Silent Playgrounds

by Danuta Reah

  He shrugged. ‘It probably means that the battery’s run down. Or that someone switched the phone off since you last rang the number.’

  Lucy had been in the park. They found traces of her, far away from where her mother said she had been going. About a mile through the woods, there was a playground close to Forge Dam, the last dam. In the café by the playground at the end of the woods, the owner came out into the sunshine for a cigarette, and said, ‘Yes, little girl, fair-haired, yes, she was here earlier this morning, around tenish. She bought an ice cream.’ He thought for a bit. ‘And a piece of cake. I asked her if it was for the ducks. I’ve seen her up here before and her mum buys cake for the ducks.’

  ‘Is this her?’ The officer showed him a picture and he nodded.

  ‘That’s the one. Has anything … ?’

  ‘Was anyone with her?’ The radio on the man’s jacket crackled and said something the café owner couldn’t catch. The policeman spoke briefly and quietly into the radio, then returned to his question.

  ‘Yes … Well, I think so.’

  ‘Who was it? Could you describe the person who was with her?’

  Feeling more uneasy now, the café owner thought back. He hadn’t really seen, now he came to think of it. She’d come to the side window of the café twice, once for ice cream and once for cake and a drink. He hadn’t actually seen anyone. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, slowly. ‘I just assumed … I didn’t see anyone.’

  It had been a quiet morning, a quiet day. Some walkers had passed through earlier, shortly after nine, and had stopped for a cup of tea. He’d seen people go past on their way up to the dam or beyond. The path formed part of the Sheffield Round Walk, and also offered a walkers’ route into the Derbyshire Peak District. It was a busy path. Some of the passers-by might have stopped at the dam, spent the day fishing, he didn’t know. He’d kept an eye on the café – quiet as he’d said – done his books, had the telly on for some of the time. The officer, making notes, realized gloomily that if this became a real inquiry, someone would have the job of tracking these people down, asking them what they had seen, trying to find out if there was anyone who’d been through that way who hadn’t come forward, and if that person hadn’t come forward was it because he knew all too well what had happened to the missing child.

  Suzanne knew that something had made the police more concerned now. The arrival of a man in civilian clothes, a detective, made the knot in her stomach tighten. She felt uneasy around the police. She had too many memories of Adam, the voice on the phone. I’m afraid we’ve got Adam here again. He’s been … And her father. You deal with it, Suzanne. This is your responsibility. She’d trusted them then, listened to them, done what they’d said. She could still hear the woman’s voice. Just tell us where Adam is. We want to help the lad, Suzanne.

  The man introduced himself as Detective Inspector Steve McCarthy. He checked quickly through the same things Hazel had done, asking one or two more questions as he went. Suzanne was impressed by his efficiency, but found him brusque and cold. Then he began asking about Emma – how well Jane knew her, what she did, where she lived. Jane’s face went whiter as he told her that Emma wasn’t a student, and had never been an official tenant at number fourteen.

  Suzanne hadn’t realized before how much they had taken Emma on trust, because they knew her – or thought they did. This was why the police were so concerned. There was something wrong with Emma. She moved to sit on the arm of Jane’s chair. She put her arm round Jane and said, ‘We know Emma well. We both do. She’s Sophie’s friend.’ He raised an eyebrow at her in query, and she realized what a thin recommendation it sounded.

  She told him about Sophie, about her parents, her tutor, the course she had been doing. ‘That’s how we got to know Emma,’ she explained. When he said nothing, she asked, ‘What’s wrong? There’s something about Emma, isn’t there?’

  ‘We just need some background,’ he said. He’d evaded her question. His face was expressionless as he made some notes, then he moved on to ask about Lucy’s father. ‘Where does he live? Does he see Lucy often? Would Lucy go round there?’

