by John Harvey
The lifeboat man looked at him curiously, uncertain whether to believe him or not, but hooked in nonetheless. 'Where's that then?'
'I've got her, haven't I?'
'You've what?'
'Been looking after her.'
'What the hell you talkin' 'bout?'
'Lookin' after her, like I said.'
A crank most likely, the lifeboat man thought; more than a touch of singsong to his voice once he'd got himself started; one of them crackpots, come out the woodwork whenever something happens like this. Even so...
'The girl, she's all right?' he asked warily.
'Oh, yes. She's all right.'
Crackpot or not, he knew he should call it in. 'Hang on there,' he said, reaching for the phone. 'Just let me talk to someone about this.'
When the message was relayed to him, Cordon's response was to the point. 'Tell him to wait there till we arrive. Tie him down if you have to. Tie him to the prow of the fucking boat.'
Less drastically, they offered him tea from a flask and found him a stool where he could sit and look out across the sea, pore over the charts for that stretch of coast.
As soon as Cordon saw the man he thought he'd seen him before, not knowing, immediately, when or where. Down by the harbour in Penzance, perhaps, watching the Scillonian come in to dock; on the quayside in Newlyn, leaning on the rail as catches of monkfish and mackerel were unloaded. Gibbens, Cordon thought his name was, though he couldn't remember who had told him or how he knew. Francis Gibbens. The name felt right on his tongue.
'Mr Gibbens?'
The man seemed startled to be addressed directly.
'You've got some information about one of the missing girls, I believe?'
'You the police, then?'
Cordon showed him his card.
'I dare say,' Gibbens said, his smile showing a mouthful of yellowing teeth, 'there'll be some kind of reward.'
***
Even in a four-by-four they could only go so far. Leaving the vehicle where the track petered out, Cordon and two other officers followed Gibbens along an uneven path between patches of purple heather, bright in the morning sunlight. In front of them the sea today seemed benign, low waves lolloping harmlessly in towards the shore. Some foolish bird twittering above, barely audible through the rattle of the helicopter flying low, further along the coast. The first of the search parties would be making its way from Cape Cornwall, careful, slow.
Cordon felt the peaty soil give beneath his feet.
'How much further?' he asked.
Gibbens moved with the ease of familiarity, the speed of someone half his age.
They crossed the main coast path and down a sloping field to where a mass of granite rock twisted upwards like a man's head. Circumventing this, Gibbens pushed his way through a mass of ferns that rose to near shoulder height.
One of the officers lost his footing and cursed loudly, causing his companion to laugh.
'How much bloody further?' Cordon asked again. If this turned out to be a wild goose chase he'd personally drag Gibbens up to the old lookout point above Sennen Cove and push him off.
They straddled a sagging stretch of rusted barbed wire, turning right along another track that followed the contours of the cliff, and there suddenly below them, on a patch of partly cleared scrub, were four goats, one tethered, the others wandering free. Further along, where the land levelled out, still a long fall down to the sea and hidden from the main coast path above, were the roughly painted walls and roof of a wooden shack, reinforced here and there with sheets of tarpaulin and a few irregular plates of corrugated iron. To one side, a large fishing net, strung out between wooden poles, hung over a makeshift garden.
'You live here?' Cordon asked, incredulous.
Gibbens grinned.
A ginger and white cat lay sunning itself outside the door.
There was no lock, no key, just a wooden latch attached to a piece of string. Cordon followed Gibbens inside and stood quite still for several seconds, allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the lower levels of light. The interior was cool and steeped in shadow, not easy to pick out the shallow figure wrapped in blankets on the narrow bed.
'There she is,' Gibbens said proudly. 'There's my girl.'
My girl, Cordon thought. Interesting.
The contents of the room were taking shape. Trestle table, a couple of straight-backed chairs, tea chests filled with clothes and the Lord knew what else. Flotsam and jetsam from the shore. Gas canisters. Several small wooden carvings on the walls. A jug of water taken from the barrel alongside the front door.
