by Simon Mason
‘You went out into that rain without a coat?’
‘Of course not. I took a pac-a-mac. It got shredded, though.’
Singh spoke up. ‘In the woods?’
She nodded. ‘At first I was going to go to Soph’s, stay with her for a night, move on the next day. But …’ She hesitated. ‘The rain was much worse than I’d thought. I was going along the path and I could hardly see, and the noise was horrible. And then … I thought I saw someone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘On the path behind me. I got scared. Not really like me, but with all the rain and the thunder … I ducked into the woods, along a track I know, I thought I could hide there. But somehow it was worse. I thought I could hear him following me. I panicked. I really lost it, running through the trees. I kept falling. At one point I was sure someone grabbed me, but it was just branches whipping about in the storm. Eventually I found a place to shelter, and I stayed there for, I don’t know, more than an hour. And when the storm had passed and I walked back to the path it was way too late to go to Soph’s.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I walked over to Battery Hill and waited in that cutesy bus stop there, and caught an early bus, and hitched a bit, and got to Dad’s about lunchtime.’
‘What about Rex?’ Dr Roecastle asked. ‘Why did you take him?’
Amy looked puzzled. ‘Rex? What do you mean? I wouldn’t take that brute anywhere, you know that. Why, what’s happened?’
‘Well, he seems to have got out that night. And I’m afraid his body was found in the woods.’
‘He died?’
Singh said, ‘It’s possible he was killed.’
‘How? By another animal?’
Singh said nothing.
‘Of course,’ Amy said. ‘He was really old.’
‘That’s true,’ Dr Roecastle said after a moment. ‘Nearly thirteen. I was forgetting that.’
Singh said, ‘Wasn’t your father surprised to see you when you arrived?’
Amy curled her lip. ‘My dad’s not surprised by anything. On account of not really caring about anything except his work. The good thing was, he doesn’t read the papers so I didn’t have to answer any awkward questions. In fact, he kept forgetting I was there.’
‘Were you with him until today?’
‘Yes.’
‘Didn’t you see the news? Didn’t you realize there was a hunt for you?’
She hesitated. ‘I didn’t see anything for ages, like not till the weekend. Deliberately. I didn’t want to know. When I finally realized what was going on, I was … embarrassed, I suppose. No, horrified. I knew I had to come back, but I stayed a day longer. I have a lot of unfinished business with my father, and I wanted to put things straight with him, but in the end, last night, we had a row, and that decided me. I caught a train this morning. By then I was feeling nervous. Well, scared. I realized how big it had all got.’ She gave Singh a full, frank look. ‘I guess I’m going to have to say sorry.’
Her mother said, ‘Oh, Amy, I’ve been so worried. We just didn’t know where you were. That man with the van seemed to know but the police let him go.’
‘What man?’
‘Damon Walsh,’ Singh said.
‘Damon? Damon doesn’t know anything,’ Amy said. ‘Not about me, not about the world. Didn’t he tell you that?’
‘He did, in fact,’ Singh said.
Her mother was looking at her aghast. ‘You mean, it’s true? You’re actually having a relationship with this person?’
‘Not any more. It’s been all over with Damon for a while. He just doesn’t seem to be able to accept it.’
‘Amy!’
‘You think I tell you everything?’
‘Well, what about this other awful man, this vagrant living in the woods?’
‘What other awful man?’
‘The police found your ring in his hovel.’
‘My ring?’
‘Your spiral ring. In a den in the woods where this man—’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about – it’s not my spiral ring.’ She held out her hand, and on her finger was the ring.
Everything then fell into place.
‘Oh, Amy!’ Holding the ring in her hand, Dr Roecastle finally let herself go. ‘What we’ve been thinking! It’s all been such a nightmare!’ She began to sob, and Singh stood and suggested that they get ready to go down to the station with him.
Amy went upstairs.
