In Bitter Chill

by Sarah Ward

  Sadler frowned and kept his eyes on the indignant man in front of him. ‘You had a falling out?’

  Thin lips in the large face pursed. ‘Falling out? Nothing quite so grand I can assure you, although I never liked the woman.’

  ‘Who? Mary Jones? Why didn’t you like her?’

  ‘Proper madam, she was. She had our Paul under her thumb. He’d known her since school and was willing to do anything for her. She waltzed into our lives and straight back out of it as soon as Paul was dead.’

  ‘What do you mean by “willing to do anything for her”?’

  ‘Just that. Anything she asked he was prepared to do. Marry her, pretend her child was his. Nothing was too much when it came to the determined Mary.’

  ‘You mean the child wasn’t his?’ Sadler felt a warmth sweeping through him.

  ‘Hardly. One minute they were going out, next minute she was pregnant. Then in a blink she’d had the baby. The dates didn’t add up. My mother had it worked out straight away. She wasn’t daft. There was no way that baby was his.’

  ‘So you all knew that Rachel Jones wasn’t the daughter of your brother?’

  ‘She wasn’t Rachel Jones then, though, was she? She hadn’t been born. Mary was pregnant with a baby that we knew couldn’t have been our Paul’s.’

  Sadler could feel his parched throat clam up. He could do with a drink of water, but how long would it take this man to fetch it? ‘Do you think he was aware that the child wasn’t his?’

  ‘He might have been. It wouldn’t have made any difference. He adored Mary. His child or not, he would have married her anyway.’

  ‘And you’re telling me that no one informed the investigation team of this fact when they interviewed your parents?’

  ‘Just Mum. Dad died in 1974. They interviewed my mother and she never told them anything.’

  ‘But why not?’

  ‘Family business. Nothing to do with anyone else.’

  Sadler sighed and looked at his feet. What can an investigation team do in the face of a ‘family’ that closes in on itself when troubles arrive? ‘And so you never saw Mary Jones after the death of your brother.’

  The man looked at him slyly. ‘Ah well. I didn’t say that. I said that we hadn’t seen her up to when the kids disappeared.’

  ‘But you saw her . . .’

  ‘After. She came round. Proud Mary. I was back from Dundee by then and was here when she turned up. Wanted to know if anyone had asked about her and Paul.’

  ‘Didn’t your mother keep in touch with her grandchild?’

  ‘I tell you, that baby was nothing to do with us. Mary left us as soon as Paul died. She was about seven months gone. We never saw her again until just after the kidnapping.’

  ‘And she wanted to know if you had anything to do with it?’

  Roger Saxton looked at him aghast. ‘Me! She never thought that. That wasn’t the reason she came round. She wanted to know if the police had been asking about Paul. That’s what the little madam was worried about. Whether her big secret would be coming out.’

  ‘That another man was the father of her child.’

  ‘Exactly. And I told her then what I’m telling you now. We told no one what had happened. It was nothing to do with anyone else. Her secret was safe.’

  ‘Is that what you said to her?’

  ‘Oh yes. She didn’t like it, of course. But that’s what it was, wasn’t it? A secret.’

  Chapter 31

  Rachel left Sydney to pay the bill after thrusting some notes at her. She waved off Sydney’s concern and left the bistro feeling slightly sick. She’d had two small glasses of wine and she wondered, as she climbed back in the car, whether it would make her over the limit. But over lunch an idea had been forming in her mind. To go back to Sophie’s house and find out what the visitor had been looking for. Because, perhaps, it was finally time to stop running and face the fear head on. It was either that or wait for whoever it was to continue on the road that might, eventually, lead them to her.

  Her initial fright had subsided, but when she arrived at the house her courage failed her. She stared at the blank-faced bungalow with her car keys in her hand and tried to talk herself into going inside. A door to her left opened and an old woman stood looking at her.

  ‘You’re the girl that got taken.’

