The Taken (6 page)

“I’ll pay you for it, of course,” Simon added. “I just need to check into my answer service. I’m a freelance journalist and that’s often the way clients get hold of me.”

Alex bit back her grin. So he wasn’t trying to call a girlfriend. Not that it meant that he definitely didn’t have one, but she obviously wasn’t top on his list of priorities. And whether he has a girlfriend or not shouldn’t be on the top of yours. Making the point to herself, she took a step away from him.

Alice had scurried behind the counter and she lifted her own phone to her ear, pulling away the clip-on earring when she did so, the way actresses used to do in Hollywood films of the fifties. Alex had always found it strange that Alice took so much care in her appearance, but had never been married. Mary said that Alice had never really had an interest in going down that route, but between her warm heart and her precise, well turned-out looks, Alex had often wondered why.

Still, you never could tell what went on in other peoples’ lives. Alice must have had her reasons, and those were nobody’s business but her own.

Tutting, Alice replaced the receiver. “Nothing, I’m afraid. It seems that mine’s down too.” She sighed and looked around her. “That’s a pain. They’d better get it back on soon.”

“Why? Are you expecting a call?” Alex didn’t think 51

Alice had ever lived outside Watterrow, so she couldn’t see her social circle expanding much beyond its confines.

“No, no dear. It’s this place. In the old days it wouldn’t matter too much, but now just about everything relies on the phone working. The cash machine over there, and the chip and pin thing the bank persuaded me to install, they both need the phone running.” She paused and looked out into the gloom. “Still, I should imagine that in this weather trade won’t exactly be too brisk.” She peered a little harder. “I actually think the rain is getting heavier again.

Well, I’ll be …” Her face clouded over. “I wonder if the river will burst its banks.”

Through the shop window, Alex watched the trees begin to sway. Alice was right.

The storm was picking up again. “I should imagine it probably already is. The water has been coming down solidly for about twelve hours.” She paused, and the next words came out quietly. “Aunt Mary said she could only remember one other time when the storms were this bad—about thirty years ago and the whole village ended up cut off.” She glanced at Alice, whose hands had fluttered to the crucifix at her neck, fingering it absently. “She said a little girl went missing in it. Melanie Parr? Do you remember it?”

Alice’s smile was tight. Maybe a little too tight, Alex thought. “Vaguely. I didn’t have children, so I didn’t know her very well. And it was all a very long time ago.”

The small glass panes of the door had steamed up where Simon gazed through them.

“Surely if it’s likely that the village will get cut off, shouldn’t we be evacuating or something?”

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Despite still fiddling with her cross and the collar of her blouse, Alice’s smile was genuine. “That’s not the way we do things out here. There’s nothing so important in the towns that we can’t live without them for a few days. And anyway, even if we did leave, where would we go?”

Simon grinned at her. “I guess you have a point.” He turned to Alex. “And I think we should head back before this weather gets any worse.”

Zipping their coats back up, right to the top this time, they stepped outside and left Alice staring quietly out at the angry weather.

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Hearing movement upstairs, along with the latest effervescent tune from Girls Aloud bursting into life on the bathroom radio, Kay Chambers put another two slices of bread in the toaster before buttering her own. Phil wasn’t back from his conference in London for another two days, so it was just her and Laura in the house, which was nice occasionally. It would be even nicer in a couple of years when Laura would be a teenager and hopefully want to lie in bed for half the day during the holidays. At last Kay herself might get to sleep late, the bed all hers. Those days would be bliss, she decided, biting into her breakfast.

Or better still, she might even get to go along with Phil and have a few days in the capitol. It had been years since she’d been to London, and as much as she loved being a country girl, the buzz of the big city was great every now and then. Although now that the big four-oh was looming, she might not have the energy to keep up. Forty. Just where the hell did the years go to?

