by Ellis Peters
‘It’s just possible,’ said George Felse, eyeing him amiably but distantly from beyond the rampart of his official status, all the overtones of friendship carefully excised from a voice which remained gentle, courteous and low-pitched, ‘that I may need to see you for a few moments, too, Mr Kenyon, if you wouldn’t mind being somewhere available, in case?’
He said he wouldn’t, numbly and reluctantly, and turned to go up to his own room. He didn’t hurry, because he wanted to be called back, not to be excluded. In a way he would have given anything to escape, but since there wasn’t going to be any escape, anyhow, and he had already been dragged into the full intimacy of the family secret, what point was there in putting off the event? And before he had reached the stairs Beck was there, framed in the doorway of the living-room, wispy and grey and frightened, and looking desperately for an ally.
‘What is it? Did I hear you say you want to talk to Annet, Mr Felse?’ His eyes wandered sidelong to Tom, who had looked back. ‘No, no, don’t go, Kenyon, this can’t be anything so grave that you can’t hear it. Please, I should be glad if you’d stay. One of the household, you know. That’s if you have no objection to being present?’
Panic gleamed behind the thick lenses of his glasses; not for anything would he be left alone with Annet and his wife and the threat George Felse represented. His wife would expect him to spread a male protective barrier between his womenfolk and harm; or she would not expect it, but watch his helplessness with a bitter, contemptuous smile, and that would be worse. And Annet would act as though he was not there, knowing she had to fend for herself. No, he couldn’t do without Tom. He laid a trembling hand on his arm, and held him convulsively.
‘It’s rather if Felse has no objection,’ said Tom, watching the CID man’s face doubtfully.
‘No, this is not official – yet. Later I may have to ask you to make a formal statement. That will depend on what you have to tell me.’
He was looking Annet in the eyes, without a smile, but with the deliberate, emphatic gentleness of one breaking heavy matters to a child. He had known her since she was a small girl with pigtails; not intimately, but as an observant man knows the young creatures who grow up round him in his own village, the contemporaries of his own sons and daughters. He’d had to pay similar visits to not a few of their homes in his time, he knew all the pitfalls crumbling under their uncertain feet.
‘I’ll tell you what I can,’ said Annet, brows drawn close in a frown of bewilderment. ‘But I don’t know what you can want to ask me.’
‘So much the better, then,’ he said equably, and followed her into the living-room, and turned a chair to the light for her. She understood that quite open manoeuvre, and smiled faintly, but acquiesced without apparent reluctance. The parents hovered, quivering and silent. Tom closed the door, and sat down unobtrusively apart from them.
‘Now Annet, I want you to tell me, if you will, how you spent last week-end.’
George Felse sat down facing her, quite close, watching her attentively but very gently. If he felt the despairing contraction of the tension within the room he gave no sign, and neither did she. She tilted back her head, shaking away the winged shadow of her hair, as if to show him the muted tranquillity of her face more clearly.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ she said.
‘I think you can, if you will.’ And when she had nothing to say, and her mother only turned her head aside with a helpless, savage sigh, he pursued levelly: ‘Were you here at home, for instance?’
‘They say not,’ said Annet in a small, still voice.
‘Let them tell me that. I’m asking you what you say.’
‘I can only tell you what I told them,’ said Annet, ‘but you won’t believe me.’
‘Try me,’ he said patiently.
She looked him unwaveringly in the eyes, and took him at his word. Again, in the same clipped, bare terms she retold that fantastic story of hers.
‘Mrs Blacklock gave me practically a whole week off, from Thursday morning, because she was going to the child care conference at Gloucester. She asked me to come in again on Wednesday – yesterday – and clear up any routine correspondence, and then she came home in the evening. So I had five free days. I hadn’t made any plans to do anything special. I meant to go to choir practice on Friday night, as usual. Maybe to the dance on Saturday, but I hadn’t decided, because Myra was going with a party to the theatre in Wolverhampton, so I hadn’t anyone to go with. They must have missed me at choir practice, and at church on Sunday. If I’d intended not to be there, shouldn’t I have let them know?’
