Living in the Shadows (14 page)

He shook his head. ‘No.’

‘I’m going to check again.’

‘No, you’re not, Constable Howarth.’ Sergeant Blackwood’s voice was clipped, irritated. ‘We’ve wasted enough time.’

‘What about a cellar, a basement?’

‘You can go down there,’ River drawled, ‘but you’ll only get as far as the first door. It’s blocked off, has been since before we got here.’ He lifted his shoulders again. ‘Most of the walls inside have collapsed. There’s no way you can get through. But by all means have a go, I think we’ve got some shovels somewhere.’

The young couple, still holding hands and swaying in unison, giggled.

‘Like I said, Constable, we’ve been here long enough,’ the sergeant said. ‘It’ll take all afternoon for you to complete the paperwork on this farce. Car-keys!’

Jackie fished around in her jacket pocket and handed them to him.

‘Right. Come on, you two useless buggers,’ he shouted at the cadets.

They scurried after him.

Jackie followed them to the ground floor. She took a chance. ‘The basement?’

River rolled his eyes and tilted his head to the right. ‘Through that door. Like I said, that’s about as far as you’ll get. You won’t get in.’

‘I’ll decide that,’ she snapped. She took her cap off and held it in one hand.

The first door was swollen but she managed to squeeze through it, leaving it open enough for her to see. The walls were rough under her palm as she felt her way down a couple of gritty stone steps to a broken door. Bricks and dust shifted behind it but it only opened so far, letting out a smell of damp and mould. ‘Damn.’ The creepy bastard was right; it was blocked. She stooped quickly as a whistling flutter of pigeons swooped past her head.

‘What the fuck!’ There was scuffling above her in the corridor where River was waiting. Jackie grinned. ‘Hope they’ve shit on you,’ she muttered. The thought occurred to her that if the birds had got into the basement there had to be an opening somewhere. But not big enough for anybody to get through, she reasoned.

Back upstairs she brushed the dust and cobwebs off her hair and cape. The birds had gone. There was a line of pigeon shit on the front of River’s kaftan.

Jackie grinned. She couldn’t resist. ‘You’ll need to wash that off pretty quick before it stains,’ she said, settling her cap on her head.

As she passed River to leave, he leaned towards her, pursing his lips and making kissing sounds. She glanced around. The others had lost interest and disappeared; she was alone with this revolting man. Without a second thought she lifted her regulation shoe and stamped it down on his sandaled foot. The howl of anguish was very satisfying.

Outside the rain was worse. Jackie looked upwards. The sky was a dark shimmering cover of thick cloud. The others were already at the gate. None of them looked back. Over by the station a train screamed past, its whistle, as it went through, a fading echo.

There was a shout. The sergeant was half-in and half-out of the Austin. Even through the sheet of rain she could see his red angry face. She grimaced; her life wouldn’t be worth living for the next few days.

Chapter 25: Victoria Schormann

Ashford, morning: Tuesday, September 23rd

‘They’ve gone.’ River crouched down and peered inside the large pipe.

‘Thank God for that; it stinks in here.’ Seth wriggled out of the blanket that he’d shared with Victoria for the last hour.

River scowled. ‘One of the bloody bitches stamped on my foot. I’ll be keeping a lookout for her on the outside. She’ll be sorry.’ When he suddenly grinned he showed nicotine-stained teeth.

‘Forget it, River,’ Seth said. ‘We don’t want to invite trouble.’

‘Anyway, they’ve gone,’ the Irish man said.

‘What’s that all down your front?’ Seth scrambled on his hands and knees out of the pipe.

‘Pigeon shit. Flying rats.’ River glowered. ‘Pig insisted on going down the basement. The bloody things flew out. Should have locked her in there.’

They hauled Victoria upright. ‘They took their bloody time,’ Seth said, pulling the blanket from her.

River leaned against the wall of the small building that surrounded the pipe. He finished rolling a joint and licked the cigarette paper to seal it, all the while leering at Victoria.

‘Mind you, we didn’t waste ours. Eh, Summer?’ Seth wiped his thumb over her cheek.

