by Rachael Blok
They walk up the hill towards the house. Maarten can feel himself spinning. He just needs to hold it together for another few hours.
Flinching as Imogen bangs on the door to the Whitehouse residence, he glances at next door. Through the window he can see Mrs Brennan. She doesn’t see him, and there is something about her: the tilt of her head, the angle of her arm… he can see that she’s crying.
The feeling again, of there being something she wasn’t saying…
The phone had come back with a trace of Leigh – suspected, unconfirmed DNA trace – but no numbers. The phone was so waterlogged they had said it might take time to have a proper look. But the DNA, even faint, was enough.
There was a lot of work for their department to do to try to establish a link to the adult involved. But Mrs Brennan had found it. And they had not. That was interesting.
‘No one in.’ Imogen shivers.
The wind is cold, and his head spins again. He really must eat something. On the brink on knocking on Mrs Brennan’s door, he changes his mind. What would he say? It would be better to wait until they had something concrete.
‘Let’s try again later.’
*
The drive back is worse, and he slams the dashboard. ‘Stop!’
Retching at the side of the road, the straining exacerbates the pain behind his eyes. He kicks snow over the deposit, but he’s barely eaten, so it doesn’t take long. Dizzy, he reaches out for the fence post and leans against it, arching forward and staring out over the fields. Luckily, they have taken the ring road. Straight through the centre of town would have been embarrassing.
‘Sir?’ Imogen appears at his side with a bottle of water.
‘Oh, fuck it.’ He takes a drink. ‘Thanks. Liv was right, I shouldn’t have come in today; I should probably go home. But there’s so much to do… we need to get a break from somewhere.’
‘Do you think Whitehouse is a possible?’
‘Yes, he might be. But other than the alibi, we’ve got nothing really… no corroborated link to Leigh. Proximity of the car, proximity of the class visit…’
The sky is dark and the wind cold.
‘I’m going home,’ he says.
*
The siren is deafening. Maarten had been at home all of two hours before Sunny had called.
He turns his face from it, reeling at the sound. Undeterred, he goes as close as he dare. The heat builds a barricade, a kilometre-high fence.
‘What time was it found?’ he shouts.
Sunny shrugs, turning his face from the heat and stepping back. ‘Called in about half an hour ago, but looks as though it’s been burning for some time.’ His voice competes with the roar of the flames, as the gases expand and the chemicals sizzle.
‘Get back!’ A fireman appears, and puts a hand on Maarten’s arm, pulling him hard. His voice is muffled through his mask. ‘There’ll be dangerous gases from the paint, and there’s the danger of explosion, if there’s any fuel left inside.’
Retreating further from the top of the hill where the car burns, Maarten shakes his head. ‘If there is any DNA left in there, I’ll be surprised. Shit. Are we sure it’s the same one?’
‘No, not sure. We’ve still had no confirmed plate. But what are the chances?’
Imogen walks up alongside. Maarten had sent her out that afternoon to follow up on a lead about the car. The wind on the downs is fierce and her hair whips over her face. ‘The errant black BMW. I’ve checked four of them found abandoned in the last twenty-four hours. I’ll bet my pension that this is the one we’re after.’
‘A sodden wallet, a jacket with a DNA we don’t recognise, and a phone we’re still trying to make sense of – found by a member of the public. It’s going to have to be enough.’
They stare at the bonfire, the DNA, evidence, leads, sizzling, curling in smoke.
25
Waking in the night is not unusual. Night feeds, nappies and all the other thousands of reasons that add up to wakeful babies have combined to disrupt Jenny’s sleep for the past few months. It’s different tonight. She is sure she heard something.
She can’t wake Will. They have reached a truce of sorts. She will not mention the creeping unease, and he will make more of an effort to help out, to let her get some rest and not become so quickly irritated if she appears fragile. Nothing has been said, but the deal has been quietly done.
Her hand creeps out to Finn’s crib, but he is warm, solid, and still sleeping. His gentle snores snuffle into the bedroom. Yet nothing feels quite as it should.
