The Secret

by Ruth Thomas

  ‘It’s hard going over the pebbles,’ said John. ‘I wouldn’t think they’d get far.’

  They drove on for another mile. ‘I can’t see them going any further than this, can you?’ said Mike. ‘There’d be no fun in it.’

  ‘I’d like to go on the beach for a minute,’ said Mr Nelson, to John and Mike.

  The beach was as the policemen had said. Every step over those pebbles was a labour. ‘You’re right,’ said Mr Nelson. ‘They wouldn’t have come as far as this. Not along the beach.’

  ‘And we didn’t see them on the road,’ said Mike.

  ‘We’ll crawl back and keep looking,’ said John. ‘If they are on the beach somewhere, we can’t miss them.’

  There were not many people on the pebbly beach at all. There didn’t start to be a lot of people again until they came to the promenade at Easthaven.

  The crowd of parents waiting outside the school was noisy and excitable. A cheer arose as the late coach turned the corner. ‘Have you found them?’ said Mrs Morris, getting it muddled, although she knew really that Mr Nelson had stayed behind to look.

  ‘Where’s Miss Powell?’ said Mr Hunt, embarrassed about having to look any of the parents in the face.

  ‘Inside by the phone,’ said someone.

  ‘I hope you behaved yourself,’ said Mrs Morris to Eric.

  ‘Of course!’ said Eric, as though he never did anything else.

  ‘If I’d knowed that Mr Hunt wasn’t properly responsible, I’d have made time to come myself,’ said Mrs Morris, who was actually feeling quite guilty about not giving up her time to do that anyway. The letters sent home two Fridays ago, asking parents’ permission for their children to be taken on the outing, had also asked which parents would be willing to help. Mrs Morris had thought about it, but Wednesday was her day for turning out the bedrooms, which made it inconvenient to help with the outing.

  ‘Well done!’ said Miss Powell, inside. ‘Got shot of that little monster at last!’

  ‘It’s no joke,’ said poor Mr Hunt.

  ‘How did you manage it? We’ve all been trying for years!’

  ‘A special talent obviously,’ said Mr Hunt. ‘A gift!’

  ‘Don’t you wish you’d stayed behind, like me?’ said Miss Powell.

  ‘Fervently,’ said Mr Hunt. ‘Come on . . . the million dollar question . . . has the mother been told?’

  Miss Powell looked a bit uncomfortable ‘Actually—’

  ‘Actually, what?’

  ‘Well, it’s probably nothing.’

  ‘What’s probably nothing?’

  ‘Well – Nellie rang through to say he was at the police station, and why, and it was before half past five so I tried Mrs Mitchell’s work number. No home phone, as you probably know. And they say she hasn’t been to work all week! Or last week, I think they said.’

  ‘She’s got the ’flu,’ said Mr Hunt.

  ‘Well, that might explain it, but—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t take it seriously at the time. I mean, I didn’t think it exactly warranted urgent action. But now I’m beginning to wonder—’

  ‘Wonder what?’

  ‘Oh – some old busybody came up here this morning, babbling something. Senile, I thought, poor old thing. . . . But it is a bit surprising that Mrs Mitchell hasn’t heard it on the grapevine anyway, about her kids – and come haring up the school. To tear us limb from limb.’

  ‘I shall tear you limb from limb in a minute,’ said Mr Hunt, ‘if you don’t come to the point.’

  ‘Yes . . . well . . . you may have gathered I’m a bit embarrassed about it. That I didn’t take more notice. When the batty old crow said she thought Mrs Mitchell isn’t in the house. At all.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Roy and Nicky have been living on their tods for a week, she seems to think.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘So you see, you may not be the only person who made a mistake today, mate!’

  Mr Hunt pressed the Mitchells’ doorbell.

  ‘Are you ringing for Nicky’s mum?’ said Eric, who had come out to see the fun.

  ‘No, I’m ringing for the Queen of Sheba,’ said Mr Hunt.

  ‘Nicky’s mum’s got the ’flu,’ said Eric.

  ‘So we’ve all been told,’ said Mr Hunt.

  ‘Isn’t it true then?’ said Eric.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to find out,’ said Mr Hunt.

