They will find her, wont they, Graham?
Of course they will.
Graham repeated the same reassurance he had been giving for two days. He put as much sincerity as he could into his voice, though he doubted his wife really believed him. He certainly didnt believe it himself.
The helicopter started to turn, its rotors dipping and fading from sight against the hillside behind it. Charlotte looked dejected at its disappearance, as if she had failed to decipher the message because she had not tried hard enough. From the terrace, none of the houses in the village were visible. The only human habitation in view consisted of a couple of farms high on the opposite slope, their weathered stone walls blending into the hillside as if they had grown there. No wonder Charlotte hadnt wanted the helicopter to go away. It was the only sign of life she could see from the Mount.
You hear of girls running off and disappearing for ever, she said. To London. Would she go to London, Graham? How would she get there?
Shes only fifteen, he said. They would bring her back.
How would she get there? she repeated. Where would she get the money? She could have hitched, I suppose. Would she know how to do that? Why didnt she take any clothes?
For two days she had asked too many questions that Graham couldnt answer. He would have liked to tell her that he was sure Laura could have got no further than Bakewell, and that the police would pick her up before the night was over. He had tried to tell her, but the words dried up in his throat.
Dont you want to come in now? Its time to eat.
Not just yet, she said.
Its starting to go dark. Youll want to change at least.
I want to be out here, she said.
Charlie
As long as theyre still looking, she said. I want to be out here.
A book had been turned face down on to the table. Very little of it had been read, but it didnt need to be. Graham could see from the cover that it was the latest in a best-selling series about an American pathologist who was for ever dissecting dead bodies and catching serial killers. The illustration showed a barely identifiable part of a naked body, set against a dark background.
I cant think of anywhere else that she might have gone, said Charlotte. Ive been trying and trying, racking my brains. But weve tried everywhere, havent we, Graham? Can you think of anywhere else?
Weve tried them all, said Graham.
Theres that girl in Marple.
Weve tried there, said Graham. Her parents said she was in France for the summer.
Oh yes, I forgot.
If shes met up with the wrong sort of people
How could she? said Charlotte quickly. Weve been so careful. How could she meet the wrong people?
We have to face it, it does happen. Some of her friends Even if theyre from the best families, they can go astray.
I suppose so.
Ive heard there are these rave things. Some of them go on all weekend, they say.
Charlotte shuddered. That means drugs, doesnt it?
Well have to talk to her about it seriously, when shes back.
After the helicopter had moved away to hover somewhere along the valley, the faint sound of voices could be heard, carried towards the house on the evening breeze. Graham and Charlotte could see no one because of the heavy tree cover, but both of them knew, without discussing it, that there were many men out there on the hillside, calling to each other, searching for their daughter.
Of course, there were probably friends she didnt tell us about, said Graham. We have to face up to that. Places she went that she didnt want us to know about.
Charlotte shook her head. Laura didnt keep secrets from me, she said. From you, of course. But not from me.
If you say so, Charlie.
A small frown flickered across Charlottes face at his calm acceptance. Is there something you know, Graham? Something that youre not telling me?
Of course not.
He was thinking of his last conversation with Laura. It had been late on Thursday night, when she had slipped into his study and persuaded him to let her have a glass of his whisky. Her face had been flushed with some other excitement, even before the whisky had begun to take effect. She had perched on the edge of his desk and stroked his arm, smiling at him with that mature, seductive smile she had learned had such an effect on their male visitors. She had dyed her hair again, a deeper red than ever, almost violet, and her fingernails were painted a colour so dark it was practically black. Then she had talked to him, with that knowing look in her eyes and that sly wink, and told him what she wanted. The following morning, he had sacked Lee Sherratt. The second gardener they had lost that year.
No, of course not, Charlie.
She accepted his word. And the boy, Lee?
Graham said nothing. He closed the abandoned novel, slipping a soft leather bookmark between the pages. He collected the book and the half-full glass of Bacardi from the table. The sun had almost gone from their part of the valley now. But the jagged shapes of the Witches were bathed in a dull red light that was streaked with black runnels where the rocky gulleys were in shadow.
What about him, Graham? What about the boy?
