Lost Summer

by Stuart Harrison

  ‘It’ll be okay,’ Angela said. ‘I’ll follow her tracks and I’ll bring her back.’ She paused, wondering what else to take with her. In the hall stand drawer there was a torch, which she put in her pocket. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said and kissed Kate quickly. ‘And don’t leave the house.’

  Outside the snow felt wet against her face, the ground leaking cold upwards through the soles of her feet. She headed towards the gate with a mounting sense of fear.

  A stranger stared back at David from the mirror lying against his office wall. His eyes were bloodshot and beneath them dark smudges like paint exaggerated their sunken effect. He turned away. The door was open, as was the outer door. Snow was already drifting inside from the top of the stairs.

  He had spent the day on the fells and hadn’t laid eyes on a single person since early that morning. He’d thought that it would clear his head. He supposed it had worked. He hadn’t had anything to drink since the day before so he was sober and he saw things as they were now. It was all clear to him.

  He went to the desk and sat down. When he was growing up his father had sat in the same chair at the same desk. This was where he always pictured him, or in the yard. He had never wanted anything else than to become like his father. The smell of cut wood and sawdust, the whine of the saws in the cutting shed, it was all imprinted on him from such an early age he’d never even thought of a life other than this. When he and Angela had married, and later when Kate was born, he’d sometimes thought he was the luckiest man in the world. If there was anything at all he would have changed in his life, it was in the past. Just one thing that had marred his otherwise perfect contentment. A guilty burr that had scratched at the back of his mind.

  And now because of that, he had lost everything. The sawmill was finished, he knew that. Even if it weren’t it wouldn’t make any difference. When he’d stood in the dark outside the house the night before and watched Angela and Adam through the study window he’d felt his life drain away. Now all he felt was empty. He was a hollow shell. It was as if all the years that he’d loved Angela and she had loved him in return had been something he’d never really deserved. They were stolen years, and deep down he’d always been afraid that one day the past would surface and he would lose her. Now his fears had become reality. His entire life had collapsed. The business was gone, his marriage, even Nick was gone. Nothing would be the same again.

  He stood up from the desk and went to the cupboard where he kept a shotgun. He took it out and loaded two shells into the barrels and put the rest of the box away. Two were all he needed. More than enough. He moved almost mechanically. Without feeling, without hesitation. He felt calm. This was the last thing he would do. Up on the fells he’d reached a decision.

  When he left he neglected to close the door behind him. As he drove from the yard the snow continued to drift inside and blown by the breeze it began to settle on the desks and the carpet, and papers fluttered to the ground.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Karen started the engine and let it run. She was bloody freezing. It wasn’t snowing in London yet the way it was in other parts of the country, but it would be soon, she thought. They were talking about climate change all the time these days. She couldn’t remember it ever having snowed this early in London before, and the world was supposed to be getting warmer. The heater was on full, but it would take a few minutes for the engine to warm up. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard and saw that it was past six. Where the hell was Jane bloody Hanson? Why couldn’t she just be a secretary somewhere who finished work at five on the dot and was home half an hour later? Or why couldn’t all this have happened in July instead of October so at least she wouldn’t have to sit here for hours on end while her bum went numb and her toes gradually lost their feeling?

  She tried to decide how much longer she would wait. She’d been here since four. There had been no reply when she rang the doorbell. Two and a bit hours sitting there freezing to death. And the worst of it was she knew that this time she would stay all night if she had to. This time she wasn’t going anywhere until she’d spoken to Jane face to face, and if she was going to refuse to talk for whatever bloody reason, then she could tell her as much to her face.

  But first Karen planned on making Jane sodding Hanson listen to a few things. Like how her ex-boyfriend was dead in case she was interested, and how Adam needed her help to try and find out what had really happened to him, in case she was interested in that as well. Adam must have been right about her. She must have been bought off, though Karen doubted that meant being a party to murder. So how could she just ignore all the messages Karen had left for her? At the top of every note she’d written in big bold letters URGENT. She’d also written that it was about Ben Pierce. Whether or not jane knew what had happened she couldn’t have missed the tone, which no matter how you looked at it made her a cold-hearted bitch as far as Karen was concerned. And she had had enough.

