Outside, I scurried along, my footsteps echoing through Fenmere and making me wince. I didn’t want to be seen, couldn’t face having a conversation with people, even though they would only be asking about you because they cared. The orange glow of the street lights didn’t feel comforting; they made me feel spotlit, like an escaping prisoner highlighted by guards in a watchtower.
A scraping noise came from the Picky Person’s Pop In. Jill would just have opened up, after getting the delivery of newspapers. That woman was one hard grafter. Thinking of newspapers, it suddenly occurred to me that your attack would be front page news for the Wapentake Investigator. Finn had been great when we had spoken, calling me to show support after the lack of coverage on last night’s news. Brilliant – at least we’d get some publicity for you.
Hunched against the cold, I hurried away from the shop and street lights towards the darkness that would soon swallow me up, my breath a pulsating pale orange halo hanging before me, whipped by a soft breeze.
The final building for me to pass was The Malt Shovel. Huddled on the edge of the village, the pub faces it, with its back to the marsh and the sea. Like all the older buildings in the area, it has a long, gently sloping roof one side and a more steeply pitched, shorter one on the other. Incomers assume it’s simply a design quirk popular to the area. Locals know it’s far more practical: they are aerodynamic. Sea breezes that are vicious enough anywhere else along the coast take on new meaning here, on the flat fens of Lincolnshire just a handful of miles away from the famously bracing resort of Skegness. With nothing to break that wind – no hills, few hedges, just coarse grass – even a mild breeze can inflict an impressive punch. The gentle side of the area’s roofs breaks the force of the winds, the steep pitch getting rid of it as quickly as possible before it tears off the tiles.
I stepped from the shelter of the buildings and the gentle breeze grew to a bluster. But I’ve spent my entire life here, so I was braced for it and sank my gloved hands deeper into my pockets.
Within a minute came a sharp right off the main road. Sea Lane, although tarmacked, was only wide enough for one car to pass down at a time. The sky began to grey, dawn approaching, enabling me, just about, to see where I was going without a torch as the village’s lights were left behind.
There was no sign of anyone around, not even a tractor working a distant field.
The single-track lane ran straight and true for two miles, with no change in direction or level to give a clue to the distance travelled. Not many people came to the marsh, apart from the occasional dog-walker or birdwatcher – and as an avid nature-watcher, you had often begged me to drive you here. It felt strange walking the route, and seemed to take forever, but it made me far more aware of the subtle changes of smell as the landscape slowly altered. First, the cabbages in the fields, fading to a rich, earthy scent, finally joined by the sharp ozone and brine of the sea.
A sudden steep rise in the road obscured the view immediately ahead. That was the sea bank, an ancient man-made defence against nature which ran perpendicular to the lane and parallel with the horizon. Over I went, and the lane dropped back down then stopped abruptly in a small, permanently empty car park. It had taken forty minutes to get there, but at last the marsh lay before me. It was so lacking in undulation that it seemed to be squeezed into a couple of inches, the rest of the view taken up solely by a huge sky streaked with dawn’s first hints of pink and orange.
The olive-green marshland was covered in weird and wonderful plants hardy enough to survive the harsh, salty conditions. I tried to remember some of the names you had told me: sea aster, purslane, sea-blite, couch grass. A flock of brent geese gabbled gently and constantly, like gossipy old women, as they breakfasted among the meres, the shallow saltwater ponds. Although I couldn’t see them, you and I know that dangerously hidden beneath the springy undergrowth further in were meandering tidal creeks several feet deep. They made their sluggish way to the shallow, silt-filled beginnings of the North Sea. Across the other side of The Wash, far in the distance, Hunstanton hunkered down on Norfolk’s coast.
What the hell would a thirteen-year-old girl be doing here in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night, Beth? Someone must have abducted you, brought you here against your will.
Searching for answers, I made a ninety-degree turn and trudged along the mud track at the top of the sea bank. Frozen puddles gave way beneath me with a crunch and splash.
After ten minutes, with the sun sitting fully above the horizon, I could see white tape that cordoned off a distant area. As I grew closer, the wind making the rectangle bulge convex then concave, the tape no longer seemed pure white, but blue and white. Closer again and words became distinct: ‘POLICE: DO NOT CROSS’. They shivered in the wind, meaningless, now that the authorities had collected all the forensic evidence they needed from the scene.
That was where my daughter was dumped like a piece of rubbish. It had taken me over fifteen minutes to walk there from the car park. Surely someone couldn’t have carried you all this way? But you weighed almost nothing, and if the man were strong, it would have been easy enough.
I quivered like the police tape as an image flared in my mind. You, thrown over a powerful shoulder. Unconscious and bleeding. Your head lolling and bobbing in time with your attacker’s step.
On my right was the mere you had been floating in. My imagination kicked in again. You were walking alone, engrossed in watching a fox or badger or some such. You tripped. Stumbled in the darkness. Hit your head and rolled, unconscious, into the mere. Is that what happened?
No. Not in those clothes, those ridiculous boots. And you had been wearing make-up. You’d clearly dressed up for someone and met them elsewhere, then been brought here by them – you wouldn’t have come to the marshes in those clothes.
Who brought you here, Beth? Who knows these marshes? Villagers? But they barely come here, because there’s nothing to see for miles.
I looked around, hoping to find some clue: something, anything that would explain what had happened. Something the police had missed and only a mother would spot. In the distance the skeleton of a young sperm whale that had been stranded and died stood out against the skyline. You had been so upset at its death. The local authorities had no choice but to leave it to rot as the mudflats were too dangerous for a vehicle. Nearby there was a single sycamore tree, twisting away from the sea and reaching towards Fenmere as if imploring someone to stop the wind from bullying it and warping its growth. Neither the whale nor the tree offered any clues as to what had happened to you.
At the sycamore’s base sat a teddy bear and a couple of bunches of flowers.
A shrine to you, Beth.
My stomach flipped. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. It was as though you were dead. But you were alive. You were going to be fine.
I was being silly. It was nice, really, and kind of people to be so thoughtful. I forced myself over to it and read the notes. The Clarkes, of course; the teddy was from them.