Smoke and Mirrors (17 page)

Emma heard Sandra’s sharp intake of breath. She tried to keep her own voice steady. ‘Yes? She went to Mr Gee’s shop and then what happened?’

‘She didn’t come back,’ said Richard. ‘So Kevin went to get her. Mr Gee said he’d never seen her.’

‘He’s got her,’ screamed Sandra. ‘That horrible little man in the sweet shop. He killed Annie and now he’s got Betty.’

There was pandemonium amongst the audience now. Mothers grabbed their children, several of whom started crying. Emma saw Brian Baxter standing just below the stage, ridiculous in his bow tie.

‘Let’s try to keep calm,’ said Emma, still with her arm round Richard. ‘Betty could be at home. She could be all sorts of places. Mr Baxter, have you got a telephone?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve got to speak to my boss.’

*

She prayed that the DI would be back from Devil’s Dyke and her prayers were answered. He answered on the second ring. She told him what had happened, trying to be as brief and professional as possible. She could hear the shock in his voice but he, too, was the model of calmness.

‘Go to the house, see if she’s there. I’ll meet you there. Get names and addresses of everyone at Brian Baxter’s house.’

Emma left Brian Baxter, who seemed relieved to be given something to do, taking names and addresses and she walked with Sandra and Richard back down the hill to the Francises’ house. Where was the baby? Who was looking after him? She tried not to think that the Francis family was getting smaller by the second.

When they got closer, Sandra started to run. She flung open the (unlocked) front door and shouted, ‘Betty! Betty!’ They could hear the echoes rebounding through the empty house. ‘Betty! Betty!’ Richard started to cry again.

At the doorstep, Emma knelt down to him. ‘Richard, have a really good look for Betty in the house. I bet you two have got all sorts of secret hiding places, haven’t you?’ A small smile flickered. ‘Go and look in all those secret places but don’t leave the house. OK?’

Richard bounded upstairs as his mother emerged from the kitchen.

‘She’s not here,’ she told Emma, wild-eyed. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Come and sit down.’ Emma led her into the tiny front room. ‘Can I telephone your husband?’

‘I haven’t got a telephone.’

Emma was just wondering whether to go to the neighbours for help when heavy boots sounded in the hall. Jim Francis, looking larger than ever, appeared in the doorway.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Jim.’ Sandra threw herself into his arms. ‘Betty’s gone.’

‘Betty? What are you talking about? She was doing that show up at Uncle Brian’s.’

‘She went for sweets and she never came back. Oh, Jim, she’s gone. Just like Annie.’

Jim’s fists clenched and, before Emma’s eyes, the man seemed to swell into something altogether more alarming. He almost pushed his wife aside and made for the door. ‘That little bastard shopkeeper! I’ll kill him.’

Emma interposed herself between Jim and the door.

‘Mr Francis! Stop.’

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Emma Holmes. I’m a police officer.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I was at the play. We’ll find Betty but we have to take things calmly. Jumping to conclusions won’t help. Let’s just wait until . . .’

Jim’s face suggested that he was not about to wait for anything but, just as Emma was wondering if she could restrain him any longer, she heard a welcome voice calling her name. She went to the door and saw the DI, Bob and two uniformed policemen coming up the path. In the background were Mrs O’Dowd, Kevin and another woman holding a red-haired baby.

Sandra pushed past Emma and grabbed the child. ‘Jimmy!’ This must be her youngest, named after his father. The older Jim stood scowling in the doorway.

DI Stephens was quick and to the point. ‘Bob, you go down to the sweetshop.’

‘It’ll be shut,’ said Bob. Emma looked at her watch. It was nearly six.

‘He lives over the shop,’ said the DI. ‘Knock on the door. Do you know the way?’

‘Kevin can take you,’ offered Mrs O’Dowd.

Kevin looked up at the policemen, trying to keep his face appropriately serious. Emma could tell that he was dying to go.

‘Very well,’ said DI Stephens. ‘Kevin, you show Sergeant Willis the way to Mr Gee’s shop. Sergeant McGuire and PC Andrews, you knock on all the doors in the road, ask if anyone’s seen Betty.’

‘I’ll go with you,’ said Emma.

