The engine fired and ticked over smoothly. Then the car moved off, picking up speed with its usual feeling of power. Peter glanced at his watch: three-thirty. He wouldn't be back in Woodside before four-fifteen at the earliest, Gavin would be getting worried, and he just hoped that the boy would have the sense to wait in the playground until he arrived. Damn it, there were no phone boxes on this stretch of road, no chance of getting a message to the school. He just had to drive hard and fast and pray that he would not break down again. Or crash. Hell, his nerves were frayed.
It was already dusk when the Saab's headlights illuminated the scattered farm cottages on the outskirts of Woodside. With an urgency, almost panic, Peter drew to a halt outside the school. The light from the end classroom showed up in the square of concrete bordered by railings which was the playground. It had an air of desertion about it, as though everybody had left and wouldn't come back.
Peter jumped out of the car and almost ran into the enclosure. He had to restrain himself from yelling, Gavin. Where are you? He stopped and looked around. There was nobody in sight. Oh God! Yet the school would not have been shut up with a light burning. There must be somebody around: there had to be.
'Can I help you, Mr Fogg?'
Peter whirled and tensed. He hadn't heard the soft footfalls of Malcolm Hughes approaching from behind. The schoolmaster must have been standing in the shadows by the buildings, waiting and watching. For what? Why was he so bloody secretive?
'Where's Gavin?' Peter's voice was terse, almost accusing. 'What have you done with my son?'
'He left about a quarter of an hour after school finished.' Hughes' supercilious smirk had Peter wanting to smash his fist into that florid face and shout: You've no business letting him leave. You're responsible for him until I come to collect him.
'Left?' Peter managed an incredulous croak. 'But—'
'Don't worry.' Hughes took his time, as though he was enjoying keeping the other in suspense. 'He hasn't gone off on his own. He was fortunate enough to be offered a lift up to Hodre.'
A lift! Jesus, hardly anybody went right up there into the hills. Maybe Janie had come back early from her parents. Then why the hell didn't this stupid sod say so?
'He's had a lift with Mr Ruskin in his Land Rover.'
Rushkin! Peter stiffened as a wave of cold fear passed over him and seemed to centre around his heart. The Land Rover which he had seen leaving the scene of the fire last night . . . The sheer malevolence in the landowner's eyes when they had met earlier that day . . . And now for some inexplicable reason Tim Ruskin had offered Gavin a lift home—or somewhere.
'Why? For God's sake, why's Ruskin taken my boy?'
'I never for one moment thought you would have any objection to one of your neighbours giving your son a lift home.' The headmaster's thick eyebrows rose and twitched. 'Mr Ruskin is a governor of the school and well-respected locally. He called to discuss a small matter with me after school, and as he left, Gavin was still hanging around outside waiting for you. In fact, I suggested that Mr Ruskin should make a slight detour and drop him off at your place. Surely there's nothing wrong in that, is there?'
'No, I suppose not.' Peter pursed his lips. Providing he's taken him home. 'No, nothing wrong at all. Thanks, Mr Hughes. I'd better rush back though because my wife's away today and the house is locked up.' And it's getting dark I
A mist was coming down, or was it the low cloud coming back, a mantle to cloak more evil? Peter drove fast, praying that nobody would be coming in the opposite direction on sidelights. The narrow lane seemed to hedge him in like a nightmare Hampton Court maze in which he thought he was never going to find the way out. It seemed unfamiliar, as though he had missed a turning somewhere and would go round and round in circles throughout the nocturnal hours. And all the time Gavin was—where?
Then the incline started to level out. Peter sighed audibly and eased his foot off the throttle. Hodre; the small stone cottage by the roadside was picked out in the headlights, a dark blue Mini parked on the adjoining grass verge. Janie was back, too. Everything was all right, there had been nothing to worry about all along. His own fears had escalated because he had let them run haywire; like Janie.
He sat in the car for a few moments after he had switched off engine and lights. Calm yourself, laddie, he told himself. The last thing you want Janie to see is that it's getting you, too. It's all in the mind. But the phone call wasn't. Neither was the fire, nor the gutted cat.
'What took you so long?' Janie was at the kitchen sink scrubbing a bowl of potatoes. It looked as if she'd been back some time.
