In the Moors (9 page)

“Yes. Except …”

She looked up from her writing. “Go on.”

“I didn't tell him. I couldn't tell him. It was as if …” I stopped. “You're going to laugh at this, but it's okay, I'm used to it.”

“Go on.”

“I felt evil. In the place. In the spirit place.”

“Give me a definition of
spirit place
.
”

I gripped my shoulder bag in an effort to stay calm. “The places I see on my journeys—my trances. This one was …”

“Evil.”

“Yes.”

She sucked air through her nostrils again, but this wasn't so much a sniff as a desire to fill her lungs with good clean air. I looked across the desk at the way she wiped her mouth with a hand. She might have a clipped way of speaking and a suspicious way of eying you up, but she was upset, just like I was, that Cliff had been damaged as a boy.

“You see,” she said at last. “This is why you are crucial to us. You might become our most valuable witness for the defence.”

“What, me?”

“Absolutely. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Your honesty and openness alone would sway a jury.”

A little glow of hope flared into life. “Where is Cliff now?”

“He's still in a police cell. Bridgwater Station. If he's charged, he'll be taken to the remand centre. That's in Bristol. But we hope it won't come—”

“Miss Smith, could I see him? I need to ask his permission to work with you.”

“Please call me Linnet. I certainly don't want to keep calling you Miss Dare.”

“I just need to know he's okay,” I said. To my horror, tears erupted into my eyes. I brushed them away. “He was arrested at my house.”

Linnet leaned across the desk and patted my hand. A single ring, silver or perhaps white gold, glinted on her third finger, but this was her right hand. Maybe she had once worn it on her other hand. Her touch did comfort me. There had been no one I'd wanted to call last night, mostly because I hadn't felt up to going through it all again so soon after the event. “I must remind you,” she said, “as Cliff's legal representation, that if you tell me something incriminating, we're obliged to take it straight to the police.”

I looked at her fiercely. “I have nothing of that nature. As far as I'm concerned, this is a horrible mistake.”

“Excellent,” said the solicitor. She swung her legs out from behind her enormous desk. At a little wall closet, she began to add layers to the midnight-blue skirt and cream shirt. A matching jacket, richly lined, oozed over her shoulders; a silk scarf was arranged around her neck. I couldn't help noticing her document bag perfectly matched the navy shoes and leather gloves. Her clothes were chosen to draw attention away from her early middle age spread and shout out a message about competence. I was beginning to feel sorry for the woman, although, on her salary, she'd hardly need my sympathy.

“Let's go and talk to Cliff,” she said.

As we scurried through the never-ending corridors of Bridgwater Police Station, I enjoyed a guilty fantasy about bumping into Rey Buckley. I peeked around, half searching for sight of him, half taking in the feel of the place. There didn't seem to be many
police
, if you get my drift; certainly Rey was nowhere in sight. Most of the workers who darted past wore office clothes, and the girl who escorted us was careful of her public image, polite and friendly, in a distant kind of way.

Not at all like Rey. He was old school. He didn't fit into this twenty-first-century police force. Not prepared to be over-polite and politically correct, too keen on hunches.

I shook myself. I had to stop thinking about him. I glanced at Linnet as she quick-marched after our escort. The ring on her finger kept drawing my attention. “Have you been in Bridgwater long?” I asked, hoping to shift, crablike, towards her personal life.

She shook her head. “I came down from Scotland—Aberdeen, to be precise—not long ago. It was where I did my articles. I liked the place, so I stayed on as a solicitor in the procurator fiscal's office. It was a great life. Made coming home difficult.”

“I can relate to that,” I said. “I came back to Bristol from North Wales after my degree. You think you got rid of all the dross, but as soon as you're back …”

Linnet managed a smile. It wasn't quite a happy smile, but it did transform her features. I love it when people do this—change from homely to handsome with their smile—and I was finally able to see how attractive Linnet might be if she let her guard down. “Yeah,” she said. “Good word,
dross
.”

