Secrets of the Tides (22 page)

Helen’s head swam. Helen had never heard Cassie talk about ‘Sam’ before.

‘It’s at the far end of the beach,’ Cassie continued, ‘near the rock pools. It’s just a cave, where teenagers hang out sometimes . . . you know . . . to just . . . just hang out.’

The policeman nodded. ‘Could you show us where this cave is?’

‘Yes, but we already looked there. He’s not there.’

‘OK, but we’d like to take another look. So you headed to the cave at around eleven o’clock this morning with Alfie and Sam?’

‘Yes. And Dora, my sister. She was there too.’

The policeman scribbled in his book again. ‘Were you all together in the cave for long?’

‘Yes. We were there for an hour or so. Then Dora said she was going to get ice creams.’ Cassie thought for a moment. ‘No, it was more than an hour. I remember she asked me the time before she left. It was just before one p.m.’

The policeman nodded his head again and scribbled in his pad.

‘When she returned Dora asked me where Alfie was. I thought she was joking. Sam and I hadn’t seen Alfie since she’d left. We thought she’d taken him with her.’

Helen felt her stomach plunge and let out an audible whimper. ‘So neither of you were looking after him? What did I tell you girls?’

The policeman held up his hand. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs Tide, I know it’s hard but time is of the essence here.’

Helen nodded and bit her tongue.

‘So the last time you saw Alfie was just before one p.m. today?’

Cassie nodded her head. Helen looked at her watch. It was nearly four.

‘Do you think he left the cave? Followed Dora down the beach? Do you remember him saying anything about what he’d like to do? Where he might want to go?’

Cassie shook her head. ‘He was happy in the cave.’ She suddenly remembered something and let out a small sob. ‘He thought it was a bat cave. He thought the seagulls were bats.’

Helen felt tears sting her eyes. Her little boy was out there, alone.

‘And what were you and Sam doing while Dora was off buying ice cream?’

Cassie blushed. ‘Just . . . chatting . . . and, you know . . . smoking.’

Helen felt her blood rise. Cassie smoked?

‘I see.’ The policeman scribbled something else into his pad.

‘What was Alfie wearing the last time you saw him?’

‘A Superman costume.’

The policeman gave a small smile as he scribbled in his pad.

‘Can you describe it for me?’

‘Blue pyjama bottoms, red wellington boots, a blue T-shirt with the Superman logo on it, and a red cloak.’ Cassie glanced up at Helen for a moment and then looked away again. ‘Mum had sewn a big yellow “S” onto it. But we found the cloak, up by the rock pools. Sam did.’

Helen’s stomach took another sickening plunge. She wanted to scream, but she forced herself to remain quiet, jamming her fist into her mouth and biting down hard on her fingers. It hurt; but she didn’t care.

The policeman nodded again. It seemed he’d already seen the item of clothing.

‘Do you remember seeing Alfie take his cloak off in the cave?’

Helen held her breath but Cassie shook her head.

‘So he might have left the cave and then removed it, near the rocks?’

Cassie gave a slow nod. Helen wanted to reach out and shake her, but she just bit down harder on her hand, feeling the ache of her flesh beneath her teeth.

‘OK. That’s very helpful, Cassandra. We’ll need to ask you and Sam some more questions but I think we’ve got enough to start with. Is your sister here?’

Cassie looked at her mother and Helen shook her head. ‘Sorry, officer, I asked her to stay up at the house in case Alfie found his way back there. I thought it was best. I came here as soon as she told me what had happened.’

The policeman scribbled a final detail in his notebook and then snapped it shut. ‘OK. We’ll speak to Dora up at the house.’ The policeman mumbled something quickly into his crackling walkie-talkie, and then stood. ‘Cassandra, you’ve been very helpful,’ he repeated before turning to Helen. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll find him, Mrs Tide. We’ve got two officers down on the beach looking for your son right now and I’m about to radio the coastguard. It’s just a precaution, of course. No doubt he’s off playing with some other kids, or building sandcastles somewhere on the beach. You know what kids are like.’

Helen nodded and tried hard not to think about why they might need to call the coastguard.

Alfie couldn’t swim.

Helen felt her knees start to buckle but the policeman moved quickly and his strong arms were underneath her before she hit the ground.

‘Do you want to sit down, madam?’

