Far Cry

by John Harvey

  Another life.

  'Beatrice,' Helen said, 'would you say she was young for her age?'

  'No,' Leslie Huckerby said, 'I don't think so.'

  'Mature, then? Grown up?'

  'I don't know, it's difficult to say. Since I stopped teaching full time, going into schools every day ... they all seem to grow up so fast. Not that I got the impression she was especially into make-up or boys, not like some of them.' He shook his head. 'Just a normal, bright girl with a good head on her shoulders.'

  'You don't know,' Marion Huckerby said, 'what might have happened?'

  'After she left here, no,' Helen said. 'Not yet.'

  'I'm sure she'll turn up.'

  'Let's hope so.'

  '"Bye, Mrs Huckerby," she said, cheerful as anything.'

  'You saw her go?'

  'Yes. I was sitting here, in this chair, where I am now. She put her head round the door to say goodbye.'

  'And was that normal? I mean, did she usually...?'

  'Oh, yes. If the door was open and she could see me sitting here on my own. Sometimes, if her father was here before the lesson ended, they'd hurry off, but otherwise she'd say goodbye and then go and wait for him outside.'

  'She never waited in here, or in the hall?'

  'Not usually, no. If it was raining, maybe, but no, she'd go out there and wait. It was never more than a few minutes.'

  'Before her father arrived?'

  'Yes. Sometimes I would hear his voice, or occasionally the car, but not always.'

  'There's so much traffic at that time of the evening,' Leslie Huckerby said. 'I've had to have double glazing put in upstairs where I give the lessons, otherwise that's all you could hear, cars, cars, cars.'

  'So you wouldn't have heard anything yourself?'

  'Not really.'

  'Unless you came downstairs.'

  'Yes, but I wouldn't, you see. Oh, I might pop to the loo, but otherwise I'd be getting ready for my next lesson. Sorting out music and so on.'

  Helen nodded. 'This evening,' she said to Marion Huckerby, persevering, 'after Beatrice had gone outside, do you remember hearing anything? A voice, maybe? Someone calling Beatrice? Saying her name?'

  'No, no.' Flustered. 'I ... I don't think so.'

  'Nothing?'

  'I'm sorry, no. I wish I did, I wish I could help.'

  'And you don't know how long it was she stood there, outside the house, waiting, before she left?'

  Tears welling up, a catch in her throat, Marion Huckerby shook her head, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'

  Her husband reached across and patted her hand. 'It must have been getting on for a quarter past when her father rang the bell,' he said, 'so she must have left before that. When the doorbell went I thought it was my next pupil, a little early. Marion called up to me, thinking for some reason Beatrice might have gone back upstairs. That was the first time we realised something was wrong.'

  Will had taken Andrew Lawson through the circumstances of his daughter's disappearance not once now, but twice, returning to check certain points a third time. Lawson's eyes were glazed over, his body limp, a mixture of tiredness and delayed shock; his answers repetitive, monotone.

  He had left his school some five minutes later than he'd intended, delayed dealing with a particularly truculent parent, and then been slowed down again by the build-up of traffic, finally arriving at the Huckerby house at approximately fifteen minutes past six. He couldn't be more exact than that. Instead of being on the front path waiting, as he'd expected, Beatrice was nowhere to be seen. Thinking she'd gone back inside—possibly to ask one of the Huckerbys to call him on his mobile—he had rung the bell and when Mrs Huckerby came to the door, told her he'd come to take his daughter home.

  Very quickly then, he'd confirmed that she was nowhere in the house or garden, no sign of her on the street. Phoning home in case, somehow, she was already there, all he'd got was his own voice on the answering machine. His assumption then had been that, fed up with waiting, she'd got into a huff and started to walk. It didn't occur to him then that she might have caught a bus.