Singh noted the time – 17:30 on Monday the 13th of August – and went outside to make calls, and Dr Roecastle sat for a moment longer on her own in the living room, her eyes shut, her face lifted to the ceiling, her hand squeezed shut round Amy’s spiral ring, just listening to the silence.
There was a noise and she opened her eyes.
He stood inside the room wearing a stained hooded top and sweat pants, watching her with that expressionless look of his, and she sat up. With as much dignity as she could manage, she said, ‘She has returned.’
‘I know.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Her bedroom window’s shut.’
He said nothing else.
Irritated, but feeling herself in a position to be magnanimous, she said, ‘I remain grateful for your help. Even if it was brief, and you were unsuccessful. I suppose we all jump to conclusions sometimes. I just wish the police hadn’t made the ridiculous assumption that it was Amy’s ring they found in that man’s squat. It turns out that Amy was wearing her ring all the time.’ She opened her fist and showed it to him lying on her palm.
He made no response.
More irritated still, she said, ‘And, as it happens, Amy’s reason for leaving was exactly what I thought. A fit of anger. About the shoes, in fact, so there you made a lucky guess.’
Again she paused, and again Garvie made absolutely no response.
‘You see, our instincts aren’t always wrong.’
There was silence for a few moments.
‘Shoes?’ he said at last.
‘Yes, I just told you.’
He nodded. Thought about it. ‘You should ask her what she did with the box.’
Dr Roecastle stared at him. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
But he had gone.
24
The media frothed, they foamed and blared. Amy’s Back!, Mother’s Tears of Joy, She Just Went for a Walk, Manhunt Over.
‘Couldn’t care less,’ Garvie said.
‘Come on now,’ Uncle Len said. ‘Think how relieved Dr Roecastle must be.’
They sat finishing curry chicken in the kitchen at 12 Eastwick Gardens.
His mother said, ‘And she didn’t need your help in the end, Garvie.’
‘Who said I was going to help her?’
Looking at Garvie over the top of his glasses, Uncle Len said, ‘We never quite got to the bottom of what you were doing with Raminder that evening. But we’ll let that pass. Her mother was right, I’ve got to admit it. Amy went off in a temper and came back when she felt like it. Her father corroborated everything she said. He sounds like a nut. Raminder spent hours trying to contact him, and no one knew where he was, not even his university. He didn’t notice the state his daughter was in. I suppose that’s what maths geniuses are like.’
They all glanced briefly at Garvie.
In the living room Uncle Len picked up a copy of the newspaper. The headline was The Runaway’s Return. ‘But this,’ Len said, shaking it, ‘this is what makes me really angry. They’ve conveniently forgotten all the things they said about that fellow PJ.’
‘Did they find him?’ Aunt Maxie asked.
‘He’s still in hospital,’ Garvie’s mother said.
A matter of hours before Amy’s return, vigilantes had recognized the ex-hippy in a small town nearby and had taken it on themselves to express their disapproval of his lifestyle, habits, political beliefs, diet, ponytail, marijuana use and, of course, almost certain guilt. He was recovering from a broken
rib and disconnected eyeball in the Ophthalmology Acute Referral Unit of City Hospital, where Detective Inspector Singh had interviewed him earlier that day.
He had looked frailer than his photographs as he lay in the hospital bed, peering warily at Singh with his one good eye. His midriff was strapped with bandages; his left arm was in a sling. As he spoke, his voice reedy and hesitant, he gestured vaguely with his right hand, a small and faded tattoo of the Buddhist symbol for peace visible on his naked forearm. He did not know and had never knowingly met Amy Roecastle; he was bewildered and frightened by the accusation that he had abducted her. On the night when she had disappeared he had been working the night shift, as usual on Wednesdays, at the Red ’n’ Black self-storage centre on the ring road. He admitted driving his van into Froggett Woods on a number of occasions at night: he was a badger-spotter, a fact confirmed by a number of people who knew him. It was also true that he had lit a fire near the place where he lived in Halton Woods: he had been disposing of common household waste, the obvious remains of which had been found subsequently by the Forensics and GPR teams. The ring that had been found inside his home was his own – generally worn on the long, thin forefinger of his right hand – the spiral symbolizing the path from the outer consciousness of the ego to the inner soul of cosmic awareness. He explained it at length to Singh.
