by Cavan Scott
She couldn’t stop thinking about how his breath had rattled in his throat when he’d been taken out by the paramedics, how his rheumy eyes had searched the sky as if he didn’t recognise it any more.
‘We better get down to the hospital,’ she told Turman as Rob Hawker walked out of the house, a mobile phone to his ear.
‘Yeah, thanks. Will do.’
The builder cut off the call.
‘That was Harold Marter’s brother,’ he told her. ‘He says to pack up for the day.’
‘Makes sense,’ Schofield said. ‘We’ll get out of your hair, although we may have more questions.’
‘You and me both. Where does this all leave us?’
‘Knocking off early,’ Turman joked. Schofield fought the urge to smack him around the back of the head. Turman could be such a jerk at times.
‘Hey! What do you think you’re doing?’
The shout came from the back of the building site.
‘Now what?’ Rob Hawker groaned, and ran back into the house.
‘We better see what’s wrong,’ Schofield told Turman, and they followed Hawker through to the back garden where an argument was still raging.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ yelled the spotty kid in the United hoodie.
‘Then pretend I’m not,’ said another voice. An annoyingly familiar Scottish voice. ‘Haven’t you got a shovel to lean on?’
The garden was huge, bigger than Schofield’s entire flat. The ground was a mud bath, churned up by yesterday’s rain, crates of building materials and tools scattered around. A long brick outhouse ran along the bottom of the plot, in front of a wire fence that she imagined would soon be replaced by bushes or trees, if work ever continued after the events of this morning. Like the main build itself, the walls of the outhouse had been built, and double doors fitted, but windows had yet to be installed, plastic sheets stretched over the gaps.
The Doctor was on his knees in front of the building, scooping up handfuls of mud like a dog digging for a bone.
‘What’s he doing here?’ Hawker asked.
‘Minding my own business,’ the Doctor replied, not looking up from his work. ‘I suggest you give it a go.’
‘This is my business,’ Hawker said, stalking towards the man. The frustration and confusion of the morning were quickly boiling away to anger. If the Doctor wasn’t careful, he’d end up buried in the mud. ‘You need to leave.’
‘And I will,’ the Doctor told him. ‘Just not yet.’
‘Lost something?’ Schofield asked, hooking her thumbs beneath her vest as she watched the strange display.
‘Yes,’ he said, glancing up at them, his hands caked with dirt. ‘A tree. You haven’t seen one, have you?’
‘What?’ Rob Hawker demanded.
The Doctor rose to his feet, wiping his hands on a tartan handkerchief. ‘A tree. Big thing, lots of branches.’
Hawker’s hands tightened into fists. ‘I know what a tree is!’
‘Excellent. There used to be one here, in this garden. Sammy Holland climbed it when she was a little girl.’
‘The missing woman?’ Turman asked.
The Doctor shoved the muddy handkerchief into his pocket. ‘Missing woman. Missing tree. You’re a careless bunch, aren’t you?’
‘There was a tree,’ the spotty lad confirmed. Schofield thought his name was Tim. ‘But it was cut down.’
The Doctor looked appalled. ‘You cut it down?’
‘No. A bloke came to do it.’
‘A bloke. Very helpful.’
‘A tree surgeon.’
‘And what happened to the tree, after it was butchered?’
‘They took it away,’ Rob Hawker told him. ‘But what’s it to you?’
‘What indeed?’ the Doctor said, walking towards him, seemingly oblivious to the irritation that was coming off the foreman in waves. ‘Can you remember what kind of tree it was?’
‘What does it matter?’ Hawker shrugged.
The Doctor looked to the sky in desperation. ‘What does it matter? What does it matter? It matters because that tree might just be the most important tree in the world!’ The last three words were punctuated by a finger jabbed against the builder’s barrel chest.
Hawker slapped the Doctor’s hand away, looking as though he wanted to do the same to the Scotsman’s hawkish face. ‘Touch me again and you’ll have more to worry about than a tree.’
