Under the Ice

by Rachael Blok

  65

  ‘We’ll be fine,’ Felicity says, smiling.

  ‘Come on, Jen. It’s just a drink and Midnight Mass. We’ll only be a couple of hours and he’s already had enough milk to last him until at least three. It’s only ten o’clock, and we’ll be back by one at the latest. Snowball? Advocaat? Lambrusco? Hmm,’ Will strokes his chin, raising an eyebrow, ‘do you feel like a Babycham?’

  She laughs. Will’s a bit pissed already. So is she, come to think of it.

  ‘Yeah, let’s go. If you’re sure, Felicity?’

  ‘Yes, dear. You two go. Henry’s snoring in front of the TV and I’ve got your dad for company. It will be quite relaxing really.’ She smiles. ‘I’ll go to bed in a bit, but I promise to take the monitor with me and William can collect it once you’re back.’

  Woolly hats, thick scarves, lipstick and she’s ready. They walk up The Lanes towards town, holding hands. Jenny can feel Will’s grasp, like a paw in his gloves, curl round her fingers carefully, gently. The sky is clear and full of stars and the coldness makes her lean towards him. Walking out of the house together, Finn fast asleep and cared for, she feels released.

  ‘So, what you got me? A Maserati?’ Will says.

  She laughs. ‘I considered it. Gone for a country retreat instead, complete with labrador. You know I’m expecting loads of diamonds?’

  ‘Got you a tiara and a yacht.’

  ‘Chocolates then?’

  ‘Might have done…’

  He grabs her round the waist, and lifts her over a frozen puddle. She shrieks with the suddenness, the brief flight. His arm remains tight, close.

  The Kings Arms is bustling and Will brings a large red for her and a pint for him. And crisps. They share a stool by the bar as the tables are all taken; the noise is thick and lively. Holly is woven on the wooden beams. His fingers brush her hand as he reaches for his drink; she thinks of their first meeting. He had laughed at her jokes: out loud, belly-laughed. Her fingers had itched to reach out for him.

  Words bump and roll in the air above them, rising with the heat. She hears snatches from all around as they float: ‘white wine for me…’; ‘… can’t stand the stuff but I know she’s gone and bought it again’; ‘bet I’ve just got socks’; ‘your mum’s at it again…’; ‘book about therapy – as if he…’; ‘God, look at the time, got to get the presents out for the kids…’

  Something stirs. She tilts her head, leaning into the conversations. What was it?

  ‘So, go on, what have you got me, babe?’ Will bends and kisses her. His lips land south of the top of her head, and she feels her ear turn slightly damp.

  ‘Let’s see, Finn’s been doing some arts and crafts. I’ve been a bit more predictable. You’ll have to wait and see. It might be slippers…’

  ‘Socks? Gardening gloves?’

  She laughs. ‘You’d be lucky.’

  What was it? What had been said?

  ‘You OK? You’ve got that look again.’ He peers, eyes narrowing. His features loom in, and she rocks back slightly as the beery breath hits her.

  ‘I’m fine. The parents have got on well, haven’t they? I was a bit worried about, you know, the mingling and small talk.’

  ‘Yes. Even my bloody dad. Your dad started to tell me about your mum earlier. He said you’d fill me in…’

  The bell rings for last orders. Jenny checks her watch.

  ‘Shit, it’s nearly time for Mass, come on.’

  The streets are busy. People shout out to them, ‘Merry Christmas!’

  Jenny sees Sam and waves. ‘Have a good one!’

  ‘You too, my lovely. Lots of love!’

  ‘Watch out!’ Ben catches Sam as she slips in her heels in the snow.

  Jenny watches Sam laugh, hanging onto Ben’s arm, and Will throws his arm around her shoulders. From the weight of it, Jenny assumes it’s part affection and part for support.

  ‘Looks like you’re on early morning duty tomorrow, Ben!’ Will waves at them, and wobbles next to Jenny with the effort.

  They head down to the cathedral. The snow has stopped. The moon is full and the air is crisp, clean. There is a crowd beginning to cluster around the huge wooden doors, overlooking the park.

