Miss Pink Investigates- Part Four

by Gwen Moffat

  Alone on the pass she looked back but there was nothing to see, not even the path. She turned frantically, searching for it, but there was only the interminable frieze of grass, and the light, and silence. Even the sky looked hostile, bleached out by the sun like in those western movies where men stagger through the desert and the screen goes glaring white and you know those men are going to die of thirst.

  She started to panic. This was England — the Lake District where pensioners came on coach trips, for God’s sake — and here she was: Perry the loner, the tearaway, lost and so scared she felt like crying, and she was the one who never cried. Uncle Bill used to belt her till the blood came, shouting he’d make her cry, but she never did.

  She tried to breathe deeply but the first breath was a sob. Bags licked her hand. She didn’t even know which way was forward now; in turning around she’d lost all sense of direction. If she did find the path again she wouldn’t know which way to go. The sun was glaring; thank God for the fat man’s Ray Bans. A glimmer of amusement meant a lift of spirit, a spark of common sense. The sun was in her eyes. On the climb out of the valley and as she’d started across the pass, it had been behind her; she’d felt the heat on the back of her neck. What she had to do was keep walking away from the sun. Tentatively she started to move.

  The ground was rougher now, tussocky with the odd bright green patch which Bags investigated, looking for water and not finding any. She felt terribly sorry for him, he wasn’t a farm dog — too well-fed; he was a pet who had followed her when she had been walking through a village back in the spring. He’d lost weight since then but he was still plump and he would always be a bit stupid. ‘We’ll find some water soon,’ she promised him, longing for a drink herself, treating him as if he were a kid brother, but she always did that. He was all she had; he was family.

  An object broke the skyline but it was only a stone. As she approached she saw that it wasn’t one stone but several set carefully on top of each other. Human hands had done that. She hurried forward, glanced sideways for more evidence that someone else had been here and gasped. There was a path: a wide earthy track with prints of trainers — boots, shoes, it didn’t matter — prints that had been made when the earth was mud.

  Now, which way to go, left or right? She looked left and saw what she’d missed as she searched for a second marker: that the ground was starting to break up. The path vanished round the base of a small knoll with stones on top, and beyond were more swells and dips. Through a gap the hazy bulk of a mountain showed and there, just visible in the gap, was the top of a tree. She turned left.

  They came round the knoll, both walking better now, and below them, seemingly quite close, a little blue pool shone in a waste of heather. Perry started to run.

  They stayed at the pool for an hour: drinking, lying in the shallows. After a while they shared the last of the granary loaf which was all the food left. No matter, there was the twenty pounds. ‘You can buy a lot of bones with twenty pounds,’ she told Bags. ‘Hell, we could have steak tonight!’

  Once she got down to the dale it was eight miles to town according to the hikers, but there was a road. She’d thumb a ride.

  She dressed and pushed back through the heather to intercept the path at an angle. The pool lay in a depression and the ground was squelchy, the walking rough again with high clumps and holes. Once she stopped on some bright green moss and ahead of her the ground quivered like a water-bed. She inched back, horrified; she had the impression that the moss was no more than a thick crust over something liquid and bottomless. She retreated in a panic, casting about desperately for the path, for those piles of stones that marked its course. None showed but leftwards she could still see the big grey mountain, which was some comfort because by now she’d lost sight of the tree.

  She made for the mountain. A big bird flew up and started to circle, calling like a lost soul. She drew a shaky breath, feeling not just a return of her terror when she was lost but an enhancement of it, as if, nearing the end of this fraught journey, something — her fate, the curses of the Mondeo driver — was going to catch up with her. To cap it all Bags was leaving, making for a long bank that looked man-made so the path could be that way. She followed, shouting at him to wait. Without him she’d be the last living being in a hostile world.

  The dog drew away from her, not in a straight line but moving this way and that, checking, head raised, nose up. There was a breeze here: slight but blowing towards them. He’d smelled something.

