The Vanishment (6 page)

No, not quite. It was at the third painting that I noticed a tiny but marked difference between the three pictures I had seen so far. On the wall behind the sitter was the damp patch I had noticed in the room. In each of the pictures, the shape of the patch changed slightly, and it seemed to be growing in several directions.

Quickly, I leafed through the remaining pictures. There were nine in all. They all showed the same scene. In the last, the damp patch had grown until it covered most of the wall. And I could see, when I looked more closely, that the wallpaper was about to give in one place. I bent down and brought the light right up to the picture. As I did so I shuddered. In the painting, against the wallpaper, pressing hard as though about to burst through, was the unmistakable shape of a child's hand.

I rang the police early the next morning. The night I passed was difficult. There were bad dreams. Or, rather, the same dream as before. And when I woke, bad thoughts. There were noises somewhere in the house, but I did not investigate them. I knew Sarah had not made them, and I did not want to know who had.

The policeman who took my call suggested that I ought to call at the station in order to file a missing-person report. After checking with Tim and Susan that Sarah had still not turned up in London, I drove to St. Ives. The main police station was in Will's Lane, next to Trewyn Gardens. A desk sergeant showed me to a side room. About ten minutes later a young policewoman came to take details of Sarah's disappearance. I had brought a photograph, one of the shots we had taken at St. Just's church. It had been developed at the pharmacy in Tredannack. They noted it and filed it away, together with a detailed description and an account of my efforts until then.

"It's well over forty-eight hours," the policewoman said. Her voice was neutral, there was no hint of accusation in it that I can remember. That was what I feared, of course: accusation, the leveling of guilt, the implication that I had done something to Sarah and that my innocence was mere posturing.

At this time of year my limbs ache. I am sometimes afraid without reason of small things, of shadows, of movements spied from the eye's corner.

'I'm sorry?" I said.

"Why did you take so long before notifying us?"

"It's not so long," I said. "I had every reason to think she'd turn up by now. Why not? She's not a child. It isn't as if she was in obvious danger."

"But you say she took no money, no spare clothes. By the next day that must have been a great inconvenience for her."

"I don't know. She may have had money. She has her own bank account. I don't know how much she had in her handbag to start with."

"I think she'd have taken the bag. Most women would. Did she have credit cards?"

I nodded.

"And are they still in the bag?"

"Yes."

"All of them?"

"Yes, I think so. I'd have to check. There's Visa, Access, one or two shop cards."

"Normally we wouldn't investigate an adult disappearance at this stage," she said slowly, watching me, as though expecting some reaction. "People often walk out on their spouses. If your wife wants to be on her own, that's her business. You do understand that, don't you?"

"She hasn't walked out," I insisted. "She would have taken her things."

"Yes, I understand that, sir. That's why I think we may have to take a closer look. I'll get in touch with headquarters at Camborne. If the super agrees, he'll send someone out this afternoon to take a look around. They'll want to see if there's anything you've missed."

I looked at her, not knowing what to say or do. My name had meant nothing to her. I was a stranger. Just a man whose wife had walked away into darkness.

Small movements in the half shadows frighten me, and the voices of small children.

Two constables came and searched the house. One of them took a walk through the grounds. Birds were singing.

"Did you have a fight?" his colleague asked, back in the house, in the library. I had been writing, and papers were strewn across the table.

"No," I said. "Not a fight."

I tried to explain, to make him understand.

"The house, you say? She was afraid of it?"

"Yes. It's an old house. It has memories. She thought something had happened here, something unpleasant."

"This woman, the one in the pub. What did you say her name was?"

"Trebarvah. Margaret Trebarvah. But you can ask any of the locals. They all know about the house."

He jotted down the name in his notebook.

"I daresay. But it's your wife I'm interested in at present."

He was young, with a fair mustache. For all his pleasant manner, I could see the seeds of suspicion.

