The Lost Child (18 page)

With reluctance the paramedics conceded, her temperature was stable and just within normal range and they could find no evidence of hidden damage from the incident. Even so, Dan was forced to sign a disclaimer on Elaine’s behalf before they finally agreed to leave, having given strict instructions to everyone about what should be done if she took a turn for the worse.

Elaine couldn’t help feeling guilty for having wasted their time, she felt foolish and embarrassed at the fuss her predicament had caused and was still trying to work out how Dan had got there, and why she was in the library of Hallow’s Court. Fortunately at that point no one was putting too much pressure on her to provide answers. All she was required to do was to lie still under a ton of blankets and sip warm tea as directed by the capable Pavla.

She was still resting against Dan. Occasionally she still shivered, she didn’t know whether it was from the cold, or the proximity to her builder, but equally she didn’t feel that she wanted to complain about it.

Eventually she was in enough command of her senses to ask the question on everybody’s mind, ‘So, who’s going to tell me what the hell is going on?’

All eyes turned to Ada. In the melee of the previous hour she had discreetly placed herself away from the group and looked as if she were watching a badly directed melodrama unfolding in her own home. Under their collective gaze, she opened and shut her mouth a few times, unable to answer.

Jack looked back to Elaine, ‘Why don’t you start by telling us how you ended up in there?’ he said, pointing to the hole in the wall.

‘I don’t know. I remember going outside, and I was sick. There was an ambulance next door and I couldn’t stand the lights.’ She looked at Brodie, ‘Why was there an ambulance, did something happen?’

Brodie couldn’t meet her eyes. The recent drama had only given her a brief reprieve from her guilt about Esther. ‘Esther had another stroke, she died.’ She had to fight against the tears that had regrouped behind her eyes.

‘Oh love, I’m sorry.’ Elaine stretched out her still trembling hand to the huddled figure on the floor. ‘I should go back, see if there’s anything I can do for Miriam,’ she said, fumbling at the blankets. Dan’s arms tightened their grip around her.

‘You’ll do no such thing, you’re in no fit state to go anywhere,’ Dan said, only relaxing his hold on her once he’d felt the fight go out of her body. ‘I think you’re still confused.’

Ada gasped, ‘Esther is dead?’ Her voice was cracked and laden with ordeal.

Brodie nodded miserably, feeling the indictment of the woman’s reaction. She looked at Jack to see if he had recognised her guilt, but he only had eyes for Ada, who was in receipt of his full attention.

‘Fetch her some brandy or something will you?’ Jack directed this request to Pavla, without once taking his eyes off the elderly lady who clung to her pearls as if they were a rosary.

‘Brodie, how did you know Elaine was down there?’ Dan asked over the top of Elaine’s head.

Brodie shrugged, ‘I didn’t, I can’t explain it, I just had a feeling. I think Derry knows about the tunnel, it must have been where he found the dog.’ She turned to Jack. ‘It’s the only explanation isn’t it?’

Jack considered this, ‘Well it would certainly be the most likely explanation. It would also explain why our dogs went demented down there. I can’t believe we never found the door.’

‘You wouldn’t have, not if you didn’t know it was there. We only found it because it had been wedged open with a stone. It’s an amazing bit of design,’ Dan explained.

Pavla returned with the brandy, which Ada drank in one shuddering gulp. ‘The tunnel has existed since the twelfth century.’ Ada said, her voice rasping with the heat of the alcohol. ‘It was built by an abbot of the monastery that used to stand on the site of this house. I believe it was used to access the church that originally stood on the site of the chapel. Of course both buildings have changed over the centuries, but the tunnel has remained. In recent years, since this version of the house was built, it was used to access the crypt where my ancestors are interred. It has never been in frequent use since I have lived here, in fact the last time that door was opened was when I was a child. I had almost forgotten it existed.’

Jack sat, arms folded, watching Ada speak. ‘Well the fact that we didn’t know about it speaks volumes. Why did you never mention it?’

Ada looked at him blankly, ‘as I said, I had almost forgotten it was there. I had no idea it was still accessible. As you can see,’ she said, waving her arm at the shattered mess, ‘we haven’t used it for years from this end, why would we?’

‘Why indeed.’ Jack muttered.

Elaine had shifted away from Dan’s embrace. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but who exactly are you?’

