossible to misunderstand.
'Yes,' she said. 'Yes, of course. Right away. As soon as we can.' And breaking the connection, she put aside the phone.
'What is it?' Simon said. 'What's wrong?'
'It's Heather. She's gone missing.'
12
The minute they'd had their lunch, half a Cornish pasty each, iced buns and salt and vinegar crisps, the two girls were fussing round Pauline for money to go to the shop.
'What for now, for heaven's sake?'
'Ice cream,' said Kelly.
'Chocolate,' said Heather.
'Well, which is it? Make up your minds.'
'Both,' the girls said, almost in the same breath, and laughed as if that were the funniest thing they'd heard.
Heather's parents had given her spending money, but somehow she'd managed to get through most of that within the first few days: endless trips to the camp shop for sweets and fizzy drinks her mum always said would rot her teeth, and sparkly gimcracks from the accessories shop on their one trip into Penzance. A gold chain with her name spelled out in fancy letters was her special favourite, the one she'd have to do her best to hide when she got home for fear of her mother throwing a small fit.
'Mum!' Kelly said. 'Come on.'
'All right,' Pauline sighed, fishing into her purse, 'but this is the last time. And bring something back for your sister.'
'Let me come with you,' Tina said, springing, eager, to her feet.
'Drop dead!' Kelly responded, and snatching the money from her mother's hand, ran off out of the tent, Heather close on her heels.
The shop was a long single-storey building with weathered green walls and mesh shutters across its windows, selling everything from Calor gas cylinders and barbecue briquettes, through cans of Coke and packets of oven chips and fish fingers, to toothpaste and postcards of Land's End and Sennen Cove. Positioned at the head of the entrance road between the camping and caravan fields, it was a focal point for anyone and everyone, not least the gang of eight or nine mid-teen boys who lounged around in a variety of surf tops and shorts or cut-off jeans, none too surreptitiously smoking cigarettes and occasionally summoning up the energy to engage in a bad-tempered game of soccer.
As Kelly and Heather emerged, brandishing virulent purple Slush Puppies, flip-flops on their feet and skimpy near-bikini tops on their tanned, skinny bodies, several of the boys made noises of derisory appreciation.
'Bog off!' Kelly called in their general direction, then, lowering her voice, to Heather, 'There. I told you he fancied you.'
'Who?'
'The grungy one with the spots.'
'Thanks a lot!'
Kelly doubled over with laughter, and then, seeing her brother walking towards them, added, louder again, 'So does Lee. Don't you, Lee?'
'Don't I what?'
'Fancy Heather.'
'Do I, bollocks!' And, pushing two fingers into his open mouth, he mimed throwing up.
'Gross!' Kelly said and, giggling, the two girls hurried off.
Pauline finally contrived to get the baby off to sleep and took the opportunity to have a nap herself, leaving Alan to amuse Tina, which he attempted first by playing catch with a poorly inflated beach ball—pretty much a waste of time, he would say, as Tina seemed incapable of catching anything, not even a cold in the middle of an epidemic—then settling down to play snap with an old pack of cards which kept sticking together at crucial moments, the resulting shouts waking Pauline and the baby in quick succession.
Not so many minutes later, Lee slouched back into the shelter of the main tent, one of those familiar looks on his face that announced he was too bored even to complain about his boredom. Soon after that, Kelly and Heather emerged from their smaller tent in shorts and T-shirts, Heather also wearing a loose cotton top, swimming things and towels stuffed down into a pink and blue rucksack.
'And just where d'you think you're going?' Alan asked.
'Swimming.'
'Not now you're not.'
'Dad...'
'No, I'm sorry. No.'
'Besides, it's too late in the day,' Pauline put in. 'It'll soon be time for your tea.'
'We've only just had lunch,' Kelly said.
'Please, Mrs Efford,' Heather said, 'it's not as if we'll be going far. That little cove, you know? The one we saw from the path.'
'You can't go there.'
'Why ever not?' Kelly challenged.
'Because you'll break your bloody necks climbing down,' Alan Efford said. 'That's why.'
'Dad, come on! We're not babies, you know.'
Weakening, Alan Efford looked towards his wife for support.
'Maybe if Lee went with them,' Pauline offered.
