by Nina Milton
A little glow of hope flared into life. “Where is Cliff now?”
“He’s still in a police cell. Bridgwater Station. If he’s charged, he’ll be taken to the remand centre. That’s in Bristol. But we hope it won’t come—”
“Miss Smith, could I see him? I need to ask his permission to work with you.”
“Please call me Linnet. I certainly don’t want to keep calling you Miss Dare.”
“I just need to know he’s okay,” I said. To my horror, tears erupted into my eyes. I brushed them away. “He was arrested at my house.”
Linnet leaned across the desk and patted my hand. A single ring, silver or perhaps white gold, glinted on her third finger, but this was her right hand. Maybe she had once worn it on her other hand. Her touch did comfort me. There had been no one I’d wanted to call last night, mostly because I hadn’t felt up to going through it all again so soon after the event. “I must remind you,” she said, “as Cliff’s legal representation, that if you tell me something incriminating, we’re obliged to take it straight to the police.”
I looked at her fiercely. “I have nothing of that nature. As far as I’m concerned, this is a horrible mistake.”
“Excellent,” said the solicitor. She swung her legs out from behind her enormous desk. At a little wall closet, she began to add layers to the midnight-blue skirt and cream shirt. A matching jacket, richly lined, oozed over her shoulders; a silk scarf was arranged around her neck. I couldn’t help noticing her document bag perfectly matched the navy shoes and leather gloves. Her clothes were chosen to draw attention away from her early middle age spread and shout out a message about competence. I was beginning to feel sorry for the woman, although, on her salary, she’d hardly need my sympathy.
“Let’s go and talk to Cliff,” she said.
As we scurried through the never-ending corridors of Bridgwater Police Station, I enjoyed a guilty fantasy about bumping into Rey Buckley. I peeked around, half searching for sight of him, half taking in the feel of the place. There didn’t seem to be many police, if you get my drift; certainly Rey was nowhere in sight. Most of the workers who darted past wore office clothes, and the girl who escorted us was careful of her public image, polite and friendly, in a distant kind of way.
Not at all like Rey. He was old school. He didn’t fit into this twenty-first-century police force. Not prepared to be over-polite and politically correct, too keen on hunches.
I shook myself. I had to stop thinking about him. I glanced at Linnet as she quick-marched after our escort. The ring on her finger kept drawing my attention. “Have you been in Bridgwater long?” I asked, hoping to shift, crablike, towards her personal life.
She shook her head. “I came down from Scotland—Aberdeen, to be precise—not long ago. It was where I did my articles. I liked the place, so I stayed on as a solicitor in the procurator fiscal’s office. It was a great life. Made coming home difficult.”
“I can relate to that,” I said. “I came back to Bristol from North Wales after my degree. You think you got rid of all the dross, but as soon as you’re back …”
Linnet managed a smile. It wasn’t quite a happy smile, but it did transform her features. I love it when people do this—change from homely to handsome with their smile—and I was finally able to see how attractive Linnet might be if she let her guard down. “Yeah,” she said. “Good word, dross.”
“I thought you were from around here,” I affirmed. “I heard it in your voice.”
“I never completely shifted that West Country twang, even living amongst Scottish lawyers. One wears such things like a badge, I suppose.”
“Is that why you eventually came back?”
“Not quite. I had no idea how the intervening years would slice away. It’s as if I’d never left … memories flooding back.” She looked up at the false ceilings we were moving under. “Set me adrift a bit.”
I quickly modified my theory of a broken marriage. She’d come back to pick up the threads of her youth. Maybe a love affair that had burnt or fizzled out while she was still a law student. Friends Reunited. Of course. That little website had a lot to answer for. “Sounds intriguing.”
She nodded several times in slow motion, as if she was deep in thought. “In Scotland, I was working for the prosecution. Makes you feel too righteous.” She grimaced. “Haven’t had that problem since I returned.”
We were shown into a bare room and seated at an office table. Moments later, Cliff was brought in.
I had been gearing myself up to see him again, expecting him to look the worse for wear. But he was shaved and he’d slicked his wayward hair back with the water from a recent wash.
“You okay?” Cliff spoke first, and his words touched my heart.
“Are you okay, more like.”
“Don’t suppose you’re used to police raids.”
“Don’t suppose you’re used to getting arrested with such reg-
ularity.”
He sat at the other side of the table from Linnet and me, looking down at his clasped hands, which seemed to be glued together. I was relieved. I was going to set to screaming if he played with his lips.
“Good morning, Cliff,” said Linnet.
His head jerked up. “Thank you,” he said. I wasn’t sure if he meant for coming, or for being his solicitor, or simply for acknowledging he was there. “They have to release me soon, don’t they?”
She nodded a smile at him. “There’s nothing they can charge you with at the moment. And as far as I’m aware, they have not applied to extend your detention.”
He closed his eyes and yawned deeply, without covering his mouth. “I’m going to sleep for the rest of the day when I get home.”
“It won’t be long,” I said, looking back at the officer guarding the door. She stared over both our heads, as if not interested in a word we uttered. “I’ve given them a statement,” I added. “I had to go through your time in my house last night, more or less moment by moment.” I gave him a big grin. “I don’t think I incriminated you.”
