Lost: Part 8

 Reading through his scribbled jottings under the rowan tree, Winter resolved to take some positive action. There were a couple of retired officers he could contact; their numbers were ready by the phone in the hallway. Maybe he would visit and they could talk, remember, reflect. The passing years may have clouded remembrances, sifted away finer details, but it was possible that time brought clarity, that what remained was a stark and immutable truth. Having refused to discuss the case with anyone for as long as he could remember, he welcomed the chance to sit down and talk. To listen to the voices of people who lived through that time with him. To hear their unspoken thoughts and theories. He imagined their conversations, their memories spreading and growing like tendrils, unfurling in dark corners. He would be quiet. He would be patient. He would listen.

The previous day had been frustrating. From the moment he woke, he felt apathetic, hopeless. The village had been mired in dense fog all day and he’d been imprisoned by its suffocating presence. Now, sitting on the green in the watery sunlight, he felt more positive. He would make his calls at half past nine, he decided. It was not too early, not too late. Now the decision had been made, he was eager to start. He wondered how he might fill the hours until then. He closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun.

‘Mr Winter, I would very much like to interview you,’ the voice was bright but affectedly so – its carefree tone masked a feverish desperation. Winter opened his eyes and saw Nell was right in front of him. He had no idea how she had got there. He had not heard her approach. It was as if she had been summoned from deep below the damp earth, carried on curls of mist. You’re really losing your touch, old man he thought to himself. 

‘May I sit down, Mr Winter?’ The enquiry was made in a slow grave way, like a child playing at being a grown-up.

‘Please do, I’m glad to see you.’ Winter heard himself say. He was surprised to realise that he meant it. 

The girl was dressed in the mismatched, brightly coloured clothes of a children’s TV presenter but her face was sombre and tear stained. She held a green notebook close to her chest. She sat on the bench and took a deep breath as if she was about to dive underwater.

‘What do you want to interview me about? I’m not very interesting, you know.’ Nell tucked her black hair behind her ears. She took another steadying breath.

‘I have a question to ask first and it is very important.’ She turned to him sharply, and peered at him intently as if to emphasise the seriousness of her mission. The movement made her recalcitrant hair fall free. She tucked it neatly behind her ears again.

‘Very important, Mr Winter. Very.’

‘I see,’ he said, he tried to suppress the smile that was hovering on his lips. ‘Ask away.’

‘Grannie Annie said that you were a famous detective. It seems to me that for a detective to be famous, he either has to be extremely good or extremely bad. I was wondering which you were?’ 

Winter nodded, took off his glasses and began polishing them on the sleeve of his jumper. ‘That’s a fine question, Nell. Straight to the point, I like that.’ He paused and pondered how the girl had known to ask the very question that was the cause of a thousand sleepless nights. ‘I suppose I would say at times I was extremely good and at times I was extremely bad. Most of the time I was somewhere between the two.’

Nell frowned, ‘Can you be both good and bad?’ 

‘As you get older Nell, you will see it is possible for two contradictory facts to be absolutely true. I suppose I was mostly good. I hope so, anyway. Maybe it is not for me to judge.’ 

Who should be his judge, he wondered: the hollow men he locked away, the victims forever bereft, his colleagues, Chief Superintendent Smith, the Coxons? 

‘What is this all about, Nell?’ he asked softly. ‘I get the feeling something is troubling you, you seem a little lost today.’

The girl nodded and looked down at the notebook on her lap. She was silent for a few seconds. Her shoulders shook. She was crying, he saw. When she finally spoke, her voice was brittle and weightless. He leant towards her to catch her words. It was like trying to hear leaves falling.

‘I . . . I need your help with a missing . . . friend. My best friend has gone missing. I saw him yesterday but then I think the fog took him.’ 

