by Jane Adams
‘Both work for the same company. He’s a sales rep,’ Bill told him he’d learnt quite a lot in his informal chat with the Thomas’s and Fergus Maltham earlier.
‘Figures.’
‘Sells lab equipment and the like. Seems that’s how he and Fergus met. His wife’s a PA for one of the big wigs.’
‘Cassie’s studying, I believe,’ Tynan said.
‘Mmm, yes, seems her early education was interrupted by illness, didn’t get too far. She’s bright enough, so her husband’s persuaded her to get back to it.’
Bill fell silent then, frowned down at the stack of papers he was cradling. Mike glanced back at his own mass of cuttings. It was getting late. They were all tired. Time to go maybe. He hesitated. The thought of returning to the empty flat was not an appealing one. Idly, he turned the pages, came to rest at an image of Suzie Ashmore, smiling out of a faded press photo.
‘Do you have kids, Mike?’ Tynan asked him.
Mike hesitated before replying. ‘I did. A son, Stevie. He was killed in a car crash two years ago.’
Tynan held his gaze for a moment, then looked away. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘My wife passed on not quite two years ago.’ The statement was made like a peace offering. ‘It’s not the same, I know, I mean, it’s not the same as losing a child.’
Mike made no comment. Death hurt, no matter who you lost. What else was there to say. Mike’s wife had ‘passed on’ too, though not in the way Tynan meant. Passed on to another life, another man. He couldn’t blame her. Steven’s death had shown them both just how little there had been still holding them together. He sighed, rose to go.
‘Tomorrow will be a long day,’ he said. A lot of long days, probably. Bill rose also, looking slightly awkward, slightly guilty in the knowledge that he was going home to his wife, long-suffering companion of an equally long marriage. He blessed her, silently.
‘John,’ Mike said, ‘I can’t offer you any official place in this, you know that, but unofficially . . .’
Tynan smiled. ‘Thanks,’ he said. Unofficial capacity, standing on the sidelines, careful not to get in the way of the ‘real’ policemen! Well, it was the best he could hope for under the circumstances. It beat the hell out of racing the kettle. And maybe, just maybe, he could find out at last what had happened to little Suzie Ashmore. Tynan was prepared to accept any position, however peripheral, for a chance of doing that.
Chapter 9
There was a woman in a blue dress. The skirt, reaching to mid-calf, was full and soft, swirling about her legs in the light wind. Cassie ran swiftly, afraid that as she turned from the path to climb the hill, the woman, lost from view for that vital few minutes, would be gone when she reached the summit. Her breath came in sharp gasps. She was aware of the summer heat, the air heavy as though predicting a storm, and, it seemed, however deeply she tried to breathe, the air was too thick, too heavy to be drawn into the terrible rigidity of her lungs.
Cassie gasped for breath, fighting against airways that seemed suddenly to be locked solid. Impassable.
The red haze that already floated in front of her was darkening with every step she tried to take. No longer running, by now, almost at the upper curve of the hill, she crawled like a baby on hands and knees.
‘Please . . .’ She didn’t know any more whom she asked, only that three times already her dream had taken her this far and no further. ‘Please . . . I have to see her!’
She struggled on. The haze deepening, vision fading, hands clawing at the cool grass, the baked earth. She tried to dig her fingers deeper, her air-starved body fighting for purchase . . . slowly, then more rapidly, she felt herself sliding back, then falling, falling . . . surely she hadn’t climbed that far . . . blackness. Breath hardly entering her lungs before that inner constriction forced it back out. Fingers clawed now at empty air. Black air. Living night so dense she could stroke the thick fur of it.
Maybe that was why she couldn’t breathe. The air was too thick. Like trying to breath under water . . .
Oh, God! But did it have to hurt so much?
And the woman was gone. Cassie knew that. She wept for her, or tried to. To cry, you have to be able to breathe and the thick blackness pressed on her lungs, drowning her, pulling her down into its killing softness . . .
‘Cassie!’
Fergus shook her again, the small choking sound she made frightening him.
