by Jack Benton
The last rays of the evening sun caught Charlotte’s face as Slim tilted the box to see inside. He gasped, almost dropping it as the girl’s eyes flicked open
(it’s a doll a doll a doll)
and the head tilted in his direction, neat layers of metal beside its mouth clicking back to form a pretty smile.
He let out a sharp breath. An automaton, a vintage mechanical toy, operated by hundreds of cogs and levers hidden inside its body cavity. The doll had shifted in the box, setting off a process which altered its expression. As the eyes blinked again and the smile fell back into an expressionless place, Slim gulped, feeling as though he had woken his own monster.
He stared at it for a few seconds, but nothing else happened. Movement had activated it. Careful not to move the box, Slim reached in to touch Charlotte’s face.
Whether Amos Birch had built the doll from scratch or simply acquired an old one to restore, Slim might never know. The craftsmanship was exquisite, every surface perfectly aligned. Up close its face was a series of shifting plates which could move to display emotion, but it only took a slight relaxing of his vision to blur Charlotte’s face into that of a real girl.
He reached in and lifted the doll out of the box. Most of Charlotte’s body was wooden, but as she shifted in Slim’s arms the click and ping of thousands of clockwork mechanisms came from inside.
‘You made it for her, didn’t you?’ Slim whispered. ‘You built it to ease your daughter’s pain … and maybe even your own.’
51
Derriford Hospital was, as all hospitals were, endless corridors with too many doors and unpronounceable signs leading to waiting rooms packed with glum people watching daytime TV or reading magazines months out of date. Slim made his way through the labyrinth to the intensive care unit where he sought out a duty doctor.
There were times when it was best to wear a disguise and others when total honesty was most important. Slim stripped himself down layer by layer, telling the doctor how he’d come to Cornwall to recover from his own problems but had got involved with the mystery of Amos Birch’s disappearance, which eventually led him to Celia. Had he known she was stealing cars to meet him he would have left her alone, and he blamed himself for her accident.
With the doctor’s ear turning toward sympathy, Slim produced Charlotte’s box and announced that he had found an old treasure belonging to Celia and wondered if he could spend a few minutes by her side.
His request was granted, provided a nurse was allowed to wait by the door. Slim agreed. The doctor led him along the corridor into a bright but plain room with a view over farmland to the south. Celia, only her eyes and mouth visible through bandages, was hooked up to a series of machines which bleeped with a comforting regularity.
‘Is she expected to wake?’ he asked the nurse.
The woman gave a sad shake of her head. ‘We’re just making her comfortable,’ she said. ‘She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.’
Slim nodded. He took a chair beside the bed and lifted the box onto his knees.
‘Hello, Celia,’ he said, reaching out to touch her hand. Her skin felt rubbery under his fingers, and when his arm brushed against the tube inserted into a vein in her arm he had to close his eyes a moment to control his emotions.
‘It’s Slim,’ he said, when he felt sure he could speak without breaking down. ‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for everything that happened. I made a mistake. I should have left your family alone. I really thought I could find out what happened to your father, but I didn’t realise the damage I would cause by digging up the past. I truly regret it.’
He took a deep breath, concentrating on keeping his voice level. He glanced at the nurse, who gave him a sympathetic smile.
‘I just wanted to say that meeting you affected me deeply. I’m a lonely, failing man, and a huge part of me regrets with all my heart turning down your offer, and not because it may have led to you lying here, but because I recognised in you what I’ve often seen in myself. However, you’ve been broken in a different way, and I don’t think my heart could have fixed you.’
He paused, looking out of the window at a distant aeroplane vapour trail, remembering how Amos Birch’s letter had said how much he despised flying.
‘I haven’t found your father.’
Was there a slight flutter of her eyelids? Slim pulled his chair a little closer and cleared his throat.
‘Sometimes people aren’t meant to be found. But I did find out who hurt you that night. He was a man who you should have been able to trust, and I will do everything in my power to ensure that he is brought to justice. And….’ He paused again. ‘I found Charlotte. I brought her back to you. She’s right here with me now.’
