by Amy Cross
“Poor old Martin,” Crabbett muttered, as another officer entered the pub. “He was a good old chap. Good to have on your team at the quiz, too. Always scored a few points.”
“We're finished at the house,” the second officer said, already sounding bored. “Clean-up'll take a look, but they reckon they won't be long.”
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Crabbett,” the first officer said, closing his notebook. “I'm sorry we had to trouble you at what must be a difficult time.”
“Not at all,” Crabbett replied. “I'm just in shock. We all will be. Martin had only been living here for about ten years, but he'd made himself quite a regular in that time. There'll be some jostling for his stool, now. Martin always seemed fit as a fiddle, so there was never a waiting list set up.”
“A waiting list?” the first officer asked, stopping at the door and turning back to him.
“For the stool,” Crabbett explained, before glancing over at the bar stools that were presently empty. “Those things are like gold dust in the evenings. Usually the incumbent nominated his successor, but since Martin didn't manage that I suppose we'll have to come up with some other way. I'd want it myself, but my knees aren't up to stools much these days.” He turned and grinned at the officers. “I much prefer a nice comfy chair by the window.”
“Right,” the officer said, clearly a little bemused. “Well, again, thank you for your time.”
“There was one odd thing we noticed,” the other officer said, as the pair of them headed out of the pub. “You saw that broken photo on the wall in Mr. Tugwell's house, didn't you? Well apparently the glass was broken from the inside of the frame. How'd you reckon that could've happened?”
The Disappearance of Rose Hillard
I
Today
“Okay,” Sheriff Gorman muttered as he limped into his office and surveyed the damage. “What the hell's going on here?”
“Sorry to have to wake you so late,” replied Karyn Lucas, the deputy who at that moment was brushing the door handle for fingerprints, “but as you can see, there's been a break-in.”
“Evidently,” Gorman remarked, heading to his desk, where all his papers and files had been rifled through and left to spill over onto the floor. With a sigh, he set his cane against the wall and looked down at the chaos. “This is the Clark-Abeson County Sheriff's Department, for God's sake. Are you seriously telling me that someone broke into my office without being seen?”
“I was thinking we should keep it quiet,” Karyn suggested. “It'd be pretty embarrassing if people knew the truth.”
As Gorman began to make a token attempt to bring some order to the mess, surrounded by trashed files and torn-apart folders, a torrential night-storm continued to howl outside, sending rain crashing down onto the skylight above. Nearby, a radio crackled into life as one of the deputies called in some information about a fallen tree on one of the back-roads, but nobody bothered to reply.
“All the available officers were out on a call,” explained Joe, standing in the doorway, glancing nervously at Karyn before finally meeting Gorman's unimpressed stare. “There... Uh, well, there were reports of a shooting. Multiple victims, and something about an infant being held hostage. We all headed out to Rosary Road to see what the hell was going on. I mean, hell, from the call alone it sounded like a bloodbath. There was this woman crying hysterically on the phone and we could hear stuff going on in the background, if you'd heard her... We had no choice, Ben, we had to all get out there as fast as possible.”
“And?”
“And nothing. It was a false call, turns out it came from a payphone. Looking back at it now, it's pretty clear that someone wanted to get us away from the office.”
“There's a rule. You always leave one officer behind to man the desk.”
“I know, but it sounded so bad. Like, one of those once-in-a-lifetime emergencies where you need all hands. We... I made a judgment call.”
Sighing again, Gorman peered through to the reception area, where the front desk was suspiciously unmanned.
“Where the hell was Elizabeth in all of this?” he asked.
“When we went out to Rosary Road,” Joe continued awkwardly, clearly aware that he wasn't exactly being covered in glory by the tale, “we... Well, we figured Elizabeth could hold the fort by herself for a little while. Turns out, someone had slipped something into her coffee. She was out like a light just a few minutes after we left.”
“Huh,” Gorman replied, frowning for a moment before turning to look back at his desk. “And let me guess. The security cameras were all -”
“Functioning as normal,” Karyn told him before he could finish. “Most of the time, anyway. There was some kind of electrical disturbance that shorted them out for about ten minutes. After that, it passed and they were fine again, but by then...” She paused as she examined the door handle. “There are no prints here,” she added finally with a sigh. “There are no prints anywhere. Whoever did this, they were good.”
“They'd have to be,” Gorman muttered, “to break into my office.”
“They left the rest of the building pretty much untouched,” Andy continued. “Whatever they were doing here, whatever they were looking for... They knew it was in this room.”
“Is that right?” Gorman asked, wandering around his desk before stopping and picking up one of the damaged folders. “It's gonna take a while before I can work out if anything was removed.” He glanced briefly at his safe in the corner of the room. “There's no -”
Stopping suddenly, he felt his blood starting to run cold as he saw that the safe's door was hanging wide open. He stared for a moment, convinced that somehow he was mistaken, but gradually a sense of fear began to creep up his back and wrap its fingers over his shoulders.
