The Hour Before Dawn

by Sara MacDonald

  There were photographs of the small family as they once were, all smiling. The two little girls were identical; the man pictured was handsome and laughing. The woman was dark and young and attractive. As he stared down at them it all flooded back, the inexplicable suddenness of the child’s disappearance, the second bleak tragedy of that poor woman’s life.

  Something rekindled and stirred in Blythe, as it always did. The theory at the time was abduction for some nefarious means by persons unknown. The child was blonde and pretty and European and had seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. Mind you, police methods had improved hugely since the 1970s.

  How had the woman borne it, all these years, never knowing what had happened to her child? And what about the twin, now grown up and expecting a child of her own?

  Blythe knew that he and the woman and the surviving twin, despite the intensity of emotion engendered at that time, would have passed each other, without recognition, on a London street. Yet here they all were once again in the same place, twenty-eight years older, desperately hoping for the answer to something it might be better never to know.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I had thought about finding Saffie almost every day of my life, and now, when it had finally happened, it was not at all as I imagined it. All my childhood I willed myself to believe that Saffie was leading a strange foreign life somewhere and one day I would be walking down a street, a long way from home, and I would catch a glimpse of her, grown-up and happy, brought up by parents who paid someone to snatch her because they couldn’t have children of their own. Or perhaps taken by a family who came upon her by chance and wanted her so badly they carried her away with them, but not to do her harm…just to have her live with them.

  Oh, I had a whole safe world for Saffie, a place where, when I was angry with my mother or Fergus, I would join her, with her new parents who gave her everything her heart desired. In my imagination she would turn as I ran after her and her face as she saw me would widen and she would immediately know that this was why she cried in the night, this was why and where her unbearable sense of loss came from. Me. I was the missing link in her perfect life. I was the missing piece.

  As I grew up the tale I comforted myself with seemed unlikely, faded, and became a thing I could not hold on to. I had to make the hole inside me bearable and I turned my back on Fleur. But not Fergus. I had been appalling to him when he and Fleur married, but I couldn’t keep it up. He refused to dislike or cease to love me, whatever I said or did. In the end, I guess he became as much my father as my real father had been for those short first five years of my life.

  I’d blocked all thoughts of Saffie in case I lost my mind. I pretended to outsiders that I was an only child. I longed for a sister or brother but it never happened. I used to hear Fleur crying and Fergus comforting her. No one knew why she couldn’t conceive, but my mother believed she was being punished for not looking after Saffie; punished with no more children.

  I asked to go to boarding school and I broke Fleur’s heart, I think. And there, in the dark of an anonymous place, in the rows and rows of beds and muffled sobs, Saffie came to me. Sometimes she just sat on the end of the bed, the shape of her comforting me, making me feel less alone. Then, as I got older, she would arrive randomly and suddenly. All my life it seemed to me as if she was trying to tell me something. No, not just trying to tell me something but leading me somewhere or to someone.

  Now, I knew. It was here, to this place where she left us. But how would I ever understand what she wanted me to know?

  I felt cold with fear at the thought of what that understanding might mean. We both used to know what the other was thinking. Sometimes we spoke the same thing at the same time. If I had a stomach ache, Saffie would get unwell too. If she got a fever, my head throbbed. If she had lived I know we would have felt each other’s labour pains.

  But I do not want to go through her death. I do not want to know how she died. I am afraid of her fear and dread her last moments which Fleur and I have thrust away from us in order to go on and live our lives.

  James Mohktar brought the English detective, who had flown out from London, to the house late in the afternoon. Inspector Blythe had been a young military police detective twenty-eight years ago before he joined the Met. He and Fleur stared as if they should remember each other, but how could they? Look what time does, it changes us inside and out. Fleur had been a young grief-stricken widow. Inspector Blythe had probably been an ambitious and keen policeman.

