by Dani Atkins
‘The volunteers are all gathered over there,’ informed the liaison officer, pointing to a large crowd of people gathered some distance away from the tabled area.
My jaw fell open in surprise. ‘Who are all those people? Where did they come from?’
‘They’re our neighbours, and friends,’ said Dad sadly, receiving a comforting hand on his shoulder from the liaison officer, who I suddenly decided I liked very much indeed. She was just what he needed right then.
‘I should go and join them,’ he said, taking a few shaky steps away from the car. My look of horror was mirrored by Richard, who had been standing to one side while I spoke to my father.
‘No, Bill,’ said the policewoman gently. ‘Remember, we agreed that wasn’t such a good idea. You need to stay here at the car with me, then when we find Frances I’ll be able to drive you straight to her, rather than having to track you down from somewhere out in the field.’
My dad gave an answering nod. Thank God he was willing to listen to the officer, because he scarcely looked strong enough to support himself right now, much less go hiking over the fields searching for his missing wife. He looked over at Richard. ‘Thank you for bringing Emma to me, lad. I knew she’d be all right if she was with you.’
I looked across at Richard, waiting for him to lash into me with his words and the truth. Wasn’t it exactly what I deserved?
‘Yes. She was with me all along, Bill. I told you I’d bring her back.’
‘Why don’t you two go and join the volunteers?’ suggested my dad’s new police companion. ‘They’re going to be assigning search areas and you’ll need to hear what you have to do.’
We nodded our agreement and walked swiftly across the rough grass to the accumulated crowd in silence.
‘Thank you for saying that,’ I said gratefully, as I scanned the crowd looking for, and finding, a tall solitary figure who was standing a small distance apart from the others. I began to turn towards him.
‘Yeah, whatever,’ Richard replied bitterly, moving to join the opposite side of the crowd.
Before addressing the group at large, the officer in charge took me to one side and quickly ran through the progress of the search so far and how they proposed to proceed. I hoped that Jack, who was standing beside me, with his arm comfortingly around my shoulders, was listening, because I struggled to decipher anything that was being said from the depths of the panic which was threatening to consume me. From the officer’s words I did manage to work out that while the group of gathered volunteers tackled the vast rural and wooded area close to our home, numerous policemen were conducting door-to-door enquiries and searching gardens. He informed me that no road accident victims had been brought into any of the local hospitals in the last six hours, which I supposed was meant to comfort me, but just made me worry that Mum might still have been struck by a vehicle in the dark, and be lying injured beside the road. I suddenly saw an image of Amy in my mind, and glanced up at Jack. From the way he gripped my hand in comfort, I knew he was thinking exactly the same thing.
I realised pretty early on that the police didn’t really expect any of the volunteers to actually find my mother. The dogs and handlers already had a head-start on the long snaking chain of volunteers. Nevertheless, we followed instructions and fell into place behind the small group of officers who remained some fifty metres or so ahead of us. In a slow-moving procession we crossed the rough open grassland, which was still sodden from the rainfall of the previous night, every pair of eyes staring fixedly at the ground.
The tracker dogs were haring forward at considerable speed, so I guessed they’d not managed to pick up a trail. Or did that mean the exact opposite? I suddenly wished I’d paid closer attention to all those forensic crime shows on television, because I really had no idea what any of us were looking for as we scoured the ground for some nameless clue, which I probably wouldn’t recognise even if I saw it. Perhaps Jack, given the nature of his writing, had a better grasp of what was going on, but despite the fact that he was walking beside me, his hand firmly gripping mine, it felt as though there was a deep chasm opening up between us.
With each stumbling step I took over the long wet grass, I could feel the heavy weight of guilt prising me from him like a crowbar. If I hadn’t stayed at his house, would Mum still have gone missing? Had she found my bed empty and left the safety of our home to go looking for me? Or, going back to the very beginning, if I’d just stayed with Richard, if I’d never broken off our engagement, would that have changed the events of today? They were impossible questions, and I was so afraid that if I opened my mouth to speak, I was going to ask them out loud; it seemed safer to remain silent.
