The Lake House (15 page)

Ridiculous, fanciful nonsense. It was the sort of thing Bertie's new friend Louise might think; Donald was guffawing in her mind. It was the stillness she was responding to, the lack of human habitation and its legacy. Houses weren't meant to stand empty. A house without occupants, especially one like this, still filled with a family's possessions, was the saddest, most pointless thing on earth.

Sadie followed a flock of mirrored clouds as they drifted across the leadlight windows on the top floor, her gaze stopping at the window on the far left. The nursery, the last place Theo Edevane had been seen before he went missing. She took up a pebble, rolling it thoughtfully between her thumb and index finger, judging its weight idly in her palm. That, there, was the crux of it. This house might easily have been forgotten but for the story attached to it, the infamy of that little boy's disappearance. Over time the infamy had gained an echo and eventually it had ripened into folklore. The fairy story of a little boy lost and a house cast into an eternal sleep, holding its breath as the garden continued to tumble and grow around it.

Sadie cast the pebble in a lazy arc towards the lake, where it landed with a rich
plink
. No doubt about it, the fairy-tale element was one of the trickiest aspects of the case. Cold cases were always a challenge, but this one had the added folklore factor. The story had been told and retold so many times that people had come to accept its mystery. If they were honest, most people didn't want an answer—outsiders, that is, people who weren't involved; that the mystery was unsolvable was part of its appeal. But it hadn't been witchcraft or magic, and children did not spontaneously dematerialise. They were lost, or stolen, or trafficked. Killed, sometimes, too, but mostly given or taken away. Sadie frowned. There were so many shadow children out there, separated from their parents, tugging at their mothers' skirts. Where had this one gone?

Alastair had been as good as his word, putting in an order for copies of the original newspaper articles, and Bertie's friend Louise, who seemed to be “just popping in' whenever Sadie entered the kitchen, had promised to ask around the old people's wing of the hospital for anyone who might know something. Sadie had confirmed with the Land Registry Office that the house was currently owned by Alice Edevane, but despite proud claims to the contrary, it transpired the “local' author lived in London and hadn't been spotted in the village for decades. Sadie had found a street address but no email; she hadn't had an answer to either of her letters yet. In the meantime, she was making do with the library copy of
The Edevane Boy
by Arnold Pickering.

The book had been published in 1955 as part of a series called
Cornish Mysteries
that also included a volume of collated fairy sightings and the story of a notorious ghost ship that appeared in the bay. These stablemates had not filled Sadie with confidence, and sure enough, Pickering's account suggested a far greater love for intrigue than for truth. The book didn't venture a sensible theory, preferring to remain in thrall to “the mysterious disappearance that Midsummer's Eve.” It did, however, contain what appeared to be a decent summary of events, and beggars couldn't be choosers.

Sadie took out her notes, newly encased in a folder she'd labelled
Edevane
. It was becoming something of a daily ritual to read them through, here on the edge of the old fountain. It was how Sadie always worked, inputting every detail of a case, over and over, until she could recite the contents of a file by memory. Donald called it obsessive (he was more a ponder-by-pint man), but Sadie figured one man's obsession was another girl's devotion, and if there was a better way to discover flaws, holes and discrepancies in the evidence, she was yet to find it.

According to Pickering, Theodore Edevane was last seen at eleven on the night of the party, when his mother went to the nursery to check on him. It was the same time she looked in each evening before retiring to bed, and the boy's habit was then to sleep until morning. He was a good sleeper, Eleanor Edevane had told police, and he rarely woke during the night.

Her visit to the nursery on the evening of the party was verified by one of the maids, who saw Mrs Edevane leave the room and stop to speak briefly with another servant on the stairs. The maid confirmed the time as just after eleven and said she knew this because she was carrying a tray of used champagne flutes back to the kitchen in order that they might be cleaned so the guests would have them for the fireworks display at midnight. The footman on duty by the front door reported seeing Mrs Edevane leave the house just after eleven, after which time none of the guests or family members re-entered, except to visit the bathroom on the ground floor, until the end of the party.

Mrs Edevane spent the rest of the evening at the boathouse, where gondolas were taking partygoers for joyrides down the lantern-lit stream, and retired to bed just after sunrise, when the last guests had left, presuming her children were all where they should be. She fell asleep quickly and stayed that way until she was woken at eight by a maid who informed her that Theo wasn't in his cot.

The family carried out a preliminary search, but without any great sense of urgency, and without alerting those guests who'd stayed overnight. One of the Edevane daughters—the youngest, Clementine—had a habit of slipping out of the house early and had been known, on occasion, to take her little brother with her if he were awake in his cot when she passed the nursery. It was presumed to be the case in this instance.

