Without a Trace

by Lesley Pearse

  Molly didn’t like Cassie saying her mother was pathetic, but she knew her friend had a point. Yet what could she do about it? What sort of a daughter would walk out and leave her mother alone with Jack?’

  She hoped so much that the police had already found Petal, and that the search tomorrow would be unnecessary, but that only solved one problem. Petal would still need to come to terms with the death of her mother and, unless close relatives could be found who were willing to take her in, she’d have to go to a children’s home. She remembered Cassie’s strong views on such places, the way her face would darken and her eyes flash. Molly wished she was in a position to take care of Petal. She couldn’t bear to think of how awful it was going to be for her.

  At five thirty the next morning around forty people were gathered outside the police station, ready for the search. It was still raining and quite cold, making everyone all too aware of how important it was to find Petal quickly. Molly was wearing her raincoat, sou’wester and wellington boots; it didn’t bear thinking about how badly the child would be faring if she was out there somewhere dressed only in shorts and a blouse.

  Molly knew everyone there. They were mostly men, including three or four who had joined her on the previous evening, but there were around ten women, too. Over half were the same people who always turned out when asked, whether to help at the village fete, tidy up the churchyard or raise funds. The rest were younger, in their late twenties and early thirties, and Molly knew almost all of them had young children themselves. Normally, a band of such volunteers would be laughing and chatting, but not this time. The seriousness of the situation was etched into the faces of each one; they were barely even speaking to one another.

  A police officer Molly didn’t know came out of the police station. He was tall and slender with a pock-marked face and a slightly hooked nose.

  ‘I’m Detective Inspector Girling,’ he said in a loud, clear voice. ‘Thank you all for turning out this morning. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how important it is to find this little girl. Half of you will be starting the search from the village, working up towards Stone Cottage. The other half will be driven up there by bus, and you will search the woodland area above and around the cottage.

  ‘You will not only be looking for Petal,’ he said, looking at each face in the crowd in front of him, ‘but for clothing, shoes, hair ribbons – anything, in fact, that either doesn’t belong in the woods or which looks out of place and suspicious to you. Should you find something, I ask that you don’t touch it but stay at the spot and call out to alert the officers searching with you. Does anybody have any questions?’

  The only question was about how long they would be searching, from someone who had to go to work later that morning. There was a hum of conversation at that, some saying they would search until Petal was found, however long that took.

  Molly had put some sandwiches, some water and an apple into her small haversack. She noted that most people had something similar. She had barely slept at all for imagining Petal alone and frightened out in the dark, but that image was preferable to the one of finding her dead in some undergrowth.

  A green-and-white coach drew up, and Molly was told to get on it, along with about twenty other people and some policemen, all of whom were strangers to her, because they had been drafted in from Bristol. There were dog handlers, too, but they were using their own transport to get themselves and the dogs to the cottage.

  The coach dropped them by the track down to Stone Cottage, because after that it was so narrow. It was even harder to walk on than it had been the previous day, because all the vehicles going to and from the cottage had churned up the mud.

  Molly was put into a group that was to go directly north, up behind the cottage. In her group was a man who had only moved into the village a couple of months ago. Customers had been talking about him in the shop; it was said he was a writer and a bachelor. His looks alone were enough to make women chatter, because he was tall and very nice-looking, with a mane of curly brown hair and lovely dark-grey eyes. At any other time Molly would have welcomed an opportunity to speak to him, but it seemed all wrong even to smile at him under such sad circumstances.

  The dog handler who was leading their group explained that they needed to remain within six feet of the people to the right and left of them as, that way, they could thoroughly search the area.

  ‘Don’t rush. Scan the ground for anything unusual. Rake through the undergrowth with your sticks,’ he said. ‘Disturbed ground, a shoe, a handkerchief or some other small thing could help us work out what happened here. Yell out if you do find something, but don’t pick it up or touch it.’