  My mother was now a middle-aged woman with a sad and pretty face. Blythe was a man too heavy, grey with jetlag and a resigned expression, and yet I saw something pass between them, they did recognise each other. I suppose it is our eyes that never change and always give us away.

  James Mohktar and Inspector Blythe wanted Fleur to go through the list of the names of people who had been staying at the other government rest houses when Saffie went missing. The names, of course, meant absolutely nothing to me. I couldn’t put faces to them even if they sounded vaguely familiar.

  Blythe wanted to know if Fleur had been particularly friendly with any of them, or if my father had, and if she knew where any of them were now. There were photographs of them taken twenty-eight years ago. I watched Fleur as she spread them over the table. From the open window the smell of frangipani was pungent and I had sudden déjà vu, a strange, dizzy catch of forgotten memory as I looked down on a photograph of a young man in uniform. Then it was gone before I could hold it, but my hands on the table shook and I did not know why.

  James Mohktar noticed. I knew by the very slight movement of his eyes away from Fleur’s hands sorting the photographs to me. Fleur laid them out across the table.

  ‘Those are my parents, of course. I don’t suppose you remember them?’ she said, touching the photographs of Gran and Grandpa. I stared at them. They seemed young too, although of course they must have been middle-aged. Their faces were blank with shock, their eyes clouded. Fergus told me once that they seemed to age with terrifying suddenness after David and Saffie went. My grandparents have always blamed themselves for leaving Fleur alone to go and see Sam in Penang.

  ‘I do remember them,’ Inspector Blythe answered quietly. ‘I felt a profound respect for both of them. They were both dignified and helpful, despite the tragedy that had befallen you all.’

  I watched the colour seep into Fleur’s cheeks. I do not suppose she was able to be either dignified or helpful. Guilt combined with shock and panic must have pulverised her. Pity welled up inside me and I reached out to touch her arm. God! How I had judged her all these years. I thought of Jack dying and shivered. Fleur had still been reeling over my father’s sudden death; how on earth could she have borne Saffie’s disappearance.

  Jack was over by the window, sitting looking out, not quite knowing if it was appropriate to leave me and go outside and walk. He was not part of this past of mine. Mohktar, as if sensing this, walked over and sat by the window with him, watching us.

  Fleur looked up, surprised at my touch, and gave me a small smile. Then she went back to the names and photographs.

  ‘I don’t think I can add anything more now, after all these years, than I could at the time,’ she said, staring down at the photographs of people still young. ‘We knew the Allises only vaguely, from parties. David would have known the husband, Richard, rather better, from flying. The Morrises we did not know at all.’

  The inspector leant forward and rearranged the photographs under Fleur’s hand into the rest houses where they had been staying.

  ‘I know it must seem pointless, Mrs Campbell, when people and places have faded over the years and we are going over the same ground again, but humour me. It refreshes my memory as well as yours. You would be surprised at the odd relevant things the brain retains…’

  Fleur looked at him, started to say something and then changed her mind.

  ‘The Dury family my parents knew quite well. I didn’t as they lived in Singapore, not at the
naval base. The teachers I knew by sight and had chatted to, that’s all. The Addisons, I hardly knew, but Alex flew with David. Beatrice had been a QARANC, an army nurse in Changi, I think. They had only been posted in a few months. Beatrice was pregnant. I was told Alex stopped flying after the accident and went back to his regiment.’

  She leant back in her chair. ‘I know nothing about anyone else. You know what it’s like, Inspector, you’re posted and then move on, you lose track of people. You can’t be bosom friends with everyone. I knew no one in the other rest houses really well. I was there with my parents. It isn’t that I mind doing this, Inspector; it’s just that it does seem pointless.’

  The inspector turned to me and swivelled the photographs round to face me. ‘And you, Nikki, any fragment of memory? I know you were only five, but children are very observant.’

  I looked at the photographs but nothing came. Whatever sliver of memory there had been earlier had vanished. I shook my head. ‘Isn’t it far more likely to have been an opportunist? A local person meeting my sister suddenly out there in the afternoon?’