Cordon bent low over the girl and, with a rare and silent prayer, touched the tips of his middle fingers to her left temple, the pale, almost translucent skin high to one side of her head. His certainty had been, since he had first stepped into the room and seen her lying there tightly wrapped, cocooned, that she was dead.
Real or imagined, then, the faint pulsing against his hand?
Bending lower, he put his face in front of hers and felt the ghost of a breath against his cheek.
'Coastguard chopper,' he snapped, straightening. 'Now. And get the hospital alerted. Do it.'
As the officers backed hurriedly outside, reaching for their mobiles, Cordon's gaze went from Gibbens to the girl and back again.
'There's no signal,' Gibbens said. 'Not down here. They'll have to go back up the cliff to where you left the car.'
'There's another girl,' Cordon said. 'Lost in that damned sea fret. D'you know where she is?'
Nodding, Gibbens pointed towards the door. 'Out there,' he said with a quick nervous laugh. 'Out there.'
Out there was vast and still, in some respects, unknown.
14
Kelly in hospital, safe but sore, dehydrated, medical staff running tests, keeping a watchful eye, the search for Heather continued. The coastguard helicopter had been joined by another from the Royal Naval Air Station at Coldrose. Police, assisted by teams of volunteers, were combing the land either side of the coast path between Cape Cornwall and Sennen Cove. Members of the local caving club had been called in to assist in the search of the old mining shafts in the area close to where Kelly had been found.
A police liaison officer had been appointed, Ann Dyer, a young constable with a diploma in social work, tall, slender, confident, firm yet polite. 'If the Pierces get through to you again,' she told Alan Efford, 'let me speak to them. You've enough to cope with as it is.'
When Ruth phoned from the forecourt of a garage outside Bodmin, he passed his mobile to her without a word.
'There have been some developments,' Dyer said, 'but as of present, I'm afraid your daughter, Heather, is still missing. We're doing everything we can.'
'Developments? What developments? I don't understand.'
'Perhaps it will be easier to explain when you arrive. You'll come straight to the campsite?'
'Of course.'
'Do you need directions or...?'
'No, no, that's fine.' Ruth, wanting to know exactly where her daughter would be staying, had bought an OS map of the area before they left for France.
'Good. I'll meet you there.'
'But listen ...'
The connection was broken.
The distance was not great, sixty miles, but on those roads—narrow and twisting beyond Penzance—it took a good hour and a half. Behind the wheel, Simon, patience already overstretched, cornered too fast, swearing beneath his breath.
Alan Efford, meanwhile, had come back to the campsite with Lee and Tina, leaving Pauline and the baby at the hospital. Periodically, Tina would break out crying for no clear reason; Lee continued to look sullen, saying little or nothing. Chain-smoking, Efford paced up and down.
When he saw the car approach, he stopped and pushed a hand up through the stubble of his hair. 'I'm not looking forward to this one fucking bit.'
'Don't worry,' Ann Dyer said. 'Let me handle it.'
Simon braked too hard and the car slewed sideways, dangerousl
y close to one of the tents.
'Mr Pierce, Mrs Pierce, I'm Police Constable Dyer. Come over and sit down and we can talk. Maybe you'd like some water? A cup of tea?'
'I don't want to sit down,' Simon said, 'I've been sitting down all fucking day. And I don't want tea either. I want to know what you're doing to find our daughter.'
'Mr Pierce, I can assure you ...'
But he wasn't listening. 'As for you,' he said, pointing at Efford, 'you fucking moron ...'
'Simon!' Ruth called out. 'Simon, don't.'
'You stupid, ignorant bastard! This is all your fault.'
'Mr Pierce ...' Dyer set a hand on his arm. 'It's not helpful to talk about fault or blame. What happened is nobody's fault.'
'Nobody's fault? My daughter—our daughter—goes missing while this fucking idiot is supposed to be looking after her and it's nobody's fault?'
'Mr Pierce ...'
'And that stupid fucking son of yours who let them wander off on their own, where's he?'