“And there's that,” Karyn said finally. “Boss, like I told you, this person really knew what they were doing. It's almost like a professional job.”
Without saying a word, Gorman limped across the room and – ignoring the pain in his right hip – he knelt in front of the safe. Inside, assorted documents were all laid out more or less as he remembered them from the previous time he'd opened the thick metal door. With a growing sense of fear in his gut, however, he reached down to the bottom shelf and began to cautiously sort through the various envelopes and files. His hands were shaking, and finally he got to the bottom of the little stack and checked one more time, just to be certain.
“It's gone,” he whispered.
Outside, the storm was getting stronger by the second.
“Boss?” Karyn continued, as she and Andy watched him. “Is anything important missing?”
“I...” Gorman paused, unable to stop staring into the safe, unable to stop thinking about the small white envelope that had lain undisturbed for the past five years. Finally, slowly, he turned to the others.
“Jesus,” Karyn said cautiously. “Boss? You look white as a sheet. What's wrong?”
***
By the time Gorman's car pulled to a stop outside the Hillard house an hour later, the rain had intensified to the point that some of the local roads were already becoming impassable. It was as if a Biblical storm had hit the county, and the emergency radio system was already running, warning drivers to avoid all the roads to the east and north of the town of Vantage.
“All non-essential travel should be avoided,” announced the voice on the radio. “For emergencies -”
After switching the radio off, Gorman sat for a moment in the dark car, listening to the torrential rain that was driving down all around him: rain on the road; rain on the top of the vehicle; rain on the hood; rain in the dark forest that began just a few meters away. He took a deep breath, savoring the relative calm as he looked over at the house on the other side of the road. All the lights were off, which made sense: it was gone 10pm and the Hillard family were clearly asleep. He hated to wake them, but he knew he had no choice. Finally, with a heavy heart, he double-checked his gun and his hat before taking
a pain-killer and then opening the car door.
Outside, the sound of the rain was even louder. He limped as fast as he could manage across the road and through the little white gate at the front of the Hillards' property, before finally reaching the sanctuary of the porch. Despite having only been in the rain for half a minute, he was already drenched, and he took a moment to make himself look a little more presentable before finally he knocked loudly on the front door and waited. At the same time, he winced as a shot of pain arced through his hip.
“Dear Lord,” Gorman whispered, “send me the strength I need right now. Send us all the strength we need and...”
From inside the house, he could hear voices. Seconds later, a light was switched on in the hallway, and finally Michael Hillard peered out through the window.
“Sheriff?” he said after a moment, clearly shocked, but with a hint of dread in his eyes.
“Hello, Michael,” Gorman replied as the door was unlocked.
“What's wrong?” the younger man asked as he stood aside to let Gorman shuffle into the house. “We're all here, Sheriff. None of us are out tonight or -”
“Can we speak in private?” Gorman asked as he saw Michael's wife Carey watching from the stairs. “Evening, M'am,” he added as he removed his soaking wet hat.
“Go back to bed,” Michael told her. “It's okay.”
“Is something wrong, Sheriff?” Carey asked. She had the same scared-of-her-own-shadow expression that she'd been wearing for years.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” he replied with a forced smile.
“Is there...” She paused, with a look of fear in her eyes. “Is it about -”
“It's really nothing, M'am,” he continued, interrupting her. “I just need to speak to your husband for a few minutes about a private matter.”
Behind Carey, the two remaining Hillard children had appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Get them back to bed,” Michael told his wife. “I'll be up shortly.”
As he was led through to the kitchen, Gorman listened to the sound of Carey and the children upstairs, their steps causing the boards to creak. Michael had instinctively made his way to the kettle, which he was now filling with water from the tap, although it was clear from the look in his eyes that he was worried. Gorman rarely showed up at the Hillard house, partly out of respect and partly because of the guilt that burned in his gut, and everyone in town knew that he wasn't the kind of man who made unnecessary house-calls. A visit from Sheriff Ben Gorman always meant that something was wrong.
“You'll have to forgive her,” Michael said eventually. “The last time you showed up late at night, it was...” His voice trailed off as he set the kettle on to boil. “Well, it was five years ago and... The world changed.”
“I'm aware of that,” Gorman replied darkly.
He set his hat down on the table before propping his cane against the chair.
“But we're all here,” Michael stammered nervously. “I already said, all four of us are in the house and accounted for, no-one's out there, no-one's missing... I mean, in this weather, you'd have to be crazy to go outside. It's like the end times out there -”
“There was a break-in at the station tonight,” Gorman said, interrupting him. “Someone got into my office. Into my safe, as a matter of fact. It was a very well-planned and well-executed job. The cameras were disabled, Elizabeth was drugged... That safe alone is state of the art. The manufacturer's website says it's the best one on the market, the damn thing should be impregnable, but someone got it open.”
Michael opened his mouth to reply, but the words caught in his throat and a look of fear crossed his eyes. He already knew what was coming: it was the moment he'd been fearing for five years, the moment he'd somehow known would eventually come.
“They took the disc,” Gorman added. “Nothing else. Just the disc.”
