Rather to Be Pitied

by Jan Newton

‘It’s Llandrindod, Bryn Awel, near the park.’ Steep stone steps led down into gloom. He felt around the doorway and found an old-fashioned Bakelite switch, which operated a forty-watt bulb on a twisted cord. Hurrying down the steps, he could hear Cara’s voice.

  ‘Stay with me, Mrs Pritchard, please don’t go to sleep on me.’

  There was another groan, deep and feral, and Swift’s heartbeat began to pound in his ears.

  ‘As fast as you can please,’ he shouted into his phone, just before the signal faded.

  As the path wound its way round the lake, there were dog walkers and fishermen, but very few of either. Julie was getting nowhere. She turned and retraced her steps. She sped back down the hill and crossed the main road, towards Rock Park. Why had she never really looked at Llandrindod before? And why was she exploring it now? In Manchester there would have been enough local PCs to search the area, she wouldn’t be running around blind. There’d be sirens and mayhem and she’d feel right at home.

  The path led downhill over a stream. This park and the lake reminded her of holidays she’d had as a child in Scarborough, playing in Peasholme Park – the Chinese lanterns, the pagoda on the lake, the little dragon-shaped boats. The funny thing was, it felt here as though it had all those years ago in Yorkshire. Was this why people retired here, to recapture times past? Better times maybe?

  The path led into a wooded area now, rising steeply to the right of the path and presumably giving the place its name. To the left, there was a small gorge, through which a stream tinkled under a wooden bridge.

  There were a few people in the park, more dog-walkers, a couple of red-faced ladies jogging slowly uphill in matching bright pink vests, but no sign of a pale-faced child and a would-be mother. Julie was running hard by now. This was pointless. If she didn’t find them in the next few minutes she would have to go back to the house and tell Swift she’d made the wrong choice. Shit, where would Lizzie run to and why?

  PC Cara Davies was sitting on the floor, her legs straight out in front of her, cradling Mrs Pritchard’s head in her lap. Her uniform trousers were soaked in blood, which looked horribly vivid to Swift, even in the dim light and against the dark fabric. Mrs Pritchard was conscious, but only just.

  ‘Oh God, no. Where’s the child?’

  ‘A woman arrived about fifteen minutes ago. We could see her fists battering the patterned glass. She kicked at the door so hard I don’t know how she didn’t break it. I advised Mrs Pritchard not to open the door.’

  ‘She obviously didn’t listen.’

  Cara shook her head. ‘We didn’t know who she was or what she wanted, she came screaming at us. The boy was playing in the dining room. The cellar door was open.’ She nodded down at the injured woman. ‘She had been looking for jam for Sean’s tea. Mrs Pritchard managed to put herself between the boy and the woman, but the woman began screaming like a banshee. She kept battering Mrs Pritchard with her fists and pushed her so hard that she fell all the way down the steps.’

  Swift dabbed his handkerchief over his lip. ‘The ambulance is on its way. Are you OK?’

  Cara nodded dismally.

  ‘And how did you come to be down here with her?’

  Cara looked up at him. ‘I didn’t know she was going to take the child, Sir, did I? My orders were just to wait with the two of them.’ Tears began to well in her right eye and she looked away from him. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought it was Mrs Pritchard she was after. If you’d heard the sound of her head hitting the steps… I had to make sure she was all right. I ran down here and then I heard the woman slam the door above us. When I ran up the stairs and tried the door, I couldn’t open it. It was locked.’

  Swift looked down on them as Cara stroked Mrs Pritchard’s shoulder. He didn’t tell her that the door had only been stuck and not locked. That could wait until another time.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I know what you’re thinking. I just didn’t think it through.’ Cara’s voice wobbled to a stop.

  ‘Let’s not worry about that now, Cara. What can I do here?’

  ‘I don’t want to move her, Sir. Why don’t you go and wait outside for the ambulance, show them where we are?’

  ‘Will you be all right?’ With a final look at the tableau at his feet, Swift scurried away, up the steps, through the dining room, down the hall and out into the fresh air. He stood on the doorstep, breathed in the clear air and dialled Morgan Evans.