It hadn’t occurred to anyone that proper introductions hadn’t yet been made. It was Brodie who bridged the gap. ‘This is Jack, he’s the policeman who was looking for Mandy. I showed him the dog.’ she said, as if it explained everything.

Elaine nodded, ‘OK, pleased to meet you Jack. Ummm, is there something I should know about why you’re here?’

‘To be honest with you young lady, that’s a very good question, but probably nothing that need concern you. If I were you I would think about getting yourself home and into a warm bed. You’ve had quite a strange ordeal.’ Jack said.

Elaine sensed Dan stiffen beside her, she turned to him. ‘And why exactly are you here? And can someone please pinch me so that I wake up? I’m having a little trouble getting my head around all this.’

Dan looked decidedly uncomfortable. ‘Ummm, well, there was something I needed to talk to you about, when I got here you were AWOL and Brodie here brought me to find you, and, well, you know what happened next.’

Elaine was confused, and not just from the post migraine fog, or the brush with hypothermia. ‘And you couldn’t just ring me?’

Brodie interjected for him, ‘He tried, but I switched your phone off.’

‘So what is it, Dan? You didn’t drive a hundred and fifty miles to tell me the tiles are the wrong colour.’

There was an awkward silence, all eyes were on Dan. ‘No, I didn’t, but it is something I think we ought to discuss in private. Why don’t we take Jack’s advice and get you home?’

Jack rose from his chair. ‘My car is outside, I’ll drive you. Brodie, why don’t you help Elaine out to the car?’ He tossed his keys across to her.

Elaine stood too, still shaky on her feet and still swathed in a blanket. ‘We ought to stay and help clear up, look at the mess.’

They all looked at the sea of broken china and glass. ‘No matter, Pavla and I will clear it. Please, go home and rest Elaine dear, I insist.’ Ada said, looking almost as shattered as the shards of glass that littered the floor.

Brodie was already half way to the door. ‘Come on Elaine.’

Elaine hesitated, ‘I can’t just leave it, it’s all my fault. And the damage.’ She looked at Ada. ‘You must at least let me pay for the damage.’

Ada gave her a weary smile. ‘My dear girl, I can assure you that there is nothing in that mess with any monetary value, nothing at all. In fact you may have done us a favour. My brother’s collection holds some meaning for him, but to me it is merely the detritus of a lifetime’s self-indulgence. It will do no harm to sweep it into the bin, no harm at all.’

Brodie was impatient. ‘Come on, let’s go.’ she said, tugging at Elaine’s arm. ‘This place gives me the creeps,’ she whispered.

Reluctantly Elaine allowed herself to be led from the room and loaded into Jack’s car. Brodie got in beside her, and Dan climbed into the front. She felt ridiculously ashamed that she had caused such a melee, especially one that had included Ada Gardiner-Hallow. Esther was dead, and she – stupid, ridiculous, pathetic Elaine – had stolen all the thunder by causing chaos and destruction in a way that she couldn’t even remember. That it had included Dan mortified her beyond belief and to heap humiliation on top of humiliation, the kindly Jack had been sucked in too. She hunched down into the blanket and hid her face, hoping that the others would think that it was prolonged reaction to the cold. She didn’t want to speak; she didn’t even want to be seen. The reassuring squeeze from Brodie’s hand did nothing to make her feel better.

Back at the cottage she allowed Brodie to make a fuss and languished on the sofa pretending to nap. Childishly she hoped that if she closed her eyes and went to sleep she would wake up and realise that the whole debacle had just been a bad dream. Her ploy seemed to work, as both Dan and Jack took themselves out into the garden while Brodie fiddled about in the kitchen making cups of tea.

Outside Jack removed a pipe from the inside pocket of his jacket and propped it, unlit, between his teeth. He turned to Dan who was standing pensively by the garden gate. ‘Something bothering you, lad? Besides this afternoon’s shenanigans, that is.’

Dan turned to face him and sighed, his face loaded with worry. ‘You could say that. Can I show you something? It’s in the van.’

Jack followed him through the gate and waited as Dan retrieved the envelope and the brown paper bag from the foot-well of his van. ‘Take a look at this little lot and tell me what you think.’ He passed the items over and leaned against the side of the van, arms folded, a look of worried anticipation on his face. ‘Start with the envelope first, then check the bag’.

