by Nina Milton
“I don’t mind disruptions,” said Abbott, “so long as they bring useful information my way.”
“Well, I’m hopeful that this will.”
“I’m pleased you’ve come in,” said Abbott, sounding anything but. “You must recognise it was only a matter of time before you were interviewed more formally in regards to this case.”
“I’ve honestly told you all I knew about Cliff. This is something that came up in a meeting with his solicitor. We both want you to investigate it.” I searched back in my mind. Linnet had said something like that, I was sure.
Abbott hadn’t sat down. He was shifting about the room, his body language telling me to astound him or go away. I took a breath, tried to get my thoughts in order. So far, rushing back to Bridgwater hadn’t gone to plan. I’d hope to sweet-talk Rey into investigating the girl called Patsy. Abbott looked a much harder proposition.
“Directly before the Wetland Murders happened, two people may have been reported missing. One was Cliff Houghton. The other was a girl called Patsy. I’m hoping she had a report filed. You keep Missing Person files that long, don’t you?”
“Patsy what?” said Abbott in a calm, bored voice.
“I don’t know her second name. Cliff doesn’t remember. Perhaps he doesn’t even know.”
Abbott closed his heavy lids for a second, as if despairing. “You want us to find a missing person—”
“Not necessarily. Just seeing the report details would be a good start.”
“I’m sure it would. But at the moment we’re investigating a recent murder and an even more recent child disappearance. I don’t have time for any of this is there anybody there stuff.”
“All we’re asking you to do is check the Missing Persons lists.”
He gave a cold laugh. “Let’s just say our resources may not stretch to that. Besides, Miss Dare, I’m confident that you can find this person by merely closing your eyes.”
I ignored the sarcasm. “It could really help.”
“Yes, help screw up our case.” I saw Abbott smile at his own bad joke, and the burning smog of anger that plagued my teenage years smothered me so that I could hardly breathe.
“Fine,” I spat. “No need to investigate the crime, once you’ve framed your prime suspect. And while you’re at it, why not harass innocent citizens. Until they bring up evidence, that is, then go right ahead and ridicule them.”
Abbott’s mouth hardened against his fine teeth. He came over to the chair I was perched on and positioned himself so that when he spoke, his spittle would land directly on my face. I felt sure he used words where spittle might be increased.
“Sabrina Isabel Dare. That’s your full name, isn’t it? I never liked the idea of bringing you and your charlatan shamanism into this case. The idea stinks. It was the detective sergeant’s pitch, but I’m fucking sick of this floating about with phantoms. You might fool your clients, Miss Dare, but you don’t fool me.”
I felt my cheeks burn as he mentioned Rey. “What d’you mean, bringing in my shamanism?”
Abbott didn’t reply. He walked to the door, opened it wide, and stood like a sentry, waiting for me to pass.
I thought he might toss off a final sarcasm as I scuttled down the corridor, but all I heard behind me was his derisive silence.
By the time I’d finished work that evening, I felt completely done in—ready for bed at a quarter to nine on a Saturday night. I poured myself a glass of chardonnay and switched on the telly, but I couldn’t concentrate on the shifting pictures and chattering sounds, so I zapped it off and found myself wandering through the house, trying to make sense of it all. I needed to tie down the loose ends that were flapping about in my mind, because I was sure that they were all connected.
“Be sure of this Sabbie,” Bren used to say to me. “Everything connects.” I’d lived with the Howells for the three years of my degree, and as the time went on, I became more than fond of them; they were family to me, my third set of parents.
I guess losing both my natural parents—my father before I knew him and my mother when I was six—made it okay to have two sets of surrogate parents. Philip and Gloria Davidson had defused the spitfire kid and created someone ready to take their place in the world. But living with the Bren and Rhiannon Howell had changed me even more drastically.
