by John Harvey
'What I believe don't matter. Just an old fool, livin' on his own.' He slid his feet into what looked like two left shoes and tucked the towel back round his neck. His trousers were still halfway up his legs.
'Eliot,' he said. 'Walking crab-like along the beach with the bottoms of his trousers rolled. Before he become a poet he was on the music halls, you know. Wearing a black face, like them minstrel shows. "Little Dolly Daydream". That was one of his numbers. "IWant My Girlie", that was another. That and "J. Alfred Prufrock", of course. Come on up and I'll set the kettle on, make tea.'
The interior was dark and dingy and seemed more disordered than when Cordon had last visited: bits of flotsam and jetsam on most surfaces and patched here and there across the floor; ancient hardback books with their pages stained and wrinkled as if they'd been submerged in salt water. Over to one side, a vintage wind-up gramophone rested on top of a metal trunk, several small piles of scratched and chipped seventy-eights ranged alongside.
'Sit,' Gibbens said expansively, gesturing towards a ramshackle selection of chairs. 'Sit.'
But when Helen went to do so, a black cat with a torn ear hissed and showed its claws.
'Manners,' Gibbens said and, lifting the animal clear, he shooed it outside. 'Getting old, that's her trouble. Not used to the company, neither.'
'Still got your goats?' Cordon asked.
'Just two. Out along the cliff somewhere.'
'Thought the council'd have hounded you out of here by now.'
Gibbens laughed and settled the kettle on a small Calor gas stove. 'So did they. Till this lawyer took an interest. Out to make a name for himself, I reckon, threatening to take 'em to the Human Rights Commission an' all sorts.' He laughed again, a rough cackling sound that set Helen's teeth on edge like chalk being scraped along an old-fashioned blackboard.
The tea, when it came, was black and strong.
'There's sugar if you'd like,' Gibbens said. 'No milk.' He chuckled. 'Milkman forgot to call again, I'm afraid.'
They sat for a while listening to the sea's rise and fall and the melismatic cry of gulls wheeling overhead. If I lived here, Helen thought, all on my own save for a few animals, I'd go crazy too. If that's what he was.
'You're right,' Cordon said, 'it's what happened to Kelly's friend that we're interested in, the pair of them lost they way they were. Fret coming in the way it did.'
Gibbens said nothing, hummed bits and pieces of melody, some old, mostly forgotten tune.
'You were out there when it started to come down.'
'I was?'
'You tell me.'
Gibbens shook his head. 'Right in here. Sittin' where you are now, matter of fact. Crime and Punishment, you remember? Part three, chapter six. Raskolnikov's workin' himself up into a muck sweat on account he thinks the police suspect him of murder.'
'And do they?'
'Don't they always?'
'Correctly or not?' Helen asked.
'Don't rightly want to say. Shame to spoil it for you, give away the plot.'
He's crazy, all right, Helen thought. Crazy like the proverbial fox.
'I did go out,' Gibbens said suddenly. 'Wasn't too thick then, not down here at least. Like blasted night up around the path. Walked up a short ways, got so I couldn't see my hand afore my face. Come back down. Shut it out.'
'What made you go out in the first place?' Cordon asked.
'Curious, I suppose.'
'That was all?'
'That and the noise.'
'Noise?'
'Someone calling.'
'Calling what? Calling a name? Calling for help?'
'Name. Least I think it was.'
'Which name?'
'I don't rightly know, not for sure.'
'Kelly?'
'I don't know.'
'Heather?'
'Could've been. Can't rightly say if it was or not.'
'But if you heard it?' Helen said.
'What I heard, something like a name. The way it was said. Like someone calling a name.'
'Just the one person calling out? One voice?'
'Maybe two.'
'Two?'
'First one and then another. Not at the same time, like. One louder than the other.'
'Which?'
'The first.'
'Could one of them have been a girl's voice?' Helen asked.
'Not to my hearin', no.'
'When you heard this shouting,' Cordon said, 'what did you do? Did you call back?'