‘OK, that’s enough,’ Schofield said, stepping between them. ‘Both of you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the Doctor said, surprising her. She wouldn’t have thought such a word was in his vocabulary. He turned back to Hawker. ‘Just humour me, please.’
‘Why should I?’ Hawker said.
‘Because I’m an idiot. You think it, PC Schofield thinks it, even I think it most of the time. Humour an idiot with his idiotic questions.’
Schofield didn’t buy the Doctor’s self-deprecation for a minute, but it had the desired effect. Hawker was mollified, looking at her for guidance.
‘Just answer him,’ she said, wanting to know where the Doctor was going with all this.
Hawker shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’
The Doctor kept pushing, searching Hawker’s face eagerly. ‘Was it a rowan?’ He counted off characteristics on his fingers. ‘Silver bark. Leaves like feathers. Scarlet berries with a star.’
‘I told you. I can’t remember.’
‘OK, let’s try something else. Where was it? You can remember that, surely?’ He indicated the ground beneath their feet. ‘Here?’
‘No.’ Hawker pointed towards the large outbuilding. ‘It was over there, but it’s not any more.’
The Doctor looked aghast. ‘You built over it? No! Tell me you didn’t build over it!’
‘Of course we did,’ Tim piped up, picking his nose as he spoke. He was a right charmer, that one. ‘What were we supposed to do? Build the swimming pool around it?’
Now it was the Doctor’s turn to point at the structure. ‘That’s a swimming pool?’ He rushed towards the building.
‘Oh no you don’t,’ Hawker shouted after him. ‘You can’t go in there.’
But the Doctor was already inside.
‘Doctor, why’s the tree so important?’ Schofield asked, stopping the door from springing back into their faces as they followed him in.
The pool was already installed, sunk deep into the ground, although it had yet to be filled. They were standing at the midway point, the deep end to the left, the shallow end to the right. The slope connecting the two ends was steep. At its lowest point, the pit had to be around three metres in depth.
‘I told you,’ the Doctor replied to her. ‘I’m an idiot. It’s easy to miss things. Life moves so fast. But something Sammy’s mum said. Something about the tree.’
As if that explained everything, the Doctor turned and jumped from the edge of the pool, landing halfway down the slope.
‘That does it,’ Hawker growled. ‘I’m sorry, but I need him out of here.’ Before Schofield could stop him, the builder had also leapt into the empty pool.
The Doctor was striding towards the deep end, sweeping a green torch across the tiled floor. ‘It’s hard to get rid of a tree,’ he told them. ‘Trees are stubborn. They always leave something behind. Roots, seeds and secrets, buried beneath the ground.’
Hawker caught up with him, grabbing him by the arm. ‘What is that thing?’
‘Mine,’ the Doctor retorted like a small child, snatching his arm away.
Schofield and Turner were already running to the shallow end, both wanting to break up the fight before it happened, but neither wanting to risk breaking an ankle by leaping into the deep end. Jumping into a pool filled with water was one thing, landing awkwardly on hard tiles was another.
There were steps leading down into the shallow end. Turman took them two at a time, racing down the slope towards the two men who were already locked in a struggle. Schofield didn’t fancy the Doctor’s chances.Hawker looked li
ke he could handle himself in a scrap, while the Scotsman was as thin as a rake beneath his long coat.
Turman got there first, hauling the Doctor back, while Schofield tackled Hawker, putting a restraining hand on his forearm.
She didn’t know what hit her. Hawker hardly flinched and yet she was knocked off her feet, flying halfway towards the shallow end. She landed painfully, jolting her hip, her hat rolling away.
What the hell had just happened? Had Hawker hit her, or shoved her aside in the heat of the moment? Either way, how strong was the guy?
There was shouting from the deep end. Turman had pushed Hawker back, yelling at him to calm down.
‘That wasn’t me,’ the builder insisted. ‘I didn’t even touch her.’