The Howells made me listen when a tree shakes its branches. They showed me how to get drunk just looking at the moon. Bren had taught me the phases of the moon as we worked in his garden, introduced me to a small community of Pagan people hidden by the North Welsh hills. We’d light a fire of split logs in the centre of the garden with its herby flowerbeds. Bren would trace a circle and draw a five-pointed star within it. The magic of the pentangle. Once drawn, Rhiannon called power to us. She used the four ancient elements, as I do today in my therapy room—fire, water, earth, and air. Only when we felt empowered and protected in this way, did we begin the work that went on in our minds. Squatted on a variety of damp-proof seating arrangements, we traced paths to other worlds. Sometimes the sounds of the night and the crackle of the fire were our accompaniment; other times there would be a drum to give a steady rhythm, or a chanter repeating an arcane word or phrase over and over until it stilled my racing thoughts and let the visions come.
At first, I had not believed I would see things. When I did, I told myself it was all my imagination.
“Imagination?” said Rhiannon, when I’d explained how I felt. “What d’you think that is, Sabbie?”
It took me a long time to understand what she meant, especially as, at that point in my life, I was attending lecture after essay after seminar on the psychological workings of the human mind.
“What are the pictures we see in our mind?” I asked my professor. “What happens when we’re imagining something so deeply, we don’t even hear a friend speak to us from across a room?”
“Ah,” he said, gearing himself up into lecture mode. “That is the Alpha brainwave state.”
“But what happens?”
“Our brain’s electrical impulses slow into Alpha rhythm.”
“But what happens?”
“You sound like my six-year-old,” he said, moving so that his shoulder formed a barrier between us. “She’s why, why, why all the time. You must phrase your questions more academically, Miss Dare.”
I was twenty-four years old when I left Bangor with my honours degree. By then, I had decided I wouldn’t be Bren’s cunning apprentice. Herbalism was fascinating, but it wasn’t close enough to the things I wanted to explore. I was pulled to the very edges of my degree subject, the areas my teachers couldn’t tell me about. What are the pictures we see in our mind? What happens when we’re in a trance? Why do silly coincidences keep happening when we’re concentrating on one thing? Does a spirit world really exist? These were the questions running through my thoughts.
I went back to Bristol. The job at the residential home was waiting for me as if I’d never left it. I started an aromatherapy course in my spare time. I knew I only had to wait. Bren had come to me in my dreams when I’d needed him most, and I felt sure something would happen quite soon.
Gloria, on the other hand, had nearly exploded. “Why the devil are you cluttering up my spare bedroom again?” she kept asking me. “You should be using that degree, girl.”
Sometimes you’ve got to nudge the spirit world. In a New Agey magazine I spotted a small advertisement for a therapeutic shaman. At that point, I didn’t even know what that was, but I rang him anyway, because something had been bothering me.
“I keep dreaming about otters,” I had said. “I’m hoping someone can tell me why. I don’t know anything about them. Actually, I’ve never even seen one alive, but last week, a lady was admitted to the residential home I work at, and she wanted to bring this stuffed animal in a case with her. I thought it would be gross, but it was so beautiful. I wante
d to tell her I was dreaming about an otter, but I couldn’t quite manage it.”
“Just one?” the shaman had asked.
“Sort of. It keeps saying its name is Trendle.”
“It’s good to take notice of coincidences and connections,” he’d said. “You’d better come and see me.”
Coincidences and connections. Nudging the spirit world to show itself. That’s what I needed to do now, if I was to make sense of Cliff.
I wondered about the way I’d recorded essential words and phrases on pieces of card in a bid to understand Marianne’s spirit world. That had seemed to work, sort of. In the spare bedroom were the rest of the Christmas cards I’d saved from last year. I’d kept them with the intention of up-cycling them into new Christmas cards, but hey, it was only March; plenty of time yet.