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Smiling, she heard the bathroom door opening upstairs and Laura trudging down the stairs. Kay had a feeling that her daughter had been lying in bed awake since before seven waiting for her mother to get up, probably already eager to ring her friends and sort out their plans for the day. Over her head came a thud from the spare room as if something had fallen heavily to the floor, but Kay didn’t even look up. Everything in the house creaked and moaned with movement and sometimes it did it just because it felt like it. But then, the house was a hell of a lot older than her or anyone else in Watterrow, so she figured it had the right to a little ache or pain every now and then.

“Morning, honey, there’s some toast on for you. And tea in the pot if you want it.”

“Thanks, Mum.” Laura, already in her jeans and T-shirt, ready for the day ahead, bounced to the fridge and pulled out the jam, spreading it liberally and messily over the hot bread. “Can I call Jenny and Jimmy and see what they’re doing today?”

Kay smiled. “After your breakfast. It’s only half seven, they can wait another ten minutes or so.” She didn’t worry about Laura ringing her friends so early.

Dave Granville worked over at Tucker’s farm so he’d have been up since around four, and with five children, the oldest being the twins, Jenny and Jimmy, who were eleven like Laura, it was unlikely that Emma would be in bed much beyond six. And anyway, sweet as the Granvilles were, Dave and Emma had an old fashioned country marriage. Kay would bet that Emma got up at four and made Dave a full English breakfast before sending him off to the farm, just as her mum had done for her dad before her. Thinking of those five kids and early 55

mornings made Kay realize how lucky she was with her very loving husband and one child, who in the main was pretty much as good as you could expect a girl to be.

Looking out the window, the trees in the garden were bending slightly. She’d thought that the storm had peaked in the night, but maybe not. Watching the gloom and the rain hammering at the glass, she shivered in the warmth of her kitchen, a bad taste forming in her mouth. A dark memory flashed in her head, but she pushed it away before she even became aware of its existence.

“What are your plans for today? I don’t think the weather’s looking good for playing outside too much.”

Laura shrugged, swallowing half a slice of toast in one mouthful, leaving Kay to wonder why her daughter wasn’t the size of a house. “Don’t know yet.”

“Well, if you do go out, make sure you wear your coat. And don’t go into the woods or down by the river.”

Laura rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mum. I know.”

Kay kissed her on the top of her head, enjoying its warm smell. “I know you know, but it doesn’t stop me worrying about you.”

The good thing about country children is that they were hardy but full of common sense. Yes, they probably would play in the rain, and be all the more healthy for it, but they wouldn’t be stupid enough to go down to the overflowing river or up the steep wooded banks to the old tin mines. Not in this weather. They’d all seen what happened to sheep and cows that went astray, and it rarely had a happy ending. Her face was still pressed into her daughter’s hair. Her baby smell was gone, but Kay reckoned if it came down to it, she would still be able to recognize Laura by scent alone.

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“If you get lost the Catcher Man will get you and then where will you be?” The words tumbled out in a whisper, and Laura wriggled out of her mother’s suddenly too-tight grasp and twisted round, confused.

“The Catcher Man? Who’s he?”

Kay stepped backwards, shocked by her own words. Where the hell had that come from? She tried to smile, but the expression wouldn’t fit on her face. “Oh, forget it. It was something your gran used to say to me a long time ago when I’d go out into the woods. I don’t even know why I said it.” The palms of her hands felt clammy, and she ran them through her hair.

Laura grinned. “Cool. The Catcher Man. I like it.”

Upstairs there was another bang, and this time it did get Kay’s attention. “Did you leave a window open upstairs?”

“In this weather? No. Why?” Laura pulled out two more pieces of bread from the bag and put them in the toaster.

“I just wondered what that banging was up there.”

Tilting her head quizzically, Laura listened for a moment. “I can’t hear anything.” She grinned. “It must be your age. Nearly forty…”

“Oh, you’re so funny, young lady. You’ll be forty one day and then it won’t seem so very old. Trust me on that one.”