  She reached the bank: a kind of wall of crumbly black soil overhung by heather. She moved along the foot of it following the dog. They came to a maze of deep ditches below dikes. Sometimes there was a skim of water in the bottom with gravel and surprisingly pale sand. She didn’t like it, felt hemmed in and, some six feet below the level of the moor, she couldn’t see the beacon of the mountain. She found a break and scrambled out with relief. There was the mountain, and there — quite close — was a pile of stones.

  Bags was barking. To hell with him. She staggered to the path, resolved not to leave it again until it came out on a tarred road. She could see the dog as she walked down the track — down, she noted exultantly — and the top of that tree was in sight again and quite near. Bags was way behind her now, barking frenziedly at a black bank. She shouted. He heard and turned his head. She kept walking and he erupted again. Rabbit, she thought, he’d chased one down a hole. He’d come, eventually.

  The tree marked the top of a steep wooded incline. More mountains were showing now, enclosing the head of a valley, and then suddenly the trees ended, there was a turfy shelf and a ruin. Far below was a stretch of water like a big brown puddle in an expanse of pale mud. Lines of walls ran down into what remained of the lake and on the far side cars glittered in the sunshine. She was back in the real world.

  The path seemed to end at the ruin but, wiser now, she scouted about the tumbled walls until she picked up the trail which descended in wide zigzags. Half-way down Bags came galloping after her, a bone clenched in his jaws. So it was a dead sheep that had sent him crazy. She sniffed suspiciously. At least he hadn’t rolled on it.

  *

  Rick Harlow composed his picture to his satisfaction and pressed the button just as the dog burst into view. He swore, then saw that the collie made some kind of statement: a sheepdog on ground that had been under water for forty-five years. He was a friendly animal, bouncing up to the stranger — he’d have been grinning if he hadn’t had a bone in his mouth. Rick snapped him again, thinking that if the bone had been human, the animal might have picked it up in the old churchyard. They’d exhumed the bodies before the village was submerged but unmarked graves could have been overlooked. A story might be made out of it, although an item about a dog robbing graves wouldn’t go down well with the local paper, and it wasn’t strong enough for the nationals. However, the picture might find its niche one day, nothing was ever wasted.

  ‘I could charge you for taking photos of my dog,’ Perry said, coming up.

  He studied her with interest. Bones too sharp, they gave her the look of an inquisitive rodent, what he could see of her face behind the big Ray Bans — which were obviously not her own, she’d had to pad the arms with sheep’s wool. The bristling yellow haircut was striking, it would come out well in colour against the background of grey hills and beige ruins, but he was using black-and-white film.

  ‘You can prove you own the dog?’ he asked idly, and was surprised to see her jaw drop. ‘I’m not a professional,’ he added quickly, ‘I’ll not use it, I’m just practising. Come far?’ Why should she be bothered about his photographing the dog?

  Perry was assessing him but poised to walk on. Smart Levis and shirt, casual but clean, not a hiker. Designer glasses: an egghead. She’d taken fright at that cool question: proof she owned Bags? He sounded just like a pig, but he wasn’t, he spoke too nicely and his eyes weren’t hard. He would have a car and she needed a lift; the expensive camera meant cash and if she could cadge a mea
l she could save her own money. But he wouldn’t be a walk-over, he was youngish, laid-back, and he was taking her measure — and probably getting it right. She sighed, feeling suddenly very tired; there’d been too much hassle today.

  ‘We come over the top,’ she said, gesturing limply. ‘What is this place?’

  They were standing on what might have been a cart track but the walls, the ground between them and a little humpy bridge ahead were uniformly brown: a light fawn without a blade of grass in sight.

  ‘This is the original Orrdale,’ he told her. ‘Don’t you carry a map?’

  ‘What would I do with a map? I’m none the wiser; what’s all this dirt? It looks like a desert.’

  He shook his head helplessly and his eyes went to her trainers. Like her jeans they were splashed with the black peat mud. ‘You must have had a rough trip. You came over the top on your own? Weren’t you scared?’

  Her eyes narrowed. It was the tone he’d use to a kid, but there was an odd comfort in it; he understood what it had been like up there in that empty world. ‘It was a bit spooky,’ she admitted. ‘If I’d known what it was like I’d never have started out but then —’ She stopped.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Well, I had to, didn’t I? There was this inspector bloke who give me a ride and — and he beat me up and threw me out in the middle of nowhere. I met some hikers and I come with them part-way. I couldn’t go back because of that bastard. He was bad news.’ She was explaining too much — and he didn’t look as shocked as he should.