This time there was a definite flutter of her eyelids. Slim’s heart raced as he opened the box and lifted out the doll. Charlotte moved with a series of clicks as Slim sat her up on his lap.
‘Charlotte … she’s right here, Celia. Just as you remember. Your daughter. Your father loved you so much. He always loved you, Celia. I found that out for sure. He never planned to leave you, but circumstances were out of his control. Before he left, though, he made sure Charlotte was safe, and she has been, all these years. She’s just as you remember her. She hasn’t changed at all. I’m going to let you hold her, Celia. Is that okay?’
He stood up. The nurse made to get up too, but Slim gave her a smile and waved for her to sit.
Lifting Charlotte carefully, he lowered her on to the bed, moving Celia’s arm so that Charlotte could nestle into the crutch of Celia’s armpit. He lifted her fingers and laid them across Charlotte’s stomach.
‘Goodbye, Celia.’
He paused a moment before he turned away, and in that second he saw a slight creasing of Celia’s lips into the faintest of smiles. Across Charlotte’s stomach, her fingers gave a slight flex.
As Slim turned, he saw the nurse dabbing her eyes with a tissue.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
He went for a walk around pleasant grounds set around the hospital’s car park. His mind was reeling and he couldn’t keep the tears from his eyes. All he could see was Celia, lying in the hospital bed.
Unsure what else to do, eventually he gravitated back to the hospital, where he found a quiet waiting room and bought a coffee from a vending machine. He sat down on a plastic chair and switched on his phone.
Don had left a voicemail.
‘Sorry, Slim, I owe you an apology. I cracked that phone you sent me, and it contained some decent dirt. Some pretty inappropriate emails to minors, stuff like that. I made some notes and mailed it back to you. Unfortunately I screwed up your address and accidentally sent it to a tabloid newspaper. Man, I’m such a fool. Laters.’
Slim smiled. So, Nick would see justice after all. He was just thinking to call Don back to thank him when he looked up to see the nurse from Celia’s room standing over him.
‘Mr. Hardy, there you are.’
As he looked at her expectantly, she gave a regretful shake of her head. ‘I’m afraid Celia died shortly after you left,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. I just wanted to let you know that I think you gave her peace before she died. Many patients don’t get that. Thank you, Mr. Hardy.’
He wanted to reply, but no words would come. Instead, he pulled the nurse into an embrace, sobbing into her shoulder.
52
Penleven was as quiet as usual on what Slim decided would be his last day. Celia Birch was two days cremated, her ashes interred into a small casket in a quiet corner of Penleven’s churchyard. At Slim’s insistence both Charlotte’s doll and Amos’s final clock had been cremated with her, letting her go to her eternal rest with memories of the two most important people in her life.
Slim, after struggling with his guilt following Celia’s death, was slowly finding a renewed optimism.
Three days now since he had chosen to stay dry for Celia’s funeral—a low-key affair where his presence had raised a few eyebrows from people who
m he hadn’t expected to see either—and he felt as though he might have survived his jaunt in the country more or less intact.
With his mind cleared out, it had been easier to think about the original mystery—that of Amos Birch’s disappearance.
No one ever vanished. They always went somewhere.
He stood up as he spotted June farther up the street, leading a scraggly poodle which seemed intent on sticking its nose into every patch of grass they passed.
‘I didn’t know you had a dog,’ he said.
June shrugged. ‘Got her yesterday from the rescue centre in Wadebridge. Thought I’d do something good for the world.’
Slim smiled. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Reg.’
At Slim’s look of alarm, June laughed. ‘Not really. Rose.’
‘Pretty.’
‘You don’t look busy, Slim. I don’t suppose you’d still be interested in that tea?’
Slim smiled. ‘I’m afraid I’m leaving today.’
June looked momentarily crestfallen, but recovered with a smile. ‘I’ll miss you, Slim. The Crown won’t be the same without you riling up the regulars and nearly starting fights.’
