The Shiver Stone (14 page)

14

‘My cats, your dog? That's how she's going to do it. God, I suppose, in her mind, they have to pay the price for what happened to her pony,' Kemble said.

This was starting to sound nuts.

‘Your cats?' Tristan said, rubbing at his forehead like he was trying to wake up from some dream. Jago and I sat forward, tense and listening, as the day took another weird twist.

‘I'll tell you quickly, but we've got to do something if you want to see your dog again.'

The sick feeling crept back into my stomach. Jago grasped my arm.

‘She came to work at my clinic.' Kemble stood and began pacing.

‘Your clinic?' Tristan said, surprised.

‘Yes, I'm a counsellor.'

‘A counsellor?'

‘Yes, my wife and I…'

‘Your wife?'

‘For God's sake, Tristan, stop repeating everything I say, you sound like a parrot. Yes, I'm married, with two children and I'm a qualified counsellor with my own clinic. I help people with problems.'

‘You do?' Tristan couldn't have sounded more amazed.

‘It's not as odd as it seems. After I got myself stitched back together…' Kemble rubbed at his chin. ‘This beard hides a six-inch scar, by the way.'

If he expected sympathy he didn't get it.

‘While I was getting sorted out at the hospital, I was in a lot of pain and furious with you. A nurse suggested I needed anger management. I laughed then, but a few days later I found myself at a clinic. I learned a lot.

‘Anyway, I'm wasting time. In a nutshell, this woman came to work for me. She got friendly with my wife and kids and offered to look after the house and our cats while we went on holiday. When we came back there were no cats and no Emma Carr.'

‘Emma Carr – is that her name?' I said.

‘Yes.'

Kemble scattered another shower of orange tic tacs into his mouth and chewed. He peered into Tristan's workshop again. ‘That really is an ugly thing,' he said.

‘It's just something I'm working on,' Tristan said, irritably. ‘What happened with Emma Carr? Did you go to the police?'

Kemble took one more nervous look and went on with his story. ‘The police weren't interested – suggested she'd accidently lost the cats and then disappeared rather than face the music.'

‘Maybe that is what happened.' Tristan had moved so that he was next to Jago on the sofa. I saw him rest his hand lightly on his son's shoulder.

‘I would have thought so too, except she left an odd little poem on my desk. She also left a piece of paper with my name and yours. My name had been crossed out with red ink. It gave me the chills, I can tell you. Like some scary movie. I Googled her. That's when I found out she'd had a serious horse riding accident and years of surgery. It happened when she was ten and on a fox hunt near Bristol. It was too much of a coincidence. I knew then I had to get here to warn you.'

A suspicion was creeping into my mind. ‘What does she look like?'

‘Long fair hair, glasses,' Kemble said.

‘There's a woman who's been kind of hanging around us. She says she's a birdwatcher but she's not. She found Tia when we lost her and then when Jago … um … fell in the sea…'

Jago gave me a dirty look but didn't say anything.

‘When Jago fell in the sea, she helped me pull him out because he can't swim.'

‘You could have drowned.' Tristan's grip tightened on Jago's shoulder.

‘Yeah. I could have.' Jago gave me another dirty look.

I wanted to change the subject – quickly. ‘Can't be her though. This woman's got short black hair.'

‘She's got a long scar right down her back.' Jago screwed up his nose.

Kemble turned sharply, waving his hands in the air. ‘It's her. It's got to be her. The scar? Back surgery after the accident.'

‘But she's got short black hair,' I said again.

‘Maybe she's trying to disguise herself. If you've got long blonde hair, you'd change it to short dark hair, wouldn't you? If I could only see a photo or something I'd know if it was her.'

‘Anyway, she found Tia when she ran off at the caravan park,' I said shaking my head. ‘She was taking her to the police.'

‘Are you sure?'

I thought back to when the woman was running in front of me, cradling Tia in her arms. Something wasn't right. Then it hit me.

‘You're right,' I said. ‘She was trying to hide Tia in her jacket. She hadn't found her, she was taking her.'

‘If we could be sure it's the same woman, we could get the police involved,' Kemble said.

‘We've got a video of her,' Jago said softly. He turned to me. ‘I got bored videoing you diving. I focused in on that woman because she was watching us.'

‘We've got to get that video. It's on my phone at home.' I felt hope coming back into my bones – at last we had something, we could do something.

The four of us ran outside.

‘I'll drive you,' Kemble said.

‘I'd better take Carys on my motorbike. It's faster. Is that okay with you, Jago?' Tristan said.

He nodded.

I snatched the crash helmet from him and leapt astride the bike. Tristan kicked the starter into action.

I held on tight as we bounced along the lane and took a sharp left down towards the village.

With a jolt and a roar we were off down St Winifred's Hill and into the centre of Carreg. The bike smelled of petrol and leather and heat.

The red traffic light held us prisoner. The idling bike seemed to hold its breath. I found myself counting off the seconds.

The green light, another roar, and through the traffic to my street. The first half of our road is all shops and cafes and every tourist in Wales was there that day. We bumped and jerked along as people criss-crossed in front of us, and dawdled along the pavements in hoards. Twice we had to stop to let families with pushchairs pass us. And an old lady on a walking frame took forever to get from one side of the road to the other. It felt like the whole world was trying to slow us down. It was all I could do not to scream.

