The back garden slopes upward to a high fence. It has a crowded neglected feel. A search in the thick shrubs reveals a rubber ball, the arm of a doll and a pink scrunchie, muddy and sodden as if it’s been there a long time.
The door of the rickety shed gapes open. There are empty plant pots, old bikes, a rusty pushchair. I shift the heavy bags of compost. An enormous spider runs out and scuttles across the wooden floor. There are no locked cupboards or old fridges, no hidden trapdoors.
I walk through the kitchen as Brett comes down the stairs. Mrs Hunter puts the phone down. We stare at each other blankly. Natalie’s mother is the first to look away.
‘PC Lowery and I are going to start knocking on doors up and down the street.’
The grandfather clock strikes the half hour. Fifteen minutes into the enquiry already and we have nothing.
‘Don’t give up, Mrs Hunter. Somebody must have seen her.’
~ * ~
They call it a lake but in reality it’s a flooded gravel pit. It has a slightly bleak artificial look about it - too symmetrical perhaps and the steep sides are banks of pebbles rather than vegetation. But it has a certain wild appeal and over the years it’s become a beauty spot, a bird sanctuary, even the sailing club uses it.
I drive along the rough path beside the water. Motor vehicles are not strictly allowed but I’m in a hurry and take the chance that at this hour the place will be deserted. The rain-washed sky is filled with furiously active cloud formations which I long to capture, not to mention the shot I’ve come here for - the water gleaming like satin and boiling clouds backlit by the setting sun.
I don’t see anyone, but just in case, I park the bike off the track in a copse of trees. I can’t wait to get started. I’m not a professional photographer. I’m not interested in profit. The paps are always looking for the ‘money shot’ - a drunken politician or a celebrity half naked on a beach. It doesn’t seem to matter how blurred or badly composed the picture is, they can still make a small fortune from it. But that’s not my way. I only want perfection. With me it’s a labour of love.
~ * ~
20.37 hours
I’m doing the evens, Brett Lowery the odds. Climbing up and down the steep steps to each house is exhausting and time-consuming. This is only the third house I’ve tried. Number 24.
Male, twenties, wearing a loose T-shirt and baggy shorts. His legs are deeply tanned and muscular, tattoos on each arm, shaven head. He smells clean and soapy as if he’s just had a shower. There’s a dog too, an Alsatian. The man hangs on to its collar even though it looks old and tired. A retired police dog perhaps. I don’t ask. There isn’t time.
While I introduce myself and get his name he looks shifty. ‘What’s this about?’
‘A missing person enquiry. Just a routine house-to-house, Mr Corby. Nothing to worry about.’
He relaxes slightly and I ask him if he’s seen anything unusual in the neighbourhood today.
‘What time?’
‘This evening, around seven or eight o’clock?’
‘I went to the off-licence at half seven.’ A yeasty gust of beer from his belly confirms this.
‘Did you see any children playing?’
‘Yeah, suppose. But I couldn’t tell you which ones. I don’t take any notice of kids.’
‘OK. Thanks, Mr Corby.’ I flip my notebook shut.
‘Hold on.’ He scratches his neck with his free hand. ‘There was a car driving dead slow. Old guy on a motorbike nearly went into the back of it. I saw it on the way to the offy and again on the way home. It was going the other way then, like it was lost or something, looking for a house number. They’re hard to see cos of the steps’
‘A silver Honda?’ I shouldn’t have said that, put words in his mouth.
‘No. It was red. A Vauxhall. It was making a chugging noise, like there was a hole in the exhaust or something. Maybe that’s why I clocked it.’
‘Any chance you noticed the car registration?’
‘Nah.’ Mr Corby lets go of the dog and it flops down with exhaustion, its tongue lolling sideways. ‘Apart from the letters.’
I open my notebook. ‘What were they?’
‘E-T-C. Et cetera. Geddit? That tickled me, don’t know why.’ His grin reveals even white teeth, apart from one missing canine, lower right.
‘How many people were in the car?’
‘Just the bloke driving.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Just a bloke, nothing special about him as far as I can remember.’
‘OK, Mr Corby.’
He comes down the top few steps to see me off the premises. That’s when he notices the police car, parked outside the Hunters’ house.
‘It’s not little Natalie, is it? Has she gone missing? Has some bastard taken her?’
~ * ~
I fetch the tripod from the sidecar and begin to set it up. The sky is dissolving from blue-gold to mauve. As I hastily release the telescopic legs of the tripod I catch the skin of my finger and reel back with the intensity of the pain, only eased by sucking on the wound. The skin is inflamed but not ruptured, which is a great relief. I once ruined a shot of snowy mountains with a bloody fingerprint on the lens.