  ‘Quick,’ Jenny says. ‘We don’t want to be right at the back.’

  They cut through the graveyard lying to the right, to enter by the side door. It would be creepy but for the streams of people doing the same. Gravestones loom in the dark. Just as they duck to enter the side door, built a century ago for people shorter than they are, Jenny halts.

  ‘The therapy book, Will. Someone in the pub mentioned a therapy book, and it’s been ticking over in my mind. I didn’t know why, but I’m sure…’

  ‘What? Come on, the music’s starting.’

  Through the heavy doors, the stone floor stretches smooth before them. The thick of hush is velvet. Three cathedral volunteers lean in, offering paper programmes. A tall, young, bearded man reaches out to Jenny. His face is familiar: cafés, the market, the odd service they’ve attended. People she can nod to now; the community knitting to a pattern of house improvements, good schools, moaning about the commuter trains. An older lady stands next to him, her smile painted in pale lipstick, sitting on a lemon scarf.

  Moving without jostling, people nod as they squeeze into a pew. They’re more than halfway back, and TV screens have been erected behind the thick stone pillars, wider than the span of Jenny’s arms. The smell of ancient stone becalming.

  Will leans to Jenny. ‘Have you got a tenner? I’m out of cash.’

  He fills the gift aid section of the donation envelope, and Jenny flicks through the programme: ‘Away In A Manager’, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. The melodies from the well-worn carols roll in her mouth like toffee, gooey and sweet.

  A teenager lolls forward in the pew before Jenny, elbowed by his mother.

  ‘I’m going to be sick,’ he says. His cracking voice pitches high and low.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, you’ll be fine for an hour. I told you to lay off the beer.’ Her voice is crisp and her whisper brisk. ‘Hold it together.’

  He lolls forward again. Jenny grins.

  The organ begins, rich and heavy, and the thousand-plus people, flooding the cathedral, collectively stand.

  Soft lighting illuminates the tall, arched ceiling, not quite reaching the edges of the shadows. The chorister boys sing at the front, wearing high-necked white frill collared shirts, under long, dark red robes.

  Jenny thinks of the therapy book comment. Why? It is stuck in her head, hanging, dangling, glistening. A hand knocks on the door – and warmth, a giving way. What is it? Its presence pulls, niggles.

  ‘Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus…’

  The choristers’ voices lift high. Jenny feels the pull, the tugging cord in her brain release. She can lift herself free. This need not be her fight.

  ‘Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua.’

  The service is gentle, a balm. Hymns familiar and the voice of the bishop soft, soporific. Will looks sleepy; he stands for the third hymn a fraction of a second after everyone else, giving himself a shake. He winks at her, turning the hymnal to the right page and joining in loudly and off-key, after everyone else has begun singing. It is warm and Jenny takes off her jacket, hanging it over the back of the wooden seat.

  Are they OK, then? Maybe they are. It is stunning in here. There is a real feeling of belonging. She is not a newbie any more. This is where she lives. Where she loves living. The past few months have been hard, the past few weeks harder, but time is suspended in here. The town no longer seems daunting. People nodded to her as they entered. She jumped into the river to try to save a girl, and she has woven herself into the fortunes of the city.

  ‘In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan…’

  The voice of the soloist rings into the cathedral, slicing like a blade of lace.

  ‘Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone…’

  A stone. Wa
ter like a stone.

  The music lifts with the crescendo, gathering pace. The forte signals for the congregation to join, and Jenny stands, adding her voice, lost in the swell.

  ‘Our God, heaven cannot hold him…’

  Why…

  ‘But his mother only…’

  The gust over her shoulder is gentle, ‘Jenny.’ Now she knows this is her mother’s voice, she treasures the word. Her palms moisten, her tongue dries.

  In a blink, and flash, there she stands to her left. Her face is the same one that has peeped out at her through the waterlogged streets of the town, through the windows of the house. Through her dreams.

  It is the same face: but softer, her mouth still an O, a plea. She is drenched. Water droplets run down her arms and off her fingers, pooling on the floor. The flames from the candles are reflected in the beads of water, sparking, flashing. The image from years ago, dancing before her eyes.

