Mary Clark: Where are the children?

He waited all night for the call. But it never came. She never got back to the hotel. The next day he learned about the accident. The steering apparatus of the car she'd rented had failed. The car had careened off the road into a ditch.

He probably should have gone to Nancy. But when he finally got through to where she was staying, he spoke to Carl Harmon, the professor who said he and Nancy were planning to marry. He sounded perfectly competent and very much in charge. Nancy wouldn't be returning to Ohio. They had told her mother of their plans at dinner. Mrs Kiernan had been concerned about Nancy 's youth, but that was natural. She would be buried out there, where her husband was interred; the family had, after all, been residents of California for three generations until

Nancy was born. Nancy was bearing up well. He thought that it was best for them to have a quiet wedding immediately. Nancy should not be alone now.

There had been nothing for Lendon to do. What could he do? Tell Nancy that he and her mother had been falling in love? The odds were that she would simply have resented him. This Professor Harmon sounded fine, and undoubtedly Priscilla had simply been worried about Nancy 's taking such a decisive step as marriage at barely eighteen. But surely there was nothing that he, Lendon, could do about that decision.

He'd been glad to accept the offer to teach at the University of London. That was why he'd been out of the country and had never learned of the Harmon murder trial until after it was over.

It was at the University of London that he had met Allison. She was a teacher there, and the sense of sharing that Priscilla had begun to show him had made it impossible to go back to his well-ordered, solitary – selfish – life. From time to time he had wondered where Nancy Harmon had vanished. He'd been living in the Boston area for the last two years, and she was only an hour and a half away. Maybe now he could somehow make up for the way he had failed Priscilla before.

The phone rang. An instant later, the intercom light blinked on his phone. He picked up the receiver. 'Mrs Miles is on the phone, Doctor,' his secretary said.

Allison's voice was filled with concern. 'Darling, did you by chance hear the news about the Harmon girl?'

'Yes, I did.' He had told Allison about Priscilla.

'What are you going to do?'

Her question crystallized the decision he had already made subconsciously. 'What I should have done years ago. I'm going to try to help that girl. I'll call you as soon as I can.'

'God bless, darling.'

Lendon picked up the intercom and spoke crisply to his secretary. 'Ask Dr Marcus to take over my afternoon appointments, please. Tell him it's an emergency. And cancel my four-o'clock class. I'm driving to Cape Cod immediately.'

'We've started dragging the lake, Ray. We've got bulletins going out on the radio and TV stations, and we're getting manpower from all over to help in the search.' Chief Jed Coffin of the Adams Port police tried to adopt the hearty tone that he would normally use if two children were missing.

But even looking at the agony in Ray's eyes and the ashen pallor of his face, it was difficult to sound reassuring and solicitous. Ray had deceived him – introduced him to his wife, talked about her coming from Virginia and having known Dorothy there. He'd filled him with talk and never once told the truth. And the Chief hadn't guessed – or even suspected. That was the real irritation. Not once had he suspected.

To Chief Coffin, what had happened was very clear. That woman had seen the article about herself in the paper, realized that everyone would know who she was and gone berserk. Did to these poor kids the same thing she'd done to the others. Studying Ray shrewdly, he guessed that Ray was thinking pretty much the same thing.

Charred bits of the morning paper were still in the fireplace. The Chief realized Ray was looking at them. From the jagged way the unburned parts were torn, it was obvious they'd been pulled apart by someone in a frenzy.

'Doc Smathers still upstairs with her?' There was unconscious discourtesy in the question. He'd always called Nancy 'Mrs Eldredge' till now.

'Yes. He's going to give her a needle to relax her but not to put her out. We've got to talk to her. Oh, God!'

Ray sat down at the dining-room table and buried his face in his hands. Only a few hours ago Nancy had been sitting in this chair with Missy in her arms and Mike asking, 'Is it really your birthday, Mommy?' Had he triggered something in Nancy by demanding she celebrate?… And then that article. Had…?

'No!' Ray looked up and blinked, turning his head away from the sight of the policeman standing by the back door.

'What is it?' Chief Coffin asked.

' Nancy is incapable of harming the children. Whatever happened, it wasn't that.'

'Your wife when she's herself wouldn't harm them, but I've seen women go off the deep end, and there is the history…'

Ray stood up. His hands clenched the edge of the table. His glance went past the Chief, dismissing him. 'I need help,' he said. 'Real help.'

The room was in chaos. The police had made a quick search of the house before concentrating on the outside. A police photographer was still taking pictures of the kitchen, where the coffeepot had fallen, spewing streams of black coffee on the stove and floor. The telephone rang incessantly. To every call the policeman answering said, 'The Chief will make a statement later.'

The policeman at the phone came over to the table. "That was the AP,' he said. 'The wire services have got hold of this. We'll be mobbed in an hour.'

The wire services. Ray remembered the haunted look that had only gradually left Nancy 's face. He thought of the picture in this morning's paper, with her hand up as though trying to fend off blows. He pushed past Chief Coffin and hurried upstairs, opening the door of the master bedroom. The doctor was sitting next to Nancy, holding her hands. 'You can hear me, Nancy,' he was saying. 'You know you can hear me. Ray is here. He's very worried about you. Talk to him, Nancy.'

Her eyes were closed. Dorothy had helped Ray strip off the wet clothes. They'd put a fluffy yellow robe on her, but she seemed curiously small and inert inside it – not unlike a child herself.

Ray bent over her. 'Honey, please, you've got to help the children. We've got to find them. They need you. Try, Nancy – please try.'

'Ray, I wouldn't,' Dr Smathers warned. His lined, sensitive face was deeply creased. 'She's had some kind of terrible shock – whether it was reading the article or something else. Her mind is fighting confronting it.'

'But we've got to know what it was,' Ray said intently. 'Maybe she even saw someone take the children away. Nancy, I know. I understand. It's all right about the newspaper. We'll face that together. But, darling, where are the children? You must help us find them. Do you think they went near the lake?'

Nancy shuddered. A strangled cry came from somewhere in her throat. Her lips formed words: 'Find them… find them.'

'We will find them. But you must help, please. Honey, I'm going to help you sit up. You can. Now, come on.'

Ray leaned down and supported her in his arms. He saw the raw skin on her face where the sand had burned it. There was wet sand still clinging to her hair. Why? Unless…

'I gave her a shot,' the doctor said. 'It should relieve the anxiety, but it won't be enough to knock her out.'

She felt so heavy and vague. This was the way she'd felt for such a long time – from the night Mother died… or maybe even before that – so defenceless, so pliable… so without ability to choose or move or even speak. She could remember how so many nights her eyes would be glued together – so heavy, so weary. Carl had been so patient with her. He had done everything for her. She had always told herself that she had to get stronger, had to overcome this terrible lethargy, but she never could.