'Leave him out of this,' Efford said.
'Oh, yeah, leave him out. Never mind the fact if it wasn't for him ...'
'Mr Pierce,' Dyer said, 'I can quite understand why you're angry, but it isn't helping the situation at all. Now if you'll please back off and calm down ...'
Shaking his head, Simon turned grudgingly away, only to swing suddenly round and charge at Efford, arms flailing, fists raised; Efford took half a pace back and, with the shortest of swings, punched him hard in the face.
Simon staggered back, blood streaming from his nose.
'Enough!' Dyer said, placing herself between them. 'That's enough.'
Fishing a tissue from her pocket, Ruth leaned towards her husband, who was down on one knee, a hand to his face.
'That bastard,' he said thickly. 'I think he's broken my fucking nose.'
The nose, when Dyer examined it cursorily, didn't appear to be broken, but come the next morning, she thought, he'd be sporting a fine bruise. Serve him right. She told Ruth to walk him round the field a couple of times until he'd properly calmed down. 'Come back in five or ten minutes,' she said, 'and then we'll talk.'
'We need to know what's happened,' Ruth pleaded.
'Of course. Of course you do. But let's all take a few minutes, okay? Let tempers cool. Then, I promise you, I'll bring you up to speed.'
When they'd gone, Efford apologised to her for what he'd done.
Dyer smiled. 'Wasn't as if he gave you a whole lot of choice.'
'He's got a right to go off on one. His position I'd do the same.'
'But it's not your fault. What happened.'
Efford shook his head. 'I should have known better than to have let them go all that way on their own.'
'You didn't. Your son went with them. He's almost what? Fifteen? Sixteen? You weren't to know he was going to walk off and leave them. Any more than you were to know the fog would come in so fast.'
Efford sighed and lit another cigarette.
'You've got your daughter back, at least,' Dyer said.
'I know. So tell me why I feel like shit.'
'Because you're feeling guilty, that's why. Your kid was found and not theirs. Until we find her, you will be, reason or not.'
'And if you don't?'
'We will.'
Ruth and Simon Pierce were heading back across the field, Simon looking somewhat abashed, his immediate anger abated, both anxious for news. When they were seated, Dyer outlined as succinctly as possible all that she knew.
The fact that Kelly had been found and not Heather struck them like a slap in the face. Ruth looked across at Alan Efford, wanting to say she was pleased his daughter was safe, but not being able to force out the words.
'This man,' Simon said. 'The one who found Kelly. He didn't see Heather at all?'
'Apparently not.'
'And you believe him?'
'No reason not to, not so far.'
'But if the girls were together?'
'It looks as if somehow they got separated in the fog.'
'Is that what Kelly says?' Ruth asked.
'I'm afraid we haven't really been able to talk to her yet. Not in any detail. She's still too weak.'
'And this bloke,' Simon put in, 'the one who found Kelly. There isn't anything...?'
'We're talking to him now. Making sure there's nothing we've missed.'
Gibbens was clinging to his story with the tenacity of the inherently truthful or the simple-minded. He had gone outside way after dark; one of the goats had chewed through the rope by which he kept them tied up at night and was butting its head against the door. Securing the animal again he heard a faint sound, a sort of mewing, from higher up the cliff, and thought one of the several cats he kept around and fed had got itself trapped; climbing up, he discovered it was not a cat but a girl, barely conscious amidst the bracken. She had fallen from a higher path—tripped, possibly, on the barbed wire—and rolled to where he found her. Carefully, he had picked her up—no weight at all—and carried her back down to the shack.
Her clothes had been soaked through, T-shirt ripped and torn; there was blood on her face and on her hands. Blood also from cuts to her leg, low down and high on her hip.
'You undressed her?' Cordon asked.
'Yes, of course.'
'Completely?'
'Like I said, everythin' was wet through. Sodden. She'd have died of cold else.'
'You wrapped her in blankets?'
'After I'd washed her, yes.'
'Washed her?'