  Molly had brought a walking stick from home, as had many others. A walker had left it in the shop; it was a slender, lightweight, metal one with a spike on the end to get a grip in muddy conditions.

  They set off immediately. The new man was to her right; on her left was Maureen French, a middle-aged, rather horsey woman who sang with Molly in the church choir.

  The dog was very busy at first, going here and there, and sniffing wildly. Molly thought this must be because Petal had played close to the cottage and he was getting her scent strongly. But by the time they’d gone about a hundred yards into the woods the dog appeared to lose the scent. This wasn’t surprising, as Cassie had always told Petal not to go out of sight of Stone Cottage and, as the undergrowth was very thick – in places, really hard to get through – Molly couldn’t imagine a little girl with bare legs attempting to force her way in.

  ‘Tough going, isn’t it?’ the writer man said to her after about an hour. ‘I believe you know Petal well. Do you think it’s likely she would have come this way?’

  ‘Not if she was on her own, but then, if she was taken, the person might have carried her,’ Molly replied. ‘The police must know what they’re doing. By the way, I’m Molly Heywood. I don’t think we’ve met before.’

  ‘I’ve seen you in the grocer’s,’ he said, pausing for just a second and leaning on the stout stick he was carrying. ‘I’m Simon Fairweather.’

  At nine they stopped for refreshments in a field. Mr Henderson, a retired schoolteacher who lived close to the field, announced that they’d covered two miles. He had a pedometer and had measured the distance. ‘It seemed a lot further than that,’ Molly said, with some surprise. She knew the area pretty well, but she hadn’t ever walked right through the wood before to get to where they were now. ‘But then it was such hard going, climbing up one minute, then climbing down, and through all those brambles and shrubs.’

  ‘It didn’t look to me as if anyone had been through there in months,’ Mr Henderson said. ‘No broken branches or trampling underfoot. I saw a few tracks made by small animals, but nothing by a human.’

  ‘You trained in tracking under Chief Sitting Bull, then?’ Simon asked teasingly.

  Mr Henderson laughed good-naturedly. ‘Well, all those cowboy-and-Indian films I watched as a kid must have taught me something,’ he said.

  ‘Cassie used to take Petal out in the woods to find wood for the fire,’ Molly said. ‘They used to follow animal tracks. I went with them several times, but Petal hated being scratched. I don’t think she’d flee into thick undergrowth, not even if she was scared. She’d have run for the road.’

  ‘I think you’re right there,’ Simon agreed. ‘From what I’ve seen of Petal, I’d agree entirely.’

  ‘You knew her and Cassie then?’ Molly asked.

  Simon nodded. ‘I like walking, and I often do a circular walk, coming back past Stone Cottage. Cassie always spoke to me, offered me a drink or whatever. I stayed for supper with them once.’

  Molly thought it a little odd that Cassie had never mentioned him. Simon Fairweather was most definitely the kind of man you would mention meeting.

  ‘Did you go to the police and tell them that?’

  He looked startled, his grey eyes widening. ‘No. Well, why would I? I didn’t have a relationship with Cassie, it was o
nly the odd chat.’

  ‘But you must have formed an opinion about her, picked up little snippets that might be useful to the police?’

  He looked doubtful about that, and it crossed Molly’s mind that he may have had a bit of a fling with Cassie. She was very easy about sex. Just a couple of months ago she’d cheerfully admitted to having sex in a field with a man she’d met an hour before in the library.

  ‘Don’t worry. It was a one-off.’ Cassie had laughed at her friend’s shocked expression. ‘He didn’t have a clue, and I didn’t like him enough to coach him.’

  Remembering that admission made Molly wonder if she should tell the police about it; she didn’t want to portray Cassie in a bad way but that man could be her killer.

  ‘I think you ought to talk to the police, Simon,’ she said. ‘I keep remembering little things that may or may not be important. One thing I was just reminded of is a bit embarrassing, but I think I ought to pass it on.’

  ‘Someone she slept with?’ he asked.