‘It’s going to be all right. We’re going to find her,’ said Jack eventually, bringing my hand up to his lips and kissing my knuckles as though to seal his promise. But even his touch, which I’d always been helpless to resist, failed to comfort or reach me this time. This was the flip side of the happiness I had felt last night. This was the price tag, and suddenly the cost felt far too steep.
‘You don’t know that. You can’t know that. She could be anywhere. She could be lying unconscious in a ditch… she could be hurt… someone could have taken her…’ Each possibility was more horrible than the last, and a look of concern crossed Jack’s face at my torment and his inability to ease it.
‘Emma! Emma!’
I spun around at the familiar voice, calling me from some distance away. It wasn’t what I’d been praying for; it wasn’t someone telling me that Mum had been found, safe and well, but it was the next best thing. I broke free from Jack’s hand and ran back over the grass to Caroline and Nick who were making their way towards the group of volunteers, both carrying large flat objects which were impossible to identify from so far away. Whatever it was she was carrying, Caroline laid it down on the grass and ran to me.
I fell into her outstretched arms with enough speed to knock the air from both of our lungs. She let me cry for a minute into the quilted material of her jacket before delving into her pocket and producing a folded tissue which she passed to me.
‘How are you holding up?’ she asked, scrutinising me carefully when I’d finished noisily blowing my nose.
‘I’m okay. Or I will be, when we find her.’
Caroline nodded, but there was a small worried expression on her face. She looked over my shoulder, as her attention turned to the figure who had followed me.
‘Hi, Jack.’
I turned, and saw that his fleeting smile of greeting was tempered by a look of anxiety at my distress.
‘Don’t you worry about me, I’ll manage both trays,’ interrupted Nick, bringing some much-needed normality to the moment with his gentle sarcasm. He had picked up whatever Caroline had been holding, and was now manfully struggling to carry two enormous trays of take away beverages, bearing the familiar logo of our local coffee shop.
‘Here, let me,’ said Jack, stepping over and relieving him of one of the trays.
‘Thanks,’ said Nick gratefully. ‘I’m Nick, by the way, Caroline’s partner,’ he added by way of introduction. ‘I’d shake your hand, but…’ He nodded toward the loaded tray in explanation.
‘That’s okay. I’m Jack.’
‘He knows who you are,’ a voice cut in sharply. I jumped. I hadn’t seen Richard leave his place in the line of volunteers and join us. There was an ugly moment, which fortunately Caroline rescued by going over and hugging Richard in greeting. I saw her whisper something furiously into his ear before she stepped out of his arms, and his lips tightened stiffly in reaction to her words.
Surprisingly, it was Nick once again who brought the awkward moment to a close. ‘Shall we pass out these drinks to the volunteers then, before they get cold?’
‘Yes, of course, why don’t you two guys do that?’ suggested Caroline, effectively dispatching Nick and Jack off on a mission. There was a long uncomfortable moment when only the three of us remained, staring at each other.
&nbs
p; ‘Do you two want to have a word in private—’ Caroline began, only to be cut off by Richard and me crying out, ‘No!’ in complete unison. It was the first time we’d been in agreement about anything for weeks.
Richard took one last look at me, his face giving away none of his emotions, before announcing sharply, ‘I’m going back to the line.’ I could tell from the set of his shoulders as he stomped away that he was lividly angry and desperately hurt in equal measure.
‘Richard found you at Jack’s then?’
‘Oh yes,’ I said bitterly, as we briskly walked back to rejoin the volunteers.
Caroline took my hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry. He was absolutely desperate trying to find you, and your dad was going crazy. I had to tell him.’
‘No, it’s okay. I understand,’ I replied.
‘It wasn’t awkward, or anything?’ she asked.
In a few terse sentences I recounted the moment when Richard had come perilously close to catching a private porno of his ex-fiancée having sex in the kitchen with another man.
‘Shiiit!’ exclaimed Caroline on a low drawn-out exclamation. She was quiet for a moment, considering. ‘Still, Project-Make-Richard-Jealous certainly appears to have worked,’ she concluded.