I attach the camera to the tripod. I’ve decided on my new digital model, a Canon that is capable of shooting eight frames a second and has an inbuilt spirit level to make sure the horizon is straight. Then I begin to compose the shot. I fiddle with the equipment until I have the exact angle I want. A sudden ray of bright sun from behind a cloud causes a burst of flare, which is normally regarded as a fault. But it can create unexpectedly interesting effects so I take the shot anyway.
The sky is tinged with pink now. It’s becoming more dramatic every second. I take a few more shots but I’m simply flexing my muscles for the big one, the image that will combine the elements of sky, cloud, water and the blood-red light of the final moments of sunset. I suppose it’s a bit like capturing the last breath of someone dying.
~ * ~
20.41 hours
My phone rings as I reach the bottom of the steps of number 24. They’ve traced Natalie’s father. He’s been fifty miles away all day on business. No sign of a little girl in his rented flat or in his car.
‘Shit.’
Brett Lowery runs across the road towards me.
‘Have they found her?’
‘No such luck.’
He swivels away from me, a grim look on his face.
‘Anything from the door-to-door?’
‘Nothing. You?’
‘Not much. A cruising car, half a registration.’
‘It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’
‘Why not? We’ve got bugger all else.’
~ * ~
Redness is staining the sky, most intense near the horizon, then becoming paler, like ink in water. My finger rests lightly on the shutter.
Then I hear something, a faint rattling noise that disturbs the tranquillity of the lake. It sounds like a car whose engine isn’t tuned properly. It’s getting louder. I look up from the viewfinder. After a few seconds I see it, a red car bumping along the same track I used earlier. I shrink back into the gloom of the trees. The car drives past but to my horror it stops a little way along the track, just where I have angled the camera towards the lake to capture the finest view.
I’m almost ready to shoot and there is a bright red car slap bang in the middle of my carefully composed shot.
~ * ~
20.49 hours
We carry on knocking on doors, all the while on tenterhooks, waiting for information on the Vauxhall. An old man keeps me talking. He doesn’t know anything, he’s just glad of the excitement. A couple of others resent being taken away from the footie on telly and can’t wait to shut the door in my face. No one except Mr Corby saw a red car cruising up and down the street around half past seven.
My phone rings.
‘I’ve got a trace on a red Vauxhall Astra, G92 ETC, probably stolen as the
car is registered to a spinster lady of seventy-five.’
‘Last seen when?’
‘CCTV on Victoria Road at . . . 20.10. Again at the Mill Lane roundabout at 20.14.’
‘Could you see which exit he took?’
‘Going towards Steelbridge. We lose sight of him after that - he doesn’t appear on the retail park camera a mile down the road.’
I wave frantically at Brett Lowery across the street and he comes running. We jump into the car at the same moment and I drive off with a screech of tyres.
‘There’s a map on the back seat. Find the Mill Lane roundabout.’
Brett studies the map then jabs it with his finger. ‘Got it.’
‘Take the Steelbridge exit. Now tell me what’s off that road before you get to the shopping mall.’
He traces the route. ‘There’s a big housing estate. He could be taking her to where he lives.’
My heart sinks. If he’s garaged the car then it’s going to be a needle and haystack job. ‘OK. We’ll come back to that possibility. What else?’
‘Industrial park. Sixth form college. Further on there’s a narrow lane down to a lake but it’s not much more than a track.’
‘The gravel pit?’
‘It says lake here.’
‘Same thing.’
The roundabout is coming up. I swing on to it, taking the Steelbridge exit. I know the track to the lake. I used to go there years ago with my mates. Lager and ciggies and skimming flat stones on the still flat water.
‘What do you think?’ asks Brett.
I’m not thinking, not really. I’m relying on instinct, experience, gut feeling. All I know is that time is running out and I’ve got to make a choice.
~ * ~
It’s still there, a bright red blot on the landscape. And all the time the sky is changing, deepening like a developing print, rushing towards the perfect moment.
I’m tempted to go and remonstrate with the driver, but what if he turns nasty? No doubt he’s come here to see the sunset too, but I just wish he would move fifty metres along.
There’s movement inside the car. Are there two of them? For God’s sake. If they’re lovers they could be here for ages. And once they start snogging they’ll miss the sunset anyway. I stand there helplessly, watching my hopes die.
But the shadow puppets inside the car shift. The door opens, a man wearing a grey tracksuit gets out. He’s pulling something. No. Someone. A little girl in a pink and white dress.
Father and daughter then. What are they doing here? The child is dragging her footsteps. It’s way past her bedtime. Surely they aren’t going for a walk at this time of night, leaving their car stuck in the middle of my shot?
They enter the wood just a few metres away. Now is the moment to confront him and calmly state my case, but he’s striding along with a glazed expression that unnerves me and I draw back, crouching down into the undergrowth. Perhaps the little girl just needs a pee, in which case they won’t be long. Maybe I can salvage something from this disaster after all.
