In the Moors

by Nina Milton

  Speechless, I watched her carry on up the path, the basket swinging from her fingers.

  “You can run when you want to, indeed,” said Bren, as he joined me. “Only, you looked a bit puffy farther back, like.”

  “I’m fine—”

  “You mustn’t forget that you’ve only just recovered from a serious accident.”

  I shrugged. “It’s a year ago, now.”

  “Thirteen months and eighteen days.”

  I stared at him in amazement. Even I hadn’t calculated the time of my smash-up in such precise terms.

  “I came to you. Maybe you can’t remember now. Indeed, you’ve never said anything. But I wanted to help. I could feel you sliding. You were too young to slide over, Sabbie.”

  We moved along the cliff trail. I didn’t reply for ages, but he let me think, not saying anything further. Ahead of us, Rhiannon was examining a patch of tall weeds on the inland side of the track. “Do we need any mugwort?” she called back.

  “We’re marvelous for mugwort,” said Bren.

  “Right we are, then.” She scouted ahead again, and I finally found my voice.

  “Were you really there?”

  “You remember now,” said Bren, his elfin smile showing through his beard.

  “I remember something,” I said. “But I don’t believe it’s possible.”

  “Of course you don’t,” said Bren. “Most people don’t. They don’t believe anything is possible.”

  “Oh, I believe that,” I said. “I believe anything is possible. It’s Gloria’s favourite phrase. Ten years ago I would have laughed if you’d told me I’d be taking a psychology degree. Actually, I’d probably have punched you on the nose, if I’d been able to reach up. But here I am. Yeah, I agree that anything could be possible. Except moving around in someone else’s mind.”

  “Anything except that, eh?” Bren suddenly noticed that Rhiannon was struggling among the branches of a stubby, thorn-laden bush and went to her aid. Carefully, they picked off the red haws and dropped them into a buff A4 envelope.

  He didn’t bring up the subject again. He understood that it would take me some time to get my head round the idea. For the next mile we formed a convoy spread out along the coastal path, Rhiannon forging ahead, and me dragging my feet behind, thinking deeply.

  Suddenly, we came to a lovely cliff-top café, as if the Howells had conjured it out of thin air. We sat in the garden and had bara brith with scalding hot tea.

  Although it was November and had rained on and off since I got to Bangor, the day had turned out warm. The weeping willows that surrounded us were bathed in golden light. I can’t remember ever enjoying a meal more than that one. While I piled butter on my slices of brith, I asked Rhiannon why she was picking the plants.

  “They’re herbs, dear. Some for swallowing, some for poultices, and some for burning.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Ugh! You could poison yourself.”

  “They’re not for us, not especially. Anyone can come and be treated at our house.” Her eyes gleamed, reflecting the late sun. “We haven’t poisoned anyone yet.”

  I’d noticed that the Howells had a lot of visitors. People rang the bell, then traipsed up the stairs into the unused bedroom next to mine, leaving a half an hour or so later. “Are you herbalists?” I asked, thinking I sounded quite clued-up.

  “If you like,” said Rhiannon.

  “We’re cunning folk,” said Bren. “My great grandmother was a cunning woman and she taught me everything she knew.”

  “There’ll be no one to take it on from us, though,” said Rhiannon. “It’ll die out when we do. We have no cunning apprentice, you see.”

  I froze, the slice of brith halfway to my open mouth. “Don’t look at me,” I said, laughing at my own joke. “The only cunning I know is how to get out of trouble at school.”

  Bren raised one pixie eyebrow. “That’s quite sufficient,” he said. “As a start-off, like.”

  I didn’t go straight home when I left the police station. I walked around the centre of town in a catatonic state, over the many bridges, staring down into the waters of the River Parrett for minutes at a time, unable to get the least part of my mental capacities up and running. I vacillated from hating myself for struggling with a client who needed more than my skills could offer, to being filled with zeal. I’d heard of people who’d spent their lives trying to prove someone’s innocence, only to finally have the guilt conclusively confirmed. I kept coming back to the same moment last night, when I’d lifted the muslin veil to reveal Cliff in his futile hiding place. Why had he done that? Was he thinking they had already found the Slamblaster?

