by Martyn Ford
Smiling, Isabelle tugged her seat belt with one hand and pressed it home. She seemed as though she was about to say something, but Sam spoke first.
‘You’re tempted to make a joke – maybe “thanks, Dad”? You don’t need to.’
‘I was actually going to tell you that it’s always on before I leave the car park – this is private land.’ Isabelle was well spoken – Sam reckoned her education cost a fair bit more than he could afford.
‘Legality aside, plenty of bad things can happen in that time.’
‘You sound more like my mother – she was the cautious one.’
Sam noticed the use of past tense as he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. ‘I’m going to smoke in here, will that upset you?’
‘Would you stop if I said yes?’
‘I don’t know, try.’
‘It’s fine.’
Cupping his mouth out of rekindled habit, Sam sparked his lighter. He tapped the window switch with his middle finger, opening it an inch. Then he held the packet out for Isabelle, who just glanced back at him in silence. Sam shrugged, and put them in his jacket pocket.
‘Maybe we should talk biology first?’ she said, opening the passenger window another inch. ‘If calculating risk is your cup of tea.’
The car came on to the roundabout, away from that dead end behind them.
‘Oh, I can handle a steady decline – that’s part of the game. It’s the sudden catastrophic damage I worry about. The quick stuff, you know, out of the blue. Can’t be left helpless.’
‘A stroke tends to come on fast.’
Sam blew out a huge drag, then held the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. He looked at the ember and thought of that blackened strip of dead lung plastered across the packet. The ragged piece of zombie heaving precious oxygen inside him, every second of every day. ‘True,’ he said. ‘As long as one hand still works.’
‘I think you’d feel differently if you’d seen one of these steady declines in action.’
‘Your cautious mother?’
‘Aptly, throat cancer, long bout of treatment – something to avoid.’
‘I’ve seen plenty of final years. My brother was a doctor. I know exactly what to take, and exactly how much.’
‘To cure cancer?’
‘In a sense. Fistful of pentobarbital, eased in with some weapon-grade morphine, topped off with your drink of choice.’ He blew out some more smoke. ‘Just fall asleep smiling like a lazy cat on a lazy Sunday. Risk of vomiting them up if you’re prone to such things, but do it in a long bath and that’s no issue. Just make sure you haven’t got visitors for the next few hours. Post a letter to the authorities, if you’ve got close friends or family who might get curious. Hanging is the most common, particularly for men. Can’t say that appeals though. In the States, obviously it’s guns.’ Sam put two fingers against his temple, then pointed them at Isabelle. ‘How about you?’
Frowning, she cast an eye his way. ‘I . . . I don’t spend time thinking about how I’d kill myself.’
‘You should.’ Sam lifted the cigarette against the whistling glass and the ash flew clean off. ‘The alternative is checking out like your dear mother. Doubt that was a festival of smiles.’
‘Fuck, man. Jesus.’
‘You’re what – thirty?’
‘Yeah. On the money, birthday’s next week.’
‘Well, you’re done growing, terminal decline now. Your body’s treading water. Might as well go under on your terms.’
‘Shit,’ Isabelle said. ‘You are fun. I can’t say they didn’t warn me about you.’
Sam took a final drag, then poked the butt out of the window – the embers exploded in the wind and bounced, sparking orange on the fast road behind them. ‘You think, one day, honesty won’t be taboo?’
The next five minutes or so were spent in total silence, bar the engine and the rhythmic thrum, thrum, thrum of passing motorway lights – still too early for them. Isabelle just drove, Sam just looked out of the window at the cars, at the trees, at the rolling fields and slow dusk clouds – wide sheets of pink and red and colours he couldn’t name. A Malibu sunset, the kind he’d seen on horizons over still water, carved by the wide hull of the Coriolis. The kind you see in memories, on postcards. Alive and familiar. Incongruous here, above Hallowfield’s concrete and agriculture. Sam put his hands on his lap and pulled his mind from the past. He should think about Robin Clarke. Pink. Pink like the pyjamas she was wearing when she was . . . what? Taken? Picked up? Killed in her bed?