‘No, no, I’ll be OK.’ She pushed him away. ‘My husband,’ she said. ‘He’s in London. I should call him.’ She couldn’t bear the thought of breaking the news to Richard, but he needed to be told. He would know what to do. Suddenly, Helen was overwhelmed by the need to feel her husband’s strong arms around her. He would find their boy.

‘Where does he work?’

‘Tide Associates. Fitzhardinge Street.’

The policeman nodded. ‘We’ll contact him now.’

Helen gave a small, grateful nod and then left the little shop, stepping out into the noise and confusion outside.

It was like being underwater. She knew it was important to listen to what the police were telling her, but she found it hard to focus on anything but the crowds of people leaving the beach. She wanted to scream at them all to stay where they were. She wanted to freeze them in time and run from cluster to cluster, searching for Alfie’s face amongst them. And so, when the police had finally finished with their questions she and Cassie began to scour the crowds, stopping everyone they met to check if they had seen a little boy in a home-made Superman costume. But it didn’t matter who they asked, each time their question was met with a wary but sympathetic shake of the head and soon the beach became emptier and emptier as sunburnt holidaymakers extricated themselves from their carefully chosen plots and made the long trudge back to their cars and their campsites. Eventually they were left with nothing but the deserted beach and the inevitable detritus from a thousand careless tourists. Helen kicked her way wearily through cans and plastic bottles, ice cream wrappers and empty chip cartons as she made her way back to the car park.

At seven o’clock Helen broke off from the search to call Dora up at the house. She knew it was wishful thinking, she knew the police would have notified her if he had arrived at Clifftops but she couldn’t help but hope Alfie might have found his way home, somehow.

Dora picked up on the first ring.

‘Is he there?’ Helen asked.

‘No,’ said Dora.

Helen was about to hang up but Dora continued.

‘Should I come down there and help look? I’m going crazy up here on my own. Perhaps I could—’

Helen hung up and turned back to the police officer next to her.

‘I need to see the cave. Take me there, before it gets dark.’

The policeman opened his mouth to say something, but the look in Helen’s eyes stopped him. Instead he gave a curt nod. ‘Follow me.’

Helen struggled to get into the Crag. Her cotton skirt was desperately impractical for climbing the cliff face and her espadrilles slipped dangerously on the rocks. The policeman who accompanied her, however, ably assisted her over the ledge with strong hands. As he lowered her down her feet touched the gritty floor of the cavern and she sucked in a deep breath.

It was a desolate place; dank and gloomy and stinking with the smell of slimy vegetation, rotting fish and worse. What on earth had possessed the girls to go there? Helen couldn’t understand. She wandered around for a minute or two, her jaw clenched tightly as she ran her hands across the towering stone walls. It was as if she hoped the touch of her fingers might open up a secret doorway in the rock and allow her son to be released back into her arms, returned from the underworld into which he had been stolen.

‘You’ve searched every inch of this place?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ the policeman confirmed. ‘We’ll get the sniffer dogs in tomorrow, if we don’t find him before then.’

Helen shook her head. ‘Why did they come here?’

‘Your daughter tells me it’s a secret haunt for local teenagers.’ He pointed up at the walls. ‘You can see from the graffiti they weren’t the first ones.’

Helen looked at the spray paint scrawls and shuddered. She couldn’t bear to think of little Alfie playing in there. It was no place for a child. She swallowed. ‘I think I’m ready to leave now.’

The officer nodded and they both moved to the narrow gap in the stone. As Helen hauled herself up and out onto the other side she noticed the sun was beginning to set. Alfie would be hungry. He’d missed his tea.

They stayed at the beach until it got dark and a young WPC gently suggested they return home. Helen didn’t want to leave, she couldn’t bear to return home without her son, but it was obvious there was nothing more they could do in the faltering light. The coastguard’s helicopter had already been called in for the night and although they could see the lights of the search boats out in the bay, they’d been told even they too would be returning to shore soon. It was too late and too dark. They would have to wait until daybreak to start the search up again.

Helen thought her heart might split wide open with the sheer ache of it all as she climbed into her car and drove Cassie the short distance back to the house. They both saw, but neither of them commented on the empty child seat glaring at them accusingly from the back seat and it took every ounce of her willpower for Helen to keep her foot on the accelerator and not turn the car around and hurl herself back onto the beach, screaming out her son’s name.

‘Is Dad coming home?’ Cassie asked finally, breaking the silence.

‘Yes. He’s on his way back from London. He’ll be here soon.’