  The heater kicked in and gradually she began to de-ice, though she did feel guilty about sitting in her car while she allowed exhaust fumes to pollute the atmosphere. A better person would elect to suffer. What was a little discomfort in comparison to doing her bit for the health of the planet? The more she thought about it the guiltier she felt. Finally, driven to it by her conscience, she reached for the key to switch off the engine. As she did so a taxi pulled up ahead of her. Karen froze, her eyes glued to the rear door as it opened. Please let it be her, she thought. If it was Jane she would only buy organic vegetables from here on and she would donate to Greenpeace and make more of an effort to recycle her rubbish. Please let it be her.

  It was. The same slim dark-haired girl that Karen had glimpsed before stepped out onto the road and slipped between two parked cars. As the taxi pulled away she skipped up the steps carrying a small suitcase and put her key in the front door. Karen got out of her car.

  ‘Jane!’ she yelled and the girl looked towards her with a startled expression. ‘Wait.’ Karen started to run. ‘I need to talk to you.’ She had a sudden fear that Jane would bolt inside and slam the door in her face, and as the door swung open her fear turned to anger. She ran faster and bounded up the steps. ‘I said wait, dammit!’

  ‘I was just opening the door,’ was the startled reply.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ Karen repeated, slightly breathlessly this time, though with enough force to remove any ideas the girl in front of her might have had about trying to put her off.

  ‘Alright,’ she said, with an air of resignation. ‘You better come in.’

  The flat was small, but tastefully furnished. It had recently been decorated in tones of cream and browns that lent the rooms a sophisticated feel. Once inside Jane Hanson seemed unsure of herself. She took off her coat revealing that she had a taste for expensive clothes. She wore a tailored suit that Karen was certain hadn’t come off any chain store rack. They stood opposite one another in the living room. The younger woman gestured awkwardly towards a couch.

  ‘Do you want to sit down? Or would you like something to drink?’

  Karen started to refuse, but changed her mind. Now that she was here she decided she might as well thaw out. ‘Do you have any brandy?’ she asked. ‘I think I’ve lost the feeling in my extremities.’

  ‘I’ll have a look. There might be some.’

  She went behind the counter that separated the living room from the tiny kitchen and searched through a cupboard and when she found a brandy bottle she took down two glasses and poured them both a measure.

  ‘Do you have anything with it?’

  ‘This is fine,’ Karen said. The first sip burned her throat but started a pleasant glow in the pit of her stomach. ‘Thanks. I needed that.’ She remembered that she hadn’t introduced herself and fumbled in her pocket for a card. ‘My name’s Karen Stone by the way.’

  ‘I know. I got the other three you put in the letter box.’ She gestured again towards the couch. ‘Do you mind if I sit down? My feet are killing me. I’ve been on t
he go all day.’

  ‘It’s your flat,’ Karen said. She sat down herself.

  Jane Hanson, she decided, wasn’t what she’d expected. She seemed unsure of herself despite her clothes and her slim, dark-haired good looks and the fact that she came and went by taxi. Maybe she was a model or something. She was young enough, and attractive enough. But the fact that she asked permission to sit down in her own home and the slight air of nervousness Karen was picking up made her seem vulnerable. Karen noticed that she kept glancing at the clock on the wall.

  ‘You did get my notes then,’ Karen said, with only a hint of censure.

  ‘Yes.’

  The flat was tidy. Very tidy. And clean too. There was something impersonal about it. No loose change lying around, no half-folded laundry or knickers shoved under the cushions.

  At least she had the good grace to lower her eyes, betraying a shadow of guilt. Karen decided that there was no point in trying to make her feel badly. What was important was that finally she had found her, and now she had to make sure that Jane co-operated.

