The Story of Us (41 page)

‘Not necessarily,' commented Nick, who had just finished distributing his own tray of drinks. ‘It's just another of their resources. It's good that they're taking it seriously.'

I stared at the retreating aircraft, far from comforted to realise that the search was escalating into a full-blown police operation. And if I needed further evidence of that, I saw it in the ambulance, blue lights flashing, which had just joined the parked vehicles at the edge of the field.

I felt all colour drain from my face. ‘Have they found her?' My voice was a terrified whisper. ‘What's the ambulance for?'

‘I'll go and find out,' promised Jack, kissing me briefly on the cheek before running off to the line of police officers who were now some distance ahead of the rest of the crowd.

‘He really does seem to care about you,' Caroline said quietly, when he was gone.

‘I can't think about that now. I can't think about anything. Not until Mum's found.'

‘I know,' she said, reaching down and squeezing my hand. I curled my fingers around her own gloved ones, and felt an unfamiliar hard edged object pressing against the wool on her ring finger. My eyes went to hers, but she just shook her head gently, dismissing her own monumental news. ‘That can also wait until after your mum has been found,' she said softly. I don't think I have ever loved or valued her as much as I did right at that moment.

Jack was back in just a few minutes with an update. He'd run there and back, yet was barely out of breath. ‘The ambulance is just there as a precaution, for
when
they find her.' I think we all noticed his deliberate emphasis on
when
rather than
if.
‘They've not had any luck yet in the streets near your house, so they're widening the search. The hospitals still have no news… which is good.'

None of it sounded good to me. It all sounded terrible. And it was about to become even worse, as Caroline noticed the arrival of a large sign-written van which pulled up beside the ambulance. ‘Terrific. Bloody vultures. Doesn't take them long to get wind of something, does it?'

I peered back at the van, which bore the insignia of the local television station, and saw three people pile out of it. One was carrying a camera, and another a long sound boom. ‘Must be a slow day for news when a frightened lost woman, suffering from dementia, makes the six o'clock,' I said bitterly.

‘I guess it's because of the wedding and the crash and everything,' Caroline hazarded, and I knew she was probably right. Our private and personal tragedy had been all over the local papers for several weeks, and now this new horrible instalment just added to the story.

Our progress was slow, but eventually we reached the edge of the dense forest, and the officers efficiently broke the large group up into smaller segments, giving us each a pathway to follow. Mum had now been missing for at least nine hours, and it was hard to concentrate on anything except how cold, tired and hungry she must be, wherever she was.

Jack took my arm as we entered the forest, where the ground was uneven and slippery with mud. I glanced back over my shoulder and saw Caroline and Nick close behind us on the path. Suddenly a fleeting movement caught my eye and when I peered through the trees I saw Richard, heading back towards the car park area at speed.

‘Where's he off to in such a hurry?' asked Nick, to no one in particular.

I shrugged, and turned my attention back to not being hit in the face by the many low overhanging branches in the forest, as I followed Jack's broad shape down the slippery slope. The police had thought it unlikely that Mum would have ventured into the forest, but I knew better. Painting a vista through a curtain of branches had been a trademark feature in many of her pieces of work, and even though she no longer painted anything like that, she still enjoyed long walks through the forest, whatever the weather. This was
just
the sort of area that would have attracted her.

We had one unpleasant moment as we ventured deeper into the shadowy forest when somehow the news team and some reporters from the local paper and radio station managed to locate us among the trees.

‘Could we just get a brief statement from you, Miss Marshall?'

I shook my head and turned away.

‘Is this something your mother has done before? How is your father coping at the moment?'

I lowered my head and increased my pace, trying to outrun them with their intrusive questions.

‘Is she a danger to herself? Or to anyone else?' asked a sharp-voiced female reporter. I froze and could feel the fury crystallising on my face as I began to turn around. Jack quickly intervened. He caught my wrist and met my glance with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. ‘I'll get rid of them,' he said quietly, stepping past me to stand directly in front of the small pack of journalists, effectively creating an imposing wall with his height and breadth.

‘Look, guys, I know you're only doing your job, but now is not the best time for a comment. I'm sure later on, if Mrs Marshall is still missing, we're going to really need your help and support in getting the public involved in the search. But right now, let's just be decent human beings here and give the family a little space.'

With slightly embarrassed nods, the band began to disperse and head out of the forest and back to the field. The sharp-voiced female reporter was the last to go, and before she did she turned her full attention on Jack, her eyes narrowing. ‘Are you Jack Monroe, the author?' she fired in eager anticipation, her eyes glittering at the prospect that a visiting celebrity might somehow be involved in the unfolding story.

Jack shook his head and lied incredibly convincingly. ‘No. I'm not. Although I get that quite a lot, so I guess we must look alike.'

‘Thank you,' I said gratefully when Jack resumed his position in front of me on the path, after checking the journalists had definitely gone. ‘I hadn't thought that we might need to have them onside later.'

‘Well, let's hope we don't,' he added grimly. ‘Either way, it never pays to piss off the press.'

A short time later, we had a heart-stopping moment when I thought we had actually found something. We were much deeper in the forest by then, where very little natural light succeeded in piercing through the canopy of trees. The path was narrow and beside it was a steep embankment, at the bottom of which ran a vigorously flowing stream.

‘Watch your step here,' cautioned Jack, extending his arm in case I needed to hold on to it. I glanced down the embankment and saw something small and yellow at the very base of the slope. Something that looked to be the exact same colour as my mum's favourite scarf. I caught hold of Jack's sweatshirt sleeve and pointed wordlessly towards the foot of the embankment.

‘What is it?' he asked, bending his head closer to mine and following where I was indicating.

‘There's something down there, something yellow… I think it's Mum's scarf.'

