The Drowning Ground (20 page)

She crouched forward in her chair. ‘But you have found something? Something in that man's house?'

‘Yes,' I said.

‘A body, that's what the paper says. But is it … is it Gail's body?'

‘I don't know. I'm sorry. You know there was a fire out there?' I said gently.

‘But you think it might be her?' She gazed desperately across the table. ‘You think that you might have found her? You think she might have been there all this time?'

‘We don't know,' I said quickly. ‘There's no way to be sure for now.'

‘So the hairpin. It
was
Gail's all along. The one you found in his swimming pool.'

I sighed. ‘We don't know that. We're still very much in the dark. I'm sorry, but it might turn out that it's all got nothing to do with Gail at all. So you really shouldn't be here. It's far too early on, and it won't do you any good being back here. You must know that. It's only going to make things worse.'

‘I can't help that,' she said coldly. ‘And how can things be any worse than they are already? All I want to know is what happened to Gail. And I want to know why you didn't search his house. You had the hairpin. What else did you need?'

‘But we couldn't be sure, remember. You couldn't be sure if it was hers at the time. You know we went through all that. It was bent. And rusty. That's all we had. And even if we had searched his house, there's no guarantee we would have found anything. None at all.'

‘But you should have searched,' Emily said. ‘You should have searched his house. Why didn't you?'

I didn't say anything. I looked outside, aware that I was just making excuses. She was right, of course. Why hadn't I ignored O'Donnell and taken the place apart? Seven years she'd been waiting for news, and it was all my fault. I couldn't believe how badly I'd let her down. For a few moments I struggled against the enormity of my own error. Hurst was gone, and it was possible that we would never know what had happened out there. All that time under his house. And what had I done about it? Nothing.

‘Look,' I said finally, turning towards her, ‘you're right. We should have searched it. I wanted to, but … well, all I can tell you is that the fire … the fire destroyed the whole house. There's nothing left of it at all. And if it hadn't been for the fire, I don't think we would ever have found … found what was out there.' I paused. ‘There was this huge joist. It fell straight through the house and crashed down into the ground.'

Emily didn't say anything for a while. In fact, she didn't even seem to be listening. Finally, she said, ‘But she's been out there. All this time. And you did nothing. You swore to me that you would find her for me. You remember that?'

‘Yes. I'm sorry.' I stood up. There was nothing else to say.

27

In the end, I decided to take Graves along with me to Lower Slaughter to see Nancy. I let him drive. The trees and bushes rushed past us as the road uncoiled beneath our wheels. We plunged further into the growing darkness while the names of small villages whipped past us and we were enveloped by the falling snow.

‘What did Brewin say?' I said. ‘Did the samples he took from the body match the missing girls?'

‘The results aren't in yet. He'll know tomorrow.'

‘And what about the forensics lab? He phoned them?'

‘Yes. They don't want to say too much until they're sure. But they say that they might be able to extrapolate, or at least get some idea of the age from one of the bones. They're going to have to try to make their best guess from a single bone once the biological profile is complete. The femur is almost intact. But all they can confirm so far is that the body is female.'

‘That's not much to go on, is it? Nothing else at all?'

Graves shook his head.

The houses looked empty and silent. There was a trampled path of frozen sludge leading towards Number 5 Patch Close, a small semi at the end of the road. A grey Nissan was in the driveway, and a woman with her back to us was lifting bags of shopping out of the boot. She whirled round when she saw us looming out of the darkness towards her.

‘We're looking for Nancy,' I said. ‘You're her sister, right? She told me she'd be staying with you for a bit. While she was here for her old boss's funeral. Frank Hurst.'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Who are you?'

She was a little older than her sister; tall but with a rounder face. She was looking at me with the bags weighing heavy in her hands, and the plastic digging into her fingers. She slumped slightly and let the bags rest on the ground in the snow.

‘I'm Detective Chief Inspector Downes,' I said. ‘I'd like to talk to her. Do you know where she is? In the village perhaps?'

‘No. She's out.'

‘Out where?'