  ‘Look,’ Karen began. ‘I’m not here to question your actions. You must have had your reasons for not calling me, but I suspect that you’re not aware of the situation. About Ben I mean. I didn’t want to say anything directly in my note, but …’ She paused, suddenly sure from the patient wide-eyed way that Jane was regarding her that she had no idea her ex-boyfriend was dead.

  ‘The fact is,’ Karen said gently, ‘that I’m afraid Ben is dead.’

  For a second or two there was no reaction, and then Jane looked down at the glass she held in her lap. At length she looked up again, her eyes troubled. ‘Look, I’m sorry about all this,’ she said. ‘I think I’d better tell you that my name isn’t Jane.’

  Karen reacted with a puzzled look of incomprehension.

  ‘Actually, I’ve never even met Jane Hanson.’

  Half an hour later Karen was sitting outside again in her car. She didn’t know whether to be angry with herself or the girl inside the flat she’d just left. Herself, she decided, was the appropriate answer.

  ‘Shit!’ she muttered.

  It turned out that the girl’s name was Joanna, and she worked for an advertising agency. Her boss, who ran the agency, also owned the flat at number twenty-nine, along with all the others in the house. Joanna had explained that the flat had been leased to Jane Hanson earlier in the year, but that she wasn’t due to move in until September. When she didn’t arrive even though she’d paid a month’s rent, Joanna and her boss had decided to sort of use the place.

  At first Karen hadn’t understood. Use it for what? And then something in the girl’s expression had made the penny drop.

  Outside, another taxi pulled up and a tall man in his early forties got out. He had thinning hair and wore the kind of clothes that advertising people and men clinging desperately to their youth wore. Joanna’s boss.

  He was married, Karen had learned. They used to go to hotels, but when Jane hadn’t turned up to take up her lease he had decided that for the time being he would use the flat as a place where he and Joanna could meet. He wasn’t sure if Jane was ever going to turn up. When mail and then Karen’s notes had begun arriving he’d told her just to play it cool. Jane’s father had even phoned a couple of times when Joanna was there, but she had simply said that Jane was away, which he had seemed to accept. Even when somebody had called saying he was from the company where Jane was meant to be working Joanna’s boss had told her not to worry. She had probably just met somebody during the summer and changed her plans.

  In other words, Karen thought, he didn’t give a damn so long as he had somewhere to carry on his affair. She almost felt like getting out of the car to confront him. In fact she felt like punching him on the nose. But before she could act on the thought he vanished through the front door.

  Karen took out her mobile phone. She wasn’t sure what any of this meant, but she knew she had to tell Adam. She dialled his number and waited. She heard a voice tell her that the phone she was calling was either switched off or outside the calling area.

  Terrific.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Four young people sat on a stone wall in the sunlight. It was a simple enough photograph. The kind that might be found in any album of holiday snapshots. A memento of youth, of halcyon days. But look deeper, beyond the frozen smiles, and there were stories behind the image. The camera had captured a mere instant in time in the lives of four people but in that tiny fragment lay clues to what had passed before and to what had come afterwards. Glimmers of insight, there for anybody who cared to look with an open mind. But, Adam thought bitterly, he hadn’t seen them.

  He had been sitting in his room at the New Inn for some time. While he stared at the picture he fiddled with the pair of broken glasses he’d found at the site of the accident, turning them over and over between his fingers.

  Three young men and a girl sat in a row. Ben’s arm was around Jane Hanson’s waist. The first time he’d seen the picture he’d noticed Jane’s body language, the way her hands were clasped loosely in her lap and the way she leaned very slightly away from Ben. He remembered thinking they appeared unbalanced. Whoever had snapped the photograph had inadvertently captured the signs of a relationship breaking down. When he looked closely he thought he could see that Ben’s smile was a little strained, while Jane appeared composed, almost self-contained. It was clear who was ditching whom.

