Dying to Write (33 page)

‘Like a physical presence, isn't it?'

‘I may actually have seen you. There was someone on the ice house while I was at the farm. Wednesday morning, that must have been.'

‘Good God! It could well have been me. Once I'd found the place I checked in at the Post House for the night. And then I was hours too early, of course, so I explored a bit. Then I went to the Wasson. With the Sand Well in the grounds. But they don't call it the Wasson now. We used to come with Dad, once in a while. You probably came too – you're an Oldbury girl, aren't you, our kid?'

‘No car. And my dad was too busy playing cricket and coaching me to waste valuable weekends exploring. I'd have given my teeth –'

‘Tomboy, were you? There was a lot to explore, too – pockets of wasteland all over this side of the Black Country then. There were some mines – you could get into them.'

‘Mines! Weren't there fences and guards and –'

‘Not on these.'

‘And how would you get down? Don't you need winding gear?'

‘Not on drift mines. That sort you just walk into. You must have been to that one in the Black Country Museum? Some abandoned years ago, maybe even in the nineteenth century, but never filled in or blocked up. Bloody dangerous, of course. Remember that child getting stuck in a hole on Cannock Chase a few years back? Nearly died? And that mine wasn't even on anyone's map.'

‘What are they like?'

‘Any other day I'd take you. But not in weather like this.'

I laughed. ‘Come on, they're underground, mines.'

He shook his head. ‘Dad used to take us in. But he made us promise never to try it on our own. We did, of course, but one day we learned the hard way why we shouldn't. A day like this, pissing with rain. And we thought we'd rather be dry than wet so we found ourselves a mine. Lunch. Torches. Bit scary without Dad. Then the water rose, so fast we panicked. I can still remember it: the cold, the dark, not knowing which way to run …'

His voice blurred with the remembered fear. I wanted to comfort the child in his memory. But suddenly there was something else.

‘That's where he's got Kate. Down a mine.' I said it with absolute certainly. Because I knew.

And I must have convinced him. Suddenly he was out of bed, standing beside me.

‘Jesus, if you're right – but which one?' Already he was pulling on his clothes.

I sat on the bed. I had to use my head. I had to think clearly and logically and fast.

He came and stood beside me and touched my hand. Nothing amorous; more to show he understood what I was trying to do. Then he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Kate. I must flood my mind with images of Kate. Maybe her technique of lying on the floor would help. It had taken me to Courtney when he needed me, after all. I stood up and found a pile of paperbacks for my head on Hugh's desk.

I gathered them up:
The Writer's Handbook
must be nearly thick enough on its own. Certainly it would be with his
thesaurus
. I stood weighing them in my hands, staring not at them, but at the rain overflowing from a blocked gutter on to Hugh's car. He'd been surprisingly calm about the damage, considering how new the car was. Certainly hailstones had saved it from a much worse fate. Maybe the RAC could help with the tail-lights when they came to start Matt's poor Fiesta, humbled first by the gloss of Kate's little Peugeot and now dwarfed by this red, if battered, machine. The Peugeot was no doubt tucked up in Harborne, waiting to be called in evidence. Poor car – orphaned before its time. I wondered what would happen to it, and had a fantasy, either macabre or sentimental, I wasn't sure which, that I might buy it with the money from George's van. I'd give it a good home – it would fit into the garage – and I would remember to sing every time it had a mileage birthday.

The mobile phone, our safety link with the police control point, was on the desk. I jabbed the number.

Chris answered, first ring. ‘What's up?' I could hear the panic in his voice.

‘Nothing. Just tell me how many miles Kate's car had done.'

‘Why?'

‘Please, don't ask. Just check.'

‘OK.'

I could hear the tap of a computer. Some meticulous person had even bothered to write that down, to enter it onto the computer records. And Chris bothered enough to do as I asked.

‘One thousand and eighteen point two miles.'

‘Ah!'

I put down the phone.

It rang immediately.

I let it.

