by Nina Milton
I was biting into an organic apple from the box when my mobile crowed. I scrabbled for it in the recesses of my bag.
“Sabbie?”
“Linnet!” Her voice set up an involuntary response in me as I wondered what news she was bearing.
“I’ll come directly to the point. I have an appointment to work with Cliff at the remand centre tomorrow. I wondered if you’d like to join me.”
“Are you sure I’m allowed?”
“You’re a professional. I see no reason why you can’t accompany me as such.” Her tone was formal, but her concern touched me.
“That would be excellent. Thanks for thinking of me. When are you going?”
“Ten thirty tomorrow morning, if you can make it.”
“Okay.” My brain fizzed at the thought of entering a high-
security prison. “What do I need to do?”
“Make sure you are at least fifteen minutes early as the signing in procedure is complex. Bring some formal ID.”
Another odd coincidence: I should have expected Cliff to arrive as a client tomorrow at almost exactly that time. Instead, I would be meeting him in a high-security prison. Somehow, though, the thought of seeing Cliff made up for my failure to find Brokeltuft. I’d be able to tell Caroline that Cliff was okay.
An embryonic thought flittered through my mind as I pulled away. If he is okay …
“Of course he is,” I told myself aloud. “He’ll be fine.”
Cliff looked like someone who had been wheeled out of intensive care. I don’t know why I was expecting regulation uniform—arrowed stripes or navy overalls—but he was his own T-shirt and cord jeans. His gaze didn’t leave the floor as we came in, as if he was counting the squares on the institutionally brown, industrially thick vinyl. Forty-eight hours since I’d seen him, but it looked as if an alien had abducted him and left a pitiable replica in his place.
“It’s good to see you, Cliff.”
Cliff nodded at me but did not speak. His hair, loose and greasy, did a successful job of hiding his eyes.
The small room was bare, blank. There was a stack of plastic seats in one corner. I followed Linnet and took one, seating myself away from the table that Cliff was propped at, not sure of what my role was going to be and not intending to get in the way of the work they had to do. But as Linnet spread the contents of her briefcase over the table, I felt cross with myself for acting out of my depth—like a seaside knickknack might have felt among Caroline’s glass ballerinas—and shuffled the chair closer.
“Okay, Cliff,” said Linnet. “I’ve been concentrating on presenting good reasons for bail, so I want to run through them.”
There was no response. Linnet glanced over at me, a plea spread over her expression. This was clearly the part of her job she found hardest.
“How have things been, Cliff?” I asked. Cliff gave a grunt. His shoulders remained hunched and stooped. His hands were covering his knees in a defensive posture. “Have you been able to think back at all … remember anything?”
“Yeah, a bit. Being in the car is more like a normal memory now.” He gave a growl of a laugh. “Normal! I keep trying to bring back their faces … their names …”
Linnet stopped shuffling her papers and looked up. “The woman gave you her name?”
“I don’t think so,” said Cliff. “But the girl’s name is there some-
where.”
I jumped my chair forward another notch. “If you can remember the least part of it, the rest might come.”
“Before I started to get scared, we were all joking around, I suppose to keep me from seeing where the car was going. I made a joke about the girl’s name—” Cliff’s eyes were squeezed shut. “I think there was an A in it.”
“Ann? Clara?”
“No … no.” I saw a glimmer of a smile. “Don’t confuse me.”
“You’re right,” I said. “You shouldn’t force the memory. It’ll pop into your head when you least expect it.”
“I’ve been worrying about the Slamblaster,” Cliff said to Linnet. “Did you get anywhere with that?”
“Not as yet.”
“It isn’t mine. Nothing to do with me.”
“I hear what you’re saying,” said Linnet. “But I can’t stop the forensic process. The police think of this item as their major piece of evidence.”
“I don’t know how it got there!” Since he’d mentioned the Slamblaster, Cliff had become more and more panicky. His fast breaths were whistling in and out between lips that he was pinching tight with one hand. He was half out of his chair.
“Okay, Cliff,” I said, reaching out but not quite touching him. “Miss Smith will find out how it got … wherever it was.”
“Under Cliff’s bed,” said Linnet. “According to the data I’m allowed access to.”
“Then someone put it there. Planted it there,” I said.
I thought Linnet might query this massive leap of faith, but she quietly nodded. “When was the last time you checked under your bed, Cliff?”
“I—I don’t know,” said Cliff, shaking his head. “Not ever, really.”
Something popped into my head, and I couldn’t help but blurt it out. “Is there anyone who would state under oath that they had looked under your bed quite recently?” Linnet turned to me and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I just wondered if anyone could make a statement.”
“The prosecution would flatten such a witness in seconds,” said Linnet. “Not seeing an item isn’t proof of evidence.”
“No one could do that, anyway,” said Cliff. “I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment or anything.”
“Your mother could. She cleans your flat sometimes, doesn’t she?”
His eyes brightened for the first time. “You’ve spoken to my mother?”
“I saw her yesterday. She sends her love.”
Cliff put his hands over his face. “I’ve brought this on myself, haven’t I?”
“Be careful what you say, Cliff,” warned Linnet.