  As I walked past the town library, I knew I couldn’t let it go. I checked my watch. I had an hour or so to spare. I could go home and eat a proper lunch before my client arrived, or I could do some research. Even though my stomach growled at me angrily, there was no contest.

  The Bridgwater town library tries so hard to be stately and elegant, with its pillars and green copper cupola, but it’s not very big or extensively stocked, so I wasn’t hoping for much. I went straight up to the reference section, where the light filters down so that you feel as if you’re inside a lantern. A librarian turned to greet me from the other side of her counter and offered a distracted smile.

  “I want to research a series of local murders,” I told her. “Can I do that here?”

  Her face blanched. “Murders? Local? When was that?”

  I grinned at her. “It’s okay, it was decades ago. They were called the Wetland Murders.”

  She tapped at her computer keyboard, but I could see she was taking the poor thing round in small circles. Asking about murders had made her jittery. As the moments ticked on, I became worried that she was trying to raise an arresting officer, rather than a file.

  “Would it have been in the Bridgwater Mercury? We have those on microfiche, if you have the date.” I shook my head at her. Foolishly, I’d never established exactly when the bodies had been recovered. “You’re going to have to trawl through a lot of microfiche in that case.”

  Disheartened, I went to get a reviving coffee from the machine in the lobby. As usual it was out of order and I had to resist the temptation to kick it in rage. I spent a moment or two staring at the walls, trying to gain my temper. I’d just have to come back at another time, armed with the right information.

  Without warning, I had one of those little jolts that make you focus in on something you are half looking at. The lobby was wallpapered with notices and flyers for local events, and pinned between the cello recitals and the am-dram notices, a single word pinned my eye: Garibaldi.

  GARIBALDI WAY OPENS TO PUBLIC

  A Talk at the Town Hall

  Archaeologist Roberto Garibaldi and his team have recently

  unearthed the UK’s oldest-ever wooden structures. The 6,500-year-old staves and poles are thought to be the wooden remains of a causeway and fish weir installed by Stone Age men who lived in what was then a salt marsh. There will be footage of the find, and refreshments will be served.

  This sort of thing is always happening to me—a string of reminders about the symbols I bring back from shamanic journeys. After Trendle came into my life, I couldn’t go out without spotting otters—

  everything from DVDs to tattoos. Most of the otters ended up in my therapy room, except the tattoo. That ended up at the base of

  my spine. This particular flyer wasn’t new, though; it was several months out of date. As I stared at it, my thoughts turned back to Cliff and I realized I should be able to recall his date of birth if I closed my eyes and visualized his notes. I could work forwards eleven years from there.

  I shot back up the open staircase and collared my vaguely smiling friend with the years of interest fresh in my mind.

  “Do you know how to operate a microfiche viewer?” she asked as she
took me over to the files. Again I shook my head, aware I was looking increasingly gormless. I had an urge to explain about my low blood sugar. But she was very gentle as she took me through the technicalities and got quite excited when we finally found our first report of a missing child.

  She left me to it then, and I became so absorbed in the gruesome story that when a cough echoed through the silent room, my stomach lurched into my mouth. The articles made for difficult reading—my heart was bounding and my tongue felt dry—but I knew I wanted to take every scrap of information away with me so that I could do it justice. I scrabbled around in my purse and came up with enough change for copies of everything.

  I walked along the river from the library. In less than a minute I was faced with the choice of Barney’s Café or the Bridge Restaurant. I went for the upmarket option and was soon tucking into a goat cheese salad while I perused my photocopies.

  The articles listed the full names of the children found in the moors—Matthew Cladburn, Nicolas Goodland, Joanna Beck, and John Shoreward. At the time of their deaths, they had all been between three and seven years old. Like Josh and Aidan, they had all been snatched from play areas where their parents or teachers had only taken their eyes off the child for a moment.

  Cliff wasn’t mentioned at all. Was he a trial run that had gone wrong? Did the woman in the car and the man Cliff dreamed of choose smaller children simply because they’d found eleven-year-old Cliff too hard to handle?