Winter nodded. He tried to disguise the chill that ran through his body, that touched him with fingers of ice. He did not speak. He waited. He looked away while Nell composed herself. He looked at the silvered sea and listened to the shriek of the gulls. When he turned back, he saw Nell had opened her notebook. She used a large black feather as a bookmark, from a raven or a crow maybe. Her face was determined, serious: like a good, brave girl summoned by her teacher to the front of the class to talk about an important project.

‘I thought you could tell me how to find him, I just want advice, that’s all. I’ll write a list of steps to take. I like lists. Tell me what I should do and I will do it.’

‘Nell, if someone is missing the police should know. They are the ones to look. Especially if it is a young person.’ Winter kept his voice smooth and flat. ‘The real police, I am retired, remember, old and on the scrap-heap.’

‘Oh, he’s not young. In fact, I think he’s possibly even as old as you. He won’t tell me how old he is. I have asked. But it is not that kind of a . . . It’s not a case for the police, you see. . . he’s . .’ Nell was floundering, searching for words that would not come. 

‘I see. I do see.’

The morning stirred softly around them. In the half-quiet, Winter noticed curtains opening and the milk float rattling down the hill. How could he help her? How could he make it easier? How could he coax the words out? 

‘Does your Grannie know?’ he asked.

‘I’ve not told her. She doesn’t really . .’ the sentence trailed away. An empty bus rumbled past, headed for the industrial estate.

‘Well then, tell me what you need. I’ll help all I can.’

‘Just tell me where to start. What should I do first? And don’t ask questions. . . please. Well not too many.’ 

A tear plopped on to Nell’s neat and eager notebook. Winter felt his heart lurch in response. He reached out a comforting hand, but did not know what to do with it. He put his glasses back on instead. You’re a ridiculous old man, he thought. Ridiculous.

‘Well then, you’re doing a list? Number one – write that down, number one,’ he tapped her notebook at the top of the page. She had already written the date, he noticed. ‘Where was the missing person last seen and by whom? This is called the last confirmed sighting and it is very important. You must establish it.’ Nell began to write. Her heavy, dark brows furrowed with concentration and purpose.

‘Est – ab- lish,’ she mouthed. ‘I am the person who saw him last. There could be no one else, you see.’

Winter nodded. He had expected as much. He was beginning to understand. The fog was lifting. 

‘Number two – around the time of that last sighting, did anything unusual happen? Anything out of the ordinary. It can be the smallest, most insignificant thing – but it jars. It stands out. You remember it. . . Number three . . .’

‘Not yet! Not yet! I am still writing number two. Stands out. Right. Ready. Next,’ Nell put her pencil in her mouth and looked at him expectantly.

‘Now, still on number two, I’m not going to ask, but those things that stand out to you are very significant. Have you thought of anything? You needn’t tell me, if you don’t want to.’ 

The girl put her raven feather bookmark in place and closed her book. She looked troubled, guilty even. Winter waited. 

‘Well, I was a bit rude to him yesterday morning. I was grumpy. It was the fog, is all. It muddled me. Then he saw something that seemed to bother him – out of the window, on the green. Other than that, the only out of the ordinary thing that happened recently was when we met you in the colliery.’

 Winter unthinkingly took out the packet of cigarettes from his trouser pocket. We.The girl had said when we met you. He felt a warm wave of compassion surge through his body. He was right. The dog. The girl had lost her imaginary dog. Her imaginary friend. He looked at Nell’s raw open face and saw the pain etched there. He hastily shoved the cigarette packet back in his pocket. She is looking for something that does not exist, he thought. Looking for something that would never be found. 

 ‘Number three, Mr Winter? Is there a number three?’ 

‘Number three is places. Special places for your. . . . friend. Where are they? Have you checked them all? Close your eyes, Nell.’

‘I can’t close my eyes and write at the same time,’ she said crossly.

‘Close your eyes, Nell,’ he spoke with authority. ‘Now, when you picture your friend, where do you see him.’

Nell closed her eyes, wrinkled her nose and held her head up to the sky, as if tuning in to unseen forces, currents of memories. ‘The green, the churchyard, the dene . . The old air-raid shelters in the school. That’s where he. . . helped me most. I wasn’t happy in school, unless he was there.’ She gasped. Her tiny white hands flew to her mouth as if to hold on to the words spoken.