Breakfast was still being served in the dining room when Clementine Edevane returned to the house, alone, just after ten. When she professed no knowledge of her brother's whereabouts, reporting that the door to his nursery had been closed when she passed at six, police were called to the house. The boy was officially declared missing and a massive search was launched.

Although Pickering seemed happy to believe that the boy had simply vanished into the night, he did include a small summary of the police investigations, outlining two official explanations for Theodore Edevane's disappearance: the boy had wandered or he had been abducted. The wandering theory was lent credence when it was discovered his favourite toy puppy was also gone, but as the search widened and no trace of the child was found, and in light of the family's wealth, police became convinced the latter was more likely. At some point between eleven o'clock on Midsummer's Eve and eight the following morning, someone had crept into the nursery and removed the boy.

It seemed a reasonable assumption and one with which Sadie was inclined to agree. She looked across the lake towards the house and tried to imagine herself into the night-time party as described by Pickering: people everywhere, lanterns and flares, gondolas with laughing passengers drifting down the lamp-lit stream, a bonfire in the middle of the lake. Music and laughter and the noise of three hundred people chatting.

If the boy had wandered—and Pickering quoted a newspaper report in which Anthony Edevane said his son had recently started climbing from his cot and had once or twice made his way down the stairs—then what chance was there that no one at the party had seen him? Pickering alluded to a few uncertain reports from guests who “might have' noticed a child, but evidently there was nothing concrete. And if the eleven-month-old had somehow managed to avoid detection as he crossed the garden, how far was it reasonable to presume he might have travelled? Sadie didn't know much about children and their milestones, but presumably even an advanced walker would have run out of steam pretty quickly? Police had searched for miles in all directions and uncovered nothing. Besides, it was incredibly unlikely that seventy years had passed without anything turning up: no body, no bones, not even a shred of clothing.

There were problems with the abduction theory, too. Namely, how someone could have got inside, taken the child and then left again without arousing suspicion. There'd been hundreds of people cluttering up the house and garden, and as far as Sadie could tell there were no solid reports of anyone seeing or hearing anything. She'd spent all of Wednesday morning scouting about the house looking for exits and found two, other than the front door, that seemed viable: the French doors leading from the library and another door at the back of the house. The library was out, surely, because the party had spilled around to the garden there, but Sadie had wondered about that back door.

She'd tried to look through the keyhole and had given the door a hearty shake in the hopes it might swing open; there was a difference, after all, between breaking and entering and just plain entering. Ordinarily, Sadie wasn't one for splitting hairs, and it wasn't as though there was anyone around to mind if she broke the latch to get inside, but with things as sticky as they were with Donald, and the looming shadow of Ashford, who had the power and possibly the inclination to kick her out of the force, she figured it was wise to be on her best behaviour. Climbing through the window into a virtually empty boathouse was one thing, breaking into a fully furnished manor house was quite another. The room beyond the door would remain a mystery until Alastair was enlisted to find her a floorplan in the county collection. “I'm a nut for maps and plans,” he'd said, barely able to conceal his glee at having been asked to obtain one. It had taken him no time at all and thus by Thursday Sadie had learned that the door was the servants' entrance into the kitchen.

Which didn't exactly help matters. The kitchen would have been buzzing on the night of the party. Surely there was no way anyone could have sneaked out undetected with Theo Edevane under one arm?

Sadie glanced again at Alice's name engraved in its secret spot at the base of the fountain. “Come on, Alice,” she said. “You were there. Throw a girl a bone.”

The silence was deafening.

Well, no, not silence, for it was never silent here. Each day, as the sun rose higher into the sky, the choir of insects hovering amongst the reeds warmed to a feverish static; it was the lack of clues that was deafening.

Frustrated, Sadie cast her notes aside. Trying to find gaps in the evidence was all well and good, but the method relied, funnily enough, on having evidence to sift through. Real evidence: witness statements, police theories, reliable information. Right now, Sadie was working with only the flimsiest of outlines.

She gathered her things, slipping the books and file inside her backpack, and called to the dogs. They came reluctantly, but soon fell into step as Sadie made her way through the back garden, away from the house. Her explorations earlier in the week had revealed a stream at the rear of the estate that could be followed all the way to the village.

In a matter of days, God willing, she'd have some concrete material. One of the most useful things she'd gleaned from Pickering's book was the name of the investigating officers, the youngest of whom, it turned out, was still alive and living in the area. According to Pickering, it had been Clive Robinson's first case after joining up with the local police force. He'd been seventeen at the time and assistant to the local police inspector, DI Hargreaves.

