by Ford, P. F.
‘On my way.’
Norman didn’t do running as a rule, but the alarm in Jolly’s voice left him with no choice. Following her footsteps in the snow, he shuffled along as fast as he could.
Jolly was normally the epitome of cool, calm and collected, but when he found her, Norman thought he’d never seen her in such a state before. She was almost in tears.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she said. ‘I think she may have run away. Oh God, you don’t think we frightened her away yesterday, do you? I’d never forgive myself.’
Convinced she was verging on panic, he grabbed her by the shoulders and stared intently into her face.
‘Jane,’ he said. ‘Stop this. You can’t help her if you start to panic. She could be anywhere. You said yourself she goes into town sometimes. Maybe that’s where she’s gone now.’
He seemed to have her attention now.
‘Right. Yes. Of course,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that-’
‘You can’t go jumping to conclusions. Let’s do this properly. You’re sure she’s not in the house?’
‘Quite sure,’ said Jolly. ‘But there are no footprints apart from yours and mine. It began snowing at around eleven last night, so she must have been gone all night.’
‘Shit,’ said Norman. ‘So she could be anywhere. Let’s have look inside first. Maybe there’ll be some indication where she might have gone. Come on, there’s not much of it, so it won’t take long.’
He led the way into the tiny log cabin. He was right about there not being much of it. Apart from the little wood burning stove, which Florence obviously used to boil a kettle and heat a single pan, there was little in the way of furniture. A rocking chair, just like the one outside, a small table with matching chair, and a narrow dresser were the extent of her furnishings.
‘No electric,’ said Norman, pointing to a candle in a holder on the table.
The large print in the ornate frame filled the centre of one of the walls with no windows. The wall opposite, also with no windows, was home to a large poster of the old children’s TV series The Magic Roundabout.
‘Sheesh!’ Norman whistled. ‘I have never seen one of these before. It must be straight from the seventies.’
‘Is that the TV series you were on about before?’ asked Jolly.
‘Yeah. Florence must have been one big fan,’ he said.
‘That print.’ Jolly pointed to the opposite wall. ‘I’m sure it’s the one that’s missing from Mr Winter’s house.’
‘But how the hell did it get here?’ said Norman. ‘Do you think she broke in and stole it?’
Jolly had pulled open a drawer in the dresser that seemed to serve as Florence’s kitchen.
‘She didn’t need to break in,’ she said, holding up what appeared to be a back door key. ‘It looks like she may have had her own way of getting in and out.’
A large grandfather clock dominated the inside of the cabin. Jolly stepped up for a closer look.
‘This clock looks exactly like the one at Mr Winter’s,’ she said. ‘Except this one doesn’t seem to be working.’
‘Maybe she forgot to wind it,’ said Norman.
There were no ceilings as such, just the inside of the roof, but at one end, a narrow mezzanine floor looked as though it might house a bed. A ladder led up to it.
‘I’m gonna take a look up here,’ said Norman, as he mounted the ladder.
He climbed enough steps to see over the top.
‘The bed’s on the floor like one of them futon things. She’s got some stuff up here but I can’t reach it, and I think I may be a bit too heavy for this. I don’t want to bring the roof down. Can you come up here, Jane?’
He climbed back down and made way for Jolly to climb up.
‘Wow!’ she called down to Norman. ‘She’s one big fan of that TV series. All these cuddly toys look like the characters on that poster down there.’
Norman listened to her rummaging around, and then heard her exclaim ‘Oho!’
‘What have you found?’ asked Norman, as she eased her way back down the ladder. In her hand, she had an MP3 player.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘What on earth would she be doing with one of these?’
‘Come on, Jane,’ said Norman. ‘What’s the big deal? So, it’s an MP3 player. Nearly everyone has one of those these days.’
‘Right, Clever Dick,’ she said. ‘But most people have the means to charge it when the battery runs down. What does Florence use, candlepower?’