‘No, I want a word with you first,’ said the DI. ‘I want to get all the facts straight. Where’s the child who reported Betty missing?’

‘Richard!’ Sandra put her hand to her mouth. ‘Where’s Richard?’ Emma hoped for Richard’s sake that he never realized how long it had taken his mother to notice his absence.

‘I’m here, Mum.’ Richard appeared at his father’s side. Jim dropped a hand on his head.

‘Let’s go inside,’ said the DI. Already there was a small crowd forming in the street.

The front room seemed even tinier when they were all crammed inside. Richard sat on his father’s knee, Sandra cradled the baby. Emma found herself squashed up next to the DI on the sofa. She edged her leg away so that it didn’t touch his.

‘Richard,’ said the DI. ‘Can you tell us when you last saw Betty?’

But Richard seemed to be struck dumb. He looked at the ground, tears running down his cheeks.

‘Speak up, Richard,’ said Jim, not unkindly. ‘Tell the policeman what happened.’

Emma leant forward. ‘You’re not in any trouble, Richard. Just tell us what happened. That way we’ll be able to find Betty.’

Richard took a deep breath and, addressing himself to Emma, said, ‘We was getting changed at Uncle Brian’s, in his front room, and Betty was checking the props. You know, what we need for the show. The sweets weren’t there, the ones what they use to get the Witch Man. Betty said she’d go to Mr Gee’s to get some. We’d saved our rations so we had enough. Uncle Brian give us some of his as well. She went out . . .’

‘On her own?’ interrupted the DI. ‘In the dark?’

‘Yes,’ said Richard, as if this was a stupid question. ‘We went on getting ready but she didn’t come back so Kevin went to look for her. He’s the fastest runner. He came back and said he’d been to Mr Gee’s but Mr Gee hadn’t seen her.’

Jim made a sound like a growl. Richard looked up at him apprehensively.

‘Go on,’ said the DI.

‘Then I got scared,’ said Richard. ‘And I ran into the theatre.’

‘You did the right thing,’ said the DI. ‘The quicker we know about these things, the quicker we can do something about them. Richard, do you know what time it was when Betty went to get the sweets?’

But Richard, it seems, was vague about time. He muttered something about the big hand.

‘The show was due to start at five,’ said Emma. ‘It could only have been a little while before that. I got to Baxter’s house at about five to and I didn’t see Betty. But it was very dark. There are no streetlights at the top of the hill.’

‘I told them not to go to that man’s shop,’ said Sandra. Richard started to cry again.

The DI raised his hand. ‘Is there anywhere else where Betty might go? Richard, you’re her twin, aren’t you? You must know her the best. Is there anywhere she could be?’

‘She,’ Richard nodded at Emma, ‘told me to look in all our secret places and I did. Betty wasn’t anywhere. I think he’s got her.’

‘Who?’ asked DI Stephens.

‘The Witch Man,’ said Richard and broke into renewed sobs.

*

The DI had asked for reinforcements and, after Emma had made the Francises a cup of tea and left them in the care of Mrs O’Dowd, the two of them waited by the gate.

‘Do you think she’s been abducted?’ asked Emma.

DI Stephens looked at her. She saw the dark circles under his eyes and the lines at the sides of his mouth. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘I do.’

They watched as Bob came jogging up the hill, Kevin slightly ahead of him. Richard was right, Kevin was a good runner.

‘Well?’ asked the DI.

Bob was breathing hard. Kevin ran past him into the Francises’ house. ‘Gee hasn’t seen her. Said he hadn’t left his shop all day.’

‘Any witnesses?’

‘No.’

‘We’ll get a warrant and search his house,’ said DI Stephens.

‘Do you think it’s him?’ asked Emma.

‘I don’t know but all three children disappeared in the vicinity of his shop. That’s pretty suspicious, don’t you think?’

‘Last sighting of Betty was halfway down the hill here,’ said Bob, ‘just by that bus stop. She was doing up her shoelace.’

‘Who saw her?’

‘Neighbour. Number seventy-two, I think. McGuire’s got the details.’

‘All right,’ said the DI. ‘She’s only been missing about an hour. We need to talk to everyone in the vicinity, search every inch of ground. We need to search Baxter’s house too. It’s possible that she did get back there and that he spirited her away somewhere.’