Gibbens shook his head.
'Do anything?'
'No.'
'So why have you never mentioned this before?'
Gibbens looked at the floor, at his feet crammed into two left shoes. 'Didn't think it were important. Folk lose their way in fog, call out. Nothin' more'n that.'
'One of those folk,' Cordon said, his voice hardening, 'ended up unconscious in your bed. The other one turned up dead. I'd say that was important, wouldn't you?'
Gibbens looked at him then. 'Wouldn't have changed nothin', would it?'
'Wouldn't it?'
'She'd still be dead.'
'I'll ask you again, why didn't you tell us this before?'
Gibbens looked away again. 'Didn't want to get involved any more'n I was.'
'That all?'
'What else?'
'Feeling guilty, maybe?'
'What of?'
'I don't know. Keeping quiet. Not going to help sooner than you did. Thinking if you had, Heather Pierce might still be alive.'
All expression fell from Gibbens' face. 'Got one death on my conscience already. Don't need another.'
Helen looked across at Cordon, who shook his head.
'Kelly's father went out looking for her,' Cordon said, 'before calling us in. Her brother, too. You think it might have been them you heard, father and son?'
'Could well be.'
Cordon set down his cup, the tea barely touched. 'Francis, we'll be getting on. Thanks for your time. Thanks for the tea.'
Gibbens barely inclined his head, made no move to see them to the door. Outside, the sky was still as clear and blue as it had been before.
'His son,' Cordon said, 'he took his own life. Hanged himself.'
'Poor bastard.'
'Yes.'
'You think that's why he's shut himself away?'
'Reason enough, don't you think? Something like that happens—more you dwell on it, my guess, the more responsible you'd feel—shutting yourself off from the whole damned human race must seem a pretty good idea.'
He started to walk, striding out, and Helen fastened the zip of her anorak to stop it flapping around her and set off in his wake.
58
It was the fifth day after Beatrice Lawson's disappearance, the fifth morning, and less misty than the one before. No time for Will's morning run. From where he sat, in the first of two cars pulled over beside a strip of narrow road near the middle of Padnal Fen, he could see the light beginning to break over the lee of the eastern horizon, the contours of the land taking on slow definition. The former smallholding Simon Pierce had bought nine months before had stood vacant the best part of a year, its previous owner bowed down by growing debt and isolation, the grudging nature of the land. The squat, square house stood unsheltered from the wind, save for a break of stubborn trees to its northern side: the house and its few, huddled outbuildings the only habitation within sight. One of those, Will imagined, was sheltering the vehicle registered to him: a grey N reg. Toyota Corolla. For it to have been a green Corsa would have been too much to hope for. Officers were still checking through the list of Vauxhall Corsa owners in the county: green, a popular colour where that particular model was concerned.
As Will watched, a light came on at one of the upstairs windows, pale against the gathering sky. Ellie Chapin sat, tense, beside him; Jim Straley and two other officers in the car behind.
'Do you think she's there?' Ellie said, breaking the silence.
'I don't know,' Will said.
If Hel
en were here, he thought, she'd have the window wound down, smoking a last cigarette.
While the upstairs light still burned, another came on below.
'Let's find out,' he said.
The man who came to the door was wearing a T-shirt and jeans and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His feet were bare. His hair, which he'd allowed to grow quite long, was tousled and uncombed. There was little flesh on his arms and what there was hung pale and loose. His face was sallow, his eyes dark and flickering, as if blinking himself properly awake.
Will identified himself and the two officers standing immediately to either side.
'Beatrice,' Pierce said flatly. 'That's why you're here.'
'Where is she?'
Pierce took a step back into the quarry-tiled hall. 'You'd best come in.'
Will's heart made a jump, as if Pierce were about to show them where she was.
They followed him into the big kitchen, Will and Ellie Chapin. Straley remained outside with the other officers who were already heading towards the outbuildings. On a blackened range at the furthest end of the room, a kettle was whistling softly, releasing steam.
'Where is she?' Will said again. 'Is she here?'