I raised my head from my study of the grassland, to refute her words and tell her the reality had been nothing like that, only to find that Jack had silently joined us, empty coffee tray in hand. It took just a single glance at his frozen shocked face to know he had clearly heard everything Caroline had just said.
Fortunately, our attention was diverted at that moment by a helicopter circling overhead. It hovered for a moment or two above the assembled crowd before swooping off in the direction of the forest.
‘It has to be bad if they’ve brought in a helicopter,’ I said grimly.
‘Not necessarily,’ commented Nick, who had just finished distributing his own tray of drinks. ‘It’s just another of their resources. It’s good that they’re taking it seriously.’
I stared at the retreating aircraft, far from comforted to realise that the search was escalating into a full-blown police operation. And if I needed further evidence of that, I saw it in the ambulance, blue lights flashing, which had just joined the parked vehicles at the edge of the field.
I felt all colour drain from my face. ‘Have they found her?’ My voice was a terrified whisper. ‘What’s the ambulance for?’
‘I’ll go and find out,’ promised Jack, kissing me briefly on the cheek before running off to the line of police officers who were now some distance ahead of the rest of the crowd.
‘He really does seem to care about you,’ Caroline said quietly, when he was gone.
‘I can’t think about that now. I can’t think about anything. Not until Mum’s found.’
‘I know,’ she said, reaching down and squeezing my hand. I curled my fingers around her own gloved ones, and felt an unfamiliar hard edged object pressing against the wool on her ring finger. My eyes went to hers, but she just shook her head gently, dismissing her own monumental news. ‘That can also wait until after your mum has been found,’ she said softly. I don’t think I have ever loved or valued her as much as I did right at that moment.
Jack was back in just a few minutes with an update. He’d run there and back, yet was barely out of breath. ‘The ambulance is just there as a precaution, for when they find her.’ I think we all noticed his deliberate emphasis on when rather than if. ‘They’ve not had any luck yet in the streets near your house, so they’re widening the search. The hospitals still have no news… which is good.’
None of it sounded good to me. It all sounded terrible. And it was about to become even worse, as Caroline noticed the arrival of a large sign-written van which pulled up beside the ambulance. ‘Terrific. Bloody vultures. Doesn’t take them long to get wind of something, does it?’
I peered back at the van, which bore the insignia of the local television station, and saw three people pile out of it. One was carrying a camera, and another a long sound boom. ‘Must be a slow day for news when a frightened lost woman, suffering from dementia, makes the six o’clock,’ I said bitterly.
‘I guess it’s because of the wedding and the crash and everything,’ Caroline hazarded, and I knew she was probably right. Our private and personal tragedy had been all over the local papers for several weeks, and now this new horrible instalment just added to the story.
Our progress was slow, but eventually we reached the edge of the dense forest, and the officers efficiently broke the large group up into smaller segments, giving us each a pathway to follow. Mum had now been missing for at least nine hours, and it was hard to concentrate on anything except how cold, tired and hungry she must be, wherever she was.
Jack took my arm as we entered the forest, where the ground was uneven and slippery with mud. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw Caroline and Nick close behind us on the path. Suddenly a fleeting movement caught my eye and when I peered through the trees I saw Richard, heading back towards the car park area at speed.
‘Where’s he off to in such a hurry?’ asked Nick, to no one in particular.
I shrugged, and turned my attention back to not being hit in the face by the many low overhanging branches in the forest, as I followed Jack’s broad shape down the slippery slope. The police had thought it unlikely that Mum would have ventured into the forest, but I knew better. Painting a vista through a curtain of branches had been a trademark feature in many of her pieces of work, and even though she no longer painted anything like that, she still enjoyed long walks through the forest, whatever the weather. This was just the sort of area that would have attracted her.
We had one unpleasant moment as we ventured deeper into the shadowy forest when somehow the news team and some reporters from the local paper and radio station managed to locate us among the trees.