  ‘Perhaps she’s asleep.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Shall we break a window, and climb in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shall we call the police?’

  ‘Which house does the batty old crow live in?’ said Mr Hunt.

  ‘Who?’ said Eric.

  ‘All right. The one round here that knows it all.’

  ‘There!’ said Eric. ‘Can I listen?’

  ‘No. Go back to your house. It must be your bedtime or something.’

  Mr Hunt rang Mrs Williams’s doorbell. ‘I’m Nicky Mitchell’s teacher. How do you do?’

  ‘Not too bad considering. What is it then?’

  ‘You haven’t heard what happened? On the outing?’

  The one afternoon she didn’t spend at her front gate! What had she missed? What had she missed?

  ‘No. What?’

  Mr Hunt could see she was a bit put out. ‘From what I hear, you’re the only one round here with half a grain of sense,’ he flattered her. ‘So I’m sure you’ll be the one to help find out what’s been going on.’

  ‘Some people think I’m a silly old fool,’ said Mrs Williams. ‘But I’m not. . . . What happened to them two little perishers then?’

  ‘Disappeared,’ said Mr Hunt.

  ‘I’m not a bit surprised,’ said Mrs Williams.

  ‘Would you like to tell me why you said that?’ said Mr Hunt.

  Mrs Williams told. All she knew, and a few additions she couldn’t help making up, just to make the story more interesting.

  ‘Right! Now will you come with me in my car and tell the police?’

  Mrs Williams could hardly believe her luck.

  ‘Can I come, Sir?’ said Eric, still lurking on the pavement.

  ‘You can mind your own business,’ said Mr Hunt.

  15

  A walk into trouble

  ‘I’M TIRED,’ SAID Roy, for the hundredth time.

  ‘All right,’ said Nicky. ‘We can have another little rest now.’ She looked up at the cliffs behind her. ‘There’s no cars going along the top. I don’t think there’s any road there now . . . and nobody on this beach only us! I never was anywhere else before, where there was only us, were you, Roy?’

  ‘I wonder if they did all forget us,’ said Roy. ‘Mr Nelson, and the coach, and everybody. I wonder if they all forgot by now.’ He felt very forgotten, out here on this deserted beach. Out here it was easy to believe that nobody in the world cared about him and Nicky. That they had all gone back to their safe and cosy homes, and not cared a bit. ‘I don’t like it here,’ he said.

  ‘You’re not supposed to like it, you’re supposed to do it.’

  ‘We should have gone by the road. Why didn’t we go by the road?’

  ‘If we went by the road we could get lost. This is more better.’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘We have to find Mum, you know we do.’

  ‘We aren’t going to find her,’ said Roy.

  ‘Yes we are,’ said Nicky. ‘Don’t argue. When we had a rest, we’re going to walk along this beach until we come to Southbourne. It’s not far, I saw it on the map.’

  ‘We come a long way already.’

  ‘Well that proves it!’ said Nicky. ‘It can’t be much further. We must be nearly there.’

  ‘I feel as if someone knocked me over the head,’ said Mr Nelson, ‘with the proverbial sledge-hammer!’

  The London police had phoned the Easthaven police, and now Mr Nelson was struggling to come to terms with this astounding
new development. ‘How the devil did they get away with it? How the devil did they pull the wool over everybody’s eyes? Well anyway, there’s got to be a connection, hasn’t there? Two kids alone in a house, and now the same two go missing! Wouldn’t you say there’s got to be a connection?’

  ‘We aren’t a hundred per cent sure,’ said Detective Inspector Kendall. ‘About the mother not being there all that time, I mean. But it looks like it. And there’s certainly no sign of her now.’

  The two uniformed police constables had disappeared, and in their place were these plain clothes officers – a detective inspector, no less, and a young woman introduced as Detective Constable Shaw. This was no longer a search for two naughty children, lost or larking about. The matter now was deadly serious.

  ‘Could they have gone to relatives?’ said Detective Constable Shaw, suddenly.

  ‘Is that a possibility?’ said Inspector Kendall. ‘Have they got relatives in Easthaven, perhaps?’