‘Cassie! Cassie!’ He had to wake her.
This time she opened her eyes, looked at him, uncomprehending, then the choking became whimpering, animal like, helpless, and he held her tight. She clawed at him as though she could never get close enough to the safety he promised.
Slowly, she began to relax. Fergus lay down with her, stroking her back, soothing her with half words softly whispered, his face buried in her damp hair. Finally, he asked, ‘The dream again?’ Felt her nod slightly, her head resting against his shoulder.
‘I got further this time.’ He had to listen hard to make out the words, bend his head lower.
‘I got close to the top. I knew, if I could just make it that bit further, I’d know . . . something. I’d see her face, then I’d know . . .’ She trailed off, began to cry. This time she could breathe, could grieve. Fergus held her closer. Her body slicked with sweat, growing cold now. He reached, pulled the quilt more closely around her.
‘Know what, Cassie?’ It seemed to Fergus that she should put this into words.
She sighed, shook her head, pulled away from him.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
Fergus waited, hurt that she should lie to him, trying to understand.
‘About Suzie?’ he prompted. ‘Was it about Suzie?’
Cassie rolled over onto her back, staring hard at the ceiling. Fergus could see her eyes moving idly, as though tracing the cracks in the ageing plasterboard. He tried again.
‘Talk to me, Cassie. Don’t shut me out.’
She turned her head back to face him, eyes hurt, the dark shadows beneath showing just how little real sleep she’d had in the three days since Sara Jane had disappeared.
‘There’s nothing to say,’ she told him. ‘Nothing that makes the kind of sense you need me to make.’
Fergus moved, shifting his weight so that he leaned over her as though preparing for love. ‘I don’t need anything. I don’t expect anything. Cassie, whatever helps you is what I want. If you tell me about the dream, do you think I’m going to judge you? Tell you you’re stupid, cracked, or whatever else choice of phrase your mother used. I love you. I want to help . . . and that . . . that’s all I know.’
She returned his gaze steadily, the hurt still written clearly in her eyes. Then she sighed softly, shook her head. He could feel the effort it took to shape her words.
‘I just knew. Just knew. That if I reached the top, I’d find Suzie. I’d know what happened to her.’
‘The woman. She’d be able to tell you?’
‘I don’t know. Truly, Fergus. I just don’t know.’
She turned away from him again and, sighing, he resumed his earlier position, lying beside her propped on one arm, stroking the length of her body, enjoying her softness.
He frowned suddenly. ‘The woman in blue. Do you know her?’
He’d asked this before, and she answered with a degree of irritation.
‘You know I don’t.’
‘Cassie. Think for a moment. Your seeing her, it’s got to be tied to Suzie in some way.’ He paused, trying to get his thoughts in order. ‘Supposing, just for a moment, that you saw her then. The day Suzie disappeared, but you lost the memory of seeing her or maybe you just took no notice at the time. Suppose she had something to do with Suzie being abducted. That you saw something but didn’t connect it at the time.’
She shook her head. ‘No. Believe me, Fergus, the police asked question after question, it would have come out then.’
‘Not if you’d buried it. We do it all the time, Cassie, pigeonhole memories we can’t or d
on’t want to deal with. They get buried so deep sometimes they might almost have not happened, then, something triggers them and there they are, so strong and so alien that it takes us time to figure out where they come from. Where they fit.’
He could see her trying to puzzle out what he was saying. A small frown creased between her eyes and her mouth seemed drawn tight in concentration.
At last she spoke. ‘So, if you’re right, what would have triggered it? I mean, I know Sara Jane and all that’s happened, but I mean, what exactly?’
It was a long shot, but Fergus figured it might be worth it. ‘Maybe you saw her again. While we’ve been here. Maybe you recognized her, subconsciously, and your mind has been trying to fit the pieces together.’
She turned towards him again. The same half-frown creasing her forehead, but her lips parted now. Questioning. ‘But she’d be older. Twenty years older. Would I even recognize her?’
