Falling For You (54 page)

‘Rose Clare?’ The policewoman who comes for me and Ty doesn’t look very much older than I am. I see her eyes, bright blue, flicker over me curiously and then she gives a small encouraging smile as I step out into the bright glare of the day.

‘I’m Ty. Her uncle. I’m the one who made the call...’ Ty stumbles out behind me. She gives him a courteous nod.
Thank you, we’re dealing with this now
, she seems to say.

‘I’m DC Pauline Bright. My colleague DC Milton is waiting for us in the car. I’m going to need you to accompany me now but there is no need for you to worry, Rose. We only need for you to identify Mr Macrae. You’ll stay in the car the entire time and we will be with you every step of the way.’

Her face is laden with sympathy but when I assure her that ‘I’m not worried about
me
,’ she only nods, still smiling. I know she hasn’t taken that in.

‘You can walk?’ she looks at me solicitously. ‘I understand there was some minor injury sustained?’

‘I fell,’ I tell her. ‘A few days ago. Lawrence stitched the wound.’ She doesn’t seem to take that in, either. She turns her face away, a little; speaks into her walkie-talkie.

‘Witness secured. I’m bringing her up now. Uncle attending. Over.’ The driver responds with something that is lost in static. A bright breeze hits my face as I come out properly into the yard, my boots squelch into the softening snow. I know Carlotta and Sam are standing back, watching us from the door. When I turn round I glimpse them, strangely formally-dressed, looking cold and scared. 

‘Would have thought this amount of snowfall would have lasted a few days more, yet, eh?’ This last comment is aimed at Uncle Ty as we follow DC Bright out onto the road.

‘It’s the rain we had earlier,’ he says. His voice doesn’t sound like him. It comes from a very strange and faraway place and I know he’s still thinking about what I just said to him in the hall; about how he’s only really taken an interest in Dad’s welfare now, five years after the event; about how he’s hung back all this time and not done anything to help. She turns round to look at him and he adds;

‘The rain must be melting the ice,’ as if it needed further explanation.

‘It’s good that it’s clearing now, though,’ she comments. ‘And that you two have come forward so quickly. Before he can get away again. Never mind, eh?’ she glances back at me. ‘He’ll be behind bars before long and then you and your Dad can rest easy at night, Rose.’ 

‘We don’t want him behind bars,’ I mutter. I see a shadow cross her face at that. But Uncle Ty shakes his head at her.

‘She’s upset,’ he says.

‘Some people take it like that,’ she nods. ‘Some people take it hard. It’s understandable.’

As we get nearer to the police vehicle I see the tractor Lawrence helped on its way before by clearing the road, is back. It’s now been requisitioned as a road block, by the looks of it. The tractor driver gives me a frankly curious stare as we all troop past. I ignore him, but I see now that while we can still travel up, towards Macrae Farm, no vehicles will be travelling away from it with the tractor in place. Not today. Not by this route, anyway.

I squint up the lane and the afternoon has opened out into a strange glaring brightness. For now, the rain has stopped. The wind has moved the clouds on, rain and snow
clouds alike. The sun is threatening to break through. I can see birds, wheeling here and there, large seabirds forced inland by the weather. I can see a robin redbreast perching on a hedge.

‘According to the information we have, the suspect was last seen headed out towards Macrae Farm. Is that correct?’ The driver turns to his partner as she opens the door for me and Ty to get inside. We climb into the back. It is a non-marked vehicle, not a patrol car. It is dark in the back but as we get in I can see a load of dog hairs sticking out of the rug that covers the seat. It smells of dogs, not like I’d somehow expected it to smell, all military and sparkling clean. I don’t know why I expected that but I did. As we move off, I wish I could roll down the window for some air. I feel suffocated, suddenly, being in here. I don’t know how I expected this to end, but it wasn’t like this.
Not like this
...
      

‘All right, Rose?’ The driver is a middle-aged bloke, kindly-looking like she is.
They all know my name
, I think. They keep calling me Rose, as if they knew me, as if they knew me well. I know they’re trying to help. I need their help. But I truly wish that I did not. I wish I hadn’t had to do this, call them in like this. Because calling in the authorities brings with it a ring of inevitability about how things must go from here. The pattern of events
from now on
, they must follow in a certain line, from which there can be no deviation. The police-guy, DC Milton, nods, friendly-like at my uncle and Uncle Ty breathes in deeply through flared nostrils and there’s this whole sense, as we’re being driven along in this car for these first few minutes that we’re all on the same team in this. Me and Ty, we’re the wronged party and these officers are here to help see that justice is done and the villain is caught and we’re all on the same side only ...

That isn’t why I wanted them brought in.

‘The plan when we arrive is to wait till they bring the suspect out of the property. We will then proceed up the top drive in order for you to view him, Rose. You will remain within the safety of the vehicle at all times with me and DC Bright, is that clear, Rose? All we need for you to do is to ID him when the team bring him out. If this is the guy who confessed to injuring your dad. That’s all.’ It won’t take long, I know. Not by car, and especially now that the lanes are clear. It’s just I can’t help feeling somehow that we are running out of time.

