The Woman in the Wood

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Has he talked about anything to you that might point to him going off?’

  Dove sighed and rubbed his chin. ‘He did ask me a while ago about “mad” people. I told him he must never use that term and that there are few people who are truly “mad” like a lunatic. There are of course a small minority who have something like schizophrenia where they can behave in an extraordinary manner, and even be violent, but I believe that the vast majority of people who become mentally ill do so because they can’t cope with something in their life.’

  ‘My mother too?’

  ‘That’s what Duncan asked, but I wasn’t much help. I’ve never met her and even you two don’t know what, if any, her problems are, or much about her background. He asked me what treatments mental patients get, and again, I know very little. I have heard about electric shock treatment, but recently I read about a doctor in Switzerland who treated his patients with nothing more than a good balanced diet, plenty of exercise and letting them talk.’

  ‘Diet?’ Maisy raised an eyebrow. ‘Surely that wouldn’t make any difference?’

  Dove shrugged. ‘Well, to me it sounded like good sense. I got very low after I lost the use of my legs, and I know talking about how I felt, getting out in the fresh air and learning to get around in my wheelchair got me out of the doldrums. But you can’t generalize; people are all different.’

  ‘I don’t believe Duncan has gone to see our mother anyway. I think he’s been kidnapped,’ Maisy said heatedly. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense to me. People around here think Grandmother is sitting on a fortune and they know my father is in London doing something for the government, so they probably think he’s stinking rich too. Anyone who has ever met Duncan would know he was hardly likely to fight his way out of a nasty situation. He’s soft and gentle, an ideal target.’

  Dove shook his head. ‘You’ve seen too many American films. I can’t think of one case of kidnapping here in England. But we’ll soon know if that is what has happened when they demand money for him.’

  ‘Do you think my grandmother would pay it?’ Maisy said doubtfully.

  Dove sighed deeply. ‘Who knows, Maisy? Let’s just wait until it happens.’

  When Maisy got back to Nightingales she was called in to see her grandmother in her sitting room. She was sitting in her usual chair, her back to the window, her face like stone and her back as stiff as a tree trunk.

  ‘I understand you are upset about your brother, but any more rudeness from you and I will lock you in your room,’ she said. ‘I have telephoned your father and he’s coming down on the train. He said he wants you to stay in the house until he gets here.’

  ‘You mean I can’t go out in the forest and look for Duncan some more?’

  ‘No, Maisy. If he was taken by someone, they might take you too. Not that I think he was; I still believe he simply went off adventuring. But that isn’t all I need to take you to task over. You said earlier that you’d been out talking to that mad woman that lives in the forest. What on earth were you thinking of?’

  ‘She’s not mad,’ Maisy said. ‘She’s just a bit different. Duncan liked her, he often went to see her. I only went to ask if she knew where he might have gone.’

  ‘Well, by now the police will have taken her in for questioning.’

  Maisy felt sickened. She hadn’t intended to get Grace involved, and she could see now that people were likely to blame her because she was unconventional and different from them.

  ‘She doesn’t know anything and she’ll be bullied,’ she blurted out. ‘It’s not right.’

  ‘How do you know that she doesn’t know anything? Why, she could’ve killed your brother and buried him out there in the forest.’

  ‘She didn’t, she wouldn’t.’ Maisy began to cry. ‘Why would she?’

  ‘You’ve got a lot to learn about human nature, my girl,’ the old lady said scornfully. ‘There are so many hair-raising stories about that woman. If only one percent of them were true, I’d have reason to worry. Now stop blubbering and go to your room. I’ve had quite enough of you for one day.’

  ‘How can you be so callous?’ Maisy asked, her anger overcoming her fear of the old lady. ‘One minute you’re saying my brother could’ve been murdered and buried in the forest, then when I get upset you order me to my room. Don’t you have any feelings for your son or your grandchildren?’

  ‘I do have feelings – mainly irritation. Now get out of here and tell Janice to bring me some tea.’