After half an hour Singh had cut short their conversation, recommending off the record that the man hire a lawyer to look into the defamatory statements made in the media, and confirming that the case against him was closed.
‘A sour note,’ Uncle Len said, ‘to an otherwise happy ending. Amy Roecastle simply went home when she was ready.’
Garvie snorted.
Uncle Len peered at him, surprised. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. Doesn’t matter.’
His mother watched him narrowly as he got to his feet and went without speaking into his room.
Uncle Len looked at her, and she shook her head. ‘Who knows what goes on in that boy’s mind.’
‘You think he’s disappointed it’s over?’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe he’s just irritated the whole damn thing broke his concentration on the fencing.’
‘Poor Garvie,’ his uncle said.
After a moment they began to laugh together. It was the last sound Garvie heard as he closed his bedroom door, lay down on the bed and stared impassively up at the ceiling. He was thinking about Amy Roecastle. Her face in the photograph. Her mouth, lips slightly parted, her eyes too, and the point of her chin so strong and delicate; and the look on her face, secretive and teasing.
And he thought about the shoe box she’d been carrying as she ran through the wood in the pelting rain.
25
Fencing duly continued the next day without interruption. It was the hottest day of the summer, bright and glowing. In the morning there was a breeze, but by lunchtime a stiff, solid warmth filled the garden. Leaves wilted on the trees, the raw fence glared in the light. Smudge and Garvie were given the task of creosoting the finished panels while Smudge’s brother and the other men worked on the pagoda. They stripped to the waist and set to.
‘Funny how things turn out,’ Smudge said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Vans. It’s like, you know, they’re really important.’
‘Never doubted it, Smudge.’
‘And this Amy Roecastle.’
‘What about her?’
‘Turns out she’s not bad-looking. Outstanding in the frontal lobe department, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes, Smudge, I know what you mean.’
‘She looks pretty skinny from the back, then she turns round, and wham!’
‘Yes, Smudge.’
‘Like wasps’ nests, mate. Ever seen a wasps’ nest? The way they—’
He had no chance to develop this theme, however, because Smudge’s brother decided, who knew why, to separate them. Smudge took his can of creosote down to the stretch of fence by the gates, and Garvie carried on working alone by the panels he’d put up himself.
It didn’t get any cooler. The afternoon heat pressed down, expanded to fill the smallest spaces – ears, nostrils, mouths – and drove out the air. Garvie wisely paced himself, taking cigarette breaks every fifteen minutes. Twice Smudge came over to bring him up to speed with his thinking about Amy Roecastle. An airless hour passed.
Becoming aware, for a third time, of someone standing behind him, and assuming it was Smudge again, Garvie said wearily, ‘No offence, Smudge, but there’s no point in telling me all this stuff about skinny from behind, outstanding frontal lobes and wham! they take your eye out. Why don’t you go find her and tell yourself?’
There was a pause.
‘I can only think it’s because he’s shy,’ Amy Roecastle said.
Garvie hesitated a moment, then turned. She stood there, one hand on her hip, in black canvas trousers and black vest. She wasn’t as tall as he’d imagined from her photographs. Her hair was looser, more unruly. She seemed pale, a little pinched-looking. But that face. And that familiar look on the face, amused and knowing.
He found his voice. ‘Smudge is many things. But shy is not one of them.’
‘You must be the shy one then.’
He shrugged.
‘Though weirdly,’ she went on, ‘that’s not what my mother told me.’
Garvie nodded. ‘I’m glad you two are back on speaking terms. And it’s nice to say hello. But, you know what, I’ve got to get on here.’ He made a vague gesture with his brush. ‘Thing about a fence is, you got to give it a hundred per cent.’ He turned away, dipped his brush, and began to apply the creosote.
