by Jodi Taylor
They flashed up a photo of a pretty little girl with long dark hair worn in two plaits with pink ribbons.
‘Keira was wearing her favourite pink Frozen t-shirt and darker pink shorts. Being unfamiliar with the area, it’s feared she could have wandered off the housing estate and got lost. Her father raised the alarm last night when she didn’t come home for tea. Police began searching the area last night. Now, at sun up, they have been joined by many concerned locals.’
There was TV footage of lines of people spread out across wide meadows, their shadows long before them. Other people were poking in the grass verges, and police dogs with their handlers moved purposefully through the woods. Helicopters swooped overhead.
And then back to the reporter again. They were interviewing a neighbour, a young woman with a little girl, who was saying how shocked they all were. Her husband had joined in the search. ‘We moved here because we thought it was safe,’ she was saying, shaking her head and clutching her own daughter tightly. The little girl wriggled, but there was no way her mother was letting her go.
I stared at the screen, thinking, as everyone does, poor child. And poor parents. And offering up a prayer for a happy ending.
The reporter was interviewing another neighbour, a middle-aged man this time, who was telling him what a lovely child Keira had been – I noticed they were already speaking of her in the past tense – and how everyone had loved her. Turning to speak to someone else, the reporter moved slightly, revealing the street sign behind him. Meadowsweet Road.
I scrabbled for the remote and turned up the sound some more, listening for all I was worth, my mug of tea cooling in my hand.
The reporter was talking about the housing estate and its occupants.
‘Not even completed yet,’ he was saying. ‘Still several streets and the Community Hall to be built.’ Which led him neatly to the community as a whole, which, not unnaturally, was very shocked. There had been many volunteers both from the estate and the surrounding areas.
‘Less than one year old, Yew Tree Estate was intended to fulfil the need for affordable local housing. Many families have moved here from neighbouring towns, keen to bring up their families in what was supposed to be a safe, rural environment. There was, initially, some opposition to the houses being sited here – many locals feared for the safety of the old yew tree after which the estate is named ...’
The screen showed an ancient yew, stiff and bristly, its branches sweeping the ground.
‘… Environmental officers report that this tree has stood here for at least two hundred years, quite possibly much longer, but planners came up with the novel idea of enclosing the tree – which benefits from a Tree Protection Order – and turning it into a feature. Yesterday it was presiding over a happy area where families would picnic and play together. Today it is a different picture.’
There were more interviews with local people – a farmer, weather beaten and gnarled, two of his sons, not as weather beaten and gnarly as their father, but getting there, the child’s headteacher, the vicar – a fine specimen of muscular Christianity with a broken nose, and the elderly, red-faced publican, whose spectacular broken veins were visible, even on TV, and who was providing the refreshments for those involved in the search. The report closed with more shots of people searching a hedgerow and then they moved on to other headlines. I muted the sound, got up for a refill and stared out of the window, thinking hard.
Because now I really was on the horns of a dilemma. I should do something. At whatever the cost to myself, I should tell someone. But who? Who would believe me? If I rang the police and told them I’d had a dream and that I knew where the missing girl was, then their next question would be – so where is she, then? – and when I told them they would just hang up. They might even prosecute me for wasting police time. At the very least they’d assume I was some kind of nutter. They might even send round the men in white coats and I’d had enough of that last year.
But I couldn’t get the dream out of my mind. I was right. I knew I was right but how could I convince anyone else of little Keira’s location? No one would believe me and I really didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
But it’s a child, argued the other part of me. You’re not important in this. Only you can save her life.
But I don’t know anything for certain. It’s not as if I’ve actually seen anything with my own eyes. It’s just a dream and when I tell them that, no one will believe me.
Michael Jones would believe me but I didn’t know where he was. I hesitated for a moment and then rang his mobile. I rehearsed various greetings and opening sentences and was slightly annoyed to find I didn’t need any of them because his mobile was switched off. I fired off a quick email but it came back immediately marked ‘message undeliverable’. And I couldn’t wait – time was pressing.
I paced again. Jones would have been ideal. He had the authority to see this through. To make people listen. I toyed with the idea of telephoning the police from a local phone box, but then I’d just be another anonymous crank and time was passing. I paced again. There must be something I could do. All I had to do was think of it.
The answer came almost at once. There was someone out there with even more clout than Michael Jones. Someone who would believe me. Someone who could act. Someone who would actually be delighted to hear from me.
Dr Sorensen.
I felt a moment’s despair. Would I never be free of this man?
I’d only just managed to escape from his influence and if I went ahead with this then I would be voluntarily bringing myself to his notice again. By contacting him now I could be throwing away the freedom I’d gained. I’d worked so hard to hide what I could do. To live a normal life. Every instinct I had said no good would come of this. I would be walking right back into the lion’s den, but every human feeling I had said there could be no argument. There was a child’s life at stake. The most important thing was to save little Keira. Anything else could be dealt with later. It was my duty to inform the authorities. If they managed to save her then everything would have been worth it. And if I was wrong and she was subsequently discovered safely curled up in a neighbour’s garden shed, then all that had happened was that I’d made a colossal fool of myself. With, of course, the bonus of possibly convincing Sorensen that I didn’t know what I was talking about after all and was an enormous fake. Looked at like that it was a no-lose situation.
