Three Mile Drove, Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

McPherson turned uncomfortably in his bed, it seemed he had a lump on his head the size of an egg, its every movement on the soft feather pillow making it seem as hard as the operational end of a sledgehammer, and sending pain juddering from the base of his neck deep into his skull.
He twisted round and shifted the pillows, propping them behind his back; at least if he couldn’t sleep without any pain he’d cushion it the best he could. He glanced at the illuminated clock, which seemed to glow far more brightly than usual. 23.05 hours flashed out at him like a powerful neon amber sign, each pulse seeming to blind him, letting him know that it had to be over thirty minutes since he’d taken the three pain-killing tablets and they didn’t seem to be helping one bit. It was going to be a long night, perhaps made worse by the fact that he couldn’t take his mind off of the day’s developments. Complex thought processes wouldn’t switch themselves off, or at least, he couldn’t shut them out. They were plaguing him now, in direct defiance of the pain that ripped through his head.
The attic had been dusty but bare.
Apart from one thing.
It lay in the corner where the rafters lowered until they almost met the floor. A living form, writhing and struggling like some demented, enslaved and enchained captive, and as he edged warily nearer, ducking to avoid another bruising to his tender head he savoured the prospect that he’d stumbled upon the single, monumental find which was becoming an obsession to him, the discovery of the missing child, alive and breathing heavily. The answer to his prayers, the breakthrough that would boost his career like rocket fuel, blasting him right through the starchy constabulary hierarchy.
But as he’d got closer still, the light of his torch combined with the daylight filtering through the rotting rafters like long, pale fingers, outlined a different picture from the one he’d conditioned himself to expect. Because he could see now that the rippling, shifting movement was nothing more than an old red curtain, which having passed its sell-by date was now put to another use, that of protecting, as best its worn fabric could, a number of documents contained in a couple of old leather bags, which had provided the bulk that had given the thing its life-like shape. The breeze, which had wafted through the rafters, had caused the rippling effect and given his mind the excuse to play tricks.
He’d dropped the bags carefully through the hatch, then cautiously made his own exit, but jumping down to the floor he might have thought that it was his head which had taken the brunt of the descent, instead of his legs, such was the pain that racked through it.
He’d carried the bags out of his car, where he’d flicked through the documents, faded and stained yellow with age. Most had been family archives, but it was the nature of those archives, which had astounded him. They showed to him who the owner of the property was, and it wasn’t the foul smell which caused him to catch his breath. It was the name, Claire Summerby.
The revelation had sent his thoughts tumbling around like washing in a dryer. He’d known Claire for several years, they were good friends, at least he liked to think so. On occasions they’d share a drink and a laugh together. He’d like to think he could tell her what was on his mind, when things troubled it, and that she might do the same with him. But why had she never once mentioned ownership of the place, particularly when she knew he was conducting a search for the missing girl, and that this search was centred around it. So was Claire the girl that Endleberry had made vague reference to, the one he’d so little knowledge of? It seemed that way to him now. But if she was the owner then it was plain and simple secrecy not to mention it, and there was another thing that bugged him as sorely as his aching head – why had the property been allowed to rot away into its now derelict state.
And what had the intruder been so interested in if he needed to search the loft of an empty house, had he known what he’d find there? Moreover, had he found it or had he been disturbed before he’d a chance to do so, McPherson wished he knew. But what he wished above all else was that Claire had told him the property was hers, he couldn’t understand her attitude any more than he could understand the abduction of a missing girl, who, he was sure, had been kept against her will in that same property. That in itself was enough to cause him to confront her on it, even though he’d need to adopt a softly, softly approach. Because in spite of disturbing an intruder, he still had absolutely nothing to go on, his bosses had taken the line that he had disturbed a vagrant, that the vagrant had taken flight in panic. It wasn’t unusual to find a tramp in a derelict house was it? And once again, what had he to show for his endeavours, nothing. Except family archives showing Claire as the legal owner of the house, and that, in relation to his enquiries, carried no weight at all.