  Maisy rushed into Janice’s arms, sobbing wildly as she blurted out what her grandmother had said to her. ‘She’s so nasty,’ she cried. ‘She doesn’t care about anyone but herself.’

  ‘That’s not strictly true. In the past I have found her to be quite surprising – one minute she seems completely uncaring, and then she suddenly rallies to a cause and becomes quite a firebrand. I bet you that’s what will happen now, you wait and see. She was only sharp with you because she’s frightened.’

  Maisy wasn’t convinced. Her stomach churning with fear, she turned down the offer of a sandwich and sloped off to her bedroom feeling completely alone in the world.

  As she lay on her bed she reflected that just twenty-four hours ago she was having the happiest day of her life, laughing and chatting with Alan and believing that it was the start of a whole new wonderful era. Coming home on the bus she could think of nothing but his kiss, but now she felt it was wrong to give him even a passing thought. Her mind should be focussed only on Duncan.

  It was six in the evening by the time her father arrived, but that proved to be another disappointment. Maisy went running down the stairs to meet him, expecting he would hug her and reassure her he would find Duncan. Instead he pushed her from him, holding her at arm’s-length. ‘There’s no need for dramatics,’ he said. ‘Now where’s my mother?’

  He went into the sitting room and shut the door, leaving Maisy outside. She slunk off back to the kitchen trying very hard not to cry.

  ‘They’ve always been like that,’ Janice said, immediately picking up on Maisy’s hurt. ‘They just don’t know how to behave like parents. I’ll go in to see if they want anything just now and find out about supper, and whether you are to join them or not. I’ve made your father’s favourite, toad-in-the-hole, but I doubt I’ll get any appreciation either.’

  Maisy wondered then why on earth Janice had stayed all these years. A woman with her housekeeping skills could attract a good salary and have proper status rather than be the general dogsbody as she was here.

  It was after nine before her father came to speak to her in the kitchen. She hadn’t been asked to join her father and grandmother for supper, so she had stayed with Janice. She barely ate anything anyway; her stomach felt as if it was tied in knots.

  He asked Janice to leave the room so he could speak to Maisy alone.

  The moment the door had closed behind Janice, he rounded on Maisy. ‘Why weren’t you two together yesterday?’ he asked, his voice very sharp.

  Maisy went over to the window. ‘I went out to Bournemouth for the day with Linda Evans, a girl I met at ballroom dancing classes. Duncan was seeing his friends.’

  ‘You surely remember I have always said you must stick together?’

  ‘Father, we are fifteen, not five. We have different interests now.’

  ‘Be that as it may, if you’d planned to be together yesterday Duncan wouldn’t be missing now.’

  Maisy felt that such a stupid remark didn’t warrant a reply, so she just stared at her father, hoping he could read her thoughts. Not for the first time she noticed what an odd-looking man he was. His forehead bulged, his hair was more ginger than blond, and his eyes were such a pale blue there was almost no colour in them. Added to this his skin looked too thin, like it had been stretched over the bones in his face. His nose was long and narrow and his mouth was too small.

  Grandmother had said she and Duncan took after their grandfather, and from the photograph in her sitting room it appeared
to be true. He had been a handsome man with thick blond hair like theirs and very blue eyes. Maisy hoped she hadn’t inherited anything from either of her parents: their looks or their characters.

  ‘So explain to me why Duncan was in the habit of visiting Grace Deville,’ Father barked at her. ‘I cannot imagine why a fifteen-year-old boy would want to visit a crazy old harridan.’

  ‘When your own mother is in an asylum maybe it’s a comfort to talk to other crazy people.’

  The hard slap across her cheek seemed to come out of nowhere. She hadn’t seen her father move to strike her, and it knocked her right back against the window. ‘How dare you be so insolent?’ he raged. ‘You are a child, Maisy. You show me respect and obey me at all times. Is that understood?’