Since Kate had given me that lift from the village, the Monday morning I went to buy a torch, the morning she had had to fetch supplies from the chemist's for Toad, her car had done one thousand miles. I had heard a car late on Tuesday night. On Wednesday I was sure her car had been parked at a different angle. The car was removed by the police on Wednesday night. Dare I conclude that someone had used her car to take her away on Monday night? And perhaps used it again, perhaps to take food to her, on Tuesday night? Someone who had been able to visit her on foot on Wednesday and Thursday nights? But it would mean a long trek, a round trip of nine miles on foot.

‘Here!' I could see the OS map he was carrying even before I could see Hugh. Hardly pausing to close the door, he opened it and spread it on the floor.

‘There's Eyre House and Park,' he said.

‘But what about mines? Nature reserves and a rifle range, for God's sake, but no mines!'

‘They don't have to mark them. Look, Baggeridge Park had mines – not a sing of one on the map. Perhaps we need a larger scale.'

‘No, we don't – I need glasses. Here!' I jabbed the map. ‘And here.'

‘So which do we head for?'

I explained.

‘So we need to know which are about four and a half miles by road, preferably less on foot. We need string – no, give me your trainer.'

I unlaced it and passed it to him. He pulled out the lace and held one end on Eyre House. Then, holding it taut, he swung it in an arc across the map.

‘Won't work. Better to trace the road with it,' he said, easing along the road to the main gates and then to the right.

‘But he'd turned left when he torched George's van,' I said.

‘OK, trace that footpath and see if we meet up.'

Our index fingers moved hesitantly together.

‘Yes!' I said, on my feet and folding the map. ‘Got to be, hasn't it?'

‘Now what?'

‘We go and look.'

‘What about Groom – shouldn't you tell him?'

‘If he takes any notice, he'll refuse to let us go too. Or,' I said, more reasonably, ‘we could talk to him on your car phone as we go.'

‘I've a feeling Matt might want to go with us,' said Hugh.

‘Course he would. Is he awake and dressed?'

‘I doubt it.'

‘Tough, then. We go without him. He can go with Chris.' I was rethreading the lace. ‘We'll need kagouls and a torch at very least. Any tools in your car? He won't have tied her up with string.'

‘Enough. Get your things – I'll meet you at the car.'

At reception we went our separate ways. I hardly nodded to the officer on duty in the student corridor, as I pushed into my room grabbing torch and kagoul and, as a hopeful after-thought, my asthma spray. All the other students would be busy packing – Shazia's cleaners would want the rooms vacant by nine thirty. Toad was not packing: I could hear the sound of Bach being played not at all badly. A bourrée from one of the cello suites. I found myself humming it under my breath as I sprinted out through reception. Hugh had brought the car round. I flung myself in.

Half the time I'll swear we were aquaplaning, Hugh was forcing the car so fast down the waterlogged roads. He passed the car phone to me.

I hesitated. ‘How d'you use one of these?'

‘Jesus!'

‘I haven't got one on my bike.'

‘Sorry. Same as any other phone.'

As I tapped, I could see his knuckles white on the gear lever. He was there, with Kate, knowing from experience the fear she was going through. If she was still alive.

‘What the fuck are you up to this time?' Chris asked.

‘Trying to find Kate. Hugh remembered a mine he got trapped in as a kid. It ties up with the Black Panther keeping that poor child down the sewer. We've found a mine.'

‘Where?'

I read out the map reference, as accurately as I could guess in the bucking, sliding car.

‘I'll come.'

‘Bring some friends. And Matt.'

At last Hugh swung the car towards a gap in the hedge. There were some other tyre marks. But I don't think he was worrying about preserving evidence.

He was out and over a stile well before me. I had to run to catch up, slithering over the long, wet grass. The ground was hummocky, water already flooding some of the dips. Then there was a strip of ash-covered path. I set off down it. Hugh followed. After a hundred yards or so it branched into two smaller tracks. Right or left?

‘You take this one. I'll go down here. But when we've looked we come back here. No heroics!' I said.

‘OK.'

