In the Moors (27 page)

“The police don't believe that had anything to do with my work. They assume Cliff told me.”

“I don't assume that.”

“I've no actual idea what happened. It was a trail of coincidences and twists of fate. And an image that came through strongly while I was holding Cliff's hand in the prison.”

“So to pick up directions, you need to be close to the person who could give you them.”

I shrugged. “I was fool enough to hope that I would find Aidan when I found the cottage, but it hasn't been used since the Wetland Murders.”

“Is that the point of all this? You think you'll find Aidan?”

When Garth put my secret hope into words, it made me splutter with embarrassment. “Don't think—I'm not trying to race the police investigation—anything like that.”

Garth leaned back, balancing on his spine. “Makes no difference to me who finds my son, so long as he comes back to us whole.”

I looked over at him for a long time. Mostly, I was contemplating the word
whole
. Aidan had been missing for a week. Even if he were alive, he would be changed. I began thinking about Josh. How the little boy from Bristol had probably trodden the same path and seen the same sights as Aidan had in his stead.

“I—I shouldn't tell you this,” I stuttered, “but I did have the opportunity to work with something forensic.” Garth shifted his position, his eyes concentrating on me. “But Josh's spirits didn't lead me anywhere.”

“You touched something of Josh Sutton's?”

“That's what I'm saying. But it was a world away from what I got when I held Cliff's hand.”

“Have you thought about where Josh Sutton is now? Physically, I mean.”

“His body?”

“Yeah. In some morgue, perhaps? If they let you touch this forensic thing …”

I shook my head. “Cliff told me. He knows every detail of the case.” I took a moment to work things out myself. “Josh was taken on the twenty-fourth of December last year. He was found on the eighteenth of January. His body was released for burial shortly before Cliff had his second appointment—that's only a couple of weeks back, but I think the family were planning immediate cremation. His ashes might be scattered anywhere.”

For a few seconds, I'd seen a sort of rising of hope in Garth, but it withered and died as I spoke. His head bobbed down onto his chest. “He was missing for less than four weeks when he was found dead.”

“The body wasn't hurt, Garth.” I shook my head. “That is no consolation at all. I'm sorry I said it.”

He looked at me with hardened, dry eyes. “We're clutching at straws, aren't we?”

I don't know why the image came to me at that moment, unless Trendle conveniently helped it bubble to the surface, but I saw Cliff in my mind's eye as I had when he'd told me the story of his first arrest. The bulrush he'd picked for his father's memory.

“I guess straws are better than nothing,” I said.

It was gone lunchtime when I got home. I was starving, but I didn't intend to sit down to a hot meal. I sniffed around the fridge. Gloria had left a plate of her spicy veg pies for me, now three or so days old. I grabbed one and some fruit from the bowl to go with it and switched on my laptop. While it was booting up, I went over the photocopies I'd brought home from the library, cross-referencing the site of the burials with my walker's map. I took a sharp intake of breath. The shallow graves were hardly more than a mile from Brokeltuft
Cottage.

This latest crazy idea of mine had to be the most extreme of long shots. Neither Garth nor Nora had asked me to do anything further, but I had to try, and, as I didn't have appointments to keep, now was the time to start. I clingfilmed a couple more of the little pies and lowered them into my backpack on top my bird-spotting binoculars, map, torch, phone, purse, gloves, scarf, and a bottle of water. I laced up my mud-caked boots and locked the door behind me. The day was cold and there was a dampness on the wind. I doubled back through the side entrance and shepherded my flock of hens into their fox-proofed house. It was March, and night wouldn't fall until almost six, but I had no idea when I would get back.

Leaving Bridgwater, I got snarled into traffic, then spent unnecessary time trying to get close to Brokeltuft, but the police had blocked the lane off at the top, by the signpost on the grass triangle. I examined my map, looking to get to the burial site from the opposite direction, driving up and down the country lanes to find the closest walker's path. Finally, I parked on a remote B road, pulling in close to the hedge that ran along its flank. I stared over the flat, green fields punctuated with willow and shimmering with water. I checked my watch. It was three-thirty in the afternoon, but the heavy cloud cover produced a premature feeling of dusk. If I was honest with myself, I did not want to be here.

