The Vanishment (16 page)

I reached out my hand to turn on the light. As I did so I realized with a stab of absolute dread that I was not in Tim and Susan's house. I was in my old bedroom in Petherick House. And there was something bumping in the next room.

I do not know how to explain what I have just written. Please try to understand. I was not asleep—I had just woken abruptly, and I was wide-awake. I was not dreaming. Somehow, I was fully conscious and fully aware of my surroundings. The room I was in was the bedroom in Petherick House, the one in which Sarah and I had slept. Nothing had changed since I had last been there. The sound of bumping continued without pause.

I lay for a long time, listening to the bumping noise and trying to reason with myself. I knew it was impossible for me to be where I was, but I could not doubt the evidence of my senses. The bumping would not stop. Cautiously, I sat up in the bed. I could see my shadow cast on the opposite wall. My heart was beating rapidly, quite out of time with the bumping next door.

I do not know how long I lay like that, sweating, shivering, unable to move a muscle. The bumping went on and on. In the end, I knew there was nothing for it. I could not just lie there, doing nothing, waiting for whatever was in the house to come for me. I pulled back the sheets and eased myself to the floor. A step at a time, I walked to the door. Holding my breath hard, I opened it. A woman was standing on the landing, watching me.

It must have been only seconds, but it seemed as though minutes passed before I realized that it was Susan. A moment later Tim appeared behind her. I looked around quickly. The room in which I was standing was my bedroom in their house.

"Peter, what's wrong? You look ghastly."

"I'm all . . . I'm all right."

"We heard you crying out," said Tim. "Did you have a nightmare?"

I nodded, finding words hard.

"Can I get you something? A drink maybe?"

I shook my head.

"No, I'm fine, really. I'm over it now. A bad dream, that's all. I hope I haven't woken Rachel."

"I'll look in on her," Susan said. "But are you sure you're all right, Peter? You don't look it. I think Tim's right, you should have a brandy or something."

"Really," I said, "I'm fine." I could still hear the bumping sound somewhere in my brain. Perhaps I was going mad after all. "It's the strain after the funeral and everything," I said. "But I'll be all right. I'll stay up for a bit, if you don't mind. I think a stiff drink might do me good after all."

To be honest, I was frightened to return to bed. I stayed in the kitchen all night, listening for sounds that did not come. When dawn came, I went back to bed and slept soundly for several hours. I had no more dreams that night. And when I woke, I was still in London.

Later that morning, I had coffee with Susan in the kitchen. Rachel had been left at the playgroup she sometimes attended. I noticed that Susan seemed awkward with me. There were long silences. Finally, I asked her what was wrong.

She took a long time to answer, sipping her coffee and putting the cup back on the table several times before she spoke.

"Tim told me everything last night," she began, as though pushing something ugly into the open. "About Sarah's disappearance. The Trevorrow woman." She shuddered and looked at me angrily. Her unbelief had been transformed overnight into harrowing fear. Whatever terrors her skepticism had been holding in check had woken up now and were walking openly through her mind.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you give me a chance to do something, to make up my own mind?

Jesus, anything could have happened to Rachel. That doll—she sent that, didn't she? That's why you burned it."

"I'm sorry . . . I. . ."

"Don't tell me about being sorry, because I don't want to know. I thought you loved Rachel, Peter, I thought you cared for her. Tim and I trusted you with her, we never questioned having you with her. But you actually came to live here, knowing all that had been going on. Are you completely mad?"

"I had no reason to think anything would happen here. And when they found Sarah's body . . . I thought it was over, Susie, I really thought it had ended."

"And has it?"

I hesitated.

"I. . . No, I don't think so. I don't understand what's going on, but I don't think she's done with me yet."

"And Rachel—has this woman done with her?"

