Carla Banks - The Forest of Souls

His phone rang. He tucked the handset under his chin, and went on reading. ‘Jake Denbigh.’

The notorious 12th battalion of the Lithuanian police carried out massacres of civilians …

‘Mr Denbigh, this is Katya Lange.’

Marek Lange’s daughter. Jake had a good idea what this was going to be about. ‘How can I help you, Ms Lange?’

… in the Ukraine and Belarus, including massacres in the Pripyet Marshes, Mir, Slutsk, Baranoviche and, notoriously, Minsk .

‘I understand you’re interviewing my father this morning.’

‘That’s correct,’ Jake said. He deleted ‘notoriously’ and moved on to the next paragraph.

Sadly, they were assisted in many cases by members of the local police forces .

‘I thought I made it clear…’ He heard her intake of breath. ‘My father isn’t well,’ she said abruptly. ‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’

He sighed, and gave her his full attention. ‘It’s just an interview, Ms Lange.’

‘About what, exactly?’

‘It’s about the experience of being an immigrant.’ He’d already told her this.

‘He had a bad time in the war,’ she said. ‘Before he escaped. He doesn’t like to talk about it.’

‘My remit is immigration,’ he said. ‘I’m interested in what happened to him after he reached the UK.’ He clicked open his research notes on Marek Lange and scrolled the list of dead ends he’d encountered while trying to establish what Lange had been doing in occupied Eastern Europe in the years leading up to his escape:

No record Litva–check spelling

Only reference: Litva–Grand Duchy of Medieval Belarus and Lithuania.

No record of Lange family as per your profile–NB records incomplete–war damage.

…cannot trace…

…no record…

‘Well, I’m not happy. I’ve asked my daughter to sit in on the interview. I don’t want you to begin until she is there.’

‘Okay, your daughter will be there. Thank you for letting me know.’ He hung up. Forewarned is forearmed. His appointment with Lange was for eleven. It looked like he’d better get there a bit early.

This is the story of how Eva was born.

Once upon a time, there was a forest, with birch trees that were bare in the winter and reached their fingers high up into the sky. But in summer, the leaves grew and the branches hung down in fronds. When the wind blew, the branches would wave and the leaves would dance. Then the sunlight made patterns of shadow and gold. And the tree trunks were white, like slender pillars along the paths.

In the forest, there was a clearing. And a man called Stanislau built a house in the clearing, a house of timber. And Stanislau and his wife Krishna lived in the house, where their first child, Marek, was born.

Stanislau planted trees in the clearing, cherry trees and plum trees, and he dug a deep well. The water that came from the well was clear like crystal, sweet and cool.

And Stanislau, Krishna and Marek lived in the forest and they kept chickens, and Krishna had a garden where she grew potatoes and cabbages. Marek gathered mushrooms in the forest, and they all picked the cherries and the plums that Stanislau took into town to sell. They were content.

Except that there were no more children. Marek grew big and strong, a happy boy with fair hair and a ready smile. And then, five years later, in the depths of winter, Eva was born. The last child, a little girl. The night of her birth, there was a storm that made the trees bend, the branches lashing through the air as the wind whooped and swirled.

Stanislau struggled through the forest to the village to find the midwife, and Marek stayed with his mother in the wooden house while the storm raged outside. By morning, the world was still and silent, and Eva lay beside her mother, wrapped in her shawl, and the snow fell for six days.

‘You have a sister now,’ Stanislau said to Marek. ‘You must take care of her.’

The winter passed and spring came to the forest. Marek liked to sing to the baby and tell her stories while she lay in her cradle under the trees and waved her hands, trying to catch the sunlight that danced in the leaves. And the time went by, and Eva began to crawl, and then she could walk, and Marek would take his sister into the forest where he could show her the trees and the birds and the animals that walked the paths, because the forest was vast and quiet–there were not many people, not then. There were foxes and squirrels and rabbits.

And the witch.

He taught her to beware of the witch who lived in the dark places in the forest.

The caller had stayed on the line long enough for a trace. The call had come from somewhere in the remote hills on the far side of the dams. It was a lonely place, used by walkers and picnickers in the summer, but isolated through the winter months. The hills tended to mask phone signals. There was only a small area in which a mobile would work reliably. The trace centred on the one building in this area, a house that was marked on the map as ‘The Old Hall’.

According to the records, the owner of the house had died recently, and it was empty, under the care of court-appointed executors.

The number of the mobile gave no clues. The house looked like the most promising location. There was a caretaker in residence and the phone was still connected. No one responded when the number was called.

But just after nine, before a car could be despatched, another call came through. This time, someone spoke. It was a male voice, incoherent with panic. ‘She’s dead! Please, you’ve got to…I didn’t…She’s dead!’ He could barely get the words out.

The operator’s training took over. Her voice became calm and matter-of-fact. ‘Where are you?’

‘The library. In the library. She’s…’

‘I need to know where you are,’ the operator said again. ‘We’ll get someone to you. Tell me where you are.’

‘It’s too late.’

The voice moved from panic to leaden certainty. For a few seconds, he was silent, and they thought they’d lost the connection, then he came on the line again and gave them the location.

The Old Hall.

It was after a car had been dispatched that the full details of the second call were checked. The first call had come through on an unregistered cell phone. It was a pay-as-you-go, and they hadn’t been able to link it to a name.

The phone on which the young man, half-weeping, had begged for help was not the same phone. It was later in the day that they managed to get a name for it. It belonged to a woman called Helen Kovacs.

Jake Denbigh checked the A-Z that was open on the seat beside him, and swung his car round the next turning, into a crescent where the houses were set back among the trees and behind tall hedges. He parked and got out of the car, checking numbers on the gateposts.

Marek Lange’s house looked neglected. The gate was open, collapsed on its hinges, pushed back against the overgrowing shrubs. The drive was rutted and muddy, last autumn’s leaves trodden into the ground. The front of the house was thick with ivy that obscured some of the upstairs windows. The ground-floor windows were under siege from privet and laurel that pressed against the glass. Lange must like his privacy. Jake rang the doorbell and stepped back, looking up at the house. Add a few thorns, a turret or two, and Prince Charming could hack his way through into the enchanted castle where the sleeping princess…

The door opened suddenly, and a woman stood there. She was short and thick-set, and her face was unwelcoming. The princess was out, but apparently the wicked witch was at home. Was this Lange’s granddaughter? It couldn’t be. This woman must be in her late forties at least. The daughter? Unlikely. He smiled and held out his hand. ‘Jake Denbigh. Mr Lange is expecting me.’