‘Could we just get a brief statement from you, Miss Marshall?’
I shook my head and turned away.
‘Is this something your mother has done before? How is your father coping at the moment?’
I lowered my head and increased my pace, trying to outrun them with their intrusive questions.
‘Is she a danger to herself? Or to anyone else?’ asked a sharp-voiced female reporter. I froze and could feel the fury crystallising on my face as I began to turn around. Jack quickly intervened. He caught my wrist and met my glance with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. ‘I’ll get rid of them,’ he said quietly, stepping past me to stand directly in front of the small pack of journalists, effectively creating an imposing wall with his height and breadth.
‘Look, guys, I know you’re only doing your job, but now is not the best time for a comment. I’m sure later on, if Mrs Marshall is still missing, we’re going to really need your help and support in getting the public involved in the search. But right now, let’s just be decent human beings here and give the family a little space.’
With slightly embarrassed nods, the band began to disperse and head out of the forest and back to the field. The sharp-voiced female reporter was the last to go, and before she did she turned her full attention on Jack, her eyes narrowing. ‘Are you Jack Monroe, the author?’ she fired in eager anticipation, her eyes glittering at the prospect that a visiting celebrity might somehow be involved in the unfolding story.
Jack shook his head and lied incredibly convincingly. ‘No. I’m not. Although I get that quite a lot, so I guess we must look alike.’
‘Thank you,’ I said gratefully when Jack resumed his position in front of me on the path, after checking the journalists had definitely gone. ‘I hadn’t thought that we might need to have them onside later.’
‘Well, let’s hope we don’t,’ he added grimly. ‘Either way, it never pays to piss off the press.’
A short time later, we had a heart-stopping moment when I thought we had actually found something. We were much deeper in the forest by then, where very little natural light succeeded in pierc
ing through the canopy of trees. The path was narrow and beside it was a steep embankment, at the bottom of which ran a vigorously flowing stream.
‘Watch your step here,’ cautioned Jack, extending his arm in case I needed to hold on to it. I glanced down the embankment and saw something small and yellow at the very base of the slope. Something that looked to be the exact same colour as my mum’s favourite scarf. I caught hold of Jack’s sweatshirt sleeve and pointed wordlessly towards the foot of the embankment.
‘What is it?’ he asked, bending his head closer to mine and following where I was indicating.
‘There’s something down there, something yellow… I think it’s Mum’s scarf.’
Without stopping to consider the dangerous descent, Jack left the path and began to climb down. The sides were steep, with very few handholds and his feet slipped several times on the muddy surface, causing the breath to catch in my throat until he had once more gained purchase.
I peered as far over the edge as I could, without going down the embankment myself, in a far less controlled manner than Jack was doing. Caroline and Nick came to stand on either side of me, Caroline linking her arm through mine. Jack disappeared from view behind a thicket of bushes, and I felt a moment of panic. What if it wasn’t just her scarf down there? The undergrowth was thick and bushy, plenty dense enough to conceal a body.
Jack climbed back up the slope so silently I didn’t even know he was there until the foliage rustled and he hoisted himself back up beside me. He shook his head regretfully, holding in his hands the bright yellow item which had caught my attention. It was a child’s toy dog, the yellow fur threadbare in places and saturated from its time in the stream. I held out my hand and took the sodden item from him, as tears began to course down my face.
‘I know this sounds stupid, but when I was a little girl Mum and I had a favourite story she would read to me. It was about a boy who’d lost his favourite cuddly toy, a dog.’ My voice cracked. ‘It looked just like this one.’
Jack enfolded me into his arms and I wept noisily into his sweatshirt, while Caroline and Nick stepped to one side and tried very hard to pretend they weren’t there at all. Jack had just quietened the sobs down to hitching whimpers when the sound began. It pierced the late-afternoon hush with a strident familiar two-tone wail. A siren from one of the emergency vehicles was sounding. My head jerked away from Jack’s chest like a snared animal. A second siren joined its voice to the first, and then three long klaxon-like sounds from a car’s horn, repeated over and over again.