As though he could wipe away all the dirt… Victoria bit down on her lip to stop the trembling. She felt dirty inside. Used. At first, when she’d been bundled out of one of the side doors she was bewildered. Being shoved down into the tunnel was degrading. Even after Seth told her he was protecting her, that the police would make her go back home, she was still angry. She might not have chosen to come to this awful old mill of all places but she
had
chosen to leave home – to be free. No one could make her go back to Llamroth. She was eighteen and she made her own choices about her life.

But she’d no control over what Seth had done. The sex wasn’t what she’d wanted. It made her sick to think about him pushing against her, ignoring her protests, oblivious to her cries of pain as she tried to steady herself against the rough surface of the pipe.

However he looked at her now, with the usual tenderness and concern, Victoria realised that she didn’t know Seth. Or what she meant to him.

‘Just get me out of here,’ she said, ‘I need a wash.’

Seth frowned.

Since her arrival Victoria had become used to flashes of anger crossing his face when he was annoyed and it made her nervous. Being uneasy wasn’t something she was used to. Still, to placate him, she waved her arm towards the tunnel. ‘Horrible thing,’ she said, unaccustomed to the apprehension that flooded through her and unable to stop the tears.

He stood still, distanced from her. ‘At least it hid you from the pigs.’ He stared. ‘What I don’t understand is why they’re looking for you here.’ He glowered. ‘You didn’t tell your lot where you were going, did you?’

‘How could I?
I
didn’t know where I was going. And I haven’t been outside since I arrived.’ Her hands curled and uncurled.

His face cleared. He leaned forward and kissed her, then stepped back. ‘Hell, you’re right, you stink.’ He grinned.

‘You’re not so sweet yourself?’ She forced a smile, desperate to get away from him. ‘I’ll go and wash.’ But she was thankful he wasn’t angry with her anymore. She needed the security of being his favourite. When the warning had first gone around that it was her the police were looking for, she sensed the antagonism that swept across everyone’s face as she was passed from one to the other and then quickly taken away by Seth. She knew that as far as they were concerned she was a threat to them, to the commune. But with Seth still on her side they wouldn’t dare demand she be kicked out. The last thing she wanted was to be forced to return to her old life: to go back to having to compete and be compared with Richard. For a moment she felt bad, she wouldn’t have wanted to go through half what her brother had and still insist on going to that uni. Art college had been an easy option for her – she’d been glad to leave school at sixteen.

The thought was fleeting; she needed to worry about herself.

Even as she hurried back into the building she was excusing what Seth had done, rationalising the rough sex. Love-making, she amended the thought. He’d obviously wanted her so badly. After all they hadn’t seen much of one another over the last week; he was still so occupied with settling into this place. So he … they, she corrected herself again, had just made the most of the situation.

And she wouldn’t tell him that she’d caught a glimpse of Jackie, from her window. She’d bobbed down when she saw her look up. She certainly wouldn’t tell anyone it was her cousin looking for her. Interfering cow. What on earth had made her look for her here?

Still she’d gone now. Victoria hoped her family … her old family … would leave her alone now to get on with her new life with Seth. Now she was out of it she didn’t even mind having to hide in that old disgusting pipe. It would all be worth it.

Chapter 26: Jacqueline Howarth

Ashford: Wednesday, September 24th

‘Jacqueline?’

‘Auntie Mary! I rang last night but there was no reply. Is everything okay?’ Jackie did a thumbs-up to Nicki who was standing by the fridge and offering a glass and a bottle of lager.

She’d had to concede the search at the old camp yesterday was a waste of time, despite the feeling that the hippies were hiding something there. She didn’t blame him, but she was well and truly in Sergeant Blackwood’s bad books for dragging him out of his warm office on what was really only a hunch on her part.

And she’d had no luck with any of the local stations; none of them had anything untoward to report and she wasn’t surprised. Victoria was probably hiding out at a friend’s house, sulking. She certainly wouldn’t be on the streets of Manchester, scruffy and unkempt. Her cousin was too full of herself to allow that to happen.

Her aunt’s next words shocked her out of her exasperation.

‘Your Uncle Peter had a slight heart attack on Monday.’

Oh, no. ‘Is he all right?’ She loved her uncle; he was a nice man. ‘How is he? Is he in hospital? What have they said?’

‘They’ve kept him in but they say it’s not serious.’ Mary’s voice cracked. Jacqueline heard her sniff. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t let you know, I’ve only been back to the house to get a change of clothes—’

‘Oh, forget that,’ Jackie interrupted. ‘What happened?’