Without stopping to consider the dangerous descent, Jack left the path and began to climb down. The sides were steep, with very few handholds and his feet slipped several times on the muddy surface, causing the breath to catch in my throat until he had once more gained purchase.

I peered as far over the edge as I could, without going down the embankment myself, in a far less controlled manner than Jack was doing. Caroline and Nick came to stand on either side of me, Caroline linking her arm through mine. Jack disappeared from view behind a thicket of bushes, and I felt a moment of panic. What if it wasn't just her scarf down there? The undergrowth was thick and bushy, plenty dense enough to conceal a body.

Jack climbed back up the slope so silently I didn't even know he was there until the foliage rustled and he hoisted himself back up beside me. He shook his head regretfully, holding in his hands the bright yellow item which had caught my attention. It was a child's toy dog, the yellow fur threadbare in places and saturated from its time in the stream. I held out my hand and took the sodden item from him, as tears began to course down my face.

‘I know this sounds stupid, but when I was a little girl Mum and I had a favourite story she would read to me. It was about a boy who'd lost his favourite cuddly toy, a dog.' My voice cracked. ‘It looked just like this one.'

Jack enfolded me into his arms and I wept noisily into his sweatshirt, while Caroline and Nick stepped to one side and tried very hard to pretend they weren't there at all. Jack had just quietened the sobs down to hitching whimpers when the sound began. It pierced the late-afternoon hush with a strident familiar two-tone wail. A siren from one of the emergency vehicles was sounding. My head jerked away from Jack's chest like a snared animal. A second siren joined its voice to the first, and then three long klaxon-like sounds from a car's horn, repeated over and over again.

‘Something's happened,' I exclaimed, pulling out of his arms and already turning. ‘We have to go back.'

I think all three of them cried out for me to slow down or to be careful, but I ignored that wisdom and began to run with pounding strides back towards the field. Jack caught up with me easily, and as soon as the path widened enough, he took my hand and we ran together, our feet flying over the muddy surface until it finally gave way to grass and the ambulance was at last visible in the distance. All along the length of the forest other rescuers were also emerging from the trees, drawn out of the wooded area by the summoning sirens.

It must have been a bizarre sight from the search HQ, to see the ramshackle group of volunteers running en masse towards them, led by a tall man holding the hand of a frantic-looking young woman. As we got closer I saw the police liaison car had just been repositioned closer to the ambulance and my dad was being helped out of it by the grey-haired chief detective. He bent low to hear a question my father must have asked, and then pointed back in my direction.

There was a stitch piercing my side like a knife blade, but I ignored it as the roaring sound of two vehicles approaching at speed joined in with the symphony of sirens. I glanced away from my father and looked towards the road. The first vehicle was a marked police car, its siren blaring and its blue lights glowing brightly. The second vehicle was a complete surprise. It was Richard's car.

The police car slewed to a screeching halt, in the type of manoeuvre they usually only get to perform on skid tracks. Stopping beside it, in only a slightly more sedate fashion, came Richard's vehicle.

Richard jumped out and ran around to open the passenger door. I still couldn't see very well, but this time it was because the tears were already streaming down my face. I raised my hands and furiously brushed them away from each eye, not even noticing that at some point Jack had released my hand and I was now running alone.

Very carefully and gently, but then he'd always been that way with her, not just today, Richard held out his hand beside the open car door and helped my mother to her feet.

I pushed and barrelled past a gathering circle of people to reach her. My father beat me to it, enveloping her in his arms and holding her so tightly it looked as though he would never let go. He turned and saw me standing there, my face awash with tears of relief, as was his own. ‘Emma,' he said gruffly, opening one arm out to me. I flew into the space he'd created, my whole body shuddering with relief. My mum, sandwiched tightly between her two emotional family members, looked a little startled and bemused at our behaviour.

‘Where have you
been
, Mum? We've all been so worried,' I cried at last. My father still appeared to be some time away from coherent speech or sensible questions.

My mum looked genuinely puzzled and glanced curiously at the gathered audience who were sharing our emotional reunion, before asking simply, ‘Have you? Why? I went out for
you
, Emma.'

It was what I'd been fearing all along. She'd gone looking for me. I reached up and pulled a small twig free from her hair, noticing for the first time that there were several smudges of dirt on her face.

‘You went to find me?' My voice was hoarse with guilt.

‘No. Not you,' corrected my mother, as though I was once again a small child, who'd just said something charmingly endearing. ‘
Your ring
.'

My father and I looked at each other in bafflement. Mum gave a small tutting noise, as though it was extremely tiresome having to deal with people who just couldn't keep up. ‘Your
engagement
ring,' she said, slowly and loudly enough that surely everyone in the crowd must have been able to hear. ‘I went out to find your missing engagement ring.'

For the first time I turned away from my mother and looked at Richard, who was standing a short distance away, his eyes fixed on all three of us. The question was there on my face, I didn't need to voice it. He'd had years and years of reading my facial expressions, so he knew what I was asking.

He nodded; a look of similar incredulity on his face. ‘Yeah, I know. But that's where I found her; she was at the bottom of Farnham Ravine, searching for our engagement ring.'

There were several gasps of amazement from people in the crowd, and I clearly heard my father's shocked exclamation, ‘Oh, Frannie.' Me, I was just too shocked to speak. I took a shaky step towards Richard.

‘In the ravine?' My voice was a hollow ghost.

He nodded.

‘At the bottom? Had she fallen?'

He shook his head. ‘No, thank God, but that's what I thought when I first saw her there. But I was wrong. Turns out she just climbed down. She told me she's done it before.'

I thought of the painting hanging in our lounge. Yes, she had done it before, but that had been years and years ago.

‘How… how…' I shook my head as though that would help me to make sense of what I was hearing. ‘I don't get it. How did she know to go there? And how did you figure out that's where she was?'