‘I need some air, please.’ My voice comes out high-pitched and I know they take this as a sign that I’m scared.

‘No need for you to be frightened at all, Rose.’

‘I’m not scared about what you think I am.’ As soon as he’s wound the window down and I can breathe, I find my voice again.  ‘I’m worried about what Lawrence’s family are going to do to
him
. That’s what I’m worried about. You have to understand. He never tried to hurt me once in all the time we were together.’

‘They’ll be a chance for a full de-briefing from you later, once we take you back to the station, Rose. Your job right now, is just to identify the lad.’

They don’t want to hear it, do they? They don’t want to know. I sit back and fold my arms and close my eyes now. As we move on slowly up the lane, I breathe in the oily scent of dog hairs on the rug. I breathe in deep like Uncle Ty and now I catch the scent of stale coffee and the whiff of mints and the bright orange sunlight streams through the window onto my closed lids for a moment, reaching me inside the car. Warm orange tones mix with darker shadows, the feeling of people moving about, blocking my sunlight but nobody in the car is moving. A sudden panic grips me. I get the overwhelming sense of somebody running.

Somebody
is
running.

Not here, not near the car. This is nothing to do with any of us. It is
him
. It’s Lawrence. I know it’s him. I open my eyes with a jolt.

‘He’s not at the farmhouse,’ I croak.

‘What’s that?’ DC Pauline Bright looks back at me curiously. Uncle Ty looks uncomfortable. He doesn’t say a word.

‘Lawrence isn’t in the farmhouse because they’ve taken him somewhere else.’ I lean forward in my seat, feeling a churning sickness in the pit of my stomach. I know what I am saying is true. I do not know
how
I know it, but I do. I know it more certainly than I have known anything in my life. And I know we must act on it. Now. The officer stops the car momentarily while he examines his notes.

‘That isn’t the information that we have, miss.’ He looks at me. ‘I thought you said ... your uncle said - that you had information he was headed back home, Rose?’

‘That’s where he was going. But that isn’t where he is, now.’ I open the door of the car and step out. The day around me is blustery and bright. I can see the tail end of a bright yellow vehicle - an ambulance - parked further up the lane. It seems to be just waiting there. Waiting for trouble? At the front of our car I can see DC Pauline Bright as she steps out of the vehicle, after me. She looks slightly alarmed. She doesn’t know what I’m doing, why I’m saying this. She doesn’t understand where I’m coming from. How it might be possible to know something when you have no idea
how
you know it, what has informed you.  My head is drawn immediately to the right, to the clump of trees further on and upwards, at the bend on the road. Towards Topwoods. I get a strong smell of wet earth in my nostrils now. I get the damp smell of tree roots and rotting vegetation.

‘There,’ I point. ‘I’ve got ... I’ve got
a hunch
,’ I tell her. The police know about hunches, I think. They
must
know. You see it in the cop movies all the time.

‘Rose ...’ she looks at me. ‘Why there?’ Her colleague makes a motion;
get her back inside the car,
but she stalls, playing along for a bit.

‘Dead Men’s Copse,’
t
he words come out before I even think them. ‘That is where they’re taking him.’

And then, before she can stop me, before anyone can stop me, I make a run for it up the lane. When I reach the wooded area I dash into the darkest place between the trees that I can find, so they won’t be able to catch me so quickly. They won’t be able to delay me.

‘Rose ... come back!’ Ty is calling after me now, following behind her, following me, but I have a head start on both of them. And I know ... I know where I am going, something keeps pulling me east, further into the woods, onto the wet sludgy path under the darkness of the trees, something is compelling me to plunge forward blindly because I know he will be here. I know they are taking him here. I
know
it.

I can make it, reach him, if I can just keep going
.
But for a second, I have to stop, bending over while a pain like a vice-cold clamp has got hold of my lungs. I have to catch my breath. My leg feels like a needle-sharp spear has just split the skin. It hurts! But I have to keep going, the other two are still trailing behind me, I can hear them, the police lady and Uncle Ty, they keep calling me. Very soon the vegetation crowds in, the path peters out. Old blackened brambles with withered berries and yellowing leaves are all that cover the ground in front of me.

And it has gone very quiet.

Something smells bad, here. I stop. Behind me, I hear the other two stop, even as I do. I hear the crashing sound of their footsteps pursuing me through the trees come to a halt. Ahead of us, there is a large tree. An old
o
ak, that stands proud above all the others. I know which tree this is. I’ve heard about this tree before; it’s the one those men are said to have hung themselves from.   And there are two people, I see now, standing still at the bottom.

One of them is Rob Macrae. I believe the other one is Pilgrim. Pilgrim is making some strange, weeping noises in his throat. Noises that catch in my stomach, filling me with fear. They are both looking upwards. I can’t see, at first, what they are all looking at. I can only feel their awed silence, something in the way they’re both standing there, not moving anymore; something in the frozen space, in the terrible silence, between them, sticks a cold spear right through me.