  ‘Where’s the backup? What about the station or the Cardiff bus? Has anyone thought to ask taxi drivers or look at CCTV footage? Where the bloody hell are the troops?’ He cut the call and bent down. By his foot on the black and white tiles lay a scruffy toy dog.

  Julie ran the whole way down the narrow path, which ran under the perfect arch of a railway bridge and alongside a stream, which rushed over rocks, twisting and turning as it went. The path led down to a wooden bridge with the glass-roofed Pump Room beyond. Which way? To the right, the path sloped up towards the high red brick edifice she recognised as The Gwalia; to the left another slope, towards tidy bungalows and the Bowling Club. She followed the path to the left, which led out of the houses and back into woodland. She was still running, gasping for breath, picking her way through tree roots and rocks. This was hopeless. She took her phone out of her pocket to phone Swift. As she dialled his number, she heard a child screaming way ahead of her. This was no petulant toddler, this child was terrified.

  Julie ran on, stumbling on the uneven track between the ancient trees. Swift answered his phone. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Sir. I’m in the woods… beyond the Bowling Club… there’s a child, he’s screaming and it’s bloody terrifying.’

  ‘Slow down, Julie. Do you think it could be them?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘I’m on my way. Rhys has just reached me and I’ll send him on ahead. Be careful, Julie, don’t put yourself in any danger, and don’t cut this call.’

  She knew he was worried about her, but she couldn’t help thinking, after her near miss in April, that he was also concerned about what might happen if she rushed into things. The open phone channel felt like an invisible tether. Behind her, in the far distance she could hear a siren.

  Between the trees to her right there were glimpses of water. Not the tumbling stream now, but a wide, meandering river. As she ran, the track rose steeply in front of her and the chasm between her and the river began to look increasingly worrying. All the time, the child ahead of her wailed for all he was worth. The path divided: one fork carried on ahead up the hill, and to the right, wooden-edged steps began to descend towards the sheer drop above the river. Julie hurled herself down the steps. Ahead of her, Lizzie was running too, dragging Sean by the hand. The toes of the little boy’s shoes scuffed the rough path as he was almost lifted off his feet as Lizzie ran.

  ‘Lizzie, stop. We can sort this out.’ Julie knew her voice was being muffled by the thick foliage, but Lizzie had heard. She glanced over her shoulder and Sean tripped, loosened his grip and backed out of her grasp.

  ‘You ungrateful little…’ Lizzie grabbed him around the waist, Sean kicked out again and again, but Lizzie seemed oblivious to the thrashing limbs.’

  ‘Lizzie!’ Julie shouted again.

  ‘Stay away from me.’ Lizzie took a step off the path and towards the steep bank. ‘If you get any nearer we’re both going over the edge.’

  Julie could hear Swift’s voice, shouting urgently from her phone. She had one chance to get this one right. She edged towards Lizzie and the boy who had quietened. He was looking over Lizzie’s shoulder and down into the eddying water, which must have been forty feet below them, maybe more. Julie watched him hide his face in Lizzie’s shoulder.

  ‘If you come any nearer I promise I’ll jump.’

  ‘I’m staying here, Lizzie.’ Julie held her hands out as if to concede. ‘I just want you to put Sean down on the path. He’s terrified.’

  ‘Don’t you dare tell me how to look after Sean.’

  ‘I know yo
u only want the best for him, but he’s frightened. Please put him down.’ Julie was fighting hard to keep the desperation out of her voice. ‘Put him down and we’ll talk.’

  ‘I’ve done enough talking. To you, to my father, to my useless bloody husband. Nobody was there when I needed them.’ Lizzie took another step towards the precipice. ‘There’s no way out now, is there? Apart from this.’

  ‘Please, Lizzie, just come away from the edge and we can sort this out.’

  ‘It’s too late.’ Lizzie took a step further and the ground gave way beneath her foot. She screamed, Sean wailed and Julie lunged forward.

