The Rift

by Nina Allan

  The rain had stopped, but still the sky was grey – grey like iron, grey like rainwater, like the ruffled, inscrutable surface of Hatchmere Lake. The ground was scuffed and bare, a mixture of sand and gravel, edged by the crumpled, broken kind of concrete you find at the margins of roads, and on the far sides of car parks. Leftovers and afterthoughts, make-do-and-mends. There were potholes filled with rainwater, a Sainsbury’s carrier bag, also waterlogged, flapping its halfopen mouth at the edge of the trees. There were car tracks in the mud, damp declivities in the gravel, but who knew what vehicles had made them or when they were made? The police would know, probably, or at least they could find out, if they had to, if they wanted to, if it seemed worth their while.

  Such an ordinary place. If you were passing by in your car, or your father’s car, or a car full of your mates on the way to Manchester, you wouldn’t give it a thought or a second glance. If you were with your boyfriend or your girlfriend you might pull over, bring the car right up to the treeline and have a quick fuck. She and Johnny had done that once, in a lay-by near Macclesfield. No one had seen them, so far as she knew, and so what if they had? There was no law against it, or maybe there was now, like anyone gave a shit.

  The lay-by was dank, greenish-grey, edged with trees. A nowhere place. If you didn’t know the lake was nearby, you wouldn’t think about pulling over here, because what would be the point? Even on a hot summer’s day, what would be the point?

  A Volkswagen camper van and a motorbike. Selena felt terrified suddenly, like an insect beneath the lens of a microscope, powerless and so acutely observed it was like being vivisected.

  Her sister had been here. Julie had been here. This had happened to her.

  “What a horrible place,” Vanja said. “Desolate.” She said the word slowly, separating the syllables. She was looking about herself, her wet hair flapping in the wind. A car flew past on the road, a blue Rover. “There’s nothing here.”

  “I want to go back,” Selena said.

  “Sure,” said Vanja. She sounded distracted. She was still looking around, scanning the road in both directions. “It really is creepy here, isn’t it?”

  “I’m getting cold, that’s all,” Selena said. She started walking towards the trees, towards the place where she knew the path would be. For a moment she couldn’t see it, there was just a wall of green, all the trees identical-seeming, like in a child’s drawing of a forest, each one straight as a matchstick, the branches set at right angles. Then as she drew closer the pathway appeared, as if out of nowhere, a narrow aperture shrouded with green, like the entrance to a labyrinth.

  GREN-MOLOCH (Super Rainfish, Sanh Krenh). Not to be confused with the Pearly Rainfish, the Gren-Moloch or Greater Rainfish is a very large, carnivorous bony-fish, believed to be the last surviving species of a genus previously thought to be extinct. The Sanh Krenh is featured in many of the ancient Noors cave paintings at sites in the Mirkh Mountains and dating from several centuries before the founding of the city of Fiby. Unlike its distant cousin the Pearly Rainfish, the Sanh Krenh is a saltwater predator, indigenous to the northern coastal waters of the Marilly Sea. Sightings are most common during the winter months, when freezing temperatures drive the fish closer in towards the land. A well-documented mass beaching of Greater Rainfish occurred close to the coastal settlement of Serp. Thought to be a failed migration, the event forms the centrepiece of a long narrative poem, ‘Rain’, by the local poet and essayist Olla Wurock. The meat of the Gren-Moloch is a prized delicacy in southern cuisine, although the risks involved in capturing the fish make it prohibitively expensive. Noors tradition forbids the fishing and eating of the Gren-Moloch, except in times of famine, or when the fish has cast itself ashore and would be wasted otherwise. The Gren-Moloch is a fearless, rapacious predator and will take human prey where available and without hesitation. Gren-Moloch scrimshaw, or bone carving, is highly prized, and often intricate.

  “Which way was it?” Vanja said. “I don’t remember this other path. Was it here before?”

  There was a fork in the pathway: the path they had entered by and another, sloping off to the right. Selena couldn’t recall seeing it earlier but it was more likely they just hadn’t noticed it. “I think it’s this way,” Selena said. She pointed to the lower path, the path they had come along, which was narrower but more distinct, a rift between the trees. She made as if to edge past Vanja, who was staring off down the other path as if she was hypnotised.

