The Playground

by Jane Shemilt

  “What’s he done with my daughter?”

  “A statement will be released later. I’m sorry not to be able to tell you more at the present time.” Her face is sympathetic but she doesn’t move, not even an inch. Eve steps back, panting. She must use her wits. Grace will help, she’ll know what to do. Eve hurries down the path, passing the smaller policewoman stationed at the gate. Back in the kitchen, her handbag is lying on the table, the contents spilling out: her coin purse, hairbrush, car keys. Three happy children smile up from the photograph in her wallet. She stares at all the objects on the table as if unearthed from the rubble of a dig, relics of a vanished life.

  Igor’s words return to her in the silence: “. . . so that’s why I couldn’t find him under the hood”—his idea of a joke on a warm day back in the spring, when life was full and she was happy. She grabs the keys and runs to the cars, releases the hoods in turn, heaves them up. Only the engine, water tank, and greasy wires, dark tubes that twist like guts. She slams both hoods shut. On the way back to the house she bends to vomit in the flower bed. She gropes her way upstairs.

  It might not have been Igor, it might be worse. Sorrel might have gone to the road to look for her, forgetting that her mother was in bed. Her fluttering skirt would have shone in the gloom like a flag. Who knows what monster might have slowed as he passed, what truck she might be in, what cellar, what boat? An adult can last thirty days without food—she googles this with trembling fingers—much less without water. She can’t find any information about a child. Fear settles closely over her, a great bird with hooded wings and talons that tear. She forces herself to shower, then puts on her clothes as though she were dressing someone else, someone old with stiff limbs that refuse to bend. When the phone rings her heart lurches. She leans against the window to take the call, out of breath as if she has been hurrying.

  “Difficult news, unexpected.” Eric pauses.

  “What d’you mean, unexpected?” she gasps out. “What’s he done?”

  “Some of Sorrel’s clothes were found under Igor’s bed—a few of them, in a tidy little pile.”

  She holds the windowsill, afraid her legs will give way. “Which ones?” Her mouth is dry, her head clamoring with the kind of questions no mother should have to ask. Was it the little red anorak? Her skirt? Her underwear? Were they muddy or torn? Bloodstained?

  “Not the ones she was wearing when she vanished,” Eric replies quickly. “That’s all they told me. They’re still questioning him. I’ll phone back soon when I know more.” Beneath her in the house, the front door opens and shuts. From the window she sees the children file out: Blake, Poppy, who turns to look up at her, Izzy, Charley, then Martin. Grace follows, watching from the steps as they file into the car.

  Poppy must have been persuaded to go to school by Izzy, who doubtless thought she needed the distraction, as if you can be distracted when your mind is full of grief and shouting with fear. Will she cope with today? She must call the teacher, tell her she’ll come immediately if Poppy wants to come home. She sees Martin nod at Grace before he gets into the car. He looks different seen from above; his shoulders are rounded, his abdomen protrudes. She turns her head down toward the garden to where the pine trees cluster behind the barns. She’s never looked at them properly before. Now she sees that they make a dark smudge in the landscape, like a mistake someone made then tried very hard to rub out.

  Grace

  Grace waits on the steps as the children settle themselves in the car. Blake gets out again, runs into the house, and reemerges with his backpack. Above them, she glimpses Eve’s face hovering at her window, pale as a ghost. Does Eve know that she knows? Once the car has gone, she hurries into the house and up the stairs.

  “Igor’s at the police station,” Eve tells her as soon as she enters her bedroom. “He had Sorrel’s clothes under his bed.” Her face looks frozen with fear. “There are two policewomen guarding his house right now.”

  “Shit.” Grace sits next to her on the bed. She glimpsed Igor when she arrived last night; she could have called out to him, asked what he was doing. Would that have made a difference? Forestalled a plan?

  In the silence, they hear footsteps rapidly crunching down the gravel drive. Eve springs up and looks outside. “One of the policewomen is leaving,” she whispers.

