Lost Summer

by Stuart Harrison

  When he got off the bus Adam went to the sawmill. The saws were quiet and men were packing up or leaving for the day, though Nick was still working in the shed stacking freshly cut planks of pine. He found David outside the tearoom underneath the office and took him aside before he handed him the paper.

  ‘Have you seen this?’

  He watched as David read the headline, his gaze lingering over the identikit picture of the girl. Though he frowned slightly he didn’t react in any other way.

  ‘The police want to talk to anyone who knows her.’

  David regarded him blankly. ‘What of it?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you talk to them?’

  They could hear David’s father talking on the phone through the open door at the top of the stairs. David lowered his voice.

  ‘Me? Why me?’

  ‘Well, you talked to her that night at the disco.’

  ‘Adam, I spoke to her for about a minute. That’s all. I don’t know her.’

  Adam experienced a sense of relief. What had he thought anyway? It must have been somebody else he’d seen in the trees with Meg.

  Just then Nick came over from the shed. He looked curiously from one to the other. ‘What’s up?’

  David handed him the paper and after he’d read the headlines he glanced at David and gave it back. There was something in his expression that Adam couldn’t put his finger on.

  ‘So?’

  The question was directed towards Adam. Suddenly his relief evaporated, though he wasn’t sure why. ‘I’ve seen her a couple of times,’ he said. ‘In the trees across the river. I got the impression she was waiting for someone.’

  ‘What if she was?’

  He didn’t know how to answer. ‘I’m pretty sure I saw her there on Saturday. She was with somebody.’

  Nobody spoke. The silence seemed to press down on Adam like a heavy weight.

  ‘Did you see who it was?’ David asked finally.

  There was something faintly challenging about his tone. ‘Not really. I mean I’m not sure. I thought I did, but …’ Adam broke off. He was struck by the way Nick was looking at him. That same old sneer.

  ‘But what?’ David said.

  Something clicked in his brain. All of a sudden he was certain that it was David he’d seen. ‘Nothing.’ Adam met his eye. ‘Nothing, I don’t know who it was.’

  The story about the missing girl remained on the front page for the rest of the week. Findlay wrote a feature about the gypsy way of life which delved into the historical roots of Romany travellers and the suspicion and distrust they encountered wherever they went. The evidence that they were involved in petty crime was indisputable but some of the other things gypsies were accused of such as illegal prostitution and gambling, along with many of the more lurid myths like baby stealing, were less common and in some cases had probably never been true.

  As the days passed and despite massive searches there was no sign of Meg Coucesco. The Courier reported the police speculation that she had merely run away. Adam read each report with increasing unease. He kept replaying the scene in the yard with David and Nick when he’d felt compelled to deny what he’d seen. Though he asked himself why he’d done it he already knew the answer. It was for the same reason that he hadn’t asked David since then to explain himself. He wanted to show David that he trusted him, that he could be trusted in return, as much as Nick. Even more.

  As the days passed he found himself facing a dilemma. He knew he ought to persuade David to go to the police because he must know something about Meg Coucesco’s disappearance. He didn’t believe that David had done anything to hurt her, but the problem was whenever he decided to talk to David he always found Nick around, and anyway as each day went by he became less certain about what he’d seen. Sometimes he thought he had glimpsed David’s face, if only for a moment, and at other times he was sure he hadn’t seen anything more than a tall, indistinct shape. The fact that David seemed completely normal and utterly untroubled only added to his self-doubt. David, in fact, took little interest in the story.

  One evening he questioned Angela about what she remembered. ‘When we were out by the river on Saturday, did you see anything in the trees across from the sawmill?’

  She looked mystified. ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know. Anything. I thought I saw somebody.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything. Who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was probably nothing.’

  The day afterwards at work he caught Findlay watching him thoughtfully and when he had to deliver some copy to the pub where Findlay was again ensconced, the reporter took it without even a glance and gestured to a chair.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, Adam?’

  He wanted to refuse but didn’t see how he could. Findlay lit a cigarette and studied him through a haze of smoke.

  ‘Would you like a drink of something?’

  ‘No thanks. I have to get back.’

  ‘Don’t be in such a rush, laddie. Stay here a minute and let’s have a wee chat. The place’ll no fall down without you.’ He chuckled softly to himself. ‘I suppose you’ll be finishing with us soon to go back to school, eh?’

  ‘In a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Aye, you’ll probably be glad to get back.’

  Adam didn’t reply. He had a feeling this was leading somewhere, that Findlay was interested in more than how he felt about going back to school.

  ‘This business about the wee gypsy lassie has affected us all. It makes you think when something like this happens in your own back yard. It must have been bothering you too, eh, Adam?’

  ‘No more than anyone else I suppose.’

  ‘No? I thought since you live over that way … Mebbe you’d seen the girl around, you know.’

  ‘I might have once or twice.’

  ‘Is that so? What was she like?’

  ‘I don’t know. I never spoke to her.’