  ‘Umm …’ Molly hung her head.

  ‘I didn’t sleep with her,’ Simon said. ‘I liked her, but that was all.’

  Molly felt she believed him. ‘What did you talk to her about?’

  Simon smiled. His eyes were very twinkly and she noticed he had lovely full lips. ‘About books, mostly. I write, you see, got my first book published last year. Cassie wanted to know all about it.’

  Molly remembered then that Cassie had said she met a man she talked about books to. For some reason, Molly had assumed he was elderly; she certainly hadn’t considered that it could be the writer so many women in the village gossiped about. ‘Tell me about it. What kind of book is it?’

  ‘It’s a thriller called “Shadows”. It didn’t exactly set the world alight, but I’m just doing the final editing on a second one, which I hope might.’

  Molly liked the light way he spoke; he didn’t seem to take himself too seriously.

  They set off on the search again then, circling round an hour later so that they came back to Stone Cottage soon after one. The other search parties arrived back a short while later, everyone looking very wet and weary. DI Girling got them to gather round so he could speak to them.

  ‘We’ve covered a vast area this morning, far further than it would be possible for a six-year-old to walk, and we have found nothing to prove that Petal has been in that area. Thank you all for your help, and, although I know many of you were intending to continue searching until Petal is found, we need to stop for now while I reconsider what needs to be done. We will call on you should we need to conduct another search.’

  Simon looked at Molly, and shrugged. ‘He’s right. She couldn’t have walked beyond the area we searched.’

  ‘Then that means she was taken,’ Molly said, tears springing involuntarily to her eyes. ‘I just wish there was something more I could do.’

  Simon reached out and put his hand on her arm in sympathy. ‘Me, too,’ he agreed. ‘Will you introduce me to one of the cops you know so I can tell them I knew Cassie a bit?’

  ‘I’ll take you to George Walsh,’ she agreed. ‘He interviewed me last night, and he’s a good sort.’

  George Walsh had been in a different group to them. When she went over to speak to him he took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. Molly introduced Simon, explaining that he’d known Cassie.

  ‘I think you might be the right people to help out the DI,’ George said. ‘Just wait here while I have a word with him. I know the others are going to get the coach back to the village, but someone will run you back down later.’

  ‘What do we know that might help the DI?’ Simon asked Molly as PC Walsh walked away.

  ‘Just stuff Cassie told us, I suppose, but I could murder a cup of tea, so I hope he doesn’t keep us long,’ she replied.

  After speaking to DI Girling, PC Walsh left with the others, walking up the track to the lane and the waiting coach. DI Girling came over to Molly and Simon.

  ‘I hear you both knew Cassie quite well and have been in her home. PC Walsh thought you could help by looking around it and seeing if you notice anything missing, something that wouldn’t normally be there, or anything that doesn’t seem right. Miss Heywood, I believe you were very close to Miss March and her daughter, so maybe you could tell if any clothes or toys have been taken?’

  Molly was very apprehensive as she stepped into Stone Cottage. Cassie’s body had been taken away, but the bloodstain on the floor by the fireplace was still there and immediately brought back all the shock, fear and revulsion she’d felt when she found Cassie the previous day.

  Simon and DI Girling stayed downstairs looking around, and Molly went upstairs. She pulled out the drawers in the chest next to Petal’s bed first.

  As neither Cassie nor Petal had a great many clothes, it didn’t take long to go through them. She checked the laundry basket, too, to make sure that anything she thought was missing wasn’t in there.

  ‘I’d say some underwear, socks and a red cardigan has been taken,’ Molly said to DI Girling when she’d finished and was walking back down the stairs. ‘Also, a red-and-white spotted dress with short sleeves, and I can’t see Petal’s red shorts anywhere, so my guess is that she was wearing those, ready to change into her Britannia costume. Are her yellow raincoat and wellingtons still here?’

  ‘I haven’t seen them,’ the policeman responded. ‘There’s a scruffy, off-white adult raincoat on the hook by the back door. Is that Miss March’s?’

