Isolated

by M. A. Hunter

  Looking to the edge of the roof, Natalie smiled when she saw the image of her dad waiting for her. His arm was outstretched, beckoning her to take his hand; he would guide her on her final journey.

  She wasn’t expecting to hear the man’s voice calling from behind her, and as she turned to face him, for the briefest of moments she wondered why he had been sent to try and talk her out of it. And as the minutes passed, and he continued to speak and beg her not to go through with it, she questioned whether it had all been a big mistake. Then her eyes had fallen on Emma Hunter’s face, and in that moment, she realised that the guard’s interference was her final test. She’d passed with flying colours, and now, as she backed up to the roof’s edge, she was ready for the final step.

  Her new life would begin, and Sally would return.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Now

  Swanage, Dorset

  Jane Constantine’s name and address are listed in the online directory and the trip to Swanage where she now lives takes under an hour in Rachel’s car. My father always wanted to retire to Swanage one day; it still maintains some of the older ways of the world and Dad liked the fact it hadn’t been spoiled by the need for shopping centres and multi-storey car parks. Mum was never so keen on the idea, but it soon became forgotten about after Anna’s disappearance. Still, the small fishing town holds a warm place in my heart. Even as we park up and head down towards the shoreline, I’m reminded of the times we would come here for fish and chips on a Sunday afternoon, and Dad would always end up buying Anna and me a 99 with a flake.

  Turning right at the bottom of the hill, we head towards the town centre, passing the brightly coloured beach huts, abandoned on account of the season and blustery wind. I imagine most of the few people we can see moving about on the street ahead are locals. Passing the amusement arcade, I can see Rachel’s eyes widening at the flashing bulbs of the interior; maybe she’s reliving childhood memories as well. For all her claims about being a city girl and never wanting to vacate the smog of London, I think there’s a seaside girl buried deep and she could yet be convinced to give up city life.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she suddenly exclaims as we cross the road. ‘Is that a Wimpy? I haven’t seen one of those in forever! Did we just go back in time?’

  Looping my arm through hers, I push us onwards without answering. Dad was right; this place is unspoiled.

  We eventually arrive at the shop we’re looking for. It sits in the middle of the town, fronted with tall single-pane windows and with the painted frames in dire need of resuscitation. I must have been into this shop a dozen times and never did I realise it was owned by Jane Constantine. The windows are full of trinkets, aimed at catching tourists’ eyes. There are the usual array of keyrings and bracelets with the most popular children’s names, along with a host of fridge magnets, some with picturesque shots of the town, others with humorous slogans. But stepping into the shop is almost like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. A bell rings as we push the door open and take our first tentative step inside.

  The pungent aroma of burning incense hits the senses first. It’s different to the smell encountered in Natalie’s room at the hostel, but it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Natalie had purchased hers from here, particularly if Sam was right and they were back in touch. The central heating must be on maximum too as both Rachel and I feel the need to unzip and remove our coats, such is the climate change compared to outside. Above our heads, mirrored decorations catch the daylight as they twirl, and there isn’t room for the two of us to walk side by side, such is the sheer volume of merchandise crammed into the place. It really is a shop of curiosities. In fact, it’s not Narnia we’ve wandered into, rather, like Alice, we’ve tumbled into Wonderland.

  ‘Are you looking for something in particular?’ a woman’s voice calls out from somewhere near the back of the shop.

  Looking around, we appear to be the only two in here so I conclude she must be talking to us. Pushing onwards into the shop, past a collection of goblin statuettes, I find Jane Constantine slumped over a glass counter, deep in study of paperwork spread out across the counter. There is an old-fashioned register beside her. She’s not dressed in the figure-hugging business suit and heels from yesterday’s service. Instead, she’s wearing a long purple and gold robe, which might appear odd in any other setting, but seems to perfectly fit the peculiar nature of the shop in which we find ourselves.

  She looks up from her papers as we approach and it takes a moment for her to realise who I am.

