Unspoken (38 page)

‘Alex, get down on your hands and knees and search for any tiny little thing,’ Murray says. Ed takes Flora’s doll and seals it inside a plastic bag.

‘If Flora’s been taken by the bad man, there could be fingerprints on that doll.’ Alex is worried about his sister. He is pale and has lines on his face that shouldn’t be there on an eleven-year-old boy.

‘You’re right,’ I say, ‘and we’re going to find her.’

Murray and I crawl along the wet bank, peeling apart clumps of twitch grass and nettles, not caring that our hands mottle with white weals. Ed radios for the forensics team to come over immediately, and in the same breath orders us away from the river. ‘This is a crime scene, Julia. You have to leave.’

I give him a look which tells him he’ll have to drag me away if he wants me gone. We have searched maybe twenty feet further on from where the doll was found when Murray calls out. He holds up a tiny orange square of waxy paper.

‘Flora,’ I whisper, carefully crawling back to Murray along the track I have made and already searched. I’d bought the kids a packet of sweets each and Flora chose those chewy ones. ‘But Flora would never drop litter.’

‘She would if she was making a trail,’ Alex chipped in expectantly. ‘Like when we play imaginary games.’

‘She’s leaving us clues,’ I cry.

‘What else do you know, Alex? Where did you go in your imaginary games?’ Murray takes Alex by the shoulders. ‘And what has Flora been drawing so secretively recently?’

Alex shrugs. ‘I dunno. She just kept drawing pictures of a man. She wouldn’t let anyone see, but I sneaked a look.’

Murray frowns, glances at me. ‘She was being very secretive about her pictures. It may be nothing, though.’

I nod, not knowing what to think. ‘We must keep searching the bank.’ It’s then that I feel a hand grip my arm.

‘Come on, Julia.’ Ed is giving me no choice. He leads me back to the path, away from the river. ‘Any news and I’ll call you immediately.’

As we stand alone, just the three of us, Murray’s hand slips easily into mine. Before I know it, his fingers are pressed to my lips. I am shaking. ‘The doll and the sweet-wrapper mean she left by herself; that she wasn’t taken. Someone has to find her soon.’

‘Julia . . .’ He swaps my lips for his on the tangle of our fingers. ‘We will find our daughter,’ he says, but I swear it comes out as
I love you.

Nadine takes care of Alex while we are at the police station. However many blankets and cups of sweet tea they give me, I still shiver. Murray is beside me, doing all the talking, being strong for us both as the afternoon light wanes into dusk. Nearly a second night without Flora.

‘I’ve released a statement to the journalists. They’re on fire around here as it is, since Grace died and Carlyle walked.’ Ed bows his head when he realises I didn’t know. ‘Hell, I’m sorry, Julia.’

‘Grace . . . is
dead
?’ I think of the crowd outside David’s house; Grace’s mother, their chant of revenge.

Murray holds me. No one says anything for a moment, which is confirmation enough. Grace is dead. She was murdered.

‘The press may be of some help,’ Ed continues as gently as he can. ‘We’ve set up roadblocks and are interviewing motorists. I have a team going door to door in the village speaking to the locals, and you’ll be relieved to hear that the river around the boat has been thoroughly searched and is clear.’

‘Just around the boat?’ I ask, wondering how to layer Grace’s death on top of everything else.

‘We can’t search the whole river, Julia. Not yet.’ Ed paces back and forth. ‘Read over your statements, please. Make sure everything is accurate. Especially you, Murray. You were the last one to see her.’

‘Not really,’ I correct. ‘Alex was with her last. When we found the doll and the sweet-paper on the bank, Alex said he thought Flora was leaving a trail like they do in their games. She set off with the intent of going somewhere, Ed.’ My voice falters. ‘We have to think like a child.’

‘Then get Alex in here immediately,’ Ed demands, and instantly Murray is telephoning his sister.

 

Alex has mushroom-coloured rings beneath his usually sparkling eyes. This is way more than make-believe games and he knows it.

‘Mum?’ he says nervously.

I cradle him on my knee as if he is five years old again. He doesn’t struggle or pull away like he would normally if I showed too much affection in front of other people.

‘Uncle Ed just wants to talk to you about the time when you were alone on the boat with Flora.’

Alex nods. ‘OK.’

‘Alex, you told your mum and dad that Flora was leaving a trail. In your games, where did you and Flora pretend to go?’ Ed is standing somewhere between detective and uncle.

‘Anywhere. Sometimes it was the seaside. Sometimes the moon.’ He reddens. ‘I only played those babyish games because Flora made me.’ He shifts uncomfortably on my knee. ‘She wanted to play a different game on the boat, though. But it was boring and so that’s why I went out to get wood for the fire.’

‘That’s good, Alex.’ Ed crouches in front of us. He’s pure uncle now, his eyes probing his nephew. ‘And what
was
the game that Flora wanted to play on the boat with you?’

Alex sighs, as if we should all know. ‘It’s because of those silly pictures she was drawing. Grandma told her to do them.’

‘Mum told her? But you know Grandma’s not speaking, Alex. How could she tell Flora?’ I glance at Murray, then Ed, hoping my questions will tease out the reply.

‘That’s not a game, though, drawing, is it?’ Ed remains patient. ‘Where did Flora go in the game she wanted to play on the boat?’

‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Alex says. ‘She was off to find her grandad.’

‘Grandad?’ Murray says. The kids’ only grandfather died before Flora was born.

‘No-
oo
,’ Alex says as if we are all stupid. ‘Her
new
grandad. The one Grandma told her to draw. She didn’t talk, of course,’ Alex continues, anticipating the next question. ‘They were signing together. In the hospital when you were busy with the nurses. She said that Grandma told her a secret.’

