John Harvey: A Darker Shade of Blue

Before leaving, he had taken Rebecca to one side. ‘You’ll be here when we get back, you and Billie. Right here. Okay?’

‘Yes.’ A whisper.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I said, yes. Yes, all right.’ Not able to look him in the eye.

‘It better be.’

By the time they had returned, Keiron was exhausted, out on his feet, and his father had had to carry him the last half-mile. Billie was asleep, stretched across her mother’s lap. While he had been away, she had tried walking a little way in each direction, taking Billie with her, careful never to wander too far and lose her way back. She had seen nobody, heard nothing. She felt stupid for not doing anything more, without knowing what, safely, she could have done.

‘You look knackered,’ Anderson said. ‘Tired out. Why don’t you get your head down? Get a bit of sleep while you can.’

When she opened her eyes, not so many minutes later, he was sitting cross-legged at the far side of the tent, rifle close beside him, painstakingly cleaning his knife.

Not wanting to stand around like a spare part, waiting, Kiley had walked into the city, found a halfway decent place for breakfast and settled down to a bacon cob with brown sauce and a mug of serious tea and tried to concentrate on his book. No such luck. Jennie had rung him earlier on his mobile and he’d hesitated before giving her a truncated version of what little they knew, what they surmised.

‘Don’t say anything to his mother,’ he said. ‘Not yet, anyway.’

‘What d’you take me for?’

‘I’ll call you if I know anything more definite.’

‘You promise?’

Kiley promised. Breakfast over, he wandered around the city centre. The square in front of the council building was going through some kind of makeover; maybe they were turning it into a car park. The pavements were busy with early shoppers, people hurrying, late, to work, the occasional drinker with his can of cider clutched tight. He walked up the hill towards the Theatre Royal. Duncan Preston in To Kill a Mockingbird. All next week, The Rocky Horror Show. Big Time American Wrestling at the Royal Concert Hall. He was halfway down King Street, heading back towards the square, when his mobile rang. It was Resnick. They’d found something.

There was an OS map open on the table when Kiley arrived, the blurred image of a van frozen on the computer screen. Night-time. Overhead lights reflected in the road surface. There were several other officers in the room.

‘Two sightings of the possible van,’ Resnick said.

One of the officers, dark hair, dandruff on his shoulders, set the CCTV footage in motion.

‘The first here, junction 27 of the Ml, leaving the motorway and heading east towards the A608. And then here — see the time code — not so many minutes later, at the roundabout where it joins the 611. Turning south.’

‘Back towards the city?’ Kiley said, surprised.

‘Could be,’ Resnick said, ‘but for my money, more likely heading here. Annesley Forest.’ He was pointing at a patch of green covering almost two squares of the map.

‘Why there?’

‘Couple of years back, just north of here, Annesley Woodhouse, this man was found dead outside his home, ex-miner, lacerations to the head and upper body, crossbow found close by.’

‘Robin bloody Hood,’ someone remarked.

‘According to what we heard,’ Resnick continued, ‘there’d been one heck of a row between the dead man and a neighbour, all harking back to the miners’ strike, ’84. When we went to talk to the neighbour, of course he’d scarpered, gone to ground right there.’ Resnick pointed again. ‘Two and a half kilometres of woodland. Then, as if that weren’t bad enough, a second man, wanted for turning a shotgun on his own daughter, went missing in the same area. Bloody nightmare. We had extra personnel drafted in from all over, round five hundred all told. Dog teams, helicopters, everything. If that’s where Anderson’s gone, he could stay holed up for weeks.’

‘But we don’t know for sure,’ Kiley said.

‘We know next to bugger all,’ one of the officers said.

Resnick silenced him with a look. ‘There’s forest all around,’ he said, ‘not just this patch here. A lot of it, though, is criss-crossed with trails, paths going right through. Sherwood Forest especially, up by the Major Oak, even at this time of the year it’s pretty busy with visitors. But this is different. Quiet.’

Looking at the map, Kiley nodded. ‘How sure are we about the van?’ he said.

‘Traced the number plate. Citroen Berlingo. Rented from a place in North London — Edgware — two days ago. Name of Terence Alderman. Alderman, Alexander, T.A., close enough. Paid in cash.’

‘If he’s gone into the woods…’ Kiley began.

‘Then he’ll have likely dumped the van. We’ve got people out looking now. Until that turns up, or we get reports of a sighting, it’s still pretty much conjecture. And, as far as we know, nobody’s been harmed.’

‘I doubt if he’s taken them for their own good.’

‘Even so. I need a little more before I can order up a major search. Request one, at least.’

By which time, Kiley thought, what they were fearing but not yet saying, could already have happened.

‘I thought I might take a ride out that way,’ Resnick said. ‘Want to come along?’

While Rebecca watched, Anderson had talked both children into a game of hide-and-seek, warning them not to stray too far. Billie giggled from the most obvious hiding places, waving her arms, as if the point of the game was to be found. Once, Keiron skinnied down inside a hollow oak and stayed there so silent that his father, fearing maybe he’d run off, had called his name in anger and the boy had only shown himself reluctantly, scared of a telling-off or worse.

They picked at the corned beef, ate biscuits and cold beans, drank the sweet syrupy peach juice straight from the cans.

‘We should have done this more often,’ Anderson said.

‘Done what?’ said Rebecca sharply.

‘Gone camping,’ he said and laughed.

Sitting on the ground outside the tent, he showed his son how to strip down the rifle and reassemble it again.

‘Can we go after some rabbits?’ Keiron asked.

‘Maybe tomorrow.’

‘Will we still be here tomorrow?’

He left the question unanswered.

Just out of sight, beyond some trees, Anderson had dug a latrine. Walking back, Rebecca was aware of him watching her, the movement of her body inside her clothes.

‘Are you seeing anyone?’ he asked.

‘Seeing?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘No.’

‘No man then?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t know. I’m just not.’

‘You should.’

She went on past him and into the tent.

The day was sealed in with grey. Low hedgerows and mudded tracks and the occasional ploughed field. Why was it, Kiley asked himself, they didn’t seem to plough fields any more, ploughed and left bare? Londoner that he was, he could swear that was what he remembered, travelling north to visit relations in the country. Mile after mile of ploughed fields. That rackety little train that stopped everywhere. What was it? Hemel Hempstead, Kings Langley, Abbots Langley, Berkhamsted, Tring? His uncle, red-faced and — now, he thought, looking back — unreal, waiting outside the station at Leighton Buzzard, to take them home in a Rover that rattled more than the carriages of the train.

Resnick had opted to drive, the two of them up front as they made a careful circuit: Newstead, Papplewick pumping station, Ravenshead, south of Mansfield and back again, the A611 straight as a die from the corner of Cauldwell Wood, across Cox Moor to Robin Hood’s Hill and the supposed site of Robin Hood’s Cave. Then back down towards the forest, the trees at first bordering both sides of the road and then running thickly to the left.