Stuart Harrison - Lost Summer

‘She was never found,’ Adam finished. He was standing by the window. The rain had stopped and the sun was struggling to break through the clouds above Islington.

Morris was thoughtful. ‘What do you think happened to her?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Didn’t you ever speak to David about it? Even after Nick’s father was killed?’

Adam went over and sat down. His leg was playing up, causing him to limp slightly. ‘We never mentioned it.’

‘Obviously this whole event made a significant impression on you,’ Morris said. ‘Are you saying that your choice of career stems from this incident?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Why do you think that is?’

‘Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to come up with the psychological whys and wherefores?’

‘I’m more interested in what you think.’

‘I suppose I feel guilty.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I didn’t tell anyone what I’d seen.’

‘So, you think David had something to do with whatever happened to the gypsy girl?’

‘Don’t you? I’m sure he knew her. I think he was seeing her. It must have been him that I saw in the trees the day she vanished. And what about the bracelet the police found?’

‘You think he planted it in Nick’s dad’s van?’

‘What else was he doing?’

‘I think it’s all what the law would call circumstantial evidence. You’re telling me that your choice of career, your dedication to your work …’

‘You mean obsession.’

Morris smiled. ‘You’re saying that this all stems from a sense of guilt.’

‘Maybe not guilt exactly. Partly perhaps.’ Adam struggled to articulate something he’d always known, but had never confronted openly even to himself. ‘Maybe when I’m looking for a missing child, I’m looking for her too in a sense. For Meg.’

Morris considered this, and then gave a little smile. ‘It seems very neat.’

‘Neat?’

‘Your extreme dedication to your work stemming from this incident when you were what, sixteen? Which results ultimately in the breakdown of your relationship with Louise. That is what you seem to be telling me isn’t it?’

‘I’m not telling you anything. I thought you were the one who came up with the answers.’

‘If that was true, I would say that there is more.’

‘More?’

‘That you haven’t told me everything. In my experience psychological cause and effect is never so straightforward as this.’

Adam didn’t say anything. Morris was right. There was more. But none of it was relevant. Louise just needed to understand that once a girl had vanished and she remained on his conscience, rightly or wrongly. ‘Time’s up,’ he said, rising to leave.

There was a postscript to Meg’s disappearance that Adam didn’t tell Morris about. During the final weekend of the summer Adam went fishing with David and the others at Cold Tarn. It was a long ride up to the fells and then through the forest to the lake. When they got there Adam wandered off along the shore and found a shady place where he cast his line out into the water and then propped his rod against a log and sat down to read The Catcher in the Rye. After a while he felt drowsy, lulled by the peace and the stillness of the water. He nodded off and when he woke it was getting late. He checked his line and found his bait gone as usual, but no fish on the hook so he packed up and started back along the shore to look for the others.

There was a part of the shore where he had to cut into the woods that fringed the lake to avoid a high rocky promontory that formed one side of a small bay. He would have passed by, but he saw David standing by the water’s edge, seemingly deep in thought. Intrigued, Adam put his gear down and moved closer, quietly making his way out along the promontory. David remained motionless looking out across the lake. Though Adam followed his gaze there was nothing to see but the still, almost black waters of the tarn, and high above the far shore the small outline of a walkers’ hostel that was open in the summer months.

As Adam watched David looked at something he was holding in his hand. He stared at it for several seconds before he suddenly drew back his arm as if to throw it into the lake, and whatever it was flashed when it caught the sun. But then he froze and after a few moments he dropped his arm again. As he did Adam dislodged a piece of loose rock that skittered down the slope and dropped to the water. David appeared startled and looked from the spreading ripples on the lake towards the trees where Adam crouched hidden. For a moment they seemed to look directly into one another’s eyes, then David turned away and quickly vanished among the trees.

A few weeks after what had turned out to be his final session with Morris, Adam followed a man as he made his way through the crowds at Euston and climbed aboard the six-fifteen from platform seven. They shared the same first-class compartment, the other man nodding briefly before he opened the evening paper. Alan Thomas was forty-six. He was an executive for a print firm. Adam knew a lot about him. He had three children, a boy and two girls. Adam knew their names, where they went to school, when their birthdays were. Thomas’s wife, Christine, habitually wore a vaguely trapped expression that manifested itself in a kind of desperation in her eyes.

The train started moving and as it did the compartment door opened. A man with a briefcase started to come in until Adam stood up and blocked his way.

‘Sorry, this compartment is full.’

The man looked startled and then puzzled by the empty seats. Adam smiled apologetically, though he didn’t move out of the way. ‘I’m sure there are seats further on,’ he said. Eventually the man made a snorting sound and turned on his heel. There was a rustle of paper as Thomas regarded Adam warily, perhaps thinking he was sharing a compartment with a madman. Adam closed the door and returned to his seat. He weighed up the man opposite him. Thomas was heavier, but running to fat. He probably ate lunch at expensive restaurants too often, drank too much. Maybe lately he was drinking more. To help him sleep. If things went wrong then Adam thought he would come out on top. He was younger and fitter, even with a bad leg. He clenched his fist, and unclenched it again and he stared at Thomas coldly. He almost hoped Thomas tried something.

‘I want to know what you did with Liz Mount’s body after you killed her,’ he said.

He saw the reaction in Thomas’s eyes. The sickening fear and perhaps a kind of relief as well. Relief that the demons he’d lived with for months finally had a face if not yet a name.

When he got off the train forty minutes later Adam went to the police and told them what he knew. He couldn’t give them the name of Liz’s friend who’d told him that Liz had confided that Thomas had once tried to kiss her when he’d taken her home after baby-sitting, and that he’d put his hand up her skirt. He’d said if she told anyone they wouldn’t believe her and she would get into trouble. It wasn’t worth it, she’d said to her friend. She just wouldn’t go back.

Thomas hadn’t admitted anything, but Adam could guess some of what had happened. Thomas had probably seen Liz on the train that morning and perhaps he’d followed her. When she went back later he’d been on the train with her. Somehow he’d managed to get her to his house without anyone seeing them, though Adam didn’t know how. Perhaps he’d threatened her, perhaps it was just opportunist luck. Maybe he hadn’t even meant to kill her.

The police would question Thomas, and they would find Liz’s body somewhere near the house, Adam was sure of that, either before or after he confessed. After he left the police station he went to see the Mounts. He sat outside their house for a long time before he finally went to the door. Parents have a kind of extra sense where their children are concerned, especially mothers. He believed in the intuition of women. Carol Mount opened the door and as soon as she saw him she began to cry.