  Jane shook her head. Suzanne couldn’t stay quiet. ‘Lucy always saw Joel here.’ Suzanne wouldn’t refer to Joel as Lucy’s dad. He didn’t deserve the title. He was hardly ever there. He devoted his time, as far as she could tell, to his undefined business interests around clubs and warehouse parties. When he did see Lucy, he took all the icing for a while – bringing presents sometimes, playing with her sometimes, but never consistent, never there when she needed him. When he let Lucy down – which he always did, in the end, forgetting her birthday: It’s only a date on the calendar. Loosen up, Jane; promising to come to her party and not turning up: I can’t stand an afternoon of screeching kids; saying, ‘Of course I’ll come and see you in the play, sweetheart,’ and never arriving, so Lucy cried and refused to perform and said, ‘We can’t start yet, my daddy’s not here’: Look, something cropped up. Stop nagging, Jane – when he let Lucy down, Jane always made excuses for him, always made him look good in Lucy’s eyes. But how to explain it? She tried to sum it up briefly and thought she saw a glimmer of amusement in the man’s eyes. ‘Joel wouldn’t kidnap Lucy.’ she added. ‘He’d pay a ransom for someone to take her off his hands.’

  Jane put her face in her hands, then looked up. ‘Joel doesn’t live in Sheffield.’ she said wearily. ‘Lucy won’t be there.’ Suzanne intercepted a quick look between DI McCarthy and Hazel Austen. She flushed. She could have told them that straight away. Jane forestalled the next question. ‘Leeds,’ she said. ‘He lives in Leeds. And he’s in London at the moment, working.’ Her face, normally pale, was white, and she looked exhausted. The words were beginning to spill out as though this was her last defence, and when the words were gone there would be nothing left. ‘She’ll be hungry. She hasn’t had any lunch. She’s small – it’s the asthma. She’s very brave, Lucy, but she does get frightened in the dark. She’s got to be back before it gets dark. She’ll be frightened on her own.’ She looked at the man who was listening impassively to her words. ‘I need to go and find her.’

  McCarthy looked at Jane for a moment and seemed to relent. His voice was gentler. ‘There are people out now looking for her.’ Suzanne caught his eye for a second, and read there his belief that Lucy was one of the few. She felt a terrible sense of helplessness.

  Lucy crept round the bushes and listened. The sounds were changing. There had been footsteps before, soft on the old leaves, backwards and forwards in the bushes. She’d stayed quiet as anything. She’d heard the whoosh of a bike on the muddy path, but she hadn’t looked. She’d run away from the Ash Man, but there were monsters in the woods.

  She’d found places between the stones, places where she could hide and no one would find her. She’d heard someone calling once: ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ But it wasn’t a voice she knew, so she’d kept quiet, like a mouse, she’d whispered to Tamby in her head. But now she could hear children calling in the playground. Maybe it was safe now. She scrambled through the bushes and found her way down to the path again. She didn’t go to the playground. She wanted to go home. She wasn’t supposed to walk through the woods by herself, and most of all she wasn’t supposed to cross the roads. She wished that Sophie was there. Sophie knew what to do.

  She hopped down the shallow steps that led to the stream and balanced on the stones that marked the edge of the path. She jumped from one stone to the next, from one foot to the other, moving quickly before she lost her balance. Then she was at the place where the path divided, and she climbed quickly up to the dam. Sometimes people were there fishing, and Lucy and Sophie used to watch them. Lucy liked to look at the boxes with wriggling maggots in. Once, Lucy saw one of the fishermen eating them, but Sophie said that was disgusting. ‘He really was,’ Lucy had said. ‘Really. I saw them in his mouth.’ Disgusting. Lucy looked round. Emma wasn’t there. There were no fishermen. There was no one at the dam, no one anywhere. She wanted Sophie. She wanted
her mum. She wanted to go home. Her chest felt sore, and she didn’t have her medicine. Emma had her medicine. She walked further along the path to the end of the dam. She was tired, as well. She was at the cottages now and the long steps that led back down to the stream. She scrambled down them, being careful to step on each step just once, and not put her foot on the cracks. If you weren’t careful like that, the monsters would get you.

  Suzanne looked at her watch and realized with a jolt of guilt that she should be at the school waiting for Michael. She should have been there watching him singing in his class concert. She’d promised. And she’d promised Dave. She looked at Jane. She didn’t want to talk about collecting children from school, remind Jane that she should have been collecting Lucy now. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said.

