The Disappeared (13 page)

'Dear
God, I'm doing my best.'

'Yeah,
right.'

'
What
?'

'The
atmosphere in this place ... I don't know what's wrong with you.'

'With
me? I've kept my side of the bargain. How could I possibly try any harder -
tell me, I'd love to know.'

'You
never calm down. Never.'

Jenny
opened her mouth to reply, but the words caught in her throat and she felt her
eyes welling.

'See
what I mean?'

'Ross-'

He
shook his head and went back through the door to join his girlfriend.

Jenny
hid in her study trying to stifle the tears that wouldn't dry up, wanting
desperately to go and make peace but with no way of doing so without appearing
red-eyed in front of Karen. Trapped, she listened to them clear the table and
load the dishwasher, then leave quietly through the back door so as not to risk
meeting her on their way out.

The
sky was bluer and sharper than it ever was in summer. The brook at the end of
the garden beyond the tumbledown mill was clear and deep. Tiny brown trout
gathered in a pool of sunlight to soak up the first warming rays of the year,
and along the shale banks fragile crocuses and snowdrops burst through the cold
earth. It had been a revelation to her that nature didn't sleep through the
winter. When she lived in the city she had only noticed the trees as they came
into leaf in April. Living among them during a whole winter, she had seen how
even as the last of the leaves fell in late December, new buds were forming.
There was no time of stillness. Life was in constant, unstoppable rotation.

She
comforted herself with these thoughts as she drifted around her third of an
acre, trying to absorb its peace before returning to her desk. She ran her
fingers over soft, deep moss on the mill shed's crumbling stone wall and felt
the tenderness of fresh holly leaves on a tiny sapling which had sprung from
the decaying lime mortar. Everything old and rotten was fertile ground for
something new.

As
pricks of hope slowly began to pierce her veil of melancholy, she allowed
herself to believe that Ross was merely going through another inevitable and
necessary phase; that to grow into an individual in his own right he had to
reject her with or without just cause; that if she could only understand, it
would be bearable. He'd move away, find his feet, and one day soon would return
again as a sure and confident young man. It wasn't her he objected to, or her
atmosphere; he was tugging against the chains of childhood. She wished him more
luck than she had had: heading into middle age and still in mental shackles
that seemed to grow tighter the older and rustier they became.

There
was a sound of breath and rushing feet behind her. She turned to see Alfie
bounding across the grass from the old cart track at the side of the house. He
plunged into the stream and snapped at the rushing water as he lapped at it.
Steve followed some moments behind, dressed only in T-shirt and jeans, a
sweater knotted over his shoulders.

'Beautiful
day,' he said, wandering over. 'Am I interrupting?'

'No.'

He
came to the stream's edge and stood alongside her. 'Busy week?'

'Yes
. . . you?'

'Had
to look at a job we're pitching for in Manchester. Hated it. Architect's curse
- you want to tear everything down and start again.'

'I
wondered where you were.'

'I
was going to call you —’

'You
don't have to.'

'But
maybe I should?' He glanced at her with a smile that seemed somehow expectant.

She
shrugged, wishing she could be more expansive, but feeling her delicate equilibrium
tip and the emotion which she thought had washed through her rise up again.

'You
OK?'

'Yes.'
She glanced away over the wall to the three-acre meadow and woodland rising
behind it. Several sheep, uncomfortably pregnant, stood in ankle-deep mud.

She
felt his warm hand slide over her shoulders, another loop round her waist. He
stood behind her and held her close. And as he leaned her weight against him,
he touched her hair and face, saying nothing as he felt her tears.

She
wiped her eyes with the cuff of her coat. 'I'm sorry.'

'Do
you want to talk about it?'

She
moved round to face him and shook her head. He leaned forward and kissed her
gently.

Later,
they sat at the scrub-top table on the lawn, wrapped in sweaters, drinking tea.
Steve smoked a skinny roll up and Jenny stole puffs as she grudgingly confessed
that her old symptoms had come back to haunt her since her last session with Dr
Allen. He listened in silence, letting her talk herself out while he rolled a
second cigarette.

When
she'd finished, he said, 'You had these dreams when you were what, twenty?'

'About
that.'

'Just
becoming an adult. Have you ever thought it could be as simple as grief for
lost childhood?'

'My
childhood wasn't bad. Not blissful, but not particularly sad, either. Not until
my mum went at least, and I was nearly a teenager by then.'

'That
still fits. It's innocence that vanishes in your dream.

It's
one of the many human tragedies: once you've lost it, there's no way back.'

'So
why doesn't everyone feel it?'

'We
can all get stuck at a certain point, God knows, I did - ten years hiding in
the woods.'

'So
where am I stuck, Dr Freud?'

'You
married a domineering man when you were still very young.'

'David
was
not
a father substitute.'

'I'll
bet you've got to know yourself a lot better since you left him.'

'I'll
give you that.'

'And
for all of your marriage you worked with troubled kids.'

'And
your theory is?'

'I'm
still working on it.' He lit his cigarette with the antique brass lighter she
had given him as a birthday present. 'It all gets on top of you, you break
down—'

'Yes
. . .' she said, sceptically.

'And
then . . . then to recover from all this stored-up crap, you get yourself a
career trying to find out how people died.'

'Which
means?'

'Part
of you died?'

Jenny
sighed. It was all territory she'd visited before in one way or another. 'My
first psychiatrist, Dr Travis - I know he was convinced someone had abused me.
I don't know how many times I've thought about it, but I know it didn't happen.
It just didn't.'

