The Wraiths of War (19 page)

As she hunched over the wheel to concentrate more fully on the road ahead, we lapsed into a silence that was filled only with the sound of rain and the constant sigh of the heater as it buffeted us with soft waves of delicious warmth. Despite – or perhaps partly because of – the nervous tension that thrummed through my body like the onset of fever, I started to feel drowsy. I closed my eyes and thought about Benny’s phone call earlier that afternoon, about how my brain had seemed to freeze and my body lock at his words.

‘My… daughter?’ I finally managed to say after he’d told me about the lead one of his contacts had given him. ‘You mean Kate?’

Laconically he’d said, ‘How many other missing daughters have you got?’

‘No, I mean… who is this contact? What has he heard? And who from?’

‘That’s all irrelevant, Alex. It’s just people I know asking people they know asking people they know. Their names aren’t important. What
is
important is that we’ve got a location. It’s a cottage in Wales, middle of nowhere. It’s being rented by a young couple who’ve got two kids with them, a boy and a girl, both about five years old. All the descriptions match. And I’ve got a photo.’

‘Of Kate?’ I sounded like someone trying to speak whilst being strangled.

‘No, of the geezer. The dad. Give me two ticks and I’ll send it to you.’

About fifteen seconds later the image arrived in my inbox. I clicked on it, expanded it with trembling fingers, and my heart gave a lurch. Fuck, it
was
him! Linley Sherwood – or Adam as he was known in the twenty-first century. He was standing side on to the photographer, who from the fuzzy nature of the photograph had clearly been some distance away from his subject and had had to zoom in rapidly to catch the image before Linley disappeared – which presumably would have been only a moment or two later, as Linley’s hand was already reaching towards the doorknob of a house or cottage with white, ivy-covered walls. He was wearing what looked like a Barbour jacket and a tweedy cap, and his expression was bland – he was neither smiling nor scowling. He looked, in fact, like a man who had not the slightest inkling he was under observation.

I showed the picture to Clover, who nodded confidently. ‘That’s definitely him,’ she said.

Despite her conviction, however, the more I stared at the photograph the more I began to doubt my initial reaction.
Was
it really him? Or was it someone who just looked like him, and it was our – or rather, my – own need to believe that had done the rest? Maybe this was a wild goose chase. Maybe I was getting worked up for nothing.

I opened my eyes, took out my phone and clicked on the picture again. And again, that first, instinctive response –
It’s him!
– before the doubts started to creep in.

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Clover said.

I glanced at her, surprised at how alarmed I was to hear her express doubt. ‘What?’

‘To be wary. Dubious. Whatever. There’s no point continually building your hopes up, only to have them come crashing down.’

‘Do you think they
will
come crashing down?’

‘Honestly? I’ve no idea.’ She glanced at the sat nav, which she’d set in case we got separated from Benny en route. ‘But we’ll find out in about twenty minutes.’

By the time we arrived at our destination, it felt as if my guts had petrified into a hard, painful lump in my belly. The cottage was on our right, nestled into a fold of land on a rise. Despite the white-painted walls, the building’s low roof of dark-grey slate and the ivy rambling across its façade made it appear furtive, as if it was trying to conceal itself. Bordering the property was a black stone wall, and behind it fields climbed towards the bleak horizon like a succession of undulating green and brown waves.

Benny eased his Jag into a lay-by about ten metres beyond the cottage and Clover just about managed to squeeze our hired Ford Focus in behind it. As she edged up to Benny’s rear bumper he climbed out of his car and watched her do it, his face like granite. Just as it seemed inevitable she’d clip his car, she cut the engine, then leaned forward, grinned and gave him the thumbs-up through the windscreen. He shook his head, his expression unreadable. Although it was pissing down the rain seemed not to touch his dapper grey suit.

‘Do you think he’s armed?’ I asked.

‘Course he is,’ said Clover. ‘He’s hardly likely to change the habit of a lifetime, is he?’

As soon as I opened the passenger door of the car and climbed out, I started shivering. Although it was unpleasantly wet and chilly after the warmth of the car’s interior, the reaction was precipitated more by my apprehension than because of the cold.

‘How do you want to do this, Alex?’ Clover asked – mostly, I suspected, to make it clear to Benny that I was in charge here.

‘I’ll just walk up and knock on the door,’ I said, ‘see what happens.’