  It was said as a statement, not a question, and Rachel shook her head. ‘That was my friend, Sophie.’

  The woman came out onto the path. ‘I know. You’re the other one. The one that came back. The one that was returned.’

  ‘Returned?’ Rachel walked towards the woman. ‘What do you mean by returned?’

  She thought the woman might shrink back from her approach but she held her ground. ‘You were returned. By those who would do you harm.’

  Rachel was angry now. ‘This is my life you’re speculating about. How do you know that I was returned, as you say? It might have been an accident that I survived.’

  ‘Violence does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls into the pit which he digs for another.’

  Rachel gaped at the woman. What the hell was this about? ‘Is that from the Bible?’

  The woman turned her back on her and said over her shoulder, ‘Sherlock Holmes.’

  Rachel stared after her for a moment and then turned towards the hill stretching away from the crescent. She could remember puffing up the incline as a child. She had always been slightly overweight and now, a size fourteen, she could really do with losing a stone. Perhaps walking off the lunch might help as she clearly could not or would not enter that bungalow again. It was the first time that she’d done the walk since the kidnapping. From the day of her abduction to the move to their new house in Clowton, Rachel had been walked to school by her mum. She realised now it must have made her mother late for work every day.

  She’d been breathless doing that walk every day in 1978 and nothing had changed. As she neared the brow of the hill, she realised with a shock that the postbox was still there, shiny and with the familiar GR letters adorning the front. She felt a spurt of anger, the first that she had felt in a long time, if ever, at the thought of the woman who had tempted them into the car like a witch in a fairy tale. The ironic thing was that, if she’d been on her own, she would never have got into that car. She wasn’t stupid and her mother had instilled in her the basic awareness that had been less common then but was now the basis of all parenting. You never got into a stranger’s car. Surely Sophie had been told that too, but perhaps Mrs Jenkins had emphasised the gender of any driver too much. Perhaps danger had been associated with men. Because Sophie had blithely climbed into that car without a care in the world.

  At the top of the road, Rachel debated turning left and then left again into the churchyard of St Paul’s and walking down to the back school entrance. But there was something compelling about the movements of that 1978 January day and her body was being propelled in another direction. She hurried back down the road, slid into her car and started the engine. She slowly drove to the top of the street, stopped at the letterbox and thought. She could remember that the woman immediately turned right, which had alerted them straight away that they’d made a big mistake. She could remember looking aghast at Sophie, whose face had been slow to show any recognition of the trouble that they were in. And then, like a balloon whose stopper has suddenly been removed, she had let out a piercing cry.

  She could swear that the woman then made an immediate left, off the main road and down a side street. Rachel could remember looking out of the window and there being nothing or no one who would be able to help her. The woman had driven quickly but with determination, not calling attention to herself. She could remember trying to open the doors but a child lock must have been fitted and nothing happened. Then she remembered pulling up at an entrance. Not Truscott Woods, another place.

  There was a place missing from her recollections. Between the top of the road and the woods. But she wasn’t going to rem
ember it sitting in her twenty-first-century car. She would have to skip the missing part and go straight to Truscott Woods.

  It wasn’t the first time she’d been back since that fateful day. Two weeks after the kidnapping she’d been brought there by Wendy, the shiny-faced policewoman, driving an inconspicuous unmarked car. Rachel sat in the back holding hands with her mother, who looked angry. Her mother was told to stay in the car and it was the policewoman who gently led Rachel to the spot and asked her all those questions. But she couldn’t remember anything. According to the evidence on the soft ground, she had run up the lane towards the main road but she had no memory of doing that. The policewoman had looked disappointed and, scared of letting people down, Rachel looked towards her mother for reassurance. But she was sitting in the back of the car looking in towards the dense, dark trees.