'Can
I say one more thing? Do you think this job is right for you? I mean, do you
think part of you is trying to do the impossible, bring the dead back to life
when really you should be letting life move on?'

She
fell still. His words were well meant but they landed like a wounding
accusation.

'That
sounded harsher than it was meant to —’

'Actually,
people tell me I'm pretty good at what I do.'

'All
I'm saying is maybe there's room for more joy in your life, if you'd just let
it in.'

'What
was this afternoon?'

'A
start.' He smiled. 'But you know, however you're feeling inside, you're looking
fine.'

Something
inside her sank. She hated being told that. He might as well have said she was
making a fuss over nothing.

He
reached over and stroked the soft side of her wrist, a gesture which meant he
was angling to take her back to bed.

She
drew her hands back under her arms and shivered. 'I'd better get on.'

A
little hurt, Steve said, 'Sure.' He stood up from the table and whistled to
Alfie, who bounded over from where he'd been scratching for mice behind the
mill. Pulling on his sweater, Steve looked over at the ash trees silhouetted
against the twilit sky, and said, 'I've told you before - you live in a
beautiful place. Listen to it, it might be telling you something.' He touched
her lightly on the cheek as he passed and left her to her thoughts.

Back
at her desk, she took out her journal and tried to put her confusion into
words, but they wouldn't come. There was no reasoning it out. She had gone
round and round in the same circles for over three years and gained no insight
other than a twenty-year-old dream and a few snatches of uncomfortable but far
from life-shattering childhood memories. For all her agonizing, and for all
her attempts to improve her situation and career, nothing had shone a light
into the dark place. Looking into herself only seemed to make it worse. She
felt as if she were crossing a marsh: walk quickly and the ground might hold
you, but stop for a moment and the mud would suck you under.

All
she could think to write was:
Things have got to change. Thinking's got me
nowhere. From now on I simply go where my instincts tell me and hope I reach
the other side
.

Ross
noticed the upturn in her mood during their rushed breakfast and managed a
semi-apology for his behaviour the day before. Jenny told him to forget about
it, just hurry up and get ready - she had an inquest to get to. As he
disappeared upstairs to gel his hair and spray on too much deodorant, she
dashed to her study to swallow her pills. As the chemicals hit her bloodstream
she lost the heightened sense of excitement she had woken with; her heart
slowed, her limbs grew heavier and her scattered thoughts drew gradually back
towards the centre. She told herself that Friday's panic attack had been a
blip, a subconscious way of testing her resolve. She had seen it off and had
grown stronger.

And
now she had a job to do.

Alison
had made limited progress working through the list of Bristol alumni from Nazim
and Rafi's year. So far, only Dani James, the girl who had given a statement
describing the man hurriedly leaving Manor Hall at midnight, had come forward
as a witness. Dr Sarah Levin had agreed to make herself available on the second
day of the inquest, but said she had nothing to add to what she had told the
police at the time. All the others who had been contacted claimed to have
little or no recollection of the two boys, let alone any information to shed
light on their disappearance. It left Jenny with a very short list of witnesses
for her opening day, but it would ease her gently into day two, when several
police officers and a since retired MI5 agent named David Skene were listed to
testify.

The
room she'd been allocated as an office in Rushton Millennium Hall had an
internal window overlooking the main meeting room, which also doubled as a
gymnasium. Insofar as it was possible, Alison had arranged the furniture to
resemble a court. Jenny took a perverse pleasure in looking down at the
arriving lawyers who huddled together and shook their heads in disbelief at
their incongruous surroundings. In the foyer there were notices advertising an
over- sixties quiz night and photographs from the recent village pantomime.

As
she seated herself behind the table at the head of the hall, she was pleased to
see that there was only a handful of reporters in the two rows of seats which
served as a press gallery. The presence of too much news media tended to
frighten - or at the very least excite - witnesses to the point where they were
no longer reliable. To their right sat a pool of fifteen jurors, from whom
eight would be chosen. Mrs Jamal was sitting unobtrusively in the second row
alongside another Asian woman, who looked as though she might be related. Both
were dressed in black salwar kameez and head- scarves. The second woman held
Mrs Jamal's hand tightly in her lap. A cluster of witnesses including Anwar Ali
and a pretty young woman Jenny took to be Dani James sat in the front row.
Tucked away discreetly in the right-hand corner of the hall behind the
reporters was Alun Rhys, the young MI5 officer.

Once
everyone had settled, Jenny introduced herself and invited the lawyers to do
the same. Mrs Jamal was represented by Trevor Collins, a balding high street
solicitor dressed in a shapeless suit which hung sadly off his narrow
shoulders. He spoke in a nervous, faltering voice and gave the impression that
he would much rather be spending the morning in his poky office drafting wills.
A handsome and urbane criminal barrister, Fraser Havilland, whom Jenny knew to
have featured in several recent high-profile inquests in London, had been
briefed to represent the Chief Constable of the Bristol and Avon police force,
and Martha Denton QC, a spiky, abrupt woman, who was normally to be found in
the Old Bailey prosecuting terrorists, represented the Director General of the
Security Services. Each barrister had assorted instructing solicitors sitting
in the row immediately behind them, armed with textbooks and a battery of
laptops: two hefty legal teams determined to put on a show of strength. For her
part, Jenny had only a well-thumbed copy of Jervis on Coroners, a stack of
fresh notebooks and the fountain pen her father had given her as a graduation
present. Alison, who sat at a small desk to the right, operated the same
cassette recorder that had kept the official record of Severn Vale District
inquests since the early 1980s.