  Grace joins her at the window. The Scottish policewoman is striding down the drive, talking into her cell phone, a frown distorting her features.

  “I want to look in his house,” Eve says. “In case there’s something the police have overlooked, something else important.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  Outside the raw wind catches them and they bend against it; neither has thought to put on a coat. They become soaked by fine drizzle in moments. Their feet tap over the wet stone of the veranda. A few months ago they had all gathered here, there had been meadowsweet and buttercups on the table, the children leaping around a bonfire. Eve and Martin had been flirting even then.

  “I slept with Martin.” Eve’s cheeks flame, she’s come to the same memory; despair and hurry have jerked loose her secret. Is she asking for forgiveness?

  “I know.” Anger rises in her throat, hot and sharp. “I’ve known since yesterday.”

  “I can’t remember why now.” Eve doesn’t ask how she knows; her bloodshot eyes search wildly about her, as if the dull greens and browns of the garden might provide some clue or reason. “He talked to me, he seemed to listen. I wasn’t used to that. I guess I was carried away by his words. I’m sorry, that sounds inadequate. I don’t understand it now so I can hardly expect you to. Whatever I felt has vanished completely.”

  She’s wrong, Grace understands. She knows exactly how Eve felt; she was seduced by his words as well. It doesn’t make the pain any less, in fact it makes it worse—Martin has used the same trick twice. Grace glances at the hurrying figure by her side. Eve had lovely kids, a kind husband, fabulous houses, beautiful jewels—every gift it was possible to possess—and yet she took someone else’s husband, casually, lightly, as though entitled, like a child who helps herself to what she wants, without thought.

  They are passing the empty paddock. The donkeys must be inside their stable, it’s too cold for them outside. Their new metal trough gleams in the rain. Eve’s most precious gifts have been torn from her. Compared to those brutal amputations, the affair with Martin is a flesh wound. She’ll survive; Ash didn’t, Sorrel might not. The little girl’s flowerlike face, her trusting whisper, pull at Grace’s heart; the decision to help isn’t a decision after all, she has no choice.

  Eve’s words continue to pour out as she hurries. “. . . never trusted him. Eric thought he was great. He liked the children, he resented me for some reason, but I never dreamed he was capable of this. My God, how blind we were; we had no idea, no inkling, though he practically lived with us. Why the hell didn’t we look more closely?”

  But it’s the things that are close to you that are the most difficult to see, the things glimpsed beneath the surface. The boy who attacked her, you and Martin. The opaque green water of the swimming pool in Greece flashes across her inner eye, the shadows on its surface, the children in the shallow end, playing games.

  Eve stops short as they approach the bungalow. “We have to be careful, there’s another policewoman on guard at the front gate. We’ll go round the back.”

  She pushes through a border of hydrangeas lining the path, their blowsy heads brown and soaked with rain, and then into the trees that encircle the property. The light darkens under the pines as they walk beneath them, the fallen needles cushioning their footsteps. Wet branches brush against her face; their minty scent is strong. They reach the wire fence at the back of the bungalow. Grace pulls up the bottom wire, Eve crawls beneath on all fours, then Grace rolls through after her. The small space outside the back door of the bungalow feels claustrophobic, a dark place where a child could be bundled into the house unseen. The frosted sash window to the right of the door is fa
stened with a sliding bolt between the panes.

  “Have you a credit card?”

  Eve fumbles in the pockets of her jeans and finds a battered plastic library card. “God knows how many times this has been through the wash.”

  Grace takes the card, slides it under the metal arm, shifts it aside, then lifts the window as far as she can; there is just enough space to maneuver her head and shoulders through. She tips forward, clasping the sides of the little sink beneath, and, twisting her hips clear, jumps to the floor. The door bolt slides back easily and she opens the door. Eve is gazing at the trees. Despite her comfortable home, her plentiful possessions, the food on her table, her face has that gaunt suffering look familiar from the television news, of desperate mothers on beaches, in camps, or up against barbed wire at a road block; women enduring grief, enduring loss. Grace pulls her inside quickly.