“They’re looking to see if I’ve got a kidnap victim in my flat.”
“Never make a joke about the investigative process,” warned Linnet.
I could see what she meant; no one in this police station seemed blessed with a sense of humour, but Cliff jumped at her words. He kept drifting out of his body. A trauma can do that to people. His voice sounded unhitched, as if sure he was part of some elaborately staged practical joke.
“Sorry. Haven’t had much sleep.”
“I’m not surprised,” I said.
“I did have a dream, though.” He looked directly at me. “The door opened.”
I realized why he seemed so floaty. He was still in the dream. It would have taken a tremendous effort to control his feelings, so he’d risen above them.
“I have to write this down, Cliff, okay?” I laid a pad on the table and scrabbled at the bottom of my shoulder bag for a pen.
“Okay,” he said. And then he was silent for long minutes.
I didn’t want to put any pressure on his already fragile spirit, but I was sure we only had a short time left before this interview was up.
“Cliff?”
He spread his fingers over his mouth, and suddenly he was talking through them, to no one in particular, the words escaping like trapped flies through a window.
“Why can’t we stop dreams? Why don’t we know they’re not real when we’re in them? But this was real. It happened. It happened, real as real.” I looked up briefly from my secretarial pad. His face went through a chilling change. “The door opened, Sabbie. The door opened, and there was a bloke. Tall. Big head. Well, I was only a kid. Even in the dream. His cheeks were sucked in. They made him look gaunt, like a ghost. Why a ghost would look like that, I can’t say, but in the dream it did. He did. His chin was covered in stubble. His voice gr
owled. I knew I didn’t like him. No, not didn’t like. My feet were drilled into the floor with fear.”
“Did he speak?”
“Not to me. He said ‘you got one’ to the woman.”
“You were the first,” I breathed.
“No,” said Cliff. “The girl was the first.”
“You’re sure she wasn’t part of the setup?”
“How could a kid be part of that?” Cliff looked at me through red-rimmed eyes that hadn’t cried. “I don’t want to remember any more.”
“Are you saying that was the end of the dream?”
“I’m saying I never want it again.”
“Don’t dismiss this, Cliff. It’s a breakthrough.”
“There’s a blank space in my mind,” said Cliff. “I mean, before, I didn’t have any idea that I’d forgotten anything, but now I can see that there is something missing. I can remember being picked up in the car, but the house is a blank. There’s nothing until … after.”
I swallowed. “What d’you mean, after?”
“I sort of recall getting home.” Cliff stared down at his hands and seemed to almost doze off.
“Cliff,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Cliff, tell us, please.”
He shook his head, as if to shake the approaching tears out of him. “There’s a memory from the summer Dad was ill. I’m in the car with Mum. She helps me lift my bike out the boot. She says it needs repairing.” He glanced up at us, and his hand wavered in front of his mouth, as if desperate to tug at a lip. “Now, I realize, it could be … that time.” He shook his head. “Weird. Don’t know why I suddenly remembered this, but something fell from the spokes of the back wheel. I picked it up, because I liked it, it felt soft.”
There was such a long silence in the room that I knew, when I finally found my voice, it would croak out its words. “What was it, Cliff?”
He grinned at me, and his eyes lightened. “It was a catkin. Like a caterpillar or something, all soft and alive. Lovely.”
I grabbed Cliff’s hand and gave it a bracing shake. “That was a symbol I brought back for Cliff,” I explained to Linnet. My heart was trilling with sudden elation.
“This sounds rather implausible—a bit far-fetched,” said Linnet. She coughed into her cupped hand and carried on. “You are now claiming you remember taking a catkin from the wheel of your bike, yet you still don’t properly remember being held against your will?”
I looked from one to the other. Cliff had read my account of finding the hopeful catkin, and now it must seem as if he’d made up a story to fit in with it. Even I wasn’t sure that this new memory was completely authentic.
“Does it matter?” I asked. “These tiny memories might lead Cliff to a proper understanding of what happened. That, somehow, he got away.”
Linnet tapped the desk with her massive pen. “If so, I have to say he was extremely fortunate.”
“How can you say that? It changed his life!” I clamped my mouth shut. I didn’t want Cliff to think that his repetitive job and passion-dousing appearance were a direct effect of those missing days when he was a boy. And I knew that Linnet was still not entirely convinced about me. She wanted me to be of help to Cliff, but I could see that underneath, she was as sceptical about my methods as Rey was.
“My research so far on of the Wetland Murders case history shows that the children categorically died horrible deaths.” Linnet was staring at Cliff, trying to get him to respond. “You’re saying you were abducted yet survived. I’d call that lucky.”
“It was cruel luck,” said Cliff.
Linnet brought out a sheaf of papers from her bag. “Let’s not split hairs, here.” She rifled through them, saying no more, and in the silence, Cliff turned to me.
“Sabbie,” he began. “Last time … you said something about … my soul?”
“Yes. I think you still feel bad because while you were in the cottage, the essence we think of as soul broke into pieces. A massive ordeal can shatter a soul and bits of it get lost or hidden in different places.”