  ‘Stay away!’ Lizzie had grabbed a slender branch with her free hand, which stopped her from falling, but the tiny tree was beginning to move, its shallow roots nowhere near solid enough for Lizzie and Sean’s joint weight.

  ‘You don’t want to hurt Sean, Lizzie, I know that. Move towards me and give me your hand.’ Julie was only a couple of metres from Lizzie now, but she didn’t dare move any closer.

  ‘Get away. There’s no reason for me not to jump and take him with me. We’ve been through too much together for me to just walk away. He’d be better off dead than without me.’

  ‘Come away from the edge and we can talk about this. We can sort things out. You can’t do this to Sean. After all he’s been through. He doesn’t deserve it. We need to get you both sorted out.’

  Suddenly Julie could see a dog, a black and white collie, heading straight towards Lizzie, and two women walking some distance behind it. She signalled to the women to stop, but they waved back and carried on talking and walking towards her.

  ‘Police! Stay where you are,’ Julie screamed at them. Oh God, please don’t let Lizzie jump. She could hear Swift shouting her name over and over on the phone. The women kept coming.

  Sean heard the dog and twisted round in Lizzie’s arms to look at it. Lizzie stumbled with the shift in weight and Sean cried out. He began to kick at Lizzie. The collie barked and jumped up, catching Lizzie off balance. She wobbled and lurched, pitching to her left, towards the edge. Julie leaped forward and grabbed Sean from Lizzie’s grasp. The two women were suddenly either side of Lizzie, each grasping an arm in a no-nonsense grip.

  ‘Let’s get you down.’ The younger woman reached up and put her arm round Lizzie’s shoulder. ‘The dog won’t hurt you,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry he frightened you.’ She guided Lizzie back to the path while the other woman held out her hand to Lizzie. ‘Come on, lovely, you shouldn’t be over there, it’s not safe, is it?’ Julie lowered Sean onto the path and he wrapped himself round her leg, watching Lizzie.

  Lizzie took the older woman’s hand just as a little girl would, but without warning, she dropped to her knees and began sobbing, taking in huge, noisy gulps of air. The collie licked her face; the more she cried, the harder the dog tried to help. Sean squealed with delight and reached out for the dog and in a second, Lizzie was on her feet and had snatched him once more. As she did, her foot slipped away from her and the pair of them lurched down the bank. Both women screamed, the dog barked and Rhys Williams galloped over the horizon like the hero in a western. Lizzie was once again leaning out, over the river with Sean in her arms.

  ‘If you don’t back off, I’ll let go of him.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t do that, would you, Lizzie?’ Julie crouched as close to Lizzie as she dared. ‘You wouldn’t go through all you’ve been through, just to let Sean drop now. Not when you’ve risked your life to make sure he had a future.’

  Rhys tried to shepherd the two women away, but they were engrossed.

  ‘Come on, Lizzie, pass him to me.’ Rhys smiled at her. ‘He’s being such a brave boy, isn’t he?’

  Lizzie looked down at Sean’s pale little face. He was absolutely still, his eyes wide and terrified. Then the dog barked. Sean laughed, a deep, dirty chuckle. Lizzie’s shoulders slumped and Rhys leapt forward and grasped Sean just as Julie reached for Lizzie’s arm and dragged her up and back out onto the path.

  ‘Well, that was a close one. Well done.’ The younger of the dog walkers fussed around Lizzie while Julie rummaged in her pocket with her free hand. When she slapped her handcuffs on Lizzie’s wrist, the women were outraged.

  ‘What’s the poor girl supposed to have done?’

  ‘It’s a very long story,’ Julie said. ‘Thank you for your help.’

  ‘But there’s no harm done.’ The younger woman clipped the dog’s lead onto its collar. ‘The little boy’s fine. You can’t do that to his mother while he’s watching.’

  ‘There we are, ladies.’ Rhys smiled at them. ‘We’ll take it from here.’

  The women were tight-lipped as they walked away, but they looked back several times before they disappeared over the brow of the hill. Julie couldn’t tell what they were saying, now they were out of earshot, but it was all too easy to imagine.