'As if,' Lee said, scornfully. He was sitting in the corner, cross-legged, untangling the headphones of his Sony Walkman.
'Go on, Lee,' Pauline said, chivvying him along. 'It won't hurt you.'
'No way.'
'Don't bother,'
Kelly said. 'We don't want him with us anyway.'
'Right,' her father said, fed up with the lot of them. 'He goes, or the pair of you stay here. That's all there is to it.'
Kelly looked at Heather, who shrugged and sighed.
'Come on, Lee,' Heather said. 'It might be fun.'
Lee called her a name under his breath.
'You,' Efford said, jabbing a finger in his son's direction. 'Get up off your sorry arse and go. Now.'
'Dad...'
'Just do what I bloody say.'
With an elaborate sigh, Lee lurched to his feet. 'Come on then, if we're going.' Slipping his headphones into place, he moved out of the tent.
'Thanks, Mr Efford,' Heather said. 'We'll be careful, honest.'
'Just don't be too long, that's all.'
'We won't.'
And they were gone.
The best part of an hour later, when Alan Efford went with Tina across to the shop—a lolly for her, cigarettes for Pauline and himself—there was Lee, kicking a ball around with half a dozen other boys.
'What the fuck d'you think you're doin' here?'
'What's it look like?' Lee replied.
Efford caught him a clip round the back of the head and several of the other lads laughed.
'You're supposed to be with your sister.'
'Yeah, well ...'
'Well, what?'
'She kept mouthin' off, didn't she? Her an' that Heather, gigglin' all the time and prattin' around. I told 'em to shut it or else.'
'Or else what?'
'Else I'd come back an' leave 'em to it.'
'So that's what you did?'
'Yeah.'
Efford aimed another blow at his head, but this time the boy ducked and backed away.
'You wait,' Efford said. 'You just bloody wait.'
But by then the fog had started to roll in off the sea. And by the time Efford got back to the tent, waves of mist had spread across the entire campsite, and the coastline, no more than a field away, had all but disappeared.
'I'll ring his bloody neck!' Pauline Efford said, when she heard what Lee had done.
With a curse, Efford pulled on his cagoule and thrust off out into the mass of grey. The beginnings of the coast path were barely legible at his feet. When he called the girls' names the fog seemed to swallow them whole. Less than thirty minutes and he was back.
'Can't see your hand in front of your bloody face. Lucky not to go arse over tip off the edge.'
'Christ, Alan, what're we gonna do?'
'Wait. What else can we do?'
The sea fret showed little sign of fading and out of the west a slow, fine rain had started to fall.
'They'll get soaked through,' Pauline Efford said. 'They've not got proper coats with 'em or nothing.'
'Rain's what you want. Wash this bastard stuff away.'
Instead, the rain seemed to cling and become one with the mist and they continued to sit inside their tent in near-silence, the low, almost animal sound of the foghorn blurting out of the darkness.
'Fuck!' Efford said, picking up one of the enamel pans and hurling it through the flap of the tent. 'Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!'
At the anger in her father's voice, Tina began to cry, her sobs setting off the baby, exactly as Pauline had said they would.
Another hour passed. Wet and miserable, Lee slunk back into the tent.
'Where the hell've you been?' his father asked. 'Look as if you've been dragged through a hedge bloody backwards!'
The boy didn't answer, but shucked off his waterproof and dropped it, sodden, to the ground. Most of the colour seemed to have gone from his eyes. 'Kelly's not back?' he said.
'What's it look like?'
Lee turned his head away. 'I'm sorry,' he mumbled. 'I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't've ...' The words ran to a stuttering halt and he stood there, slump-shouldered, staring at the ground, frightened now and close to tears.
Alan Efford had already contacted the police.
13
They came in two four-by-fours, slow across the field, wheels sending up small plumes of muddied earth. Trevor Cordon, the officer in charge, was angular, long-faced and sombre-eyed, older than Alan Efford by some few years, trousers tucked down into faded green wellingtons. He listened, nodded, made notes in his book: by now the girls had been gone the best part of five hours, rising six, and night would be closing in. With low cloud and enough of the mist still lingering, there was little sense calling in the coastguard helicopter till first light.