  ‘As far as I know they have no relatives at all,’ said Mr Nelson. ‘Anywhere. Or none they would know of. The mother was brought up in a children’s home, and the father’s disappeared. Which was no loss to anyone, from all accounts.’

  ‘The father?’ said Detective Shaw. ‘Could the father have taken them?’

  ‘The least likely thing in the world, I should say,’ said Mr Nelson.

  ‘I’m wondering about the mother,’ said Inspector Kendall. ‘Suppose they met the mother here by arrangement and. . . . No? A nonstarter?’

  ‘Who can say?’ said Mr Nelson, wearily. He told them what he knew – all he could think of the Mitchells’ family background.

  ‘You look tired,’ said Detective Shaw to Mr Nelson.

  ‘It’s been a long day,’ Mr Nelson admitted.

  ‘And getting late now,’ said Inspector Kendall. ‘There really isn’t much more you can do here. You’ve given us a good description of the kids, and of the mother, in case anything turns up at that end. Why don’t you get the train back to London and keep in touch from there?’

  ‘Not yet. I can’t go yet!’

  ‘But you look all in?’

  ‘We have to forget about them just being lost now, or playing about, don’t we?’ said Mr Nelson.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Inspector Kendall. ‘There’s certainly more to it than that.’

  ‘Couldn’t we just go round the town again?’ said Mr Nelson. ‘Just once more? Suppose they went into hiding for a bit and came out later?’

  ‘There are half a dozen police officers searching the town at this minute,’ said Inspector Kendall. ‘On that very theory amongst others.’

  ‘But I’m the one who knows the children! And I think, with respect, they’d be more reassured if I was there when they’re found than if it was only your lot. They must be scared enough already.’

  ‘I wish I’d had a headmaster like you,’ said Detective Shaw, gently.

  ‘I second that,’ said Inspector Kendall.

  ‘Come on,’ said Nicky.

  ‘I’m tired,’ said Roy, again. ‘I want another rest.’

  ‘You had a lot of rests. You had enough rests,’ said Nicky. ‘And you’re a nuisance being tired. I’m not tired. Look at me – I’m not tired a bit!’ She strode out, limping because of the blister, through the dragging pebbles. ‘See? I’m not the least little bit tired!’

  ‘Well I am, and I can’t go on any more.’

  ‘Yes you can, you can. You have to think you can.’

  ‘We should have got the bus. Why didn’t we get the bus?’

  ‘Without a ticket? And get caught by the Inspector? Where is your sense? Where is your intelligence?’

  Roy sat down suddenly, on the stones.

  ‘What’s the matter now?’

  ‘I told you, I’m tired.’

  ‘But we’re nearly there.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘We come such a long way already, we must be nearly there.’ She was secretly quite puzzled, actually, that they hadn’t reached Southbourne by now. It looked such a tiny distance on the map.

  ‘Perhaps we’re going the wrong way,’ said Roy.

  ‘It’s not the wrong way,’ said Nicky. ‘You have to look at the sea, and go left – I practised it in my head.’

  ‘Perhaps you made a mistake. Like about the train.’

  ‘I didn’t. I practised it a hundred times. I didn’t practise the train.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Roy, ‘I don’t like this horrible beach, and I’m not going to walk on it any more.’ Why should he, when it was clearly becoming a long walk to nowhere?

  ‘Yes you are,’ said Nicky. ‘You are going to walk on it.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘You are, don’t argue!’

  ‘You can’t make me.’

  ‘All right, I’ll go on by myself.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘I mean it, you know,’ said Nicky.

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Yes you do.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Roy. ‘I’m tired, and I don’t care what you do.’ At that point, it was almost true.

  ‘All right, then.’ Ignoring the stabbing pain in her heel, Nicky pushed her aching legs another ten paces, then turned her head to look.

  ‘I’m not joking!’

  Roy didn’t answer. He was lying on the pebbles now, curled up with his back to her. Nicky did another ten paces, then turned to look again. Roy had not moved. He was all by himself, a sad little speck in a great stony desert. Nicky frowned, hesitated, and plodded slowly back.

  ‘Roy?’

  No answer.

  ‘Come on, Roy, I know you can hear me!’

