by A J Waines
Beth went missing on Sunday and it’s now late on Thursday.
‘Sure,’ he says, ‘you’re right.’
‘I’m just going to take a look around, that’s all. You go; it’s better if you’re not involved. Amelia trusts you, I don’t want you to be the bad guy in this. Let it be me. Just in case I get caught.’
‘Okay, but take this for the ride home.’ He pulls a fifty pound note from his wallet. ‘And be careful,’ he says, as the taxi appears at the tall iron gates.
Amelia’s windows have no view of the drive, so my hope is that she won’t have seen the taxi move off without me. I hurry past the front of the house towards the west wing. There’s an unobtrusive sign that says ‘car-park’, so I follow it round to the back.
I loiter by a large communal compost heap and consider the layout of the place. Amelia’s property appears to start at the next gate, so I sidle over to see what’s behind it. It’s locked, but when I part the ivy on the trellis, I get a good view of the back courtyard.
Anna is there, bending down clipping herbs. After a second’s thought, I take a risk. Tapping gently, I call her name. She looks up, startled, searching for the source of the voice.
‘I’m at the gate. Sssh, please don’t call out.’
She heads towards me.
‘I was here earlier,’ I say. ‘I’m Rachel. I wanted to talk to you, but not when Amelia is around. Is she there?’
‘She’s in her bedroom, I think. Preening herself, probably.’
‘You couldn’t let me in, could you?’
She unlocks the latch and I step inside. The space is small with square beds of leggy rosemary, lavender and thyme laid out alongside a path of broken flagstones. It doesn’t get much light. The walls are damp, and whilst there are a few amphora pots dotted around designed to add charm, the pervasive impression is of decay.
‘I don’t want to get into trouble,’ she says, pulling back.
‘I know. I don’t want that, either.’ I back into a spot out of sight of the back door and she comes with me. ‘I’m looking for my daughter, Beth. She’s tall, brunette, very pretty. Have you see her here anywhere?’
She looks disconcerted. ‘No. What’s happened?’
‘She went missing on Sunday evening and the police are looking for her. It’s a long story, but Amelia might have taken her. Hidden her somewhere, perhaps?’
Her eyebrows shoot up.
I go on. ‘Have you been in all the rooms here in the last few days?’
‘Yeah, I’m general dogsbody here, so I have to do pretty much everything. I’m sick of it, actually – I’m looking for another job.’
‘You’ve been everywhere in her apartment and not seen anyone? No locked doors? No places you have no access to?’
‘No…’ She blinks a few times, in thought. ‘I’ve been everywhere. Nothing unusual.’
A shout from inside the house cuts across us. ‘Anna? Where are you?’
‘It’s her,’ she whispers. ‘Coming!’ she calls out and rushes off. I hear a car door slam outside and soon after, Anna comes back. ‘She’s gone out,’ she says.
‘Any idea where?’
She shrugs. ‘“Something important came up” is what she said.’
I let my shoulders drop now we’re alone.
‘Are there any outhouses she uses? A garage, shed, basement?’
‘There’s the wine cellar,’ she says, ‘but it’s locked.’
‘Anything else?’
‘No. Just the car-park,’ she points towards the gate.
‘Where are the keys to the cellar?’
‘There’s a bunch next to the range in the kitchen, but I can’t give you them. I mean…I won’t say I’ve seen you, but I can’t—’
‘I know…it’s okay. Thank you so much.’ I pat her on the arm and brush past her, making for the back door.
Two minutes later, I’m in the cellar, but Beth isn’t here. I check for any hidden doorways or cupboards, but it’s empty. As I cross back through the courtyard, Anna is filling a watering can. I try another tack.
‘Do you ever see Amelia driving a Land Rover?’
‘Yeah. She uses one from the farm.’
‘Where’s the farm?’
Anna describes the route, it’s just over a mile from here.
‘Does she own any other properties?’
She considers the question, but shakes her head. ‘Not as far as I know.’
I turn to go.
