by Sarah Ward
The Shrouded Path
SARAH WARD
For Tony Butler
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
1
Part One – Murder
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
Part Two – The Girls
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
Part Three – Valerie
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also by the Author
Copyright
1
Wednesday, 6 November 1957
The first week of November and Susan was already humming the Twelve Days of Christmas. She needed to get it out of her head before she reached home, as her dad would have no truck with carols until the night before Christmas. His Methodist upbringing had been left far behind as he’d gratefully abandoned the church services and interminable hymns. Some childhood habits are hard to shift, however, and the tradition of the tree going up with the minimum of fuss, and carols put on hold until after tea on Christmas Eve, was a convention from which he refused to budge.
Susan’s mum let him have his way, although Susan had recently caught her listening to a festive medley on the Light Programme. Don’t tell your father, she’d cautioned with her eyes before turning the dial of the wooden console with a snap. The hymn book with its meagre selection of carols had already been taken down from the shelf by Susan’s brother and left on top of the upright piano in readiness for their father’s heralding in of the festive season. Come seven o’clock, Christmas Eve, the routine would be the same. Their father, after much bother looking for his glasses, would fumble over the keys to pick out a tune barely recognisable from the ones sung throughout December outside the closed front door. For even well-meaning carol singers weren’t immune from her father’s edict. No Christmas about the house before the 24th. Even on the doorstep.
But carols need to be learnt. Susan, a high alto with a knack for holding a note in the face of her classmates’ flat and occasionally sharp pitch, was expected at Wednesday evening choir practice in the hut near the school gates. Warmed by only a three-bar fire, she and the other members of the fourth and fifth forms who were willing to practise in time for the school concert breathed out cold air as their lungs ached and chests heaved with the effort of singing in the damp fug. Twelve drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping.
The tune swirled around her head as she steered her bike through the autumn mist along the thin track that would take her across the bridge to her home on the other side of Bampton. The wheels bumped and squeaked over the uneven path, startling the few birds prepared to stay in the Peak District for the winter. Frost had begun to settle on the fields, giving the landscape a shimmering glow. As the temperature dropped, Susan tightened the ends of her headscarf under her chin, pulling the thin material away from her ears so that she could hear any encroaching sounds. Her thick blazer warmed her body and she dragged the sleeves of her jumper down over her cold palms, which grasped the metal of the handlebars.
Susan kept a wary eye on the fields around her. She’d been told not to come this way ever since her friend, Iris, had seen a man standing in the field far off, completely naked. Iris had rushed back to her house in the street next to Susan’s and some of the fathers, Susan’s included, had gone in search of the pervert. Of course, he’d gone by the time the men arrived. Disappeared into the mists but not forgotten by the community. Don’t go the back way home from choir, she’d been warned. First by her dad and afterwards, more sharply, by her mother, who’d looked like she wanted to expand the conversation into something more meaningful. Susan had hung about in the kitchen but nothing further had been revealed.
When she got home, she’d pretend she hadn’t come this way. Would tell her mother that, of course, she’d taken the way up Bampton High Street, cycled behind the cottage hospital and continued along the main road over the railway bridge to the entrance of the new housing estate. However, no matter how quickly she cycled, the fact was that this back way would get her home quicker on a cold November evening, despite the uneven path. The route was a direct line from her school to the back of her estate where she’d have to lift her bike over the chained five-bar gate.
She looked around the chilled landscape but could see nothing through the grey mist. She pinched the bike’s tyres to reassure herself that they were rock solid. Any problems and she’d hop on and make a quick getaway, confident she could ride faster than any man, especially a naked one, could run.
In the distance, she could see the stone bridge over the railway line, its graceful arch obscuring the final part of her journey. She put her head down and bumped along the track towards it. Once over the hump, she’d hop onto the saddle and freewheel the rest of the way. Nine ladies dancing, eight maids a-milking. Her navy blue skirt snagged against the stubble of the harvested fields. She’d have to brush it off before she reached home or it would be a dead giveaway which way she’d come.
Seven swans a-swimming. As she trundled down onto the bridge, the fog parted for a moment and she checked her watch. Ten past four. Too early for the hourly London train that would slow by the bridge in anticipation of its arrival into Bampton station. On summer days she would sometimes come up and watch the red engine approach and close her eyes as the steam engulfed her, its hot vapour leaving her skin glistening in the sun. Tonight, it would be another twenty minutes before the first hiss of the engine would be heard.