  Getting back in the car, he drove home along the route she was most likely to have taken. It was only at this point the idea came to him that she might, somehow, have gone back to her friend Fiona's. Fiona Davies. But when he phoned to check, Fiona's mother had said no, she had collected both girls from school as usual and taken them to the Huckerbys'; when she had picked up her daughter at the end of her lesson, Beatrice had still been there waiting for hers to start, she had passed her on the stairs.

  No, Andrew confirmed, Beatrice didn't have a mobile of her own. Nor had she ever left without waiting for him before, no matter how late he had been.

  'Is it possible she could have arranged to meet somebody?' Will asked.

  'Somebody? Who?'

  'I don't know, a friend from school maybe? A boyfriend?'

  'She doesn't have boyfriends.'

  'Somebody she'd met through the Web, perhaps? Some chat room or other?'

  'No.' Andrew shook his head strongly. 'We were always very careful about how and when she used the computer. And besides'—the incomprehension clear on his face—'how could she be meeting someone else? She knew she was meeting me.'

  Past midnight, Will was standing in Beatrice's room, only a small corner light shining. Earlier he had read through the remainder of her diary, looking for names, assignations, anything that might provide a clue to what had happened, where she might have gone. With her father's permission, he had searched through drawers, read letters, old cards, scribbled notes pushed down into books. Her bank book from the Nationwide showed forty-three pounds in her account, untouched since January of that year. As far as her father knew, none of her clothes were missing, other than the things she had been standing up in. There was nothing, so far, to suggest the girl had planned to leave of her own accord. No suggestion that she had been unhappy either at home or at school.

  Looking down into the rear garden, the light from Helen's cigarette was like a firefly against the shadowed grass. Most of the surrounding windows were dark.

  Will went down.

  'You should go home and get some rest,' Helen said when she saw him. 'A couple of hours while you can.'

  'Maybe,' Will said.

  By mid-morning they would have posters bearing Beatrice's picture ready for distribution; a second canvass of the neighbours would begin; bus crews would be interviewed. Officers would start interviewing Beatrice's teachers, her fellow pupils; Will himself, most likely, Will or Helen, would follow up the initial questioning of her friend Fiona Davies and her mother. With any luck, by then he would be able to speak to Ruth Lawson as well.

  That evening, motorists who regularly passed the Huckerbys' house on their way home would be stopped and questioned. If there were no trace by the end of the day, a composite fingerprint and DNA profile of Beatrice would be produced.

  More officers would be drafted in.

  Standard operating procedure.

  'She vanished,' Will said. 'Ten, fifteen minutes and she vanished.'

  Helen stubbed out her cigarette. 'Home,' she said. 'Go home.'

  'How about you?'

  Neither of them moved.

  The liaison officer came quietly out from the house.

  'This friend of the mother's, sir, Catriona, have you talked to her at all?'

  'No, why?'

  'I think you should.'

  45

  Ruth swam. She swam steadily out from the shore, long slow strokes that pulled her through the water, pushed against the tide. Legs kicking strongly in tandem with the movement of her arms, head turning, roll of her body from side to side, the splash of water into her face and along her back.

  Turning, she trod water and looked around.

  She had no idea she'd swum out so far.

  People like stick men running along the shore.

  Waving, some of them. Waving at her?

  Raising an arm, she waved back and as she did
so the water rose up into her face, stinging her eyes, splashing up into her mouth and nose. Salt in her mouth and sour.

  For a moment she choked, unable to breathe.

  Then gradually she eased herself around and struck out again, more leisurely this time, a steady breaststroke instead of crawl, her hands parting the waves, small curtains of green.

  Glass green.

  Green and blue and green again.

  The ocean.

  She had the ocean to herself.

  The horizon a dark line that trembled like a note from a violin.

  She swam on, steadily, but her legs were beginning to ache now, a heaviness in her arms.

  How much further did she have to go?

  Twenty strokes more, ten, and then she'd rest, tread water again, float on her back and let the waves take her, carry her along.

  There.

  The water slid across her face and she felt herself begin to slip beneath the waves.

  This was what she'd wanted all along.

  This.