  ‘What do you expect?’ he said. ‘Getting in a car with a strange man. How old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen.’

  He raised an eyebrow but he didn’t dispute it. ‘So,’ he said, starting to move towards the bridge, ‘where did you spend last night?’

  That was a new one. Usually they asked where she proposed to spend this one. ‘You with the Social?’

  ‘Being nosy is my job. I write stories for the newspapers.’

  She relaxed a little. She watched TV when she had the chance so she knew there was no limit to reporters’ questions. ‘We slept in a field last night, me and Bags here.’

  ‘Put him on the lead. The farmer’s coming and he’s an awkward old devil. And take that bone away from him.’

  A Land Rover was advancing past the parked cars. Perry slipped the baler twine through Bags’ collar but he wouldn’t give up his bone. The Ray Bans fell off and she cursed. Rick handed them to her, staring.

  ‘Where did you get that shiner?’

  Her face set, then cleared like magic. She sparkled and was suddenly captivating. ‘You should have seen the other guy!’

  He wasn’t amused. ‘That didn’t happen today. Someone else did that, not the bloke you said threw you out of the car.’

  She glared at him. She was like quicksilver: down, up, down. ‘That was why. The second one, the old man today, he saw the shiner, thought I was used to it. It gave him a kick, you know?’

  A born victim, he thought, but she had some pluck; she’d crossed the pass on her own, and she was obviously not a fell-walker, too young for starters. She couldn’t be more than sixteen.

  ‘You didn’t tell me about this place,’ she pointed out, watching his eyes, needing to change the subject.

  He glanced round absently. ‘It was a village, a hamlet really; you can see what’s left of the houses, and the church; you must have come through the old graveyard.’ He didn’t look at Bags, didn’t want to imply that the dog could be carrying a human bone. ‘The dale was flooded in the fifties,’ he added.

  ‘They were all drowned?’

  ‘No, no. A dam was built and a reservoir formed slowly. People moved out long before the water reached the houses.’ He stopped and looked back, trying to relate the waste of mud and fallen stones with old photographs of whitewashed cottages under towering sycamores, the church, grazing cattle, families hay-making on a soft June day. ‘They lived here for two thousand years,’ he mused. He turned back to her. ‘If you came over the Corpse Road you passed an old hill-fort.’

  She shrugged. ‘I didn’t see no fort.’ She was more interested in the present. They were coming to a gate in the road wall. ‘Where are all the people from these cars?’ There were a few brightly clad tourists exploring the village, fewer than you’d expect from the number of vehicles.

  ‘Those will be looking for souvenirs, not that anything will be left. Under the stones perhaps. A lot of people will be fell-walking and — What’s wrong?’

  She’d gasped and clutched his arm. The Land Rover had stopped at the gate to the fell and an elderly fellow was releasing several collies from the back.

  ‘You’re all right,’ Rick said. ‘Your dog’s on a lead.’

  ‘No. The grey car, see? Is it a Mondeo? The driver’s getting out. That’s — I’m with you, right?’ Her fingers dug into his flesh.

  ‘OK, you’re with me. You’re not telling me that’s the guy —’

  ‘Yes, the one who tried — who raped me — sent me over the mountains — to get lost — to die —’ She’d lost all her poise.

  Rick considered how to handle the situation. The driver was standing beside the Mondeo watching them intently. He didn’t have the air of a man who’d raped a young girl a few hours ago; he was a middle-aged, middle-management type carrying too much weight and at this moment rigid with what could well be anger. Rick thought the girl was lying, or at the least exaggerating, but she was scared and she was only a kid. And then he thought that the guy could have tried something if he’d thought he could get away with it, the bastard. He felt a rush of adrenalin. He noticed that the farmer, old Isaac Dent, was quite near, not going about his business but watching. They wouldn’t have much to brighten their existence in this part of the world.