He knew Charlotte still thought of Laura as pure and innocent. It was the way she would think of her daughter for ever. But Graham had begun to see her with different eyes. And the boy? The boy had already been punished. Punished for not dancing to the tune that Laura had played. Lee Sherratt had been too stubborn to play the game but of course, he had been busy playing other games by then. And so Graham had sacked him. It was what Laura had wanted.
The police have spoken to him. He told them he hasnt seen Laura for days.
Do you believe that?
He shrugged. Who knows what to believe just now?
I want to speak to him. I want to ask him myself. Make him tell the truth.
I dont think that would be a good idea, Charlie. Leave it to the police.
They know about him, dont they?
Of course. Theyve got him on their records anyway. Over that stolen car.
What?
You remember. The car that was taken from the car park at the top of the cliff. It belonged to some German people. Laura told us about it.
Did she? said Charlotte vaguely.
At last she allowed him to lead her back into the room, where she began to touch familiar objects a cushion, the back of a chair cover, the piano stool, a series of gilt-framed photographs in a cabinet. She opened her handbag, touched up her lipstick and lit another cigarette.
Who else is supposed to be coming tomorrow night? she said.
The Wingates. Paddy and Frances. And theyre bringing some friends of theirs from Totley. Apparently, theyre building up a big computer business, installing systems in Doncaster and Rotherham. Paddy says theyve got a really good future. Theyd make an ideal account, but I need to get in quickly and make the contact.
Id better see to the food then.
Good girl.
As she turned towards Graham now, her eyes showed no sign of any tears. Graham was glad she was not a woman given to tears, and he would not have known how to deal with it. Instead, she fiddled with the front of her wrap, letting him glimpse her brown thighs and the gentle slope of her belly above the edge of her bikini briefs.
You like Frances, dont you? she said.
Graham grinned, recognizing the opening. Not as much as I like you, Charlie.
He took a step towards her, but she turned suddenly and picked up one of the photograph frames from the cabinet and began to stroke its edges.
Wont you go and see the Sherratt boy, Graham? To help get Laura back.
Leave it for now, Charlie.
Why?
Because the police will find her.
Will they, Graham?
The photograph frame she was holding was bare and empty. The picture had been given to the police to enable them to identify Laura when they found her. Graham took the frame from her and replaced it in the cabinet.
Of course they will, he said.
The old womans burst of anger was over, but her thin hands still jerked and spasmed on the floral-patterned arms of her chair. Helen watched her until she was calm, and pulled her cardigan closer round her shoulders from where it had slipped.
Ill put the kettle on, Grandma.
If you like.
Do you want your Special Blend?
The bagsll do. But make sure you put an extra one in the pot. You know how I like it.
Helen stood at the narrow window of the kitchen of Dial Cottage while she waited for the kettle to boil. The electrical appliances that her father had bought for his parents-in-law left hardly any room in the kitchen to turn round. There was certainly not enough space for two people between the cooker and the oversized pine table crammed in lengthwise to the sink.
The table was scattered with cooking equipment, place mats with scenes of a North Wales seaside resort, sprigs of mint and thyme tied with bits of string, a jar of marmalade, a jar filled with wooden ladles and spatulas, a potato peeler with a wooden handle, a chopping board and half an onion soaking in a bowl of water. By the back door a pair of wellington boots and a walking stick stood on the blue lino, and a dark-green waxed coat with a corduroy collar hung from the hook where Harrys cap would normally have been. The coat had been Helens present to him on his seventy-fifth birthday.
He was never like this before, said her grandmother from her chair, not needing to raise her voice over the short distance to the kitchen. Never this bad. Now he cant speak without biting my head off.
Have you asked him whats wrong?
Asked him? Him? I might as well talk to the wall.
Perhaps hes ill, Grandma.
He had a cold the other week, I suppose.
Helen could see that her grandmother thought that Harry was just being a bad-tempered old man, that she had done something to annoy him. But Helens thoughts were running on some serious illness troubling him, something he was keeping to himself, an awful secret he wouldnt want to inflict on his wife and family.