‘Ah, you’ll forget all about me,’ he said. ‘You have Rose to look after you now.’
‘And she’s a damn sight more reliable, I’m sure.’ June shrugged. She gave him that awkward look that suggested she wanted to both stay with him and hurry away.
‘So, you didn’t find him, then?’
‘Amos?’ Slim shook his head. ‘No.’
June stood awkwardly for a moment then started forward, kissing Slim on the cheek. She gave his hand a squeeze before backing away, tugged by Rose nosing into the hedgerow.
‘Some people aren’t meant to be found,’ she said. ‘See you, Slim.’
He watched her go. She didn’t look back.
‘Not yet,’ he muttered then turned away, heading back up through the village.
53
He had left his cases standing in the hallway at the guesthouse before going down to the village. When he entered, the sound of the TV came muffled through the closed living room door. The postman had recently been, so he picked Mrs. Greyson’s letters off the mat and knocked on the door.
Mrs. Greyson was sitting in her chair, watching the BBC local news. Slim caught a glimpse of a scrolling headline—Local teacher forced to resign amidst fresh allegations of sexual misconduct as further witnesses come forward—before Mrs. Greyson stood up. She waved a TV remote behind her and the TV cut off, but not before a brief shot of the exterior of Liskeard Secondary.
‘So, you’re leaving today, Mr. Hardy? I’m going to miss you, believe it or not. You’ve become the good-for-nothing son I can’t help but spoil.’
Slim smiled, then nodded. ‘I think I’ve done all I can here. I came here to recover, but only time will tell if I’m leaving in a worse state than I arrived.’ He shrugged. ‘You have to do what you have to do, don’t you? To survive, to get by. I’m sure you know that as well as anyone, don’t you, Mrs. Greyson?’
She nodded. ‘It was never easy living with Roy. I survived as best I could.’
‘But once you dreamed of better, didn’t you?’
She shrugged, turning back to the TV. ‘Well, probably.’
‘I know you did. It didn’t work out though, did it, Mrs. Greyson? Or can I call you Mary?’
He held out the letters he had picked up by the door, brushing her shoulder as she jerked back around. She lifted her glasses to look at them, each one addressed to Mary Greyson of Lakeview Guesthouse, Penleven, Cornwall.
‘I don’t—’
Slim let her take them from his hand then walked over to the mantelpiece and lifted the heavy cast iron clock, turning it over in his hands.
‘It’s always run slow, you told me. I imagine something like this would. It must be, what, a hundred years old?’
‘It belonged to my grandfather, the accursed thing.’
‘Amos Birch used to come here and fix it, didn’t he? I heard he used to fix clocks around the village from time to time.’
‘It was the only way he could get that woman to let him out.’
Slim turned to face Mrs. Greyson. She was sitting up in the chair, her letters forgotten in her hand.
‘A clock like this, I imagine it needed regular maintenance. Over time the two of you became close, didn’t you?’
Mrs. Greyson was staring at him. ‘I don’t know what you’re insinuating, Mr. Hardy. We were friends, but that’s all. He needed time away from that … that tyrant, and my Roy was never one for caring what I did when he was away. Amos and I bonded in our collective unhappiness.’
Slim ran a finger over the dent in the lower surface of the clock, that made it jostle rather than sit straight.
‘He made you happy, didn’t he? Until the night he came to tell you he was going away for a while, and asked you to keep a couple of items safe.’
A tear ran down Mrs. Greyson’s cheek.
‘How did you…?’
‘He told you he was going away, and you got angry. You didn’t want him to leave.’
Slim lifted the clock and cracked it against his palm, making Mrs. Greyson jump. She was openly crying now. Letters scattered across the floor as she gripped her cheeks. ‘How could you know?’
Slim replaced the clock on the mantel. He sighed. ‘I didn’t, not for sure. It was a guess until you told me. Sit down, Mrs. Greyson. I’ll make you some tea.’