But perhaps that might change. He’d tried contacting Claire more than once during the day, but she’d been working. He’d tried that evening but received no reply. He’d try again in the morning – very early.
Then McPherson had an about-turn, his head flooding with furious thought as he flung the quilt to one side and sat with his hands upon his knees. It wasn’t too late, he told himself, not in the context of things. He continually reflected on how he’d told her, just a short while back of his discovery of some wretched, deformed children in a house he now knew she owned. Of how, when he’d told her, she’d not appeared to be her normal, supportive, helpful self. Of how she’d seemed strangely reticent. He’d attributed that to concern that he must be overworking, that she probably thought he needed to take a break, but hadn’t liked to say so.
But now he knew that was nonsense, he should have realised then that if Claire thought that, she would have told him. Claire Summerby said what she thought, she shot from the hip. No, the more McPherson thought about it, the more he realised it hadn’t been like that at all. There had to be another reason for her reticence, he needed to know it. Right away.
He left his bed, moving so quickly for the wardrobe that he felt his head vibrate.

* *

‘We all have our secrets?’ Claire’s eyes flashed, ‘What do you mean by that?’
They had been leaving the table, but now Claire halted and Darren thought he saw annoyance in her eyes. ‘Nothing,’ he turned back to her, slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans, attempting a display of casualness he didn’t feel; ‘just that you must get told all kinds of confidential stuff by the people you meet. The sort of stuff you have to keep to yourself, and then they become your own secrets, like. That’s all I meant.’
‘Oh I see,’ she pulled her coat across her shoulders as they met the cold air and drew in a deep breath, ‘Yes, a lot of people, particularly the older folk I come across, are looking for somebody to befriend them, and that in turn makes them open up. So I guess you’ve got a point there. Gosh it’s cold out here,’ she sunk her hands deep into her coat pockets and shuddered, and for a second he was tempted to place his arms around her shoulders and draw her close to him.
She couldn’t see him blushing in the dark, but he was nonetheless, though not over thoughts of his narrowly averted action, but over narrowly averted speech. He knew how close he’d come to blowing away a fine evening, over a moment’s rashness. He’d seen the flash in her eyes, then the sudden transformation from joviality to sternness. It had served as a warning, and he wondered, being as sharp as she was, whether she’d anticipated what he’d been about to say.
In any case, he was sure that she wouldn’t have enlightened him about her existence in Three Mile Drove, he knew that, and he was also fairly certain that it would have resulted in an early end to their friendship. But the bottom line was that it wasn’t for him to try to extract any secrets from her, if anything, it was for her to confide in him, and given time she might just do that.
Right now though, he needed to lighten up, to concentrate on concreting a relationship with this lovely woman, not weakening it in its infancy. Even now he could sense her fine eyes upon him, as though she was assessing his mood, assessing whether what he’d told her had been what he really had intended to say.
‘Well at least the breeze has shifted the mist,’ Darren said, opening the passenger door and watching the way she climbed lithely in.
‘You know what bothers me most about this place?’
‘No, but I guess you’re going to tell me,’ she said, fixing Darren with an astute look as he jumped in next to her and switched on the ignition. Darren didn’t return her stare, concentrating on steering the car out of the tight, narrow street that ran behind the inn. He’d half expected her to come up with an answer that wasn’t far off the mark, even though she couldn’t possibly have known what it was he was going to say. Such was his impression of her perceptive abilities.
‘Yeah, I’ll tell you Claire,’ he cast his eye in the mirror, there was a marked police car behind and he guessed that the two pints of bitter he’d drunk might just possibly have put him over the limit, but to his relief the vehicle turned off, taking a right turn and veering away. ‘When you get off the beaten track, like in Three Mile Drove for instance, in certain conditions, like mist and fog for one thing, the trees don’t seem to be trees at all, they seem so life-like, there’s the one outside that ruin of a house for instance near the Tomblin’s place, to me it seems just like a gaunt old man from a distance, huge and threatening, almost like it’s warning folks to keep away. It gave me the creeps the first time I saw it. It still does.’