  ‘You!’ she exclaims.

  ‘Hi, Jane,’ I say, stepping forwards and offering my most placatory expression. ‘I’m sorry to come and see you at work, but—’

  ‘I told you yesterday I’m not speaking to the press,’ she interrupts. ‘Please leave my shop.’

  I take another step forward. ‘I understand why you might be worried about speaking to me, Jane, but Natalie trusted me and I’m hoping that will be enough to convince you that you can trust me too. Natalie chose to throw herself from the building where my agent works. I don’t know if she knew I would be there or not, but I do know that she left a box in her room with my name on it. Inside it were her private journals from the time you were all living on the base, as well as books about Wicca.’

  I pause but she makes no effort to cut me off again. ‘I’m not trying to sensationalise what happened to Sally but Natalie begged me to find her and that’s what I’m trying to do. Unless I’m very much mistaken, the four of you went to those woods to carry out some kind of enchantment or incantation, but something went wrong and Sally vanished. Having spoken to Natalie’s fiancé and her mum, I now know that Natalie blamed herself for what happened. But I don’t understand why. You’re the missing piece of the jigsaw, Jane. Please don’t shut us out.’

  I’m not entirely sure where that earlier anger came from but now she seems to be considering the request. At least, I thought she was, but now she’s come out from behind the counter and moved to the front door. Is she about to kick us out? No, she’s actually locking the door and has spun the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’. She moves back through the shop and ushers us towards a closed door at the back.

  ‘Do either of you want a cup of tea? I’m due a break anyway.’

  Jane leads us into what is little more than a boxroom with two chairs and a small square table. There is a small basin and crudely shaped countertop on which stands a stainless-steel kettle and an open box of herbal tea bags. She encourages us both to sit while she leans against the basin.

  ‘If I’d known this is how things would end up, I never would have suggested the spell in the first place,’ she eventually says when the kettle has boiled. ‘Two friends gone, and for what?’

  ‘Can you tell us about that night?’ I ask softly, silently switching on the recorder on my phone, and resting it on the table. ‘What led the four of you there, and what actually happened?’

  She fixes the drinks without asking either of us whether we’re happy drinking herbal tea. ‘It was a very confusing time for all of us, as I’m sure you can imagine. Puberty, the stress of exams, parents being sent abroad and never knowing whether we’d see them again. That’s what drew the four of us together, I think. When I look back on that time, it was our shared apathy about life that bonded us as a group. When we were together, it felt like nothing in the world could stop us; we were formidable. At least, I thought we were.’

  Her face is cloaked in sadness as she speaks, and I have no doubt in my mind that she isn’t trying to deceive us. She is speaking from the heart, despite the obvious pain it’s causing.

  ‘Although the four of us were good friends, Sally and Louise were their own little clique. As the elder two, they both received the most attention from boys and I think they both thought themselves slightly elevated from the group. Which is why it was odd when Sally came and spoke to me about her little problem, rather than Louise.’ Her lips curl up a fraction at the memory. ‘At first I thought she
was joking but then she showed me the stick and I realised how terrified she was.’ She pauses to allow the suggestion to sink in, before adding, ‘Sally was pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant?’ I echo, snatching a glance at Rachel who is equally captivated. ‘Who was the father?’

  Jane shrugs. ‘She never told me. When I asked, she said it was better if I didn’t know; she didn’t want to get him into trouble, I think. Bearing in mind she was underage, whoever had slept with her would be facing serious consequences.’

  I recall Cheryl’s suggestion that the four girls had snuck to the woods to meet the latest batch of recruits at the base. ‘Do you have any idea who it might have been? A name or anything? Getting an underage girl pregnant is motive for killing her.’

  She considers it for a moment. ‘If I had to guess – and it would solely be a guess – then I’d say possibly Pete Havvard. He was a soldier on the base who led a drama group we all attended.’