  Julie guided Lizzie by the elbow while Rhys looked after the little boy. There was nothing of him, his arms and legs were stick-thin. Rhys jiggled him on one hip and smiled.

  ‘Well, you gave us a bit of a fright, boyo. Let’s go and see if that nice Mr Swift has managed to rescue your doggy, shall we.’

  Julie laughed. ‘You’re a natural, you should have kids of your own.’

  Rhys’ face clouded, but only for a second as he looked down at Sean. ‘It’ll happen one day, I know it will.’ He moved away, towards where Swift was puffing up the hill with the battered toy dog in his hand, before Julie could question him any further.

  Swift handed the toy dog to Rhys. Lizzie kicked Julie hard in the shin and the surprise caused her to let go of Lizzie’s arm. Lizzie turned and Julie fully expected to be head-butted, but instead – and despite the handcuffs – Lizzie began to run back towards the precipice. Two uniformed officers appeared, their radios buzzing, but it was Swift who brought her down inches from the sheer drop. He apologised profusely as he helped Lizzie back to her feet.

  ‘Well done, Sir. That was one hell of a rugby tackle,’ Rhys said.

  ‘You never forget it, see. All that training hones your body,’ Swift replied.

  Julie laughed and Swift looked crestfallen. ‘It does, Sir. Muscle memory and all that.’

  The two uniformed PCs were leading Lizzie towards their car. All the fight seemed to have left her now. She looked to Julie as though, without their support on either side of her, she would just fade away. The strange little party, of three plain-clothed police officers and a small boy clutching a toy dog, followed on behind.

  ‘Will we interview her tonight, Sir?’

  Swift watched Lizzie fold into the police car. ‘Maybe just the basics tonight, if the doc thinks she’s fit to be questioned.’

  ‘Do you ever think you’re too kind?’

  ‘Maybe. But I don’t think we’ll get much sense out of her in that state, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Might it not be better to strike while the iron’s hot?’

  ‘Let’s see how things are when we get her back to the station.’ Swift smiled. ‘I think we’re going to have trouble prising the poor child from Rhys.’

  Rhys was making Sean’s little dog walk up and down Sean’s arm and wag its tail, and he was barking little yappy barks.

  ‘Sam!’ Sean squealed, and Julie had a vision of a bull terrier and a crossbow bolt.

  ‘I think the lad’s broody.’ Swift smiled.

  ‘What will happen to Sean?’ Julie suddenly felt strangely maternal herself, despite her best efforts.

  ‘Social services will find him somewhere temporary, and after that, who knows?’

  ‘Do you think Rosa’s family will be allowed to adopt him?’

  Swift shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They’re pretty rigorous about it these days.’

  ‘But Ardal would be so keen.’

  ‘You need a little bit more than that to be able to take on a child I think, Julie.’

  Julie blushed. ‘I know. It’s just that he was so desperate to find Sean.’

>   ‘Wherever he ends up, Julie fach, it will be better than where he was.’

  ‘But Rosa couldn’t do anything about it, could she? She was terrified of Quigley.’

  ‘Slaithwaite told you that Sean and Rosa used to go to the park with Lizzie, didn’t he?’ Julie nodded. ‘So how much time would she have needed to get on a train or a bus and get him to her parents?’

  ‘But Ardal said they didn’t get on with each other, not for years.’

  ‘I think, Julie, if my daughter turned up on my doorstep in the state she obviously was, with a small child in tow and told me they were both being mentally and physically abused, I would do something about it, whether we’d fallen out or not.’

  And that, thought Julie, was Swift’s last word on the matter.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Day Seven

  ‘What have we here?’ The doctor was jovial, ruddy and ancient. ‘This lad looks as though he could do with a square meal. I think he’d be better off with Nerys than with me.’ Julie thought he might be right.

  ‘This is Sean, he’s nearly five. He’s been having some tummy troubles, and I wondered whether he could be coeliac. His mother has… had coeliac disease.’

  ‘It’s not likely, Sergeant. It’s pretty rare, you know.

  ‘But it does run in families, and his mother has a confirmed diagnosis.’