by Kathy Shuker
He walked back down towards the village, stood on the old stone bridge for a few minutes, idly watching the water tumbling along beneath him, then continued to the other side but found himself glancing back. He walked this way most days, twice a day, and he thought of Gilly virtually every time, posing himself the same questions. Did she explore the river that day? Who else might have been here? Could she have fallen in? No, the police would have found her if she’d done that. He was frustrated with himself at the futility of these thoughts but, try as he might to put her out of his mind, that little girl wouldn’t leave him alone.
He eased himself down the rough steps to the river path and moved under the bridge. The path was just wide enough to be passable if you ducked your head but he preferred simply to stand and listen. He liked the echo of the water here as it bounced and reverberated off the stonework; it was haunting and almost melodic.
A movement caught his eye. On the further bank, heading east away from him, a dark-haired woman wearing a lightweight fringed shawl was walking with a purposeful step. It had to be Jane. He sidled further along the path and emerged from under the bridge on the other side. Already he could only catch glimpses of her between the vegetation but, for all her haste, there was something about her movement that was furtive. Without pausing to question why, he climbed back up to the bridge, crossed it and a couple of minutes later was tracking her along the northern path.
She must be moving quickly - he couldn’t see her any more. Or maybe she had cut off on another path though he didn’t think he’d passed any. To his right was the river; to the left, the other side of some light scrub, lay the vineyard. He walked faster and it was several minutes later before he caught another glimpse of her up ahead. They were in the woods now, the vineyard no longer visible and Jane was climbing over a fence, then she was gone. He speeded up and a minute later reached the place. To his right was the small timber bridge over the river and, straight ahead, a fence blocking the path with a sign saying it was private. He climbed over it too and struck out along the ongoing riverside path, cutting left through the trees soon after in Jane’s wake.
In a little under ten minutes he reached a clearing. This must be the spot Claire had told him about but she hadn’t prepared him for the sweetness of the place. It was hard to believe he was still in the village - it was an oasis of calm. To his left was the little boathouse she had mentioned and ahead of him lay the lake, small but glinting prettily in the afternoon sunshine, reflecting the blue of the sky. Birdsong was all he could hear. He paused and stepped back into the fringe of trees. Jane had stopped further up the clearing and was standing looking at the trunk of a tree beyond the boathouse. He watched her put a hand up to it as if tracing something with her finger, then she turned away and moved off again, walking briskly towards the top of the clearing, shawl flapping. Adam followed.
Jane had picked up a path which struck off from the north of the clearing, uphill in and out of bushes and trees. It seemed to be tracking the route of the stream which fed the lake. Several times he lost sight of her but he stuck to the path and, hot and a little breathless, reached another small clearing, this one strewn with rocks. There was the distinct sound of running water and he moved cautiously sideways round a couple of huge boulders, in and out of the bushes. Then he saw Jane’s shawl, thrown over a rock some ten yards away and edged further forward, peering through the fronds of a shrub. He stopped short.
They had reached the spring. It was a beautiful spot. Water trickled over a ledge and fell vertically into a small rocky pool. And, as he watched, Jane was peeling off the last of her clothes and stepping into the pool naked, now standing shin deep in the water, stretching her arms up towards the sky as if craving a blessing. She bowed her head a moment then moved across to stand beneath the waterfall, tipping her head back, eyes closed, letting it soak her hair and run down her flesh. Her expression looked at the same time anguished and ecstatic, like that of a martyred saint in a Baroque painting. She’s purifying herself, he thought. Or maybe she thinks the water has healing properties. Is she ill – or guilty of something?
He thought he should look away but he found himself magnetised, watching her. Then his skin began to crawl with embarrassment: he was a peeping Tom, a voyeur, and he quickly and silently moved away, retracing his steps all the way back to the lower clearing. He had assumed that she had a secret assignation with someone and now he felt foolish.
In the clearing he walked back over the wildflower-strewn grass, passing on his way a couple of winding footpaths through the trees to his right. One of them was the one which led to The White House; he had no idea where the other one went. And here was the tree Jane had fondled. He moved closer and saw that it had some initials carved into it, worked inside the incised shape of a heart. J and N. Jane and Neil presumably. It was obvious that the woman was still pathetically love-sick, even after all these years but, given the way he had seen Neil looking at Claire, Adam felt sorry for her.
Further along he came to the boathouse and glanced inside, still idly wondering if it had any relevance to Gilly. There was nothing of any interest there. It might once have been the site of carefree youthful fun but now it just looked grubby and dank. On top of Jane’s behaviour, everything about it was depressing.
He went home.
*
On the Friday morning Claire was making her way into the village when her phone rang. She had got up early, wanting to make sure she was ready for the trip with Neil, wanting even more to buy her copy of the newspaper before they left.
She stopped walking. ‘Neil? Is there a problem?’
‘Claire darling. I’m so sorry to let you down but I can’t do today. Someone I was supposed to meet on Monday can’t make it and offered an appointment this afternoon. I’m going to have to leave soon. I only got his email this morning and I didn’t want to ring you too early in case I woke you.’