  I pushed my plate back and wiped the olive oil from my mouth. This story of multiple losses was getting to me, and I still had to face the bus journey home.

  As the bus wound its way out of the centre of town, the man in Cliff’s dream kept nudging at my mind. He was the essential missing component to the puzzle. Women and young girls did not steal children, kill them, and bury them in a shallow grave—not in any understanding of the real world I’d ever had. It was always a man, I thought, then and now.

  “Please don’t let it be Cliff,” I whispered.

  The rain pattered on the bus window like a lullaby.

  I longed to crawl into bed and sleep when I reached home, but that was not an option. I had to get ready for an aromatherapy client.

  I switched on the local news as the kettle steamed. Cliff’s arrest was the main item, naturally. There were shots of his tiny first-floor flat, with uniformed men standing guard behind the ubiquitous blue and white tape. There was a full-screen blow-up of Aidan Rodderick’s face, followed by a re-run of his parents’ grim and tearful press statement. Finally, the screen was covered with a grainy picture of my client. It was a head and shoulders shot, but I could see it was a holiday snap, taken on a beach. I wondered where they had got it.

  I kept glancing towards my bag. Somewhere at the bottom was the contact information for Cliff’s mother. I’d promised him I would phone her. I could ring her now before my client, or ring her when I was even more exhausted this evening. There shouldn’t have been a contest, but I had to will myself to zap off the telly, and my hand was shaking as I dialled the number.

  I’d never spoken to anyone who had just had a son arrested for murder. Even so, I was knocked back by the screech that came down the line as soon as it was picked up.

  “GO AWAY! GET OFF THIS LINE!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, stuttering out the words. “You don’t know me, but—”

  “I don’t know any of you,” said the woman on the other end. Her voice was quieter but still full of fury. “That doesn’t seem to prevent you vipers from attacking me.”

  “Mrs. Houghton.” I’d guessed what this was about. All I could do was talk quickly before she slammed down the phone. “I know your son. He might have mentioned me to you. My name is Sabbie Dare.”

  There was a moment of thought before she came back at me, suspicion uppermost in her tone. “No. My son has not mentioned you. And I’m answering no more questions.”

  “I saw Cliff today. At the police station.”

  She let out a sob. “I don’t want to speak to the police tonight.”

  “I was there to give a statement. Cliff was at my house when they arrested him.”

  She gave a pause. “He never spoke about you.”

  “I think he might have been preoccupied of late.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Houghton. “Yes, he has been, a bit. He didn’t tell me he had a girlfriend.”

  “Ah, now—Mrs. Houghton—”

  “He tells me most things. He would have told me. You could be the press. They can pull some dirty tricks.”

  “I understand that. You don’t have to talk to me.” I had managed to confuse things further for the poor woman. But she didn’t hang up, so I battled on. “Cliff just wanted me to send his love and say he’s okay.”

  I heard her irregular breaths echo into the phone’s dark cavities. “He’ll be feeling so dreadful, wondering how it could happen.”

  “I think it’s a sort of mistaken identity—”

  “Don’t say anything over the phone,” Cliff’s mother hissed down line. “They tap them you know; I’ve seen it on the television.”

  I swallowed hard, unsure whether she was losing it or if she might be right. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “That’s nice of you, Sally, it is. You can pray. I’ve been praying for him every hour since I heard the news. Only no one bothered to inform me, you know. All these phone calls just started happening. They’ve been driving me mad. It’s awful that some reporter is the one to tell you your son’s in jail.”

  I knew that she had begun to cry silently. This wasn’t a good time to correct her misunderstandings, either over my name, status, or spiritual path. I had a sudden realization that after she’d put the phone down on this call, she’d be alone, except for the hounds baying outside her front door.

  “Is everything … are you all right?”

