Heartbreak and Happiness

by Rosie Harris

  ‘Now, don’t get upset, she was in her eighties and she’s had a good life,’ her mother said consolingly. ‘I’ll let you know when we’ve arranged the date for her funeral.’

  ‘Have you had any more visits from the police about Cindy?’ Rebecca asked before the call ended.

  ‘No, dear. The police have probably gone over all the information we gave them and come to the conclusion that Mavis’s story is ridiculous. No doubt they’ll be following things up by trying to find out what happened after Cindy boarded the train at Frome. That’s if she did. Perhaps she simply waited until Jake had driven off and then went off somewhere else.’

  ‘Why on earth would she do that?’ Rebecca asked. ‘We had a wonderful time planned, and we were both looking forward to her visit so much.’

  ‘I don’t know, dear, and I think you should stop worrying your head about it. If she did change her mind about coming to stay with you, then she should have let you know. But since she didn’t, forget all about it and get on with your studies. Your exams are not all that far away, you know.’

  After her mother rang off, Rebecca recalled the dreams Cindy had expressed about going to London and becoming a fashion model or a TV star or something glamorous like that.

  Surely if she had changed her plans and had done that, Rebecca reasoned, then she would have let me know?

  She suddenly wondered if Jake or any of the Masons had gone along to the supermarket to see if anyone there knew where Cindy had gone. In fact, she scolded herself, I should have done it on Saturday afternoon.

  She started to dial her home phone number to ask her mother if she would go and ask the manager or someone else there if they had any news of Cindy’s whereabouts. Then she put the phone down, knowing that she couldn’t ask her mother to do that as her mother had always declared she would never set foot in the supermarket and she didn’t think she would consider doing so even to set their minds at rest.

  Anyway, she told herself, the police were so thorough that, knowing Cindy had worked at the supermarket, they were bound to go there and ask questions.

  Still, she felt guilty about not thinking of doing so herself when she’d been in Shelston, instead of going for a walk with Nick Blakemore.

  Eighteen

  A team of detectives and fingerprint experts searched Bill Peterson’s butcher’s shop from top to bottom. They even inspected every carcass of meat he had hanging up in the cold room, as well as all the joints of meat that were in the freezers in the room at the back of the shop and in the shop itself.

  They also searched every room at Woodside, including the attics and the two garden sheds.

  Sandra was furious when they started opening drawers and examining the contents and demanded to know what they thought they were doing.

  ‘You aren’t going to find her tucked away in there,’ she told them sarcastically.

  ‘No, Ma’am, but we might find some clues that will help us in our search.’

  ‘Really? What sort of clues?’

  They didn’t answer but completed their meticulous scrutiny of absolutely everything in the house before they left.

  Outside, they scoured the bushes and chopped down clumps of long grass and they checked out the ditch that ran between the garden of Woodside and the woods beyond.

  They spent a long time examining the pigsties, especially the one that had been Moses’ special sty. When one of them found an old shoe lying in a corner, he held it up triumphantly.

  Tension grew when further investigations revealed that it had belonged to Cindy Mason, and the investigating team asked Bill Peterson countless questions about how it had come to be there.

  ‘She probably gave it to him as a toy, something to play with,’ Bill explained. ‘Cindy was very fond of Moses. She used to come up here every evening to take him for a walk.’

  ‘A toy?’ They looked dubious.

  ‘Yes, a toy,’ Bill repeated. ‘Pigs get bored and they like to have playthings. We used to give him a tennis ball or an old box to play with sometimes, but best of all he loved old shoes or wellies.’

  They didn’t ask any further questions about Cindy’s shoe, but carefully placed it in a protective bag to take back to the laboratory for testing. From the looks they exchanged with each other, Bill Peterson didn’t think they believed him.

  The Masons’ farm was also thoroughly searched from top to bottom. Indoors, they went over every inch of the old farmhouse from the cellars to the attics.

  Outside, the barns and all of the outhouses and even the chicken run were searched. Even the log pile in the yard by the back door was taken apart.

  Extra attention was paid to Cindy’s bedroom. Clothes were emptied out of the chest of drawers and the wardrobe, and every corner was investigated.

  Cindy’s laptop was taken away to see if there was anything on it that might provide clues as to why she had left home.

  Apart from the emails between Cindy and Rebecca Peterson confirming their arrangements for the weekend they planned to spend together in Cardiff, there wasn’t a shred of information that was of any help.

  Before they left, the police dragged the farm’s duck pond. The result was exactly the same. There was no trace of the missing girl.

  Reports in the local South-Western News brought Shelston to the attention of the whole area and there followed a number of sightings. Cindy had been seen in Salisbury; she’d been seen with two men at a football match in Yeovil; she’d been seen at the races in Wincanton. The police investigations that followed proved them all to be wrong.

  Gossip abounded in the village. Lizzie Smith was in her element, although few people took her malicious stories seriously. Nonetheless, there was plenty of incriminatory gossip and a great deal of speculation, even amongst the men when they met up in the village pub for a drink.