It was obvious they were both hoping Richard would know what to do.

Helen thumped the steering wheel. ‘Where is he, Cass? Where did he go?’

Cassie fiddled anxiously with the frayed hem of her denim skirt. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I honestly don’t. I thought he was with Dora. She told me she was taking him to get ice cream. Then she came back with some boy from school . . .’

Dora was seated at the kitchen table when they got back. There was an untouched mug of tea in front of her and she sat nervously biting her fingernails. She leapt up as soon as they entered. ‘Is he with you?’

Cassie shook her head and Dora slumped back into her seat, wilting like a sunflower as night approaches.

Helen walked over to the kitchen sink and leaned against the draining board. She dropped her head and let out a loud sigh, releasing a tiny drop of her pent-up anger and tension. She couldn’t think; she couldn’t breathe. It was as if she had entered some strange twilight zone, a parallel universe where everything seemed to be imploding on itself. As she stood there, with her head bent over the sink, her eyes slowly focused on a brightly coloured object in front of her. It was Alfie’s plastic breakfast bowl. It sat in the sink where she had dumped it only hours earlier; it still had a half-eaten Weeta-bix glued to its sides. With a surge of emotion, she rounded on the girls.

‘What the hell do you think you were doing today?’ Her voice was icy cold but there was fire in her eyes as she looked searchingly first at Dora, then Cassie, and then back to Dora.

The girls glanced nervously at each other. She could see fear in their eyes.

‘Look at me,’ Helen shouted. ‘Tell me what happened.’

‘It was my fault,’ Cassie started. ‘It was my idea to go to the Crag. Dora didn’t really want to, but I told her I was going and she said we should stick together.’

Helen shook her head. ‘I told you girls to keep an eye on him. I thought I could trust you. You’re not kids any more.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I don’t understand how a little boy can just disappear on a crowded beach.’

Cassie hung her head in shame.

‘He’s three years old, for God’s sake!’ Helen’s voice trembled. ‘He’s just a baby.’

‘Mum,’ Dora pleaded, ‘We’re really—’

Helen shook her head. ‘I don’t want to hear it, Dora. I told you girls to stick together. You left your brother and sister and wandered off on your own to get ice cream! And Alfie followed you, and now he’s lost.’ Helen shook her head again. ‘I
told
you to stick together.’

‘Mum,’ Dora pleaded in a small voice, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry!’ Helen turned on Dora. ‘You’re
sorry
? Do you think “sorry” will help Alfie, who’s out there now, all on his own, in the dark . . .’

Dora began to sob.

‘Do you think “sorry” will make this all right?’

Dora shook her head.

Cassie opened her mouth to speak but Helen held a hand up to stop her.

‘Sorry doesn’t bring Alfie home and tuck him in upstairs, warm and safe in his bed. Sorry doesn’t keep him out of harm’s way with a tummy full of food and our loving arms around him. There are lots of things I want to hear from you right now. But I certainly don’t want to hear that you are
sorry
, young lady!’ Helen could feel her body trembling, but she couldn’t stop herself. ‘I just don’t know what you were thinking,’ she continued, shaking her head in bewilderment. ‘He’s just a little boy . . . a baby.’ She paused, and then suddenly all the anger left her and she felt herself collapse slowly to the floor, like a puppet whose strings had lost all tension. ‘Oh my baby,’ she cried. ‘My poor, poor baby . . .’

For a moment the room was filled with her noisy sobs. She felt a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off angrily.

‘Mum . . .’ she heard Dora plead. ‘Mum . . .’ But she couldn’t listen.

‘Just go away. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand to look at you right now, Dora.’

‘Mum?’ It was Cassie this time.

‘Get out!’ screamed Helen. ‘Get out, the both of you! Get out of my sight!’

They didn’t need to be told again. She heard the girls run from the room, Dora’s noisy cries reverberating all the way upstairs to her bedroom.

Helen remained curled in a foetal position on the kitchen floor until her back ached and the chill from the kitchen tiles had numbed her flesh through the flimsy summer skirt. It was uncomfortable but it was nothing compared to the fear that gripped at her insides when she thought of her little boy out there in the dark, lost and alone. She’d thought she could trust the girls; she’d thought they were old enough to act responsibly. But she had been proved wrong. She had asked them to stick together but Dora had disobeyed. If only they had all stayed together, Alfie would never have gone wandering off.