Half an hour later, there were bits of cut-up Christmas card spread like a hand of solitaire over my kitchen worktop. A single detail was printed on the plain back of each one in red felt-tip. I started with the children, trying to record everything I knew about Josh Sutton and Aidan Rodderick. I listed the four who had been found in the moors all those years ago: Matthew, Joanna, Nicolas, and John. I carried on, including everything that might have a bearing. The words swam in front of my eyes: Brokeltuft Cottage, Slamblaster, shaved heads and sacks of hair, catkins, cars, kidnappers, trees and signposts. Waterwheel, I wrote. Old Mill. I chewed my pen and used a card to describe the nameless man Cliff had seen in his dream … bulky, with a bristling beard and deep-set eyes. I noted the rest of the players: Cliff, Patsy, Caroline, Bella Rodderick, and Garth Stanford, even Josh’s family in Bristol. The woman in the car, whose name I might never know. As an afterthought I included Gary Abbott. As an after-afterthought I added Linnet and Rey, and my own name, on the understanding that everything connects to everything else.
I shuffled the cards around, put them in random order, then in columns and categories. Nothing shouted an answer. I stared down at the cards with their bright red words, perplexed. I’d left something out, but I couldn’t see what.
I yawned and stretched. The hens were already shut in for the night, and a good night’s sleep wouldn’t do me any harm, either. It might help me see connections and coincidences in a fresh light.
Even on Sundays, my mobile alarm goes off, in its spiteful fashion, at 6:30 a.m. No change there, then. I groaned, covered my eyes against the bedside lamp, and eventually fell out of bed and into my garden clothes. Yesterday, with all its strange turns, continued to weigh me down. I even had to pull off my joggers and put them on again. The pockets don’t work when they’re back-to-front.
I was feeding my remaining hens when I heard a gravelly voice behind me.
“Where’s the Cocky Bastard?”
On my lawn, hands on her hips, was my foster mother.
“Gloria! A fox got in. Saffron and Pettitgrain too.”
“When was this?”
She was glaring at me as if I was at fault. “I’m sorry I rushed off like that yesterday.”
“Gave me a sleepless night. I knew there was more to your mood than you were letting on. You should’ve told me about the fox.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I ran over to her and flung my arms around her neck. The tears I’d longed for began to pour and pour. I was so glad she’d come, because she’s the one person who can make everything better.
We sat on the bench outside my back door while I wiped away tears with the handkerchief Gloria passed me—one of Philip’s, as big and bright as a royal headscarf. “You didn’t drive all the way down from Bristol just to see me, did you?”
“Not quite,” said Gloria. “Philip’s still over at the caravan, so I’ve brought Charlene and the kids down for a seaside break without the seaside weather. I thought you might like to join us for a bite of lunch.”
“I’d love to. I’ve only got one client today, late this afternoon.”
“They do a nice Sunday roast in that pub by the caravan park. We might manage a walk.”
I glanced up at the sky. “It looks like rain.”
“That’s never put us off,” she said with a laugh.
I thought of my foster father, chivvying his lagging children over mile after mile of countryside. Philip had given me an early love of nature.
“So. You gonna tell me what’s up, girl? It isn’t just the hens, is it?”
Gloria is the only nonshamanic person I confide in. I know I can trust her to be discreet, but she doesn’t pull her punches and makes no secret of her opinion of what I do. She listened carefully while I spilled the beans but was shaking her head before I finished.
“I’ve been expecting this,” she said. “I never stop worrying that your job will attract oddballs like this chap.”
“He’s not an oddball, Gloria,” I said. “Whatever that is.”
“Someone who might end up blaming you for all their troubles, that’s what.”
I shook my head. “It’s all too awful for words. Cliff’s mother knows the family of the little boy who’s gone missing.”
“So Cliff must have known them too,” Gloria pointed out. “That’s not good. That’s hardly in his favour.”
I thought about that. “It’s circumstantial, like his solicitor says—the only sound evidence against him is Josh’s toy.”
“Sabbie, that’s not sound. That’s ironclad.”
“I don’t think so. That toy could have got into the flat by other means than Cliff’s own hand.”