  Rebecca was shocked to see there were even police present at Granny Peterson’s funeral the following week, her body having been brought back to Shelston to be interred in the family grave.

  There were two plain-clothes detectives soberly dressed in long black coats standing at the back of the church. They followed the family and other mourners at a discreet distance when they moved out into the cemetery for the internment.

  Before the coffin was lowered into the grave, which had been dug a few days previously by the local gravedigger, old Jack Smart, they inspected it closely.

  Villagers nudged each other, exchanging knowing looks about what was going on.

  ‘Is that some sort of new-fangled safety precaution?’ one murmured.

  Another shook his head. ‘Evidence,’ he muttered. ‘They’re looking for evidence. Young Cindy Mason has never been found. There’s not even a hint of her whereabouts or even whether she is still alive or not.’

  The detectives accompanied the mourners returning to Woodside to partake of the hospitality that the Petersons were offering, but after mingling for a few minutes they silently vanished.

  Everybody in Shelston seemed to be looking at each other sideways, with doubt and suspicion. It was as though they were conscious someone was withholding information that might be useful in uncovering the mystery of what had happened to Cindy or about where she had gone.

  There was a palpable tension between the Petersons and the Masons whenever they met or were even in the same place at the same time.

  Rebecca returned to Cardiff feeling as though she had escaped from a bad dream. Once or twice during the journey, she suspected that she was being followed. She hoped she was wrong and the police were satisfied she had told them everything she knew and wouldn’t come asking questions when she returned to college.

  She had one regret: she had intended going to the supermarket in Shelston to ask if anyone there knew what had happened to Cindy. Because of Granny Peterson’s funeral, she hadn’t had time to do so. She assumed that the police had done so anyway and had not been told anything that was helpful.

  Trying to concentrate on her work was impossible. She couldn
’t put Cindy out of her mind. Where on earth could she be? And why hadn’t she contacted her? She had tried Cindy’s mobile countless times but the connection was dead. Did that mean that Cindy was dead too?

  She kept going over and over the arrangements they had made and wondering if she had somehow misunderstood their plans for Cindy to come to Cardiff that particular weekend.

  Jake had known the details and had taken Cindy to the station, so she couldn’t be wrong.

  At night she dreamed about Cindy and the things they had done together. Sometimes the dreams became nightmares, with frightening events she couldn’t put out of her mind the next day even though she knew them to be figments of her imagination.

  Even so, she was fully resolved that if Cindy hadn’t contacted her by half-term and there was no fresh news, then the first thing she would do when she got back to Shelston would be to go to the supermarket and see what they could tell her.

  Nineteen

  The lifelong friendship between the Petersons and the Masons was being sorely tested. Both families were so upset by all the police enquiries and the rumours circulating in Shelston that there were times when they could barely be civil to each other.

  Their social get-togethers were abandoned and when they met in the village they barely acknowledged each other. When they were in the same company, the atmosphere was strained.

  Tom Mason still sent produce down to the butcher’s shop but it was usually Jake who delivered it. No word was spoken about Cindy, and Jake didn’t ask for news of Rebecca as he had done in the past. All talk was kept strictly on a business level.

  Tom Mason rendered his monthly bills for the produce he supplied and either Sandra or Bill signed a cheque for the amount due and either handed it to Jake or sent it by post.

  This frostiness between the two families gave rise to even more rumours, and the villagers began to take sides.

  When Bill returned home after his mother died, there had been two schools of thought in Shelston about his absence and plenty of gossip.

  Some people believed he really had been spending the time at his mother’s bedside. Others, like Lizzie Smith and her cronies, were convinced he had gone into hiding after Cindy disappeared because he knew what had happened to her; and now he was putting a bold face on things and had returned to Shelston so that people wouldn’t think he had anything to do with Cindy’s disappearance.

  When the police found no evidence of any violence towards Cindy and no trace of her anywhere, except for the old shoe found in one of the deserted pigsties, the rumours and interest began to wane.

  Many thought she had simply run away from home because she wanted something more exciting. Young girls often did that sort of thing and Cindy had always been rather wilful.

  They knew she hadn’t gone off with any of the local boys because they were all accounted for, and most of the villagers were gradually accepting the fact that the married man they’d linked her name with had not been guilty of any indiscretion.

  Gradually life in Shelston returned to its mundane pattern, almost as if Cindy had been forgotten or never existed.

  Occasionally someone would ask one of the Masons if they had any fresh news about their missing daughter. But the answer was always the same; there was no news.

  Easter came and as usual Bill the Butcher’s shop was exceptionally busy. It was well stocked with poultry of all kinds, and when customers learned that it came from the Masons’ farm, as usual, they assumed the feud between the two families was in abeyance.

  Rebecca had been home for the holiday, but she didn’t go up to the Masons’ farm as she had done in the past. She did, however, go into the supermarket to see if anyone there had any news of Cindy.

  When she asked for the manager, she was startled to find it wasn’t Bruno Lopez.