‘She did?’ I edge forward on my seat with the weight of my son bearing down on my legs. ‘Alex, it’s so important that you tell us exactly what those secrets are. They might help us find Flora.’

There is a pause, and it feels almost as long as the time Flora has been missing all over again. Finally, looking worried and pained as if it’s all his fault, Alex speaks. ‘I don’t know. Flora wouldn’t tell me because I wouldn’t play her silly game.’

The breath I’ve been holding escapes and my shoulders flatten. The three of us converge our thoughts and Ed drives us in a police car back to Northmire. My mother, the woman who has not uttered a word for weeks, is the only one who can help us. Whatever it takes, she is going to have to speak.

The week after it happened, a few papers and a couple of society magazines ran the story. A socialite wedding with rape and assault thrown in for good measure filled a couple of columns – and, given the recent anonymity laws for complainants of sexual offences, I was protected from being named in their sensationalist articles. No one would ever know who David Carlyle had allegedly raped.

Months later, when the case came to court and a verdict was reached, my story hit the papers again. David’s photograph – his face surprised, slashed by relief, creased with unbelievable luck, good fortune, perhaps even remorse – made it into every newspaper in the country. That was the day on which he was acquitted.

‘How do you feel about the jury’s decision, Mr Carlyle?’ The reporter pushed a microphone at David’s mouth. I sat alone at Northmire watching the morning’s events on the evening news.

‘Relieved,’ David replied solemnly. ‘Thankful it’s all over and I can get on with my life.’ His voice sent shivers through me – the same shivers of anticipation that I used to get when he strode into the café, or when he grabbed my wrist and pulled me close. The passion, the intensity, it was all still there. All still David.

‘Did you expect a not guilty verdict on all the charges?’ The microphone was under David’s nose again. While all this was going on, I had been escaping from the back door of the courthouse. A police officer draped a blanket over my head and I was driven back home by my parents. Blanket or not, I was guaranteed a lifetime of anonymity. No one would ever be able to find out the name of the woman who had cried rape; cried wolf. I was destined to a lifetime of silence.

‘Yes,’ David said easily. ‘I trusted the jury to find me not guilty.’ Every nervous, overstated blink he made represented a minute of the torture I had been through. How could they have let him off? Why was I still the victim, the nuisance, the silly girl who had caused all this trouble? He raped me, and afterwards he attacked me with his knife.

In court, the rape charge had been dismissed. The defence barrister convinced the jury that I had been on the lookout for sex; a predator. I was flaunting my body and willingly indulging in mind-altering substances. In short, they believed that I had asked for it.

As for the slashes to my tongue and feet, the jury ruled that there was no evidence to uphold this charge either, especially in the light of my unreliable claim of rape. ‘It’s equally as likely that Mr Felosie or the groundsman or anyone else at the wedding party harmed Miss Marshall,’ the defence stated in the closing argument. ‘That’s not to say the attack wasn’t brutal and the perpetrator shouldn’t be brought to justice. But fingerprints on a hunting knife owned by my client are hardly grounds for conviction.’

‘What about the drugs, Mr Carlyle? As a trainee medical student, what are your views on the use of the sedative methaqualone for recreational purposes?’ A microphone was pushed at David’s mouth.

‘No comment.’

‘The jury found you had consensual sex. Is it true that the woman concerned is now pregnant? Will you be supporting mother and baby?’

As I watched the news that evening – the way David’s expression changed, stopping his life for just long enough to realise the implications of this revelation – I could tell that he didn’t know, or perhaps hadn’t even considered that I was pregnant. Indeed, I had told only a few people about the baby and I was too ashamed to confide in my barrister, even if it would have helped my case. I had no idea how the journalist found out.

‘No . . . no comment,’ he said and walked off into the crowd.

I flicked the television off, wiping David Carlyle from my life. For thirty years, I lived without him.

 

I didn’t take the bus immediately. I stood at the stop – as still and cold as the metal post itself – and stared blankly at the road while the different-coloured cars blurred through my field of vision. When the bus arrived, I let it pass. Other passengers filed past me and I watched the number fifty-eight disappear down the road. My infected finger throbbed. I squeezed the tip of it as hard as I could stand. A yellow globe of pus burst from the side of my nail.

Without another thought, I walked back to the surgery and waited in the car park behind a thicket of bushes.

I was infected, certainly, but the pus wasn’t limited to my finger. I knew I had to see David again. I wanted information. I wanted to know that he’d had a miserable life; that he’d suffered for what he had done to me. I didn’t think I could live if I knew he would be going home to a happy house, a wife and two kids after work. Despite my tough exterior, the years of bringing up Julia, the foster kids, the farm, and finally, my grandchildren – despite all this, I had never recovered from what happened. Perhaps harder to understand was that he’d got away with it. David had walked free while I was imprisoned for ever.

Two and a half hours later, David Carlyle emerged from the medical practice wearing a green waxed jacket over his suit. His mobile phone was pressed to his ear. My heart stuttered with fear and intrigue. He gestured as he spoke, and even from a distance I saw that he looked angry . . . then appeased . . . then perplexed – a rainbow of emotions on a face that I remembered thirty years younger.

After ending the call, David unlocked his car, placed his doctor’s bag in the boot, and locked the car again. He walked off down the road towards the centre of town. In a snap decision, I followed him, holding back just enough so that he couldn’t hear the beat of my footsteps, but close enough to catch his scent on the breeze. My heart was pumping revenge.

David went into a café, a little place with gingham curtains and the smell of scones baked into the bricks. I waited outside in the cold. Several times I walked past the window and caught a glimpse of him sitting alone, sipping tea, glancing at his watch, sliding out of his jacket. And suddenly I was back there, at Café Delicio, so firmly planted in the past that it took all my strength not to go inside and take his order.