'Here?'
Will moved towards him and as he did so, Pierce began to laugh.
'Funny?' Will said angrily. 'You think this is funny?'
'It's you,' Pierce said. 'Imagining ...' He wiped a hand across his mouth. 'You know, don't you, what happened to my daughter? My own little girl. You know what happened to her?'
Will nodded.
'You know how she died then. On her own. Terrified. In the dark.' He tugged at the sleeve of his T-shirt, scratched at the inside of his arm. 'She was frightened of the dark, did you know that? Did she tell you that? Ruth, her mother. Did she tell you our little girl was afraid of the dark?'
'Mr Pierce...'
'Yes?'
'Do you have any idea where Beatrice is?'
'Of course I don't!' It was a scream, the words torn from somewhere inside. 'Of-course-I-don't.' Each word separate, proclaimed.
He swayed a little, suddenly unsteady on his feet, and reached out to the table for support.
'D'you think that I—after what happened to Heather—the loss we suffered, still suffer—you think that I could take it into my head to harm ...'
He turned aside, head down.
'Not necessarily,' Will said, 'to harm.'
'No, of course. Not harm. Help. Be kind. Kind to Ruth. Kind.' When he turned back, there were tears in his eyes. 'She never got over it, you know. Losing Heather. She says she did, but it's not true. I know. You don't get over something like that, do you? You can't.'
He looked at Ellie Chapin. 'Have you got children?'
She shook her head.
'Have you?'
'Yes,' Will said. 'Two.'
'Then you'll know.'
'You got children? Roberts' voice a hollow echo Will could not ignore.
'I've tried to help her,' Pierce said. 'I really have.'
'Her?'
'Ruth. Because I know—I'm the only one who does—I know how she's feeling.'
'And you've helped, tried to help?'
'Yes.'
'Exactly how?'
'Spread the word, of course. About Beatrice. These groups, on the Internet, here and abroad. Europe. Everywhere. Dedicated to helping parents, families, find missing children. Ever since that little girl in Portugal there've been scores of them, hundreds. You see ...' His eyes, big eyes, were fixed on Will, almost imploringly. 'Whoever's taken her, Beatrice, by now she could be anywhere. You must have had sightings, I'm sure. Amsterdam. Greece. Turkey. People who've seen her, somebody like her.'
'And you do all this from here, communicating with these various groups? From here on your computer?'
'Yes, of course.'
'You what? Register her as missing?'
'Yes, well, not officially. I'm not supposed to do that, officially. That would have to be Ruth and I don't think ... When I've mentioned it before, tried to get her interested ... But now, well, perhaps she'll think differently. Or you, one of you, you could suggest ...'
The words trailed off to silence.
Ellie Chapin lifted the kettle from the stove before it boiled dry.
'A photograph,' Will said, 'before you could post Beatrice as missing, even unofficially, you'd need a photograph.'
'Yes, I suppose ...'
'But that's no problem for you, you've plenty of photographs. Dozens of them, filed away. On a memory stick somewhere, is that where they are? Good, too, not just snaps. I've seen them, a selection anyway. The ones you sent to her mother. It was you, wasn't it? "Isn't she lovely?" That's what you said. Your message. Anonymous. Secret. Why didn't you want her to know? Her mother? Why go to all the trouble to keep your identity secret? Was it because of how it would look?What people would think? Something strange, something not right? Abnormal? A grown man sneaking round taking pictures of his ex-wife's ten-year-old daughter?'
Pierce had backed away as far as the wall and now stood cowering, his arms wound round his head, eyes clenched shut.
'Where is she?' Will demanded. 'Tell me where she is. You know, don't you? You know.'
'No, no. I don't, I don't.'
Backing away, he fell sideways, catching his head on the edge of an open cupboard door, and lay there in an untidy, angular ball.
'Shall I help him up?' Ellie Chapin said.
'Let him be.'
Moments later, Jim Straley pushed open the kitchen door, holding a plastic evidence bag high in one hand: inside, crusted with dirt and torn at the sleeve and the neck, was a child's black and gold striped top.