  But there was more than that. He focused on Jane alone. The more he studied her the more she came to life. She wore a faint smile, but hers was the expression of somebody suffering an interlude from the serious business of why she was there. If he had to say now what his impression of her was, he would say here was a strikingly attractive girl who exuded an air of seriousness. There was something about the set of her chin that suggested doggedness. Perhaps single-mindedness.

  How could he have missed what now seemed so glaringly obvious? Everything that he’d learned about Jane supported what her image portrayed. She had been at odds with protesters like Peter Fallow. She thought their methods would ultimately fail, that in fact they actually alienated the community whose support they needed. So, when she’d heard about Janice Munroe’s suspicions regarding the planning committee she’d seen an opportunity to stop the development. An opportunity that was altogether pragmatic and one that she had pursued relentlessly.

  Ellie had told him that Jane had overheard somebody talking in a pub, and it was that conversation that had sent her looking for Jones. He himself had followed the same trail, dogging her steps all the way. First to Dr Grafton and then to Webster and the newspaper records and ultimately all the way to a rundown hotel in Tynemouth. That had taken a lot of determination. A singular sense of purpose, and it had been staring him in the face all along and he had ignored it.

  He should have known that Jane wasn’t corruptible. She hadn’t gone to such lengths to stop a development she was philosophically opposed to, only to roll over at the end. Nor would she have simply returned to London. When she had left the camp it was Durham she had gone to, not London. At the Barstock Clinic she’d been given Jones’s old address in Durham, but tracing him from there to Tynemouth must have taken some time. Time that Adam himself had been saved thanks to Dr Hope. But once Jane had arrived at the Park Hotel, where she’d discovered Marion Crane’s patient records and a copy of Judith Hunt’s birth certificate, she must have pretty well known what had happened. But she had never confronted Hunt with what she knew, and the following day Ben and the two people with him in the car had been killed.

  Adam went to the window. Outside it was snowing heavily. He thought he knew now what had happened the night of the accident and he couldn’t wait until morning before he discovered if he was right. By then the snow would be too thick on the ground and he would have to wait for the thaw, which could be days or even weeks away.

  He grabbed his coat and headed for the door. He left the broken glasses lying on the photogra
ph. He should have seen earlier what was now painfully obvious, but he’d been blinded by his own preconceptions. They were the same glasses, he had finally seen, that Jane wore in the picture.

  It was dark and driving was difficult. The windscreen wipers flopped back and forth at full speed, but even so there was time for a thin covering of snow to settle briefly on the glass. As he climbed towards the fells it was several inches deep on the road. He drove in second gear, hunched over the wheel, peering at the narrow black and white world lit by the headlights. The landscape was uniformly white except for the bare trees and the stone walls which stretched across fields like pencil-drawn lines on pristine paper. The only evidence of life he saw was in the occasional glimpse of headlights in the rear-view mirror. Somebody else braving the roads.

  It took him forty minutes to reach the place where the Vauxhall had left the road. When he got out the wind froze his hands and face and icy chips stung his eyes. He shone the beam of his torch down the slope through the trees where the snow hadn’t penetrated much yet, forming only a thin layer. Recalling the last time he’d been there he pondered the wisdom of tempting fate. His knee was aching. While he hesitated snow settled on his shoulders and trickles of moisture found a way down his collar. It was the relentless snow that made up his mind. The reports on the radio were that it was expected to last all night with more predicted for the coming week. By morning there would be no chance of finding anything and he had wasted enough time already. He needed to know. He looked for the best route down and then making his choice he sat on the frozen ground and began slowly to slide.

  He gathered speed quickly and felt as if he was plummeting into a chasm. The snow deadened all sound as he slithered and slipped past trees and rocks, everything flying past in a blur. The snow, however, not only made his descent quicker, it also smoothed the bumps where it had drifted and eventually he began to slow and finally came to rest a short distance to the right of the tree that bore the scar of the wreck’s final impact. Here and there a branch sagged under its burden and dumped a load of snow on the ground. The same thing was beginning to happen all around. Minor cascades began in the upper branches and then there would be the occasional dull thump of another fall and again the whispering trickle of snow.