"I don't think Rachel's involved. She—"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Peter. You must think I'm stupid. These nightmares she's been having, the screaming fits, all that talk about not wanting to go back someplace she lived in before this. She told me herself about the doll, she said it had belonged to her in another life." Susan paused. She was shaking like a leaf. "She's the little girl, isn't she? She's come back in my daughter. That's the truth, isn't it?"

I said nothing.

"Well, you aren't going to deny it, are you?"

"No."

She looked at me hard. I could feel her anger.

"Do you know, Peter, I don't think it could have been worse if I'd come home and found you with your hand in her knickers."

"That isn't fair," I said. "You know it isn't. I've done everything possible to protect Rachel. I destroyed the doll. I warned you against leaving Rachel alone. I kept a close eye on her when I was here. What more could I do? I'm as much out of my depth in this thing as you are."

"Nevertheless, you came here without thinking of the consequences." She let her gaze drift away. "Peter, I think you'd better leave. Go back to your own flat. This was only to be a limited stay anyway."

"All right. If that's what you'd like."

"Yes, it's what I'd like."

"I'm sorry, Susie. I don't mind going. I know I've stayed longer than I should have. I'll get my things now. Maybe you and Tim can come over for supper in a day or two and we can talk things over then."

I got up and went to the door.

"Peter."

Susan was still sitting at the table. I turned.

"I'm sorry, too," she said. "About Sarah. About whatever this thing is you've got yourself mixed up in. It's just that . . . I don't want anything to do with it. And I want to keep Rachel safe."

"I know you do. I want to see she's safe as well."

I did not tell her what Rachel had said to me the night before.

I saw little of Tim and Susan over the next few weeks, and Rachel only once. Time was heavy once more. The days passed slowly. Winter settled on the city and on me. There were no more dreams, or at least I did not wake remembering any. I do not think I dreamed at all. Sometimes I would wake at night, thinking there were voices in the flat, but when I looked, it was always empty.

With Sarah dead, I changed everything. I gave her clothes to the Salvation Army, her jewelry to various friends. There were photographs of her everywhere: I put them in drawers and shut them away in the darkness. She was often in my thoughts, but I found it increasingly hard to see her face in my mind's eye. And if I ever did, it was not Sarah that I saw, but a sepia image of Susannah Trevorrow.

My writing went well, all things considered. I had embarked on another novel, my first in over three years. I wrote in the mornings and spent most afternoons in the library, reading, or pretending to read. From time to time I would look up if an attractive woman passed. The confusion I felt between occasional sexual desire and grief left me depressed and weary.

Once or twice I thought I caught a glimpse of a woman in a black dress, but when I looked more sharply, it was always someone else. Once I mistook an elderly priest in his black suit and hat for her. I began to reason that it had all been a terrible fantasy, brought on by stress when Sarah went missing. Then I thought of Richard Adderstone and the things he had told me. He had not told me everything. I was certain he had been holding something back. But he had said enough to convince anyone that none of what had happened had been a fantasy. And I knew that this was simply the calm before a coming storm.'

In early November, a letter reached me from Raleigh. It had been posted from a hospital in Truro. His illness had progressed too far to admit of any possibility of cure, even had a powerful enough drug been available.

I lie here [he wrote] with scarcely the will to move. Writing is an intolerable burden. My children do not visit me. My ex-wife stays away. I am dying of loneliness.

In the mornings and late evenings I cough heavily, sputum and blood alike. There are fevers which leave me shaken and shivering in my bed. The nurses come and go, cheerful and efficient, but all of them know I am dying. Your wife is here most of the time now. They let her sit and watch by my bedside.

Before coming here, I discovered something I know you will find strange. The police officer in charge of the search for Susannah Trevorrow was a St. Ives man called Inspector Burrows. I wanted to know more of him. Perhaps he had left comments on the case. I tracked him down at last in a file in police archives. John Burrows died on the seventh of December 1887, only a few months after the Trevorrow inquest. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis, as I am about to die of it.