Nicki came to stand next her, putting an arm over her shoulder. ‘What’s up?’

Jackie raised a finger and mouthed ‘in a minute’, struggling to hear Mary.

‘We were walking on the front. Stupid because it was such bad weather but Peter insisted it would do me good after… after—’

‘I know.’ Jackie said quickly, scowling. ‘And, I‘m sorry, there’s been no sighting of her up here.’

Mary didn’t acknowledge what Jackie had just said.

‘We were lucky. Some friends of ours were passing in their truck. They got him into the cab and we took him to Pont-y-Haven.’

‘Is there anything I can do? Shall I come?’

‘No.’

The line hummed for a few seconds. Jackie pressed her ear firmer to the receiver. ‘Auntie Mary?’

‘Sorry. No, love, that’s very kind of you. But it’s not necessary, there’s nothing you could do. Alwyn and Alun, our friends, are looking after Gelert for a few days. That’s one worry off my mind.’

‘I’ll tell Mum and Auntie Ellen—’

‘No. No, don’t. And don’t tell Richard, Jackie. Peter’s insisting he doesn’t get told until after his next interview. ’

‘Oh, of course. I understand.’ Though what he’ll say when he finds out I’ve kept it from him, heaven only knows, she thought. ‘Do you want me to tell Nelly, then? She could ring you?’

‘No, she’ll only mither; she doesn’t need any worry at her age.’

‘You need someone, Auntie Mary. You can’t be on your own down there.’

‘I’m not on my own. I’ve got Peter.’ The line crackled again for some moments. Then Mary said, ‘This is all Victoria’s fault. He’s literally worried sick about her.’

Chapter 27: Victoria Schormann

Ashford: Thursday, September 25th

Victoria was lonely. It was a week since she’d arrived and she hadn’t made any friends yet. She knew that most of the women resented her. Probably because she was Seth’s favourite, she told herself, pushing away the memory of two days ago.

She hadn’t seen him to speak to since then.

She had thought it would be so different being in a commune; that she’d belong, be accepted for herself. Not as Richard’s stroppy sister, or her parents’ difficult daughter (which she knew was how they thought of her) but as one of the community – as Seth’s girlfriend. It wasn’t turning out like that, not yet anyway. Two of the girls in the dorm had already complained about the amount of time she spent on herself instead of taking on a share of the work. Well, stuff them, they could get lost. She had no intention of looking as grungy as they did. Any more than she was going to learn how to do the stupid knitting Jasmine had insisted she tried. She reckoned if she kept on dropping stitches Jasmine would give up on her. As for using that makeshift cooking range… Victoria shut out the humiliating scene. That woman, Chrystal, hadn’t needed to be so nasty; how was she to know she was supposed to check there was enough wood to keep the fire going underneath? Wasn’t that a job for the men? The tears came easily.

She breathed on the window and rubbed a circle in the grime on the glass with her finger. Peering out, she shivered. She hated it here.

She hated the rusted fence, just yards from the building she was in, and beyond it the expanse of wasteland. Hated the ugly skeletons of old buildings, mapped out on the ground by foundation stones covered in pink weeds and coarse grass. Hated the spindly-looking shrubs growing from the collapsed ruins of the old mill. She especially hated the large corroded metal sheets that had replaced part of an old fence, blocking off any view of the road beyond. By twisting her head she could just about see the large gates, padlocked together and leaning lopsidedly against two brick pillars. Like a bloody prison, she thought.

The excitement she’d felt last Wednesday, as they drove away from the boring little village in Wales, had gone. She’d replaced one stifling place for another.

If only she and Seth hadn’t walked by the canal that day.

She flopped down on her mattress and looked down the long room that was allocated to the single women in the commune. There was no one else around but they’d left their smells behind. She crinkled her nose against the smell … no, the stench, she thought, the stench of sweat, of unwashed hair. Body odours. She pulled at the thin, horrid sheet of material that divided her mattress from the next. It didn’t reach far enough for her; she’d have liked to shut everybody out completely. The so-called curtains separating the twelve narrow mattresses weren’t enough to give Victoria the privacy she’d been used to. But they were enough to make her feel cut off from the other girls when they chatted at night.