Perhaps, he was thinking, I am sure of it, perhaps the terrible thing had happened more recently. Perhaps I had done away with Sarah and was now attempting to put the police off my track. I am sure that was what was going through his mind. Or something very like it.

The constable shivered.

"It's cold in here," he said.

I said nothing.

On damp days my bones swell. I can smell the sea, even if I am far inland. And with the smell come other things, unbidden. The sound of the sea is merciless and repetitive. And there are other sounds I fear. I pretend I do not hear them, but they are there.

That evening I went to Tredannack, to the Green Dragon. Ted was there behind the bar as usual, and Doreen, his wife, in a green dress. He served me a pint of Old Cornish. As I lifted it he asked after Sarah.

"Isn't your wife with you tonight, Mr. Clare?"

I thought of lying, but I had no strength for subterfuge.

"She's missing," I said. "She hasn't been to Tredannack by any chance, has she?"

He shook his head, looking at me oddly.

"I've not seen her myself. What do you mean 'missing'?"

I explained as best I could.

"It was the house," I said. "It chased her away."

"I reckon so."

"Tell me, is Margaret Trebarvah here tonight?"

He shook his head.

"She may be in later," he said. "Depends what's on the telly. Margaret's a great one for that."

"I'd like to speak to her. Let me know if she comes in."

He nodded, and turned to serve his next customer. I was ignored as usual. By force of habit, I took my glass to a corner table. A few eyes followed me.

It was near closing time when I looked up and saw Ted Bickleigh standing next to me.

"Margaret Trebarvah's just come in," he said. "Doreen's serving her now. She sometimes has a pint before bedtime. I reckon it's her excuse to keep out of the way till Bill's fast asleep. If you catch my meaning. She's never been the same since the kiddie disappeared.”

"The kiddie?"

"Didn't you know? They had a little girl. Three or four, she was. It happened about five years ago. Went out to play one day and never come back. Police looked everywhere, but they never found a body. Reckon one'll turn up in time, though. They always do."

Had that been what drew Sarah to Margaret Trebarvah? I wondered. Would Sarah "turn up" one day, a small, sad corpse in someone's woodland?

Margaret Trebarvah was a small, ruined woman in her midthirties. She had never been pretty, never been happy. Her eyes were watery and furtive. Whenever I tried to hold them, they would shift away, now to this corner, now to that. She sat before me, arms crossed defensively, mouth set, as though pinned to her seat. I could tell that her husband beat her. Where it would not show. His grief for the child would have been turned on her.

"Would you like a drink, Margaret?" I asked.

"Got a drink," she muttered, looking away.

"Let me get you another one. There's still a bit before Ted calls time. What would you like?"

"Got all I want."

"All right, then. Do you mind if I sit down? I'd like a word with you."

She shifted, as though thinking of standing up and leaving. I noticed we were being watched.

"I saw you here three nights ago," I said. "My wife said you'd had a little chat, you and her. It upset her, but she wouldn't tell me what it was about. I thought maybe you'd tell me. Seeing as it concerns me."

She looked up from her drink—a pint of bitter— then let her eyes slide away.

"She'll tell herself if you ask," she mumbled. "No reason not to."

"I can't ask her. She’s gone. Vanished."

That got her attention. There was no mistaking the look of sheer terror that crossed her face. Then, drawing herself in—as she was no doubt well accustomed to doing when Bill lashed out—she took a mouthful from her glass.

"Gone back to London, has she?"

"I don't know. I was hoping you might give me a clue. You told her something about our house. You frightened her. Later that night she got out of bed and walked off. Why? What was she thinking of? I think you know. Or can guess."

She looked up, raising her head very slowly. People were still stealing glances. It would soon be closing time.

"What makes you think she's gone?"

"What?"

"Maybe she hasn't gone. Maybe she's still there. Have you thought of that? Have you?"

"What happened there? Why won't you tell me?"

She gave me a wretched look, like someone who feels sick.

"And have it happen over again? We've enough troubles, mister, without the likes of you coming here and stirring up what you don't understand."