‘He rang up on Friday night,’ said Mrs Beck, a little huskily. ‘Mr Blacklock, I mean – after choir practice. He was worried because she didn’t turn up, wondered if she wasn’t well. I told him she had a bit of a cold. He was quite alarmed, and I had to put him off, or he’d have been round to see her. I said it was nothing much, but she was in bed early, and asleep, so he couldn’t disturb her, of course. He rang again on Sunday morning, after church, to ask how she was.’
‘He only has four altos,’ put in Beck with pathetic eagerness. ‘And she never lets them down. Mr Blacklock knows he can always rely on Annet for his alto solos.’
Annet’s clenched lips quivered in a brief and wry smile. It was all a part of the well-meaning communal effort to keep Annet busy and amused, everyone knew that. The Blacklocks had been taken into Mrs Beck’s embittered and indignant confidence, after that abortive affair with Miles Mallindine, and with her usual competence Regina had stemmed every gap in the fence of watchful care that surrounded the girl, and poured new commitments into every empty corner of her days. Probably the choir was one of the things she’d enjoyed most. Regina couldn’t sing a note; it was Peter, with his patient, fastidious kindness, who manipulated the casual material at his disposal into a very fair music for a village church. No wonder he rejoiced in Annet’s deep, lustrous, boy’s voice. And as charged by his wife, he always brought or sent her home in the car; that was a part of his responsibility. If Annet ever defected again, it mustn’t be while she was in their charge.
‘So from Thursday morning you were free,’ said George mildly, undistracted by these digressions. ‘What did you do with your freedom?’
‘I was home all Thursday afternoon. I washed some things, and played a few records, and wrote one letter. And my mother had two more to post, so about half past three I said I’d go and post them, and then go for a walk. I said I’d be back to tea. I met Mr Kenyon just at the gate, and he offered to post the letters for me, but I told him I wanted some air and was going for a walk. It was just beginning to rain, but I didn’t mind that, I like walking in the rain. I posted the letters in the box by the farm, and then I went on up the lane and over the stile on to the Hallowmount. I climbed right over the hill and went down into the valley by the brook, on the other side. I remember coming to the path there, this side of the brook. I can’t remember how much farther I walked. I can’t remember noticing which way I went, or when it stopped raining. But suddenly I realised it was dark, and I turned back. It wasn’t raining then. I thought I’d better get home the shortest way, so I climbed over the hill again, and there the grass was quite dry, and so were my shoes, and the moon was out. And just below the rocks there I met Mr Kenyon and my father, coming to look for me. They said they were looking for me. It seemed silly to me. I thought I was only a couple of hours late. But they said it was Tuesday,’ she said, eyes wide and distant and grave confronting George Felse’s straight regard. ‘They said I’d been gone five days. I didn’t believe it until we got home, and there was a letter for me, an answer to the one I’d posted. But I couldn’t tell them any more than I’ve told you now, and I know they don’t believe me. All the week-end, they say, they’ve been trying to find me, and covering up the fact that I wasn’t here.’
George sat silent, studying her thoughtfully for a moment. Nothing of belief or disbelief, wonder or suspicion, showed in his face; he might have been list
ening to a morning’s trivialities from Mrs Dale. Annet knew how to be silent, too. She looked back at him and added nothing; she waited, her hands quite still in her lap.
‘You met no one on the hill? Or along by the brook?’ It was hardly likely on a rainy Thursday afternoon, but there was always the possibility.
‘No.’
‘Mr Kenyon saw her,’ said Mr Beck quickly.
‘I was driving back along the lane about four,’ confirmed Tom, ‘on my way home for the week-end, and I happened to look up at the Hallowmount just as the sun came out on it. I saw her climbing towards the crest, just as she says.’
‘Could you be sure it was Annet, at that distance?’