  ‘But I mean, what was she like to look at? It’s hard to tell from the identikit pictures, you know? Would you say she was pretty?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Mebbe the police are right then, do you think? Could be she just met a lad from some other town and they ran away together. Did you ever see her with anyone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even with a local lad?’

  ‘No.’

  Findlay stared at him. He had the uncomfortable feeling that the reporter could see everything that he was thinking.

  ‘Mebbe you heard something about a lad the girl might have been seeing, even if you didnae actually see them yerself.’ Findlay persisted. ‘There’re rumours she was seeing somebody you know.’

  ‘I never heard anything,’ Adam said.

  ‘Ah well, it was just a thought, you know.’ Findlay made a gesture as if to dismiss the subject. He lit another cigarette, and smiled. ‘Let’s talk about something else, eh? You know I used to live in a village like Castleton myself, Adam. Did I ever tell you that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aye, well I’m glad I’m no there any more. I don’t like these wee places where everybody knows what everybody else is up to, you know what I mean? Like when I was living in this place, I knew this lad who was nicking sweeties from the shop on the corner. Him and his brother used to go in there and fill their bags with stuff, and I don’t just mean they were taking a few gobstoppers and the like. They were getting away with whole boxes of chocolates. You know what they lads were doing with all this stuff, Adam? They were selling it to all the other kids around there.’

  Findlay paused for a moment and emptied his glass. He studied it reflectively. ‘The trouble was, the woman who owned the shop was my auntie. I knew how it was affecting her losing all this stuff, and my mother knew that I must have some idea who was responsible. You know what she wanted me to do? She wanted me to tell her who it was. Difficult decision that. ’Course, I was only a wee lad then.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘What w
ould you have done, if you’d been me, Adam?’

  ‘Idon’t know.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t know either. But in the end I had to decide. It was a case of divided loyalties you might say. I realized then, Adam, that we all have to make moral choices in our lives.’

  He paused again and then he stood up. ‘You sure you don’t want something to drink?’

  ‘I have to get back.’

  Findlay let his gaze linger, then nodded. ‘Aye, well, I’ll see you later.’

  What Findlay had said stayed with Adam throughout the day and on the bus ride home. He was still thinking about it when he crossed the water meadow towards the sawmill. David and Nick were leaving work for the day, heading along the track towards the road. He hung back watching them, and then for no reason that he could put his finger on he started following them from a distance.

  He soon realized they were heading for a steep hill called Back Lane which led to the part of town known as the bottom end. He followed them past small cottages with front doors that opened directly onto the road, and then past several streets of council houses that had been built after the war, a collection of prefab bungalows with pebble dash cladding and iron roofs. At the bottom of the hill Back Lane ended in an unpaved bridle track that vanished among tall trees.

  He gave them a few minutes before he followed. The houses on the edge of town were quickly lost from sight as the track curved towards a bridge over the river. Tall leafy elms and oaks filtered the light, lending a green-tinged hue. It was quiet other than for the twittering of birds and the gurgle of water beneath the old stone bridge where the river was dark and sluggish. Around the next curve the trees ended and on the edge of a meadow three cottages formed a terraced row beside the bridleway. On the other side of the meadow was the edge of Castleton Wood, which formed the boundary of the estate.

  The cottages had slate roofs and stone chimneys, their gardens long overgrown with weeds and brambles. Some of the windows were missing glass and had been covered with plastic sheeting, and the paint on the doors and frames was peeling and blistered. A proliferation of junk lay in the unfenced gardens. Old car parts, rusted wire netting, and a rotting chicken house that appeared to be slowly dissolving into the ground poked out of the weeds and nettles. A battered van was parked just off the track and a skinny mongrel dog lay asleep by an open door, its leg twitching as it dreamed.

  Confronted for the first time with the reality of where Nick lived, Adam realized he’d expected something more dramatic. The vague air of unspoken mystery that had always surrounded him, the sullenness and obvious results of physical abuse, had conjured dark family secrets. But the truth was simply depressing and squalid.

  Adam hung back, remaining hidden in the trees until David and Nick emerged from the first of the cottages. There was something oddly furtive about them. They looked around as if to make sure they were alone and then, apparently reassured, they opened the back door of the van. David reached into his pocket and then leaned inside. When he reappeared a few seconds later he said something to Nick before he quickly turned and started walking back along the track. Adam remained hidden, pressed against the trunk of a tree as David passed by no more than eight feet away. When he peered back towards the cottages a minute later Nick had vanished and the scene was once more quiet and deserted.

  In the morning it was on the news that James Allen had been arrested and taken into custody for questioning about the disappearance of Meg Coucesco. It was Findlay who told Adam that the police had found a bracelet in his van belonging to the girl.

  ‘They were acting on a tip-off.’ From the look in his eye Adam realized that Findlay suspected that he had had something to do with it.

  For twenty-four hours Adam was plagued with uncertainty about what he should do but before he could reach any decision Allen was released due to lack of evidence. He learned from Findlay that the fact that there was no body made it difficult for the police to press charges, though Findlay had spoken to a detective who was convinced that Allen knew what had happened to the girl. He was known to have been to the camp regularly that summer, and he had a history of violence.