‘Okay. Good point,’ said Norman. ‘Does it work?’
Jolly pressed a couple of buttons and waited but nothing happened.
‘Looks dead,’ she said.
‘Take it back with us,’ said Norman. ‘Becksy will have a charger for it.’
He turned his attention to the dresser and slid open the remaining drawer.
‘There were three ancient black and white photos, and he carefully removed them and went over to the window where there was more light. Jolly went across to join him. There was one photograph of two children – a girl of about five and a boy just a few years older. They were arm-in-arm, both wearing huge grins. Then there was one of the same little girl, smiling her gap-toothed smile and squinting at the camera. But it was the third photograph that caught Norman’s attention. It showed what he thought was the same girl, but this time she was holding a man’s hand. He was a good deal older than her, and his smile seemed somewhat forced, but it was the girl’s face that made Norman take notice. She had a haunted look to her, and any smile that she might have been able to produce was missing and had been replaced by a look of total fear. Whoever this man was, the girl appeared to be terrified of him.
‘Oh fuck,’ said Norman. ‘I don’t like the look of this.’
Jolly looked shocked by his outburst. Norman rarely swore, but he couldn’t think of another way to express his feelings about what he thought he was seeing.
‘Sorry about the language,’ he apologised.
‘You took the words out of my mouth,’ Jolly said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket. Slater needed to know about this.
‘Balls,’ he muttered. ‘No damned signal. Come on, Jane. We need to get back.’
Chapter 20
When they got back to the station, Norman made a quick trip down to Ian Becks’ lair down in the basement.
‘Can I charge an MP3 player?’ repeated Becks. ‘I didn’t know you were into such things, Norm. I thought you’d be more of a vinyl record man.’
‘It’s part of an inquiry,’ said Norman, in no mood for joking. ‘I need it charged so I can see what’s on it.’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Becks, soothingly. ‘I’m sure I’ve got something that will do the job.’
He looked at the small player Norman had handed to him.
‘What are you hoping to find?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, Ian, that’s why I need it charged up.’
‘You know this one plays videos as well as music,’ said Becks.
‘It won’t play anything unless it gets charged, right?’ said Norman, testily.
Brilliant as Becks was, he could be very trying at times, and right now he was in danger of pushing the normally placid Norman to the point of no return. He went to open his mouth again, but Norman beat him to it.
‘Quick as you can, would be really good, Ian.’
‘Right. Leave it with me,’ said Becks. ‘It should be ready in an hour. I’ll call you.’
‘Thanks. I owe you,’ said Norman.
‘And so does Slater,’ said Becks. ‘Make sure you remind him for me.’
Next, Norman made sure everyone on duty was aware they were looking for Florence. He didn’t want her stopped, he just needed to know if anyone had seen her overnight, and if anyone should see her today, he wanted to know.
Upstairs in their tiny office, a distraught Jane Jolly was struggling to relate the morning’s events to Sla
ter.
‘And there was no sign of her anywhere?’ Slater asked.
‘There were no tracks in the snow,’ said Jolly, rushing her words. ‘No wood-burner working and no sign of the dog. She must have gone yesterday after we visited her. Oh God. If this is all my fault, I’m so sorry.’
‘Jane,’ said Slater. ‘Calm down. You’re not making any sense. Here, sit down.’
He ushered her on to the nearest chair.
‘You can’t blame yourself for this,’ he said, sitting down opposite her. ‘We’ll learn why she’s gone when we find her. She could have been moving on anyway for all you know. If we’re going to help her we need to stay focused on doing just that.’
‘I know you’re right,’ she said. ‘But I can’t help thinking it’s all my fault.’
‘Let’s start again. Tell me what happened, and what you found. Right from when you and Norm got there,’ asked Slater, determined to distract her.