  ‘You can give me the shades for a start,’ the Mondeo driver said as they approached. His voice shook a little. He was furious.

  Rick’s car was further down the road. He urged the girl forward, turning a bland face on the fat man as if someone else were being addressed.

  ‘You!’ It was a shout. The man stepped forward as Rick shouldered Perry away and, raising his camera, took a shot of the guy, head lowered, an angry bull. He stopped. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing? You stay out of this!’

  Rick swung neatly and snapped the Mondeo’s number plate. ‘Hey! Give me that camera!’

  ‘Don’t make it worse for yourself,’ Rick said, with the kind of cool arrogance designed to make the other do just that. ‘There’s a witness.’ He nodded towards Isaac who had moved closer. ‘I’m Harlow,’ Rick said loudly. The fat guy looked as if he might be about to have a stroke. ‘From The Sun,’ he added. ‘Crime. I’m taking the kid to hospital for a DNA test. You’re not going to get away with it.’

  The fellow hesitated and Rick saw his mistake. ‘No,’ the other said tightly. ‘If she’s saying I raped her a DNA test is just what I want.’

  Rick started to follow the girl. ‘Listen,’ the man said, coming after him, glancing at Isaac, lowering his voice to a hiss. ‘That little slag has got twenty quid of mine and a pair of shades that cost a hundred and thirty. And she says I raped her!’ His voice rose.

  ‘Tried, couldn’t get it up, so what?’ Rick shrugged. ‘Save it for the police. And your wife — when she sees the front page of The Sun.’

  The other came after him and Rick turned to face him, trying to look like a hard man, bothered about the camera which wasn’t insured. However, there were witnesses. Evidently the fat man realised that too. Whatever he’d intended, he thought better of physical contact. ‘She took my money,’ he grated. ‘Picked my pocket, must have slipped the notes out of my wallet, let her fucking dog out of the back — I thought she just meant to let it out for a run, but she grabbed her rucksack and took off: chasing after some hikers, screaming. I’m known in these parts, I’m a — it’s as much as my job — I drove away. Then I found my shades had disappeared. She’s wearing ‘em. You think t
hat little tart can afford Ray Bans?’

  ‘You’ve got kids?’ Rick asked.

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Kids her age?’

  ‘Hell no! My girls are children.’

  ‘Fourteen, thirteen? How would you feel if a rapist broke into your —’

  ‘Mine are kids! She’s a full-grown whore!’

  ‘She’s fifteen.’

  ‘Oh Christ!’

  She was waiting further up the line of cars. ‘Come on,’ he urged. ‘Keep moving before he recovers.’ He pushed her towards his Escort, unlocked it and opened the doors. Bags got in the back, dropped his bone and climbed on the seat. Rick reached in, picked up the bone and threw it over the wall, slamming the door before the dog could jump out and retrieve it.

  ‘What did you say to him?’ Perry asked as they drove down the road. ‘He looked as if he’d been hit by a bullet.’

  ‘I said you were fifteen.’ She giggled. He threw her a sideways glance. ‘That guy never raped you.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘He’s respectable.’ The tone was ironic. ‘A family man. What did he do?’

  She looked sulky. ‘You nicked his shades,’ he persisted. ‘They cost a fortune. You hurt his pride as much as anything. And there’s that twenty quid.’

  His tone stung her. ‘That was for a blow job! He paid up front, so there!’

  He gasped and drove for a moment in silence. After a while he said, ‘How old are you? Yes, I know what you said, but no way are you eighteen.’

  She sniffed. ‘You don’t think I’m experienced enough to be eighteen?’

  ‘That’s it. That’s it exactly. It’s girls like you get themselves murdered.’

  ‘Oh, come on. I know how to look after myself.’

  ‘So how did you get that shiner?’

  ‘I got away, didn’t I? I been with that fellow for three months. I told him if he hit me again I’d split. He did and I went.’

  ‘Who was this?’ Rick was aghast at the violence and repelled by the sordidness of it but then he remembered that it was all grist to the mill: how the other half lived. ‘And where did it happen?’ Enlightenment dawned. ‘Oh, you were with the travellers on Low Kell Common.’