‘You want to know what else they say about you?’ Isabelle asked, as she checked her mirrors and pulled off the motorway.
‘Not really,’ Sam said. ‘But if you’d feel more comfortable speaking than not, I’m happy for that to be the topic.’
‘They say you’re obsessed with Ethan Clarke. Deranged.’
Sam blinked and tilted his head – it was a fair comment. ‘I can see how someone might think that.’
He noticed Isabelle’s posture as she drove – it was perfect. Stately. Immovably calm. Such composure can’t be feigned. Sam knew all the things we cannot hide. This girl really was the embodiment of balance.
‘Why this one? Plenty of missing kids out there. If you’re trying to make the world a better place . . .’
‘Is that what we’re doing?’ Sam glanced out of the window again.
‘If not that, then what? What could matter more?’
‘The truth.’
Isabelle thought for a moment. ‘So . . . we’re . . . we’re pursuing knowledge.’
Blinking, Sam turned and faced straight ahead. ‘Exactly. That’s exactly what we’re doing.’
The car came to a T-junction, halted at a red light.
‘And once we know everything, then what?’
‘Well, then we’d be gods,’ Sam said.
There was a long pause.
‘Have you been drinking?’ Isabelle asked.
Sam felt his eyes smile, his ears might have lifted slightly, but his mouth stayed still.
And now for the pain – the full-frontal, close-up agony of Anna Clarke. Mid-forties, pretty – lucky with genes as well as lifestyle. That healthy, wealthy skin. We’ve seen her countless times before, but we’ve never seen her happy. Today she’s tearful, fleeting, stepping across a driveway, shielding her blotched face from camera flashes. An older man is helping her into a car. He doesn’t look at us – as though we’re not even here. He holds a bag to his chest and pushes a photographer away. Someone is shouting a question, but we only hear the tail end of it. The last word is ‘Robin’. Anna adjusts her sunglasses and pulls the car door shut. We move closer, trying to make her out through the tinted window, now just a metre away from the older man. He doesn’t like this intrusion. We’ve crossed a line. He shoves us – we hear gasps. The camera is lurching up and showing us the pink sky, then quickly left to a bush and a wall and, when the shaking stops, when we look back, we see the older man is inside the car and it’s moving down the driveway and it’s gone.
Text glowed on Isabelle’s phone, held on the dashboard. ‘Can you read that to me,’ she said.
Sam frowned. ‘Why?’
‘The law. I’m driving.’
‘Right . . .’ He took the mobile. ‘Says they’ve . . . they’ve moved Mrs Clarke. She’s not at the house any more.’
‘Good.’ Isabelle nodded. ‘Why not do it sooner?’
‘New blood. Cordoned off the whole place now.’
There must have been more than a hundred people at Orchard Court, mostly TV crews, gathered at the police barriers. Uniformed officers, like fluorescent sculptures, stood on guard, hands clasped together at their waists, keeping the throng on the road. Occasionally the figures came alive – pointing, or leaning to speak into their shoulder radios, turning away from the press as they did so.
Isabelle pulled into the property’s side drive, opened her window and exchanged pleasantries with one of the men. They l
aughed at an inside joke as he waved them into the busy scene. A space had been set aside for vehicles on a patch of concrete which ran across the front of the garden, hidden by the tall walls and well-kept hedges.
Climbing from the car, Sam surveyed the grounds. He hadn’t been to the house for a long time, had only seen its changes in photos. It was significantly larger than it used to be, with two extensions that almost doubled its footprint. He agreed it was odd they hadn’t relocated – instead they chose to live here, the last place they saw their son, for the eight years following his disappearance. Perhaps moving on physically also seemed impossible without the truth – their ticket both into and out of grief. Here though, in this house of fresh horror, it was clear they were well-off. Rich in all the ways that didn’t matter. They could afford a gardener, an automatic gate, a place to hide from all the cameras that, before today, had just started to lose interest in them.
But by some vital measure, they could not afford to leave.