  When Allen vanished after he was released Findlay was unsurprised.

  ‘If he showed his face around Castleton again the gypsies would nae doubt take matters into their own hands, Adam,’ he said.

  In the event, though, they didn’t need to. He was killed a few days later in Derbyshire when his van hit a petrol tanker and he was burned to death.

  ‘Poetic justice, eh, Adam,’ Findlay commented philosophically.

  ‘She was never found,’ Adam finished. He was standing by the window. The rain had stopped and the sun was struggling to break through the clouds above Islington.

  Morris was thoughtful. ‘What do you think happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever speak to David about it? Even after Nick’s father was killed?’

  Adam went over and sat down. His leg was playing up, causing him to limp slightly. ‘We never mentioned it.’

  ‘Obviously this whole event made a significant impression on you,’ Morris said. ‘Are you saying that your choice of career stems from this incident?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Why do you think that is?’

  ‘Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to come up with the psychological whys and wherefores?’

  ‘I’m more interested in what you think.’

  ‘I suppose I feel guilty.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I didn’t tell anyone what I’d seen.’

  ‘So, you think David had something to do with whatever happened to the gypsy girl?’

  ‘Don’t you? I’m sure he knew her. I think he was seeing her. It must have been him that I saw in the trees the day she vanished. And what about the bracelet the police found?’

  ‘You think he planted it in Nick’s dad’s van?’

  ‘What else was he doing?’

  ‘I think it’s all what the law would call circumstantial evidence. You’re telling me that your choice of career, your dedication to your work …’

  ‘You mean obsession.’

  Morris smiled. ‘You’re saying that this all stems from a sense of guilt.’

  ‘Maybe not guilt exactly. Partly perhaps.’ Adam struggled to articulate something he’d always known, but had never confronted openly even to himself. ‘Maybe when I’m looking for a missing child, I’m looking for her too in a sense. For Meg.’

  Morris considered this, and then gave a little smile. ‘It seems very neat.’

  ‘Neat?’

  ‘Your extreme dedication to your work stemming from this incident when you were what, sixteen? Which results ultimately in the breakdown of your relationship with Louise. That is what you seem to be telling me isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m not telling you anything. I thought you were the one who came up with the answers.’

  ‘If that was true, I would say that there is more.’

  ‘More?’

  ‘That you haven’t told me everything. In my experience psychological cause and effect is never so straightforward as this.’

  Adam didn’t say anything. Morris was right. There was more. But none of it was relevant. Louise just needed to understand that once a girl had vanished and she remained on his conscience, rightly or wrongly. ‘Time’s up,’ he said, rising to leave.

  There was a postscript to Meg’s disappearance that Adam didn’t tell Morris about. During the final weekend of the summer Adam went fishing with David and the others at Cold Tarn. It was a long ride up to the fells and then through the forest to the lake. When they got there Adam wandered off along the shore and found a shady place where he cast his line out into the water and then propped his rod against a log and sat down to read The Catcher in the Rye. After a while he felt drowsy, lulled by the peace and the stillness of the water. He nodded off and when he woke it was getting late. He checked his line and found his bai
t gone as usual, but no fish on the hook so he packed up and started back along the shore to look for the others.

  There was a part of the shore where he had to cut into the woods that fringed the lake to avoid a high rocky promontory that formed one side of a small bay. He would have passed by, but he saw David standing by the water’s edge, seemingly deep in thought. Intrigued, Adam put his gear down and moved closer, quietly making his way out along the promontory. David remained motionless looking out across the lake. Though Adam followed his gaze there was nothing to see but the still, almost black waters of the tarn, and high above the far shore the small outline of a walkers’ hostel that was open in the summer months.

  As Adam watched David looked at something he was holding in his hand. He stared at it for several seconds before he suddenly drew back his arm as if to throw it into the lake, and whatever it was flashed when it caught the sun. But then he froze and after a few moments he dropped his arm again. As he did Adam dislodged a piece of loose rock that skittered down the slope and dropped to the water. David appeared startled and looked from the spreading ripples on the lake towards the trees where Adam crouched hidden. For a moment they seemed to look directly into one another’s eyes, then David turned away and quickly vanished among the trees.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A few weeks after what had turned out to be his final session with Morris, Adam followed a man as he made his way through the crowds at Euston and climbed aboard the six-fifteen from platform seven. They shared the same first-class compartment, the other man nodding briefly before he opened the evening paper. Alan Thomas was forty-six. He was an executive for a print firm. Adam knew a lot about him. He had three children, a boy and two girls. Adam knew their names, where they went to school, when their birthdays were. Thomas’s wife, Christine, habitually wore a vaguely trapped expression that manifested itself in a kind of desperation in her eyes.

  The train started moving and as it did the compartment door opened. A man with a briefcase started to come in until Adam stood up and blocked his way.