'She'd been bleeding, like I said. I washed her with a cloth, just gentle like, before putting her to bed. Tried to get her to drink somethin' too, water or milk, but no, she wouldn't. Just brought it back up.'
'Why didn't you send for help straight away?'
'An' leave her? I couldn't do that. Waited till morning, till I was certain she was all right. Fit enough to leave. That's when I went for help.'
'Why the lifeboat station? Why not use a public call box, 999, emergency? Ask for the police?'
Gibbens shrugged. 'No reason.' For the first time since the interview had begun, he looked away.
'You've been in trouble, that it? In trouble before?'
'Am I in trouble now?'
'I don't know, are you?' Cordon leaned back.
'No.'
A police car delivered Pauline Efford back from the hospital in Penzance and prepared to ferry her husband in the opposite direction. Before leaving, Alan Efford took a step towards Ruth, as if to say something, but changed his mind. But when Pauline neared the tent, baby Alice on her hip, Ruth went impulsively towards her and gave her a hug.
'Kelly, how is she?'
'She'll be fine. Considering. They'll keep her in overnight, just to be sure, you know, observation, but yeah, she'll be fine.'
Ruth squeezed one of her hands. 'I'm so glad.'
'Thank you,' Pauline said through the beginning of tears. 'Your Heather—they'll find her soon. Bound to.'
'Yes. Yes, I expect you're right.'
Ruth gave Pauline's hand another quick squeeze and turned away.
An officer in overalls was approaching purposefully across the field and Ann Dyer moved to intercept him, the conversation close and quick.
When Dyer turned towards Ruth there was a small plastic envelope in her hand.
'Do you recognise this?' she asked.
Inside the envelope was a gold chain with letters spelling out the name HEATHER at its centre. The clasp was broken and, here and there, the links of the chain were dark with mud.
Ruth stared at it, mesmerised.
'Do you recognise it?' Dyer asked again.
Ruth shook her head. 'No. I'm sorry, no. I've never seen it before.'
'You're sure?'
'Yes, of course.'
'It isn't Heather's? Your daughter's?'
'No.'
'Yes,' Pauline Efford said quietly. 'Yes, it is.'
'But how...?'
'She bought it, in Penzance. With he
r pocket money. She thought—she thought it was lovely.'
No way to stop the tears now, both women crying, and Simon hurrying from where he'd been standing further along the field edge, looking out. 'What? What is it? What's happened?'
Slipping the envelope down into her pocket, Dyer reached for her phone.
15
Alan Efford had drawn Cordon over to one side, the thought gnawing at him since his daughter had been winched up into the helicopter on a stretcher, ready for the journey to hospital; ever since the liaison officer had spelled out the circumstances in which she had been found: Ann Dyer stating the facts as she knew them, her tone neutral, giving each word equal weight, first this and then that.
His face, when he spoke to Cordon, was pale, save for a ragged spread of stubble.
'For fuck's sake, I need to know.'
'Know what?'
'What you're not telling me.'
'And that is?'
Cordon could have read it in his eyes if he had not already known. A father's thoughts and fears. Hadn't he been a father himself? Still was, though there was little enough to show. The occasional postcard, the odd guilt-driven phone call, his son's voice remote and wavering like something caught in the wind, on the tide. Scraps for which he had to be grateful. Would it be better if there were nothing now at all?
'He didn't touch her,' Cordon said.
'He took off all her clothes. Stripped her naked. Of course he fucking touched her.'
'Not in that way.'
'That way? That fucking...'
'Her clothes were sodden. She was wet through. Cold. Without him she might have died.'
'He ...'
'He did what he had to do. Be grateful.'
End of conversation. Cordon turned smartly away. He had asked the doctor who had examined her and been reassured: no signs of sexual activity, recent or otherwise, no traces of saliva or semen.
I washed her with a cloth, just gentle like...
It nagged at him all the same: was there more to Gibbens than met the eye? A man who had opted, as far as one can, for the life of a recluse; whose need for companionship, conversation, was almost nil. A few goats, stray cats, the sound of the sea.