  ‘I’m afraid Bruno left some time ago,’ the fair-haired young man who came out of the inner office informed her.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t know that. Has he moved to one of your other branches?’ Rebecca asked.

  ‘No, he’s left the company and I have no idea where he’s gone. He hasn’t kept in touch with anyone here.’

  Rebecca felt at a loss. The Masons were the only other people she knew well enough to ask for further details, but she was afraid to ask Mavis because of the antagonism between the two families.

  That year none of the Petersons participated in any of the public festivities held in Shelston over Easter.

  It was noticeable that they kept themselves very much to themselves, the same as the Masons, and this gave rise to some malicious observations from Lizzie Smith and one or two other older inhabitants.

  In the past, both families had joined in most things from services at the parish church to attending the concert given by the local schoolchildren in the village hall and the Easter play that was always part of Shelston’s celebrations.

  It was rumoured in the village that Tom and Mavis Mason were constantly bickering and openly blamed each other for Cindy’s disappearance.

  It was whispered by some of the women who worked at the farmhouse that Tom had been heard accusing Mavis of not taking enough notice of what Cindy had been doing and not noticing if she was unhappy or restless.

  Mavis retaliated by saying she hadn’t got the time for mollycoddling either of her children now they were adults. She had far too much to do on the farm. If he expected her to spend time sitting talking with Jake and Cindy and entertaining their friends or going on shopping sprees with Cindy, then he should have provided more help and not expected her to run a home and a dairy at the same time.

  They were heard quarrelling in public over other things as well, and Jake was heard to declare that he was looking forward to getting away from the farm as soon as he possibly could.

  Whenever Sandra overheard customers gossiping about the Masons, she tried to turn a deaf ear. She wanted to tell them to shut up, but she knew it was more than she dared do for fear of losing their custom.

  And it made her concerned about Rebecca, because she knew her daughter was looking far from happy these days. She tried asking her if everything was all right at university, but Rebecca insisted that she enjoyed every moment of it there and she not only loved living in Cardiff but had plenty of friends there. Sandra assumed that it must be because she was missing Cindy so much when she was at home. But the more she tried to talk to Rebecca about Cindy the more tight-lipped Rebecca became, so in the end she avoided the subject.

  Sandra couldn’t understand why Cindy hadn’t confided her plans to Rebecca. They’d always been so close and always shared everything and told each other all their secrets.

  Several times she tried to talk things over with Rebecca, but never with success. Rebecca remained monosyllabic and tight-lipped.

  Apart from solitary walks, Rebecca spent her time indoors studying. She was due to sit her final exams in the coming term and she was determined to do well in them.

  Jake no longer spent any time with Rebecca at all. He had found a new girlfriend, who lived in the next village, and there were rumours that they had recently become engaged and would be getting married the following June.

  Rebecca had mixed feelings when she heard the news. Then she gave a mental shrug and dismissed the matter from her mind. He hadn’t really been her boyfriend, only her best friend’s brother. She had enjoyed his company but she had no feeling of loss because the separation had come gradually as a result of the rift between their families after Cindy’s disappearance.

  There could never have been anything serious between them, she told herself. His real love was farming and although she was quite interested in what went on from day to day it wasn’t the sort of future she wanted.

  She had once told him she was planning a career in politics, and she knew that hadn’t interested him in the least. When once or twice she had tried talking to him about it, he had dismissed the notion as being on the same level as Cindy’s dreams of becoming a fashion star.

  ‘You two hav
e your heads in the clouds,’ he’d told her. ‘Why can’t you concentrate on something practical like cooking or bookkeeping, something that might be of some use for the rest of your lives? You could even go in for nursing, something that would keep your feet on the ground.’

  Rebecca remembered that she had told him he talked like an old man and that even her father had more modern ideas about careers for women than he had.

  It brought her thoughts almost full circle, and once again she pondered about what had become of Cindy. And why she had disappeared so completely without a word to anyone, not even to her.

  Twenty

  Rebecca returned to Cardiff intent on applying herself to her studies. She felt she had done all she could to find out what had happened to Cindy and was both mystified and disappointed she’d had no success.

  The time had come, she reasoned, to put all thoughts about Cindy from her mind and concentrate on studying for her exams.

  She knew she had promised herself she would do this a great many times in the past few months, but now she was determined because she knew that if she didn’t then she would never achieve the grades necessary for a first-class degree.

  Her friend Grace Flowers had the same target as she did. They both wanted to be eligible for a fast-track teacher training course, and in order to achieve this they knew they had to have the right qualifications.

  They’d agreed they would adopt a very serious approach to studying during the summer term, sometimes in tandem but more often in the seclusion of their own rooms.

  They had also agreed that they would consider Saturdays as a day off and indulge in shopping or going to the pictures or a dance and thoroughly enjoy themselves.

  It worked so well that they were both more than satisfied with their progress by the time the half-term vacation arrived. Even so, they decided not to go home but to stay in Cardiff and enjoy the various recreational opportunities and social occasions that were available.