He got out of the car and approached the front gate. A figure was standing in the window, watching him. The curtain fell back into place and the figure glided away. Seconds later, the front door opened.
“Good day, DS Royle.” Tony Millstone was a ruined man. Before his daughter had vanished, he’d been something of a long-distance runner, competing in local road races and even in a few marathons. Now he was old, withered, and decrepit well before his time. He was only forty-seven but he looked at least a decade older. He dressed old, too, favouring dull, colourless cardigans and creased slacks over the jeans and colourful shirts he used to wear. His running shoes gathered dust in a cupboard somewhere, his dreams mothballed up with them.
“Tony.” Royle walked up the path and shook the man’s hand. His bones felt brittle, like bread sticks.
“Come inside. Margaret’s put the kettle on… she needed something to do with her hands.” He shrugged, smiled, and led the way inside.
It wasn’t just Tony Millstone who looked worse for wear. The house itself seemed stuck in a time warp; it hadn’t been decorated since Connie’s disappearance and judging by the dust in the corners and the cobwebs up near the ceiling, it was barely even kept clean anymore. Royle imagined that the inside of the Millstones’ hearts must also look like this: dry, empty, filled with dust and cobwebs and silence.
Margaret Millstone was standing in the kitchen doorway. She was wearing washed-out, shapeless jogging pants and a sweatshirt that had once fit her previously statuesque figure perfectly but now hung on her scrawny, malnourished body like an old potato sack. Her hair was thin and dirty, greying at the temples. She wore no makeup. Her eyes, he thought, were like piss-holes in the snow.
“Hello, Craig.” It was always first name terms with the mothers. The fathers all seemed to prefer to address him by his official title, as if that afforded them some distance from what had happened to bring him here. He’d often wondered why it worked that way and not the other way around, but had never been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.
“Hello, Mrs Millstone. I believe you called the station and asked for me.” He took the cup of tea she offered, sipped it and nodded his thanks.
“Of course I asked for you. You always say to ask for you if we ever need the police.” Her hands were shaking. “You’ve been good to us.” She did not smile. She didn’t even hold his gaze as she spoke.
“That’s right. Always ask for me. I’ll always drop anything else that I’m doing for you — you know that.” He took another small sip of the tea. It was stewed; the teabag had been left in the water far too long. “What is it? What’s the problem?”
She glanced at her husband. He nodded. “It’s probably best if we show you… here, come through. It’s outside, in the back garden.”
He followed her into the kitchen, gratefully setting down his cup on the table as he passed by. The kitchen was cold, the white goods old and battered. A few tiles had come off the wall near the door and not been replaced. The lino floor was peeling away from the concrete floor slab in one corner. There were crumbs all over the place, but at least it was proof that the Millstones were eating and not slowly starving themselves to death.
Mrs Millstone opened the back door and stepped outside, into the unkempt garden.
Royle followed her, looking up at the clearing sky. The day was unseasonably mild, the sunlight bright and surprisingly powerful now that the dark clouds had dispersed. He walked close behind her and when she stopped abruptly he almost collided with her.
“Sorry,” he said, resting the tips of his fingers at the base of her spine, but she hadn’t even noticed the contact.
“It’s over there.” She raised a hand and pointed. Her fingernails were bitten right down to the quick. The cracked cement path was flanked on either side by small, overgrown lawns, which were populated by broken stone gnomes. Connie had loved those gnomes: she had even painted them, but now the colours had faded.
To the left, there was just the length of timber fence that separated the Millstones’ property from the one next door; to the right, at the bottom of the garden and attached to the fence on that side, was a low garden shed. The roof was full of holes, the tarpaper covering was ripped. The weather had hammered at the wooden panel walls and the single glass window had been shattered and covered over with a black plastic bin bag. The bin bag was flapping slightly in a gentle breeze and distracting him, so at first Royle didn’t realise what he was meant to see.
Then he understood.
Peering around the edge of the shed there was a stocky figure. It was wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a black and red striped Dennis-the-Menace sweater. Royle took a step backwards, more surprised than afraid, and went instinctively into a fighting stance: fists raised, back leg taking his weight, shoulders hunched. Later, he’d be impressed by his presence of mind, but now he just stood there, wondering if there was going to be an attack.
“It was there when I came out here to hang up the washing. Just… just peeping round the corner like that, watching me. Creepy bloody thing…”
Royle lowered his hands and walked forward, closing the distance between him and the figure. The day’s warmth seemed to fade. The breeze became a little stronger, and colder.
It wasn’t a real figure, of course. It was some kind of bonfire guy… or, more accurately, a scarecrow, just like Barnes had said on the phone. He’d recognised within seconds that it wasn’t a living person, and yet still he’d readied himself for action. It was the face that had caused him such an extreme reaction. At first glance, it had looked real, like a person’s features staring at him… but now that he was drawing closer to the scarecrow, he could see that there was simply a photograph attached to its head.
The scarecrow’s jumper was torn in places, so the stuffing was hanging out. The torso was stuffed with what looked like old newspapers, bills and receipts, and even a few tattered old one pound notes — a monetary unit that was taken out of commission in 1984. This stout upper body was mounted on a stick that was as broad as a man’s calf, one end of which had been sunk deep into the earth to support the strange, jerrybuilt figure.
Royle stood before the scarecrow and examined it closely. The stick was in fact a tree branch. The bark had been stripped away to reveal the pale timber beneath, but the wood was untreated. He could still see the faint marks from whatever blade had been used to lay bare the natural wood grain.
He was trying not to look at the photograph that was plastered to the front of the scarecrow’s head until he’d calmed down, but still it drew his gaze.
The photograph was a portrait of little Connie Millstone, the daughter of the house and the first of the Gone Away Girls. But this was no ordinary photograph: it was old, faded, and sepia toned. Royle thought it looked stylised, like the Victorian death photographs he’d once seen in a book but never forgotten because they’d been so disturbing. But even worse than the still pose and the mordant tone of the shot, was the fact that Connie’s eyes were closed, and upon the lids someone — perhaps even the missing girl herself — had drawn in a thick black pen a crude representation of eyes.
Royle stared at the photograph.
It was a startling image.
His vision blurred; tears filled his eyes. For a moment he thought he might even faint.
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and took a minute just to clear his head. He had to focus on what was in front of him and ignore any other references or connections his mind came up with. This was not a Victorian death study; it was a photograph of a missing little girl, perhaps the last one ever taken of her. In the photograph, Connie looked the same age she’d been when she went missing. So it wasn’t a recent shot; this had been taken at least five years ago.
He tried to remain calm. He owed the family his full attention. He owed them that, at least.
Was this some kind of sick joke, carried out by local kids on the anniversary of the girl’s disappearance? The idea was feasible, but to Royle it just didn’t feel right. There was more to this than what was immediately on show, some kind of reason hiding beneath the surface. Why would anyone go to the trouble of constructing the weird scarecrow and obscuring its face with the image of the missing girl? It didn’t make sense; it was overly complicated for some nasty practical joke.
But who else could it be? This family had no enemies. Quite the opposite, in fact; they were well liked, and most people in the area empathised with them for what had happened to their only daughter.
“Craig…” Mrs Millstone’s voice was still quite far behind him. She was afraid to come any closer. Maybe she expected the scarecrow to come to life and start hobbling along the path towards her?
“Just a minute…” He let out a long breath and stared at the image pasted over the scarecrow’s face. He committed the face to memory, even though it was already there, along with the rest of them, burned into his brain