Fergus shrugged.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I think it’s possible. And, if it is possible, I think we should tell the police.’
Her laughter was explosive — and contemptuous. ‘What, tell them I’ve been having nightmares and suggest they look for some woman I’ve dreamed about?’
She broke off, laughter silenced by the seriousness of Fergus’s expression.
‘You think they’d even listen to me?’ she asked, incredulous.
He sighed. ‘Right now, Cassie, I think Mike Croft will listen to anything and, telling him, telling someone, getting this thing out into the real world might, if it does nothing else, help get rid of the nightmares.’
She looked dubious.
‘OK,’ he said, ‘I’ll talk to him for you, see if he’s interested or if he thinks I’m crazy too.’ He smiled at her. She scowled, then changed her mind and returned the smile.
‘All right, we’ll talk to him. I don’t suppose it can do any harm.’ She didn’t sound convinced but at least his giving some sort of rationale to her dream had eased some of the pain from her eyes. Fergus glanced towards the window. Light was beginning to filter through the thin fabric of the curtains.
‘It’s still early,’ he said, his voice coaxing, his hand moving gently onto her breasts. He saw her eyes widen slightly, pulled her closer, arms circling her, breasts pressed against him, hands stroking, one, twining itself in her curls as she lifted her face to be kissed, the other tracing the curve of her waist, moving down. He rolled her over, watching her face as he slid into her. Cassie’s arms reached up, pulling his head down, her mouth soft beneath his own.
At moments like this Fergus could convince himself that there was nothing that couldn’t be healed. No pain that couldn’t find ease. He laughed at himself.
Pure arrogance, Fergus Maltham, he told himself. Pure, blessed, wonderful arrogance.
* * *
Mike Croft rubbed his eyes wearily and looked once more at Fergus Maltham. As if he hadn’t got enough to cope with. The fourth day and they knew no more than they had that first afternoon.
House-to-house enquiries had continued, spreading out over a gradually widening area and police road blocks had been set up, questioning drivers as they came in and out of the area. The one vague lead they’d had, the report of a female itinerant new to the area and seen close to the Greenway shortly before Sara Jane vanished, had drawn a blank. The woman seemed to have disappeared as efficiently as Sara had done. There was a lot of local feeling that if Croft got himself organized enough to find this old woman then he’d find Sara Jane as well. And the rumours that had been flying . . . it was like reading Tynan’s cuttings’ books all over again. Everything from white slavery to Satanic practices and the whole gamut in between. The press, naturally, were having a field day with the possible connection between this and the Ashmore case. Fortunately, Croft thought, they were still at the ‘our children are safe nowhere we must support police efforts’ stage. Croft could just visualize the verbal lynching he’d receive if he didn’t come up with answers soon.
Now there was this. Mrs Maltham complaining of nightmares. God! He had half the village and a good few of his own people complaining of the same thing. Anxiety seeps like water into the sleep state. He didn’t need to be any kind of expert to know that.
He listened though, listened also to Fergus Maltham’s thoughts on the subject. He came to a swift decision — truth was, he’d no time for anything but the swift kind — and organized for the Malthams to talk to a police artist back at divisional HQ.
‘We can drive ourselves,’ Fergus said. ‘You’re overstretched as it is.’
Croft nodded, amused. The state of play being what it was, he could well sympathize with Fergus not wanting to look arrested and in custody.
‘Your friends, the Thomas’s. They’re expected back here at the weekend?’
Fergus nodded. ‘That’s right. Simon’s driving down Friday night straight from work.’
‘Right, though I don’t imagine we’ll be needing them again.’ He excused himself as he was handed the last batch of phone messages. He sighed. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Maltham, Mrs Maltham. I’ll be interested to see what the artist comes up with.’
They rose to go, looking awkward and somehow out of place. Croft dumped the messages on the table, rubbed his eyes again and flexed his shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension which seemed to have settled in a hard lump centre-back.
