Хилари Боннер - Dreams of Fear

Grateful thanks for their inestimable assistances are due to:

Former Detective Constables John Wright and Chris Webb, Devon and Cornwall Police; former Detective Sergeant Frank Waghorn, Avon and Somerset Police; Michael Johns, doyen of Instow and the North Devon Yacht Club; Pete and Sandra Morris, long-time friends from my home town of Bideford.

The child appeared suddenly right in front of the car as Gerry Barham turned into Estuary Vista Close.

A little girl, starkly illuminated in the beam of their headlights, was running towards Gerry and Anne’s vehicle, as if totally unaware of the danger she was in.

Her long blonde hair was flying around her face, her feet were bare, and her mouth was wide open as if she might be screaming, but inside the car Gerry and Anne could hear nothing but the rumble of the engine and the shrieking noise of burning rubber on tarmac as Gerry slammed on the brakes and the wheels locked into a skid.

Anne cried out in shock. The child kept on running. Gerry swung the steering wheel to the right. The car continued to skid. It seemed for ever before it slowed at all. But the child was no longer before them, having disappeared from their narrow field of vision as suddenly as she had appeared in it. There was then a dreadful moment when Gerry thought they and his treasured Mercedes were going to smash into the Morgan-Smith’s newly erected natural stone wall. Involuntarily he closed his eyes.

Ultimately the vehicle jerked to a halt just in time, slamming Gerry and Anne against their seat belts. Gerry wondered if his safety airbag would open. That had happened once before when he’d made an emergency stop. Not this time thankfully.

He turned to his left, staring through the passenger window at the stretch of road where the child had been. Gerry didn’t know the exact time, but he thought it must be well after midnight. Possibly nearer to one. The rain, which had started just as they left Bideford, was falling steadily now. There was no moon visible. No stars. The Close, half a mile or so up the hill to the rear of the North Devon seaside village of Instow, had no street lighting, and was the type of residential road where, by and large, most of the residents retired early to their beds. Except directly ahead, where his headlights were illuminating the Morgan-Smith’s wall, Gerry could see nothing but blackness.

‘What the heck was that?’ he muttered, reaching into his pocket for his mobile phone.

‘Little Joanna Ferguson, I’m almost sure, in her pyjamas,’ responded his wife. ‘Oh my God, Gerry, we didn’t hit her, did we?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Gerry. ‘But I can’t be certain.’

He switched on his phone’s torch. A shaft of light bounced around the interior of the car, primarily illuminating his wife’s pale face.

‘I’m going to go and look,’ said Gerry. ‘I don’t dare move the car in case she’s behind us.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ said Anne, reaching for her own phone.

The Barhams had been to dinner with friends in nearby Bideford. They were rarely out that late, but it had been a little party celebrating a ruby wedding anniversary, a particularly jolly affair, and considerable quantities of good food and wine had been consumed. Upon which, Gerry sincerely hoped, for his own sake as well as hers, that the child had not been hit. He was usually very careful about drinking when he was driving. Indeed, throughout his life he had been the sort of man who made sure he would never be caught falling foul of the law, and he was pretty sure that he was within the limit. But he knew he’d drunk at least a glass more than he would normally.

‘Shit,’ he muttered to himself under his breath. Anne didn’t like to hear him swear. But on this occasion she did not seem to notice.

Once they were both out of the car he could see that his wife had switched on her torch and was shining it from side to side. He started to do the same, hunching his inadequately clad upper body against the driving rain.

‘I can’t see her, can you?’ he called.

‘Not yet,’ Anne called back. ‘What on earth is she doing out at this time of night? I’m sure it’s little Jo— oh, thank God, there she is... ’

She stopped speaking. Gerry could see that she was shining the light from the torch onto her own face.

‘It’s me, Jo, it’s Anne,’ she said. ‘Don’t be scared.’

Gerry hurried towards his wife.

Joanna Ferguson, whom he knew to be just six years old, was half concealed by the wheelie bin she seemed to be trying to hide behind. Anne had reached for the little girl’s hand and was trying to coax her out onto the pavement, speaking to her in that soothing comforting way she had with children. Finally Joanna stepped forward. Both Anne and Gerry knew her and the rest of the Ferguson family reasonably well, albeit as neighbours rather than friends. They had even occasionally babysat Jo and her twin brother since they’d retired to Instow seven years earlier and moved into the house next door to the Fergusons.

Joanna looked to be in quite a state, her appearance worsened by the effects of the heavy rain. Now that she wasn’t running, her blonde hair lay flattened to her head, lank and dark. She was sobbing uncontrollably. Her pyjamas were sodden.

‘What is it, darling?’ asked Anne gently. ‘Whatever’s wrong?’

The little girl looked as if she was trying to speak, but didn’t seem able to get any words out. Her breath came in short sharp gasps. She was shaking from head to toe. Gerry wasn’t sure whether that was just because of the cold and the rain or something else. Something more. He was beginning to think it was something more.

He slipped off his jacket and, although the shoulders were already thoroughly damp, passed it to Anne. She stepped forward and took the jacket, then wrapped it and her arms around little Jo.

‘What’s happened, darling?’ she asked again.

Again the child seemed unable to reply.

‘Look Joanna dear, we must get you into the warm,’ Anne continued. ‘Shall I take you home? Are Mummy and Daddy there? They wouldn’t leave you on your own, I know that.’

The little girl stopped sobbing quite abruptly and looked up at Anne through wide eyes.

‘M-m-mummy is... is there, I want my mummy and d-daddy,’ she stumbled. ‘I c-can’t get to my m-m... ’

The child’s voice tailed off, as she started to sob again.

‘You want Mummy and Daddy,’ echoed Anne. ‘Yes, of course you do.’

Anne lifted the little girl up, keeping Gerry’s jacket wrapped around her, and pressing the child tightly against her upper body.

‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ she soothed. ‘Your feet must be cold and sore, I should think. You’ve not even got your slippers on, have you?’

The child did not reply, but her sobbing abated very slightly.

‘I think Mummy must be asleep,’ Anne continued. ‘Or she would never have let you wander off out into the street, would she? How did you get out of the house, anyway, you little monkey?’

Anne’s voice was light. But, then, of course it was, thought Gerry. Clearly Anne’s principle intention was to reassure the little girl and get her to safety.

Gerry still had a lurking sense of unease, and felt sure Anne did too. He told himself that Jo’s mother, Jane, must have failed to lock the front door properly, or something like that.

Jane’s husband, Felix, had told him how badly she was sleeping. He knew she had all sorts of problems in that regard. Maybe she’d been desperate for sleep and had taken a sleeping pill. More than likely that’s what she had done.