At a sharp sound below, she stopped in alarm and lifted a leg, ready to take flight. She looked down onto the track below her and relaxed. Six figures were clad in grey uniforms. Not the garb of Bampton Secondary Modern for the Eleven Plus failures like herself but of the grammar school. Thick grey gaberdine blazers, pleated skirts over grey ribbed tights, and black berets perched on top of their heads like plumage. Six geese a-laying, thought Susan, as she watched them walk towards her. There were six of them too, squawking with annoyance. Susan leant back against the stone pillar. There was less rivalry than between the boys from the different schools but she was outnumbered and afraid of any taunts being directed towards her.
The chatter continued but Susan became aware of an undercurrent of menace. The tone of the words spoken was sharp and bitter. She tried to listen to what was being said but could only make out fragments. ‘Better not.’ ‘Sorry.’ ‘I said not.’ The group passed underneath her and into the tunnel below. She counted them in. Six
geese a-laying, five gold rings. Four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a—. The final figure looked up before disappearing into the darkness and Susan shrank back into the mist at the look of malevolence on the girl’s face.
It would take them around five minutes to make their way along the tunnel. Long enough for Susan to get on her bike and cycle down the hill the other side and along the path running parallel to the track before it turned sharply away from the line. Susan set off, enjoying none of the whoosh of cold air she normally felt as she plunged down the embankment. The urge to get away was as strong as if the naked man was chasing after her. She pedalled furiously, too hard, because as the incline levelled she felt the chain buckle and slip against her calves. Her legs flailed as she tilted herself off her bike. She upended it and tried to put the chain back on but her frozen fingers wouldn’t cooperate in the icy chill. She could hear the sound of the girls as they approached the end of the tunnel. No laughter this time but muted voices and the echoing of feet on the gravel around the tracks.
There was nothing for it but to wheel the bike the ten minutes back to her house, but, if she did that, she would be just in front of the girls; a lone figure in the distance and the thought chilled her. Instead, she shrank back into the undergrowth, pulling the bike with her, and took refuge behind a tree. Down here, near to the track, the mist was churning again. Susan watched as the girls came out in a line. The music had stopped in Susan’s head, replaced by a creeping fear. One, two, three, four, five, she counted and stopped, waiting for the sixth. No one appeared. She stayed squatting and, as the mist cleared for a moment, looked at the retreating backs and counted again. Five. One of them must still be in the tunnel.
The girls were no longer talking to each other. They continued in silence around the bend and out of her sight. Susan watched them, the pull of home so strong that she wanted to call out for her mother. Instead, checking that none of the girls had doubled back on themselves, she left her bike in the undergrowth and made her way towards the tunnel. The strip lights on the wall were dim but she could see the opening in the far distance. A dark arch filled with hazy light.
Susan entered the space and walked down the side of the track, feeling along the slimy wall with her fingertips and keeping her eyes on the ground. She was holding her breath, expecting the worst, but the anticipated form never materialised.
When she reached the end of the tunnel, Susan crossed over to the other track and walked back towards her bike, switching her attention between the floor and the walls. There was no opening, no corners to hide in. She was alone inside the gloom, although, perhaps, the ghosts of past passengers tried to invade her confused mind. A faint cry or was she imagining it? Her eyes darted around the dank space, looking for something, anything, that would explain the missing figure.
It was nearly dark when she left the tunnel. Without looking back, Susan retrieved her bike and wheeled it along the path, unaware of a lone figure, also in a school uniform, watching her from the embankment. The outline, silhouetted by the low, setting sun, looked like the angel of the railways. By the time she’d reached the bend, the half-past-four train was arriving, its brakes squealing as it slowed into Bampton station, just visible around the corner. Susan veered to the right, away from the track towards the warmth of her mother’s steamy kitchen.
The following days were spent in a frenzy of fear as
Susan waited for news of a missing schoolgirl that would force her to reveal her own part in witnessing the drama. Nothing. Over the next few weeks, she listened and waited. Returning from choir practice, she always made the trip the long way around and persuaded her dad to buy the bike a new chain that never slipped out of the cogs. Until the day she left Secondary Modern the following year, she never travelled down the path again.
Years passed, then decades. Beeching gave his verdict on the state of England’s railways and the line shut down. The old station house became a private residence and the tracks were first left to rust and then removed. Susan left Bampton and returned. All the while, she avoided tunnels. She held her breath on her honeymoon when her new husband drove them through the Brandberg Pass, and refused to take her children on the steam train up to Devil’s Bridge one holiday in Wales. It was the joke amongst her grandchildren. Granny doesn’t like trains. Finally, the old fear resurfaced and Susan, feeling the familiar dread creeping through her, braced herself for what might come next.
PART ONE
Murder
2
Friday, 27 October 2017
Before the railways, there were canals. Built with less vision but possibly more enterprise. You can drive a steam locomotive up a mountain path but water needs to be harnessed and channelled. The Bampton waterway had never been loved, even at the time of its construction. If people talk about the golden age of canals, Bampton never had one. The canal had, however, served its purpose. Slabs of granite hewn from the nearby quarries had been heaved to the wharf for shipment to London and Liverpool, the stone becoming the foundation of a wealthy industrialist’s townhouse or a municipal building to celebrate a city’s prosperity.