‘The main gate,’ she says, ‘you’ll need the code to get out.’
She reels it off for me, then as I turn to leave, she grabs my arm. ‘She has the boat. Did you know? It’s moored at Littlehampton. It’s called Spellbound.’
I race out across the gravel, before I lose any more time.
50
Beth
‘We’re sinking!’ I yell at her, holding up my bound arms and shaking them in her direction.
Amelia doesn’t register. She’s staring at her bare toes inside her sandals, as though she’s watching her body turn to stone.
‘Amelia, you’ve got to cut me loose. We can help each other.’
She frowns at me, apparently still not quite comprehending what’s going on.
The water has completely covered the bottom of the dinghy and is creeping irrevocably higher.
Amelia suddenly springs into action as though sparked into life by the flick of a switch.
‘There’s nothing to scoop it out with,’ she cries. She tries to stand, but the boat lurches to one side as she upsets the balance. She’s manically glaring down at the water that’s reaching for her ankles.
‘The rope…’ I call out. ‘Pull the rope, so we can get back to the boat.’
She clambers over to the back and lifts the sodden line out of the water and gives it two hard tugs. Then stares at the shape in the distance.
I follow her line of sight. Since I last looked, the yacht has slid further away. A stab of dread shoots up my windpipe. A few moments ago, I could see the distinct arrow-like shape of the hull, now it’s just a blob on the horizon. She sits on the rounded edge, gathers up a long stretch of rope and pulls hard, two more times.
‘Something’s not right,’ she says.
‘Untie me,’ I beg her, holding up my wrists again. ‘I can help.’
Reluctantly, she unpicks the knot and I wrench my hands free. They’re zinging with pins and needles, so I shake them, rub them together, before releasing my submerged ankles.
‘Right,’ I say, reaching over for the rope. I can tell as soon as I gather it up in my arms that it’s flaccid. It should be tight. Our one lifeline back to civilisation is useless.
‘It’s not attached to anything,’ I tell her.
Amelia starts ranting, rocking backwards and forwards on the plastic seat in the middle.
‘Not attached? What? No…that’s not how it was supposed to work.’ A grimace twists her features and she gets down on all fours in the pool of water and begins inspecting every inch of the interior.
‘Here it is,’ she says, triumphantly. ‘There’s a hole.’
I follow her long pearly nail to a small tear in the side that has been covered over with a piece of sticky fabric. She cries out, in despair. ‘This looks like a patch you’d use to repair a bicycle puncture.’ She flattens it down, rubs it in place with the heel of her hand, but it springs back up again. ‘It’s not even waterproof.’ She looks around desperately for something to paste over it. Of course, there’s nothing. She slaps her hand back over it, instead.
‘Ah…’ she says, ‘I walked straight into this, didn’t I?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘All this…business,’ she wafts her hand about, vacantly. ‘It wasn’t my idea.’
She gazes out towards the small white dot in the distance that’s shrinking with every breath.
‘Come and cover the hole,’ she says, ‘we’ll have to take turns. It’s only fair.’
I can’t believe she’s uttered
those last words after all she’s put me through. I’m also about to point out that her ‘turn’ was bizarrely short, but think better of it. Self-preservation must come first.
I carefully slide over, while she sits on the bench, scraping her fingers through her hair. A few moments ago it was tied up into an elaborate bun, now it looks like a ruffled yellow feather boa has been plonked on top of her head.
‘Listen, we won’t go down,’ I tell her. ‘Peter told me that dinghies have more than one air chamber. If there’s a leak in one side, the rest stays full of air.’
She blinks hard and looks at the side without the puncture, then she presses her fingers into it, like a child playing with Plasticine.
‘Noooo,’ she groans, ‘this side is deflating too.’
‘It can’t be.’ I’m watching from my static position pressing on the puncture as she pushes her thumb into the spongy fabric. It sags forming an indentation instead of bouncing back.
Amelia casts her eyes over that side in earnest, trying to find a hole.