I followed a footpath arrow that led to an iron gate. It creaked on rusty hinges as I pushed my way through. The metal burned like ice into my hands. I fished out my gloves and pulled them on. I reckoned I was only half an hour's tramp from my goal. I shifted my backpack onto my shoulders and set off.

The Somerset fenlands had once been fresh lake mingling with salt sea. Early farmers, desperate for more growing room, had reclaimed every clod of earth I trampled on. They'd gained their fields by digging the rhynes, ditches, and canals that stretched in every direction. Even so, my boots squelched as I headed over the field towards the first of many wooden bridges.

This place felt more and more like one of those children's maze puzzles. I was zigzagging across water meadows, blocked in on all sides by ditches—some holding clear and fresh water, some reeking and stagnant. And where there weren't ditches of water there were hedges—pussy willows in fluffy white bud and hazels shimmering with catkins and scratchy thorn bushes bare of leaf and shiny from the damp air.

I tramped on, seeking ways to cross water, until I had been walking for well over an hour on this tortuous route. I sat down on the elevated bank of a rhyne, my legs dangling over the edge high above the soft-moving water, and ate most of Gloria's pies while I looked at the map. If I gave up now, I'd be back at the car before the sunset. But I didn't want to give up. I wasn't far from Josh's resting place. I had to go on.

“Is that what you do?” Nora had asked. “Just by closing your eyes, you can talk to the dead?”

It's difficult to describe what happens to me. People are expecting a snappy sound-bite response, but that would be too simplistic.

Most people can feel the “difference” between a graveyard and, say, a park. The veil that separates the living from the dead is thinner in some places. I think I'm just a fraction more sensitive than most. I pick up … well, for want of a better word, I'll call them vibrations … that other people only half feel.

Garth had said, “It might be the only way to find Aidan. The police don't have a clue,” but that wasn't true. They had plenty of clues; the only trouble was, they all pointed directly, and most conveniently, to Cliff.

I got up, brushing down my rear. I missed the company I used to have on country walks with the Davidson family … Gloria's pleasant chatter, Philip's solid back moving constantly in the right direction, and the wicked laughs I'd be having with Charlene and Dennon, plus whatever dog it was at that time. Being together made the walks fun and easy. Being alone in these vast wet fens as gloom grew was unnerving. Early evening shadows were already closing down the colours, taking the greens and silvers to shades of grey.

I pushed through a thin line of trees and came upon the peat bogs. These stretched out before me, miles of grassless land as black as a seam of coal. Acres of the peat had been dug out to a depth of several metres, and the recent excavations were already filling with water. The lines were mechanically angular—thin, straight paths led between this scourging of the soil. There was no choice but to tread them, even though my mind was screaming at me to go back. The paths were slippery and narrow, with an invisible drop on either side. It was like walking around the edges of massive ink-filled swimming pools.

W
hen I lifted my chin away from my footsteps, I could see I was drawing closer to the long-abandoned areas, murky water held together with sedges and bulrushes. These bogs went on forever, impossible to tell one blackened hellhole from the next. I had no idea how to find the location I wanted.

I turned a full circle, skimming the horizon. Far away into the west, an ancient clump of willows sprouted out of the bog. The trunks were glossy black against the reddening sunset. Each branch, thick as a Sumo wrestler's leg, skimmed the water's surface before turning upwards to the sky. The patterns they formed brought symbols to my mind—cages and gallows and rune signs. My skin goosed up along my arms.

Where they were hid, them babbies, massive trunks were coming out of the water, growing there for years …

Without a doubt, these were the willows Arnie had described to me. I pulled my jacket close about me and raised the collar against the wind. As I marched towards them, I saw the faint outline of police tape on thin metal poles, inadequately closing off the area.