  She closed her eyes.

  Down.

  And down.

  Pressure now on her chest and lungs, and suddenly she had to fight to breathe, twisting and thrashing with her arms, struggling to claw herself back up to the surface, but the weight of the water pressed her down.

  The more she fought, the more something was holding her back, like hands, hands pressing, holding her beneath the waves.

  Hands.

  Children's hands.

  And their laughter.

  The water roared in her ears till she thought that they must burst.

  No air...

  Her lungs...

  Somewhere above her, sun on their faces, they laughed on and splashed and kicked and played their little games.

  Called her name.

  One final thrust and then her heart would break.

  46

  'It's unbelievable,' Helen said.

  'I know.'

  'That poor woman. No wonder the state she's in.'

  Will nodded. No wonder indeed. First one daughter, then another. Helen was right, it beggared belief.

  They'd found an all-night garage not far from the house and bought coffee from a machine, sat drinking it in Helen's car, windows wound down for the smoke from her cigarette. The coffee was acrid and stale but they drank it anyway.

  'The other daughter,' Helen said, 'Heather, was that her name?'

  'Yes.'

  'The same father or...?'

  'Different. Remarried.'

  'And this was thirteen, fourteen years ago?'

  ''95. Summer of '95.'

  'She fell down a mine shaft, that's what this Catriona said?'

  'Something like that, yes. She didn't know for certain.'

  'But it was an accident?'

  'Apparently. We'll get the details tomorrow.'

  Helen smiled wanly. 'Today.'

  Already the sky was lightening, the first strands of red and orange visible through the false dawn of street lights and forecourt signs. Helen dropped the butt of her cigarette into the dregs of her coffee and it hissed.

  'You think about it,' Will said, 'from the moment they're born. The first time, almost, you hold them. Everything so ... so bloody fragile. And you become terrified. Something happening to them. Something happening to you.'

  He looked out of the window, distracted, another car pulling in at the pumps.

  'I remember once, this was before we'd moved, I'd taken Jake out in the buggy, one of the first times it must have been. We were just in the park, this little park not so far from where we lived, and I thought, as I was pushing him, I thought what if something happens to me now—I don't know what, a heart attack, anything—and he's just left here all on his own, strapped in, and nobody will know. Not who he is or anything.'

  He shook his head.

  'It's stupid, absolutely bloody stupid, no rhyme nor reason. Nothing was going to happen to me, nothing was going to happen to him. But once they're born, it all changes. You change. You think differently.'

  Helen lit another cigarette.

  'Being on your own with them,' Will said, 'that's the worst. Like, one time, Susie had this coughing fit. That's all it was. Lorraine was out somewhere with Jake and I was on my own with Susie—she couldn't have been more than a few months old—and she started coughing and no matter what I did—patting her back, trying to get her to drink water—it just wouldn't stop and I was going frantic. I thought, she's going to die. I couldn't think rationally, not at all. I just stood there holding her, listening to that horrible brittle cough, and feeling her pressed against me, her chest against my hand, each time ...'

  Breaking off, he turned away, eyes closed, not wanting her to see his face, and Helen rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

  'Come on,' she said, 'we ought to be getting back.'

  The ambulance was outside the house when they returned. Ruth Lawson, parchment pale, was being stretchered along the path from the front door, loosely strapped beneath a dark blue blanket.

  As Will hurried from the car, breaking into a run, the liaison officer crossed the square of lawn to intercept him, dew glistening on her shoes.

  'What the hell happened?'

  'Overdose, sir. Sleeping pills. She'll be all right.'

  'How...?'

  'She went to the bathroom. After she'd just got out of bed. I should have gone with her. I'm sorry.'

  Will nodded. For a moment, he saw Andrew Lawson's face at one of the downstairs windows, a blur. Helen was by the ambulance, talking to one of the paramedics in hushed tones.

  'How's the husband?'

  'In shock, I think. Their friend Catriona's with him for now. But she's been up more or less all night. She's out on her feet.'