Clover nodded and indicated I should lead the way. Benny said nothing. I walked around the back of the car and crossed the road on hollow legs, my guts juddering, my thoughts like balloons that felt as if they wanted to break free of my skull. I tried to move naturally, though I felt as if I was a novice trying to get to grips with the controls of an unwieldy machine. My skin prickled with raindrops; my scalp felt as if cold spots were trying to hatch from it. I slipped my hand into my pocket and closed it around the heart. I was hoping it would flood me with strength, or at least provide me with succour, but it felt flaky and insubstantial in my grasp, as if it would take nothing but a good squeeze to crush it to powder.

Pushing open a wooden gate in the stone wall, I ascended half a dozen uneven steps. At the top a gravel path, bisecting a patchy lawn, ended at a blue front door. It wasn’t a strenuous route, but as I trudged up the path towards the door I was panting hard with stress and expectation. I wondered who would answer my knock and what kind of reception I’d get. I wondered whether the heart in my pocket would protect me if this
was
a trap.

I was still wondering when the door opened and Paula Sherwood stepped out.

I froze. For a moment, caught halfway between the top of the steps and the house, I felt completely exposed. I wondered whether Benny was pulling out his gun behind me, and what it would take to provoke him to start shooting. I felt an urge to throw up my hands, to tell Paula we’d come in peace. It was she who spoke first, though.

‘Hello, Alex,’ she said. ‘Come in out of the rain. We’ve been waiting for you.’

I glanced over my shoulder, wondering whether Benny had set me up after all. He was standing about five metres behind me. He didn’t have his gun out, though he had his right hand in his jacket pocket and an expression of surly mistrust on his face. A couple of metres behind him Clover caught my eye and pulled an exaggeratedly baffled expression.

I turned back to Paula – or Maude, as she had been christened – and asked, ‘Who told you we were coming?’

She smiled. ‘Believe it or not, you did – although you were older. You told me to say, “Tell him I’m sixty-five. Tell him to write it down in his book.”’ She half-raised her hands as if to say:
Don’t shoot the messenger.
‘I hope that makes sense?’

‘It does.’

‘Good. So are you coming in? I’ve put the kettle on.’

For a moment I couldn’t answer. Of all the scenarios I’d envisaged this hadn’t been one of them. ‘Is—’ I started to ask, and then found my throat had closed up. I took a deep breath, swallowed with difficulty, and tried again. ‘Is Kate in there with you?’

‘She is.’ Paula’s voice had grown soft, as if she was fully aware what I’d been going through. ‘She’s upstairs playing with Hamish.’

A breathy groan escaped me, as if I’d been punched in the stomach, and my knees turned to water. I might even have started to sag, because all at once Clover was beside me, sliding a supportive arm around my waist. She said something, but my pulse was pounding in my ears and I couldn’t hear.

The next question seemed to tear out of me, harsh and uncontrolled. ‘Why did you take her?’

Paula looked contrite, even distressed. She half-raised her hands again. ‘Because you told us to.’

‘
Me
?’ I boggled at her. ‘What… how…
what are you talking about
?’

Paula glanced at the sky. It was getting dark and the rain was coming down harder. I felt it trickling down my face, mingling with the hot sweat. ‘Just come inside,’ she said. ‘Come and get warm and dry. I’ll explain everything over a cup of tea.’

She retreated into the house, leaving us no choice but to follow. Clover kept her arm tight around my waist as if I was an invalid. Staggering up the path towards the open front door whilst trying to come to terms with what I’d just been told felt almost like having an out-of-body experience. I was only vaguely aware of Benny bringing up the rear, and despite the fact that I still didn’t entirely trust him, I was glad to have him with us. Although he was a slight man, easy, almost balletic, on his feet, he was nonetheless a solid and steadying presence. He was the best kind of guy to have on your side in a crisis.

Clover and I paused on the threshold of the front door, peering suspiciously into the room beyond. The door opened directly into a large kitchen, the unevenly plastered walls painted a soothing eggshell blue. To our immediate left, beneath a small window with a deep wooden sill, was a sink and dishwasher. To our right was an enclosed wooden staircase, with a door, currently shut, at the bottom. Jutting from the centre of the left-hand wall was a tiled hearth, logs crackling merrily in the old cast-iron fireplace, filling the room with smoky warmth. Beyond that was a dining area, and to the right of that was the main kitchen area – cooker, fridge, cupboards and shelves, a breakfast bar on which stood a chopping board, a knife block, and a cluster of large glass storage jars full of pasta, rice, muesli, teabags.

