The Runaway

by Claire Wong

  The sudden sound of distant barking startles me, and I jump to my feet. I suppose someone is walking their dog in the woods. They will probably keep to the path and not come anywhere near me. Another animal howls, louder and a little nearer. I think, if I listen hard, I can hear voices somewhere too. People don’t normally come into Dyrys Wood in large groups. A horrible twist of fear sets in my stomach: could it be a search party?

  I don’t want to be found here, especially not by strangers in police uniforms. The only police officer I know is Tom Davies, who lives in Llandymna and seems sensible enough, but he was there after my speech at the school fundraiser, so he knows me as a troublemaker. He might even try to arrest me for what I did there.

  I cram all my belongings back into the rucksack. There’s no time to put on my coat, so I tie it around my waist. The bundle of firewood could give me away. I scatter it haphazardly over the forest floor, and it looks like no more than a few twigs and branches that have fallen to the ground. With my rucksack over my shoulders, I pause to check which direction the noise is coming from, and then I start to run the opposite way. Behind me, the voices and the dogs are growing louder as they head this way.

  The forest is my home and I am safe here, or so I tell myself now. Tearing past tall trunks, stumbling on the uneven ground, biting my lip to stop the cry of pain as I bruise my ankle on a stone, I am heading deeper into the protection of the trees. The sheer vastness of Dyrys is something I’m suddenly thankful for, as it must be possible to lose the search party out here. I run headlong, further than I have explored, far beyond any landmarks I will recognize. I have no idea how I will ever find my way back. Right now, I only need to lose the search party, but I can still hear their shouts ringing in my ears. I look back to check if anyone is still following me, and immediately lose my footing and slide down a muddy bank into the stream. The ground is steep and slippery on either side and for a moment I panic at the thought of being trapped down here. I picture the searchers arriving here to find a bedraggled girl sitting at the bottom of the slope, waiting to be caught and brought home. But I refuse to be found! I splash through the shallow waters until at last I see somewhere I can clamber back out on the other side. I begin to run again. Heart pounding, my feet drumming against the ground, I plunge downhill, dodging beech trees and tripping as I blunder onwards.

  In one mad moment, I wonder if I ought to climb a tree. I’ve heard stories of people avoiding capture this way before. They get up into the top branches and then wild beasts snap at their ankles but can’t reach them. But I don’t think I would be any good at climbing, and now is not the time to find out. I keep running.

  The route I take sends me winding further and further into the heart of the forest. The rucksack jolts against my back with each step I take, the weight of it pulling against my shoulders. I can taste the fear of being pursued, but in spite of this I stop for a moment, needing to know just how near my hunters are. The dogs are quieter now, the shouts only just audible. I take a guess at where I am; I have all but lost my sense of direction in the wood, having run so blindly.

  I listen out for any sign that they are coming this way. I sit down on a tree stump and try to catch my breath, for the thudding of the pulse inside my head all but drowns out the sounds further off. After a long while, the shouts seem fainter still, and trail off altogether. Still I don’t dare venture back, in case I’m seen. I sit, silent, for what must be hours.

  At last, as the sun sinks lower, I feel ready to return to the house. But I have no map and no landmarks to navigate by. OK, never mind what you don’t know. What do you know? I know that Dyrys stretches to the west of Llandymna, and I’ve been running deeper into the woods, so home should be roughly east of here. If I can head east long enough, eventually I will spot something I recognize. It’s late, so I only need to follow my own lengthening shadow. As long as I make it to the mill house before it gets properly dark, I should be fine.

  When I finally make it back, I look around for tracks of any kind, or a sign that someone was here, scouring the ground for prints and the surrounding woodland for the roughly hacked path of a hunting party, but there is nothing. They didn’t find the mill. If they had, they might easily have come back another day and found me, but my secret is safe and I can remain hidden here for now.

  Llandymna

  Tom Davies finds himself once again knocking on the door of Diana’s house with an increasing sense of dread. She answers the door with a teething Owen in one arm. Tom always finds it surprising to remember that Diana is a mother: she is a formidable member of the community council, a campaigner who gets things done in Llandymna, and it’s easier to picture her with a clipboard and checklist of action points than with her children. Yet somehow, in spite of the loss of her husband, she manages to raise two children of her own as well as her niece, while still attending every important local event, knowing everybody’s name, and managing to reinstate the Llandymna summer festival, regardless of having no funding for the project at all.

  “You have news?” she asks with an unmistakable note of panic in her voice. Tom nods, and Diana eyes him expectantly.

  “It’s not what you’re hoping for, I’m afraid. We haven’t found her. But we have made some good progress.”

  Her face falls. Composing herself, she invites him inside, and Tom follows her into the spotless kitchen. Diana sets Owen in his high chair so that she can put the kettle on.

  “I’m glad it’s you this time,” she says. “I found those other officers who interviewed me this morning to be very heavy-handed. I think the woman was trying to imply that I had invented Rhiannon’s disappearance as some sort of cover-up for my own crimes. Goodness knows what she thought I’d done.”