“You’re saying I left my soul in that place?”
“No—it’s inside you somewhere. Just fractured, floating all apart in your spirit world. It needs healing, that’s all.”
“Something needs healing, that’s for sure.” Cliff took a shuddering breath. “When I get out of here, I want it all back. Can we do that?”
“It will take a long time. But if you feel that you could see it through …”
“I want to try.”
We were speaking quietly now, leaning towards each other, so I hardly registered that someone had come in, but Cliff’s face suddenly became the colour of my uncooked bread dough. I spun round. Rey and his sidekick, Abbott, were standing with their arms folded. A quip sprang to my lips—that he made a habit of bursting into rooms without knocking—but it died prematurely. Like Cliff, I took in their sombre expressions.
“We’re here to interview the prisoner,” said Rey to the policewoman at the door.
I wasn’t going to be manhandled, or even politely escorted. I stuffed the notepad into my bag and stood up, quickly offering my hand to Cliff so that we could have some small contact before I left him again.
“Will you tell my mother what’s happening? I know you’d be kind to her.”
My mouth opened and closed.
“Linnet’s got her address. Will you? Please?”
I had no idea how long the interview might take, but I didn’t intend to leave the station until I’d seen Linnet once more. I heard her shoes—stubby heels that must have been just a bit loose—clicking towards the reception area less than half an hour later.
“I’ve got a couple of things for you,” she said. Her face was grey, and I could see a muscle flicker at her cheek. “Mrs. Houghton’s details. And my card, my personal number. Please don’t hesitate to use it.”
“Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“The search of Cliff’s flat turned something up.”
“What? What could they possibly find?”
Linnet rested her leather bag on the bench and sat down next to me. “It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to you. It was just a plastic toy.”
My jaw slackened with shock. “A Slamblaster figure?” I could see she was impressed, but I was in no mood to be impressive. “I don’t understand this. Cliff has nothing to do with these children, I would swear to it.”
“Josh Sutton was carrying this toy when he disappeared. The investigating team seem to think that’s pretty conclusive. It means that he’s now implicated in the disappearance of both the children.”
My brain raced. Cliff had a morbid fascination with Josh Sutton’s disappearance. He didn’t even know why until he saw the picture I’d drawn. I thought about the cuttings and pictures they’d already found in his flat. “Linnet, please, don’t you think he could have bought an identical figure?” I was panting. “Insist they do forensic checks on it, Linnet. I bet it’s straight out of its packaging.”
She shook her head, slow, deliberate. “They’ve already tested for prints.”
“But Cliff would have touched it,” I blurted. “That proves nothing—”
“Sabbie.” Her voice shook. “The Slamblaster is covered with Josh Sutton’s fingerprints. I’m afraid they’ve just formally charged my client with his murder.”
NINE
Seeing Bren Howell’s face in my unconscious dreams after the motorcycle accident was not the first time something strange had happened to me. All through my childhood, I’d fought against the fairies that visited me on the verge of sleep. I hated it. I didn’t think of myself as a fairy sort of girl. I was a Doc Martens sort of girl, allergic to pink, and I kept my unintentional encounters secret. When I realized the man who had pulled me out of my coma was a person I’d never met, it spooked me badly, but the Howells were great to me—warm
and welcoming, a bit of a laugh, never demanding or pushy. There was no long list of house rules or pressure to join them for meals or outings.
Even so, I hadn’t been at Bangor University long before I discovered that the Howells liked walking at least as much as Gloria and Philip did. I was glad to lace up the walking boots I hadn’t worn since before my bike accident.
That first time, we drove across the Menai Strait and walked along the headland. Bren started telling me about the ancient geology of Anglesey and the abundance of uncommon plant life, and I nodded politely as he talked.
“Are you enjoying your courses?” he asked, after a while.
“Psychology is fascinating. The psychologists all disagree with each other, but that’s quite interesting in itself.”
“Indeed, it must be,” said Bren. “For you, Sabbie.”
I glanced quickly at him. He often made a comment that seemed loaded with unstated meaning, as if he were expecting me to start a conversation about something else entirely. Trouble was, I had no idea what.
Rhiannon was striding out ahead in a pair of brown slacks and ancient but well-soled shoes. Over her arm was a large wicker basket. Philip, my foster dad, always carried a backpack with a thermos and other goodies on Sunday walks, but Rhiannon’s basket was empty except for a pair of garden shears. Where was our picnic? I was seriously confused.
Rhiannon was a small lady, ultra-slender, although she served a hearty tea, as the Howells called their main meal. In fact they both looked fit, seeing as they had to be heading for seventy. I was beginning to puff with the pace they were keeping up when Rhiannon suddenly disappeared over the edge of the cliff. I shrieked in horror and raced forwards, pulling up sharp by her basket, which remained on the path like a memorial to her. I looked over the cliff top. Rhiannon was balancing on a small ledge, head and shoulders below path level, snipping at some succulent-looking leaves.
“Samphire,” she said, beaming up at me. She shinned up the rock face like a wiry Welsh goat and dropped her find into the basket.