59
When Ruth saw the top, she burst into tears. And then, as she listened to Anita Chandra explaining where it had been found, she slumped backwards into a chair, still crying, riven by incomprehension and despair.
Andrew went to put an arm around her but she pushed him away.
'It means she's dead, doesn't it?' Ruth said, sobbing, the words a blur. 'That's what it means.'
'No, no,' the liaison officer said. 'It doesn't have to mean that at all.'
'Don't lie. Don't lie to me.'
'It means we have every chance of finding her. Now more than before.'
'But Simon...? That's where...? I don't understand.'
'We don't know yet exactly what the circumstances were, the jumper being in his possession. On his property. We're talking to him now. As soon as there's anything definite, of course we'll let you know.'
'Perhaps,' Andrew said, 'you'd like to go and lie down. Just for a while. I'll bring you up some tea.'
Ruth nodded and, like a child, suddenly exhausted, allowed herself to be led away.
From the moment he had entered the police station, Simon Pierce had been different: calmer, controlled, at times almost obsequiously helpful—as if he were an active part of an ongoing investigation, instead of, for now, its focus.
Seated alongside Jim Straley in the back of the car, he had been quiet, only passing comment once or twice as they crossed the fen, once remarking on the level of water in the drainage ditch that ran into the Lark, once pointing out a brace of pheasants startled up from near the edge of a field as they passed. Otherwise, he sat silent, close to smiling.
'No,' had been his response, when asked if he would like time to contact a solicitor. 'I don't think that will be necessary, do you?'
Will didn't like, didn't trust, what was happening. Had all the histrionics before, the pathetic collapse, been an act, or was this now? It was almost as if this was what he had been waiting for, preparing, trying out his own lines. Another side of the same coin.
At Will's insistence, the duty solicitor was summoned: a greying, former newspaperman named Matthew Oliver, who had come late to the law, and existed in part, Will assumed, from selling titbits of information to his erstwhile colleagues. Oliver was cherry-faced, balding, what remained of his hair left to curl over the da
ndruff-scattered collars of his ageing suits. Appearances to the contrary, he was nobody's fool.
Before the interview, Will had spoken with Ellie Chapin. The top, they'd established, had been bought by Ruth and Beatrice at H&M in Cambridge on the same day they had met Simon. Coincidence or something more? Beatrice had first noticed it missing almost two weeks later.
'I got the impression,' Ellie said, 'there's something about it the mother's not saying.'
'About the way it went missing or what?'
'I don't know.' She shook her head. 'I'm sorry, it's most likely nothing.'
'No. If you feel there's something there then probably there is.'
Ellie looked back at him gratefully.
'We'll talk to her again,' Will said.
Simon Pierce had pulled on a fraying cotton sweater over his T-shirt before leaving the house, a tweed jacket with patched sleeves and a pair of worn-down leather shoes; he was still wearing his jeans. He sat upright, expectant, waiting for it all to begin. His chair pulled slightly back, Matthew Oliver tapped the end of his biro against a spiral-bound reporter's notebook and counted the cracks in the ceiling, a new paint job that had settled badly.
With Jim Straley sitting alongside him, Will introduced those present for the sake of the tape and gave time and date.
The black and gold jumper lay, covered, on the desk between them.
'This garment, which has been confirmed as belonging to Beatrice Lawson, how did it come to be in your possession?'
'Was it in my possession?'
Will drew breath. Was that the way it was going to go?
'It was found on your property. Amongst rags and sacking and a few old clothes in an outbuilding that looked as if, until recently, it had been used as a henhouse.'
'They stopped laying,' Pierce said.
'What?'
'When I took the place on, the owner, the previous owner, he said they'd give you several dozen eggs a week, no problem. But a fox took a couple, the best layers, and that was that. Can't fly, you see. Got wings, but can't fly. Helpless.'
If he's playing clever buggars, Will thought, I'll have him.
'What was the building used for more recently?' he asked calmly.