‘She's gone to Cheltenham. Took the bus.'

‘When?'

‘Oh, about an hour ago.'

‘What for?'

Miss Williams looked worried. ‘Well, she's meeting someone, I think. She wouldn't say.'

‘Who?'

‘A man, I think.'

‘A man. Okay,' I said. ‘Do you know him? Has he ever been to the house to see her?'

‘No. I've never seen him.'

‘Local?'

She shrugged.

‘He's phoned the house? You ever talked to him?'

‘No. He always calls on her mobile or she phones him on hers. They were on the phone this morning.'

‘What's wrong, Miss Williams? Are you all right?'

‘I don't know. I've been worried about it all day. Look, I don't want to get her in any trouble, but … I don't know. I phoned her from work and told her not to go out – not in this weather – but she was adamant about it. We had a bit of an argument. Looks like she might get stuck out there now.' She looked up at the sky. ‘Must be serious for her to go out in this weather. Wish she hadn't, not with all this snow forecast. She's going to take a train home after.'

‘Miss Williams – what happened? You had an argument with your sister. What was it about?'

‘I heard her talking. I didn't mean to,' she said quickly. ‘This morning, before I went off to work. But I'd forgotten my purse so I had to let myself back in. And I heard her talking on the phone. She was angry with this fella. I thought it was just some man she'd met while she was down here, but they were talking about that girl, which didn't make any sense.'

‘What girl?'

‘I didn't hear all that much, because she hung up after a few minutes. And then she came running down the stairs. Asked me what I thought I was doing, eavesdropping on her like that. She's got a terrible temper on her. And I said I hadn't heard anything. But she was furious. I didn't tell her what I'd heard. But she was talking about that girl, the one who ran off years ago. Stuck-up bitch, that's what Nancy always said. Hurst's daughter.'

‘Rebecca Hurst?'

‘Yes.'

‘Can you remember anything else at all?'

‘No. I just heard the name Rebecca Hurst. She was saying something about her running away or something; I couldn't hear the rest. And then I asked her.'

‘Asked her what? About Rebecca Hurst?'

‘No. I asked her what she was really doing down here. Back home.'

‘But she was here for Frank Hurst's funeral,' I said, surprised.

‘But why would she go to his funeral? She couldn't stand him. Frank Hurst sacked her. No warning, nothing, and she'd been working like a dog for him for years and years. So when he sacked her she went off to Brighton, because she'd always wanted to live by the sea. But she's just a chambermaid now.'

‘A chambermaid. But when I saw her at the funeral she told me she ran a guest house.'

‘She doesn't. She's a chambermaid in a hotel.'

‘And so you're worried about her because you thought she might be up to something – that she was here for a reason other than Hurst's funeral.'

‘Yes. She was furious. Told me to mind my own business and keep out of it. So I said it was her life and she could do what she wanted and that was fine with me. And I went off to work. Went off in a huff. Then I phoned her to see if we could make up before she left. But I couldn't stop her from going to Cheltenham or change her mind.'

‘All right,' I said. ‘She's gone to meet this man before she goes home to Brighton on the train. And you think it might have something to do with Rebecca Hurst.'

‘I think it might. But I don't understand what it can all be about. I don't want to get her in any trouble,' she said helplessly. ‘But Nancy – she's just so damned stubborn sometimes.'

‘Her number,' I said, clicking my fingers. ‘Try her number. If she knows it's you, she might answer. Quickly.'

She seemed uncertain in the muted light of the porch. Graves took her shopping bags and placed them gently on the doorstep. It seemed to reassure her.

‘All right,' she said. She opened the car door and reached for her bag on the passenger's side. She searched her handbag, pulling out a lipstick, a packet of tissues and a large fat purse. It seemed to be taking a long time. I gave Graves a pained look over the roof of the car, and Graves rolled his eyes. Finally, she had the phone. She backed out of the car, peered at it and dialled. We watched.

She shook her head and looked up. ‘No. She's not answering,' she said, sounding a little puzzled. ‘Straight to voicemail.'