  ‘It’s difficult to respect someone who shows no interest in you,’ she flung back at him, angry now and unafraid. ‘You sent us here without any explanation about what was wrong with Mother. Why doesn’t she write to us? When is she going to get better? Does she even know where we are? I was frightened for Duncan when he didn’t come home last night, but Grandmother cares so little about both of us she wouldn’t even telephone you. When I have children I will treasure them, and tell them I love them.’

  ‘We don’t do that sloppy stuff in our family,’ he said angrily.

  ‘You mean Grandmother never showed you an ounce of love so you feel you’ve got to bring us up the same way.’

  ‘You are getting above yourself,’ he said, taking a warning step towards her again. ‘My mother has got nothing to do with this.’

  ‘But she has, Father. She’s stunted you, she’s as cold as ice to us. If it wasn’t for Janice we’d probably have run away by now. But Duncan hasn’t run from Grandmother, however hateful she can be. He wouldn’t leave me here alone. When are all you adults going to believe what I say? I know him better than anyone. He didn’t run away, he’s been taken. And if you don’t make the police find whoever took him, and quickly, then they might kill him.’

  ‘I really don’t know what’s come over you.’ He shook his head as if in despair. ‘All this blaming, all the melodrama. I don’t understand.’

  ‘What is there to understand?’ Maisy almost felt sorry for him that he couldn’t grasp this was serious. ‘Your son, who has never been disobedient, rode off on his bike and he’s been gone for more than twenty-four hours. I’m not being melodramatic, that is a fact. You should be at the police station making them start a search. You should be out searching yourself, not sitting with Grandmother having a cosy dinner, or slapping me for being what you call insolent.’

  ‘I came to ask you what the connection with Grace Deville was all about.’

  If Maisy hadn’t been so distraught, she might have laughed. She could see he had no idea what to do about his son’s disappearance and was astounded a fifteen-year-old was ahead of him.

  ‘Duncan likes to talk to people and find out what they’re all about,’ she said, softening her tone because she was getting to feel a bit sorry for him. ‘He heard lots of stories about the woman and went out of his way to befriend her so he could find out the truth. It was something he did on his own, and when I saw her earlier today I sensed she’d grown to like him. She was kind to me too. Grace Deville isn’t mad, and if the police think it’s her that’s done away with him, then they’ve all got screws missing.’

  ‘Suppose I take your word for that, then what do you think has happened to him?’

  ‘Well, if he isn’t lying in some secluded part of the forest with a broken leg or worse, I believe he was taken to make you and Grandmother pay out money to get him back. Everyone around here believes you’re very rich.’

  ‘But we aren’t.’

  ‘That’s not how it looks to really poor people,’ Maisy said. She moved closer to her father and put her hand on his arm. ‘Some of the boys Duncan made friends with have the seats out of their trousers and holes in their shoes. Any one of them could have told someone else about Nightingales, that you live in London and that we have a private tutor. People get jealous about things like that.’

  ‘Well, I can’t help that,’ he huffed.

  ‘No, you can’t, though Grandmother has actively offended almost everyone in the village at some time, so it’s hardly surprising if someone wants to teach her a lesson. But you could act now, get back to the police. Organize a search party. Even offer a reward for information.’

  He had turned away from her to look out of the window and she thought that he was taking on board what she’d said, maybe he was even going to agree with her. But when he turned back to face her, his expression told her the exact opposite.

  ‘I think, young lady, that you’ve grown too big for your boots. I’ve never heard such impudence. How dare you criticize me or your grandmother? When all this business is over I can see I must take you in hand.’

  All at once Maisy crumpled, tears streaming down her cheeks. She had tried to be adult and composed, saying what she thought clearly and honestly, and she’d actually hoped he would be impressed, but she was foolish to think such things. He had never cared about her and Duncan. He wasn’t even here because he was frantic with worry about his son, but just because it was expected of him. She had no doubt that he was already wondering how soon he could get away, without everyone realizing he just didn’t care.