‘Which of those places do you think is the most important? Can you feel – in your bones, in your heart, where he might be?’

Nell nodded. Her eyes shone with understanding. She scribbled in her book. 

‘Number four – connections. Of all the things you’ve thought about, the events, the places – can you make connections between any of them. Can you join them up? A detective will make connections.’

Nell stared at the page of her notebook. Her eyes flitted from line to line. Her face was earnest and resolute. She took her pencil and drew a theatrically curved line. She looked at him with bright eyes and nodded. She had made the connection.

‘Well, that’s about all I’ve got for you, Nell,’

Nell closed her book. Her task was done. 

‘Mr Winter, did you find everyone who was lost, when you were a police officer?’

There it was. The question. How to tell her? How to explain, that every case, every tragedy, every loss had scooped a part of him away. Even the successes. He was reduced, worn away from the inside by all he had seen and all he had heard. He was hollow, like a Halloween lantern. 

‘Not every story has a happy ending, Nell. I wish it did.’

‘I know that. I am not a child!’ she said pettishly. 

‘You area child and just because there is sadness in the world, does not mean you won’t find your friend. I have a feeling you’ll be together again soon. Out here on the green, playing together like you often did.’

The girl looked at him warily and opened her mouth to speak. 

‘Nell, Nell! Breakfast is ready!’ The girl’s grandmother called from the door of her cottage.

The girl tucked her pencil behind her ear and stood up. She looked at Winter with wonder, as if he had just revealed some astonishing wizardry that had rendered her momentarily speechless. 

‘Thank you, Mr Winter, for you time and advice. I think I know where to start now,’

Winter gathered his papers. It was almost time for him to make a start too. ‘I’ll walk back with you. Got to return that plate.’

They walked together towards the grey cottages. There was no skip in the girl’s step, no lightness, no sense of adventure, no curling pathways waiting to be discovered. 

‘Nell, this missing friend of yours. He’s got four legs, hasn’t he?’ 

The girl stopped in her tracks. She shook her head in wonderment. ‘You’ve seen him!’

‘I’m not sure I’ve seen him exactly – I have sensed him, maybe.’ Winter answered as truthfully as he could. ‘I’ve seen your love for him, certainly. That is clear to see.’

Nell turned her head towards Winter, ‘He’s called Ferdinand.’ She spoke as if revealing a deep and mysterious secret. Her voice tremored with the weight of the revelation. ‘He’s a fox.’

Winter whistled appreciatively. ‘A fox? Wow! Isn't that something! You’ll find him, Nell. You will. I know it.’

The girl beamed at him, her face flickered with hope and belief. 

 ‘Now you wait there while I get that plate.’ 

When he came out of his cottage, he found Nell with her grandmother on their steps. The old lady was as plump and puffed up as a roosting bird. Her eyes were sharp and bright. She watched him shrewdly as he approached. ‘I hope Miss Nelly hasn’t been bothering you too much, Mr Winter. I’m Annie Hart, Nell’s grandmother.’       

‘Not at all. Thanks for that pastry. It was very kind to think of me,’ he handed Annie the plate.

‘Well, I had spare. I mean, I couldn’t have managed two! Dear me, no!’ she tapped her opulent stomach as if to emphasise her self-denial. ‘Well, I hope you’re all settled in, Mr Winter. It is nice to have a policeman next door, I must say. Now come on Nell, I’ve made some potato and bacon scones for breakfast. Mr Winter will be wanting to get on with his day,’

A warm fug of bacon and butter drifted through the open doorway.

‘Smells good, Mrs Hart. A Delia Smith recipe, I bet.’ 

In a flash, the old lady’s beneficence vanished, turning her from broody hen to bloodthirsty vulture. 

‘It certainly is not!’ she shrieked.

The door clattered shut in Winter's face.