Peter licked his lips. Another problem: he'd have to tell her about the malicious hoax call, unless he could think up a plausible lie instantly. It wasn't like writing a book, where he could take his time and get it right. Janie's eyes were already boring into him, looking for the lie.
'Where's Gavin?' Stall, play for time.
'Whatever d'you mean? A look of incredulity merged into sudden mounting terror. 'You've just collected him from school, haven't you?'
The room seemed to tilt and spin. Peter clutched at the table, saw Janie's horror through a blur, heard her yell, 'Well, you did collect him, didn't you? Didn't you?
'Ruskin gave him a lift home. So Hughes said.'
'Why?' She came towards him, fists clenched, and for one moment he thought she was going to hit him. 'Why didn't you pick him up, Peter? Where've you been?'
'I . . . ' It would take too long to explain; maybe later when . . . 'Look, I'll phone Ruskin and find out what's going on.'
She followed him into the hall, clinging to his arm with fingernails that dug into his flesh as he thumbed through the dog-eared telephone directory. The pages stuck together and he had to dampen his shaking forefinger to free them. Jesus Christ, he felt like throwing up. Don't panic. He found it, started to dial and wished that Janie would let go of him.
Ringing out, that same groaning btr-brr-brr, as though the bell the other end was going to slow to a halt any second. Then it stopped, and he knew he was through.
'Ruskin's farm.' A woman's voice. It sounded young; probably a teenage daughter.
'I want to speak to Mr Ruskin please.'
'I'm sorry, he's out.' No offer of a message to be delivered or a 'can I help you'. Just a plain statement of fact, take it or leave it.
'I—this is Peter Fogg of Hodre speaking. Mr Ruskin gave my son a lift home from school . . . '
A silence; embarrassing because he could not see the girl's reaction. Maybe she'd put the phone down and gone away, or maybe she just hadn't heard. Or didn't want to hear.
'I don't know anything about that.' A kind of what-are-you-telling-me-for tone.
'My son isn't here,' Peter said sharply. 'I'd like to know where he was dropped off.'
'I'll leave a message for Dad.' He could visualise her expression of annoyance, the receiver on its way back to its resting place.
'Look, my son is missing and—'
The line went dead. Peter felt his hand tightening over the handset. He suddenly wanted to crush it, to throw the broken instrument on to the floor, stamp on it, crush it into a powder. Instead, he dropped it back on its cradle and tried not to look at Janie.
'Ruskin must have dropped him off.' She was fighting to kindle a ray of hope, striving for optimism. 'He'd have no reason to—to—' To what?
'In that case'—Peter knew he had to do something positive, something active—'we'd better go and look for him. Come on, let's try the granary first, Maybe he's up there playing with his new rabbit.
If he was, then he hadn't taken the torch; Peter's optimism wavered when he found the rubber-cased torch in its usual place in the porch. Janie wasn't letting him out of her sight, didn't even bother to put on a coat as they went outside. It was fully dark now, the atmosphere damp and cold, threatening rain before morning.
Peter lifted the latch of the heavy granary door, creaked it open and swung the beam inside. The place smelled musty, a typical outhouse that hadn't been cleaned out for years, with rusting broken outdated farm implements, a mouldy bale of hay and the make-shift hen coop on a discarded table. 'Look' Janie caught her breath. 'The rabbit's gone' The small wire-mesh door hung wide open, revealing some shavings and a half-eaten swede inside. Nothing else.
'It can't have gone!' Janie stared at the empty hutch as though trying to will the small animal suddenly to rise up out of the shavings, to materialise from anywhere. As if to taunt her, the small door swung gently in the draught.
'Well it has gone,' Peter snapped, 'and in all probability Gavin's taken it with him.'
'But why? Where to?'
There were no answers to those questions. Yet. He turned away, not wanting to put his thoughts into words. It was last Saturday morning all over again; they'd have to go out, search by torchlight, shout until they were hoarse. Go up to the forest again . . .
They went back down the steps in silence. Both of them knew what they had to do, there was no point in discussing it.
They climbed the steep slope behind the house, the mist throwing back the torch beam, a murky gloom that could have hidden—anything.
Peter paused. Janie was out of breath, leaning hard on him. He opened his mouth to say something, anything; they couldn't stand the silence any longer, but in the second before his vocal chords had time to function, the stillness was broken by a piercing scream, a yell of sheer terror which was suddenly all too familiar.