‘And that’s when he made his move?’
‘No. Not at all. He said goodnight and left. I got into bed and read for a while, then went to sleep.’
‘Right.’ Karen furrowed her brow and looked at me. I shrugged.
Suzi had finished her drink now. She held the glass by its stem, rotating it on the spot. ‘I woke up an hour or two later. Somebody was coming into my room.’
Karen was all ears.
‘The door creaks and I’m a light sleeper anyway, so it woke me up. I sat bolt upright and said, “Who’s that?” Immediately the door closed and I heard footsteps going down the hallway. I didn’t . . . I couldn’t get back to sleep.’
‘And you think it was Max?’ I said.
She nodded. ‘It had to be. I mean, assuming it wasn’t one of you two.’
‘It definitely wasn’t me,’ I said.
‘Nor me,’ said Karen. ‘And it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing Julia would do. It’s pretty obvious to me who it was. Max, feeling all hot and bothered after your sex scene discussion, wanting to discover your “inner self”.’
Suzi winced. ‘Please.’
‘So what did the little bastard have to say for himself?’ Karen asked. Across the pub, Max was still bashing at the quiz machine’s buttons. He appeared a little happier now, like he was winning. A small crowd had gathered around him.
‘I haven’t asked him. I was too embarrassed. But I told him I didn’t want his help today, that I wanted to work on my own. He’s been off with me ever since. Please don’t say anything to him. I’m going to ensure I lock my door tonight. It’s not like he actually did anything.’
‘Hmm,’ Karen said.
‘I feel a bit sorry for him, too,’ Suzi said. ‘I think he’s having some problems with his marriage.’ That echoed what Karen had said the previous evening. ‘And his last book didn’t do very well.’
‘That’s no excuse for trying to sneak into a young woman’s bedroom,’ Karen said, glaring over at him. Max remained oblivious.
‘Oh God, I wish I hadn’t said anything now,’ Suzi said. ‘Please don’t talk to him about it.’ She stood up. ‘I need another drink.’
As she went to the bar, I said to Karen, ‘Are you going to talk to him?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, what if Suzi hadn’t woken up? What would he have done? Got into bed with her? Raped her? Told her he could help her career if she was nice to him?’ She lowered her voice further. ‘I’m going to be keeping an eye on him, that’s for sure.’
It was dark by the time we got back to the retreat. Julia was standing out front, rattling a silver dish. ‘Chesney!’ she called. ‘Chesney!’
‘Cat gone walkabout?’ I asked. I needed the loo so had hurried ahead of the others, who were now only halfway up the drive.
She sighed. ‘He does it all the time. Disappears for hours, sometimes a whole day. It makes me sick with worry.’
I wasn’t surprised by her anxiety, not after learning what had happened to Julia. I wondered if Chesney had been Lily’s pet. With Michael and Lily gone, the cat was Julia’s last link to her family. The cat and the house they lived in.
Julia held her glasses in her hand. She put them on, then took them off again.
‘I guess he’s got plenty of places to explore around here,’ I said. ‘Lots of mice to chase.’
‘Yeah. Except he’s always been a fat, lazy old thing. He never brings mice or birds in. I have no idea where he goes.’
The other writers appeared and Julia put the dish on the ground outside the door.
‘He’ll come back, though,’ she said. ‘He always does.’
She stared at the black horizon. I could read her mind. The cat always came back, but she would trade that a thousand times over for a glimpse of her daughter. Should I let her know that I knew? I almost said something, but she turned away before I could speak, and the moment slipped away into the darkness.
Chapter 5
I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to Lily.
Perhaps if I hadn’t written a book about vanishing children, if my imagination didn’t tend towards the macabre, the gothic, I might have gone along with the obvious: that Lily had drowned in the river and, for whatever reason, the police couldn’t find her body. I wouldn’t have seen it as a mystery. But after trying, and failing, to get into my work the following morning, I had an overwhelming compulsion to see the spot where Michael Marsh had drowned. The last place where Lily Marsh had been seen.
There was a map accompanying the article I’d read the day before, showing the stretch of river where the incident had occurred. I copied it into a notebook and went out.
Walking through the thin patch of trees towards the Dee, I tried to convince myself I wasn’t a misery tourist, the kind of person who visits a murder scene to see where the carnage happened. I kept telling myself to turn back, go ‘home’, get on with my book, but my legs had other ideas. They carried me forward until I came out onto a muddy path where the river swept around a bend.
As soon as I stepped onto the path, an image flashed in my mind of this very place. A pebble striking the water. An adult calling out. It stopped me in my tracks.
It had to be a memory from my childhood. And, of course, that made sense. My parents must have brought me here. We’d probably come frequently. But, like so much of my early childhood in Wales, the memory had retreated into a dark, unreachable place.
I consulted the map. Yes, this was where it had happened. It was raining, little icy needles on the back of my neck, and the river was swollen, foaming like a rabid dog. It was easy to see how someone could drown in that churning current as it swept around the corner. Even the strongest swimmer would struggle. A child wouldn’t stand a chance.
Tentatively, I made my way down the bank onto some rocks by the water. I found a stone and tossed it in, watching it vanish beneath the opaque surface.
I closed my eyes and imagined a man thrashing in the current, desperate and afraid.
Climbing back onto the bank, I looked around. What else could have happened to Lily if she hadn’t drowned? I turned in a slow circle, taking in the landscape. There was no way she could have crossed the river.
This spot was close to the road. Could somebody have been waiting here? An opportunist, spotting a child? I pictured it: he grabbed her and threw her toy cat into the water so her parents would think she’d fallen in, then dragged her back to his car.
But why didn’t she scream? Would he have had time to do all that before Julia and Michael caught up? Surely it was too risky.
No. I knew from cops I’d spoken to when researching Sweetmeat that the most obvious explanation is almost always the right one. Lily had fallen into the water and drowned. Tragic. But almost certainly a less dreadful fate than what might have happened if someone had taken her.
As I stared into the water, I experienced a prickle on the nape of my neck, the sensation that someone was watching me. I turned and squinted into the bushes. Nothing moved – just the light drumming of raindrops on leaves; a breeze stirring the undergrowth. It was my imagination, that was all. My overdeveloped imagination.