She drained her glass. Her eyes were full of some sort of pain. She stood.

"Margaret, please. What happened? I have to know."

She leaned across the table.

"There was a woman," she said. "A young woman. This was in the days before the road. There was just a lane then, mud and that. She lived in Petherick House with her father. He'd a black temper, a man's temper. Got her pregnant, so they say. Or maybe not, maybe there was another man, I don't know. But he'd never let her out after that. Something was done to the baby; they say she killed it. God knows. But he kept her locked up in one room for a year or more after. And then she died. Of a broken heart, they say. Or he killed her."

She stopped. She had come to the end of her story.

"That's all there is?"

"She's there still. She won't let go, doesn't know how to. Trapped."

"What age? What age of woman was she?"

"Don't know. This is all handed down, I've never seen a photograph or nothing. She was young, they say. Twenty-five or so."

She got to her feet. Heads turned.

'What else?" I asked. I knew there was more. But she went out without answering.

On returning, I went up to the bedroom. I had been stupid, I had not checked the most obvious thing, because it had not occurred to me to do so. If Sarah had gotten out of bed and gone out, she must have changed into outdoor wear of some kind. But when I looked through the room again, I could not think of anything that was missing. Except for one thing: her nightgown.

In my dream that night, I climbed to the first landing. It was dark, very dark. When I woke, the house all around me was still. But I felt sure, I do not know why, I felt sure that if I had wakened just moments earlier, I would have heard something.

The next day I was visited by the detective chief inspector from Camborne Division, a man called Raleigh. With him was an assistant, a much younger man whose name I forgot then and have never since remembered. Raleigh held all my attention during that visit. He was a coarse man, ill-bred and ill-mannered, yet he was astonishingly aware of these and other deficiencies, and I sensed how powerful an effort he exerted at all times to correct himself, to modify by a word here or a gesture there the impression of boorishness or rudeness he knew he must be making. Later, on examining his behavior and going back over his questions in my mind, I realized that he was, in fact, a highly intelligent man, a man who had come far by much effort, but who would, he knew, go no further in life. His manner held him back, his primitiveness, the curse of roughness that his parents had so unwittingly laid upon him at birth.

"Is your name Clare?"

"Peter Clare, yes." I was standing in the doorway, dressed in an open-necked shirt and light trousers. I had been in the garden at the back when the car drew up.

"I'd like to have a word with you."

He was standing on the doorstep with the air of a man who will not be sent away.

"Well, I. . . I don't know. Who exactly . . . ?"

He handed me a card. Half a dozen steps behind him, his colleague lurked, embarrassed or just diffident.

"Well, Chief Inspector," I went on, handing the card back to him. "I don't really know. I've given all the details I know to the policewoman who interviewed me in St. Ives. I wasn't planning—"

"I don't have all day, you know. Are you going to leave us standing here or what?"

I could see there was no getting rid of him. I could hardly have shut the door in his face.

"You'd better come on in, then."

He turned and spoke gruffly to the younger man. "Don't stand there gawping."

I took them to the drawing room.

"Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?"

"Don't drink either. Sit down. I'd like to get this over with."

He had already taken a chair and was pointing me toward one facing it. His assistant shifted for himself, bringing a hard chair from the back of the room and setting it near us. I noticed him take a tape recorder from his pocket.

"Is that necessary?" I asked. "It's not as if—"

"Saves time. You can have it off if you like. But I'd prefer it on." He hesitated. "If you don't mind."

"Very well, if you like. I take it you've come to talk about Sarah."

"Sarah, yes. Your wife."

The underling switched the machine on and placed it gently on the table beside me. I wondered if it would pick up the low growl of the sea outside.

"Your parents-in-law have been in touch with their local police, Mr. Clare. They're worried about your wife, what's become of her. They don't seem to have much faith in your efforts to find her. I'd call that interfering, but it's not my place to say. What about you? Do you reckon that's a fair line for them to take?"