‘Leave her a message,' I said. ‘Tell her to call DCI Downes if she gets the message. I'll give you my number. She knows me. Tell her to call me and I'll meet her in Cheltenham. She's not to get on that train before she speaks to me. All right?'

‘She's not in any trouble, is she?'

I shook my head, uncertain. ‘No. But you're sure you don't know who this man is?'

‘No, I don't.'

‘And can you think of where she might go in town? A place where she might meet this person?'

She paused, thinking. ‘Well, not off the top of my head. But…' She reached into her bag for her front door keys and gripped them in the palm of her hand. ‘Hold on. Yes,' she said. ‘There is. There's a café near that daft old clock they've got there.'

‘Clock?'

‘Yeah, you know the one. You must have seen it. It's in that shopping centre. It's like a duck or something. It's for the kiddies. It's not really a clock at all.'

‘You don't know it, do you, Graves?'

Graves shook his head. ‘'Fraid not. Never been to Cheltenham,' he said. ‘Haven't had time yet.'

‘It's in the arcade. Off the high street, at the top. She goes there for a cup of tea sometimes before she takes her train.'

28

I let Graves drive again. It was less than twenty miles to Cheltenham, and the roads leading there were quicker than the winding lanes that had taken us to Lower Slaughter. Every now and again I would reach for the phone and dial Nancy. But there was no reply. I didn't really know what to make of it. Only that I didn't like it. Nancy was smart, like Powell had said. She'd acted quickly when Sarah Hurst had had her accident by the pool. But now that we knew she hadn't come here for Hurst's funeral at all it changed everything. She was here for another reason – and that reason sounded like it had something to do with Hurst's daughter. But what could Rebecca have to do with any of it?

We made good time, despite the bad weather, and we soon left the tiny villages far behind us. Within half an hour we were in the town. We stopped the car and parked it high on a kerb outside a guest house.

I didn't know the clock Nancy's sister had mentioned. But I knew where the shopping centre was and that the only way to it was through a great quantity of people. At the bottom of the rise, the high street stretched out before us, cutting a thick swathe all the way across the bottom of the hill. A huge splintering crowd streamed across the road in both directions. We headed quickly down the slope.

What had from above seemed to be a solid wall of people now turned into individual faces and shapes. The melted snow had left the walkways shining. Laughing and giggling, people pushed past us and became indistinguishable from the other moving bodies. It was nearly 9.00, but most of the shops were still open because it was almost Christmas.

We strode on, leaving puzzled and annoyed faces in our wake as we barged through the Christmas shoppers. Grimfaced people rushed from shop to shop like soldiers jumping from trench to trench, emerging with yet more bags clutched in their hands or sometimes unbelievingly empty-handed. In minutes we had reached the high street. Here the throngs moved and swayed in a mass. They poured into the shopping centre, calling out to one another in the gathering cold.

‘She told me she ran a guest house, but she was lying,' I said over my shoulder to Graves.

Graves picked up speed. His face was tucked into the collar of his coat. His thick brogues rang out on to the street.

‘She's here for another reason – something to do with Rebecca.'

‘But what?'

‘I don't know.'

‘And this man she's meeting – she's chosen a very public place, hasn't she?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Could be because she's scared of him.'

For a moment Graves lapsed into silence and gazed mournfully at all the shoppers.

‘And why all the secrecy?' I asked. ‘Why hide it from her sister?'

‘I don't know, sir.' Graves shrugged. ‘But, to be honest, I don't like it either: her just showing up like this for a funeral of someone she couldn't stand.

We walked on towards the shopping centre. Heavy Christmas lights and bulky decorations, stars and branches of holly, shone out above us. We passed the heavy brass doors of a department store. I stood for a while watching the rolling tide of people pouring forward. Graves pushed himself across the road and headed towards the shopping centre. I reached for the phone inside my pocket and dialled Nancy's number, staring at the crowds and hoping I might hear it ring out. But there was nothing. Half the people in the street seemed to be talking into their telephones. I stepped back into the moving mass and headed inside the centre.