  “We have to consider every possibility,” Tom replies with the measured response he is used to giving to indignant relatives. “But there were enough witnesses to the incident on the seventeenth at the school, who heard Rhiannon threaten to run away, that we are treating that as the most likely scenario. And in the meantime, I have been appointed Family Liaison Officer, which means that I can bring you updates on the investigation.”

  “And have you found anything useful?” Diana asks, taking out two white mugs with yellow lilies painted on them.

  “We took a team of officers to search the area surrounding the village today, including Dyrys Wood. There were some footprints in one of the fields that will need further examination to determine if they belong to Rhiannon or not. We also found a mobile phone in a lane leading away from the village, which we believe may be hers.”

  “Can I see it? I can tell you if it belongs to her straightaway.”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s already gone back to the station in Bryndu. Any evidence we find will be sent there.”

  “But why would her phone be there? Why wouldn’t she have it with her?”

  “She may have dropped it by accident, or she may have deliberately discarded it if she didn’t want us to track it and find her.”

  Diana sighs as she pours the tea. “I just can’t believe she would actually run off like this! I know she talked about it, but she used to threaten a lot of things when she was angry.”

  “Well, Rhiannon would be classed as medium risk, considering –”

  “Considering what, exactly?” Diana asks sharply.

  “Considering that she is an orphan, to all intents and purposes. And despite having been taken in by a stable and supportive couple who were already related to her, she has gone on to lose one of her guardians too. That’s a lot of upheaval for a young person to go through.”

  Diana’s jaw tightens and her lips purse, yet when she opens her mouth to speak, the words sound perfectly civil.

  “I appreciate this must be a difficult situation for you, Thomas, policing in a serious matter where you know everyone involved. But I am glad that you are on the force, else every officer on this… this ‘case’ would
be an outsider from another village. Llandymna is lucky to have you.”

  “That’s… very kind of you,” Tom replies a little formally, taken aback by the unexpected compliment.

  “And I assume you have the next steps planned?”

  “Yes, of course. There will be further searches and interviews tomorrow, as soon as it’s light. And I’ve been asked to recommend to you that we involve the press in the search. A television appeal for information, with a message directly to Rhiannon inviting her to get in contact, could be very effective.”

  “I see,” Diana replies in an inscrutable tone of voice. “Well, I’ll think about it. You obviously know what’s most likely to work here, much better than I do.”

  Tom finishes his tea and ensures that Diana has all the necessary contact numbers in case she should need to speak to somebody. As he leaves the house, the door clicks shut quietly behind him and the sound that follows him down the road is presumably Owen crying.

  Later that evening, Tom walks down the track out of Llandymna to the Evanses’ farm. He is met at the gate by Megan, the border collie, who considers it part of her duty to her owners to knock every visitor off their feet, by launching herself at them with boundless energy.

  “Megan, dere ma!” a deep voice booms from the house, as Ifan calls her back. “Evening, Tom! Nia tells me you’re joining us for tea.”

  “Hope that’s all right with you.”

  “Course it is. Come on inside,” says Ifan. Tom leaves his shoes by the rack of wellingtons and walking boots in the hallway, and follows the delicious smell that wafts from the kitchen. Above the door is a wooden sign painted with an old saying: Deuparth gwaith yw ei ddechrau (starting the work is two thirds of it). Tom smiles as he thinks how apt this saying is in the Evanses’ home. In the kitchen, Nia is removing a casserole dish from the oven, while billows of steam momentarily fill the room.

  “Hello, Tom. You’re just in time,” she says, placing the pot in the middle of the kitchen table between the three place settings. “How did it go today? Any sign of her?”

  Tom shakes his head. “Nothing concrete. Just a few more possible leads.”

  “You must be tired.”

  “Exhausted,” Tom replies, but on hearing Ifan snort in response, quickly adds, “still, I know you are both used to long days and tough work all the time.”

  Ifan seems mollified, but Nia still looks sympathetic. “You sit there,” she says. “Don’t take the nearest chair; it wobbles a bit. I’ll have that one.”

  “It’s been a difficult year,” says Ifan, sensing an opportunity to make sure Tom understands. “The snows in March were bad news for our lambing season. We can’t afford another spell like that next spring. When your livelihood’s tied to the land and the weather, success and survival can be fickle things.”

  “It’s not been so bad –” Nia begins.

  “These city folk with their desk jobs,” Ifan continues, “have no idea what it’s like. Bring ’em out here and we’ll show them what hard work is really about.”

  Tom knows that as a local police officer he does not quite fall into the city office worker category Ifan is so suspicious of, but nor is he a farmer, and that in itself is cause for concern. He knows it will be easiest to keep quiet and let Ifan say all he wants to on the subject. Nia appears to have decided on the same strategy. She serves up the casserole while her husband continues.

  “And then there’s the dropping prices of milk and lamb, which are driving some farmers around the country into debt and even bankruptcy. As if we weren’t still recovering from foot-and-mouth, and the number of farmers around here who lost whole flocks to that! More and more people are following what we’ve done, and converting spare buildings into guest houses to try to make some money out of tourists in the summer.”

  “Not just the summer,” Nia adds. “We’ve had an out of season booking for this September. That will bring in some extra income for us.”