I took a deep breath and picked up the phone and dialled the clinic – a number I knew I’d never forget.
‘Sorensen Clinic, good morning.’
I made my voice firm. ‘Good morning. Dr Sorensen, please.’
‘I’m afraid Dr Sorensen is in a meeting and cannot be disturbed. Can I take a message?’
I’d been expecting this. Dr Sorensen was far too important to take unfiltered telephone calls.
I said, ‘Please tell him Elizabeth Cage called,’ and replaced the phone, wondering if I’d even have time to put the kettle on.
Only just, as it turned out. He rang back less than three minutes later.
‘Mrs Cage? Sorensen here. How are you?’
I didn’t waste time with pleasantries. I spoke slowly and clearly, trying to invest my voice with quiet authority.
‘Dr Sorensen, please listen very carefully. Time is important. I’m sure you will have seen on the news that a little girl is missing. Please use your authority to direct the searchers to look inside a very large and very old yew tree. It won’t be far away. The tree will be enclosed somehow.’ No need to tell him of its malevolence. Its spite. Its hatred for all things living. ‘The tree is hollow. The little girl is inside the tree. She is trapped and cannot get out. That is all I know. Goodbye.’
‘Wait! How do you know …?’
I put down the phone with a trembling hand, trying to convince myself I’d done a good thing, but wondering what on earth would happen next. Would he send someone for me? Would the police turn up? Would he come himself? What was h
e doing at this moment? Suppose he hadn’t believed me. Suppose he didn’t act on my information. What if I’d made a mistake? What if it was only a dream after all and I’d done all this for nothing?
I kept the TV on all morning, watching and listening for news. I had no idea what could be happening behind the scenes. I tried to imagine urgent telephone calls being made, decisions being taken at high level, but beyond that I hadn’t a clue. Always supposing he’d believed me in the first place.
I paced and paced and wished very much that Michael Jones was here with his casual common sense and matter of fact perspective. The TV chattered on. There were programmes about doing up houses, going to live abroad, discovering hidden treasures in your attic and absolutely nothing about finding the missing Keira.
I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t settle. I switched on my laptop but there was nothing on the news feeds. Surely they must have found her by now. It had been nearly two hours since my telephone call. The tree wasn’t that far away. Had I got it all horribly wrong? Had I sent everyone off in the wrong direction? Had I, in fact, distracted them from the real search and just made matters worse?
I was just getting to the stage where I was telling myself I’d done more harm than good and it was a shame I’d ever been born, when the phone rang. I was across the room in a flash. ‘Hello?’
‘Mrs Cage?’
Well, who did he think it would be?
‘Speaking.’
‘Philip Sorensen here. I thought you might like to know – they’ve found her.’
A great wave of relief rushed over me. I had to sit down quite quickly.
‘Where?’
His voice was quiet and unemotional. ‘Exactly where you said she would be.’
There was a long pause. I was too full of emotion to speak, experiencing a complicated mixture of gratitude and relief that they had found her, and fear for myself and the consequences of what I had done.
‘Well done, Mrs Cage, and thank you very much.’
I managed to say, ‘Is she all right?’
‘Exhausted and dehydrated, but alive.’
I whispered, ‘Thank God.’
‘Interestingly, she says the tree tried to eat her.’ He paused, inviting comment.
I had one last task to perform. I didn’t want to. Every word I spoke to him jeopardised the fragile peace I had built for myself, but it had to be done.
I tried to speak calmly but with certainty. ‘If you have authority of any kind, Dr Sorensen, have that tree destroyed. That tree must come down and make sure they grub out the stump. It is pernicious. The same thing has happened in the past. It will happen again.’
‘Mrs Cage, can you tell me how …?’
I hung up, leaned back and closed my eyes, suddenly feeling very cold and very alone.
Chapter Fourteen
The phone rang again about an hour later. I’d been expecting it but it made me jump just the same. I let it ring, still undecided about what to do. I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him. It was ungrateful I know, after all he’d done to find Keira Swanson, but I panicked. My instincts still told me to avoid this man.
The phone rang for a long time and then stopped. Ten minutes later it rang again. On and on. I knew I couldn’t do this
– I had to get out before he came knocking at my door. I grabbed my bag and keys and shot out of the front door. I couldn’t run away – I didn’t want to do that again – but I could do the next best thing which was to make myself scarce for a while. I’d go shopping. I didn’t need anything, but that’s not really the purpose of shopping, is it?
I wandered around Rushford, diving into shops as the fancy took me, doubling back on myself, and crossing the road at random intervals, just as I’d done at Christmas when I’d been trying to get away from Sorensen and Jones. I even found myself in that very odd sex shop at the end of Butt’s Passage – the one leading down to the river. It was all done out in red and black with some very strange items on display. I backed out, trying not to laugh. For some reason, an image of Michael Jones came to mind. I must remember to ask him if he was on their mailing list and enjoy his reaction.