Forensic officers in white overalls, dust masks and purple gloves were preparing equipment at the side of the building, setting up lights, a tent over the front of the garage. Sam followed Isabelle through a designated path towards the rear entrance. As he went, he glanced to his right and into the garage – a 4 x 4 receiving meticulous attention. And, closer, there were two yellow evidence markers on the tarmac. An officer crouched over one of them, held out a camera and took a photograph with a powerful flash.
We see a tiny plastic eye. Stark and vivid and cast hot white with the kind of clarity that nature only achieves in storms. The eye of a teddy, torn from its body – a pale-brown thread instead of an optic nerve. A wider shot reveals its location. Dead centre in the otherwise empty driveway.
Placed there, Sam thought, stepping inside. Not dropped. He relived it all. The initial optimism, the steady beat of logic and finally the dull inevitability of unknowable things. After a cursory tour around the house, which was being swabbed, photographed, preened with tweezers and suspicion, Isabelle and Sam arrived at Robin’s bedroom. They weren’t allowed inside – as with an exhibit in a museum, they could look as long as they wanted, but they must never touch. Never step beyond the velvet ropes. Or, here, through the invisible screen built by the glare of two busy forensic officers crouched behind a chest of drawers.
Her duvet cover was twisted, her pillow upright against the wall. Plain in style – no Disney motif, no princesses, just floral stitching at the seams. Whoever chose the decor cared about aesthetics – this room had been designed. Some childhood shone through though. Plastic stars and a half moon on the ceiling were, thanks to the closed curtains, starting to glow green above the bed. There was a box of pastels, pencils and paints – creative being, Sam thought, the default setting for all children. And a standalone chalkboard hosted doodles and the words ‘I can fly’ in young, unjoined handwriting. Sam looked across the carpet, up to the wall. A window. No breeze. Closed. The door, then. He passed his eyes along the frame and back down to the skirting board. Nothing visible.
‘Anna turned in at about midnight,’ Isabelle said. ‘Robin sound asleep. Come three a.m., she wakes up and finds an empty bed. Exact same situation as Ethan.’
‘Almost,’ Sam added. ‘Ethan’s bed was made.’
They checked a few more rooms then went back downstairs. In the kitchen, Sam pointed at the oven – the timer was flashing slowly, on, then off, on, then off. A row of zeros.
‘Power cut,’ she said. ‘Something tripped the switch.’
‘Alarm on the back door . . .’ He turned to the electric control panel.
‘Not triggered.’
Outside, Isabelle and Sam wandered down the back garden, which ended with a wide hedge and a tasteful wrought-iron gate. Without touching, he peered over, left, right, up and down a long footpath. A rural alleyway, just for the four houses on this street. Beyond it were fields and trees. The very finest edge of suburbia. It was quiet here, away from the house, away from the whispering radios and massing crowds. Just evening birds and moving leaves.
‘Feel familiar?’ Isabelle asked.
Sam nodded. Terribly so. ‘Why do we remember the past?’
Her attention was on the house. ‘I don’t know, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’
‘We remember the past so we can handle the future. That’s it. Our subconscious does all the work – memories have no place in waking hours. Every second we spend reliving a memory without choosing to is a form of psychosis. If you live in the past, you’re lost, trapped in yourself.’
‘Sure, OK.’
‘That’s what consciousness is. Observing the chaos and finding order.’ Sam stared up the fields, thinking aloud. ‘We don’t even see most of what we look at. We’re just redrafting an internal model. We’re just logging anomalies.’
‘Yeah, pretty good, but it’s going to need some work if you’re putting it on a bumper sticker . . .’
‘The past is order; the future is chaos. We’re on the front line. The truth is our only weapon.’
‘Better.’
‘You asked, in the car, why I didn’t focus on other cases.’
Isabelle turned now, keen, interested. That solid balanced posture, all lined up to listen.
‘When Ethan went missing, I was first to interview Anna. She was upset, as you can imagine. I remember, standing in their kitchen, maybe trying to offer comfort, I don’t know. But she made me promise. And I’m still there, at that breakfast bar, telling Anna Clarke I will find her son.’