  ‘Yes, and Petal’s yellow coat is usually next to it. So she must be wearing that. It doesn’t look like Petal ran out of here in fright, does it? No six-year-old picks up a change of clothing, including clean socks, do they? I doubt Petal would even think to put on her coat.’

  ‘Umm! Yes, you’re right there,’ DI Girling said thoughtfully. He took a notebook from his pocket and wrote down the items she’d identified as missing. ‘Can you think of anything else that might be missing?’

  ‘I can’t see her toy dog, a floppy, brown-and-white thing, she used to cuddle it when she was tired, or if you read to her. Cassie never let her take it to the shops or anywhere like that, it had to stay on her bed.’

  Simon came over to Molly. ‘Did you see Cassie’s diary up there?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t there,’ she said.

  Simon looked at DI Girling. ‘Have the police already found it and taken it away?’

  DI Girling looked suddenly more animated. ‘There was no diary on the list of items which were taken away. What was it like?’

  ‘Big, seven by ten inches, I’d say, a dark-blue leather cover with a metal clasp. It was a five-year one, and Cassie said she wrote it up every day.’

  ‘Where did she keep it?’ DI Girling asked.

  ‘I saw it on the table when I came for a meal one evening,’ Simon said.

  ‘It was mostly on the dresser,’ Molly said, going over to it and looking in the drawer. ‘Cassie told me that maybe she’d use it one day as a basis to write a book.’

  ‘She said that to me, too.’ Simon nodded. ‘We used to talk a lot about writing when I came by. She asked me how you know where to begin a book, and whether it’s better to write in the first person or the third.’

  ‘Did she let you read any of the diary?’ DI Girling asked Simon.

  ‘Oh no, she hated the idea of anyone looking at it,’ Simon said firmly. ‘She struck me as a very private person. She said once that, if she did ever write a book, the most daunting thing for her would be getting someone to read it when she’d finished to give a critique.’

  DI Girling turned to Molly. ‘Did she say anything about her diary to you?’

  ‘Only that writing down what happened to her helped her rationalize things. She said she wrote down stuff like people being nasty to her because she was an unmarried mother with a mixed race child. She said that seeing it on the page made it clear to her that they were ignorant and bigoted, and they were to be pitied. Sh
e claimed that stopped her hurting.’

  DI Girling looked a bit bemused at that. ‘She kind of put her head on the chopping block coming to live here in an all-white area, didn’t she?’ he said. ‘Now, if she’d gone to live in Bristol, no one would’ve turned a hair. Did she ever say why she came here?’

  ‘I got the idea she wanted to hide away,’ Simon said. ‘Did you get that idea, too, Molly?’

  Molly nodded. ‘Yes, she was a bit of a hermit. She’d go into Bristol once a week on the bus, and in the school holidays she’d take Petal to Wells, or Bath, but the rest of the time she was just here in the cottage. She grew vegetables, she’d cook, knit and read. She didn’t even have a wireless.’

  ‘What did she live on? Did she ever say?’

  ‘Very little,’ Molly said. ‘She had to count every penny. She had a cleaning job in Bristol, and that’s why she went there every Thursday. She usually came into the shop for food after she got back, too.’

  ‘Did she tell you who she worked for?’

  ‘No, and I never asked,’ Molly said. ‘I did think it was funny that she dressed up to go there, though.’

  ‘What do you mean, “dressed up”?’

  ‘Well, she looked really smart, glamorous even: a tight skirt, her hair up and high heels. If I was doing a cleaning job, I’d go in my oldest clothes.’

  ‘Did you ask her about it?’

  ‘I teased her,’ Molly said. ‘I said she was the smartest cleaner I’d ever seen. She just laughed and said she had an overall and some plimsolls in her bag but she liked to make out she was going somewhere lovely.’

  ‘So she might have been lying and, in reality, she was meeting a lover who gave her money?’