Her tone was light, but inside she still felt a little unsettled. Why the hell had she mentioned the Catcher Man? It wasn’t even anything she’d thought about for years. Not since … well, not for a very long time. She gazed back out of the window. It was the storm, that’s what it was. The storm and Paul’s fortieth birthday— not that they’d even had the party to celebrate. It had 57

been a storm like this hitting the village when Melanie had gone missing all those years ago. That must have been what made her think of it. She shivered again, her arms folding across her chest. She hadn’t been sad about Melanie disappearing. Shocked maybe, but not sad. But she’d often wished she’d known what happened to her. There was a dark space in her head around that day, something the eleven-year-old inside her had locked away, a suspicion or a doubt that she’d never really wanted to face up to.

Watching the wind getting stronger outside, she wondered if she should take the time to examine that dark space and dig up the memories, but decided against it.

The storm would pass. And that was all that was unsettling her. The storm. There was no point in raking over the past. Her own mother was dead and couldn’t give her any answers, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted any.

Yes, she thought, her heart warming as she watched her own child pacing innocently around the kitchen. The storm would pass.

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The weather was definitely getting worse, and as they headed back to the house, Alex had to lean forward slightly into the wind to keep her balance.

“Thanks for not saying anything about what happened to Mary yesterday. Alice is a lovely woman and has a heart of gold, but villages are full of gossip and old women are the worst for it. She’d tell one customer and before you know it, they’d have Mary all ready to be hauled away to the funny farm.”

Simon shrugged. “Don’t mention it. Hey, I’m a journalist. I know all about how stories spread. Anyway, she just had a turn. It’s no big deal. She’ll be right as rain when we get back.”

Nodding, Alex stayed silent. Simon might believe that, but then he didn’t know what right as rain actually was for Mary. He might think that the fragile woman that came downstairs the previous evening was her being normal. Maybe if he’d seen her just a

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few hours earlier, he’d have realized just how much she had changed over the course of the day.

She brushed her hand over the old wooden sign as they reached the base of the hill, feeling the dampness soaking into the dead tree, and sighed. Life was such a fragile thing and everyone took it so much for granted. Always wanting things, but always waiting for tomorrow or for a better time. She wanted to shake the world and scream, There is no better time. There is only now. But what was the point? No one really got it until it was too late. Maybe that was just the way it was meant to be.

Water trickled down her nose and as they curved around the wall of the old churchyard, she lifted her head to sniff it out of the way, stopping in her tracks. Up ahead, twenty or so yards away, a little boy stood by the tiny side gate to the church, one finger up to his lips.

No, no no. It couldn’t be. She was awake. Wide awake. And she’d only taken one tablet of morphine at breakfast. Just one.

The boy stared at her, unmoving, and her eyes wide, Alex could see the bright colors of his knitted tank top, and the mud patches on his sleeves. It was the boy from her dream. Oh man. And I was worried that Mary was going crazy… Her breath hitched in her chest and somewhere outside the bubble that seemed to be around her she could see that Simon had stopped and was watching her. He may have even been speaking; she wasn’t sure.

The boy took his finger away from his mouth and pointed to his left. To the church. His mouth moved and she could make out the shape of the words even though she couldn’t hear them.

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I told you. Look. See.

The rain was hitting her face, but under it the skin on her cheeks was burning hot. This can’t be. This just can’t be. She needed to speak to Dr. Jones about this. As much as she hated his sympathy and pity, she definitely needed to talk to him about this. Feeling things that weren’t there was one thing, but seeing them was quite another.

“Are you okay?” Simon’s hand touched her arm and she jumped, breaking eye contact with the boy and turning to the man beside her. “You’re shaking.”

She stared at him for a second. “The boy over there…” Looking back to the church gate all she could see were the overhanging strands of ivy and water running from the branches of the oak tree. No strange boy. He was gone.

“What boy? The one we saw on the way to the shop?”

“No. No, not him. A different one.” Where did all these children come from, anyway? “Didn’t you see him? Up there by the church gate. He was pointing at something.”

Staring at Simon, all she saw in his face was confusion. “No. I didn’t see anyone.” He shrugged and looked around at the empty road and fields. “But then I was concentrating on where I was putting my feet, so I guess if there was a kid there, they could have run away.”