  ‘Stop those crocodile tears,’ he snapped at her. ‘I know how little they mean. Your mother was the expert on crying to order for attention.’

  Maisy ran for the door and up the stairs to her room. Once the door was locked behind her, she threw herself on the bed and sobbed. She wished she could run away, if only to make things look really bad for her father and grandmother. But aside from having nowhere to go, and very little money either, she needed to be here for when they found Duncan.

  ‘But I will go as soon as I’m sixteen,’ she muttered into her pillow. ‘I’ll never come back here.’

  She had a picture in her mind of cycling with Duncan through the forest, laughing when they bumped over holes or rocks, always in tune with one another, sharing everything. Had she been selfish to want to go to dancing classes? If she hadn’t gone she’d never have met Linda and she wouldn’t have been in Bournemouth yesterday.

  It was all so terribly unfair. Why did she have to meet Alan and for just a few hours feel happier than she’d ever been before, but then have it snatched away?

  Tomorrow she would have to telephone Linda and explain what had happened, but she couldn’t hope that Alan would wait for her until all this was resolved. Even Linda would find another friend.

  But the worst of it was that she sensed it was never going to be resolved. That Duncan wasn’t going to be found, dead or alive.

  7

  November

  ‘Please try to concentrate,’ Mr Dove pleaded with Maisy. ‘I do understand you find it difficult to get Duncan out of your mind, but you must try to put thoughts of him to one side in lesson time.’

  Maisy lifted red-rimmed eyes to her teacher. She wished she could do as he asked, but she couldn’t get her brother out of her mind, not at night, nor by day. Her eyes bore testament to lack of sleep and endless crying.

  No one seemed able to understand just how much pain she was in. In the first weeks there were searches to take part in; everyone for miles around was involved and that was heartening.

  The hope that the police might have found a new lead, even that Duncan would breeze back in with some wild story of joining a travelling fair or of just getting on a train, was enough to get up with a little optimism each morning. Every single moment of daylight was used, at least by Maisy, going up and down every path in the forest, searching, poking bushes, hunting for any tiny scrap of something that might offer up a clue to what had happened to him.

  But after a few weeks the organized police searches stopped, reporters were losing interest and the local people shrugged, as if there was no hope of finding him alive. Even Maisy felt she hadn’t got anything left in her to
search the same places again. Now she just felt desperately sad. She wasn’t sleeping, could only pick at food and she had no energy for anything.

  ‘I’ll try, sir,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It’s just that nothing in this world seems important except for Duncan.’

  It was November now, a fierce wind blowing down the last remaining leaves on the trees, and so very cold. It was well over two months since Duncan had disappeared and although the police told them they were still actively following up leads, it didn’t seem that way.

  Maisy knew the police and local volunteers had covered every square mile of the forest because she had been with them every day. They had found one of Duncan’s brown sandals amongst some bracken quite close to the Lyndhurst road. The buckle was missing, so it was possible it came off his foot while he was cycling and for some reason he didn’t go back for it.

  His bike still hadn’t been found which, as the police quickly pointed out, meant he could’ve ridden into Southampton, Bournemouth or even further afield. But as Maisy pointed out in return, he wouldn’t continue to ride far with only one shoe.

  They held Grace Deville in custody for two days, and then released her without charge after the police had searched the ground in a mile radius of her shack and found nothing. She couldn’t have managed to carry a body further than that.

  It transpired she owned a van which she kept about half a mile from her shack next to a cottage owned by an old man called Enoch. He was an odd character too, who earned a living making charcoal and keeping pigs which he let loose in the forest. But he said Grace hadn’t moved her van for nearly a week, so she certainly hadn’t transported a body anywhere in it.

  Janice heard all the gossip when she went to the grocer’s in Burley. She told Maisy that many local people were still claiming Grace had killed and buried Duncan. But as Maisy told everyone who would listen, Grace had liked Duncan, he liked and respected her too, they’d become friends. What possible motive would she have for killing him?