Gone

82

Janice didn’t know how her body would stand this. Her bones and muscles felt like water. She thought her head might explode with the pressure. She stood with her back to the trunk of a silver birch, holding Rose’s hand, both of them staring blankly at the clearing. Everything was different. It was no longer the despondent, silent place they’d left half an hour ago. Now the area around the shaft was crawling with people: officers were yelling at each other, equipment that had been packed away was being hastily unpacked. Another medical helicopter had landed and was sitting with its rotors motionless in the clearing. Two pulley tripods had been set up and two men had been lowered into the shaft. Janice knew the burrowing and panicked shouting that must be happening in the darkness a hundred feet below, but what she really couldn’t take were the worried expressions on the surface. That awful bloody seriousness. Nick stood a little in front of Rose and Janice, her hands in her pockets, her face grave. It had been Nick who, driving Janice’s Audi back along the A419, had noticed cars coming fast in the other direction, sunlight reflecting off their windscreens. She’d recognized them as unmarked unit cars and knew what it meant. She’d swung the Audi into a lay-by, three-point-turned across two lanes of traffic and floored it back up the road after the cars. This time no one had tried to stop the women coming to watch. No one seemed to have the time.

‘Stretchers,’ Nick said suddenly. ‘Two stretchers.’

Janice stiffened. She and Rose jerked their heads forward as four paramedics came across the clearing at a trot. Their faces were flat, focused. They gave nothing away. ‘Stretchers?’ Her heart began to thump deafeningly. ‘Nick? What does that mean? Stretchers? What does it mean?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Does it mean they’re alive? They wouldn’t send stretchers in if they were dead. Would they?’

Nick was silent, biting her lip.

‘Would they, Nick? Would they?’

‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

‘Those are more paramedics going into the shaft,’ she hissed. ‘What does that mean? Tell me what it means.’

‘I don’t know, Janice – I promise. Please don’t get your hopes up. It might be for one of the search team.’

The hard centre that Janice had kept rigid till now gave way with a soft, exhausted slump. ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered, twisting to Rose, her throat tight, ‘Rose, I can’t do it.’

It was Rose’s turn to be strong. She caught Janice around the waist, taking her weight as she leaned heavily against her.

‘I’m sorry, Rose, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s OK.’ Rose got her steady, lifted Janice’s arms over her own shoulders. She dropped her forehead so it touched the other woman’s. ‘It’s OK. I’ve got you. Just keep breathing. That’s it. Slowly. Keep breathing.’

Janice did as she was told, feeling the cold air come through her nose and down into her lungs. Tears ran down her face. She didn’t try to stop them, just let them trickle off her chin and splash into the dead leaves at her feet. Nick came to stand behind the two women and rested her hands on their backs. ‘God, Janice,’ she muttered. ‘I wish I could do more. Just wish I could do more for you both.’

Janice didn’t answer. She could smell Nick’s perfume and the rich, woody odour of her oilskin jacket. She could smell Rose’s breath and hear her heart thumping. That heart, she thought, feels the same as mine does. Two human hearts pressed one to the other. Each one aching in the same way. There were embroidered flowers on Rose’s sweater. Roses. Roses for Rose. There had been roses on the wallpaper in the house at Russell Road. She remembered lying in bed as a child and fixing her eyes on the pattern, willing it to make her sleep. Thank God for you, Rose, she thought. Thank God you exist.

Someone was shouting.

‘OK,’ said Nick. ‘Something’s happening.’

Janice’s face jolted up, her mouth open. The pulley systems were moving. Caffery was there, about fifty yards away, his back to them. A man wearing a blue headset stood close to him, one earphone lifted, and Caffery was leaning into it, listening to whatever was being said. Everyone else was standing at the hole, peering down into it. They were pulling something up. No doubt about it. Caffery’s body tightened – she saw it, even from behind. This was it. It really was happening. Her hands tightened on Rose’s shoulders.