  “Let’s look in the bedroom first,” Eve says hoarsely. “That’s where they found her clothes.”

  There is a smoothly made bed in the tiny room, a couple of checkered shirts in the closet, an empty chair, nothing in the trash can or under the bed. There is little trace of the man himself, little to go on. They go back to the hall; the heat is suffocating.

  “I haven’t been in here for years, this was where our nanny lived.” Eve laughs, an embarrassed, miserable sound. “It was icy cold back then. She locked us out of our house to keep it tidy till my parents returned and shut us in here instead. My brother got out; he climbed the fence behind the wood and ran along the railway to meet his friends in the village. I didn’t dare. I can’t think why we never told; she would have been sacked immediately.”

  Children don’t tell, though, not even the most important things; her kids have told her nothing for weeks. Grace looks at Eve, seeing a small girl left on her own, a little girl who might grow up desperate for warmth, who might marry quickly, too quickly, and look again.

  The surfaces are bare in the kitchen, the kettle is shining, even the floor looks newly washed. Eve opens cupboard doors revealing cups lined up, crockery neatly stacked. The handles of his saucepans are precisely aligned.

  “It’s so tidy.” Eve is looking under the sink where the bottles of detergents are in height order, the dish towels in color-coded stacks. “Too tidy.”

  “Perhaps he needs order, some people are like that,” Grace replies. I’m a bit like that. Maybe that’s why the kids love Eve’s place so much, for its disorder, the messy chaos, the opportunities it presents, freedom among them. The chance to break the rules, do things you wouldn’t normally dream of; maybe that’s what appealed to Martin. She gazes around at the barren surfaces of the kitchen, but Eve is hurrying past her, out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom. When Grace catches up with her she is staring at the gleaming pink bath, the matching sink and toilet.

  “I don’t know what I was expecting,” Eve whispers; a small shoe tossed in the corner perhaps, or drops of blood splashed on the shining tiles. They turn to the sitting room opposite. The curtains are pulled over the windows but light filters through the thin cloth onto a brown carpet, a sofa with plumped cushions pushed against the wall, a small television in the corner. The clock on the wall ticks noisily. There are a few books on the shelf in the alcove: a child’s atlas, a dog-eared stack of Reader’s Digests, a paperback edition of The Small Garden. Eve kneels by the fireplace, moving aside logs, examining each one closely. Grace feels a downward lurch of horror; can she actually be searching for the charred remains of her child?

  “Shouldn’t we leave that to them?” Grace asks. “That policewoman could come in at any moment. We ought to leave.” She helps Eve up, catching sight, as she does, of a small framed photo on the mantelpiece. A younger, slimmer Igor with his arm around a small blond, the couple encircled by three little girls, a dog at their feet, and a trailer in the background. As she holds it to the window, the photo slips in the frame, revealing the white edge of another behind it. She releases the catch at the back and pulls out the hidden picture, an auburn-haired child the same age as one of the girls in the photo, but it’s not one of them. The gap-toothed smile is unmistakable. Eve takes it from her with trembling fingers. In the silence of that moment, loud footsteps sound on the path outside. Someone is walking up to the front door, someone is fumbling with a key and turning it in the lock.

  There’s a horrible smell. Her throat hurts from screaming.

  Something is trickling into her eyes and her mouth. It’s warm and tastes like soup.

  Mummy will come. Daddy will come. They will. They’ll find her and they will take her away and she’ll be safe.

  She can pretend that Charley is holding her hand and that Noah is licking her face. That Poppy is really near, so she can go and get into bed with her if she wants. Poppy always lets her, even if she rolls her eyes.

  It’s dark. Not just ordinary dark but thick black, which is getting blacker though there are tiny bright green bits that fizz.

  It’s actually difficult to breathe. The panting noises she makes are scary but that’s better than shouting, which is really scary.

  It feels like something is inside her chest, bumping around like an animal trying to get out.

  She’s done another wee, which is stupid and scary and it smells, but she couldn’t help it.