  “Oh yes, dear, of course. I’m just rather surprised to hear from you like this. I really can’t believe that Cliff could forget to introduce us. Perhaps we could meet for coffee sometime. Get to know each other better. Without the prying ears. Except I don’t think I’m going anywhere very soon. I can’t leave my house at the moment.” She chuckled, and I silently reminded myself that Mrs. Houghton had brought two children up into adulthood after losing her husband. “You’ll have to come to me, Sally, I’m afraid,” she continued without missing a beat. “What about tomorrow morning? Would tennish be okay for you?” I fancied she might be scribbling the appointment onto a wall calendar as she spoke. “I’ll need to give you my address.”

  “Actually, Cliff’s solicitor has passed that on. Mrs. Houghton?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Take all your phones off the hook. And don’t open the door to anyone.”

  “How will I know when it’s you?”

  “I’ll put my card through the letterbox.” If I can get to it, I couldn’t help thinking.

  “Can you send him my love, dear?”

  My eyes had begun to sting with sympathetic tears. “I’ll try, Mrs. Houghton. I will try.”

  TEN

  Mini Ha Ha started right away when I clambered into her the following morning. She generally does, but it’s always a surprise, because she’s older than I am—a 1970s Mini Cooper, lovingly cared for by one previous owner, right down to the original cherry-coloured paint job. I couldn’t believe this survivor of a glorious decade cost me less than a five-year-old car. I took over its ownership like I’d been handed a puppy. The local garage adapted it to run on unleaded petrol, and of course, I had to have a CD player fitted. Couldn’t do without that.

  I slid Nina Simone into the player. I had twenty or so minutes’ run ahead of me to reach Caroline Houghton’s house, and the growl of Simone’s voice would suit the mood of the journey well. The rain had stopped sometime during the night and a mild sun was bobbing above the horizon
as I drove towards the Polden Hills.

  When I first moved to Bridgwater, I thought it was an ugly town surrounded by a swamp. I guess there’s around 40,000 people living here, and most of them are proud as heck of their town, but I couldn’t for the life of me see why. Okay, it used to boast of a market and river port, but by the time I turned up it didn’t have much at all, not even a swimming pool. More critically, though, I stood out. In Bristol, I’d been one of many mixed raced kids. Here, my skin tones were too dark against the pale, Anglo-Saxon populace.

  It seemed daft to move from the city life I knew and loved, but I’d been chasing a boy, naturally. I’d met Marcus in one of the many cafés on Glastonbury High Street. I’d finished my degree, and for several months I had been making the ninety-minute trip south from Bristol to Glastonbury each weekend to learn about the things I’d felt most drawn to—the therapies I planned to offer as my life’s work. Learning about shamanism or Reiki in Glastonbury seemed as rational as learning about IT in San Jose.

  At first, I’d assumed that Marcus was on the same wavelength, since he’d come to Glastonbury with some mates to have his aura read. It had taken me no more than a couple of weeks to shift all my stuff from Gloria’s house into his Bridgwater flat. I was almost twenty-five and knew it was time to grow up and take responsibility for myself. Sadly, I have a tendency to use the most inappropriate men to help me achieve my aims. It had only taken a further couple of weeks to for me to start packing again. On our last night together, Marcus had come back to find me creating a spell in the middle of his living room—wand poised, incense and candles burning. His face had turned, like traffic lights, from red to positively green.

  “You’ve got to stop this, Sabbie,” he’d yelled at me as he snuffed out the candles by bringing his whole hand down on their flames. “It’s dangerous. It’s evil.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Okay, Marcus. Tomorrow morning, first thing.”

  Marcus had stomped off to bed, but I’d stayed and finished my spell, magicking up the perfect successful therapy practice—a full list of clients, a working space I could afford, the moxie to go ahead with it all. When I’d finished, it was two in the morning, but still I didn’t feel like bed. Instead, I packed my few things. Silently, I bundled my clothes into my suitcase and boxed up my more fragile stuff. I had no idea where I was going, but I couldn’t stay with Marcus. As I wrapped glassware in the previous week’s Mercury, my gaze rested on a blurred photo on the Property to Rent page. I was staring at it, wondering how such a little house had managed to keep so much garden all to itself, when the vision of having a bit of my own land leapt into my mind.