Silent Voices

Chapter Forty

Vera told herself that there was no hurry. The social worker and her daughter would be in the boathouse. It would have been an adventure for them, like camping out. The girl would probably have enjoyed every minute. Vera hadn’t minded a bit of an adventure herself when Hector had first taken her on his expeditions. It was only as she got older and realized the implications of the night-time raids into the hills that she’d disliked and then come to hate them. Perhaps that was why she drove so fast, because she didn’t want the girl to have the same sort of memories of childhood that she’d been left with: the fear in the pit of the stomach and the longing to be home in a familiar place. Because there’d always been people chasing Hector: the police, the National Park wardens, the RSPB. Absorbed in his passion, he’d enjoyed the game of cat-and-mouse. It hadn’t bothered him that Vera had been terrified.

Vera felt a sort of sick excitement now as she coaxed the ancient Land Rover to greater speed. Just before the turn-off through the stone pillars with their cormorant carvings there was water across the road. A sign saying: Way Closed. Flood. An elderly man was trying to do a three-point turn in the narrow track to get back to the village. Or a forty-point turn. Vera pushed the Land Rover into four-wheel drive, drove it so that two wheels were on the steep verge and the vehicle was tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees, then ground past the pensioner’s Volvo. The water was deep enough to seep in through the doors. She wasn’t sure the old man noticed they were there until the spray caused by their movement splashed onto his windscreen. Beside her Joe Ashworth swore.

The grass track past the formal gardens of the old house was much boggier than it had been when she walked down it a few days before. Even in four-wheel drive, she felt the vehicle slide. She kept the pace slow. It was most important now not to get stuck. She wanted to get the mother and daughter back to safety, and then she had an arrest to make. Before anybody else got hurt.

She knew Ashworth had questions, but she couldn’t concentrate on getting them to the boathouse in one piece and chat to him at the same time.

‘What’s that?’ Ashworth’s question annoyed her because she was just navigating a tricky patch, but she looked all the same. A small car stuck, water up to the bumper, the driver’s door wide open. Ashworth had the righteous indignation of the careful driver; he always seemed old before his time: ‘They must have been mad trying to get down here without four-wheel drive.’

Then Vera knew that the little girl was in danger, not of having bad dreams and tarnished childhood memories, but of not growing old enough to remember anything.

‘Out!’ she said. ‘Quick! We haven’t the time for this.’ She was wearing wellingtons, but Ashworth was still in his work shoes, newly polished every morning. He looked at the mud and slime surrounding the vehicle and hesitated. She’d already gone four paces down the track, slithering and swearing at every step. She glanced back at him, still in the Land Rover. ‘Do you want another child drowned? Get out here, man. That’s an order.’ As she spoke, she knew she was being unfair. If she’d shared her fears with him, he’d have been there before her.

They ran together past the garden with the strange statues and the tall wall covered in ivy and, reaching the edge of the pool, she thought they were too late. She saw the rowing boat, the man inside, bent over his oars and so intent on pulling his way across the water that he didn’t see them. And she saw the mother and her child on the deck, following his progress.

‘They’re all right then,’ Joe said. He was frosty with her and had every right to be. ‘He’s gone to save them.’ Implying that there was no need for the fuss and the ruined shoes.

‘No, pet, that’s the last thing he wants to do. He hates happy families.’

Vera stood watching. She was completely powerless. The boathouse was on the other side of the pond, too far away for her to shout, so she couldn’t warn Connie. Besides, what could the woman do if she heard? She was imprisoned there.

And, Vera thought, the man in the boat would be impossible to scare now. With the second murder he’d gone beyond reason. This was like one of those nightmares when you scream and no sound comes, when you try to run, but your feet won’t move.

‘It was him,’ Ashworth said. ‘All the time? Of course. I should have recognized the car.’

She didn’t answer. They watched the man climb onto the boathouse deck. They couldn’t see Connie or the girl, who were still inside. Ashworth slipped away from her and made his way through the undergrowth, following the line of the floodwater to the point where the boathouse was closest to the bank. No thought for his shoes now or for his Marks and Spencer suit.

I owe him an apology. He’ll never want to work with me again.

There was a high-pitched scream, so loud that Vera could hear it even at this distance. The man appeared on the deck with Alice in his arms. Connie followed. She was the person screaming. It seemed to Vera that the child was silent, frozen perhaps with fear, her only survival tactic to shut off all emotion. Frozen as Vera had been. But the scream had woken Vera up. Suddenly she found herself on the phone demanding back-up, an ambulance, a rubber dinghy and a helicopter. Screaming herself, into her mobile: ‘Now! Get them here now!’

On the deck the man was holding Alice above his head. It occurred to Vera that he must have strong muscles in his upper body to lift her so easily. Did he work out at the gym? Then she thought he looked a little like a priest. One of those grand priests in the fancy robes that you found in cathedrals, lifting the chalice for the congregation to see as he blessed it during the communion service. Or did they call it the mass? She’d never got the hang of the different denominations.

The man held his hands apart and dropped the girl into the lake. She disappeared without a splash.

Ashworth had reached the closest point to the boathouse and was already wading out towards it. Now he started swimming, his hair slick like an otter’s. On the decking Connie was struggling to get past the man, shouting and scratching at his face. But Vera kept her eyes fixed on Ashworth. He dived into the water and emerged, shaking the water from his head, holding the child. He swam on his back, clutching the girl’s body to his chest, until the water was shallow enough for him to stand. Then he held her over his shoulder and wrapped his arms around her. Vera thought she would never be rude or snide to him again. Half walking and half swimming, he carried the child to the shore.