  She ran down the hill to the school gates, fortunately only five minutes away. She thought about Michael waiting on his own in the playground, maybe setting off by himself to find her. It could happen so easily, one slip, one moment of inattention and … 7 hold you responsible for this, Suzanne! She was suddenly aware of the air she was breathing, feeling it insubstantial in her lungs as though all the oxygen had been leached out of it. Her face and hands were tingling and she had stabbing pains in her chest. She was in the playground now, outside the pre-fab that housed Michael’s class. She made herself stop, leant against the low wall and concentrated on getting her breathing under control.

  It used to happen all the time. As soon as she found herself alone and responsible for Michael she would panic. She remembered Dave’s look, first of sympathy, then concern and finally exasperation and anger. ‘Postnatal depression,’ her doctor had said, airily. But it had never got any better.

  All her earlier sense of well-being had vanished into a black pit of fear and guilt and tension. She realized that she couldn’t do it. Not now, not with Lucy gone, not with all the things that the weekend might bring. That decision helped her to calm down, and she was able to step through the classroom door and be there for the end of the concert.

  She waved to Michael whose face brightened when he saw her. Lisa Boyden, Michael’s teacher, slipped across to her with a whispered query about Lucy. Of course, the police would have checked the school. She shook her head to indicate that there was no news, and waited impatiently for the concert to finish.

  It was gone four by the time she got Michael out of the school gates. He was full of chatter, pleased to see her, looking forward to his weekend, full of his day, full of the concert, ready to forgive her lateness as she had turned up in the end. She smiled, though her face felt frozen. She said, ‘Did you?’ and ‘Did they?’ and ‘That’s good,’ as they walked up the road, concentrating on keeping her breathing under control, not hearing a word he said. She felt his talk fading away as he became aware of her inattention, saw his face go puzzled and unhappy. She wanted to pick him up and hug him and tell him she was sorry. Instead, she said, ‘We’re going to Dad’s first.’ He looked at her and nodded, a resignation on his face that hurt because it seemed a little too worldly, a little too knowing. Responsible!

  Dave lived on the other side of the park and, preoccupied, she turned them both through the park gates. ‘Look at all the policemen!’ Michael was suddenly delighted. ‘There’s been a robber,’ he said.

  Suzanne looked around her. There were two patrol cars parked by the playing field, and men in uniform were talking to people, showing them pictures. There was a van, a police van, with dark lettering underneath its standard insignia. She screwed up her eyes to read it. UNDERWATER SEARCH. The dams. Her chest tightened. ‘Yes, I expect they’ve caught him,’ she said, trying to keep her voice under control. ‘Come on, let’s get to Dad’s. Let’s see what he’s doing.’

  ‘I want to watch. I want to stay.’ Michael began to force tears into his voice, dragging on her hand. He could tell she was in a hurry.

  She swallowed her impatience. They had to get out of the park before … ‘Come on, Michael.’ Her panic came out as anger and she hated herself for it. He subsided and came, showing rebellion with scuffing shoes and intermittent draggings.

  As they approached Dave’s house, Suzanne could hear the sound of music pouring out of the stereo, the discordant rhythms of the modern composers that she hated and Dave loved. At least he was in. She pressed the bell, remembered that it didn’t work and knocked on the door. ‘Dad won’t hear that,’ Michael observed practically, and hammered on the door with his fists.

  ‘All right. I heard you.’ Dave’s truculent expression softened when he saw Michael, then changed back as he looked at Suzanne. He swung his son up to his shoulder in greeting. ‘Hi, Mike the tyke. Come home early?’

  ‘Can I watch cartoons?’ He’d forgotten Suzanne, forgotten the burglar in the park – he was just glad to be home, Suzanne saw with a stab of pain.

  ‘Go on, Mike. I’ll join you in a minute,’ Dave said, still looking at Suzanne, still unfriendly. He knew why she was here. ‘Well?’ He was making no concessions. ‘Can’t you even manage …’ He looked at her more closely, and his face showed exasperation and impatience.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Getting the words out round her uneven breathing, she told him about Lucy, about the escalating build-up to what seemed an inevitable ending. ‘I don’t want Michael around if … I don’t think he should be near that.’ It would have sounded sensible and practical if she could have said it coherently.