  Now Rachel looked back at her own car, parked neatly between the rows of others. It was milder today and the dog walkers and regular exercisers that used the wood’s parkland were taking advantage of the weak wintry sun to get some relief from the indoors. She could hear one dog owner just inside the wood, calling ‘Benjy’ sharply and then more desperately. An errant dog. The voice gave her courage and she stepped through the opening and straight into the path of a man. She looked up to apologise and her mouth opened in shock.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Richard Weiss’s face was scarlet with embarrassment. ‘Rachel. I never thought that you’d—’

  ‘Be here?’ she finished for him. ‘Well, I am. And I have a right to be here like anyone else. Except you’re supposed to be in work. And don’t tell me you fancied a lunchtime stroll.’

  What on earth had brought him here? Two nights earlier she had spent the night with him and savoured the comfort he had offered. Now she remembered that she barely knew the man standing in front of her. ‘Did you come to have a gawp? Well, you wouldn’t be the first. Half of St Paul’s school came down in 1978. It was one of the reasons I moved. It had become a day’s outing for the students.’

  ‘Rachel, I know you’re angry—’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I am.’ Angry didn’t even begin to describe her terror that he might not be with her out of affection. Or the growing love that she felt towards him. As a teenager she’d been an outsider in high school. She’d made a few friends but had allowed none of them to come close to her. Her notoriety had both attracted and repelled her fellow students and she had learned to live with it. It was only university that had given her a fresh start. A clean slate where friendships had been made based on nothing more sinister than enjoyment of each other’s company. But suspicion still gripped her. Was Richard, who also liked to dig out the past, only with her because of the mystery of her abduction?

  ‘Please give me a chance to explain. I met my dad this morning when he came into the office.’

  ‘Your dad? What the hell’s he got to do with it?’

  ‘Nothing, he’s got nothing to do with anything. It’s just that—’

  ‘What?’ Rachel was shouting now and a dog walker emerging from the woods gave them a wide berth.

  ‘I mentioned to him that I’d had a drink with you the other night. Nothing else.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. Rachel what’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Me? You told your dad that we’d had a drink the other night and then you end up in these woods?’

  Richard rubbed his face with his hands. ‘Look. My dad mentioned that he knew your mother once.’

  ‘He knew Mum? I never knew that.’ Rachel could feel the anger draining out of her to be replaced by the more familiar tug of grief. ‘Why did that make you come to the woods?’

  He was looking away from her now. ‘He asked after you. Asked what sort of person you’d become after the kidnapping. It was strange because I’ve only ever known you as an adult. I’ve consciously tried to avoid thinking about you as a child. It’s the adult you I’m interested in.’ He was trying to smile at her. ‘So I came down here. Just to see what it must have been like all those years ago.’

  ‘And was it helpful?’

  Her bitterness made him wince. ‘Not particularly.’ He looked unhappy.

  ‘Are you sure that’s the only reason that you came down here?’

  He looked her in the eyes. ‘Of course.’

  *

  ‘I’ve remembered something.’

  They were in a different pub this time. The Green Man, a popular place with Bampton’s workers who fancied a quick drink at lunchtime. One man in particular looked like he’d had a few too many. Tall, ruddy-faced, the large glass of red wine he was holding was clearly the latest in a line going back many years. Richard spotted her looking at the man.

  ‘Charles needs to start taking it easy if he wants to get home in one piece today. The road up to Needham Hall is a sheet of ice.’

  ‘That’s Charles Needham? Good God, he’s aged. He was so handsome when he was younger.’

  ‘You knew him then?’

  ‘My mum knew him. He was in the same year at school. He had a thing for her for a while, I think. He’d pop in now and then when we moved to Clowton. But, my God, I would have hardly recognised him.’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Rachel. He’s looking over here.’

  Rachel deliberately turned in her seat and stared at the florid man. He blinked slightly at her and then narrowed his eyes.

  ‘I don’t think he recognises me,’ she said, picking up her glass and taking a large gulp. It wasn’t settling properly in her stomach though. The slight acidity was sticking in her gullet and causing a searing pain in her throat. It made her want to drink more not less of it. She turned her attention back to Richard.