Caffery pulled away from the man, his face ashen. He shot a look over his shoulder at the women, saw them watching and turned back hurriedly so they couldn’t see his expression. Janice felt her insides crumble, her legs buckle. A rushing sensation flooded her chest, as if she was freefalling, dropping fast out of the blue. This was it. They were dead. She knew it. He was taking a moment or two to straighten his tie. He did up his jacket and smoothed his hands down it, took a deep breath, pulled his shoulders up and turned to them. He walked woodenly, and when he got close to them Janice saw his skin was grey under his eyes.

‘Let’s sit down.’

They sat in a rough circle, the three women on the trunk of a fallen tree, Caffery on its stump opposite them. Janice sat with her hands in her hair, her teeth chattering. Caffery put his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, looking at the women intently. Nick couldn’t take this either – she dropped her eyes to the ground.

‘I’m sorry it took us so long to find your girls. I’m sorry you’ve had such a long wait.’

‘Say it,’ Janice said. ‘Please. Just say it.’

‘Yes.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Prody made a pit. Under the side of the canal. It’s quite small, covered with corrugated iron and in it we found a travel trunk. He put them in there, both of them, and they’re…’

‘Please, God,’ Janice whispered. ‘Please, God.’

He gave her a broken, apologetic look. ‘They’re very sad. They’re very scared and very hungry. And above everything they want their mums.’

Janice leaped up, her heart thumping.

‘Janice, wait. Let the doctors—’

But she pushed past him, and Nick – who jumped to her feet to stop her – ran into the clearing, her coat flying open. Rose, too, broke free and came running up behind her, crying openmouthed, heading clumsily up the slope. Someone to their right was laughing. A great, happy, jubilant sound. Three men were clapping each other on the shoulder. Two officers at the shaft saw the women coming and put out their hands to stop them a few feet from the edge, but this time their faces weren’t the awful closed-down concentrated masks they had been an hour ago: this time they were almost smiling as the two women came bumping into them, panting and gasping.

‘Wait here. You can see everything, just wait here.’

Both pulleys were turning on the tripods. A head in a caving helmet appeared, and a man scrambled out on his knees, holding a drip bag. He turned on the lip of the shaft and waited for the surface team to haul the stretcher on to the ground, settling it a few feet from the hole. It was Martha, swaddled in an aluminium blanket, her face rigid, bewildered by the sights and sounds and the light. A woman in green trousers and a huge waterproof jacket was yelling something and, out of nowhere, paramedics were swarming everywhere. Rose made a loud noise, like a choke, and broke past the two men, ignoring the hands trying to hold her back; she dropped to her knees next to the stretcher and fell across Martha’s chest, babbling and crying.

In the shaft someone else was yelling. The second surface crew were leaning down into the hole. Another head in a red caving helmet appeared.

‘And haul,’ someone shouted. ‘That’s it – haul.’

Jerkily the man’s head shot up another few feet. Janice couldn’t breathe. His face was tilted, concentrating on what was happening below him, sweat dripping down his neck. Another wrench on the pulley and the back of the stretcher appeared, bumping and turning against the edge of the shaft. The pulley attendant reached down to take the weight. As he did the stretcher pivoted slightly and Emily’s face was there.

The hard bundle of grief and terror that had been trapped against Janice’s heart broke. It flowed around her body. She had to put out a hand to keep her balance and stop herself falling to her knees. Emily’s hair was wet, smoothed back against her head, and her face was pale. But her eyes were bright and alive. Darting all over the place, up and down, taking in what was happening, the great drop beneath her, the people gathered on the edge of the shaft. The man next to her on the pulley said something to her, a gentle joke. She turned, looked into his face and smiled.

She smiled. Emily smiled.

As Janice stood on the grass, she felt a warmth go up her spine, encase her head in a glow. She felt the warmth unzipping her chest, letting her heart rise up and breathe. Just like in the dream she’d had. Emily looked at her – right into her eyes.

‘Mum,’ she said simply.

Janice put up her hand and smiled. ‘Hey, baby,’ she said. ‘We missed you.’