“Well...” Michael paused. “How? I mean... What the hell are you talking about? That's impossible! No-one else even knew it existed!”
“Clearly someone did.”
“You said it was just you and me!”
“And until tonight, I absolutely believed that to be the case. I never told another living soul that the disc existed, just like we agreed, which means...” He paused as the storm rattled the back door. “Who'd you tell, Michael? And for God's sake, man, why?”
“No-one.”
“Michael -”
“I never told a single goddamn person!” Michael hissed. “Why the hell would I ever do that? Think about it, why would I, of all people, ever want another living soul to know about it?”
“Because it's the only possible explanation. Occam's razor and all that, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. I know for an absolute fact that not one word of this leaked from my office. Even the rest of my team, they don't know a damn thing about it. I kept them in the dark from the beginning.”
“Even June?”
“Even June. Especially June.”
“Then someone else knew.”
“Not anyone who's still breathing.”
“Then they must've talked to someone before they died! I told you we should've been more careful!”
“Impossible,” Gorman replied firmly. “Believe me, I made damn sure. After the Everham brothers and Ricky Baggard died, you and I were left as the only two people in this whole world who knew anything about the disc. You know me, Michael. After I put that thing in my safe, I never breathed a word of its existence to anyone. The only possible way for someone to get wind of its existence is if you started -”
“No!” Michael shouted, taking a step forward in anger before finally he managed to calm himself. “Jesus Christ, no!”
Above, the ceiling creaked some more.
“The disc was in your possession,” he continued, lowering his voice. “I told you we should've destroyed it, I said it was dangerous to keep it around, that it was disrespectful. I don't understand why you couldn't just snap it or burn the damn thing! It's like a ghost!”
“It was evidence,” Gorman pointed out. “I couldn't just throw it away.”
“Yes you could have,” Michael replied. “You absolutely goddamn could have.”
“I never knew if we'd need it one day.”
“We'd have managed,” Michael said firmly. “You'd have managed. Instead...”
“Destroying it wouldn't have made the things on that video not happen,” Gorman told him. “It wouldn't have made anything better.”
“It would've been the right thing to do,” Michael continued. He paused, clearly at a loss for words. “For her, I mean. For her dignity and her memory. If anyone watches the video on that disc, if anyone sees what really happened -”
“They won't.”
“Of course they will! We live in a sick world, and there's only one reason why anyone would go to all the trouble of breaking into your office and stealing that thing.” Pausing again, he stared into the distance for a few seconds. “It'll leak,” he said finally. “Either that or it'll get sold to the papers, but whatever happens, people are gonna see it, aren't they? It'll end up on the internet, it'll go viral. Everyone...” He looked up at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ, Carey'll see it. The kids, too, when they get older. They'll see Rose, they'll see what was done to her, they'll hear her screams -”
“I'm not gonna let that happen,” Gorman said firmly.
“How in God's name do you think you can stop it?”
“The person who stole the disc,” Gorman continued, “didn't do it just so they could cause trouble. They didn't do it to humiliate Rose, either. They did it because...” He took a deep breath. “The timing is no coincidence. It's five years since Rose disappeared and clearly -”
“You said it would all be okay.”
“And it will be.”
“We made a deal! I kept my side!”
“Everything's going to be fine,” Gorman told him. “I swear by all that's holy, Michael, this situation is going to get resol
ved real soon. Not one frame of that video is ever going to get out, not one millisecond of audio. You need to trust me here. I'm a man of my word and I never, ever let anyone down.”
“I can't have people knowing what we did.”
“We didn't do anything. Not... You know what I mean.”
“We left her there,” Michael replied, with tears in his eyes. “We left her out there in the cold. In the rain. Think of her tonight, think what it must be like for her out there in this weather. All this rain, washing through everything. How much of her do you think is left, Ben? What do you think she looks like after five goddamn years?”
“There was nothing more we could've done.”
“We could've given her a Christian burial.”
“You were the one who -”
“I know!” he hissed. “I know, I just... It's been five years. I've had a lot of time to think about the choices we made that night.”
“It was your idea.”
“It was the best thing for Rose,” Michael replied. “For everyone, for the whole town... I just think maybe we should have buried her better, that's all. Maybe found a way for her to show up eventually.”
“And what good would that have done?” Gorman asked, keeping his voice down so that no-one else in the house could overhear. “There'd have been questions. The truth would've come out, that video would've ended up being used as evidence and it would have entered the public domain...” He paused, watching as Michael took a seat at the kitchen table and placed his head in his hands. “Think how many people would have ended up watching the video,” he added finally. “All those eyeballs watching Rose as she was... It's like you said five years ago, it would have been humiliating for her. Instead, we sorted things out ourselves. The people responsible for what happened ended up facing better justice than they ever would've got from the court system. The only ones who suffered out of this were you and me, and that's just 'cause we know the truth.”
“And Rose,” Michael pointed out, sniffing back more tears. “She suffered. We should've found a way to give her a decent resting place.”