‘This the bit you put up?’
He carried on creosoting. ‘Yeah. The bit you flattened.’
There was a pause, as if she was giving the fence a closer look.
‘Your post holes weren’t deep enough,’ she said. ‘I could feel it going soon as I got up on it.’
‘At least you didn’t hurt yourself.’
‘How do you know?’
‘’Cause you were fit enough afterwards to run through the woods with that dog of yours.’
She hesitated. ‘Quite a fantasist, aren’t you?’
‘Got over it yet?’
‘I’m fine. Bit tired. Slight stomach upset. Nothing out of the ordinary.’
Glancing sideways as he turned back to the fence, Garvie saw that Smudge had abandoned creosoting and was standing by the gates, more or less open-mouthed, watching him.
He was aware of Amy Roecastle watching him too as he worked. After a while he heard her say, ‘You’re not very good at this, you know. It’s not even straight. Did you use a string line?’
He carried on patiently.
She said, ‘You really are a crap fencer. You should stick to breaking into girls’ bedrooms.’
Garvie turned then. ‘I was asked to help out, all right?’
‘Were you asked to leave your bootprints on my bed?’
‘Comes under the category heading Unavoidable.’
‘Were you asked to steal my photograph? Comes under the category heading Rude.’
Garvie shrugged. ‘I was looking for something.’
‘My photograph?’
‘Your beanie. Wasn’t there, oddly.’
‘Course it wasn’t there. I don’t have a beanie.’
‘That’s not what your mother told me.’
‘You think my mother knows the first thing about me?’
He carried on creosoting, and for a while she watched him.
She said at last, ‘Can I have it back then?’
‘What?’
‘My photograph.’
‘Gave it away.’
She made a noise, half-gasp, half-laugh. ‘You gave it away? Who to?’
‘Damon, of course.’
He turned back to the fence and began again to creosote. There was a brief silence. When she spoke again, her voice was different, uncertain.
�
��I thought you didn’t find Damon.’
‘Let’s pretend I did.’
After a while she said, in a quiet voice, ‘How was he?’
‘Great. You’d think he’d be bust up and broken down after you dumped him but he didn’t seem to realize he’d been dumped.’
She hesitated again. ‘Yeah, well. That’s Damon for you.’
‘You better make it clear to him. He’s not very good at working stuff out.’
‘How can I? He’s gone missing.’
‘Give him a call.’
‘Don’t have his number. And he never had mine. Better that way.’
For a moment they looked at each other. Then she looked past him, at the fence.
He said, ‘Go for it. Cheap shots are the best.’
She said, ‘You know what you should stick to?’
‘Yeah. Minding my own business.’
‘Numbers. You’re a bit of a maths genius, aren’t you?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Your mother told my mother, for one thing.’
He looked grim. ‘That’s what mothers are for. Said it yourself. For saying stuff, and pissing off their kids, and making a fuss. And for getting kids from Five Mile into trouble. Though, hey, those kids were born in trouble. They’re used to it. They like it.’
She laughed then, and he saw how wide her mouth was, and how white her teeth, and the way her nose wrinkled like a rabbit’s. ‘For another,’ she said, ‘you left behind a clue in my room. Number five.’
He just shrugged.
‘Thing is, I didn’t even understand the question. And I’m meant to be good at maths. After all, my dad actually is a maths genius. You did proofs for sequence limits at Marsh?’
‘Never heard of them before.’
She looked at him and pursed her lips. ‘Just a lucky guess then,’ she said slyly.
He said, ‘Listen. We know the limit is 1. We know the value is ’
‘Yeah. I got that bit.’
‘So apply the definition of an to the definition of the limit and plug in the numbers. You worked out the fourth term in the sequence already.’
‘Yeah, I remember. ’
‘Right. And the first term?’