Lost Summer

by Stuart Harrison

  For a mere fraction of a second she wavered, but he had taken too much out of her these last months. She should have done this before. She should have confronted him. Made him talk. A voice in the back of her mind told her maybe she hadn’t wanted to know the truth. Not really. But not any more. ‘What happened? Tell me.’

  He shook his head. She didn’t know if it was a denial, or more a gesture of despair. He held his hands to his head, his face contorted as if he was suffering from a physical pain and she realized that he had almost reached breaking point.

  ‘You have to tell me, David. Everything,’ she insisted.

  Something gave way inside him as he looked at her, and then his gaze switched beyond her again and his expression changed abruptly, shutting her out as surely as if he had slammed a door in her face. She turned and saw Adam coming towards them.

  ‘Wait!’ she called out. But it was too late.

  David turned away. She called out to him but he refused to even look back. He walked along the street, rapidly vanishing in the darkness.

  Adam stopped the car outside her house. Angela hadn’t spoken on the way back and now she seemed surprised to see where they were.

  ‘Will you be okay for a while?’ he asked her.

  ‘Why, where are you going?’

  ‘I want to see what’s happening at the camp.’

  She looked towards the darkened house. ‘Do you mind if I come with you? I don’t think I want to be alone at the moment.’

  ‘Of course.’ He started the car, and reversed back out into the lane.

  It was clear long before they reached the wood that word was out about the eviction. Despite the fact that it was dark and cold there were cars parked along the grass verges on both sides of the road and knots of people were making their way towards the camp. A bus and several police vans were parked at the head of the track where uniformed officers were doing their best to discourage people from going further, though most just went around them through the trees.

  The scene at the main camp area was chaotic. Police and workmen wearing fluorescent jackets mingled with groups of defiant protesters. A perimeter had been taped off and was manned at intervals to make sure that no onlookers got too close. The ground vibrated from the generators that had been set up to power portable lights and power cables snaked across the ground. A sizeable media contingent was on hand, including crews with TV cameras doing on-site reports. When they reached the perimeter tape Angela turned to the man next to her.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘They’ve got some of them out, but there’s more in the trees back there,’ he said. He was watching it all with his hands thrust in his pockets, a look of quiet satisfaction in his eyes.

  At that moment there was a shout as a group of men gathered around the base of a large oak scattered in alarm. Something heavy crashed through the branches to the ground and a brief cheer went up among the protesters who’d already been brought out. Some others were in a tree house high up in the uppermost branches and one of them had just climbed down and pushed away a ladder that was being used to try and reach them.

  ‘They ought to cut the bloody tree down with them still in it if you ask me,’ the man next to Angela said.

  Nearby, a handful of protesters were shouting slogans, and Adam spotted Peter Fallow among them. Though he’d succeeded in getting the media to cover the eviction his expression was tainted with the knowledge of defeat. He shouted something to a group of police who were dragging a protester from the undergrowth.

  ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ Adam told Angela.

  He made his way over, and slipped under the tape. ‘I’m sorry it turned out this way,’ he said when he reached Fallow’s group.

  Fallow tried to look defiant and replied loudly enough for some nearby journalists to hear him. ‘It isn’t over yet. It’ll take them weeks to get us out of here.’

  Obligingly somebody shoved a microphone towards him. The replies he gave to the questions he was asked were peppered with rhetoric and slogans and as Adam looked on he was struck by the image Fallow projected. People in their living rooms watching the news would be confronted with this odd-looking character with long greasy hair protruding from the bottom of his battered top hat, earrings winking in the TV lights. Though he spoke eloquently enough his philosophy was patently idealistic and his appearance made him both alien and faintly ridiculous. Some of his fellow protesters who stood in the background with their shaved heads and nose rings looked positively threatening.

  Ellie stood on the fringe of the group and when Adam caught her eye she shrugged resignedly as if she had guessed what he was thinking.

  ‘So, where to now?’ he said, joining her.

  ‘I think I’ll go home for a bit. Then there’s a place in Kent I heard about.’

  ‘Maybe you should wait until after winter.’

  She smiled. ‘Maybe. Did you find what you were looking for by the way?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s not too late then.’ Which he took to mean that she thought the development might be stopped yet.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he agreed, though without conviction.

  ‘Though they think it is.’ She nodded towards a group of men huddled in thick coats, who were watching proceedings from a discreet vantage point across the clearing.

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘The developers,’ Ellie said. ‘Except for the one at the back. He’s local.’

  Belatedly he saw that David was with them, though he stood a little distance from the others, outside the light. ‘You know him?’

  ‘I’ve seen him before. Do you know about the guy they found this morning? The one who had his head bashed in?’

  ‘You heard about that?’

  ‘I was in town this afternoon. His picture was on the telly.’

  ‘His name was Nick Allen,’ Adam said.

  ‘That’s him.’ She looked at him curiously. ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘I used to.’

  ‘I heard it was his dad they think killed that girl they found in the lake.’

  Adam didn’t comment.

  ‘Anyway,’ Ellie went on, ‘I saw them both.’

  ‘They were friends,’ Adam said, and then he realized what she’d said. ‘Wait a minute, when did you see them?’