There were so many possibilities when you were in your late seventies, when you smoked, when you had spent most of your working life in a lead mine, when you had fought your way through a vicious war. Her grandmother, Gwen, would not think of these things. She would believe that Harry had a bad cold right up to the moment they put him in the ground at St Edwins.
But if hes ill it doesnt stop him going off down there with Jess. It doesnt stop him going off with those friends of his, either.
No, Grandma.
Helen put hot water into the teapot and emptied it out again, dropped three tea bags in and poured on the boiling water from the electric kettle.
While she waited for the tea to brew, she looked out of the window, across the back garden towards the valley. The garden itself was bright with beds of petunias and violets, rows of potato plants with white and yellow flowers, and canes wrapped round with runner beans. But beyond the garden, the woods that ran down the valley looked dark and brooding. Helen could see the police helicopter hovering over the tops of the trees half a mile away. They were still looking. Still hoping.
Theyve changed him. He thinks more of his cronies than he does of me. More than he does of his family.
Granddad thinks the world of his family.
Theyve changed him. That Wilford Cutts and the other one, Sam Beeley.
Them? Theyre just Granddads friends. His old workmates. Theyre nothing to do with it.
Its them thats done it.
Im sure they havent done anything, Grandma. Theyre just his friends from Glory Stone Mine. Hes known them for years.
Not like now. It was different before, when they were working. But now theyve led him away, filled his head with thoughts.
I dont know what you mean, said Helen.
But she had wondered herself, sometimes, about what the three old men got up to when they were together out on the hill, or up on Wilfords untidy smallholding with the flock of hens and the odd little collection of ageing animals. Sometimes Harry brought home a capful of speckled brown eggs from the Cuckoo Marans or a bag of potatoes from the disused paddock that he and Wilford had converted into a huge vegetable patch. At other times, the three of them just went to the pub, where Sam Beeley came into his own and bought the drinks.
Since hes had no work, hes been different, said Gwen. All of them have. It doesnt do for men to be at a loose end. Not men like them. The devil makes evil work.
Youre talking nonsense now, Grandma.
Helen found a carton of long-life milk in the fridge and dropped a tiny amount into a cup. Then she poured the tea, making sure it was good and strong.
Her grandmother had kept her old lino on the floor in the kitchen. She had protested so much when they had laid the new fitted carpet in the sitting room that her son-in-law, Andrew, had been forced to give in on this one point. She had said it was easy to keep clean. For Helen, looking at the blue lino now, it also seemed to be inseparable from the dark oak panelling and the bumpy walls and the whitewashed stone lintels over the doors.
He thinks more of them than me, anyway. Thats what I say. Hes proved it now.
Lets forget about it for a bit, Grandma. Enjoy your tea.
Youre a good girl. You were always his favourite, Helen. Why dont you talk to him?
I will try, promised Helen.
She stood by the old womans armchair, looking down on her white hair, so thin she could clearly see the pink scalp. She wanted to put her arm round her grandmothers shoulders and hug her, to tell her it would be all right. But she knew that Gwen would be embarrassed, and in any case she wasnt at all sure that it would be all right. A sudden surge of affection and frustration made her turn away.
Then she saw her grandfather, a small figure way down at the bottom of the hillside path, just emerging from the trees at the foot of Ravens Side. Whether it was something about the way he moved or the set of his shoulders, she couldnt say. But she knew immediately that there was something badly wrong.
Gwen cocked her head and peered at Helen, sensing the tension in her silence.
What is it, dear?
Nothing, Grandma.
Helen unlatched the back door and stood on the whitewashed step. Suddenly she felt an irrational flood of memories streaming out of the old cottage behind her like coils of smoke escaping from a burning house. They were childhood memories, mostly of her grandfather memories of him taking her by the hand as they walked on this same path to look at the fish jumping in the stream, or to pick daisies for a daisy chain; of her grandfather proudly sitting her on his knee as he showed her how he filled his pipe with tobacco and lit it with the long coloured-paper tapers. Fleeting smells flickered by her senses, passing in a second, yet each one with enough emotional power to fill her eyes with instant tears. They were the remembered smells of pipe smoke and Brylcreem and boot polish.