“Mrs. Houghton may be able to offer corroborative evidence,” I said, pleased with my legalese. “She reported Cliff missing at the exact time he says he was taken.”
“Mothers.” Linnet gave us both a rueful smile. “Sadly, mothers are of no consequence. Of course they’ll swear their child is innocent. Whereas, what you do—now that’s interesting.”
“Sabbie can really see things, Linnet,” came Cliff’s earnest voice.
“You certainly seem to have some sort of talent,” said Linnet. “I believe that you drew, on a piece of paper, a reasonable likeness of the house in which Cliff says he was imprisoned.” I bit my tongue to prevent asking what else I might have drawn on, if not paper. Linnet could hardly help sounding like a lawyer. “However did you do that?”
“I enter a different world, a different plane of life, if you like. With some luck I can communicate with beings that wish to help us poor humans. They’re not tied to bodies as we are. They move across time, space, emotions …” I broke off. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to lecture.”
“No, it’s good,” said Linnet. “You need to sound credible, authoritative.”
I felt as if I’d swallowed several ice cubes. “You don’t mean like an expert witness, do you?”
“I think your testimony, if it could only be validated, would make all the difference to our case for the defence.”
“But it can’t be validated.”
“If you and Cliff could continue with this therapy, we might see amazing breakthroughs.” Linnet opened her arms, showing the palms of her hands, and I had an image of her in court, the power of her intellect shining through. “Admittedly we don’t have long, but how do you feel about working with Cliff right here?”
“That sounds like a freak show. I’m happy to journey for Cliff in my own place and bring you the resul
ts, but—”
“Please, Sabbie.” Cliff wriggled against his chair as if it were covered with spikes. “You could try.”
I gave myself a mental slap on the knuckles. This wasn’t about the rules of practice. It was about the murder of a child.
I picked up my plastic chair and moved so that Cliff and I could sit facing each other. Linnet took hers right over to the wall, crossed her legs, hitched her skirt over her slightly lumpy knees, and leaned back.
“Okay,” I said. “No different from last time, except we don’t have our plaited link, so we’re going to be holding hands through this, but otherwise I want you to just relax. It won’t matter what you think about—let your mind wander.”
Cliff dragged his lips into a smile. “Thanks for this.”
“You may not thank me,” I told him.
I closed my eyes and felt my mind lift. If I have no drum to guide me into a trance state, I chant a single word in the very back of my mind while I try to calm the front of it. Getting rid of thoughts is one of the main preconditions of the art of meditation. Not easy even in your own bedroom, but here I couldn’t silence the welter of images and emotions that were zinging round my head. It was no good struggling to dispel them; a trance has to come down upon you, like a surprise fall of snow.
Suddenly I felt such a pain behind my arms that I half fell out of my chair.
“What’s going on?” I heard my voice choke out the words. I opened my eyes. It was clear that nothing was going on in the room. Linnet was still in her corner, and Cliff was staring at me with his mouth open.
“Are you all right?”
I rubbed at my shoulders. The pain had been as intense as a heart attack, rising from my sides, through my shoulder joints and into my arms and neck. It was gone now, but I felt wary of touching Cliff’s hands again.
“I think I experienced your pain.” I looked at him, but he would not return my gaze. “I can take a guess on how the pain was caused.” I pulled my arms as high up as I could behind my back. “If your wrists are bound behind you, then pulled tight, it’s excruciating.”
Cliff had squeezed his eyes shut. He was breathing fast through his mouth; his eyes had become fixed and blank. I cursed myself for bringing this memory upon him. “Cliff?”
A whisper formed on his grey lips. “Patsy.”
“Sorry?”
Cliff’s eyes flickered and he was back with us. “The girl. I think that was her name. Patsy.” His face cleared as memories winged into his mind. “I can’t picture her face at all, but that name feels … real.” He looked surprised at himself. “Where did it come from?”
I gave his hand a squeeze. “I’m sorry to bring this back to you.”
“No,” he said. “You were right. I should be pleased the memories are returning. How can I defend myself with a blank mind?”
“Good on you, Cliff.” I turned to Linnet. “That sort of positive attitude will really help, won’t it?” But Linnet didn’t reply. She was staring at us, her mouth half open. I was pretty sure she hadn’t expected such instant results. Actually, neither had I.
“She told me her name in the car. I told her mine. She leaned forward and whispered between the front seats. Like passing secrets.” He rubbed his kneecaps hard with the palms of his hands, as if trying to wipe off sweat.
“Can you remember being with Patsy inside Brokeltuft Cottage, Cliff?”
“No.” His head shook backwards and forward. “No, no.”
“Let’s go back to a good memory. How did you get away?”
“I can’t remember.” Cliff was still shaking his head. I could tell he was beginning to panic.
“Just let your mind go blank, Cliff. Close your eyes and let me do the work for you. See what I can get.”
Once I was sure Cliff was calmer, I closed my eyes. I was trying not to pick up his terror. I began the silent chant of a single word …Ostara … Ostara … a goddess from another time and place whispered inside my head slowly over and over, more and more quietly, until it vanished like mist from a window pane, leaving an empty space for new worlds.
