Free The Drowning Ground by James Marrison Page B

and into the lane. Then they took her.’
    â€˜And Gail?’
    â€˜She went missing almost exactly a week after Elise, and at roughly the same time. Just after school at around 4.00. A teacher saw her leaving the school and heading back home. He didn’t give it a second thought. The kids had been warned by then, of course, told to watch out and stick together. But her mother’s house was in the middle of a small street that practically backed on to the school playground. Later, a few neighbours remembered seeing her walking towards her house in the lane that the locals use as a shortcut to the shops. They knew her, you see, and they remembered her. But she never got beyond that lane.’
    â€˜So someone was waiting for her?’
    â€˜Looks like it. They talked her into coming with them. Had a car waiting, maybe, and just took her. And the same goes for Elise. That’s what we think anyway.’
    â€˜Someone she knew, then?’ Graves said.
    â€˜Yes. Someone who knew she’d be walking home at that time. Was aware of her routine. Probably local. It was almost … it was almost, I don’t know, instinctive somehow. I always thought of it that way.’
    â€˜And no one remembered seeing a car hanging about, or Gail waiting for anyone near the shops?’
    â€˜No. She just … well … she just vanished. Of course we checked the lane. Looked for tyre tracks and any evidence on the scene. We interviewed absolutely everyone – rounded up all the local sex offenders, but there was nothing.’
    â€˜God, their poor parents,’ Graves said, echoing my own thoughts exactly. ‘Imagine not knowing like that.’
    â€˜They moved,’ I said.
    We carried on walking. The path skirted past wild-looking bushes, and as we drew closer to the house the vegetation on either side became increasingly thick. Tendrils from weeds coiled along the grass and reached out towards the edges of the path. It was almost as if you could see Hurst purposefully letting go of control of the garden at this specific point, with this wilder space marking the boundary between the determined order of the garden and the strange disorder of the house itself.
    â€˜It’s something truly terrible to make someone disappear,’ I said. ‘You have to try to imagine it, if you can, Graves. To make someone simply vanish, so that no one knows where they are or what happened to them. It’s even worse than murder. Because the family never know, you see. There’s hope, but such hope is worse than despair. It’s poison.’
    I had already said too much and knew it. Graves looked at me, baffled again, and waited for me to go on, but I didn’t. I stopped walking.
    Through the trees I had glimpsed a collection of small outbuildings by the side of a far wall: a battered-looking old shed, a small garage, and, next to that, as if slumped against the shed, a small greenhouse. Beyond these was the black fence surrounding the swimming pool.
    â€˜We’re going to need something to break our way in,’ I said, looking closely at the barred windows. ‘Go see if there’s something over there in that shed, will you?’
    â€˜We’re going to break in?’ Graves said. He sounded genuinely shocked. ‘We can’t do that, sir. What about Rebecca – his daughter? What if she comes back and sees that we’ve smashed her door down?’ Graves laughed. ‘We can’t just break in. First we need to…’
    I looked at him, really wondering. So far today Graves had seemed efficient but a little limited. Lacking in imagination. Maybe he lacked guts as well. Again, I thought of Powell. But it was no good thinking about all that now.
    â€˜I do think we should come back tomorrow, once we’ve got the keys,’ Graves said a little nervously.
    I kept on looking at him and wishing Powell was with me instead. Was Graves going to slow things