‘He was in sight all the time,’ said Emma. ‘He was taking tickets.’

‘Even so. Let’s not leave anything unchecked. And we must be methodical, no chasing off after hypothetical leads.’

He was talking to both of them but Bob was staring up at the sky. ‘Damn,’ he said.

It was the first time Emma had heard him swear. She looked at him in surprise.

‘Damn,’ said Bob. ‘It’s snowing.’

They searched all night. As the snow fell, the police teams followed the route from Brian Baxter’s house to the sweetshop, looking under hedges and in gutters, tramping through allotments and forcing open the doors of outhouses. At midnight the warrant came and Edgar, accompanied by Bob and PC McGuire, searched every inch of Sam Gee’s house and garden. They found nothing but, when they left, with Sam’s threats of legal action ringing in their ears, they found a small group of vigilantes standing outside, ankle-deep in snow.

‘Go home,’ Edgar told them. ‘We’ve got no reason to suspect Mr Gee.’

‘You searched his house though,’ said someone.

‘Go home to your families,’ said Edgar. ‘They need you now.’

Maybe this veiled warning worked, or maybe it was just the snow, which was falling heavily by then, but after a few minutes the knot of men dispersed and were soon lost in the swirling whiteness.

Edgar sent Emma back to look after the Francis family. Partly this was because he could see that she had formed a relationship with them, partly because he just wanted to spare her the freezing hours of fruitless searching. Bob worked alongside him, tireless and uncomplaining. At first light they walked back to Bartholomew Square. The streets were once again transformed by snow, every sharp edge rounded, every dark corner suddenly frosted and glittering. And, once again, Edgar saw absolutely nothing beautiful in the sight. They walked in silence until they reached the police station. In fact, Edgar felt as if he was almost too cold to speak; every muscle in his face seemed to be in spasm.

The night sergeant let them in, his craggy face sympathetic.

‘I’ll make you both a nice hot cup of tea.’

As they descended the stairs to the CID rooms, Edgar said, ‘I’ve got a fresh team coming in at nine. We’ll start again on the park.’

‘I’ll help,’ said Bob.

‘No,’ said Edgar, ‘you go home and get some sleep.’

Edgar walked up to the incident board. The photographs of Annie and Mark looked down on him, Mark smiling shyly, Annie staring challengingly into mid-distance. He remembered the picture in Daphne Young’s flat: Annie, Mark and Betty.

He was surprised to feel Bob’s hand on his arm.

‘She could still be alive, sir. Don’t give up now.’

Edgar turned away to hide his sudden tears. He was sure that Betty was dead.

*

Emma woke up on the Francises’ sofa, conscious of a comforting warmth beside her. She opened her eyes. Someone had covered her with a blanket but the warmth was coming from Richard, who was cuddled up next to her.

She touched his shoulder. ‘Richard?’

He muttered, not opening his eyes, ‘I didn’t like it in the room without Betty.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Emma. ‘You stay here.’ She pulled the blanket over him.

She looked at her watch. Five o’clock. She should let Richard sleep for a bit longer. The doctor had come last night and administered a sedative to Sandra. So she at least would know a few hours of forgetting. Jim had refused to take anything. As far as Emma knew, he was still out with the search team.

It was odd. Emma was an only child. She had no young cousins and none of her friends had had children yet. She didn’t think that she had ever held a younger child in her arms. Richard’s acceptance of her as a place of refuge seemed an almost miraculous thing. She thought of Annie, who, at thirteen, was already an experienced big sister. She never thought that she would envy Annie but now, curled up on the sofa with Richard as the morning light filtered in through the curtains, she did.

She heard boots in the hallway. Emma got up, careful not to wake Richard, and padded to the door. Jim Francis stood there, shaking the snow off his jacket. He didn’t seem surprised to see Emma but she was acutely conscious of her untidy hair and crumpled clothes.

‘I was sleeping on the sofa,’ she said. ‘Richard’s there too.’

Jim grunted. ‘Poor little sod.’

Emma didn’t have to ask if there was any news. One look at his face was enough.

‘I’ll make you some tea,’ she said.

She walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on the hob. Jim followed her and stood there awkwardly for a moment before edging past her and going out through the back door. Emma realised that he was going to the outside lavatory. She thought of her own pink-tiled bathroom at home. She would certainly put off going to the lav until she got to the station.

She made the tea as strong as she could and when Jim came in again, they stood there drinking in silence. He was such a big man that he made the tiny kitchen seem like a dolls’ house. There was a force about him too, something strong and slightly dangerous. Emma could see why Sandra Francis had married him.

Eventually she said, ‘I’ll get back to the station in a minute. DI Stephens will be sending new men to search.’

‘He searched Gee’s house last night. Didn’t find anything.’

‘I know.’

Jim looked at her, his heavy brows knitted together.

‘If it’s not Gee, then who is it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Emma, ‘but we’ll find him, whoever it is.’

Now Jim was looking at her almost pityingly. ‘You don’t believe that, love. Any more than I do.’

*

Jim Francis went out again as soon as he’d had his tea. He didn’t even wait for breakfast. With Sandra still deeply asleep, Emma thought that she should wait until Richard had woken up, at least. Should she make the family some breakfast? The kitchen was extremely tidy but there was no fridge or twin-tub or any of the gleaming paraphernalia that made Cook’s lair at her parents’ home so mysterious. In the awful limbo after school, Emma had actually been on a cordon bleu cooking course but she couldn’t really see herself rustling up
oeufs en cocotte
or kedgeree in this utilitarian sliver of a room. Opening the back door, she found a small pantry outside, cold enough to contain milk and eggs. There was a packet of porridge too. Should she make some for Richard? She was still standing, uncertain, in the doorway when a voice said, ‘I don’t like porridge.’

It was Richard, flushed from sleep, hair standing on end, determined to be difficult.

‘What about a boiled egg?’ said Emma. Surely she could manage that after six weeks with Madame Duvalier? Richard didn’t actually say no, so Emma fetched an egg from the pantry, shut the door (the kitchen was now freezing) and found a small saucepan. She also grilled some rather stale bread for toast. She was desperate for coffee but made do with black tea.

The egg was too runny (‘I like the yellow bit hard’) but Richard consented to eat. As he did so, Emma asked, ‘You know the play you were going to do?’

‘
The Stolen Children
.’

‘Yes.
The Stolen Children
. Was there a script?’

Richard finished his mouthful. He was a neat but thorough eater. ‘What’s a script?’

‘Something with all the words the actors say written down.’

‘Annie told us what to say.’

‘But did Annie have it written down somewhere? Mr Baxter, Uncle Brian, he said that Betty had taken over with the play. Did Betty find a book of Annie’s with the words written down? Mrs O’Dowd, Kevin’s mum, said something about Betty finding it with Annie’s things.’

Richard pondered. ‘There’s a box under Betty’s bed. It could be in that. She doesn’t let me look in it.’

‘Could we look now, do you think?’

‘Will it help us find Betty?’

‘It might,’ said Emma, trying to sound confident. ‘It really might.’

Richard led the way upstairs. A few minutes earlier Emma had heard the baby crying and Sandra moving about but her door stayed shut and Emma didn’t want to disturb her. There were only two rooms upstairs and the children seemed to have the bigger room, at the front of the house. Even so there was hardly room to move, as it was crammed with a double bed and a single, so close that they almost touched. The only other piece of furniture was a chest of drawers. Emma thought back to her childhood bedroom, the white-painted bed, the desk, the bookcase. How had the clever Francis children ever managed to work in this house? Why wasn’t she, with all that privilege on her side, a brain surgeon at the very least?

Richard bent down and pulled a wooden box out from under the double bed. Very carefully, Emma lifted out the contents, one by one. A broken doll (‘Her name’s Amelia’), a pink teddy bear (‘I had a blue one but I lost it’), three books, worn with rereading –
Little Women
,
Good Wives
and
Black Beauty
– and a small pile of exercise books. One was tantalisingly labelled ‘My Dairy’ (Betty clearly had trouble with ‘ai’ and ‘ia’) but, when Emma looked inside, it was empty apart from the words ‘Ellie Blackmore will always be my best friend’ written in green ink. But the next book was covered with swirls and turrets and the title was
The Stolen Children
.