‘Really? I can’t say I’d noticed.’ In the glow thrown by the street lights of Ely, he thought he saw her stiffen, and her face take on that serious stance again, but when she turned to him her lips had parted into a smile, not quite the devastating one that had so impressed him, but a distinct smile nonetheless, ‘You really have got some imagination, haven’t you Darren Goldwater, gaunt old man indeed. It’s just a plain old willow tree, nothing more, nothing less.’
‘It’s just the impressions of a newcomer,’ Darren said, heading out of the city. He felt his confidence building; he felt that he might just try risking a more subtle approach to delve into her past. ‘But I suppose, having spent all your life here, you’d see things in their true perspective. Me, I see things from another angle.’
‘How do you know whether I’ve spent the whole of my life here?’ He saw the thin lines of her forehead knit, and shrugged, ‘I dunno, I just got that impression; it just formed in my head. Expressions like “us fen folk,” well that sort of talk establishes you too deeply with the community to have spent much time away, in my mind at any rate.’
Claire was quiet for a moment, watching as the city lights faded into the distance, away to her left. ‘I regard myself as part and parcel of this area, fair enough Darren, but my family sent me to a convent in Hertfordshire, so for a good few years I was educated there.’
‘Ah, right.’ Darren flicked the wipers to intermittent sweep as spots of rain began to hit the windscreen. Well, that was one revelation and probably accounted for the cultured accent, which was far removed from the thick, fenland drone. Darren wondered how much more of her past he could get her to divulge without making it seem that he was interrogating her. ‘Whereabouts do your family – damn!’ Darren suddenly slammed on the brakes, causing his car to slither sideways as some sort of animal across the road in front of it, freezing in panic as its eyes glowed like fire in the headlights. Darren drew a deep breath, watching the small animal slink away. ‘Christ, lucky the road was clear. What on earth was it anyway?’
‘A fox dear,’ Claire said quietly, seemingly unaffected by the close encounter. ‘You did well not to hit it, though it does seem to have shaken you up a bit.’ He felt her hand on his shoulder, ‘I tell you what, we’ll be at my house in a few minutes, how about I make you a cup of coffee, soothe those nerves, you seem to have got the shakes all of a sudden.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ He hadn’t been aware that his hands were shaking, but now as he looked down on them he could see there was a slight tremble, he thought she’d done well to spot as much, particularly in the poor light. Or had she spotted it really? Might it possibly just have been an excuse, a bit of opportunist conjuring to invite him inside?
He felt his heartbeat strengthen and increase a little at the thought of that, but even as they drew into her street he felt his spirits tumble as though they’d been demolished by an electrical charge.
The tall, slim figure standing in her porch-way was all too distinguishable in the porch light.
‘I can see you’ve got a guest,’ Darren said sourly, pulling to a halt alongside her drive.
‘He wasn’t expected, I can assure you,’ Claire said, her eyes narrowing.
‘If you’d have told me, I could have got you back sooner,’ he said, ignoring her remark as she opened the passenger door.
‘I’ve just told you Darren,’ she said, her voice rising a little, ‘I haven’t a clue why he’s here, there must be some kind of problem, we’ll find out on a minute.’
‘No, I don’t think so, it might be personal,’ he said acerbically. He had a vague thought that she might have seen the way his cheeks had reddened, but he didn’t much care, as he reversed the car into a driveway opposite. He watched as she walked up the path towards McPherson, before driving out of the brightly lit crescent.
McPherson had stood as though anchored by an invisible chain to the porch, he hadn’t looked happy, and neither he nor McPherson had made any attempt to acknowledge one another. Well, if McPherson didn’t feel happy that was another thing he and the detective shared in common right now. He’d been meaning, all the way back, to thank Claire for a really enjoyable evening. Now he doubted whether he’d get round to it.