There it is again. That noise.
She sits up. Careful not to disturb either of the sleeping bodies in the room, she climbs out of bed.
The hall is quiet and the house is cold.
Again, the noise. Not quite a tapping, but repetitive and insistent.
A murmur of water, and a slow drip, drip, drip. Like drops from leaves.
*
She is in the garden. Her feet are wet and the damp is soaking up through the soft material of her pyjamas; they ride up, clinging to her ankles.
She puts her hands out before her. What is out there?
Soaking, soaked right through. How long has she stood here? There are trees behind her, again the willow, and the moon, a silver orb, hangs watchful above. Adrenalin surges, fuelling the feeling of urgency. Has she been running?
‘Jenny! Jenny!’
She spins, the voice sounds urgent; it’s more of a scream. Full of fright. But no one’s there. She’s not even sure if it came from nearby, or from within.
Teeth chattering, she shivers in spasms. The dark is closing in, despite the moon. A flicker ahead – is it a girl? There’s movement behind the trees.
She steps forward, fingers – shivering – reaching. They unfurl stiffly; they ache.
There is a girl. The back of a head. It’s too dark to make much out, but she has long, dark hair. She creeps.
‘Jenny, Jenny!’
This time the shout is much closer to a scream and the shock electric.
Whirling, like a shying horse, Jenny flees back, bolts. Home must be up the hill. With scrabbling, trembling fingers, she finds herself inside, bolting the door. She can’t remember where she has put the key; she can’t remember opening the door.
Finding Will’s keys on the table, she manages to turn the lock.
There are fresh clothes in the dryer. She changes into what is there. Will’s gym kit, she thinks, but that will do.
Back in bed, she forces herself to think of sleep. It will be morning soon.
There it is again: rushing water, drip, rush…
Sleep. It is sleep she needs.
26
18 December
‘Could you come down to the front desk? A couple, asking for you.’
Maarten can feel the weight of his tread heavy on the stairs. There had been something in the voice of the PC; it has turned him cold.
‘Maarten!’ There are tears spilling down the cheeks of the woman standing before him. He had met her very briefly at the vigil. It is Becky Dorrington’s mother, the mother of Nic’s best friend. He scrabbles in his brain and the name comes.
‘Jess, what’s wrong? What’s happened?’
‘It’s Becky,’ and there are more tears, as her husband leans forward to take over, but his voice cracks too.
‘She’s missing… she’s…’ His swallow is hard.
Maarten nods to the PC who buzzes them all through, and he opens a door to a side room. He can’t remember the father’s name. He curses himself.
‘Mr Dorrington?’
‘Kemmie, please.’
‘Kemmie. I’m going to get a couple of my colleagues down to take some details while we talk. Can I get you tea, coffee?’
Stepping out of the room, to nod to the PC who waits outside, he asks for Adrika and for drinks to be brought.
He needs a minute. Nic has been so upset about Leigh. Devastated. And if Becky really is missing, if this is what h
e feels it might be, then this will be harder than it usually is. He doesn’t want to waste time, so he doesn’t give in to the pang that he feels, the pang for Liv. To call her, and to tell her, and to feel it between them – the pain that Nic will feel.
Adrika arrives with a notebook, and her expression tells him she has been briefed with the little they know.
He pushes open the door, introduces her, and they begin.
‘She wasn’t in her bed this morning.’ Jess speaks, but Kemmie picks up the thread, and they pass the story between them.
‘And she was wearing a red cardigan yesterday, which was gone this morning…’
‘… and jeans.’
‘And a backpack has gone…’
‘… and her Velcro purse. It’s plastic. It’s got Rey on it, from The Force Awakens…’
‘We’ve phoned round her friends already.’
At this Maarten feels a clutch: Nic will know. Liv will have had to ask her if she knows anywhere that Becky might have gone.