It hadn't been difficult to track down Clive Robinson's address, not for Sadie, who still had friends in Traffic.
A
friend, at any rate. An amiable-enough fellow with whom she'd shared a drunken fumble after a police night out a few years back. Neither of them had mentioned it since, but he was always happy to expedite her requests for information. She'd jotted down the address and driven into nearby Polperro on Wednesday afternoon. There'd been no answer when she knocked, however the next-door neighbour had been most forthcoming. Clive was on holiday in Cyprus with his daughter and son-in-law, but would be back the following day. The neighbour knew this, she volunteered, because she was busy being neighbourly, collecting mail and keeping Clive's pot plants alive until he returned. Sadie had written out a note requesting a meeting and then slipped it through the letterbox. She'd thanked the woman and commented that the plants appeared to be thriving. Sadie held a special affection for neighbours like Doris, so willing to share.

The dogs raced ahead, crossing the stream at its narrowest bend, but Sadie paused. There was something in the shallows and she fetched it up from the mud, turning it over in her fingers. A smooth oval stone, flat as a coin, the perfect skimmer. Bertie had taught her how to find them, back when she first went to live with her grandparents in London and they'd gone for walks, the three of them, around the bathing pond in Victoria Park. She tossed it underarm, pleased when it bounced obligingly across the water's surface.

She searched between the reeds and had just found another lovely skimmer when a flash of light and movement on the other side of the stream caught her eye. Sadie knew what it was at once. She tightened her lips and blinked long and hard. Sure enough, when she looked again the backlit child with her hands raised for help was gone. Sadie launched the stone, watching grimly as it chased its mate across the water. When finally it sank without a trace, she crossed the rocks to the other side of the stream and didn't let herself look back.

T
en

Cornwall, 1914

“You need to find a really flat one,” Anthony said, digging in the shallow water at the edge of the stream. “Just like this beauty here.” He held the small oval-shaped stone between his fingertips, admiring it as he turned it this way and that. Sunlight glinted behind him as he placed it in little Deborah's waiting hand.

She gazed at it in wonder, her downy hair falling forwards to graze the top of her wide blue eyes. She blinked and then heaved a great happy sigh, so emphatically pleased with the situation that she couldn't help but stamp her little feet in a burst of explosive glee. Somewhat foreseeably, the stone slipped from her palm and fell with a
splash
back into the water.

Deborah's mouth formed an “O' of surprise and after a brief inspection of her empty hand a plump finger shot out indignantly to point at the place where it had disappeared.

Anthony laughed and brushed her soft hair back and forth. “Never mind, poppet. There are plenty more where that one came from.”

From where she sat on the fallen log beneath the willow, Eleanor smiled. This, here, was everything. This late summer's day, the smell of the distant sea, the people she loved most in the world all in the same place. On days like today it felt as if the sun had cast its spell and it would never be winter again, and she could almost convince herself she'd imagined the whole awful thing . . . But then she would telescope out of the perfect moment and the panic would return, a rabid gnawing in her stomach, because each day was going faster than the one before it and no matter how determinedly she tried to slow time down, it was slipping through her fingers like water, like those little flat river stones through Deborah's fingers.

She must have sighed or frowned or otherwise expressed her inner turmoil because Howard, sitting beside her, leaned to bump her shoulder lightly with his own. “It won't go on for long,” he said. “He'll be back before you know it.”

“By Christmas, they say.”

“Not even four months.”

“Barely three.”

He took her hand and squeezed it and Eleanor felt a chill of presentiment. She told herself she was being silly, and focused instead on the dragonfly hovering in the sunlit reeds. Dragonflies didn't imagine they could sense the future; they just flew about, enjoying the sun on their wings. “Have you heard from your Catherine?” she said brightly.

“Only to tell me she'd become engaged to some red-haired cousin from the north.”

“No!”

“I'd thought going into uniform might impress her, but alas . . .”

“More fool her. She doesn't deserve you.”

“No . . . only I'd rather hoped I might deserve her.”

He said it lightly, but Eleanor knew beneath his humour he was smarting. He'd fallen deeply for Catherine; according to Anthony he'd been on the brink of proposing marriage.

“There are plenty more fish in the sea,” she said, wincing because it sounded so glib.

“Yes. Only Catherine was a very lovely fish. Maybe if I come back from the war with a small but impressive injury . . .”

“A limp, perhaps?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of an eye patch. Just enough to lend me a certain roguish charm.”

“You're far too nice to be a rogue.”

“I was afraid you'd say that. War will toughen me up, surely?”

“Not too much, I hope.”

Over by the stream, little Deborah laughed with delight as Anthony dunked her toes in the cooler, deeper stretch of water. The sun had slipped a little in the sky and the pair of them were bathed in light. The baby chuckle was infectious and Eleanor and Howard smiled at one another.