I took the left-hand path. The grass was so coarse it was impossible for me to tell if anyone had used it recently. There was a strange, isolating blanket of sound – the motorway, never far away, the rain, the pad of my feet, my increasingly rough breathing. A minute for a drag at the Ventolin. Must be stress, not the exercise. I told myself I had nothing to worry about. Toad was working his way through Bach. Chris knew where I was heading. I was linking up with Hugh again, as soon as we'd checked the possibilities.

I had nothing to worry about.

There was nothing here, anyway. The path just petered out in a scribble of thin broom and bracken. There was a little gorse up to the right.

I turned back. Better report to Hugh. He'd be worrying about me.

And then I saw him. Sidney. As wet as I was. Thin. A cut down one flank. But Sidney nonetheless.

If only I had something to offer him. Some chocolate, anything. I couldn't imagine him coming to me without a bribe. I inched closer to him but he pursued a dogged course, skirting me. I followed, gaining unobtrusively on him. Perhaps I'd risk calling him.

‘Sidney! Sidney?'

If anything, he scuttled on rather more quickly. I stripped my kagoul off. I was wet enough, anyway, for a bit more rain not to matter, and I'd be less visible without it. And the thought crossed my mind that I might even be able to throw it on top of Sidney and catch him that way. Catch him! I had to catch up with him first.

He made his way purposefully towards the bracken. And disappeared.

I followed.

A wooden beam, presumably once a lintel, now leaned crazily. The gap it left was scarcely larger than me. I squeezed through.

I knew it would be dark inside. I wasn't prepared for absolute blackness. But perhaps it wasn't absolute. My eyes weren't used to it yet. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. And I had my torch.

I switched it on in time to see Sidney's tail disappearing. There were two routes, one high enough to follow at an awkward walk, the other a hands-and-knees affair. He chose the hands-and-knees one.

I followed.

I don't know how long for. There was no easy way to carry the torch. I knew I mustn't lose that torch. It was my lifeline. And I mustn't bang my head on one of those lumps of rock – or coal? – that formed the roof. I ought to have had a hard hat with a light, a miner's helmet.

As I crawled, the noise started. A low rumble. It got louder and louder. I must be close to the motorway. I had to go back. I couldn't get any closer. The noise was a solid black wall I couldn't penetrate. I banged my fists on it. And I knew it was solid, and that it was coal.

So where had Sidney gone?

The noise hurt so much I found myself crying. I couldn't hear myself, but I knew I must be. If you cry you blow your nose and wipe your eyes. My handkerchief was in my kagoul.

So was Sidney.

If I started to laugh I'd soon be hysterical. Somehow I had to turn round – my God, had the miners been a race of midgets? – and feel my way back. First I'd zip Sidney into the big front pocket. He didn't like being grabbed, and struggled. So did I. As I shoved him, tail first and wriggling, down into the pouch, I must have hurt him. He bit me. I shoved harder and zipped. I'd better leave a gap for him to breathe. Just enough for his nose, no more.

Because I'd no idea how far I'd come, I'd no idea how far back I had to crawl. And my torch was getting dimmer. Long-life batteries, indeed. If I came out of this alive, I'd never buy that brand again.

I shouldn't have thought of that. Of not getting out alive.

I tried common sense. Perhaps the batteries were loose. I gave an experimental shake. Nothing, either better or worse. But the beam was very dim, now. Perhaps it would be better to wear the kagoul. I might be hurting Sidney as I dragged it along. So I propped the torch between my knees and struggled in. I'd buy one with a front-opening next time. Of course there'd be a next time.

The torch slipped and went out.

I groped for it, and found it. It was wet and slippery. I fumbled for the switch, and pushed it. Light again. I rubbed a sleeve over the lens: that improved things. Not the batteries but grime on the glass. It would be all right.

I made good progress for the next few yards, but the tunnel was now very wet indeed. Water was dripping from the roof, quite audible even above the rumble of the road. But I couldn't have far to go, not now. Any moment I would hear a furious Hugh yelling for me. Any moment.

And then I saw the roof tremble. Not much. Enough for me to stop, and then wish I'd rushed forward. And, quite delicately at first, then more persistently, a little black avalanche cut me off from the entrance to the mine.