  ‘The night him and his mates smashed up the camp.’

  Adam stared at her and then across at David. ‘You mean he was there?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he was. The other one definitely.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell the police?’

  ‘I’d never seen them again until today.’ She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter now anyway, does it?’ She gave him a sadly resigned smile.

  When Adam made his way back to where he’d left Angela, Fallow was still obligingly answering questions for the media. When he found her she was talking to Graham, who said something quietly and moved away when he saw Adam approach.

  ‘Everything okay?’ he asked, joining her.

  She nodded. A commotion signalled another group of protesters being dragged out. They let their bodies go limp, dragging their feet on the ground so that it took three or more men whose faces were becoming increasingly grim with frustration to manhandle them. To people watching it all on TV it would appear as if excessive force had been used, which of course was exactly the effect the protesters wanted. The journalists crowded forward and among them Adam saw Janice. When the protesters had been bundled out of the way she made her way over. In the lights her cheeks were rosy red and her eyes gleamed.

  ‘Hi,’ she said to Adam, and then looked at Angela. ‘Hello again.’

  ‘You look cold,’ Adam said. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Hours. I’m bloody freezing.’

  ‘Has there been any trouble?’

  ‘Not really. Just what you see. A few scuffles, you know, but nothing to get excited about. I wasnae expecting to see your husband here, Mrs Johnson,’ she said to Angela, gesturi
ng across the clearing to where David stood.

  ‘I didn’t know he was,’ Angela said.

  Janice regarded her thoughtfully. Adam knew she must be wondering about Nick’s death. He caught her eye and shook his head a little, and taking his meaning she swallowed the questions she was clearly itching to ask, albeit reluctantly he thought. A chorus of jeers distracted them as a group of policemen and men in fluorescent jackets emerged from the trees. As they drew closer the two dirty, dishevelled-looking people of indeterminate sex being dragged by their heels flashed grins at the other protesters who shouted encouragement and commiserations. The reporters surged forward again in a pack, microphones and cameras at the ready.

  ‘Tunnellers,’ Janice remarked. ‘That’s the third lot they’ve brought out. Apparently there’re dozens of them dug in there with enough food and water to last for weeks. I talked to a guy who was down there earlier. He said the tunnels havenae been properly shored up. The police are terrified somebody’s going to get trapped.’

  They watched the two people being shoved into the back of a van.

  ‘Well, I’d better get back to it,’ Janice said. She glanced regretfully at Angela, then flashed a look at Adam that told him he’d better make it up to her.

  ‘It was nice to meet you again,’ she said to Angela.

  ‘And you.’

  ‘I’ll call you,’ Adam promised. When she’d gone he looked for David across the clearing, but he had vanished.

  Angela shivered. ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing else to see here.’

  She was silent as they drove back towards town, huddled in the passenger seat with her collar up, her face all but hidden in the darkness. He left her to her thoughts, mulling over what Ellie had told him about seeing both David and Nick the night the camp was attacked. Had they been looking for somebody in particular that night? Had their purpose been to frighten Ben and the others away?

  Angela broke the silence as they neared town. ‘I’m worried about Mary, Adam.’

  ‘Mary who?’

  ‘The girl Nick lived with. Graham told me the doctor took her to the hospital in Carlisle, but she refused to stay.’

  ‘They just let her go?’

  ‘They couldn’t stop her. Apparently she’d calmed down a lot, but she’s sick. She could be in that cottage all alone. Graham said he was going to have a look later, but he could be stuck there all night.’

  ‘You want to check that she’s alright?’

  ‘I think we should.’

  He drove through the square and on towards Back Lane. At the bottom of the hill where the streetlights ended and the unpaved track vanished among the trees it was pitch black. They rumbled over the bridge that crossed the river and when they came on the cottages they were dark and silent.

  ‘Looks like nobody’s there,’ Adam said.

  Angela was already getting out. ‘I think we should check.’

  He grabbed a torch from under the seat and doused the headlights and it was only then that they saw a very faint reddish glow coming from behind an upstairs curtained window in the first cottage.

  When Angela knocked on the front door the sound had a hollow empty ring to it, and though they waited there was no answering sound from within. As the crow flies they were only a mile or so from where the protesters were being evicted in the woods. A faint smear of reflected light was visible in the darkness, and distant sounds of shouting reached them on the still night air.

  ‘What do you think?’ Adam said. The temperature had dropped in the last half-hour. His breath appeared in clouds before him and he stamped his feet on the ground. The night was clear, the earlier cloud having been swept away late in the afternoon. Stars flickered in the sky and a three-quarter moon hung over the trees. A deer shrieked eerily from somewhere in the copse close by. There was still no sound from inside the cottage.

  Angela tried the door, but it was locked. ‘Let’s try around the back.’

  They picked their way through the rotting debris and weeds, the torch beam bobbing across thick overgrowth tangled from years of neglect. As they drew close to the back of the house they heard a sound and froze. It came again, a kind of grating noise. They started forward again and when they rounded the corner Adam shone the torch beam towards the door, which was partially open. When he pushed it gave way slowly, grating over the stone-tiled floor inside.