“He's a lucky man,” Howard said, his tone unusually serious. “I've never envied Anthony before—though God knows I've had more than enough reason—but I do envy him that. Being a father.”

“Your turn next.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“Yes, I suppose you're right. Who could resist me?” He puffed out his chest and then frowned. “Other than sweet Catherine, of course.”

Little Deborah toddled over to where they were sitting, the short journey made treacherous by her small stature and newness to walking. She held out her hand, presenting a little stone with all the solemnity of a royal bestowal.

“It's beautiful, darling.” Eleanor took the pebble in her fingers. It was warm and smooth and she rubbed her thumb over its surface.

“Da,” said Deborah importantly. “Da-da.”

Eleanor smiled. “Yes, Da-da.”

“Come on little D,” said Howard, swinging her up onto his shoulders. “Let's go and see what those greedy ducks are doing on the lake.”

Eleanor watched them go, her daughter squealing with laughter, enjoying the ride as Uncle Howard bobbed and weaved his way through the trees.

He was such a good, kind man, yet for as long as she'd known him there'd been something profoundly solitary about Howard. Even his sense of humour, his habit of making people laugh, seemed somehow only to isolate him further. “That's because he is alone,” Anthony had said when Eleanor mentioned it. “Except for us. He has been all his life. No brothers or sisters, his mother long dead and a father who couldn't be bothered.” Eleanor had a feeling that was why she liked him so much; because they were the same, the two of them, only she'd been fortunate enough to find her soul mate on a busy London street, while Howard was still searching.

“I'll make a champion skimmer of her yet,” said Anthony, coming towards her from the stream.

Eleanor shook away sad thoughts and smiled. His shirtsleeves were rolled to his elbows and she thought for the thousandth time what wonderful arms he had, what splendid hands. No more or less than what she'd been born with, and yet his were capable of fixing broken people. At least they would be when he completed his clinical training, once this dreadful war was over. “I expect you will,” she said. “Only I'm concerned you waited so long to start her instruction. She's almost eleven months old.”

“She's a fast learner.”

“And clearly gifted.”

“She takes after her mother in that respect.” Anthony leaned down to kiss her, cupping her chin in his hands, and Eleanor drank in the smell of him, his presence and warmth, tried to fix this moment in her memory.

He sat beside her on the log and sighed with deep satisfaction. How she wished she could be like him: certain, confident, at peace. Instead she worried constantly. How would she manage when he left? How would she make it right for little D? Already their daughter adored her father especially, seeking him out each morning, her face widening in a smile of sheer delight when she saw that, yes, joy of joys, he was still here. Eleanor couldn't bear to imagine the first time that little face sought her father in vain, remaining poised on the anticipation of delight. Worse—the first day she forgot to seek him altogether.

“I have something for you.”

Eleanor blinked. Her fears were like flies at a picnic: as fast as she swatted them away, there were more to replace them. “You do?”

He rummaged in the basket they'd brought down from the house and handed her a small flat package.

“What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

“It's a book,” she said.

“It's not. And you really shouldn't guess like that.”

“Why not?”

“One day you'll be right and you'll spoil the surprise.”

“I'm never right.”

“That's a good point.”

“Thank you.”

“Though there's a first time for everything.”

“I'm going to open this now.”

“I wish you would.”

She tore off the paper and drew breath. Inside was the most beautiful ream of writing paper she'd ever seen. Eleanor ran her fingertips over the soft cotton sheets, following the elegant green vine of ivy leaves that twined its way around the borders.

“It's so you can write to me,” he said.

“I know what it's for.”

“I don't want to miss anything while I'm gone.”

The word “gone' brought home the reality of what was about to happen. She'd been trying so hard to contain her worries. He was so strong and sure and she wanted to be equal to him, didn't want to disappoint him, but at times her fear threatened to consume her.

“You don't like it?” he said.

“I love it.”

“Then . . . ?”

“Oh, Anthony.” Her words came in a rush. “I know it's not very brave of me, and we're all supposed to be very brave at times like these, but—”

He pressed a finger lightly to her lips.

“I don't think I can bear—”

“I know. But you can and you will. You're as strong as anyone I've ever met.”

He kissed her, and she sank into his embrace. Anthony thought she was strong. Maybe she could be? Maybe for the sake of Deborah she could manage to overcome her own emotions? She pushed aside her fears and allowed herself to disappear into the perfect satisfaction and fulfilment of this moment. The stream burbled on its way towards the sea, just as it always had, and she rested her head on his warm chest, listening to the steady thud of his heart. “Come home to me.”

“Nothing will stop me.”

“Promise you won't let it?”

“I promise.”