She felt the sharp sting of disappointment.
‘Claire?’
‘Yes. I’m here. That’s a shame. I was looking forward to it.’
‘Me too. I am sorry. But we’ll do it again, yes?’
‘Of course. It’s not your fault. These things happen.’
‘I’m afraid so. What will you do? You should do something fun with the day anyway.’
Fun. There were so many things she wanted to say to him and tell him. She glanced up the road, at the people walking dogs and going to buy their newspapers. A car drove slowly past, the driver looking at her curiously.
‘Did I hear a car? Are you outside?’
‘Yes. I just wanted a couple of things from the shop.’ She ran an anxious hand through her hair. She couldn’t tell him about the advert on the phone. This was not going well. ‘You have a safe journey,’ she heard herself say.
‘I will. And I’ll ring you over the weekend - if that’s OK?’
‘Yes. Please do.’
‘See you next week then.’
She closed the call and began to walk again, consoling herself with the thought that Neil wouldn’t see a Cornwall Now while he was in Kent so she would have a chance to tell him all about it when he got home.
*
Later that day, Julia drove down to the shop. She nearly always went on a Friday, buying in fresh items for the weekend and her copy of Cornwall Now. Busy with work, however, it wasn’t until the Saturday evening that she finally got around to reading the paper, sitting alone in their little conservatory, a glass of cider on the table beside her. Danny was out at a friend’s; Phil had gone to play darts at the pub where he was in some league or other.
As was her usual routine, she read the news then worked her way through the advertisements. It wasn’t that she was looking to buy anything in particular – and she certainly wasn’t hoping to find a job - but they were a pleasant distraction, a way to unwind. The adverts reminded her of a world outside her own all-consuming one which, though she loved it, sometimes felt enclosed and constrained, like the image you get when
you look down a telescope the wrong way. In any case, she sometimes found the personal adverts very funny.
And it was while she was working her way through the personal adverts that she saw it:
Information sought re child’s hair slide donated to Bohenna fête 2014. Reward offered for genuine lead to finding Gilly Pennyman who disappeared May 22nd 2008.
Hair slide? What hair slide? And what would the significance of that be? Julia’s blood froze and she stared at the box, reading the words repeatedly over and over. There was no doubting to whom the advert referred nor who had posted it. She couldn’t believe it.
She glanced at her watch - it was nine twenty - then picked up her phone. Maybe Neil would be out somewhere wining and dining with other conference delegates, having a good time. She didn’t care.
‘Julia?’ Neil’s voice sounded strained. Behind him she could hear the low hum of voices. ‘Is something the matter?’
‘You told me Claire had changed. That was just two days ago, Neil. You encouraged her to come to the house, to get involved again. You promised me she’d dropped all this stuff about Gilly. You know what trouble she’s going to cause. You said you’d…’
‘Hold on, Julia. What’s happened?’ Neil cut across her, stern and business like. She ran her fingers across her forehead, trying to calm down. She wasn’t usually like this.
‘She didn’t tell you about it then?’
‘About what?’
‘About the advert…in Cornwall Now. She didn’t tell you she was going to open the whole can of worms again, have the press down here nosing around, taking photos and printing lies about our vineyard and us?’
‘Julia? Julia?’ he said coldly. ‘You’re hysterical. What are you talking about? What advert?’
‘OK. I’ll tell you what advert. It’s this.’
She read it out to him and when she finished there was silence at the other end. There was no longer any laughter; Neil had clearly left the room he had been in. Or maybe the line had gone dead.
‘Neil?’
‘Right,’ he said in a flat voice.
‘You didn’t know about it?’
‘Of course I didn’t know about it.’
‘What are…?’
‘Thanks for calling, Julia. I have to go now. I’ll see you next week.’
He cut the call and she swore at the phone and threw it down.
Chapter 19
It didn’t work out the way she’d planned. At all. Thinking about it afterwards, Claire could see that she had made mistakes; she could see how she could have done things differently. In fact, maybe she had just been stupid.
On the Saturday night after the advert appeared she received two silent phone calls to her land line. On the Monday morning, when she got back from jogging, there was a note pushed through the door, asking how a dead child could give a hair slide to the fête? The note was made up of words cut out of newsprint - probably from Cornwall Now - and glued onto a sheet of paper torn from a notebook.
‘I bet you thought that was really funny,’ she spat, tearing it into confetti and throwing it in the bin. The fact that someone had watched and waited for her to go out before posting it bothered her more than the note itself.
On the Wednesday, she received another phone call and, when she answered, a shrill, electronic laugh cackled at her until she cut it dead.
It was all absurd and childish but it was unnerving all the same. There were no direct contact details on the advert so someone or maybe several people had worked out who she was and where she was and were amusing themselves at her expense. And that could only mean they were local. The thought sickened her.
The first ‘proper’ responses - if there were any and she began to doubt there would be - wouldn’t arrive for days, forwarded on from the newspaper. Neil wasn’t due back from his trip until the following Friday night. She hadn’t heard from him, not one phone call, and she recognised the oddness of that, given that he’d promised to ring, but tried not to think about it.