  ‘Must have been the wind,’ Angela said, though the night was still. ‘Or maybe a cat or something.’

  More likely a rat, Adam thought to himself. He shone the torch towards the weeds and brambles, but there was nothing to be seen.

  They went inside and Adam felt around on the wall for a light switch, filling the room with weak yellow light from a single bare bulb in the ceiling.

  ‘Hello?’ Angela called out. ‘Mary, are you there?’ Her voice seemed to fall flat and vanish, sucked into the old plaster and brickwork. There was no reply. ‘It’s Angela Johnson. I’ve got somebody with me. We just wanted to see if you’re okay.’

  They made their way towards the door and through into the hall. Angela called out again at the foot of the stairs before starting up. Near the top the stairs turned a corner where a dim red glow was reflected on the wall. When they reached the landing they could see it came from a partially open door across the passage. Angela pushed the door open and inside they saw a bed and a lamp covered with a red scarf on an old table. A figure lay on the bed with its back to them.

  ‘Mary?’ Angela said quietly.

  The figure remained motionless, curled into a foetal position with her knees drawn tightly to her chest.

  ‘Mary? Is that you? We called out but nobody answered.’

  Adam waited at the door as Angela went towards the bed. The room was cold and bare, the wallpaper on the walls so old the pattern was faded and in places it had come away altogether. There were patches of damp on the ceiling. From outside the cottage looked abandoned, and it wasn’t much better inside. A smell of mould and decay permeated the air. There was something dead about the place that seeped into his bones.

  Angela drew close to the edge of the bed and slowly reached out.

  Abruptly the figure sat up and shrank back against the wall. Her hair was matted and greasy, and her face was painfully thin, but Adam recognized her as the girl he’d seen the last time he’d been here. She looked wide-eyed towards the doorway where he stood, and opening her mouth she screamed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ‘It’s you she’s frightened of, Adam,’ Angela said as she sat on the bed, trying to calm Mary down. The girl seemed oblivious to her presence and remained shrunk back against the wall, wide-eyed and staring at Adam in an attitude of absolute terror. Her screams had withered to a kind of constant wailing moan that rose and fell in pitch.

  Adam lingered in the doorway, unnerved by the effect he appeared to be having on the girl.

  ‘You better go outside,’ Angela told him.

  He hesitated, torn between wanting to do something to help and the desire to escape the girl’s mad, accusing stare.

  ‘Please, Adam.’

  He backed out of the room, and pulled the door closed behind him. For a couple of minutes he waited in the passage, listening to Angela trying to calm the girl. She spoke in a low, soothing voice and gradually the moaning ceased and instead became great heaving sobs interspersed with shuddering breaths, then that sound too slowly faded until eventually he could hear only quiet crying. He pushed the door open a fraction. Angela looked up and managed a wan smile. She held the girl in her arms, stroking her hair, murmuring softly, He mimed that he would see her downstairs, and she nodded.

  Twenty minutes passed before Angela appeared in the kitchen. Adam had found some cups and instant coffee and had put a pot on the ancient stove to boil water.

  ‘There’s no milk,’ he said, handing Angela a cup of steaming black liquid.

  ‘Thanks. This is fine.’

  Her gaze fl
icked around the room taking in the unwashed plates and pans stacked by the old enamel sink, the single scarred table and filthy walls.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked at length.

  ‘Sleeping. Poor girl, we can’t leave her here.’

  ‘Do you want to call a doctor?’

  ‘Not now. She’s exhausted and frightened, she needs rest. We’ll take her back to the house.’ Angela reached into her pocket and brought out a bottle of pills. ‘These were on the table beside the bed.’

  He looked at the label and read a long complicated-sounding name. ‘Her medication?’

  ‘I suppose so. But the bottle was open and the pills were all heaped in a pile.’

  ‘You think she was going to take them all?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps.’

  He was surprised that she had been allowed to come back here alone, though he supposed if she’d appeared rational earlier it wasn’t a simple matter to commit her against her will. He wondered what had set her off. ‘Why do you think she was so frightened of me?’

  ‘Perhaps in the state she’s in she thought you were Nick. She said his name a couple of times. I don’t think she quite understands what’s happened.’

  He thought about the abject terror he’d seen in her eyes. ‘You think he abused her?’

  ‘It’s possible I suppose.’

  But maybe it wasn’t Nick she was afraid of. ‘Come and look at this,’ he said.

  He showed her something he’d noticed while she’d been upstairs. The key was in the back door on the inside, and it was actually locked. The jamb was splintered. ‘This has been forced,’ Adam said. The wood, however, was rotten. He demonstrated by tearing off a long splinter with his fingers. ‘It could have been like this for weeks.’

  Nevertheless he remembered what they’d heard when they’d arrived: the scrape of the door and something else, perhaps the sound of somebody slipping away into the tangled garden? Or perhaps it was nothing. Maybe the thought wouldn’t even have occurred to him if he hadn’t seen the way Mary stared at him as if he was some monster straight out of her dreams. Whatever the answer, he agreed with Angela that they couldn’t leave her alone there.