Frances Fyfield - Trial by Fire

What had one interfering policeman found here? No true confessions, but enough to release one Antony Sumner, that teacher of impossible stupidity, who had nevertheless taught her a powerful use of the written word. Not evidence enough to convict the darling child. And here she would sit in her room, keeping secret her books and her contempt, aware that someone must feed her.

He froze at sounds from outside: car door, footsteps on gravel. With systematic speed, he began to search the remaining drawers in the desk, refusing to acknowledge the distraction.

He registered an explosion of argument inside the front door of the house. Raised voices: Amanda Scott, John Blundell, and the patient, apologetic drone of Constable Bowles. At that same moment Bailey's hand closed around the semi-chill of metal. In his fist was the gleam of a gold necklace, heavy, elegant, dull-coloured. He might have known. Of course William Featherstone would never have craved this. And William Featherstone was never watched either.

If you're so bloody worried, you go. Why should I be woken up? Let the little bastard get on with it.'

`He's not little. That's the problem. And he's not a bastard.' `Yes he is. You've only to look at him. He's not my flesh and blood, is he, Bernadette?'

Oh, so that's your excuse for never watching him, is it? Can't stand the thought he might be your responsibility after all this time? Well you can't get away with that, however hard you try and God knows you've tried often enough. Fucking's the only thing we ever got right, and he's the result. Now go and find him, fuck you.'

He recoiled from the explicit crudeness. Bernadette swore, cursed, and abused frequently, but rarely so personally. Harold was half awake, shaken from fully dressed sleep, dragged into his kitchen and his life disbelievingly, bereft of anything but slight shock and the merest semblance of cunning.

In the summerhouse, is he? And that copper's woman went out there three hours ago?

You've taken your time, haven't you, sweetheart? No worry like real worry. She'll have gone home hours ago, interfering bitch. What'd she be doing with a great dolt like William?'

`God alone knows, but she never came back. We'll both go, if you're too frightened.' For once he was not defensive, but did not move.

`Course I'm bloody frightened. Bloody summerhouse. Lights and ghosts, full of them.

I've seen 'em. So've you. It's you who's frightened.'

She was pulling on a coat, stubbing out her cigarette, simultaneous movements of fury.

It's two in the morning. Leave it out, Bernie, for Christ's sake.'

`Two in the morning, he says, as if it can wait. We've a violent son at large and a missing copper's wife. Does it never occur to you, Harold, that two in the morning means that by now someone, somewhere, might come looking for her if she hasn't gone home? Like now, for instance?' Bernadette's eyes were levelled over his head towards the kitchen doors leading to the bar.

Slowly Harold turned, imagining the presence of a silent blue-uniformed cavalry.

Through ill-focused eyes, he could see nothing but emptiness, a sound suggesting the approach of car engines. With one automatic movement, he stuffed lighter and cigarettes into his top pocket, grabbed her by the arm, pushed and pulled her through the back kitchen door.

Down the slope with stumbling, cursing steps, around the tree with ease, ceasing to hold Bernadette, who plodded behind.

The night was completely still, apart from the slightest breeze, a self-satisfied stillness auguring heat and lassitude under a late harvest moon, the garden awash with half-light, to which the eye could adjust easily. The summerhouse loomed ahead. Harold paused, listening for sound, hearing a muffled banging as he approached the door: boom, boom, weak inflictions of wood on wood almost below his feet, the sound of ineffectual effort, pausing as he paused, unconscious of him while he was acutely aware, all trace of whisky gone now except for the bile in his throat. Inside the door, voices, thank God, some normality. And at the opposite window, a fleeting, pale image of a face he had seen before, glimpsed quickly and gone, ignored for the moment.

Inside, the shed was half lit by the moon. Harold could see the trapdoor weighted with one full paraffin can, another one lay on its side. He remembered these surplus containers, heavy as hell, but he could not remember their purpose, strode towards them, began to heave them aside, conscious of spilling the last of the liquid from one, disgusted by the smell.

Stopped to the sound of a muffled question from under his feet.

Evie? That you, Evie?'

`No, it bloody isn't, son.'

Oh, God, it's you.'

Harold was repelled by the leaden disappointment in William's voice, audible through wood and heavy with rejection, even in extremis. It carried the sudden, strangely unacceptable truth that the loathing he felt for his son was entirely reciprocal, and it angered him. The voice continued with leaden, indifferent calm.

`Can you open the trapdoor, Dad? You pull from the left.'

Harold felt splinters enter his skin as he scrabbled for a gap on the left of an ill-fitting door, scarcely remembered now. He pulled, surprised by the ease of it until he saw the pale glow of Bernadette's hands pulling beside his own. Breathless with effort, he peered downward into the pitch, saw two upturned faces.

`Hello,' said one. 'We're very pleased to see you.'

Harold swore, passed his hands across his eyes, squinting. The cigarette lighter fell from his top pocket, plopped on the earth below. He had the vague, irrelevant sense of William stooping to retrieve it. In the distance, his ears caught the sound of a siren, an intrusion in the night, sounding the imminence of invasion. It increased his anger beyond his own believing.

`You're a filthy little bastard, William, that's what you are. Bringing women here, are you? Saves them looking at you. They'd need the dark, you pathetic little shit. You can stay in this stinking pit for ever, as far as I'm concerned, you little sod.'

Oh, be quiet, Mr Featherstone, will you,' said the other one, only now discernible as Helen West, speaking in a tone of almost pleasant urgency, not free, he noticed, of a slight overtone of disgust. 'Just shut up and help us out, will you?' She touched William's arm in the vain hope of giving him the comfort of conspiracy. 'Someone locked us in here by mistake.

And the ladder's broken.'

`

Take her, Dad.' Instructions from William, now utterly calm. He seized Helen by the waist and lifted her on to his shoulders. `Reach, missus, go on.' Miraculously swift, one balletic lift and an agonizing yank of shoulders taking her through the aperture virtually into Harold's arms. She pushed him away, knelt by the opening.

`Now you, William. Come on, the air's fresh up here.' Fresh with newly spilled paraffin seeped from the empty flagon, fresh with sour whisky breath, controlled rage, and the whimperings of Bernadette. Apart from the relief of escape there was little to recommend such freedom for William. It was unloving, threatening, full of retribution.

`Go away,' said William. 'Leave me alone.'

I'll tan your bloody hide,' roared Harold, his fists clenched.

`Belt up,' said Helen. 'Go and fetch a ladder, will you? And keep your mouth shut. He doesn't deserve that. Your bloody son deserves a whole lot better than that.'

Her furious face was upturned, eyes glittering in skin streaked with dirt, making Harold recoil in shock. He moved to the open shed door, Bernadette retreating with him, obedient.

"S'all right,' William said to Helen. 'Honestly, 's'all right. I can get out now. Just let me stay still a bit. Till he's calmed down.' She nodded agreement.

And then, from beyond the summerhouse came flashes of light and crashings of sound, footsteps thundering from the direction of the pub, crashing through bushes in directionless haste, men searching with raised voices, Helen at the opening: 'Wait here, William. You'll be out soon. And you won't be in trouble, I promise,' leaving the trapdoor in response to one familiar voice, running outside to find it. She had heard Bailey. She was sure she had heard Bailey, saw nothing but torchlight approaching the shed, the sound of male humanity, indistinguishable as anything but a ragged procession, the first breaking into a run, wavering torch beam catching first her own face, then something farther distant.