‘So we came here. She’s gone. I can feel it.’ Jess finishes the story, and her voice is strong now. Unconsciously, she places a hand on her stomach, as she sits up tall. She’s pregnant, Maarten thinks.
‘I’ve heard you usually wait twenty-four hours. But not today. You can’t wait today.’
Maarten nods. He leans forward, looks them both in the eye. ‘You’re right. We’ll begin now. We’ll find her.’
27
‘How would you like to use today’s session?’
Klaber sits across from Jenny. For all the delight she had felt at getting a last-minute appointment yesterday, talking is still difficult. Now that she sits here.
‘Maybe you could start with what you’re doing later? Have you anything planned, with Finn?’
Jenny smiles. ‘I’m going to a class, at the local pool, then coffee at the café nearby. It’s a baby swimming class, and Finn loves it, don’t you?’ She leans forward and waggles the rattle that he is sucking, as he lies on a playmat by her feet.
‘Have you been going long?’
‘A few weeks, I go with my friend Sam. She’s got a little girl, the same age. I met her in hospital.’
Jenny can feel herself opening, finding talking easier.
‘Thinking about the hospital, maybe we could talk a little about the birth? About how you found it?’
Jenny thinks back… the gasp as she’d heaved out of the birthing pool, to clutch the sides as the contractions gripped her. ‘Surfacing,’ she says. ‘It felt like I was surfacing.’ And it had. ‘It felt I was breaking through something, that the water… that something was coming free, unsticking.’ She’d felt exactly that. Even the eventual birth in the theatre hadn’t dulled that sense that the pool had given her; that something had changed.
‘And it’s since then that I miss my mum. I miss her more than I’ve ever missed her. I miss her when I hold Finn – I miss her when I’m awake in the night, and he won’t sleep. I want to ask her how she felt, what it was like for her. Breastfeeding was hard to start with, and there was such pressure… I had great friends but we were all going through it at the same time, all anxious. The midwives were all different. I wanted my mum. I wanted my mum to tell me it was OK. My dad was great, but how does he know what it feels like when it’s two a.m. and I can’t get a latch? And Finn is screaming…’
The room falls quiet as Klaber dips his head, making a few notes, giving her a moment. She had been going to cry, but it falls away.
‘And this week? How have you felt since we last spoke? You mentioned the murdered girl?’
Jenny looks down, at her hands. She may as well tell him, otherwise why is she here? ‘I don’t know why but…’ What to say? That she feels she’s involved? That if she were to uncover the fears that plague her once the lights are out, that she might believe…
‘Yes?’ he says, encouraging.
‘I don’t understand what is happening to me.’ And she cries. Her head tips forward, and she glances at Finn who plays with a teether, and she thinks of him, of the lake, of Leigh.
‘Jenny,’ he says. His voice is soft. Tissues are passed over, he waits.
‘I can’t explain it. I’m seeing ghosts. I’m sleepwalking. I’m sleepwalking in the park, bloody hell. What am I doing?’
‘How often has this happened?’ Klaber smiles. He hasn’t laughed, he hasn’t scoffed. He hasn’t said the thing that scares her most. The thing that Will keeps almost saying, just holding himself back from outright accusation. That she might be going a bit… crazy? Mad?
‘Oh, I don’t know! Last night, and a few other nights before that. Sometimes I think it’s just a dream. That I’m shivering because of a nightmare, because I’m panicking. That the cold is in my head. Surely I’d wake if I was leaving the house… but… well, I found the phone, the one I told you about.’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘And last night it was snowing, so I was wet. I changed when I got in, and again until I woke, I thought maybe it had been a dream…’
‘What happened to the phone?’
‘I gave it to the police. I thought maybe it was… evidence.’
‘Evidence? What do you mean?’
‘I found it in the park… and I felt that they might be…’
The police haven’t got back to her yet, so is she making mountains? Out of molehills?
‘What though? Evidence of what, Jenny?’
‘That the phone… the phone belonged to…’
Klaber crosses his legs, leans forward slightly. ‘Who? Jenny? Who?’