Two perfectly round eyes stared at me out of the darkness. It was Trendle. I let myself fall into those kindly eyes and in the next moment we were standing outside Brokeltuft Cottage, the otter lying along my arm, as always. The building had become dilapidated since I’d last visited. Windows had lost most of their glass and the frames were rotting away. The roof was in disrepair—slates lay at my feet in pieces, and I was standing in knee-high weeds. Trendle had brought me to the cottage as it was now.
“No one loves you,” I told it in a silent whisper, and the building creaked on its foundations.
I lifted my hand to try the door handle and a sensation of revulsion came down on me, rasping at every nerve ending.
I felt Trendle’s sharp claws dig into my arm. “This time, you’re not going in.”
“Of course. We must follow Cliff. How did he get out of here?” I turned my back to the gruesome door. Across the lane, the amber glimmer of late sunlight slanted through the hedgerow branches. To my right, the lane dwindled into a narrow track of black mud flanked by shocks of grass, twisting away into a darkness tinged with fog. To my left, it was straighter and wider, as if it might go somewhere.
“North or south, Trendle?”
“The path to the north is for another time.”
“Thank the spirits for that. It looks bleak down there.”
I set off up the lane. The shoes I’d worn to the prison squeezed my toes and at times sank down into patches of mud. An evening breeze caught my hair and pimpled my neck like a plucked chicken. I tried to imprint the small landmarks on an inner screen. I passed gates and potholes and the rusting heap of a burnt-out Mondeo, the remains of a joy ride.
I lifted my chin and saw that ahead this lane reached and joined with another. A triangle of green was set in the middle of the T-junction, and a wooden signpost sprouted from the grass, two arms pointing in opposite directions. I came right up to it, but the words were blurred and faint. “I can’t read what it says, Trendle.”
“Never expect too much.” Trendle felt heavy in the crook of my arm, so heavy I wanted to lay him on the grass and weep. It all felt so unsubstantial. But of course, it was of the spirit. I reached up and ran my fingers along the engraved letters of the sign. Could I read the imprint like Braille?
“Sabbie? Sabbie! Time’s running out!”
I felt an alarming sensation, as if I’d been punched in the solar plexus. I opened my eyes and found Linnet Smith standing over the two of us. I had become bent in the chair, naturally leaning as I moved deeper. My hair was touching Cliff’s chest and a thin line of saliva drooled from my mouth onto my hands below.
I stood up and rubbed the drool from my mouth. “Do you realize how dangerous it can be to wake someone abruptly from a trance state?”
“I’m so sorry, Sabbie. But I should get on with the paperwork.” She’d brought her chair back to the table. She sat at it and unscrewed her fountain pen. “Did you see anything?”
My mind was filled with cavity insulation foam. “Nothing concrete. Cliff, did anything come into your mind?”
Cliff jerked his head, as if to shake away approaching tears. “I remember a tree. Falling from a tree.”
Linnet gave an intake of breath. I turned to her, but she was digging about in her massive blue handbag.
“D’you think this is important, Linnet?”
“What?” She pulled a clean linen handkerchief out of her bag, ironed and pristinely white. She passed it to Cliff. He pressed it, folded as it was, to his eyes. It was lovely that she kept hankies specially for the tears of her clients.
“Do you think that falling from this tree is important?”
“Gosh, no.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Boys climb trees, they fall out. Happens all the time.�
� She turned to Cliff. “You were probably just playing with your mates.”
It was a good point, but I was relieved to see Cliff come straight back with an answer. “I used to get the same dream all the time. I’m high up in a tree. I have to get down. They are after me. There’s an arm, reaching out. I go down through the tree. I try to stop my fall …” He was panting, his upper lip coated with oily sweat.
“What happens then?”
“Nothing. I wake up. You always wake up, don’t you? If you get to the bottom, you’re dead. That’s what they say, isn’t it?”
I looked into the dullness of his eyes. “Sometimes, symbols get muddled. Could the tree have been a signpost? They’re both made of wood, after all, and signposts have branches, sort of.”
Cliff gave me a skewed look. “No. A tree. A black tree that sighs in the wind.” He clasped my wrists, wrenching at my arms. “Did you see a tree, Sabbie?”
I shook my head. But I promised myself I would see that tree. If I could find the signpost, I would find the tree.
TWELVE
We left the grim slamming metal of the prison. Linnet seemed at least as affected by it as I was. She darted away from the gates as if the screws were after her with handcuffs.
“It’s the worst part of my job,” she shuddered. “God! To be locked up for life.”
“Knowing you were innocent,” I added.
She shrugged and looked away. “The law tries to be balanced. Judicial. But it’s still a risk. I don’t want Cliff to confess to anything that might lead to his plea of innocence being laughed out of court.”
“You’re talking about his memories of being kidnapped, aren’t you? Rey Buckley thought that might strengthen the defence.”
“Possibly.” She swung her document case from one hand to the other. “The prosecution will be just as interested. We should be cautious about what we include as evidence. Or rather, how we present it. I’m not planning to use his links to the Wetlands Murders unless—well, frankly unless I’m trying to mitigate a sentence.”
“Do you think he’ll be found guilty?”