‘Okay. I’ll try,’ said Jolly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
‘So you found the framed print that’s missing from Mr Winter’s house, and what you think might be his back door key,’ Slater was repeating to Jolly as Norman came into the office.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And lots of Magic Roundabout stuff, and some photographs-’
‘Which I have here,’ interrupted Norman, placing two photos, side by side, on the desk. ‘Becksy reckons the MP3 player will be ready in an hour.’
‘So what have we got here, Norm?’ asked Slater, leaning forward to study the photos.
‘I’ll hazard a guess,’ said Norman, ‘that what we have here are a photograph of Mr Winter and his sister together, and then one of the sister on her own. I reckon these must have been taken before they became orphans.’
‘Pity they’re so old,’ observed Slater. ‘It would be impossible to say it’s them for sure.’
‘And then there’s this one,’ said Norman, placing the third photograph next to the other two.
Although he wasn’t averse to the odd curse and swear, Slater usually tended towards what you might call the milder swear words. However, when he saw the latest photograph Norman had placed on the table, he couldn’t stop himself.
‘Fuck,’ he said, pointing at the photo of the man with the girl. ‘I don’t like the look of that one.’
Then immediately he realised there was a lady present.
‘Sorry Jane,’ he said, his face reddening.
‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘That’s exactly what I thought when I saw that one.’
‘Yeah. It’s kinda scary,’ said Norman. ‘Gives me the creeps.’
‘So, tell me what you think this is all about, Norm.’
Norman let out a huge, heavy sigh.
‘Well,’ he said, miserably. ‘How many possibilities are there? We have this big secret, which someone is prepared to kill for. The murder victim spent part of his childhood in an orphanage. We have a missing sister, who it seems is not so much missing as hiding from something or someone. And now we have a photograph that seems to show a terrified young girl with an awful creepy looking guy. I really don’t wanna think it, but it wouldn’t be the first child abuse case to surface from way back then, would it?’
‘So what’s with all the Magic Roundabout stuff?’ asked Slater. ‘Where does all that fit in?’
‘I might be able to help you out with that,’ said Jolly. ‘I’ve read a bit about this stuff. It’s not unknown for abused kids to blank out things that happened in their past. Suppose Florence has mentally retreated to a time when she was happy, and she’s stayed there. Let’s say Florence was abused as a kid, but she associates The Magic Roundabout with a happy period of her childhood. By staying in that happy period, she blots out the unhappy period when she was abused.’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard about that stuff, too,’ Norman said. ‘And if you think about it, even the names that are cropping up in relation to her fit the same pattern. She’s Florence, her brother’s Dylan, and she’s looking for Dougal. They’re all characters from the series. She even lives in a garden with a roundabout.’
‘I wondered who had been playing on those things,’ remembered Slater. ‘Alright. So we agree we think we know what’s behind all this, but if we don’t know who’s behind it, and we can’t find any evidence to back it up, we’re not really any further forward. We need to figure out the password for this bloody CD.’
Norman’s phone was ringing. He could see it was Ian Becks calling.
‘Yo. Norman Norman, style guru to the people, speaking. How can I help you?’
He listened hard.
‘You have? Wow! That was quick. Did you take a look to see what’s on it?’
He listened again.
‘Yeah, that’s right. It became a bit of a cult among a lot of adults too.’
He made a face at Jolly and Slater.
‘And there was nothing else?’
Norman chuckled as he listened.
‘Yeah, I’ll be sure to tell him. I think we both owe you big time. Thank you.’
‘That Becksy gets better and better,’ he said as he cut the call. ‘He’s already managed to get enough juice into the MP3 player to fire it up. All that’s on it is a load of episodes of The Magic Roundabout.’
‘That supports your theory about her staying in the past,’ said Slater. ‘But she had no electricity in that cabin. How the hell did she keep the bloody thing charged up?’
‘And how did she come to have an MP3 player in the first place?’ added Norman. ‘And how could she have downloaded those videos without a computer?’