‘Why did you say it?’
Sam frowned and looked Isabelle in the eyes. ‘Because it’s true.’
The gate squealed for half a second as he pushed it open with the end of a biro. ‘Where are they all?’ he asked. ‘Why is no one down here?’
‘They’re thinking whatever happened it happened in the house and the garage.’
‘If you were an intruder, where would you come from?’
‘I don’t think they’re looking for an intruder.’
Sam walked carefully down the narrow footpath, stepping through the grass and avoiding the dusty track. Not far along he was at the rear of their next-door neighbour’s property, where—
We fade in with a high-pitched whir and see a shadow, passing right to left, along the path. Movement behind the hedgerow. We record it.
Arriving at another gate, Sam paused. This one was open, and he peered up towards the neighbour’s house. Smaller than the others on the street, but still a mansion by anyone’s standards. Their garden was cluttered though, with rusting machines sitting in beds of long grass, old tools and a dried pond guarded by gnomes, two of which were broken. Tiny insects, like living dust, buzzed in the remaining patches of sunlight. A washing line connected the house to a shed – white sheets shimmered, breathing in the breeze.
Sam sighed, turned and started walking back the way he’d come. But, blinking, he stopped. Something there, on that tree, in that garden – it glistened at him. A small box. He leaned sideways and, again, the light caught a tiny orb of glass reflecting the evening sun. A lens, like a rifle scope, like the last thing you ever see.
It was a camera. And it was looking right at him.
Chapter 5
Like a child with no concept of trespassing, Sam walked into the garden, straight up to the tree. He crouched and inspected the item. A plastic cube, small and flat, tied to the trunk with orange baling twine. It was painted green and grey – a camouflage design.
‘Can I help you?’ A voice at his side. He had noticed the light changing, but didn’t bother to look up.
‘What is this?’ Sam asked.
‘Excuse me?’
‘This thing, what is it?’ Standing again, he finally took his attention away from the object.
The old man had a thin head of white hair, tied back in a ponytail. A slim, clean-shaven Father Christmas, with none of the festive cheer.
‘It’s a wildlife camera,’ he said, somewhere between angry and confuse
d.
‘Just films down your garden?’
‘Well, no, it’s motion sensitive. Something moves, it records it. Who are you?’
‘It’s filming now.’
‘Yes, you’re moving.’
‘How does it work? Where’s the footage?’
‘It’s . . . it’s connected to our Wi-Fi. It’s all on my computer.’ The man seemed to take pride in this – at least enough to distract him from his previous concern. ‘Mostly foxes, sometimes deer. I even get a notification on my phone in the mornings – tells me if there was any activity.’ He took his mobile from his pocket, holding it in his frail fingers like it was his most prized possession.
Sam gestured for him to hand it over. Frowning, the man looked over his shoulder, back towards his house, as though he was saying, Can you believe this guy? to an audience that wasn’t there.
‘Who are you?’
‘Sam. Check your notifications – see if there was anything on Wednesday night.’ A long pause. ‘Please,’ he added. Not in frustration, but total absence of mind. He just hadn’t thought to say that word.
‘What exactly is . . . is this about the Clarkes?’ the man asked, as he laboriously unlocked his phone with his index finger. Freddie was right, it was irritating to watch old people use technology. Was this how he saw Sam? ‘Yeah, three pieces of film. First at 10.04, second at 2.30, third at 2.49.’
‘Show me.’
Wildlife footage. First, a video gathered at 10.04 p.m. The frame suddenly alive with grey night vision – bright unseen light illuminating the end of the garden. Moonlit in tone, invisible to anything moving out here. The film features a fox, which slides low under the hedge, then creeps across the grass to the waterless pond. Marble eyes reflect back at us – absurdly bright, almost demonic. The fox sniffs the broken gnomes and scratches itself with a hind leg. On fast-forward now, the blasé creature zips right to left, sits for a few seconds, left then right again – it loiters, twitching in the quick footage, then disappears. We fade to black.