It was on the Friday when the first envelope arrived from the newspaper. Claire had been working all day and found it on the mat when she got home that night. Inside were more than ten letters. She opened the first one.
I saw a little girl, just last week, in Padstow. She looked scared, like she didn’t want to be with the man she was with. He was big with a rough dark beard. I didn’t like the look of him.’
Gilly wouldn’t be a little girl any more. Claire exhaled slowly, put it to one side and picked up the next.
I looked up the case. Poor little girl. What were you thinking to let a girl that age go off alone? How irresponsible! You’re a disgrace to women everywhere. You didn’t deserve to have children. There are women who can’t…
Claire shook her head and put that one aside too.
There were others - similarly unhelpful sightings or vindictive tirades. Only one referred to the hair slide, saying that her young daughter had lost one when they were out for the day and could it be the same one? The woman left a telephone number but didn’t say where the slide was lost or when. Claire stared at the scribbled note for several minutes and then at the slide. Was it likely that this slide had belonged to that woman’s daughter? What were the chances of that?
She put the note down and opened the last letter.
Gilly is happy and well and doesn’t want to come home. She wants you to leave her alone. She’s having a good time now without you so stop chasing her.
Claire felt the deadening sickness of disappointment. But she should have guessed that it would be like this because she’d been here before. Why had she thought the lapse of time would have made any difference? And this last letter hurt the most even though it was surely nonsense. The suggestion that Gilly would be happier and better off with someone else was too horrible, or perhaps chimed too closely with Claire’s own fear and guilt.
She glanced towards the clock, wondering if Neil had arrived back at The White House yet. She had still heard nothing from him. Of course he would have been busy but she had hoped that he might at least get in touch as soon as he got home. Had he seen the advert? Maybe he was never going to speak to her again. She was dramatising. Surely, after their closeness the other night, he’d try to see her point of view?
‘I don’t care,’ she said loudly to the room, though saying it still didn’t make her believe it. In a rash, angry movement, she swept the letters off the table to the floor and stamped on them.
A few minutes later, she let herself out of the back door, and went out for a run.
When she got home the rear door was open. Someone had found the key she left under a plant pot and it was still in the lock. That someone had thrown a pile of crockery on the floor, smashing it into countless jagged pieces. And on the kitchen table was a small doll with blonde curly hair and a piece of string tied tightly round its neck, like a noose. There was no note but the warning was clear enough. Claire picked it up with fingers that trembled and went outside, looking out towards her back gate and the path into the woods in case whoever did this was still out there somewhere, watching for her reaction. She wanted to laugh it off, loudly, so they could hear that it didn’t frighten her, but she couldn’t do it. She saw no-one.
She went back indoors, ignoring the crunch of the broken pots under her feet, working to undo the knots holding the string against the doll’s neck, desperate to take it off, not allowing herself to ask why it mattered so much. With the string off, she took both the doll and the string to the bin then stopped with them poised over the top of it. Was the doll supposed to suggest Gilly…or herself?
*
Zoe came to stay with Adam again that Friday night. Just as on the previous weekend she brought food with her and spent an hour after her arrival, sorting through the kitchen cupboards and the fridge, discarding out-of-date items and stacking things in order. The previous Saturday she had complained about the state of the bin and had donned rubber gloves and washed it out with disinfectant. Then
she had gone through his clothes and bed linens and put the soiled items in the washing machine. Now, having been in the bungalow less than two hours, he watched her washing down all the worktops and the cupboard fronts, tutting under her breath, and felt vaguely guilty as though he had been caught out doing something sordid.
She was organising him and he was grateful. He recognised that perhaps he needed it - he wasn’t the kind of man who was good at the ‘living alone’ thing - but still it left him feeling like he’d been brushed by a tornado. He didn’t remember such frenzied activity when she had been living with him, but she hadn’t had to cram it all into two days then.
Going into the bedroom, he’d been comforted to see that she had brought back her favourite teddy bear and stuffed badger, positioning them carefully on their bed. She was home again and that was good though inevitably they still argued over what they would watch on television. Zoe liked soaps; Adam liked sport and documentaries. They bickered about music too. Zoe liked loud and modern; Adam liked lilting and classical. He didn’t care. He had even missed arguing with her.
On the Saturday they slipped into familiar routines: staying in bed late, going shopping in Fowey, having lunch at one of the pubs and then coming home for the evening when Zoe cooked something Italian. After they’d finished eating and cleared up, he poured them some wine and suggested they watch a film.
‘I thought we’d search the agents online,’ she countered. ‘We need to get started.’
So they sat side by side on the sofa, drinking Italian wine and surfing the property websites and Adam forced himself to concentrate. If he was going to be talked into buying somewhere, he wanted to make sure it was somewhere he wanted to live.
There were several that Zoe liked the look of and a couple Adam thought he might consider. She printed out a bunch of details and they agreed to go driving past some of them the following day to take a look. Then they stopped for the night and Zoe lay against him while they watched an American cop movie.