  Rachel fires me a knowing look but I put a finger up before she says anything. ‘Why would you suggest him?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t know…’ She smiles again. ‘He was always super friendly and encouraging to all of us. I know that both Sally and Louise fancied him and had sworn some pact that neither would pursue him to save the other’s feelings, but that might also be why Sally came to me instead of Louise. Maybe she knew that Louise would connect the dots and they’d fall out. I don’t know. Anyway,’ she sighs, ‘Sally knew my mum was into Wicca and casting occasional enchantments when our dads would go overseas, and she asked whether there might be something that could be done to take the baby away. She didn’t want to tell her parents and she couldn’t face going to her GP, as she was sure the truth would get back to her parents. She was adamant she couldn’t keep the baby as she had school and plans for her future. I told her I would see what I could find and I came across a purifying spell. It was designed to help prevent the plague or something, from what I recall, but some of the side effects included cleansing the body and soul, so I figured it might work.

  ‘The spell required there to be at least four of us, and Sally was adamant that I couldn’t tell anyone about the pregnancy, and so we came up with this plan to tell the others that the spell would help ease period pains, as we were all then having our periods. I rummaged through my mum’s things to find what we needed – candles, oats, pig’s blood – and then we headed to the woods. Sally was the one who chose the clearing and she led us there. We drew a large circle on the ground using the porridge oats and placed six lit candles at key points within the circle. I forgot to bring the pig’s blood from the fridge so Sally suggested we use our own. She took out a small chopping knife, and ran it across one of her fingers, encouraging us to do the same, and then we joined bloody hands and began the enchantment.

  ‘I remember how cold and windy it was that night and after a few minutes of dancing around in the circle, I was certainly feeling dizzy, but then a sudden gust blew out the candles and we found ourselves in total darkness. Sally became frantic and kept saying she could hear someone nearby. Louise reckoned it was just the creaking of tree branches but Sally was petrified and started screaming, breaking free of our hands and vanishing. I’d have said she ran off but I couldn’t see and I didn’t hear the sound of running. She literally vanished.’

  It's a lot to take in: the pregnancy, the incantation, the account of Sally’s disappearance. I’m not prone to believing in the supernatural, as in my experience there is always a rational explanation for strange events, but even I’m stumped.

  ‘Is it possible someone saw you enter the woods or could have been watching?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t really remember. Sally certainly thought there was someone there, and Nat later told me she was sure we’d inadvertently conjured some dark spirit who had taken Sally as his prize.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell any of this to the police at the time?’ Rachel asks bluntly. ‘If Sally’s boyfriend could have been responsible, don’t you think the police should have been given the opportunity to speak to him?’

  ‘That’s just it. When I look back on it now, I can’t believe how stupid I was… we all were. I was a dumb fourteen-year-old messing with powers I didn’t understand and I was terrified that I would be locked up for causing Sally to disappear like that. I didn’t dare tell my mum. Louise told me we had to keep it quiet or risk being sent to prison. I believed her because it was easier to keep quiet than come clean. Not a day goes by when I don’t regret our actions.’

  Rachel leans forward. ‘With the benefit of hindsight, and given what you know now, what do you think really happened to Sally that night?’

  Jane chews on the tip of one of her acrylic nails. ‘I just don’t know. Surely, if she’d died, the police or the army would have found a body. They searched all over those woods but came up with nothing.’

  ‘Not if it was covered up by those running the base,’ Rachel counters. ‘If Pete did get Sally pregnant, who else would he turn to in his hour of need? His dad was in charge of security on the base at the time, and he was also instrumental in having the police investigation handed over and essentially wound up.’

  ‘But Pete wasn’t violent. I just can’t see that he could have hurt Sally.’

  ‘Desperate people do desperate things, Jane,’ I warn. ‘Just look at Natalie’s reaction to it all.’

  Jane bites harder on the nail to the point where I’m sure I can hear it splintering. ‘When she phoned me last week, I had no idea what she was planning to do, I swear. She kept asking me about the power of sacrifice but I didn’t realise she planned to exchange her life for Sally’s.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ I ask.