At our flat, I jumped off and hurtled up the steps.

I thrust the door open. Linette was in her dressing gown, drying her glowing red hair after a shower.

‘Where's Dad?'

‘Still searching the village for Tia. I said I'd wait here in case the RSPCA called, or the police.'

I was too twitchy to listen. ‘My phone?' I said.

‘Any news of Tia?'

‘My phone,' I said, ‘where is it?'

‘Carys, you know your phone's been confiscated.'

‘You don't understand, pleeeeeease.'

‘I can't … Tristan?' The last bit of her sentence was said in shock as the tall figure appeared at the open front door. ‘Where have you been?'

‘My phooooooone,' I wailed.

‘I'll explain when I can.' Tristan said. ‘We really need Carys' phone.'

‘But her dad…' Linette was moving towards the sideboard. She opened the drawer, took out my phone and held it to her chest. ‘You're going to get me into trouble, Carys. What's so important that you need it now?'

‘Jago took a video of me diving. There's a woman on the video we need to check if…'

A sharp knock at the door made me turn. Jago and Kemble stood outside the open doorway.

I beckoned.

Linette was viewing the video on my phone, screwing her eyes up with concentration. ‘Oh, nice dive, Carys, I didn't know you could dive like that. Did Dai teach you?'

I stood there, holding out my hand for my phone, getting more annoyed by the second.

Linette rattled on. ‘I recognise that woman with the binoculars. She's the reporter I told you about, Carys. The one that came into the Crab's Claw and then followed you down to the harbour.'

‘You didn't tell me about any reporter,' I said.

‘Really? Must have slipped my mind. She said she wanted to do a follow-up story on the sculptures. She came back and said she'd missed you, so I told her where you live.'

‘Good ploy,' Kemble said.

Linette looked up with a start. ‘Who the hell are you?'

‘He's Kemble. Give him the phone,' I said.

‘You're Kemble Sykes? The mysterious skinny-beard guy? But I thought…' She frowned and looked from Tristan to Kemble and back to Tristan.

‘He's okay, Linette, honest. Give him the phone.' Tristan said. ‘The woman on that video may have Tia. She may be going to hurt her. It'll take too long to explain now.'

Linette reluctantly handed me the phone. I passed it over to Kemble without even looking at it.

His fingers flicked rapidly over the buttons and he studied the screen in silence. We waited.

‘It's her,' he said. ‘Let's go to the police.'

I turned to go with them, but Linette grabbed my sleeve. ‘Wait just a minute.' She said to Tristan, ‘Do you really think I'm going to let Carys rush off with you lot when I've got no idea what's going on?'

‘Linette.'

‘No! Tell me what this is all about.'

‘She's right,' Kemble said.

We sat down although I couldn't stop jiggling my legs. I wanted to be off doing something. Who knew what was happening to Tia while all this talking was going on. When Linette asked if anyone wanted coffee, I gave a kind of growl. She deliberately ignored me. ‘Or tea?' she said.

Luckily they were as eager to get moving as I was and said no. Kemble told his story honestly, although it didn't make him look good. I noticed Tristan was ashamed – he kept rubbing at his forehead and looking down.

‘And she left this little poem,' Kemble was saying. He went into the back pocket of his jeans, took out a wallet and rummaged through. He passed a scrap of paper to Linette. She read it and handed it to Tristan. From Tristan it went to Jago and then to me. I read:

When all is pain

And I'm alone,

My heart and I

will turn to stone.

Kemble took the paper back from me with a nod and stuffed it back into his wallet. ‘I think it's about her pony,' he told Linette. ‘He was called White Cloud. He had to be shot after he broke his leg that day.'

As soon as I read that note, I knew. I knew where Emma Carr was. I was never more sure of anything in my life. What I didn't know was whether we would be too late to save Tia.

CHAPTER

15

‘The Shiver Stone! That's where she is. Don't you remember, Jago, how fascinated she was by it? And what she said about always going to the Standing Stones when she was frightened or upset? And, when we found her there, she was acting weird. Remember?'

Jago nodded enthusiastically. ‘Carys is right. We found her sitting on the edge of the cliff and she was talking about pets and stuff but – not in a good way.'

Linette couldn't stop me this time. No one could have stopped me. I grabbed the crash helmet again.

‘Come on!' I shouted at Tristan.

In my panic it seemed like even more people filled the streets of Carreg, that the traffic lights stayed red for longer. But, at last, we burst through and roared up the hill.

Tristan threw the bike against a fence and we jogged on foot through the small woodland, with the river trickle ringing in our ears. We made our way through the trees and bushes. Neither of us spoke.

It was so quiet, so very peaceful, that for a moment I was afraid that I was wrong. That Emma Carr would be nowhere near the Shiver Stone. That maybe we would never find Tia. I forced that thought out of my mind. As we drew closer I could hear the sea booming below.

‘Do you think…?' Tristan began.

‘Shhh.' I put my finger to my lips.