  “Just a moment,” said Vanja quietly. “What’s that?” She was pointing into the bushes, where there was nothing to see of course, except more bushes, the odd toadstool possibly, fly agaric, Amanita muscaria, which was definitely eye-catching, spectacular even because of its iconic red cap and natty white spots, but this wasn’t the season. Dad had known loads about fungi – he’d brought them here one autumn, shown them where to look, her and Julie. Dad had wanted to gather some mushrooms – boletus and chanterelles, which were plentiful in October – and take them home to eat, to have with a fry-up, but Julie had been scared, terrified really, convinced they’d all be poisoned and die in agony. She could be funny like that, Julie could, the way she took against things, took fright. Her mind was a mystery. But that was no reason for Vanja to go haring off after toadstools, or whatever it was she had spotted, something red, not worth the bother.

  “You’ll get your feet wet,” Selena said, although the right-hand path was actually drier than the lower path, you could see that. The trees are thicker overhead, that’s all, Selena thought. They keep the rain off.

  “It’s some sort of a maze,” Vanja said, and laughed. With delight, it seemed to Selena, although her words, there was something about them, something chilling. Vanja made her way forward into the opening, brushing lightly against Selena’s shoulder as she went. “How on Earth did we miss this?”

  “Don’t get lost,” Selena said, in what she hoped was a jokey tone of voice, although she didn’t think she pulled that off, not quite, and it didn’t matter in any case because Vanja was going to press on regardless, that was obvious. Selena kept her eyes on the back of her parka, striped with tree-shadow, more tree-shadow than there should have been maybe, as if there were more paths leading off from this one, more intersecting passageways that could not be seen from where she stood but that were there nonetheless. Selena took a step forward, thinking she might as well, what was the harm in taking a look at least? She thought of the remains of Beaudesert at Cannock Chase, which Julie didn’t seem to think she would remember, although she did, just, a massive stone pillar with a globe on top, part of an entranceway, like this one, only crumbled to ruin.

  My name is Ozymandias, king of kings.

  She thought of Eduard and Elina Farsett amongst the ruins of Pakwa, heating soup and dumplings over an open fire.

  Oh, Julie, she thought. She experienced a rush of love for her sister so intense it was almost anger. Where the hell did you go?

  “Oh my God,” Vanja was saying. “I think you should come and take a look at this. Don’t touch,” she added quickly. “I don’t think we should touch this. Just look.”

  Selena hurried to her side. Leaves crunched and slithered under her feet. Her heart was pounding. Like Niagara, she thought, only that’s not right, waterfalls don’t pound. Thunder, then, roar. What exactly do they do?

  There was something in the bushes. Something red, or reddish, a rust colour, streaked with rain-dirt and leaf residue. Selena could see a tarnished metal buckle, a twisted leather strap, green with mildew.

  This wasn’t real, because it couldn’t be. Things like this didn’t happen in real life.

  “It’s a rucksack, I think. A backpack,” Vanja said. “It looks like Julie’s. I recognise it from the photographs. They did all those reconstructions, didn’t they? Like on Crimewatch.”

  “Yes.” Selena bent down to look, hunkered down. Her calves ached, the damp weather most likely, and the walking. They’d been walking for quite a while, all in all. She str
etched out her hand, her fingers hovering just short of the thing in the bushes, the red rucksack. Selena understood that Vanja was right, they shouldn’t touch it, but she needed to reach out, all the same, to almost touch it, to offer herself some proof it was really there.

  This object, this artefact, this piece of the past that was now the present, this guarantee.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” she said.

  “Oh no you don’t, dushen’ka, stand up.” Vanja gripped her under the arms and tugged, hauling her to an upright position. “Rest here against this tree.”

  Vanja guided her to a twisty, rather narrow beech tree, and made her embrace its trunk with both her arms. How strong she is, Selena thought. She could feel the tree bark against her forehead, beneath her hands, she could smell its smell. It was as if the tree was holding her, rather than she it, the way Vanja had held her. It was as if Vanja was the tree, the tree Vanja. Both the tree and Vanja were stronger than she was.