She didn’t move. Her armchair became her prison as she stared helplessly at the clock, rocking slightly as it ticked away, heavy, lethargic movements like slaps across a person’s face. Slim watched her for a moment then went off into the kitchen, feeling equal parts of relief and regret.
54
Slim handed a cup to Mrs. Greyson. It trembled against the saucer as she took it, looking up at him with fearful eyes.
‘Tell me what happened,’ Slim said, taking an armchair opposite. ‘Please. I need to know as much as I think you need to tell it.’
Mrs. Greyson set the cup down. She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Have you ever truly loved anyone, Mr. Hardy?’
Slim gave a slow nod. ‘Yes, I have. It didn’t work out so well. When I think back on it now, I’m not sure whether I’d prefer it to never have happened or not.’
‘Then maybe you can understand. Amos … we got friendly over that stupid old clock. He used to come here and wind it. He was a magician. It was as though it spoke to him. Silly thing would never work properly for me.’
Slim nodded. ‘I hear he was one of the best.’
‘Oh, he could do wonders with any machine. Not like my … well, we got friendly, but I swear that’s all it was. I thought that was all it was, but he was lonely, and I….’ She smiled, sobbing at the same time. ‘I was a lot younger then, too. Some might have said pretty.’
‘And your relationship was mutual?’
‘He used to come over all the time when Roy was away. He’d come across the field and over the back hedge so no one would see him, and we … I hoped he might leave his wife, but he said he never would. Not so much for her, but for Celia, the poor girl.’
‘What did you know of her?’
‘Only that she wasn’t of sound mind. That she had problems. We didn’t talk about it. He came to forget his problems, and when he was here I wanted to forget mine.’
Again she sniffed into her handkerchief. Slim waited patiently, sipping tea that tasted impotent without an alcoholic kick.
‘And then he came over one night, out of the blue, to say he was going away. We argued. I told him not to leave. He claimed he would come back, but I saw a lie in his eyes. He started to leave, and I picked up that clock, and I said … I said….’
Her hands were shaking. Slim got out of his chair and knelt in front of her, holding her hands gently in his.
‘Please tell me,’ he said.
‘I said, “Don’t you just walk away from me” … and I th
rew it. I meant to hit the door. It should have hit the door. But he turned back. Right at the last moment, he turned….’
Slim gently patted her hands while she cried. For several minutes she couldn’t find the will to speak, but gradually the sobbing subsided.
‘I killed him,’ she said. ‘I killed the only man I ever truly loved, and I’ve had to live with it for every waking moment since.’
Slim nodded. ‘You told me you were good at hiding things,’ he said. ‘When the police came….’
‘I’d had time to get myself together. It was a couple of days after. I thought they might have suspected, that they’d hear a lie in my voice, but they never came back.’
‘Where was he?’
‘I hid the body in the vegetable cellar under the house. There was a blood stain on the floorboard in the hall, but they never even noticed.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I buried him under the tree at the end of the garden. The one he gave … the one he … gave me….’
Mrs. Greyson began to cry again. ‘The lime tree,’ Slim said. ‘I thought I recognised it. There are others at Worth Farm. They’re about the same size. You buried the clock and the doll too, didn’t you?’
Mrs Greyson nodded. ‘After the search was over, I took them up to the moor. I knew how much Amos loved Bodmin Moor. I found a spot from where you can see both coasts on a clear day.’
‘And every so often you go up to wind the clock?’
Mrs. Greyson sniffed. ‘Just something I do to keep his memory alive. One of many things. But when you found it, it started to mess with my head. How did you know, Mr. Hardy?’
Slim shrugged. ‘I’d never make a real detective,’ he said. ‘I’d burn vital evidence or sleep with a witness. I’m not even good at private investigation work. I miss obvious stuff, I ask intrusive questions, I go on whims, and I trust my intuition more than is safe. Sometimes, however, something just clicks, as though I was wired wrong.’