‘It could be tiny,’ I say.
As I speak, I realise this isn’t the dinghy that was attached to Carl’s smart yacht the day we went along the Thames. This is an old one that probably hasn’t been seaworthy for years.
She notices something and bends down, getting wet up to her knees. ‘I’ve got it. It’s here. It’s the seal around the valve,’ she says, ‘it’s all peeling away.’
Shit! Both sides are deflating. We’re going down.
‘I don’t believe this,’ she yelps, gulping noisy breaths that are rapidly speeding up until she’s hyperventilating. ‘The plan was supposed…to help me,’ she whimpers in snatches.
‘Sit down, Amelia, and slow your breathing. Make your out-breath longer than your in-breath.’
She gasps, holding her head in her hands.
‘Slow it down,’ I tell her.
‘The plan was meant…to lead me to definitive proof that you were having an affair with Carl. This afternoon I got the email. With your confession note.’
An email?
So, Amelia wasn’t the person who forced the truth out of me about the fling.
‘The idea was for me to confront you privately – out here – and if I didn’t like what I heard, I could cause a ‘little accident’ so you’d go overboard.’
I’m only half listening. Even with my palm pressed over the rip, the water is seeping in, dragging us down slowly but surely. It has soaked my jeans up to my calves already. We’ve probably got around five minutes before the dinghy fills to the brim.
‘You’re already missing,’ she goes on. ‘So no one would know. Quite clever, really.’
We can’t afford to dwell on the reason we’re here. We need to do something.
‘What about your phone, Amelia…have you got it with you?’
She lets out a tired laugh. ‘There’s no connection out here. I left it on the yacht.’
She props her chin up with her hands.
‘I didn’t kidnap you, by the way, that wasn’t me. We’ve both been set up, haven’t we? With no rope and these holes in the side – it’s sabotage. There was only ever going to be one outcome, wasn’t there?’
She’s right. All I can do is watch as the dinghy fills with water, disappearing into the sea.
51
Rachel
‘Amelia has a boat,’ I tell Peter as soon as he answers.
‘Where are you?’
‘Safely outside Amelia’s front gates on the country lane. Beth wasn’t there. But her housekeeper got me thinking about the farm. I take it you know where it is?’
‘Yes, Shawley, just outside Arundel.’
‘And the boat.’
‘Spellbound,’ he says. ‘I’ve used it a couple of times on the Thames.’
‘It’s currently moored at Littlehampton,’ I say. ‘That’s only four miles away. I’ll get over there and you get to the farm and have a look around. We’ve got to try this.’
He puts up no resistance this time. ‘Okay. I’m onto it.’
A swirling sickness fills my stomach as I wait for another taxi, clutching Peter’s money. If the boat is a dead end, I don’t know what I’ll do next. I miss Russell so much. He would have grounded me, calmed my panic, soothed me. When I was upset, he had a way of playing with my hair that made me tingle all over. He’d slowly twirl tiny strands around his fingers then let them fall. When I tried it with Beth once, she hated it.
‘Urgh – it feels like there’s a spider in my hair!’ she shrieked, pulling away.
A pang of loss twists my heart as I picture her defiant face. Don’t let her be harmed. Don’t let her be suffering or frightened. Could there be a simple explanation for her going off like this?
My mind leaps to the worst case scenario. All the young people who go missing every day and are never found. The ones you see on torn and faded posters, dated months…years earlier.
Don’t let this be how things are from now on. Living a half-life, always waiting. Not knowing, always hoping the next sound will be my daughter coming home…
I think again of Russell, already on the ‘other’ side, and shiver. Don’t let Beth be with you. Please.
The marina at Littlehampton lives up to its name and seems a compact affair, until I get down to the water’s edge to see multiple clusters of boats on either side at intervals up and down the entire mouth of the River Arun.
I don’t know where to start. There’s a marine supply shop in the main car-park, so I ask at the desk inside how I’d track down a specific boat. I’m directed to the harbour master’s office next to what looks like a converted grain store.