  “I’m going to call the police,” Vanja said. “Are you OK with that?”

  Selena nodded. “I can’t stay here,” she said. Her teeth were chattering audibly.

  “I can deal with them. Can you find your way back to the station, if I stay here and wait for them to come?”

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  “Yes you can. This whole stupid thing was my idea, remember?”

  Selena gazed at Vanja in her horrible green parka. She longed to say something that would make a difference, that would convey something of the gratitude she felt, the realisation that Vanja was one of the world’s survivors. Vanja had true grit, like in the film, the film True Grit. Both she and Johnny had liked the Jeff Bridges version better. John Wayne was such a plonker, and anyway, Hailee Steinfeld’s was one of the best screen performances ever. Vanja had true grit, like Hailee Steinfeld, like Mattie Ross, and if anything happened, anything awful, Vanja would have the grit to stand and fight. Whatever it was, she would fight, even if the outlook seemed hopeless, even if fighting seemed pointless, just another word for suicide.

  Selena would not fight, probably, or in any case she would not fight hard enough. She was too tied to things as they were, too fearful of change.

  She would go out like a light, like Shauna Macdonald at the end of The Descent. But Vanja would survive, and this tree would survive too, probably, so that was all right.

  8

  DESCRIPTION OF ITEM: a backpack or rucksack of canvas construction. Leather back-straps and trim, nickel-plated aluminium buckle and decorative eyelets. Manufacturer’s label (sewn into inside seam) MIAMI, made in Singapore. Colour: beetroot. The backpack consists of one large main storage compartment, buckle-fastened, and two smaller, outer pocket compartments, zip-fastened. The canvas material is heavily soiled with mud, topsoil and other environmental contaminants. There is considerable weathering and water-damage, resulting in colour-fading, stiffening, and material deterioration caused by mildew fungus and general weather-exposure. There is little sign of deliberate or forceful damage. The overall condition of the backpack suggests gradual depreciation and decay as the result of prolonged exposure to weather. Invertebrate activity and vegetation growth in the area immediately surrounding the item at its point of discovery, together with the full contents inventory, suggest that the backpack had not been disturbed or examined for a period of some years.

  CONTENTS OF THE RUCKSACK: books: The Science of Black Holes by Maria Chavez Healy, Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande, What Did You Do in the War, Granny? The Art and Science of Family Trees by Jodie Bissett, one ankle charm bracelet, with single heart-shaped lock charm, gold-plated 9ct, no hallmark, one pencil case, nylon fur fabric, green, (containing four Staedtler graphite pencils, HB, one green plastic pencil sharpener, one Pentel felt-tip thin-nibbed marker, red, two Bic ballpoints, black, one Bic ballpoint, blue, one plastic ruler, 6in, transparent, one pair compasses, chrome steel, one pair plastic flip-flops, one leather purse, red, containing £6.73 in notes and coins, one hair comb, plastic, tortoiseshell design, one 3oz bar Bourneville chocolate, one bottle Coty nail varnish, pigeon blue, one spectacles case, grey leather (empty), one Manchester Central Library lending card (Julie Fiona Amanda Rouane), one Warrington Libraries lending card (Julie F. Rouane), one staple-bound A5 exercise book (J. Rouane), one pair of nail scissors, chrome steel, one pocket calculator, Sanyo, solar powered. It should be noted that two of the books (Healy, Bissett) were stamped internally as the property of Priestley College, Warrington. The condition of the remaining book (Brande) and the school exercise book is very poor owing to water damage over a long time period. It should further be noted that the buckle used as a fastening for the main body of the backpack had rusted shut and had to be chiselled open. Any earlier and previous attempts to gain access to the contents would therefore seem unlikely. Weight of rucksack (dry) without contents: 657 g.