It was all very normal, very homely. The pictures on the walls were hunting scenes, still lifes, old framed railway posters advertising the seaside. The curtains at the windows were floral, chintzy, edged with lace. There was a bowl of fruit on the dining table; a biscuit barrel in the shape of a cat licking its paw on top of the fridge; a collection of unusual rocks and shells on the window sill above the sink, next to a half-empty bottle of Ecover washing-up liquid.

‘Where’s your husband?’ I asked, not sure whether to call him Adam or Linley.

Paula had moved back as far as the dining table, as though anxious not to antagonise us by getting too close. She indicated a door between the breakfast bar and the boxed-in staircase.

‘He’s in the living room. He thought it best to keep out of the way at first, so you didn’t feel…’

‘Threatened?’ said Clover.

Paula expelled a nervous chuff of laughter. ‘I was going to say crowded.’

‘Tell him to come in here,’ I said.

‘And tell him to keep his hands where we can see them,’ added Benny, who had sidled into the room behind us, his own right hand still nestled in his jacket pocket.

‘Adam,’ Paula called – evidently the Sherwoods were sticking to their adopted names whilst in this time period, presumably to avoid slip-ups. ‘You can come in now. But keep your hands where they can be seen.’

We all stared at the door, which, after about five seconds, slowly opened. Adam Sherwood stood there, smiling sheepishly at us. He raised his hands, showing us his empty palms.

‘Hi,’ he said.

No one returned his greeting.

After a moment Paula stepped away from the dining table, drawing our attention. Half-turning back towards it, she flapped a hand. ‘Please won’t you sit down? I’ll make us all some tea.’

She hadn’t been lying when she said she’d put the kettle on. Steam was drifting from the spout of an electric Russell Hobbs model beside the cooker. Cautiously Clover and I sidled across to the dining table and lowered ourselves onto the cushioned pew inset into the left-hand wall, beyond the fireplace. From here we had a clear view of the kitchen, and everything that was happening in it.

Adam was still hovering by the open door through which he’d entered the room. When we were seated he turned to Benny, who had only ventured a few steps into the cottage, and was now standing to the left of the front door like a bouncer, his backside pressed against the edge of the white porcelain sink.

‘Won’t you sit down too?’ Adam said.

Benny shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

Adam opened his mouth to reply, then clearly thought better of it. Flashing Benny a nervous smile, which wasn’t reciprocated, he crossed the kitchen and sat in a chair opposite Clover and me.

Paula, who was making tea and looked more edgy than I’d ever seen her, possibly because of Benny’s reptilian scrutiny, had said that the children were playing upstairs. Glancing up at the ceiling, I wondered if that was true; if it was, I couldn’t hear them. Of course, they could have been engrossed in a DVD or a board game. ‘Playing’ didn’t
always
mean pounding up and down the floorboards, shrieking at the tops of their lungs, not even for five-year-olds. Nevertheless I had to resist an urge to jump to my feet, run across the room, tear open the door at the bottom of the stairs and call Kate’s name.

‘Can I see my daughter?’ I asked.

As I spoke I was looking at Adam, who was sitting in a slightly hunched position with his hands meshed together on the table top, and an almost ingratiating half-smile on his face. Unlike his wife he still closely resembled the young clerk whose house Clover and I had visited in Victorian London – a bright but unworldly man who couldn’t help but be overawed by his elders and ‘betters’. Even now he didn’t answer my question, but glanced over his shoulder, deferring to his wife. She was putting the tea things on a tray and looked as if she’d been expecting my question – which, as it turned out, she had.

‘Your older self said you’d ask that. And the answer is, yes you can, if you like. But he also said to tell you that it would be in your best interests to prepare yourself first. He said you’d be desperate to see her, but that your head would be all over the place, and that it would be better in the long run if you sat tight for ten minutes or so, and calmed down, and let me tell you about how she came to be here with us. He also said to remember what he told you that night you tried to prevent Kate’s abduction, and he stopped you. He said…’ She narrowed her eyes as if visualising the exact words in her mind. ‘He said you could change the past without changing it, and that you didn’t need to be a victim any more.’