The Collected Short Fiction of Ramsey Campbell Part 78

"Not yet."

"Not much we can do, is there? Not till she gets home, and then I'll be having a good few words."

"Don't work yourself up till we know what happened. You always a.s.sume it's her fault. I may just nip out to see . . ."

"I can look if you like while you're waiting for her to call. See what?"

"She'll speak to the machine if we aren't here. I know she wouldn't go across the golf course by herself, but maybe someone she knew went with her if they missed the bus too. If anyone's still playing I can ask if they saw her. It's better than sitting at home thinking things there's no need to think."

"I'll come with you, shall I? If there are any golfers they may be miles apart."

He so visibly welcomed being motivated that she couldn't have refused him. "You set the lights and everything while I go on ahead," she told him.

The twilight was quieter, and almost dark. The mowers had gone to bed. Though she could hear no sound of play from the golf course she made for it, having glanced back to see that Wilf was following, far enough behind that she had a moment of hoping a call from Laura had delayed him. By the time he emerged from their street Claire was nearly at the bus stop.

Smaller flags led away from it, starting at the first hole. The clubhouse was nearby, though screened by one of the thick lines of trees that had been grown to complicate the golf. Claire heard the whop of a club across the miles of gra.s.s and sandy hollows, and the approach of a bus, reminding her that it was at least an hour since Laura had left the house. "Come on, Wilf," she urged, and stepped off the concrete onto the turf.

Tines of light from the clubhouse protruded through the trees; one thin beam p.r.i.c.ked the corner of her eye. A stroke that sounded m.u.f.fled by a divot echoed out of the gloom. "I'll find them," she called, pointing towards the invisible game, "while you see if anyone at the clubhouse can help. Show them your badge."

Her last words jerked as she began to jog up a slope towards a copse. Having panted as far as the clump, she glanced at Wilf. "Get a move on," she exhorted, but her words only made him turn to her. She waved him onward and lurched down the far side of the slope.

Her cry brought Wilf stumbling towards her, halting when she regained her balance. "What now?" he demanded, his nervousness crowding into his voice. "What have you -"

"Nearly fell in a bunker, that's all," she said, grateful to have an excuse for even a forced laugh. She took a step which placed the bulk of the copse between her and Wilf and cut off the light from the clubhouse, and looked down.

This time she didn't cry out. "Wilf," she said with the suddenly unfamiliar object she used for speech; then she raised her voice until it became part of the agony she was experiencing. "Wilf," she repeated, and slid down into the bunker.

The slope gave way beneath her feet, and she felt as if the world had done so. The darkness that rose to meet her was the end of the lights of the world. It couldn't blind her to the sight below her, though her mind was doing its best to think that the figure in the depths of the sandpit wasn't Laura - was the child of some poor mother who would scream or faint or go mad when she saw. None of this happened, and in a moment Laura was close enough to touch.

She was lying face down in the hollow. Her skirt had been pulled above her waist, and her legs forced so wide that her panties cut into her stockinged legs just above the knees. The patch of sand between her thighs was stained dark red, and the top of her right leg glistened as if a large snail had crawled down it. Her fists were pressed together above her head in a flurry of sand.

Claire fell to her knees, sand grinding against them, and took hold of Laura's shoulders. She had never known them feel so thin and delicate; she seemed unable to be gentle enough. As Laura's face reluctantly ceased nestling in the slope, Claire heard the whisper of a breath. It was only sand rustling out of Laura's hair -more of the sand which filled her nostrils and her gaping mouth and even her open eyes.

Claire was brus.h.i.+ng sand out of Laura's eyelashes, to give herself a moment before the glare of her emotions set about shrivelling her brain - she was remembering Laura at four years old on a day at the seaside, her small sunlit face releasing a tear as Claire dabbed a grain of sand out of her eye - when she heard Wilf above the bunker. "Where are -" he said, then "Oh, you're - What -"

She shrank into herself while she awaited his reaction. When it came, his wordless roar expressed outrage and grief enough for her as well. She looked up to see him clutching at his heart, and heard cloth tear. He was twisting the badge, digging the pin into his chest. "Don't," she pleaded. "That won't help."

He wavered at the top of the bunker as if he might fall, then he trudged down the outside of the hollow to slither in and kneel beside her. She felt his arms tremble about her and Laura before gripping them in a hug whose fierceness summed up his helplessness. "Be careful of her," she hardly knew she said.

"I did it."

She almost wrenched herself free of him, his words were so ill-chosen. "What are you saying?"

"If I hadn't made her miss her bus by going on at her . . ."

"Oh, Wilf." She could think of nothing more to say, because she agreed with him. His arms slackened as though he felt unworthy to hold her and Laura; she couldn't tell if he was even touching her. One of them would have to get up and fetch someone - he would, because she found she couldn't bear the thought of leaving Laura to grow cold as the night was growing. But there was no need for him to go. Someone was observing them from above the bunker.

The emotion this set off started her eyes burning, and she might have scrambled up the slope to launch herself at the intruder if he hadn't spoken. "What are you people up to in there? This is private property. Please take your-" His voice faltered as he peered down. "Dear Christ, what's happened here?" he said, and was irrelevant to her fury - had been as soon as she'd grasped he wasn't the culprit. Nothing but finding them might bring to an end the blaze of rage which had begun to consume every feeling she would otherwise have had.

"Mrs Maynard."

She could pretend she hadn't heard, Claire thought, and carry on plodding. But a supermarket a.s.sistant who was loading the shelves with bottles of Scotch and gin nodded his head at her. "There's a lady wants to speak to you."

"Mrs Maynard, it is you, isn't it? It's Daisy Gummer."

Claire knew that. She was considering speeding her trolley out of the aisle when her exit was blocked by a trolley with a little girl hanging onto one side - a six- or seven-year-old in the school uniform Laura had worn at that age. Claire's hands clenched, and she swung her trolley round to point at her summoner.

Mrs Gummer was in her wheelchair, a wire basket on her lap. The jacket and trousers of her orange suit seemed designed to betray as little of her shape as possible. Her silver curls were beginning to unwind and grow dull. Her large pale puffed-up face made to crumple as her eyes met Claire's, then rendered itself into an emblem of strength. "Has to be done, eh?" she declared with a surplus of heartiness. "It's not the men who go out hunting any longer."

The little this meant to Claire included the possibility that the old woman's son wasn't with her, not that his absence was any reason to linger. Before Claire could devise a reply that would double as a farewell, Mrs Gummer said "Still fixing up people's affairs for them, are you? Still tidying up after them?"

"If that's what you want to say accountants do."

"Nothing wrong with using any tricks you know," Mrs Gummer said, performing a wink that involved pinching her right eye with most of that side of her face. "Duncan's done a few with my money at his bank." As though preparing to reveal some of them, she leaned over her lapful of tins. "What I was going to say was you keep working. Keep your mind occupied. I wished I'd had a job when we lost his father."