  'Get back in there. He'll want to go to the hospital, I imagine. If he's not up to it, see if there's somebody else who can come and sit with him here. Then you get off and catch some sleep yourself.'

  'It's all right, sir, I'm fine.'

  'Like hell you are. Go home, set the alarm. We'll need Lawson to make some kind of a statement this afternoon. I'll want you back for that.'

  'What if the girl calls, sir? Calls here?'

  'I'll make sure there's someone by the phone. Now off you go. And stop sirring me all the bloody while.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Make me feel old before my time,' Will said, but she was already hurrying away.

  Mid-morning, Andrew Lawson sat with Will on a bench in the hospital grounds, head bowed, a cigarette in his shaking fingers, the first time he had smoked in years. His face was grey, heavy bags of skin beneath his eyes; he looked, Will thought, at least ten years older than his actual age. Ten years virtually overnight.

  It had taken a deal of persuasion to prise him away from his wife's bedside, Ruth out of danger and deeply sleeping, no movement save for the occasional flicker of the eyelids, the silent opening of her mouth to call what might have been a name.

  'I should never have left her,' Lawson said, not for the first time. 'If I hadn't left her this would never have happened.'

  'Don't blame yourself,' Will said.

  'Earlier,' Lawson said, continuing as if Will had never spoken, 'when Catriona and I were both sitting there, she seemed to be having some kind of nightmare, thrashing around with her arms and kicking out—she kicked the covers right off the bed—but then she settled and she looked almost peaceful and I thought it would be all right. I went into the spare room and lay down. Just ten minutes, just to close my eyes.'

  He looked up at Will.

  'When they found her—when the police officer found her—I was terrified I'd lose both of them.'

  Still burning, the cigarette fell from his hand.

  'Beatrice, that was my fault too. Talking to that stupid man on the telephone in my office, on and on about some perceived wrong that had been done to his son. And I was being so bloody professional, doing my best to listen calmly, placate him, when I should have told him
to get off the bloody phone so I could collect my daughter. My own child.' He pushed a hand up through his greying hair. 'I was more concerned with him and his son than I was with my own child.'

  'You were doing your job,' Will said.

  'Is that it?' Lawson said, tears in his eyes. 'My job? My sorry bloody job.'

  He lowered his face into his hands and cried.

  Knowing how he felt, Will waited, time ticking by. He had spoken earlier to the press officer, the conference called for later that afternoon, in time to get fullest coverage on the evening news. Will still hoped he could persuade Andrew Lawson to be there, sit on the platform at least, perhaps say a few words, the usual heartfelt platitudes. They would be using two photographs of Beatrice, one taken on a recent holiday, showing her happy and smiling, the other the orthodox head-and-shoulder shot school photographers seemed to specialise in, designed to reduce everyone to conformity. After some discussion, they had decided to release a picture of Beatrice and her mother also, the two of them in the garden outside the house where they lived, Ruth with her arm around Beatrice's shoulder, holding her close, mother and daughter, pride and love in her eyes.

  Helen had gone to talk to Gill Davies and her daughter, Fiona, Beatrice's friend, about the afternoon of music lessons, the hours before Beatrice had disappeared. Neither of them could venture reason or explanation for what had happened or why. Beatrice had been just the same as usual and nothing that she'd said to Fiona had suggested either that she was nervous or upset, nothing out of the ordinary at all. Nothing about arguments at home, no plans to do anything after her lesson other than meet her father in the usual way. No secret boyfriends, at least none that she had confessed to Fiona; no one that she met through some Internet chat room and kept hidden from her parents.

  Things had been fine at school, Fiona said, Beatrice had been getting on with everyone, no big feuds, no rows, no dramatic fallings-out. Both her class teacher and the head teacher confirmed this to be the case: Beatrice was able, occasionally a little bit bolshy, but mostly keen and enthusiastic, popular with the other girls; even the boys grudgingly thought she was okay.