  The ages of the cathedral fall away. Time disappears. What was yesterday is today. What should be today is years ago. The pit of forgotten things is not a place of stillness, but writhes with vitality, yearning for remembrance.

  Her eyes meet Jenny’s.

  How did she ever think she could be free of this? These memories now lie like two halves, a yin and yang.

  In the blink, in the flash, she appears and then she is gone.

  Jenny remembers. She remembers that she has known all along. She knew at the very beginning. The sound of his name. It had leapt out at her, from the clean, white page.

  She had been there. She had walked to the lake. Compelled there again and again, to hide behind the willow, as she had done on the day her mother had died. It’s not a haunting, it’s the rising reclamation of her darkest memories. It’s not a ghost, it’s a distorted face that haunts her dreams. Her mother, wet, ghost-white, calling for her. Desperation rewriting her beauty. Panic hollowing her eyes.

  And she must have stumbled nearby. She had heard the whisper, the cry – like a yelp, gasping for air: not ‘save her’, but falling cry of his name: ‘Klaber’. She had heard the whimper on the rise of the wind, and it had hidden itself in her mind, Swiss-cheese with lack of sleep.

  Her heart clenches and the heat of the cathedral hits her like a spear. She rocks back. Her feet slip and she falls back into her seat, hitting Will on his side.

  He grins down at her. ‘The wine?’

  Looking up at him, her mouth dries. She can’t tell him. Not now. She will be undone. She will undo them.

  ‘No, Jen, no. Please no.’ His face pales as he stares down at her.

  Moving is hard. Her limbs are heavy, weighted and cumbersome. Even sitting upright is hard. She fights for the vertical. Flailing. She needs to be outside, in the cold. This heat will burn her. She claws at her neck, pulling her top.

  Will links his arm through hers, about to pull her out. The service is almost over.

  ‘Peace be with you…’

  Faces turn, hands outstretched. She is reached, grasped. Her hand lifts and falls, her hands boil, burning from the grip of others.

  Faces look her way… She searches just for one.

  Will heaves the huge doors at the back, and he leads her out. The moon is bright. The park opens up before them: a velvet map. The lake lies hidden. Jenny feels its wetness, its coldness.

  66

  ‘And what’s his name?’ The room is silent. No one even breathes.

  ‘It’s a Dr S. Klaber.’

  Maarten exhales. The blood pounds in his ears.

  ‘Sir, are you OK?’

  His body is sweating, and his fingers type quickly, pressing the letters incorrectly, fumbling: Liv, where are you? He knows eyes are watching him.

  The zing of the reply is fast: In town. Meeting Mum and Dad, then heading to carol service. Seb meeting us there. Probably leaving around 11.30pm – late one for girls. We’re hoping you and Imo will make it too?

  Fingers damp and sticky, he replies: Don’t go to carols. Come to station.

  The faces. Expectant.

  ‘We need to bring him in. Now.’

  ‘Yes, but I need to get his address, sir, and there’s no one at the clinic today. I’ve tried. I suppose I can try the medical council.’

  Closing his eyes, Maarten feels the room swirl further around him, and says, ‘It’s OK. Dr S. Klaber – I know what the S stands for. It’s Sebastian Klaber. It’s Seb – it’s Imogen Deacon’s husband.’

  ‘Fuck! Shit… But…’

  Maarten scans for Imogen, but she’s not back from her fag break. He looks at the ashen faces before him. Of course they’d never even considered it; not Seb. And yet he’s been hovering. His mind flashes to the night Seb had put his back to the cameras of the press, to shield him and Imogen; only he hadn’t been shielding them, he’d been scared of having his face in the press. Of being recognised. And he’s been around, all the time, asking about the case…

  Christ, the stuff they’ve told him… He’d known when they’d finished with the search in the local area. He would have known where it was safe to put her.

  The room is motionless, like a collection of statues. He needs to break this moment. But his daughter, planning her party with Becky…

  ‘Move. Sunny, take one car and Adrika organise the other but you need to check CCTV. We need to act now.’ And like a broken spell, the roar of the sound of movement in the room is deafening.