Inside, there’s a man with his shirt sleeves rolled up sitting behind a computer.
‘Sorry to bother you,’ I say, waiting for him to look up. ‘Do you have a list of which boats are moored here?’
‘I might do,’ he says in a way that suggests that even if he does, he’s not going to let me see it.
I decide to switch into desperation mode.
‘I need to get word to someone. Her father’s just died and we can’t reach her by phone. Amelia Jacobson on Spellbound, can you point me in the right direction?’
‘Oh dear...’
He asks for my name and ID. ‘I’m a friend,’ I say, casually. He grunts, but gets up, reaching for a stack of sheets pinned to the cork board that fills most of the wall behind him. He runs his finger down the first page and stops.
‘That boat came in this afternoon. Went back out again about…’ he glances up at a large porthole shaped clock on the wall, ‘half an hour ago.’
‘It’s gone? Do you know where? I…er…don’t want to give her this sort of information over the radio.’
‘Ah-ha…’ he says, like a magician at a kids’ birthday party. ‘You can track the live position of all vessels in the English Channel using the AIS map...automatic identification system. Anyone can do it online.’
I must look flummoxed, but he appears to take pity on me and angles his screen towards me.
‘The yachts are in purple,’ he says, holding the curser over little boat shapes on the map. As he hovers over one of them, the name of the boat, speed and last recorded position pops up. At the top there’s a search box and he types in Spellbound.
‘Here we go…’
Ten records pop up, but only one says ‘pleasure craft, GB’.
‘That’ll be it,’ he says. He clicks a box on the right and there it is on the map. ‘Heading west…about five miles off the coast.’
I thank him and call Peter straight away.
‘Anything?’ I ask.
‘No. I’ve asked around, checked the barns, stables and empty horse boxes. No one has seen Beth.’
‘While I was at Amelia’s she suddenly took off in her car. Turns out Spellbound left the marina about half an hour ago.’
‘Could be a coincidence,’ he says.
‘I know, but we should try. I’ve found out where the boat is on the map. W
e just have to get there.’
52
Rachel
I’ve been sitting on a bench overlooking the water for what feels like an age. A vehicle screeches to a halt behind me and Peter charges on to the marina, out of breath.
‘I’m sorry I took so long,’ he says, ‘couldn’t find a taxi.’
He races off again towards one of the huts beside the sales showroom. Soon after, he’s back with a smile on his face. With the help of his wallet, he’s twisted a few arms and secured us the hire of a powerboat.
He takes me towards a man standing at the quayside.
‘Shouldn’t we call the police before we go?’ I say as he signs a form and takes the keys.
‘There’s no proof Amelia has got Beth. Don’t get your hopes up too high.’
The harbour lights came on five minutes ago and the sun is about to slip below the horizon.
‘I take it you know how to handle one of these things in the dark?’ I ask as we hurry across the tarmac.
He smiles as we step onto the jetty. ‘Don’t worry. Carl had one,’ he tells me. My stomach shrivels at the sound of his name and I look away.
Peter hands me a lifejacket and while I clip the straps into place, he kneels down and spends a few moments inspecting the outboard motor and propeller.
‘We can’t waste time checking everything,’ he says, straightening up. ‘We’ll just have to hope it’s in good nick.’
He steps over to the controls and mimes various manoeuvres involving an array of dials, switches and levers, before putting the key in the ignition. I’m about to ask how long it’s been since he last handled one, but I think better of it.
Peter switches on and asks me to stay put on a padded bench at the back, while he unties the boat. Soon, we’re heading out along the river, passing a closed amusement park on our left, before we reach beaches and open water.
I consult the website I looked at earlier at the harbour master’s office and call out the current co-ordinates of Spellbound.
It’s 7.45 p.m. and the colours at sunset are a wash of pastel shades; dark pink, purple and petrol blue, rapidly draining to grey. With waves like white scratches across the surface of a canvas, it would be idyllic in different circumstances.