‘Right. So someone must have done it for her,’ said Slater. ‘And she must have had somewhere to charge it up. How about the baker’s wife? She seems to have some sort of relationship with her.’
‘I spoke to her,’ said Jolly. ‘She says she never got further than saying hello to Florence, and she never, ever set foot inside the shop. Anyway, I think you’re missing a much simpler answer. She appears to have a back door key to Mr Winter’s house. The dog she has matched the description of his dog, and that dog is perfectly happy with her. He’s known her a long time. I reckon the reason we’ve only ever seen her early in the morning is because she’s been going back home to Hatton House. I think she used to visit her brother under cover of darkness.’
‘So you think he knew where she was all the time and he told everyone he didn’t know to keep her safe?’ asked Slater.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Jolly, confidently. ‘I think he created a home for her to hide in at Hatton House to protect her. He must have thought she was in some serious danger to go to all that trouble, but then if he was prepared to do all that, getting her an MP3 player and setting it up would have been nothing to him. He could have charged it up every time she came to visit.’
‘But the dog wasn’t there the day you found Mr Winter dead, was it? Do you think Florence was there that night? Maybe she saw who attacked him.’
While Slater and Jolly were talking, Norman was dialling a number on his phone. He turned his back on the other two as he spoke into it. Two minutes later, he turned back.
‘I just asked Becks to check the stuff they found at Mr Winter’s house. There’s a charger for the same model MP3 player, but they didn’t find a player. I think that adds a lot of weight to your theory, don’t you?’
‘I bet those female fingerprints they found at his house were hers,’ said Slater.
‘So you can forget about her breaking into his house, can’t you?’ Jolly said, looking purposefully at Norman.
‘Okay, okay,’ said Norman, holding up his hands in surrender. ‘I’m happy to accept that looks very unlikely now, but you have to admit the evidence did make her a possible suspect.’
Slater was thinking.
‘So he changed his name to Dylan in 1994, and bought Hatton House in 1995, right?’
‘Yes,’ said Jolly.
‘Here’s an idea, then. Suppose he left the Army and came back to Tint
on so he could look for his long-lost sister. He’s looking for Julia, but finds someone who calls herself Florence living rough at Hatton House. He’s clever enough to figure out Florence is really Julia, but she’s locked into this Magic Roundabout thing and doesn’t want to know about anything else. So he buys Hatton House to make sure she never has to leave, and to keep her safe.’
‘But why change his name?’ asked Norman.
‘I don’t know,’ said Slater. ‘Maybe she was so scared of men he thought using the name of one of the characters would encourage her to accept him.’
‘But he was her brother?’ Norman argued.
‘Perhaps she didn’t recognise him as her brother,’ said Jolly. ‘Don’t forget – we think she may have been scarred by years of abuse, and he’s been away in the Army. She hasn’t seen him for thirty odd years.’
‘Good point. Yeah, that works for me,’ Norman nodded his head in agreement.
‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’ suggested Slater. Then he had another idea.
‘When was this Magic Roundabout on TV, Norm?’ he asked.
‘Mid-sixties to mid-seventies, I think.’
‘But Hatton House closed in 1964. If we believe she was abused in that orphanage, she couldn’t have seen it before it happened.’
‘I’m not with you,’ said Norman. ‘What are you getting at?’
‘This may sound a bit weird, and it could be complete rubbish,’ explained Slater. ‘But what if Florence didn’t see The Magic Roundabout until after she’d been abused, and because of that, she forgot she ever had a brother?’
Norman and Jolly both looked puzzled.
‘I’m not explaining this very well, am I?’ said Slater, frustrated with his inability to explain his point. ‘Look, we’re talking about kids focusing on a happy time before they were traumatised, right? What if Florence has locked into a happy time after she was traumatised? What if she discovered The Magic Roundabout after she escaped the abuse? What if she found it made her forget what had happened, and it helped make her life bearable? Maybe she locked into that so she could blot out everything before it.’