Jack, pipe still hanging from his lip, gave him a puzzled look and delved into the envelope. He spread the contents onto the seat of the van, using the door to shield him from view of the house. He could see Brodie peering at them through the kitchen window. Once he had perused the documents, he peered into the bag, moving the contents with the stem of his pipe so as not to have to handle them. Finally he turned to Dan. ‘Where did you find this, lad?’

Dan quickly explained about the pipes and the floorboards and Bob’s search of the box in the attic. ‘So, what should I do? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ he said, his questions loaded with apprehension.

Jack picked up the clippings and put them back into the envelope. Thirty years he had worried about this case, for thirty years he had searched for Mandy. In the beginning it had been a physical thing, trudging through Hallow’s End, leaving no stone unturned. In later years it had been a mental search, a nagging urge to go over and over everything he knew, everything he suspected, in a bid to find the missing links. Now here it was, proof, sitting in his hands, just like that. Discovered by a pair of nosy builders in a house Jack had never heard of, put there by a woman whose name was as strange and unfamiliar to him as the events of the day had been. The body, the whereabouts of which had given him sleepless nights for years, was sitting on a sofa a few yards from where he stood. A living, breathing, fully-grown body in the guise of a shy young woman whose whole existence was about to be blown to smithereens by what Jack held in his hands.

‘Jack? What should I do?’ Dan asked.

Jack turned to him and took in the strain that was written all over the other man’s face. Strictly speaking Jack knew he ought to say that they should call it in, let a Family Liaison Officer deal with the fall out and play it by the book. But he was dealing with people, with feelings and thoughts, not just a case. Besides, he wasn’t a copper any more, he was just a man who felt as if he was holding an unexploded bomb in his hands. The anguish on Dan’s face dictated everything. ‘
We
, not “I” lad. You’re not on your own. We ‘re going to show this to Elaine and take it from there. Step by step.’

‘What about Brodie, should I get her out of the way?’ Dan asked.

Jack raised an eyebrow and snorted. ‘Do you think she would go? No, she’s the one who came looking and this is as much about her as anyone now. She won’t thank us for squeezing her out. Come on, let’s get it done.’

With great trepidation, both men walked back to the cottage. Dan paused in the porch and put his hand on the shelf while Jack manoeuvred through the door. As he followed he realised he had picked up some kind of residue on his hand, absentmindedly he wiped it on his jeans and walked in to face Elaine.

Chapter Twelve

The scene inside Meadowfoot Cottage was playing out like a bad soap opera. Elaine sat shocked and vacant on the sofa while Brodie argued with Miriam in the kitchen.

‘I’m not leaving her,’ Brodie said adamantly.

Miriam had had enough, the argument had been raging for too long and after everything that had happened that day she was just about at the end of her rope. ‘Look Brodie, I know all this has come as quite a shock, but you have to think about poor… Elaine…’ She was still hesitating over the name, the fact that Elaine was really Mandy had jarred her beyond comprehension. ‘She probably needs some peace and quiet to get her head around things. Come back with me and wait for Tony, there’s a good girl,’ she pleaded, certain that Brodie must have a better nature somewhere in her.

Brodie crossed her arms, planted her feet wide and shouted. ‘I, AM NOT, LEAVING.’

Miriam’s shoulders sagged, her body showing that she had reached a point of utter despair. ‘I can’t cope with this.’ She pointed the statement at Dan, who was loitering in the doorway unsure of who he should be dealing with first.

‘Look, let her stay, at least until her brother gets here. You’ve got a lot to sort out yourself. We’ll be fine, I’ll look after them,’ he said with more conviction than he felt.

Miriam hesitated, but saw sense and potential relief in his words. ‘If you’re sure? Only she’s my responsibility…’ she trailed off.

‘Go, honestly, it’ll be fine,’ Dan said, giving weight to the lie.

Miriam hesitated at the door, as if she was going to say something else, her gaze moving towards the lounge where Elaine sat. She looked wistful and brim-full of sorrow.

Dan shook his head, ‘Not yet.’

Miriam closed the door behind her, a move which elicited a sigh of relief from Brodie, ‘Thank God for that, I thought she was never going to leave.’ Her tone was derisive and intimated that she thought that she should be the one with all the choices.

Dan had had enough, he didn’t know why but the whole situation was making him exponentially angry. ‘Look, you might have got your own way with that one, but it was only to keep the peace. That woman has just lost her sister, and found out she’s been living the same lie you all have for thirty years, so give her a break will you. This is not just about you, Brodie!’