  “My point is,” Ifan says, more loudly to convey his annoyance at being cut off and contradicted, “times are hard. And you know what I keep noticing, Tom? Even though we work harder than most, there’s not the respect there used to be for a farmer’s vocation.”

  This thought turns out to be the springboard into Ifan’s indignation at the general lack of respect these days, and he talks as if he were a much older man until he has properly exhausted all his opinions on the matter. Tom tries to cast a knowing smile at Nia, but she seems not to notice as she turns down the oven to warm the pudding for later. She is hatching her own plan in silence. She has questions that need answering, and tomorrow she will seek out the one person who may be able to help.

  Chapter five

  Llandymna

  The following day, after the eggs have been collected and the sheep checked on, the porridge made and the washing cycle begun, Nia leaves the farm to visit Maebh. Ifan has taken Megan the collie and gone to move the sheep into the next field, while Simon who helps out on the farm is shifting hay bales. Nia knows she will not be needed for an hour or so. She walks up to the village, carrying a bag of edible gifts in recycled containers: a homemade stew, an apple pie, and a jar of onion chutney. Though the weight of the bag pulls on her shoulder, she does not lean with it; she may be a slight, pale figure to look at, but Nia is stronger than she seems.

  She passes the White Lion, where Terry the barman is hosing down the hedges that mark out the space for picnic tables. He greets her rather gruffly: everyone knows Terry is not a morning person. Nia skips over the streams of water running from the pub garden down into the gutter.

  The air is clearer here in the village. Nia often finds that she sets out from a farm shrouded in mist to discover that the centre of Llandymna is enjoying sunlight or, at the very least, visibility. Nia has never minded the mists. She likes the feeling of disappearing into the grey, melting out of sight to become nothing more than another unrecognizable shape in the distance.

  She walks by the church hall, where the community council meets, where jumble sales reallocate everyone’s possessions into different houses, where the boy scouts learn to tie knots and the ladies’ sewing group compare their children’s school reports. The hanging baskets outside the main entrance are overflowing with a blaze of bright pansies and geraniums. She keeps walking up the road and around the corner to Maebh’s house.

  Nia holds out the bag of food as an offering as soon as the door is opened, but Maebh glances from the gift to the woman holding it and says slyly: “Dearie me, I think that might be too heavy for me to lift. You are very generous, my dear. Would you mind coming in and putting it down on the table for me?”

  She ushers Nia into the house and suggests putting the kettle on, and before Nia can protest that she did not mean to invite herself in for tea, she is holding a cup and being offered cake.

  “It’s bara brith. I bet you didn’t think an Irish woman like me could master your recipes, did you? My mother insisted we learn it when we first moved over here. She said the same about lava bread, mind, and that turned out foul, and we never ate it again. But bara brith is something I can do rather well when I choose to! Mind you, there’s been Irish and Welsh intertwined in this village for centuries.” She cuts two slices of the fruit loaf, which fills the kitchen with a rich sweet smell.

  “There has?” asks Nia. Talking with Maebh is like sifting through a trove of local folklore. Though she is one of the few Llandymna residents who cannot trace their roots in the village back through the centuries, she knows this place better than anyone. Ever since the O’Donnells stepped off the boat from Rosslare and stood with their backs to the steamer’s dark iron chimneys in Fishguard harbour, they immersed themselves in the language and culture of their new home. It is said that Bridget O’Donnell, Maebh’s mother, was fluent in Welsh by the time they settled in Llandymna, just two years after arriving in the country.

  “Of course. I
t’s in the name: Llandymna. Do you know what it means?”

  “Well, the first bit – llan – is a church or parish. I suppose the rest is the name of some saint. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “It’s from Dymphna. The name of an Irish saint, though they lost a couple of letters along the way, maybe to make it easier to pronounce. There’s tales of there once being a shrine to her, long before the church was built. Of course, once they remembered she was foreign, and Catholic, they were sure to name the church after someone else. But the name Llandymna stuck. Will you have butter with your bara brith?”

  Now that Nia will have to stay for at least as long as it takes her to finish her cake and tea, Maebh can proceed.

  “So then, how are you?”

  “Um, I’m well, thank you,” comes Nia’s reply. They sit facing one another in the small sitting room, with its outmoded floral wallpaper and display shelf of commemorative chinaware.

  “I haven’t seen you for a while. I expect you’ve been busy on the farm, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, busy as ever. We’ve got all the hay in now, thankfully. It’s been a good summer so far.”

  “And Ifan – how is he?”

  “Busy too. He works so very hard. I never feel like I’m keeping up with my share of the work really.”

  “I’m sure you do all you can, and more besides.” She takes a bite of the bara brith, chewing thoughtfully. “I heard that Tom Davies was going to see the two of you yesterday.”

  Nia lets a smile flicker over her face in amusement at the way an elderly woman who rarely leaves her house can still know everyone’s comings and goings. Maebh is not a gossip in the way that some of Llandymna’s residents are. She never tells another person’s news just for the entertainment of it, or encourages her visitors to think or speak badly of one another; still, you always know that she is aware of everything happening around her, whether she tells you or not.