From my hiding place I watch them approach. The man looks tense, even angry. The child is being pulled along unwillingly. Why is she resisting if she needs to go to the toilet? She seems tired and scared. There’s something wrong here but I’m not sure what it is. Saliva rushes into my mouth. I swallow. I have an odd feeling that I should do something, but what?
They pass by so close I can hear his laboured breathing and her moans of distress. They disappear into the wood behind me.
The sky is beautiful - scudding pewter clouds against scarlet, deepening every second. That’s my business, that’s what I’m here for. The man, the little girl - they have nothing to do with me. I just wish they would go away.
~ * ~
21.04 hours
The track around the lake is rough and bumpy, not meant for motor vehicles. The exhaust bangs on a stray rock.
‘Over there.’ Brett points across the lake to where a red car is parked next to a clump of trees.
‘Get on the Airwave and call for back-up,’ I tell him. ‘And ask them to put the helicopter on standby.’
We rise inches into the air as I take a curve too sharply. Brett gives me a look but I don’t care if I trash the car. I don’t care if the driver of the red car hears us coming. I know the track becomes impassable beyond those trees except on foot so he can’t escape in that direction. If he drives towards us we’ll throw a stinger in his path and wreck his tyres. Personally I would happily crash into him and bring him to a halt that way. But it’s not an option. Natalie might be in the car. She’s what matters. She’s all that matters.
Even before I’ve come to a standstill Brett is out of the car and running. He yanks open the doors of the Astra then the boot.
‘Empty!’ he shouts.
I stand between the two cars and scan the scene. The track is deserted up ahead. The water is silky smooth, unruffled. I turn towards the trees. Something glints in the light from the bright red sunset. Metal? Glass? There’s movement. A man. Grey hair, beard, leather jacket. He looks startled, steps back and disappears.
Brett’s seen him too. He rushes ahead of me into the bushes.
‘Get him!’ I scream. ‘Get the bastard!’
~ * ~
I can’t believe it when I hear the second car, coming fast along the track as if this is Silverstone or something. Joyriders, no doubt. I expect to hear loud music coming from the car’s speakers, but as I stand up I see with a shock the jazzy blue and yellow flashes. Police.
A young man in uniform leaps out and checks the red car. A female officer joins him. The car is empty. I could have told them that. They look round in desperation.
Sky and water have almost reached the moment of perfection I have been waiting for so patiently. If they find what they‘re looking for and go away I might yet capture a truly glorious shot.
I take a few steps forward. When they see me, both of them have the same look of disgust and hatred in their eyes. The man hurtles towards me. Some deep blind instinct tells me to turn and run.
I can hear him close behind me, crashing through the bushes. He grabs me round the waist and knocks me to the ground. I feel my right shoulder bone crunch. I lie there winded and shocked.
‘Where is she?’ he yells. ‘What have you done with her?’
Now the woman is towering over me, her face tight. ‘Tell us where she is.’
‘Who?’ My voice is shaking. It sounds weak and pitiful but all my strength has drained out of me.
‘The little girl. Natalie. What have you done with her?’
I raise my left hand - the right one seems to have lost all connection to my body - and point to the trees. ‘In there. Both of them.’
They glance at each other.
‘Both?’ asks the woman. ‘You mean . . . there are two girls?’
‘No. A child and a man.’
The male officer sets off but she calls him back.
‘You stay with him. I’ll go.’
~ * ~
21.07 hours
The bit of daylight that’s left barely penetrates in here. I switch on my torch, pointing it down, and inch my way forward. I strain my ears, listening for human sounds beneath the rustle of leaves, the movement of small creatures, the soft breeze that cools the sweat on my back.
I go deeper and deeper into the wood, searching for a ribbon, a strand of brown hair caught on a bush. Anything.
There’s a sudden commotion behind me, I swing round and bring the torch level; I see a man running through the undergrowth, arms flailing, heading back towards the lake.
‘Brett! He’s coming your way!’
~ * ~
‘We saw something shining,’ says the policeman. He swipes at the tree branches.
I struggle up from where I’m squatting on a patch of damp moss. ‘It’s my camera.’
‘Show me.’
I lead him to where the Canon still sits on the tripod.
‘Did you take pictur
es of them?’
‘No, of course not. I specialize in landscapes.’ I point to the lake and the spectacular sunset. ‘I was all set up and ready when that man, not to mention you and your colleague, came along and ruined my shot.’
‘Ruined your shot?’ His voice is full of contempt. ‘You saw a man take a little girl into the woods and all you cared about was taking snaps?’
Guilty Consciences - [A CWA Anthology] Page 4