Cordon knew the cove the girls had been aiming for, down the coast towards Sennen and not easily accessible: a difficult scramble over rocks before a steep section of cliff, the final descent requiring a length of fraying rope that had long ago been attached to an iron bracket hammered into the face. The council were forever putting up notices warning of potential dangers, all of them promptly defaced before being pulled up and sent tumbling down on to the small triangle of sand, where they were pressed into service as impromptu surfboards or broken into kindling for makeshift barbecues.
'Don't you worry, sir,' Cordon said. 'They'll have taken shelter when the fret came in, I dare say. From what you've told me, I doubt they'll do anything too daft. And they might well get back yet under their own steam. Just in case, though, I'll have my lads go a ways along the coast path while they still can. If they don't turn up, my guess'd be, our best chance of finding them is come morning. Cold and wet and more'n a little sorry for themselves, but hopefully none the worse for that. One blessing of all this cloud, temperature'll not drop much more than this. They'll not freeze.'
Efford glanced across at his wife, who looked away.
If the girls had panicked, Cordon thought, run off blindly instead of finding shelter and staying put, one wrong step could have sent them over the edge, while another might have seen them plunging down into any one of a dozen old open mine shafts, some fenced off, others camouflaged by gorse and bracken.
Some of the shafts, he knew, went out as far as four hundred metres beneath the Atlantic, the deepest of them going down a hundred and fifty metres below sea level. No sense in making matters worse, he kept that knowledge to himself.
When the girl's mother offered him a mug of tea, he accepted and gratefully.
Townies, he thought, the bane of his life: coming down from London or Birmingham or wherever without a bloody clue about where they were or what they were doing; wandering up on to the moors or out along the cliffs without a thought the weather might change in a moment or what the ground was like underfoot. Women in high heels he'd seen before now, turning their ankle out on the coast path and having to be winched home, stupid sods—Cordon would have left them there, let 'em limp back of their own accord.
'Yes, my love, two sugars if you please. That's grand.'
It would be a late night and an early morning and Cordon hoped to Christ it would be good news in the end and not bad. One of the girls, her parents had been informed and they were on their way back from abroad—the Lord alone knew what agonies they must be going through.
Little that the Pierces said in the course of their journey had much coherence, their thoughts filled with dread, conversation between them brittle as old bones. Ruth had managed to speak to Alan Efford once, the signal breaking up constantly: Heather and Kelly had set out together with Lee to go swimming; after some kind of a row, Lee had come back on his own, a thick fog had come in swiftly off the sea and the two girls had got lost. What else was there to know?
The first flight from Charles de Gaulle took off no more than twenty minutes behind schedule, but already Simon was chewing his fingernails. Ruth avoided his eye, not wishing to further jar his nerves and quicken his temper, or engage in yet another painful and fruitless discussion about what had happened, another litany of guilt and blame. In her heart, she hugged Heather to herself, whispered words unheard to keep her safe from harm.
Above Gatwick, the plane circled with agonising slowness as it waited for a slot to land.
Filling in the forms at the car hire counter, Simon twice made mistakes, finally ripping the form in two and having to start again.
'D'you want me to do it?' Ruth asked.
'No!' Simon shouted in her face. 'I don't want you to bloody do it. Why don't you go and get us some coffee? Do something useful for a change.'
They were on the road in half an hour, the M23 to the M25 to the M4. Three hundred miles and the rest. Provided they didn't encounter any major hold-ups, shared the driving, kept stops to a minimum, they should be there in six or seven hours. Early to mid-afternoon.
Ruth tried Alan Efford's mobile again, and again there was no reply.
The weather that morning was a mockery: bright and clear, the sky a perfect Sunday painter's blue, the islands off Cape Cornwall standing out sharp and clean; no vestige of the previous day's mist remained.
The man who walked into the lifeboat station overlooking Sennen Cove was no more than medium height, neither young nor old, his weathered anorak, waterproof trousers and cap not marking him out as any different from scores of others.
He stood for some moments, uncertain, unassuming, the lifeboat man on duty anticipating a question about tides or similar.
The voice was quiet at first, indistinct; a mumble of words like marbles caught in the mouth and little more: something about two missing girls. 'This search,' the man said again, voice louder, 'these missing girls—they're not ... they'm not ... anything to do with you?'
'Not really. Not direct.'
'Okay, only ... only I know ... know where one of 'em is.'