‘He’s not lying,’ the Doctor agreed, waving that damned torch of his in the air. ‘He didn’t do that. Not unless he’s secretly a superhero or a Zygon.’ He passed the glowing torch in front of the outraged builder. ‘Nope. He’s as human as you are.’
‘Well, something just happened!’ Turman contended, keeping himself between the two men. He glanced towards Schofield, who was trying not to wince as she got back to her feet. ‘You all right?’
She rubbed her throbbing leg, imagining the peach of a bruise she’d have in the morning. ‘Nothing broken.’
‘Nothing broken yet,’ the Doctor corrected her, before he too was thrown back like a rag doll tossed across the room by a tantruming child. But no one had been near him. Not Hawker. Not Turman. He crashed into the wall with enough force to crack the tiles, narrowly missing the metal ladder that led down to the deep end to slide down to the floor.
Schofield tried to limp towards him, but couldn’t. It wasn’t her leg that was slowing her down. She was fighting against a gust of wind that had blown up from nowhere.
When she was a kid, her grandparents had taken her to Blackpool for a weekend to give her mum and dad a break. It had been off-season, the beach a no-go, thanks to the weather which had bordered on apocalyptic. Her grandad had larked about on the prom, making her squeal with laughter as he battled to walk against the wind, her grandmother nagging him to be careful. At one point, he’d leant forward, the wind holding him at a 45-degree angle. He’d always been a clown.
But there was nothing funny about this. It was like trying to shove herself through a brick wall. But they were inside. Where had the wind come from, and how could it be so strong?
She screwed her eyes tight against the grit that had been whipped up by the sudden storm. She heard Turman and Hawker cry out but couldn’t see what had happened to them. She was pushed back and fell, rolling like tumbleweed to slam against the style. She scrabbled against the smooth porcelain tiles, trying desperately to find a grip, anything to hold on to. Her nails dug into the grout between the tiles, but it was no good. She was being dragged back towards the deep end, the wind forming a vortex inside the empty pool. There was a ripping sound from above. The plastic sheets had been torn from the windows, sucked into the whirling mass of air. They joined dirt, paper and fragments of broken tiles whipping around. She had builders’ sand in her mouth, grit in her eyes and nothing to hold on to. Her palms squeaked against the tiles as she was pulled back, the wind roaring in her ears. She cried out in fear, but couldn’t hear herself. Instead, there were voices in the wind; howls both angry and sorrowful at the same time.
‘Where is the Lost? Where is the Lost?’
She tumbled backwards, her head cracking against the wall. There was no way to stop, no way to anchor herself down. She smashed against the tiles, winding herself. What had the Doctor said? Nothing broken yet. Is that what would happen? Would the storm snap every bone in her body? She had no idea what was happening to the others; no idea which way was up or down. All she knew was that she was spinning, around and around, as if caught in a fairground ride from hell. Scream if you want to go faster. Scream if you’re going to die.
Scream if you want the voices to stop.
‘Where is the Lost? Where is the Lost?’
Fingers locked around her arm. She jolted to a halt, her eyes flicking open.
It was the Doctor! He’d caught hold of her wrist, his other arm hooked around the metal ladder, holding them both against the wind.
Pain was etched across his lined face, but he wouldn’t let go. She forced her other arm forward, grabbing hold of his wrist. He was yelling something, his words drowned out by the same question repeated over and over again on the wind:
‘Where is the Lost? Where is the Lost?’
They jolted forwards. The ladder was coming away from the side of the pool. The metal bent out of shape, the Doctor’s arm still looped around the twisted frame, and then it ripped loose. They flew into the wind, hanging on to each other, spinning around like a sycamore seed caught in a tornado.
She wanted to close her eyes, but the Doctor had them fixed with his. His mouth was moving, but she couldn’t hear the words. He reached into his jacket with his free hand, pulling out that strange torch of his, only to cry out in despair as it was snatched from his fingers.
They struck something hard. Pain shot through Schofield’s already bruised hip. She held on to the Doctor’s arm, even though she could barely see his face. The air was full of dust and debris, the roar of the storm a solid wall of noise. They pitched down and Schofield imagined their bodies being dashed across the bottom of the pool.