  Still no answer.

  Nicky prodded him with her foot. ‘Leave me!’

  ‘Get up.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I said, “Get up”.’

  ‘I’m not going to, I’m staying here.’

  ‘It’s going to be night soon.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Please, Roy.’

  Silence.

  Nicky sat down beside him, and leaned over him, rubbing her cheek against his. ‘Come on, Roy! Just a little bit more, eh?’

  Silence.

  ‘Don’t spoil it, Roy! Now we come all this way, don’t spoil it now, please!’

  He had gone so far into himself that he almost didn’t hear her. The stones were hard and knobbly against his side, but he hardly felt them. He just wanted to go to sleep. He wanted to sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and forget everything.

  Nicky’s patience snapped. ‘You’re a creep, Roy Mitchell, do you know that? You’re a useless creepy worm!’ It was safe to shout – there was no one to hear. Frustrated, and exasperated, Nicky grabbed Roy’s shoulder and pumped it backwards and forwards. ‘Say something, can’t you, you creep! Something. Just anything.’

  Silence.

  ‘I wish I didn’t have you for a brother,’ said Nicky, bitterly. ‘I wish I had a different brother. I wish I had a brother that wasn’t a baby. I wish I had a brother that wasn’t a coward. . . . I wish I had a brother that didn’t wet the bed!’

  He heard that. Bending over him again, Nicky saw the tears rolling down his cheeks. Not frantic tears, not hysterical tears, just the silent crying of despair. ‘I didn’t ought to have said that, did I?’ said Nicky. She watched his tears with anguished eyes, then burst into noisy sobs.

  Roy shifted, and turned slowly. He watched, almost with detachment, the unaccustomed sight of Nicky crying. ‘I can’t help all those things what you said.’ His own words seemed to him to be coming from a long way away.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’ Her crying stopped.

  ‘Actually,’ said Roy, ‘I wish I was like you.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes I do. I always did.’

  ‘Oh you don’t want to be like me!’ said Nicky. ‘You don’t want to be like me, I’m horrid.’

  ‘I rather horrid than . . . those things you said.’


  ‘I won’t say them again, though. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t ever say them again, I promise!’

  They were silent then, for a long time. Distressed, confused, in turmoil.

  ‘Nicky,’ said Roy, at last.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Suppose we go along the beach like you said, and get to Southbourne?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Suppose we do. . . .?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well – what will we do, exactly, when we get there?’

  ‘You know what we’re going to do. We’re going to look for Mum.’

  ‘I know, but – how?’

  ‘Just look. You know what looking is, don’t you?’

  ‘But it will be like Easthaven. There will be lots of streets, and shops, and houses. How can we look in all of them?’

  ‘We’ll find the caravan park. Somebody will tell us where it is.’

  ‘She might not be there.’

  ‘We’ll wait till she comes back.’

  ‘But suppose she isn’t living there any more?’

  ‘We’ll think of something.’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? You can’t expect me to know everything before it happens. . . . All right, I do know as a matter of fact. I do know. . . . We’ll ask at the caravan park if anybody knows where she’s gone, that’s what we’ll do! There – that’s what we’ll do. Satisfied?’

  Roy turned on his side again, away from her. ‘Supposing nobody remembers?’

  ‘Somebody will. You’ll see. . . . Are you coming, then?’

  ‘How far is it?’ said Roy, speaking into the pebbles.

  ‘Well I don’t know, do I? I don’t know everything. Anyway perhaps it isn’t stones like this all the way. Perhaps it gets more easier to walk on, like it was at Easthaven. Let’s try, Roy, eh?’

  Silence.

  ‘Eh? You coming then? . . . Roy?’

  ‘All right,’ he said, but he didn’t move.

  ‘Come on, then!’ she hauled him to his feet, and he stood with downcast eyes. ‘Come on, Roy, it’s getting to be late.’

  ‘You come first, and I’ll come after.’

  He didn’t want to be looked at. He didn’t want anybody looking at him, especially Nicky. He was all those things Nicky said he was, and he was never going to be anything else, and he didn’t want anybody looking at him. He trudged behind Nicky, his eyes still on the ground, keeping several paces between them.