  Inspector Blythe did not answer. James Mohktar got gracefully to his feet. He smiled his gentle smile and we all seemed to relax; he had that sort of effect on people and I was very glad he had stayed here.

  He looked at Fleur. ‘How are you feeling, Mrs Campbell?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said politely, as English people always do. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And you, Miss Montrose? I do hope you are feeling recovered?’

  ‘I’m better today, thank you.’ I got up heavily and went over to Jack and leant against the chair he was sitting on. He put his arm round where my waist had once been.

  Fleur got up too and went to the fridge and got out water and fresh orange and poured five glasses for everyone without asking. As she handed a glass to James Mohktar and Inspector Blythe, she said ‘Saffie’s body has been found and that is all I can think about at the moment. I’m unsure what going over old ground can possibly achieve after all this time, except to bring back bad memories for me and my daughter.’

  The Inspector said quietly, ‘Mrs Campbell, we did not have a body twenty-eight years ago. We had almost nothing to go on. We are waiting to see what the pathologist can tell us about the manner of your daughter’s death.’

  ‘And what,’ I heard myself say suddenly, my voice odd and high, ‘if we would rather not know the manner of Saffie’s death?’

  There was silence in the room. The inspector got up. ‘We will leave you in peace now.’ He looked at me. ‘I am sorry; this is very hard for you both. Because we have to ask questions doesn’t mean we are unaware of either of your feelings, I assure you.’

  At the door, Mohktar hesitated. ‘I will come back to see you this evening.’ He smiled at us anxiously and then both men left.

  ‘Shall we go out and walk for a while?’ Jack asked after a minute. I nodded, but Fleur said, ‘You two go, I’ll join you in a while.’

  I hesitated, unsure whether I should leave her alone but sensing Jack’s restlessness.

  ‘Go,’ Fleur said, and I knew she wanted to be alone.

  Jack did not speak as we walked. I looked around me; there were no landmarks I recognised. The deserted paradise I had kept in my head all these years bore no resemblance to this new resort, apart from the crabs. Water sports had sprung up at the other end of the long beach, and the jungle behind it had made way for hotels. The sea was no longer aquamarine, but a dirty grey as if someone had taken a stick to the ocean floor.

  I wondered what was going to happen next. Did we wait to hear what the pathologist had to say? Would Saffie’s body be returned to us? How long would Inspector Blythe stay and make his inquiries?

  I wondered what James Mohktar thought and I decided I would ask him.

  Suddenly, incongruously, making us jump, Jack’s mobile phone rang as we walked towards the far end of the beach to the rocks, towards the place Saffie had been found. He dug it out of his pocket and held it to his ear. I could tell from the way he paced it was going to be something serious. He turned back towards the guesthouse we were in and covered the phone. ‘I’m going to have to go back and get my diary, Nikki. Someone’s pranged one of our yachts. I need some telephone numbers.’

  ‘Oh, Jack!’ I said. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Nik, it doesn’t matter which one. Don’t think about it. Are you coming back or staying out here?’

  ‘I think I’ll stay out here for a while.’ I was hot, but I did not want to go back inside. ‘I’ll go and paddle, watch the windsurfing for a bit. I won’t be long.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, distracted, already moving away. I walked on towards the sea and a small breeze caught my hair, but it was not cooling. I stopped and looked back at the modern buildings dotted at various angles along the cliff. At the far end, long, wooden steps led down to the beach, and at once I remembered Ah Heng leading Saffie and me down them from the rest house, making us hold her hands. They were steep and to a small child they seemed to go on forever.

  I can smell the oil she put on her hair. I can see the smooth oval of her brown face and her spotless white sam foo that she changed every afternoon after her shower, and the black baggy trousers she used to make herself on the old sewing machine in her room.

  I remember the way she would bend to lift both of us up together and how we clung to her when we were tired and how she scolded Saffie for sucking her thumb.