“I thought you were from around here,” I affirmed. “I heard it in your voice.”

“I never completely shifted that West Country twang, even living amongst Scottish lawyers. One wears such things like a badge, I suppose.”

“Is that why you eventually came back?”

“Not quite. I had no idea how the intervening years would slice away. It's as if I'd never left … memories flooding back.” She looked up at the false ceilings we were moving under. “Set me adrift a bit.”

I quickly modified my theory of a broken marriage. She'd come back to pick up the threads of her youth. Maybe a love affair that had burnt or fizzled out while she was still a law student.
Friends Reunited
. Of course. That little website had a lot to answer for. “Sounds intriguing.”

She nodded several times in slow motion, as if she was deep in thought. “In Scotland, I was working for the prosecution. Makes you feel too righteous.” She grimaced. “Haven't had that problem since I returned.”

We were shown into a bare room and seated at an office table. Moments later, Cliff was brought in.

I had been gearing myself up to see him again, expecting him to look the worse for wear. But he was shaved and he'd slicked his wayward hair back with the water from a recent wash.

“You okay?” Cliff spoke first, and his words touched my heart.

“Are
you
okay, more like.”

“Don't suppose you're used to police raids.”

“Don't suppose you're used to getting arrested with such reg-
ularity.”

He sat at the other side of the table from Linnet and me, looking down at his clasped hands, which seemed to be glued together. I was relieved. I was going to set to screaming if he played with his lips.

“Good morning, Cliff,” said Linnet.

His head jerked up. “Thank you,” he said. I wasn't sure if he meant for coming, or for being his solicitor, or simply for acknowledging he was there. “They have to release me soon, don't they?”

She nodded a smile at him. “There's nothing they can charge you with at the moment. And as far as I'm aware, they have not applied to extend your detention.”

He closed his eyes and yawned deeply, without covering his mouth. “I'm going to sleep for the rest of the day when I get home.”

“It won't be long,” I said, looking back at the officer guarding the door. She stared over both our heads, as if not interested in a word we uttered. “I've given them a statement,” I added. “I had to go through your time in my house last night, more or less moment by moment.” I gave him a big grin. “I don't think I incriminated you.”

“They're looking to see if I've got a kidnap victim in my flat.”

“Never make a joke about the investigative process,” warned Linnet.

I could see what she meant; no one in this police station seemed blessed with a sense of humour, but Cliff jumped at her words. He kept drifting out of his body. A trauma can do that to people. His voice sounded unhitched, as if sure he was part of some elaborately staged practical joke.

“Sorry. Haven't had much sleep.”

“I'm not surprised,” I said.

“I did have a dream, though.” He looked directly at me. “The door opened.”

I realized why he seemed so floaty. He was still in the dream. It would have taken a tremendous effort to control his feelings, so he'd risen above them.

“I have to write this down, Cliff, okay?” I laid a pad on the table and scrabbled at the bottom of my shoulder bag for a pen.

“Okay,” he said. And then he was silent for long minutes.

I didn't want to put any pressure on his already fragile spirit, but I was sure we only had a short time left before this interview was up.

“Cliff?”

He spread his fingers over his mouth, and suddenly he was talking through them, to no one in particular, the words escaping like trapped flies through a window.

“Why can't we stop dreams? Why don't we know they're not real when we're in them? But this was real. It happened. It happened, real as real.” I looked up briefly from my secretarial pad. His face went through a chilling change. “The door opened, Sabbie. The door opened, and there was a bloke. Tall. Big head. Well, I was only a kid. Even in the dream. His cheeks were sucked in. They made him look gaunt, like a ghost. Why a ghost would look like that, I can't say, but in the dream it did. He did. His chin was covered in stubble. His voice growled. I knew I didn't like him. No, not
didn't like
. My feet were drilled into the floor with fear.”

“Did he speak?”

“Not to me. He said ‘you got one' to the woman.”

“You were the first,” I breathed.

“No,” said Cliff. “The girl was the first.”