  ‘A Mother’s Hope’ by Stef Joby, Warrington Guardian, Saturday March 20th 2016

  Margery Rouane is sixty-six. Only recently retired from her post as a medical practice manager in Warrington, she is an upright, neatly built woman with closely cropped grey hair and penetrating blue eyes. Perhaps appropriately for a mother who last Wednesday received definitive proof from Greater Manchester Police of the death of a daughter, she is soberly dressed. More unusually, Margery Rouane is a woman who seems happy to communicate, a circumstance best explained by the fact that she has been waiting for information about what happened to her daughter for more than twenty years. At this stage, Rouane explains, any news – even grim news – can feel like the lifting of a life sentence.

  “Of course in the beginning this is the news you dread most,” Rouane told me. “Suddenly, in an instant, your whole life becomes reduced to a process of waiting. You can’t do anything, so you wait. I remember that for the whole of the first week I hardly dared go out of the house in case the phone rang. It became like a superstition. And yet at the same time you’re terrified of the phone ringing because of what you might be told. While there’s no news there’s still hope. Nothing’s happened, so maybe nothing’s happened. It’s like being on the run from an invisible enemy.”

  Of those who still remember the Rouane case, what they will recall most clearly is that it was never solved. Sometime during the afternoon of Saturday July 16th 1994, seventeen-year-old Julie Rouane opened the front door of her home in the village of Lymm, Cheshire, supposedly on the way to meet a friend. She was never to return, and no trace of Julie or of her body was ever found. Her disappearance sparked a massive police search, but following some early leads and two mistaken arrests, the trail went cold. There was no news from Julie, no evidence of what happened to her. Eventually the police stopped looking. Some have levelled the accusation that it was this seeming incompetence and apathy on the part of the police services that propelled Julie’s father, Raymond Rouane, into the cycle of exhaustion and mental illness that eventually killed him.

  “Ray was a quiet, stable, unassuming man,” his wife remembers. “It doesn’t sound romantic, I know, but one of the main reasons I married Ray was his fundamental decency. He was a very good father. I admired him even more than I loved him, if I’m honest. When Julie went missing he changed completely. It was as if he had a splinter lodged in his mind, turning it septic. No amount of talking or medication or even time passing could dislodge it. I know Ray felt powerless, but so did we all. I began to feel I couldn’t get through to him any more, as if what I thought didn’t count. This drove us apart eventually, as a couple I mean, although we stayed good friends. When he died I was heartbroken. Looking back on that time now, I regret not trying harder to accept the man he’d become, rather than doing what I did, which was to try and turn back the clock. People think differently, they react to tragedy differently. Ray needed answers. He wasn’t about to stop looking for them just because the police insisted there weren’t any. He was too stubborn for that. In a way I admire him.”

  Does Margery Rouane blame the police for
what happened?

  “Not in the slightest. I don’t blame the doctors, either. I don’t blame anyone, except the person who murdered Julie. It wasn’t just her life he destroyed that day.”

  The more time passed, Rouane maintains, the more the agony surrounding Julie’s disappearance evolved from a fear of what might have happened into the simple terror of not knowing. “It became a constant background noise, a wound that could never heal. In the beginning it’s actually much easier. People are interested and sympathetic. The media attention is highly intrusive but on the other hand it gives you the sense that something is being done. When that attention disappears, you feel marooned. Every time you try to put pressure on the police, even just to keep looking, you’re made to feel like a troublemaker, or ungrateful. There’s a kind of unspoken consensus that you’re never going to know now, so you’d best accept it. And as for Julie, so far as the outside world is concerned, she never existed. I made contact with several people, over the years, people who had been through a similar experience. All of them had had friends who would cross the street rather than speak to them, just to avoid hearing the name of the missing person. I suppose I’m lucky in that I never experienced anything that blatant, but I do know how those people felt. I felt like that every day. That’s why it’s such a relief to be able to think about having a proper funeral for Julie, a proper goodbye. In an odd way, it’s as if she’s finally come home.”

  Julie’s homecoming is something of a miracle. In November of last year, a Manchester woman, Vanja Sukhanov, was walking in the Delamere Forest nature reserve when she happened upon the rucksack belonging to Julie Rouane just yards from a pathway leading directly to Hatchmere Lake, a beauty spot that became the focus of intense police activity immediately after Rouane went missing. “I go up there sometimes to think,” Sukhanov said in a press release. “It’s a peaceful place and I like it there, even when it’s raining.”