Gloria frowned. “I’m not with you.”
I pulled off my wellies, stuffed my hands in them, and slammed the soles together to shake off the mud. “Thanks to Cliff’s obsession with Josh’s death, he was first arrested five days before Aidan was abducted. His flat was searched then, and that makes me wonder three things: Why ever would he take another child so quickly, when he knew the police would be watching him? And why didn’t that first search reveal the Slamblaster?”
“That’s two things,” said Gloria.
“I know. I’m coming to number three.” I shifted my bum on the bench, as if getting comfy would make my reasoning more concrete. “His arrest was in the paper. I checked back. It was in the local and national press. It was big news for about ten seconds, which surely would be long enough to give the actual killer a bright idea. I think that is why Aidan was taken so soon after Cliff’s release. It might even be why Aidan lives so close to Cliff. The killer waited for Cliff to be hauled back in, then he went to his flat and planted the toy. I don’t think Cliff’s fingerprints are on it. Only Josh’s.”
“Come on, Sabbie. The police would be prodding around that flat in seconds. When would someone have a chance to plant evidence?”
“Cliff came to see me as soon as he heard about the kidnapping on the news. Maybe the killer had time to get in.” But I couldn’t help remember the woman in the post office … they’ve taped it all up. Her gothic face loomed in my mind.
Gloria put a warm arm round my chilled shoulders. “Sabbie, when you’re caught up—obsessed—you don’t think clearly.”
“It’s a gut feeling. I am sure this man is innocent.”
“Okay, who would you put in his place?”
“I have a funny feeling about Josh’s father. But I don’t think the police should discount the original Wetland Murderer. No one caught him, the killings just stopped. Why shouldn’t he have started again?” I stared gloomily at the paving stones beneath my feet. Tiny weeds and blades of grass were forcing their way through the crack. A spasm passed through me, and Gloria felt it.
“This is spooking you. Forget it for the rest of the day and come back to the caravan.”
“You’re right, as usual. A nice rainy, windy walk will blow the spooks away.”
I went up into my bedroom. I brushed my hair and plaited it down my back out of the way, then searched for my walking
gear. I had no lightweight, breathable rainproof coat with detachable fleece lining, but I reckoned my charity shop find would keep me warm and dry, although it did make a strange crackling sound as I moved and had yellow stripes that glowed in the dark. My walking boots had not been cleaned in, well, ever, really. I had a pair of gloves, but they didn’t quite make a match. They were a left and a right, though, with a scarf to match the left one. I caught a glimpse in the mirror of a canary-coloured clown. My foster dad, who believed in the right clothes for the job, was going to despair.
I crackled down the stairs, leaving moulded jigsaw shapes of dried mud from my boots on every step. Gloria was in the kitchen, washing my supper things. She gave me another of her glaring looks.
“I was plum exhausted last night. I had clients straight through to almost nine. I just dropped into bed.”
“And look at this—all these cards written out here.” She waved a soapy hand. “That’s what I meant about becoming obsessed.”
“I did that last night—I was trying to get my thoughts in order.” I shuffled them some more. “Something’s missing. Stupid thing is, the more missing it is, the harder it is to spot.”
“You see?” said Gloria. “You’re worrying about him, getting involved with him, draining yourself.”
“I just I feel so inadequate.”
“You should keep out of things as much as you can. Even so, you’re gonna be called as a witness, sweetie.”
“I realize that. Miss Smith has asked me—”
“Not for the defence! Lord, once the prosecution gets wind of you, they’ll tear you apart. And if I was a juror, as far as I can see, everything you’ve told me so far would only convince me he was as guilty as hell.”
I slapped my gloved hands over my eyes. “It’s a mess. There are too many imponderables to take in all at once.”
Gloria grabbed my brush and dustpan and began to sweep the kitchen floor. “So let the proper authorities get on with it.”
“You mean Rey, don’t you—will you stop doing my housework, please? I’m perfectly capable.”
