‘So you went to look?’
She nodded.
The dene was a wooded valley which ran from the base of the Headland right into Heppleburn Village. Ramsay’s cottage looked over it.
‘I walked along the main footpaths shouting,’ Marilyn said. ‘ I met a couple of horse riders and a jogger but they hadn’t seen her. Then I saw your light. I’m sorry. I suppose you’re off duty. If you could just tell me who I should ring and let me use your phone.’
‘Why don’t you let me take you home first,’ Ramsay said. ‘ Perhaps after all this time she’ll have come back.’
‘Oh God!’ Marilyn clapped her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were round and shiny as marbles. ‘If she’s arrived home and I’m not there she’ll be frantic.’ There was a pause, a small, confiding smile. ‘She’ll probably have called the police.’
The road to the Headland ran parallel to the dene. There was a farm with a lot of empty out-buildings and a big sign which read: ‘FOR SALE, BARN SUITABLE FOR CONVERSION’. The paint on the sign had faded. It had been there since Ramsay had moved into Heppleburn. As it approached the coast the dene flattened into scrubby grassland. The stream ran into the cut to the sea.
When they came to the railway line they had to wait at the level crossing. The train moved very slowly and Ramsay sensed that Marilyn’s impatience was turning into hysteria. She tapped long fingers on the dashboard, muttered under her breath.
The last truck rattled past and the barrier lifted. The road became single track. It led first to the jetty where the coal boats had once been loaded, with the social club beside it, then to the houses. The Headland was a promontory which rose slightly at its tip. Beyond the houses and above them was the whitewashed building which Ramsay remembered as a Coastguard Station. It too apparently had been suitable for conversion because now it was a private house. The sky was quite dark but clear and there was a moon. There was something mythic about the view through the terraced houses to the white house on the hill beyond, with the full moon behind it.
‘Our place is on the left,’ Marilyn said. ‘At the end.’
‘Well, someone’s in.’ Ramsay was relieved. ‘There’s a light on. Or did you leave it like that when you came out?’
‘I can’t remember.’
When they got out of the car Ramsay could hear the sea on either side of them and a snatch of music from the club. Marilyn in her school uniform was shivering.
‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a key.’
The front door opened into a narrow hall. The light Ramsay had seen had come from there and shone through the small glass panes in the door. Steep stairs led to the first floor. The door into the living room was open. Ramsay had expected the house to be tidy. A full-time housewife surely would care about that. But it was small and cluttered. In the centre of the floor stood a large wooden spinning wheel and a box of uncarded sheep’s wool.
Ramsay expected Marilyn to call out for her mother but she walked quietly down the passage to a room at the back. It was as if she were afraid of disturbing someone. She opened the door and switched on the light. There was a dining table folded against one wall; a sofa with a crocheted rug thrown over; a standard lamp with a fringed shade; and a rocking chair. It reminded him very much of the back room of his parents’ house when he was a child. Before his mother started reading women’s magazines and bullying his dad into DIY. Nothing in it had been bought after 1960, though Marilyn’s parents would have been children themselves then, perhaps not even born.
In the rocking chair sat Marilyn’s mother. She was dressed as he had always seen her out walking, in a grey skirt and a faded pink anorak and little suede ankle boots lined with fur. Her skin was smooth, unlined as a girl’s and the hair, dusty brown, unfashionably long for a woman of her age, fell loose over her shoulders. At first he thought she was asleep. Then he saw that she was so astonished to see them, so shocked by the sudden light, that she could not speak.
‘Mummy!’ Now Marilyn did shout. ‘Where were you? I was worried.’
‘Who’s this?’ Mrs Howe asked. She stood up.
‘He’s a policeman. Don’t you realize? I was so worried I went to the police.’
The woman stood, blinking furiously. Ramsay wondered if she were ill. Depressed. Schizophrenic. She seemed lost in a world of her own. Then she seemed to regain awareness of her surroundings. She took a small, apologetic step towards her daughter.
‘Darling,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep and you startled me.’ She turned to Ramsay. ‘You know how that can disorientate when one wakes up suddenly…’
‘But where were you earlier?’ Marilyn demanded. ‘You never go out.’
‘Don’t exaggerate, darling. I went for a walk. I told you I might. For blackberries.’
‘But I came to look for you.’
‘Then we must have missed each other.’ The voice was firm. She would tolerate no further argument. She turned to Ramsay. ‘I’m so sorry to have troubled you, Constable.’ He did not correct her about his rank. ‘I’m afraid Marilyn panicked. Perhaps she’s come to rely on me too heavily.’
‘So long as everything’s all right now.’ He looked at them both. It was almost a question.
But it seemed to Ramsay that things in the little house were far from fine. He could see through a door to the back kitchen, to the formica-covered units and the white enamel sink. There was a door with a lift-up latch which would lead to the back yard and the outhouse where once the lavatory had been. Where perhaps it still was. On one unit, quite out of place, stood a microwave oven. But there were no blackberries.
Chapter Two
Emma saw her pregnancy as an act of rudeness. How inappropriate, how impolite to be blossoming at this time of grief! Brian had invited Mark Taverner to stay with them for a few days after the death of his wife and whenever she saw him she felt herself blushing. But then Mark had always possessed the knack of making her feel awkward.
Emma had come to motherhood relatively late and took to it with a passion and energy which surprised her colleagues. They’d expected her back in harness straight after maternity leave. Not for the money. Husband Brian more than provided. But because they couldn’t imagine the Human Resources Department without her.
She didn’t return to work. She had two boys in quick succession and now she was pregnant again. Hoping for a girl, of course, she confided to her new mumsy friends, but happy to take what came. And then Sheena Taverner had died sooner than they had expected, and the pregnancy seemed some sort of dreadful social gaff.
Emma had suggested to Brian that she might stay away from the funeral but he had insisted that she should be there. He said Mark would want it. Brian and Mark had been friends at university and had stayed close since, which was odd, Emma thought, because they had nothing in common. So she went. At least it was cold for September and she could wear a loose woollen coat which hid the eight-month bump. From a distance you wouldn’t have been able to tell she was expecting. And Mark did seem pleased to see her. Outside the church he hugged her, held on to her with a desperation she had not expected. She pulled away from the embrace feeling quite shaky, with a surge of emotion which had little to do with missing Sheena. Hormones, she told herself. And wondered if the friend who was looking after the boys would remember about Owen’s allergy to oranges.
After the funeral they went back to the house in Otterbridge where Mark and Sheena had lived for ten years. It wasn’t a grand house a narrow three-storey terrace in one of the back streets behind the market, with only a couple of steps to separate the front door from the pavement. It was not at all the sort of house, Emma thought, where you could bring up children. But Sheena had never wanted that even before the illness. She had wanted a quiet place to work, her books and her pictures. Emma had always supposed that was what Mark had wanted too.