  ‘Does Mike understand that? Christ, Suze, I can see the problem …’ Which, of course, he could. ‘But how often does Mike get to spend time with you?’ Suzanne felt the guilt twist in her. Dave was right.

  ‘It’s been hours now,’ she said. ‘And there’s something the police aren’t telling us. I think something’s happened.’ He looked at her and nodded, recognizing her assessment of the situation. ‘If I’m wrong, Michael can come back tomorrow, he can have his weekend …’

  Dave shook his head. ‘He’s not a bloody pet, Suze. If he comes home tonight, he stays home. You can have him next weekend instead. I’m going away, and it’ll be easier without Mike.’ Was this the new girlfriend she’d heard about? Michael had talked about her before – what was the name? Carol? Carol does eggs with faces on … She felt confused, disorientated, with a sense of everything suddenly out of her control. ‘If you’re so worried about Jane,’ he went on, his impatience making him cruel, ‘you’d better get yourself sorted out.’

  Jane. And Lucy. She’d been gone nearly an hour. Anything could have happened. She tried a conciliatory goodbye to Dave, but his face remained unforgiving. Michael was watching cartoons and shrugged her off impatiently when she tried to kiss him.

  Her head was pounding. Dave was right. She needed to get herself under control before she went back. She decided to walk back through the park, and went on up the road to come in at a gate further into the woods. She couldn’t help Jane any more. What could she do or say? There was nothing to do or say. That detective had understood that, she realized. He knew that words were useless. It was what you did that counted.

  She turned in to the park. She’d taken Michael by the road after they’d seen the searching police. Now she wanted to look, to see what was going on in the further reaches. Uneasily, she thought about that odd notice – it had been pushed out of her mind by later events. She should have told someone. She’d have to tell them as soon as she got back. But it couldn’t have anything to do with this. Lucy and Emma had gone to the playground in the first park. There was a main road and a long path between there and here. She looked round. There were no police. No patrol car, no one looking through the bushes – this part of the park was deserted. It was as if they had given up and gone home.

  The sun was low in the sky now, the shadows of the trees slanting across the path. Suzanne walked slowly, letting the quiet ease her tension and letting the park take over her senses. She could see the pattern of light and shadow on the path. She could feel the early evening sun on her arms. She stood there under the trees, liste
ning to the sound of children playing in the distance, the sound of the birds on the dam, the sound … That was new, different. A rhythmic, creaking sound that she didn’t recognize, and water, churning, running fast under pressure. She looked round trying to locate the source. Sound could be deceptive down in the park – it bounced off walls, off trees, deceived you into looking for it in the wrong directions and the wrong places. She realized that she’d been hearing the sound for a while. Her eyes moved round to Shepherd Wheel on the other side of the stream. That was it, that was where it was coming from. It took a moment before she could identify the noise, and then she wasn’t sure. It was – surely – the sound of the water-wheel turning.

  She almost walked on, but why was the wheel working at this time of day? Why was the wheel working at all? The council had closed the place down, oh, years ago. Slowly she turned and crossed the bridge over the stream. As she walked towards the building she looked for a way in. The doors and windows were closed and shuttered. She followed the path round to the yard. The gate was padlocked. She frowned. She could hear the wheel clearly now: creak, creak. She shook the gate. The lock rattled. She went back and tried the door. It was bolted solid, the padlock bright and polished.

  The events of the day coalesced into a picture she didn’t want to see. Lucy. The strange young man. The turning wheel. The gate was high metal bars, with a line of spikes at the top: the fence was the same, but it was overgrown with ivy and she was able to hook her foot into a branch and hoist herself up to grip the top of the fence. The branch snapped and she scraped her leg as she slipped, but she managed to keep her hold, to haul herself up further, her foot feeling for another hold in the ivy. There! Now she had her knee on the bar at the top of the fence. That would support her as she edged over the rusty spikes. God knows what she would do if she slipped and impaled herself. Now she had a foot on the other side of the fence. Awkwardly crouched over, she pulled herself across and, holding onto the spikes, lowered herself into the yard.