He’d changed his opinion of Cassie Maltham, decided that, if she was involved, it was as pawn rather than protagonist. The Malthams had volunteered to stay on another week, moving into a caravan on the clifftop, the cottage being booked for the following seven days. The Thomas’ had gone back to work, annual leave having ended, and new holiday-makers had come to take possession of the vacated cottage; he’d seen them. Young couple with children who, doing their best to enjoy the one week of the year when they could afford to ‘get away from it all’, had landed, abruptly, in the midst of someone else’s crisis.
Mostly, he noted, they’d gone out early in the mornings, come back late, as though embarrassed to be seen enjoying themselves in such close proximity to tragedy.
Mike sighed.
Life must go on, as they say. Even Mr Cassidy had escaped this morning, gone to put in a few hours at Top Farm, leaving Mrs Cassidy to work her way through her own notion of normality. Mike felt so helpless in the face of their grief. He was aware too, that everyone else involved in this, from his own officers to the most hard bitten of the journalists who plagued his every move, were affected, deeply, by the disappearance of Sara Jane Cassidy.
The thought of the child — if she was by some miracle still alive — maybe terrified and hurt, tore into him. If it had been Stevie . . .
Realistically, he was well on the way to admitting that Sara was likely to be every bit as dead as Stevie was. His son had died quickly. The doctors all agreed that he’d probably not even known what hit him. Mike clung to that belief like a talisman, but what of Sara? The thought that she might have died in pain, scared, crying for comfort . . . he pushed the thoughts from his mind.
How could any of them even function with images like that flooding their consciousness?
Resolutely, he turned back to the messages received. Most were crank calls or from those who thought they’d seen the child. False or not, every one would have to be checked. He could now well understand Tynan’s obsession with the Ashmore case, his feeling that he could never let go, never give up. There were moments when he felt himself drowning, not just in the emotional floodwaters of the case but also in the sheer weight of trivia that might, but probably wouldn’t, lead to some solid conclusion.
He’d set John Tynan the task of reviewing the Ashmore case once again. Tynan had the freedom to go and talk to people unofficially that Mike’s position did not give him.
From Tynan too, Mike had learnt more about the child, Cassie. Learnt to pity her. That worried him. He’d asked himself again if Cassie could have been directly involved either time. Tynan had
spoken of treatment for depression. His layman’s mind had immediately taken leaps it shouldn’t have. He’d reminded himself abruptly that his ex-wife had also had treatment for severe depression following the birth of their son. It was hardly a reason for assuming Cassie Maltham to be some kind of psychopath, magically abducting children at twenty-year intervals.
No, there were going to be no clear answers to this one. That, if nothing else, was certain.
* * *
It was late when Mike arrived at Tynan’s cottage. The day had ended with a difficult interview with Superintendent Flint and an equally difficult update for the press. Flint had not been impressed by Mike’s efforts so far (predictable), had, however, made no useful suggestions for revising Mike’s methodology (also predictable) and made his usual statements about the public expecting swift results. Mike was, not for the first time, left wondering about the truth in the rumour that they rewarded ineptness by promotion, thus getting the thinking-abouts out of the way of the doers.
Tynan greeted him at the door. He looked as tired as Mike felt. In the background, the kettle had begun to whistle. Tynan almost fled to the kitchen to rescue them both from the piercing scream about to follow. Mike followed him.
‘Bill might be along later. I’ve told him to spend some time with Rose, he’s scarcely been home in the last three days.’
Tynan nodded. ‘Anything new?’
Mike leaned against the door jamb, peering at the tiny, neatly set out kitchen. Why couldn’t he keep his flat this tidy? ‘Nothing very significant. Thought you might like to see this though.’
He reached into an inner pocket, removed a copy of the drawing the police artist had produced. The photocopy had, as usual, reduced the shading to mere echoes of the original intent, lost the finer details, but it was close enough.
‘Familiar?’ he asked.
Tynan shook his head. ‘Can’t say that she is. Who is she?’
Mike sighed. It had been too much to hope that Tynan would recognize the woman as someone involved with Suzie Ashmore.
‘Truth is, it could be anyone.’
