Page 52 of The Memory Wood

‘I do.’

‘Say it.’

‘I understand.’

‘Better.’

Meunier climbs to his feet. He sets off again, and I trip along beside him. Five minutes later we emerge on to the lane that runs past Fallow Field. His Land Rover Defender is parked halfway across it. ‘Hop in,’ he says. ‘I’ll run you back home.’

I can’t refuse, even though the prospect makes me sick. That pressure inside my head returns, like a wall’s about to collapse. I don’t know what’s behind it, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good.

The Defender smells citrusy, as if it’s recently been cleaned. I’m almost too afraid to let my filthy trainers touch the floor.

‘Don’t fuss,’ Meunier says, placing his rifle on the back seat. ‘It’s valeted every week. If you mess it up, at least they’ll earn their money.’ His lips spread further apart, and I’m struck by just how horrid it would feel to be kissed by him. Poor Mrs Meunier. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons we never see her.

He throws the 4x4 into reverse and performs a thumping three-point turn. Between us, the central console holds a bulky set of keys, a foldedDaily Telegraph, a black mobile phone and a Zeiss night scope. There’s also a brown leather wallet falling apart at the seams, stuffed full of cash, bank cards and receipts. Other than that, the vehicle looks like it’s just been driven from the showroom.

Meunier accelerates up the track. When the front wheels bounce over a hump, the quartered newspaper falls open, exposing half the front page.

Gretel stares up at me.

It’s such a shock that I slam back in my seat. When Meunier turns towards me I peer straight ahead, praying he won’t glance down. I need a distraction, and fast. Pointing to Fallow Field, I ask, ‘What’s the plan for next year?’

Meunier follows the thrust of my finger. ‘Personally, I want to try a biofuel,’ he says. ‘A starch crop we can convert into ethanol. Something along those lines.’

With his attention diverted, I risk another look at the paper. The headline swims in and out of focus, but two words are unmistakable:HOPE FADES …

When we pull up outside my parents’ cottage Meunier faces me. ‘Remember what I said. Don’t let me catch you in those woods again.’

‘I won’t.’

I have every intention of keeping that promise too. Perhaps I’ll get Kyle to teach me his silent walk or lend me his stinky camouflage paint. Clambering out of the Land Rover, I slam the door.

HOPE FADES.

Meunier waits a few moments before driving off. I feel his eyes on me as I trudge up the garden path.

Mairéad

Day 5

I

Nearly one hundred hours, now, since the abduction. The pressure on the investigation team is huge. Elissa’s fate is discussed on radio phone-ins, on social media, by parents collecting their kids from school. Her face appears on every news site and front page. Sightings continue to roll in, an unrelenting tide; to the control room at Winfrith; to forces across the UK. The task of logging them, prioritizing them and investigating or discounting them is a major feat of logistics.

Many of the calls come from dog-walkers on Dorset’s beaches. Karen Day, the Police Search Adviser, coordinates a huge team of officers, fire crews and civilian volunteers. Together, they search vast swathes of coast. The RNLI and coastguard provide waterborne support.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Bedford CF vans are tracked down, their owners interviewed and eliminated. The BMW driver who brake-checked Lena Mirzoyan is identified as Stuart Nicholas Pearson, an obnoxious financial adviser in his forties with a string of motoring convictions. He’s not a suspect – ANPR data shows him fifty miles away during theabduction. Officers drag him into an empty interview room regardless; leaving him there for a few hours to sweat gives everyone an odd sense of catharsis.

During her Wednesday-morning press briefing, Mairéad is fielding questions from the assembled press pack when she feels a sharp twinge of pain in her lower abdomen. For a few seconds, she cannot speak. Around the room, cameras click and flash. Journalists lean forward in their seats, eyes full of mischief. She knows what they’re thinking. Is the pressure getting too much? Are the cracks starting to show? Is she too emotional? Too fragile? Can she betrustedwith this?

And all Mairéad can think, as she stares into a forest of blank lenses and boom mics, isHold on, please hold on, stay with me, please don’t go.

She tries to say something, anything, but pain lances her abdomen once again. She wants to bend double, knows that she can’t. Mairéad’s ears fill with shouted questions. When she turns her back on the room, the journalists howl like wolves denied a kill. Halley, standing to one side, stares at her in open dismay. She pushes past him without breaking stride.

A minute later she’s in a cubicle, leaning against the partition wall. Already, the pain has retreated. But chaos rules inside her head. She cannot get her breath, cannot slow her heart.

At last, she lifts up her skirt and tugs down her underwear. There’s the evidence: two spots of blood, stark and accusatory and bleak. Her shoulders sag. And then she’s sitting, and her mobile’s in her hand, and she’s phoning Scott.

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