  When Saffie disappeared Grandpa sent an army driver to bring Ah Heng to me. I would not let anyone else touch me. I screamed if they tried. She sat guarding me for two nights, making me sip water, and when everyone slept I crawled onto her lap and would not let her leave me.

  Then we had to say goodbye to each other, all over again.

  I wonder what happened to that little Cantonese person we loved so much. We never knew how old she was. Would she be dead? Had she returned to her province in Canton or was she still with her second brother’s family in Chinatown, a very old lady, cared for because all her life she had given half her wages to her family.

  Something was tugging me away from the sea and the people in the distance, and I turned, aware of where I was going. I walked to the rocks and began to slowly climb the steep slope to the path that led to the lighthouse.

  I had forgotten what it felt like to move quickly or to feel light. My body seemed to belong to this baby housed inside me, not to me. I felt I might never regain the freedom of my limbs again. I stopped and took a drink from the water bottle and sweat ran down the inside of my dress and down my legs.

  I took it slowly, and when I reached the top the shade of the trees was wonderful. I could hear the distant sound of monkeys and the cicadas were loud and overpowering in the stillness. A huge butterfly landed on my hand and I remembered the moths, the huge moths Saffie and I hated when they got into the house at night and Ah Heng had to shoo them out of the open shutters.

  The silence, the absence of people, seemed profound up here. It was an early morning or an evening walk. The main path had been cut through the jungle long ago and the trees above it had formed an arch of leaves in which the sun filtered down in flashes of light and shade.

  I walked slowly, aware of the drop in temperature. I felt as if I must make this journey to the place Saffie had been found. I knew the only danger now was in my head and the amount of truth my heart could cope with.

  I walked on for five minutes or more, deeper into the forest which would end in the lighthouse. Then I saw her in front of me, flitting among the trees, dancing almost, turning every now and then to see if I was following. She was wearing the cream dress with little pink flowers; my dress.

  My heart lurched painfully and I longed, in that second of seeing her in that familiar dress, to be a child again, to go back, back to the time of happiness when she was always with me, each and every day.

  I hurried in case she disappeared again and I peered anxiously among the trees for another glimpse of her, but she stayed resolut
ely ahead of me, the whiteness of her dress leading me onwards, and I began to walk with dread, my breath getting quicker and harsher. I felt chill on my arms and legs and began to look behind me, listen for the crack of a twig or a footfall against the backdrop of jungle sounds.

  I wanted to stop. I wanted to turn back to the sunlight and the cries of people having fun on the beach; to the ordinary safety of the real world. I stared ahead and fleetingly caught the expression on Saffie’s face, her mouth open in surprise, her eyes wide with fear, then she was gone and my mouth was so dry I could not swallow. I tried to open my water bottle but my fingers were trembling and I dropped it.

  I bent to retrieve it and as I did so I felt suffocated. I could not breathe, it was as if someone had placed a hand over my mouth and nose and I frantically twisted my head and gulped air so that I would not pass out. The pressure on the back of my head and neck was unbearable and I moaned with fear and cried out.

  Then, it was over. I could breathe again and I knelt on the path taking deep breaths. I knew Saffie had gone. I got clumsily to my feet knowing what was round the corner.

  There it was, well off the path in a small clearing, the sad remnants of ticker tape and the gaping upturned boulder which had housed her cold and lonely grave.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Fleur took a deep breath in the empty room. It seemed a very long time since she had been alone. She did not move for some minutes after Jack and Nikki left the house. She closed her eyes against the bright sunshine and concentrated on slowing her rapid heartbeat. Sounds and smells drifted in and turned in the air. Chinese music and chattering rose and fell with the smell of the sea; curry; seaweed.

  Fleur wanted to fly away somewhere safe with the small bones of her lost child; to mourn again for a life so carelessly lost. She wanted to wrap and comfort Saffie in a warm, soft blanket and rock and rock her in a shady place, to keen in peasant fashion and hold her child as safe now as she ever could be.