‘I’d seen her go out, I knew just what she was wearing.’ Carefully he suppressed the aching truth that he would have known her in whatever clothes, by the gait, by the carriage of her head, by all the shape and movement that made her Annet, and no other person. ‘I was sure. Then, when I got back here on Tuesday evening, and found she’s been missing all that time, I told Mr and Mrs Beck about it, and we went there on the off-chance of picking up any traces. We didn’t expect anything. But we found her.’
‘She was surprised to see us,’ said Beck eagerly. ‘She asked what we were doing there, and if anything was the matter. She said she knew she was very late, but surely we didn’t have to send out a search party.’
‘She was particularly surprised to see me,’ added Tom. ‘She said she thought I should have been home by then, and surely I didn’t stay behind because we were worried about her.’
They were all joining in now, anxiously proffering details of the search for her, of her return, of the terrible consistency of her attitude since, which had never wavered. George listened with unshakable patience, but it was Annet he watched. And when he had everything, all but those tyre-tracks of which her parents knew nothing, and which Tom must mention only privately if he mentioned them at all, it was still to Annet that he spoke.
‘So you went up the Hallowmount,’ he said, ‘and vanished out of time and place, like Tabitha Blount in the seventeenth century. And came back, also like Tabby, sure you’d been there no more than an hour or two, and never strayed out of this world. She never could give any account of her fairyland. Can you do any better?’
‘I know I was happy,’ said Annet, disregarding all but what she wished to hear; and suddenly the blue eyes deepened and warmed into such a passion of triumph and anguished joy that George was startled and moved. ‘Happy’ was a large word, but not too large for the blaze that lit her for a moment.
‘There’s nothing more you wish to tell me? And nothing you want to amend? It’s up to you, Annet.’
‘There’s nothing else I can tell you,’ she said. ‘I told you that before I began. Ask them if I’ve changed anything. I told you they didn’t believe me. I can’t help it if you don’t believe me, either.’
‘I don’t,’ said George simply. ‘Nor do I believe that your parents or Kenyon here have accepted it, never for a moment. Your missing five days were spent somewhere. As you very well know. I think, though I may be wrong, that you also know very well where, in every detail. I strongly advise you to think again, and tell me the truth, as in the end you’ll have to.’
Her father was at her side by this time, feebly fumbling her cold hand. Her mother was close on her left, gripping the arm of the chair.
‘Mr Felse, you must allow for the possibility of – of— More things in heaven and earth, you know— How can we presume to know everything?’ Beck was tearing sentences to shreds in his nervousness, and dropping the tatters wherever they fell.
‘She’s been utterly consistent,’ Tom pointed out, trampling the pieces ruthlessly. Someone had to sound sane, and put the more possible theories. ‘I don’t argue that you should believe in fairies – but you’ll notice that Annet hasn’t asked you to. She’s made no claim at all that anything supernatural ever happened to her. She says she doesn’t remember anything between going over the crest of the Hallowmount and coming to herself to realise it had grown dark, and then hurrying towards home. There’s nothing fantastic about that. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens, you know of cases as well as I do. Of course those five days were spent somewhere, we know that. But it may very well be true that Annet doesn’t know where.’
‘Amnesia,’ said Mrs Beck, too strenuously, and recoiled from the theatrical impact of the word, and said no more.
Why were they arguing like this, what was it they were trying to ward off? What did the police care about a truant week-end, provided no laws had been broken?’
‘It was a fine, dry week-end,’ said George reasonably, ‘About ten per cent of the Black Country must have been roaming the border hills on Saturday and Sunday, and the odds are pretty good that a fair porportion of them were on the Hallowmount. They couldn’t all miss a wandering, distressed girl. If any locals had seen her they’d have spoken to her. Everyone knows her. And did she reappear tired, hungry, anxious or grimy? Apparently not. She came down to you completely self-possessed, neat, tidy and fresh, asking pertinent questions. From fairyland, yes, perhaps. From amnesia one’s return would, I fancy, be less coherent and coordinated.’
He hitched his chair a little nearer to Annet, he reached and took her hands, compelling her attention.