The sun was slipping below the horizon like a thief in an alley. I had hoped I wouldn't need my torch, but now it drilled a swirling vortex into the space ahead, illuminating the path with its paltry light. The slurry surface of the abandoned bogs gave me the clearest indication of where the path lay. I leaned forward as I walked to get the maximum light from the beam. The wind was whipping up and darkness was falling. My cheeks and nose felt numb. When I looked up again to check my progress, the willows had gone.

I stared in horror. I wasn't used to such dark magic. The grey horizon was hiding their silhouette. A gurgle of panic, like quickly swallowed porridge, rose in my gullet. The trees were somewhere ahead of me, but I hadn't thought to take any sort of marking of where they lay—which of the many paths I needed.

My boot slid off a clump of slimy leaves. It filled with bog water. I clutched at the air, struggling to keep my balance, and the torch fell from my grasp. I watched in dismay as it sank beneath the oily sheen.

My eyes stung with tears, and the wind instantly chilled them into ice. This was a dreadful place to be at night. Cliff must have been in a bad state of mind to attempt the journey across the marshes. Some compulsion had kept him going. For me, it had to be the thought of communicating with a dead child, left to rot out here. An unwelcome thought inveigled its way into my mind: There
is
no child out here; the body lay under the willows for but a few days before it was removed to a cold, white room.
You won't find Josh's spirit here
, I thought
. You're a fool to try
.

“Trendle,” I whispered aloud into the wind.

You need me at last?
his voice came in my head.

“Trendle, I'm sorry.”

You didn't listen. You went your own way.

“I had to see where the Slamblaster
would take me.”

It was a false witness, Sabbie.

I wiped my eyes with the fingers of my woolly gloves, and bent gingerly to tie my boots tighter. “What about now? Is this the right way?”

Trendle didn't reply, but as I straightened up, the clouds skidded away from the moon and her ethereal light shone out between them, only a few days away from full. A waxing gibbous moon, aching with her pregnant form. Her light brushed the willow branches with a coating of ghostly snow and made my route between the bogs a silver path. I strode on, keeping my mind focused.

I heard the burial site before I saw it. The police tape cracked in the wind where it had blown free of its moorings, like banners at a fete. I sped towards the sound, crying from relief.

The police had covered the area surrounding the investigation site with plastic walkways and wide tarpaulins. These were already slimy with mud but were a respite to my legs, which were aching and trembling from the strain of feeling their way.

The forensic work was complete here—the crucial evidence gathered, the visible and microscopic traces of the crime documented, examined, and stored. There was nothing here now for those who looked for proof in the physical world. I made my way over the tarp to the clump of willows. The trunks rose out of what looked like deep water, their shapes contorted, as if something had tortured them, preventing straight growth. The branches stretched over my head. I reached up and touched them. They had stood at this site for generations. They had seen too many things—the devastation of the land, the hiding of small bodies. And yet, they stood here now, bearing testament to the way the world continues on, no matter what.

I had wondered how I would connect with Josh without disturbing any spirit presence that remained from the Wetland Murders a generation ago. Now I knew. I would attempt to communicate through the willow. He had seen it all and would aid me. He would prevent my mind from searching wildly and in vain.

I sank down onto the tarp under the branches, getting my back against the wind. Cold seeped up into my trousers, but at least it was dry. I pulled off my boots and socks. One foot was squelchy from its dunking, the other hot and sweaty. I dried them with tissue, wrung out the wet sock, and draped them both over the shoes to air out for a while. I tucked my bare feet under my thighs, legs crossed yoga-style. Balancing my weight gave me more purchase on my mind.

Nothing mattered now except the journey I wanted to make. I gave myself up to it. In this dank, foul place, surely the barricades between the worlds would be shot with holes I could crawl through in my mind. I closed my eyes. Images came and went until my mind felt ready to face my spirit portal. I began the chant that would let me sink under …
Ostara … Ostara …