‘To Leigh. To Leigh Hoarde.’ Her voice is so low, Klaber has to lean forward to catch the name. To gather it up to consider it.
For a second there is a silence, and then he smiles gently. He hasn’t said it. He hasn’t said that she is going mad.
‘Tell me more about the walking. Where do you go?’
‘Well…’ Jenny thinks. She hasn’t really thought about the details. The fact of it happening has been the most terrifying part. She hasn’t wanted to unpick it.
‘I suppose I walk to the lake. And…’
‘Yes?’ He nods.
‘Well, there’s always the willow tree. The big weeping willow, where the river feeds the lake. I hadn’t really thought about it before. That’s odd, isn’t it?’
‘Let’s not think about what’s odd at the moment, let’s just work with the facts. You say you’ve walked there a few times now, in the night. And it’s the same place you’re walking to?’
She nods. How come she hadn’t thought of it before?
‘Well, my next question would be why. Do you have any idea why you might walk there?’
‘I don’t think I’m deciding… Or…’ Dare she? Dare she say it? In a whisper, she inches forward. ‘The face in the window? You remember? I think she took me there.’
‘Who, Jenny? Who took you there?’
She pauses, sighs. ‘The girl. The girl with the dark hair.’
*
‘So, is it holding? The peace with Will?’ Sam asks, as they enter the changing rooms at the local pool for their WaterBabies class.
‘Yes, though he’s busy at work. I never see him, and when I do he’s jumpy.’
Is jumpy the right word? Jenny thinks back to earlier that morning. Will had woken to find Jenny sleeping in his gym kit and she couldn’t remember why.
‘You must know,’ he’d said, reasonably. Reasonably, but quite forcefully.
‘I think Finn was sick, and I just changed into whatever was closest.’
‘So you really can’t remember? You are sure?’ Will had pressed her to answer. Then he calmed down and said more gently, ‘I suppose you’re up in the night so much. You’re just good at doing things half asleep.’
And that had been that.
It isn’t exactly true that she can’t remember, but more that, before she saw the clothes she was lying in, she thought she must have dreamt it all. It had been as much of a surprise to her, to wake and
find she was wearing the shorts and T-shirt, as it had been to him. Klaber was helping her with her recall, but even now the memory is fading. She can’t remember exactly what happened any more, but she has a vague recollection of getting wet.
‘Your keys, Jenny! They were outside!’ he’d said, coming back in after he’d left for work. He’d put them on the kitchen table and then left again, banging the door behind him. ‘Look after your keys – we don’t want any break-ins,’ he’d called over his shoulder.
She jingles them now, popping them in her bag and putting them in the changing room locker.
It is the keys being outside that rattles her the most. She can remember, very clearly, hanging them up the previous evening. She feels invaded somehow, and the distaste of it is still fresh and unsavoury. That sensation she has felt recently, of there being someone peering over her shoulder, is stronger than ever.
If she is going to be honest, she is a tiny bit afraid.
‘Morning, everyone!’ The class begins.
Singing the welcome song, they lift the babies in and out of the water.
Finn loves the class. He splashes and kicks, giggling with delight. Jenny and Sam love it too. Jenny loves the feel of his slippery skin, plump and infant in the water. She feels weightless and carefree as she bounces and swims.
Laughing, they dress the babies after the class and make their way to the Watermill Café, ordering cake to replenish their energy. Snores breathe out from the buggies, everyone tired.
‘Will’s parents are coming up tomorrow for an impromptu visit,’ Jenny says, reading her phone as the text alert beeps. ‘They’re visiting friends nearby so are popping in for Christmas cake.’
‘Have you made a Christmas cake?’ asks Sam.
‘Not quite. But I think Waitrose might have done, so I’ll have to nip in later and bash it about a bit. Any chance it will be remotely convincing as something home-made?’
‘No.’ Sam laughs. ‘I wouldn’t bother. Give it to them and dare them to say anything. Pray for Christmas spirit.’