‘I don’t doubt the happiness, Annet,’ he said gently. ‘In a way I think you’ve told me a kind of truth, a partial truth. Now tell me the rest while you can. You were no nearer the underworld than, say – Birmingham. Were you?’
Hard on the heels of the brief, blank silence Beck said, in a high, hysterical voice: ‘But what does it mean? What if she actually was in Birmingham? That’s not a crime, however wrong it may be to lie to one’s family. What are all these questions about? I think you should tell us.’
‘Perhaps I should. Unless Annet wants to alter her story first?’
‘I can’t,’ said Annet. Braced and intent, she watched him, and whether it was incomprehension he saw in her face or the impenetrable resolution to cover and contain what she understood all too well, he still could not determine.
‘Very well. You want to know what the questions are about. Last Saturday night, around shop-closing time,’ said George, ‘a young girl was seen, by two witnesses independently, standing on the corner of a minor – and at that hour an almost deserted – street in Birmingham. She was idling about as though waiting for someone, about forty yards from a small jeweller’s shop. The first witness, an old woman who lives in the street, gave a fair description of a girl who answers very well to Annet’s general appearance. The second one, a young man, gave a much more detailed account. He spoke to her, you see, wasted five minutes or so trying to pick her up. He described her minutely. Girls like Annet can’t, I suppose, hope to escape the notice of young men.’
‘But however good a description you had,’ protested Tom, ‘why a girl from Comerford, of all places, when this was in Birmingham?’
‘A good question, I’m coming to that.’
‘I suppose your son told you Annet was missing during the week-end,’ said Tom, bitterly and unwisely.
George gave him a long, thoughtful glance from under raised brows.
‘No, Dominic’s told me nothing – but thanks for the tip. No, the Birmingham police came to us because this girl, according to her unwelcome cavalier, was filling in the time while she waited, as one does, by fishing the forgotten bits out of her pockets. Everyone has an end of pencil, or a loose lucky farthing, or a hair-grip, or something, lost in the fluff at the seam. This girl had a bus ticket. She was playing with it when he accosted her, and she was nervous. That amused him. He paid particular attention to the way she was folding it up into a tiny fan — you know? — narrow folds across in alternate directions, then fold the whole thing in the middle. When he was too pressing – though of course he doesn’t admit that – she drew back from him hastily, twisted the fan in her fingers and threw it down. He says he left her alone then. If she
didn’t want him, he could do without her. But when they took him back to the corner next day he knew where the ticket had lodged, close under the wall, in a cranny of the paving stones. And sure enough, they found it there, and he identified it positively.
‘It turned out,’ said George flatly, ‘to be a one-and-fourpenny by Egertons’ service between Comerbourne and Comerford. With that and the description it wasn’t so hard to settle upon Annet, once they came to us. Unfortunately no one saw the person for whom she was waiting. She told the youngster who accosted her she was waiting for her boyfriend, and he was an amateur boxer. So he didn’t hang around to put it to the test.’
‘But what of it?’ persisted Beck feverishly. ‘Why are they hunting for this girl – whoever she may be?’
‘Because, around midnight that night, when a policeman on the beat came along, he saw that the steel mesh gate over the jeweller’s doorway wasn’t quite closed. All the lights in the shop were off, the gate was drawn into position, but when he tried it he found it wasn’t secured. And naturally he investigated. He found the till cleared of cash, and several glass cases emptied, too, apparently of small jewellery. The loss is estimated at about two thousand pounds, mostly in good rings.
‘And the proprietor – he was an old, solitary man, who lived over his shop – he was in his own workroom at the back. His head had been battered in with a heavy silver candlestick,’ said George, his voice suddenly hard, deliberate and cold. ‘He was dead.’
The gasp of realisation and horror that stiffened them all jerked Annet for the first time out of her changeling calm, and out of her chair. She was torn erect, rigid, her face convulsed, her hands clutching at the empty air before her. The great eyes dilated, fixed and blank with shock. The contorted mouth screamed: ‘No – no, – no!’ and her voice shattered on a suffocating breath.