I had inquiries made in Tredannack, to see if anyone there might have sent the ring and doll to you. We found no suspects, but we did uncover something of interest. Your wife's was not the first disappearance in the region. You know about Adderstone's wife, of course. But for about thirty years, on and off, a number of women and children have vanished in and around Tredannack. The locals have a word for these disappearances. They call them vanishments. But they will not speak freely of them, or give details. The children are always girls aged four or thereabouts. And the women are always your wife's age or younger. The people of Tredannack live in a state of fear. They watch their wives and children constantly. Even the vicar is frightened and will not talk.

She was here last night, in the ward. It was after midnight, I think, though I have lost track of time in here. She sat in a chair facing the bed, watching me. Not your wife, I do not mean her. The other one. Agnes.

Did I tell you that someone dug up Susannah Trevorrow's grave? It was the night before the inquest. Like you, I have begun to wonder whose body it was we found on Zawn Quoits. Perhaps your wife knows. If it is your wife who visits me here.

That was all he wrote. I wrote back telling him what he knew already, that I had opened Susannah Trevorrow's grave. He did not reply. A couple of weeks later I had a letter from the hospital. He had asked them to let me know when he died. A funeral had been arranged for the following week. It was winter, and the trees outside my study window were already bare.

I went to Raleigh's funeral. His ex-wife and children were there, and colleagues from the force. At least they did not bury him alone. I was the last to leave the churchyard. What did I hope to see? My dead wife come to sit by his grave? Susannah Trevorrow with her child, floating like spindrift across the headstones?

It must have been about a week afterward that Rachel had her first fit. I only learned of it a few days after it had happened, when I called on Tim and Susan late one evening on my way home from the pub. I had been drinking alone as usual. Somehow, I seemed to have been doing a lot of that since the inquest. Relations between Tim, Susan, and myself had recovered, though they were far from what they had once been. Susan still distrusted me and thought it dangerous to have me around her daughter. I had only seen Rachel twice in as many months.

When I asked about her, Susan glanced at Tim anxiously, as though she was unsure what I should be told.

"She had a fit a couple of days ago," said Tim.

"I don't understand. Do you mean epilepsy?"

He shook his head.

"They don't know. She had one of those screaming attacks during the night. When Susan went in, she found her in convulsions. She managed to calm her down eventually while I called the doctor. He had her taken straight into hospital for tests. Everything came back negative. We've no idea whether it will happen again, or when."

It did happen again, the following day. And two days after that. Each time a team of doctors ran tests on her, each time they came back empty-handed. She was given Carbamazepine, a common antiepileptic, which her doctor recommended taking several times per day. Two days after that, she had her worst seizure, in the course of which she bit her tongue badly, requiring stitches. Tim rang me the following morning.

"Susan doesn't know this," he said. "I was the first to go in while Susie was getting the medicine. Rachel was on the bed, writhing up and down. She was being flung all over the place like a rag doll. The lamp on the bedside table was knocked to the floor." He paused. "Rachel didn't touch it. I saw for myself. The lamp was picked up and hurled to the ground. There was something in that room besides Rachel."

"Can I see her?"

"Susan doesn't want you here. She thinks you're responsible for all this."

"You know that isn't true."

"No, Peter, I don't know that. You may have intended none of this to happen, but it is happening nonetheless. We're at our wits' end. It just can't go on like this."

"I'll think of something," I said. "I promise."

Two nights later I had a call from him.

"Peter, can you stay the night?"

"What's wrong?"

"Susie had to go off at short notice.
The Sunday Times
needs her to interview this German fascist leader the Home Office wants to deport. She didn't want to leave Rachel, but I insisted. Frankly, I thought it would do her good to get away. She's worn-out, Peter; she needs a break."

"And you want me over there?"

"I need someone to help. Jennifer said she'd come over, but she rang five minutes ago to say she can't make it after all."

"What if something happens?"

"It's already happening. I don't think your presence will make the slightest difference. And I'd like you to see it for yourself anyway. The attacks are getting worse."