Please don’t let go, she thought, not knowing if she was talking to the Doctor or herself. Please don’t let g—
There was a crunch. There was pain. The Doctor’s hand slipped from her grasp and everything stopped.
Chapter 20
Turman’s Report
Later, PC Turman would make his report. He would say how he had been pressed against the side of the pool, crushed by the wind. He would find out what had happened to Rob Hawker only when he was admitted to the hospital himself: how the builder had been thrown free from the building, breaking his legs on one of the window frames.
Turman had seen the Doctor try to save Schofield, grabbing her hand. Even then, in the middle of such madness, he’d been impressed by the older man’s reactions, how he must have calculated exactly when to throw out his arm, grabbing Schofield as she sped past.
Not that it had done them any good.
The ladder ripped away from the tiles and they span into the air. Turman had called Schofield’s name, even as they ploughed into the bottom of the pool.
There’d been a flash of light. Blinding. Hot against his skin.
And then all was calm. The wind. The dirt. Even the voices that he knew he must have imagined. They were all gone.
A sheet of transparent plastic slapped against him, covering him like a shroud. He pushed it aside, forced himself to crawl back up the slope toward the shallow end. He was bleeding, his uniform shredded from the shards of broken tiles that had sliced past him in the storm. All he wanted to do was rest, to sleep, but he needed to see what had happened to Schofield. Needed to see her body.
Because he already knew she was dead. The Doctor too. They had to be. The force of the impact. The sound of them hitting the floor. Nothing could survive that.
They weren’t there.
Schofield. The Doctor. They were gone. All that was left was Schofield’s hat and the Doctor’s torch, smashed into little pieces against the floor.
That’s what he’d thought, until he stood up.
That’s when he spotted it, etched deep into the tiles.
It was a circle.
A large circle spreading out from the exact point they had fallen.
That’s why Turman had laughed.
That’s why he’d been babbling when the ambulance crew found him.
That’s why he was talking about elves and fairies.
Chapter 21
Welcome to Fairy Land
She was dead.
That was the only logical conclusion.
It was either that, or she’d cracked up. That would explain the whirlw
ind inside a building and the voices in her head.
It might even explain the Doctor.
She’d seen it plenty of times. Colleagues broken by the job. Not by dangers on the street, and there were enough of those, even in Huckensall. No, it was the politics of the station that did people in. The need to get ahead. To get promoted.
Schofield had never minded about all that. She was ambitious, of course she was, but getting her sergeant stripes wasn’t the be-all and end-all.
She’d become a copper because she wanted to be like her dad, out in the community, helping people. He hadn’t cared about climbing up the ranks either. She wanted to be like him. That’s all that mattered.
Well, it was what had mattered before she died.
Because she was dead, wasn’t she?
She groaned. She’d made the mistake of moving, every bone in her body regretting the decision.
Was that a good sign, or a bad sign?
Pain meant that she was alive, unless the afterlife was one big joke. That wouldn’t be fair at all.
She coughed. Another mistake. Her lungs felt like they were full of rusty nails. The cough turned into a choke and the choke turned into near respiratory failure.
She opened her eyes, a simple enough act that turned out to be the biggest mistake of all.
It was like being hit in the face with a baseball bat. A baseball bat made of pure light.
Her eyes burned, like they were roasting in their own sockets. She clawed at them, screaming in agony.
No, she wasn’t dead, but she’d definitely lost the plot.
Five minutes ago, she had been on a building site in Huckensall. Yes, it was a building site with its own extreme weather system, but it was largely part of a world she understood.
Now, she was somewhere that made no sense whatsoever.
There was grass beneath her head. The brightest, greenest grass she’d ever seen. She was in a forest, but the kind of forest that couldn’t possibly exist outside of a picture book.
The trees were tall, skyscraper tall, stretching up towards a sky that was filled with too many stars. No. That wasn’t right. She couldn’t see the sky through the thick canopy of leaves.