“You're sure she wasn't part of the setup?”

“How could a kid be part of that?” Cliff looked at me through red-rimmed eyes that hadn't cried. “I don't want to remember any more.”

“Are you saying that was the end of the dream?”

“I'm saying I never want it again.”

“Don't dismiss this, Cliff. It's a breakthrough.”

“There's a blank space in my mind,” said Cliff. “I mean, before, I didn't have any idea that I'd forgotten anything, but now I can see that there is something missing. I can remember being picked up in the car, but the house is a blank. There's nothing until … after.”

I swallowed. “What d'you mean,
after
?”

“I sort of recall getting home.” Cliff stared down at his hands and seemed to almost doze off.

“Cliff,” I said, keeping my voice low. “Cliff, tell us, please.”

He shook his head, as if to shake the approaching tears out of him. “There's a memory from the summer Dad was ill. I'm in the car with Mum. She helps me lift my bike out the boot. She says it needs repairing.” He glanced up at us, and his hand wavered in front of his mouth, as if desperate to tug at a lip. “Now, I realize, it could be … that time.” He shook his head. “Weird. Don't know why I suddenly remembered this, but something fell from the spokes of the back wheel. I picked it up, because I liked it, it felt soft.”

There was such a long silence in the room that I knew, when I finally found my voice, it would croak out its words. “What was it, Cliff?”

He grinned at me, and his eyes lightened. “It was a catkin. Like a caterpillar or something, all soft and alive. Lovely.”

I grabbed Cliff's hand and gave it a bracing shake. “That was a symbol I brought back for Cliff,” I explained to Linnet. My heart was trilling with sudden elation.

“This sounds rather implausible—a bit far-fetched,” said Linnet. She coughed into her cupped hand and carried on. “You are now claiming you remember taking a catkin from the wheel of your bike, yet you still don't properly remember being held against your will?”

I looked from one to the other. Cliff had read my account of finding the hopeful catkin, and now it must seem as if he'd made up a story to fit in with it. Even I wasn't sure that this new memory was completely authentic.

“Does it matter?” I asked. “These tiny memories might lead Cliff to a proper understanding of what happened. That, somehow, he got away.”

Linnet tapped the desk with her massive pen. “If so, I have to say he was extremely fortunate.”

“How can you say that? It changed his life!” I clamped my mouth shut. I didn't want Cliff to think that his repetitive job and passion-dousing appearance were a direct effect of those missing days when he was a boy. And I knew that Linnet was still not entirely convinced about me. She wanted me to be of help to Cliff, but I could see that underneath, she was as sceptical about my methods as Rey was.

“My research so far on of the Wetland Murders case history shows that the children categorically died horrible deaths.” Linnet was staring at Cliff, trying to get him to respond. “You're saying you were abducted yet survived. I'd call that lucky.”

“It was cruel luck,” said Cliff.

Linnet brought out a sheaf of papers from her bag. “Let's not split hairs, here.” She rifled through them, saying no more, and in the silence, Cliff turned to me.

“Sabbie,” he began. “Last time … you said something about … my soul?”

“Yes. I think you still feel bad because while you were in the cottage, the essence we think of as soul broke into pieces. A massive ordeal can shatter a soul and bits of it get lost or hidden in different places.”

“You're saying I left my soul in that place?”

“No—it's inside you somewhere. Just fractured, floating all apart in your spirit world. It needs healing, that's all.”

“Something needs healing, that's for sure.” Cliff took a shuddering breath. “When I get out of here, I want it all back. Can we do that?”

“It will take a long time. But if you feel that you could see it through …”

“I want to try.”

We were speaking quietly now, leaning towards each other, so I hardly registered that someone had come in, but Cliff's face suddenly became the colour of my uncooked bread dough. I spun round. Rey and his sidekick, Abbott, were standing with their arms folded. A quip sprang to my lips—that he made a habit of bursting into rooms without knocking—but it died prematurely. Like Cliff, I took in their sombre expressions.