  He was looking at her with a neutral expression. Despite his reserved manner he appeared sensitive to her moods. It was a potent combination for her. She could feel his concern radiating off him, which pulled her towards him. Yet he held back. Letting her take the initiative. With him, she didn’t feel threatened. If he’d come on any stronger Rachel doubted that she would sitting here, drawing comfort from him. She was prepared to accept his explanation for being in the woods. For now.

  ‘You’ve remembered something from before. When you were kidnapped?’

  She nodded her head, not sure how much to say. ‘It’s fragments, really, like in a dream. But I can’t seem to make it into a reality. Something is trying to break through. There’s a man. He’s really big. Big hands and arms. That’s all I can feel. And there’s a woman standing behind him, saying something.’

  ‘The woman who kidnapped you?’

  ‘I’m certain it’s her. She’s saying something to him. Telling him to hurry up.’

  A silence fell between them. ‘Rachel, I—’

  ‘I wasn’t assaulted, if that’s what you’re thinking. The police could prove that. And I’m sure that this isn’t what I’m remembering. I know I keep saying big hands, but I don’t mean that in a horrible way. In fact I don’t really know what way I do mean it. But that’s what I’m beginning to remember. A big man stooping over me.’

  ‘Any adult male would have seemed big to you when you were eight years old. I have a niece who’s that age. She seems tiny compared to me.’

  ‘But you are tall. That’s what I mean. It was someone your height or taller. I’m sure of it.’ Rachel shook her head, trying simultaneously to clear her thoughts and pull from the depths of her memory something else.

  ‘There’s another thing. These colours. I’m sure we didn’t go to Truscott Wood straight away. When I think back to that time very quickly, you know, think of something else and then quickly flick my mind to that time, I get these colours in my head. Like dark green and glossy black. It’s difficult to describe. But that’s what I get. This ferny green colour and a glossy black.’

  ‘Do you think you’ve seen the colours painted somewhere?’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes, I think so. But I just can’t clarify the image.’

/>   ‘Have you told the police?’ Richard took a sip of his wine and looked at her with a concerned expression. He really was a lovely man, thought Rachel. But was he what she needed right now in the middle of the resurgence of old memories?

  ‘It’s all just happened. I mentioned it to Sydney today though. Do you think I should tell them?’

  He shrugged and looked into his glass of wine. ‘I’m not sure. They may be looking for something more concrete than that. Do you think he was someone you knew?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I didn’t really have that many adult men in my life at that time. My dad was dead and my mother never really looked for anyone else. So I’m not sure who he could be if I knew him.’

  ‘Don’t you think that’s strange? About her not getting anyone else. She was quite young when your dad died. Did she never have any boyfriends?’

  ‘You’re Rachel Jones.’

  Charles Needham had walked across the room to their table and was now looming over her. He seemed in control of his movements but Rachel had no doubt that he was very drunk. She fixed a smile to her face and nodded.

  ‘I am. And you’re Charles. I remember you from when I was little. You used to come and visit us in Clowton.’

  Charles Needham looked nonplussed. ‘You remember me? I don’t suppose I’ve changed that much but then again neither have you. I’d recognise you anywhere. And you look like your nan.’

  ‘Nancy? We don’t look anything like each other.’ Rachel thought to her slim, glamorous grandmother. He was on the wrong track with that one.

  ‘Not Nancy – Mair. The Welsh one.’

  Rachel frowned at him. ‘Mair? She was my great-grandmother – Mair Price. Do I really look like her?’

  Charles Needham rocked on his heels. ‘Mair Price. I’m not likely to forget her in a hurry. There’s a woman you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of.’

  Rachel smiled genuinely this time. She’d heard that Mair had been a tartar. Well, good for her.

  ‘Have you heard anything more about the murder up at Truscott Woods? I wondered if the police were keeping you informed.’