It was an extraordinary little play. Like
The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
, the play Annie had been working on with Miss Young, it was laid out like a proper script, with stage directions (‘Star jumps up in surprise’) and descriptions of scenery (‘The forest can be Uncle Brian’s rubber plants with a green screen behind them’). The play began with children playing, chanting their sinister little rhyme.

Star is playing on her own. She tells the audience that she has an imaginary little brother. Later her mother is impatient with her, ‘You can’t imagine things all your life, Star. You have to get on with real life.’ Had Sandra ever said this to Annie? But Star, like Annie, is resourceful. She ventures into the Dark Wood and finds a little boy called Leaf. The boy says he was stolen away from his real parents by the Witch Man. Star and Leaf prepare a trap made out of sweets for the Witch Man, hence Betty’s trip to Sam Gee’s shop. There was a very good scene where the children are waiting for the Witch Man and wondering what he’ll be like. But when the Witch Man is caught in the trap, he turns out not to be the villain they imagine. He rescued Leaf when he was lost in the forest and has been secretly feeding him ever since. It turns out that Leaf is Star’s brother but their mother (played, Emma remembered, by Betty) had abandoned Leaf because she didn’t want a little boy. The policeman arrests the mother and the children live happily ever after with the Witch Man as a kind of live-in nanny. On the last page, Betty had written, with her distinctive green pen: ‘They join hands and sing a song, “Brothers and Sisters, Friends For Ever”.’

Emma sat back on her heels. The song was like the jig that was meant to have been played at the end of all Shakespeare’s plays. It was to remind the audience that this is all make-believe and that evil mothers and Witch Men don’t exist in the world. But what if they did exist?

Richard was reading over Emma’s shoulder. ‘It’s good, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it’s very good.’

The song had a jaunty end-rhyme that reminded Emma of songs that she used to sing in the Brownies.

What did it all mean? Why was Betty so determined to perform this play and to invite the ‘lady policeman’? Emma stared at the exercise book, willing it to give up its secrets. The round green handwriting stared back up at her.

There was one other item in the box, a photograph. Emma held it up to the light. It was the same photograph that Daphne Young had kept in her fairy-tale book. Annie, Mark and Betty. The three faces smiled at her. Three children, two dead and one missing.

Richard looked at the photograph without interest. ‘I’m not in it.’

Thank your lucky stars, thought Emma.

*

Max heard the news from Kenneth Neil (Wishy Washy), who had digs in Freshfield Road.

‘There were coppers everywhere when I got back from the show last night. They say another kid’s gone missing.’

‘It’s the sister of the first one,’ said Ron Hunter-White (Chief of the Peking Police). ‘That’s what I heard.’

‘There’s a child-killer out there,’ said Annette with a shudder. ‘I won’t be able to sleep tonight.’

‘Well, you’re hardly in danger, dear,’ said Denton, whisking past on the way to his dressing room.

Max thought about Edgar starting another desperate hunt in the snow. He wouldn’t rest until this child was found, alive or dead. Could it really be the sister of one of the other children? He couldn’t imagine how a family could survive something like that. Plenty of families lost children in the war – Diablo’s mother had lost two sons – but somehow that was different. They were adults and you could kid yourself that their sacrifice was worthwhile, but this . . . this felt like punishment from some sadistic God.

He saw Nigel Castle hovering on the edge of the gaggle of actors.

‘Did you hear the news?’ he asked.

‘Another child’s gone missing,’ said Nigel. ‘It’s just too horrible.’

Nigel really did look upset, thought Max. His skin, always pale, now had an almost greenish tinge.

‘Is it true,’ said Nigel, ‘that it’s the sister of the girl, Annie?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Max, ‘but I think I heard something like that.’

‘Another one of Daphne’s pupils then,’ said Nigel.

Max hadn’t seen it quite like that. He supposed that the loss of his friend could account for Nigel’s haggard look.

‘Daphne’s death must have been a terrible shock for you,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Nigel, ‘it was. I spoke to her parents, said how sorry I was, but they’ve gone back to Shropshire. I don’t think I’ll ever see them again. I won’t even be able to get to her funeral.’

Again, that seemed a rather self-centred way of looking at things.