  He thinks about Nic again – his girls – the whole of his calm tips on its head.

  The vanished sun, bright with hope that afternoon, is long gone. The shade of night hangs heavy, and pushes them into Christmas Eve with force. The eleventh day, and the proverbial eleventh hour. They must find him.

  *

  ‘Where’s DI Deacon?’ Maarten grabs his coat as he prepares to run down to the car. He needs to get Liv and the girls here. Until he knows they’re all safe – until he can see it, he can’t relax.

  ‘No idea, sir. Does she know?’ Adrika says.

  ‘No – we need to put her in a room. She’s got to get out of the way. Have Sunny find her – I don’t care what you tell her, but she goes in a room. Out of the way.’

  ‘She headed out for a fag and I haven’t heard from her since. I’ve got a team ready. We’re looking at outhouses up from the waterwheel that we think might fit a child in, and there are some sheds, the Roman ruins… We’re going now, to see if any are likely,’ Adrika says. ‘We’ve also sent Forensics to DI Deacon’s address, and a team to Klaber’s clinic.’

  ‘Right, good. Pull his bank statements too. See if you can find a link to the girls, or the phones he gave them. Shit…’ Too many thoughts in his head. Liv’s not answering her phone – she must have gone to the carol concert anyway and turned her phone off. Is Seb there, sitting next to Liv, unaware of their search? He feels sick.

  Sunny was due to call in five minutes to confirm they had Klaber – that they had Seb.

  It is still too much to reconcile. How can Seb be involved in this? How can it be him?

  ‘Oh, and… sir?’ There’s a hesitancy to her tone.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Tim Pickles.’

  Pickles? It feels weeks since they had thought about him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, the hospital’s called the station. What it will mean for John Hoarde, for that poor family…’ She is tired.

  The lights are bright and Maarten can see shades of pewter in her skin.

  ‘He’s in trouble. He had a heart attack. It looks bad.’

  67

  Christmas Day

  ‘I just can’t do it anymore! It’s more than I asked for and it’s more than I can handle!’

  Will stands in a pool of light on the dark cobbles surrounding the cathedral. Mass is exiting; the crowds a backdrop, a retreating huddle adding texture to the tableau. His figure is dark against the light. A tall frame, with hidden eyes: the silhouette of his figure paints in the colours of his shape with an inky grey, a midnight
blue, a granite black. A moment passes, and then no shade remains. His cardboard cut-out outline darkens as it stands, an arm’s reach away.

  ‘You know, babe, I know I’m so bad at telling you this, but I love you so much. When I thought the police might keep you in, charge you… Fuck, Jen, I just shut down. I don’t know what I’d do if that happened. But now that we’ve got through that – well, I feel so hopeful for us again. I just can’t stand for you to disappear again. Don’t do it!’

  Jenny wants to know if he’s crying; if his words cut him. They cut her. The intangible line that has frayed over the past weeks, tied between them in promises, kisses, hopes, childbirth, holds by only a single strand. It strains under the weight of the cut, and with one breath more, it will sever. Her solitude will take root.

  ‘Say something, Jen,’ he says. ‘Say something.’

  She wants to speak. But the marbles have grown in her mouth. The words that rise, carry resonance, weigh her down. She can’t spit them out. They are lodged, pressing her tongue flat to the floor against her bottom gums. Her teeth are wedged between them. One must be chipped because at the back of her throat, a sharp sliver of glass is stuck. If she tries to pull it out, the blood will flow.

  ‘Please, Jen. Jenny, babe… say something. Where have you gone? When did you go?’ He is crying now and the silhouette dips. The droop of his shoulders bends down into Thinking Man.

  ‘How can you just stand there, staring? Don’t you want to save us? Don’t you want to try?’

  Her heart breaks. She wants to tell him, but she can feel the panic rising, the need to run. To run to the lake. She can’t form the sentences in her head. It’s a jumble now, and there’s no time. The lake is pulling her. She feels in her bones that Becky is out there; where she’s sure she saw Klaber with Leigh. If he is going to kill Becky, she is sure he will choose the lake.