Mina slowed the canoe and pushed a child’s scooter out of the way with her paddle. Now that the rain had returned, a sheet of needles obscured her vision and she’d nearly careered into the metal frame lying partly submerged, one rotating wheel just visible above the waterline. The oar snagged against the handlebars and she jerked it away, the sudden movement causing the canoe to rock slightly. The buoyancy vest gave her comfort but wouldn’t save her from deadly bacteria in the stagnant water if she swallowed a mouthful. She steadied herself and made a mental note of the scooter’s location. When she got back to the boat, she’d retrieve her phone and call the Canals Trust to clear the obstacle.
‘It’s a bloody disgrace.’
The sound of a voice so near made her jump. She looked to the bank to find the speaker but saw only a lone dog walker coaxing his puppy out from under a tree, whispering encouragement to the shivering animal. The small dog, frightened of the long grass, resisted so the man scooped it up, placed it inside his jacket and hurried off.
‘They’re savages. Someone threw a bottle at me the other morning.’
Through the rain, Mina saw another person on the water. A man in a top-of-the-range kayak, its colours too bright on this dull day. As she drifted nearer, she saw he was more a boy, his long beard making him look older than his years. What did they call them? Hipster beards. A hipster in a kayak.
‘It’s unusual to see scooters in the water these days,’ she shouted across to him. ‘When I was growing up, this canal was a no-go area. There were all sorts thrown in. Bicycle wheels, old prams. Now it’s cleaned up and we’re paddling on it.’
He rolled his eyes, not interested in the past. ‘It’s those pikeys camping up near Hale’s End who’ve probably dumped it,’ he shouted back at her and carried on towards Higgs Lock.
Great. A racist hipster. Mina felt tired and depressed, her mood plummeting. State your position and bugger off, she thought. Is that what counts as debate these days? She picked up her pace and made her way east, away from the boy and the lights of Bampton. Her tired arms settled into a rhythm and she could feel her black mood lighten as the day darkened. She paddled towards the landmark she used as her late afternoon watershed. This distance was all she would allow herself in the failing light. As she approached the arch of Step Bridge, which was cracked with age and stained with soot and algae, she stopped short of the entrance and steered the canoe so that its tip rested on one of the banks. Tired from the exertion, she sat back slightly as she caught her breath.
The bridge over the canal had probably once been a route for carts coming into Bampton but it was pedestrian only now and empty of people. At dusk, the canal had an eerie character. Dog walkers and cyclists preferred the former railway track, renamed the Topley Trail, for their daily exercise rather than this desolate place despite the money pumped into the area to spruce it up. Mina lo
oked into the blackness of the tunnel, its ripe air occasionally wafting towards her, and was glad that she wouldn’t be entering it today.
The towpath was also empty, except for a lone jogger approaching her in the distance. She squinted to make out the gender of the runner. Long legs, probably a man. They were running confidently, covering the ground between them faster than Mina expected. Or perhaps it was a woman because at the top of the runner’s head was a mane of blonde hair tied in a ponytail behind a hairband, just as Anna wore it.
Mina dipped her paddle into the water and allowed the canoe to glide away from the bridge. The runner got closer, their gaze directed towards Mina. Now she could see that they weren’t running in the way that joggers do, focused on the distance in front of them. Instead, the runner was deliberately making her way towards Mina’s canoe. Mina glanced back towards the tunnel where she could take refuge if necessary but, as she was weighing up her options, she saw the gauzy figure coalesce into someone she recognised. The runner didn’t wear their hair like Anna. It was her neighbour.
Mina’s heart contracted. She paddled clumsily towards the opposite bank but there was nowhere to dock and haul herself out. She was in the water about half a metre below ground level, too low to pull herself out of the boat. She clawed at the grass until Anna reached the canoe, her dirty white running shoes at eye level.
‘Mina! Your phone’s been going and going. Charlie and I were worried so I went onto the boat to retrieve it. The cabin door was open. You don’t mind?’
‘Did you answer it?’
‘No, but look who’s been calling.’
Mina saw the single word of the caller ID. Hospital. She’d programmed in the number of her mother’s ward. The direct line to the nurses’ station by the entrance. The phone used by people who knew her, knew her mum, knew when to call. With shaking fingers, she pressed redial and listened to the tone ring once.
‘Oncology.’
‘It’s Mina Kemp. You’ve been calling me.’ Mina could hear muted laughter in the background. A huddle of nurses joking with each other. The voice on the other end told them to hush and the sound dissipated.