  She can’t straighten out her arm because it hits against something.

  She mustn’t shout because it’s way worse when she shouts, but then she does. She starts shouting and her head is full of noise so that she can’t tell whether the noise is inside or outside because the air is screaming and her throat is screaming and the blackness has gotten inside her head. She’s hitting at the roof. A blade of light like a knife cuts into the darkness, it hurts her eyes. The animal inside her chest is banging so hard it’s going to come out through her skin, and something heavy is pressing down at the same time so she can’t shout anymore or whisper or breathe properly and then she knows that the monster is in here with her. It’s sitting on top of her and stopping her from breathing and very soon she’s going to die.

  11. November

  Melissa

  Melissa has no option but to take Paul’s car; her own is too badly damaged.

  Borrowed car for school run, she writes on a Post-it note. Then shopping. Suggest you take a taxi to work.

  She leaves the note stuck to the kettle. He’ll be angry when he wakes, furious, but it doesn’t matter, she won’t be here to suffer that. She slides slowly and awkwardly into the front seat; at least she can move her arm well enough to drive the car. Lina has a head start of about twenty minutes. She could be anywhere by now. How stupid to imagine that Lina trusted her. Why would she? She’d trusted Paul once, she’d hardly trust his wife who had never lifted a finger to help her, who had seemingly turned the other way. She should never have mentioned the police; Lina might think she is in even greater danger now.

  The Mercedes glides quietly through the gates, then Melissa drives slowly through the empty roads searching the sidewalks and doorways. Eight A.M. The streets are becoming busy, children walking to school, people hurrying to North Dulwich station. Lina might already be on a train, disappearing into the city, leaving no trace. Melissa decides to circle around the streets twice then come back. She can sit in the car opposite the station entrance, watching in case Lina comes. This could all be a waste of time; Lina could just as easily be making her way to Herne Hill or Brixton station. She could be waiting for a bus or simply walking into London. She’ll be unsafe. When Paul realizes she’s missing he might make a call; the men who brought her here could track her down. There must be dark networks to catch girls like Lina, and then, a plunging thought, girls like Sorrel too. She grips the wheel tightly. She may tell the police after all, because of girls like Sorrel.

  She drives straight past Lina the first time. The young girl has pressed herself into the corner of the bus shelter. She lifts her head briefly at the sound of the car, the hijab gives her away. Melissa pauses, reverses, an
d parks, braking quietly. Lina is looking down again as Melissa walks toward her, as if still hoping to escape notice. She stands up at the last minute, tensed for escape, but it’s too late. Melissa puts her arms around her and holds her as closely and carefully as she would Sorrel.

  “Thank God. Oh, thank God.” Melissa starts weeping, weeping as she hasn’t for years; for Lina, and for Ash, for Sorrel, for herself. Gradually the tension in Lina’s body disappears as if Melissa’s tears are melting her resolve. After a minute Melissa feels her back being gently patted; Lina is comforting her.

  “Sorry.” Melissa brushes away her tears and takes Lina’s hand. “I’m sorry. Will you let me help you?” Her heart beats fast as she waits. Lina could refuse and walk away, there would be nothing she could do then. Lina looks at her and inclines her head minutely, making her choice. Melissa takes her hand and they hurry across the road to the car. She gives Lina her passport and it’s Lina’s turn to weep. She holds her passport close against her chest, murmuring as she might to a child, tears dripping off her chin.

  The traffic is building up—it takes an hour before they reach the outskirts of London, going west. Lina seems absorbed by the small streets, the skyscrapers, factories, and bridges. Melissa is conscious she is driving away from Izzy who is probably in school assembly right now. I’ll be back for you later, sweetheart, she tells her daughter silently, I won’t be long. She glances at the clock on the dashboard. It’s nine—nearly two hours have gone by since her phone call.

  “There is a shelter in a town called Salisbury, a house where you will be safe, looked after. That’s where we are heading right now.”

  Lina’s eyes are on the car in front; she is still clasping her passport. Her head is tilted toward Melissa, listening.