  She looks from Rachel to me. ‘As soon as I got Cheryl’s call, it dawned on me why Natalie had been asking so many questions about undoing spells and the use of blood sacrifices. To be honest, it’s all a bit beyond my understanding and relates to the darker side of the practice that I choose not to indulge in. There are some witches out there who do, but not me, nor my mum in her day.’

  ‘You’re a practising witch now?’ I ask, suddenly aware we’re on unfamiliar turf.

  ‘I prefer to call myself a practising Wiccan, but yes, to all intents and purposes, my religion is based on the belief in powers beyond everyday notions.’

  I stand and move closer to Jane, fixing her with an empathetic stare. ‘Tell me the truth: do you believe the spell you cast in those woods resulted in Sally’s disappearance?’

  She looks uncertain for a moment before shaking her head. ‘I don’t see how it could have.’

  ‘Then you need to contact the police and tell them everything you’ve just told us,’ I say earnestly. ‘I know it’s been years, but let’s not allow Natalie’s death to be in vain. She wanted the truth to come out, and now you need to pick up the mantle for her. With modern equipment, it might be possible for them to scan those woods looking for evidence of disturbed ground. If Sally is buried there, they’ll be able to find her.’

  ‘But the police combed those woods with sniffer dogs and they didn’t find her.’

  ‘She may not have been buried until after the police search,’ Rachel challenges, and it’s a valid argument.

  ‘I know this won’t be easy for you,’ I say, taking her hands in mine, ‘but I’ll stay here with you while you make a statement to the police. In fact, I know exactly who you should speak to, someone who won’t laugh at the story and will know how best to take things forwards.’

  Tears fill her eyes. ‘Do you really think that’s what Nat would want?’

  I nod. ‘There’s been no trace of Sally since that night and for me the only logical conclusion is that she didn’t make it off that base alive. At the very least, it warrants consideration by the police. Your witness statement would formulate new evidence – maybe enough to entail a review of the casefile. Natalie was prepared to give everything to bring Sally back. Will you help me find her?’

  The blood drains from Jane’s f
ace but she doesn’t fight, just moves back into the shop and fishes the mobile phone from her handbag.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Now

  Swanage, Dorset

  Waiting for the arrival of Detective Inspector Fiona Rimmington takes an inordinate amount of time. In the interim, Jane has reopened her shop – although only three customers have actually been through in the last hour, and I can’t say I recall hearing the till ring once; it must be tough for shopkeepers out of season.

  Rachel and I agreed to wait with her, partly to offer her our support, but also to make sure she sticks to the script and doesn’t leave out any details. I know it’s all just supposition, and there is nothing concrete to conclude that the father of Sally’s baby killed her to silence allegations of abuse, but I’d rather believe that than some fantastical theory involving witchcraft and spells gone wrong.

  Sitting in the tiny boxroom with the kettle and microwave doesn’t exactly stimulate the mind, and so whilst I am once again searching for any references to Pete Havvard on my phone, Rachel is busy reading the latest of Natalie’s journals, which she was carrying in her handbag. So far it isn’t clear why the diaries were left to us, as most of the writing appears to be about little more than the average teenager’s angst. We’ve all been that age, trying to understand our changing bodies and mind-sets. They could simply be any teenager’s depiction of coming-of-age.

  I once again stumble across that image of Pete Havvard and the girls that Rachel found in one of the local newspapers the other day. He doesn’t look like what I imagine as the sort of person who could assault an underage girl, but then, is that because my view of such monsters has been tarnished by what I’ve encountered in recent years? Those abusers arrested through Operation Yewtree were all of a certain age, though most of them would have been younger when the acts were undertaken. And most fictionalised dramas portray paedophiles as grizzly old men who need to break the law to get their kicks, but is it so far-fetched to think that all those older paedophiles still had similar urges when they were younger?