It had lightened my mood, though, and I went off for a late lunch in a much happier frame of mind. The Copper Kettle was full, so I treated myself to crispy fried beef and two coffees at the Golden Dragon, emerging on a happy monosodium glutamate and caffeine high an hour later.
Rushford, unfortunately, is not a large town, and by late afternoon I’d covered most of it, and that included stopping for an ice cream in the park. I threw the wrapper in the bin and looked around. It would be dark soon. Lights were going on in people’s windows and the air was growing chilly. Sooner or later I was going to have to go home, and given my lifestyle these days, anything could be waiting for me on my doorstep.
And it was. There was someone lurking outside my house. The streetlight opposite showed a figure sitting on the top step talking to Colonel Barton over the railings. Not Sorensen – I could tell that from here. Not that he would ever sit on a doorstep anyway. And he certainly wouldn’t lurk. He had people to do that for him.
This was a familiar tall, skinny, slightly disreputable but wholly charming young man with a kind heart and dubious morals.
He turned as I approached, his silver colour bouncing all around him. ‘You called me.’
‘No, I don’t think I did.’
‘Well, not in so many words, but you called nevertheless.’
That might be true, actually. If agitation can be transmitted then I’d been broadcasting on all channels.
He held up a bottle of wine. ‘Tonight, we celebrate!’
I sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m in the mood.’
He held up the bottle again. ‘Tonight, we drown our sorrows!’
‘In fact, I think I might be in a lot of trouble.’
He held up the bottle again. ‘Tonight, we formulate our battle plan and drink to success!’
I gave up and put my key in the door. ‘Actually, I don’t have a problem with any of that. Come on in.’
He blew a kiss to Mrs Barton, sitting in her window waving at him. Colonel Barton harrumphed and slammed his front door behind him. Following me inside, Iblis sat at the table while I went to get glasses and a corkscrew. It occurred to me that having him here might be no bad thing if Sorensen did turn up. I’d be interested to see what they made of each other. And it wouldn’t do Sorensen any harm at all to know I did have some friends.
He poured two generous glasses. The last time I’d drunk wine had been at Christmas. I’d been warm and safe and very well fed and I’d sat on Jones’s lap and negotiated for the last chocolate brownie. The memory of that moment was always enough to send waves of heat washing over me – and not just with embarrassment. I’m not good at drinking alcohol. I don’t like to feel control sliding away from me. Sometimes things gather on the very edge of perception, just waiting for a way in … so I don’t drink very much. Tonight however, I was prepared to make an enthusiastic exception.
We toasted each other and I sipped. It was very good wine indeed. I should wonder where he’d got it from, but I rather felt I’d fulfilled my ethical duties for the day.
The phone rang.
I said, ‘Would you excuse me a moment, please,’ got up, and unplugged it.
He looked surprised. ‘Do we not want to be disturbed? Will this turn out to be the night I’ve been dreaming of?’
‘No.’
He grinned cockily. ‘We’ll see.’
I sipped again. One of the few good things about being with people who say the first thing that comes into their head is that they can hardly complain if you do likewise. On an impulse, I said, ‘You love Melek with everything you’ve got. Why are you bothering with me?’
He put down his glass and said nothing. His colour stopped bouncing around like an exuberant puppy and wrapped itself protectively around him instead.
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry. That was rude of me. I’ve not
had a very good day and I shouldn’t be taking it out on you. I’m sorry I said it.’
I don’t think he was listening. Not to me, anyway. He was staring at me but not seeing me, if you know what I mean.
‘I wish that, like you, I didn’t remember either.’
I was puzzled. What was he talking about. ‘What don’t I remember?’
‘You don’t know, do you?’
I shook my head. ‘What don’t I know?’
‘I forget how long ago it all was.’ He flashed me a small, sad, half smile that was even more attractive than ever. ‘Time tends to get away from me occasionally. I sometimes think if I ever stopped and thought about it … Time, I mean … It piles up behind us and we don’t realise it, and then, one day, we look over our shoulder and all that time is looming over us like a massive cliff, poised to fall at any moment … burying us alive in our memories.’
I shivered suddenly. His image had touched a nerve.
He emptied his glass in one swift movement and topped it up again.
I said softly, ‘Who are you?’
He pulled himself together and smiled, blindingly. ‘I told you. Iblis is my name.’ He waggled his eyebrows. ‘Women are my game.’
‘Oh, please,’ I said, totally unimpressed.
He laughed and his colour slowly began to unfurl.
I said nothing and he stopped laughing and stared at the table again.
‘You told me yourself that your name isn’t Iblis and women very definitely aren’t your game. Just one woman perhaps.’
He changed the subject. ‘Good work today, by the way.’
I didn’t even bother asking how he knew about that.
‘Although you should tell them to destroy that tree.’
‘Already done.’ And then the implications of his words got through. I sat back. ‘You knew about the tree?’
