‘No.’
‘No man then?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I’m just not.’
‘You should.’
She went on past him and into the tent.
The day was sealed in with grey. Low hedgerows and mudded tracks and the occasional ploughed field. Why was it, Kiley asked himself, they didn’t seem to plough fields any more, ploughed and left bare? Londoner that he was, he could swear that was what he remembered, travelling north to visit relations in the country. Mile after mile of ploughed fields. That rackety little train that stopped everywhere. What was it? Hemel Hempstead, Kings Langley, Abbots Langley, Berkhamsted, Tring? His uncle, red-faced and — now, he thought, looking back — unreal, waiting outside the station at Leighton Buzzard, to take them home in a Rover that rattled more than the carriages of the train.
Resnick had opted to drive, the two of them up front as they made a careful circuit: Newstead, Papplewick pumping station, Ravenshead, south of Mansfield and back again, the A611 straight as a die from the corner of Cauldwell Wood, across Cox Moor to Robin Hood’s Hill and the supposed site of Robin Hood’s Cave. Then back down towards the forest, the trees at first bordering both sides of the road and then running thickly to the left.
‘Do you ever miss it?’ Resnick asked, out of nowhere.
It took Kiley a moment to respond. ‘Playing?’
A grunt he took to mean, yes. What answer did he want? ‘Sometimes,’ Kiley said. ‘Once in a while.’
‘Like when?’
Kiley smiled. ‘Most Saturday afternoons.’
‘You don’t play at all?’
‘Not for years. Helped a friend coach some kids for a while, that was all.’
Resnick eased down on the brake and pulled out to pass an elderly man on a bicycle, raincoat flapping in the wind, cloth cap pulled down, bottoms of his trousers tied up with string.
‘Up and down this road, I shouldn’t wonder,’ Resnick said, ‘since 1953 or thereabouts.’
Kiley smiled. ‘How about you?’ he said. ‘County. You still go?’
‘For my sins.’
‘Perhaps we’ll catch a game some time?’
‘Perhaps.’
Resnick’s phone rang and he answered, slowing to the side of the road. ‘We’ve found the van,’ he said, breaking the connection. ‘Aldercar Wood. No more than a mile from here. Off the main road to the left.’
It had been driven beyond the end of the track and into some trees, covered over with bracken, the inside stripped clear. The main area of forest was clearly visible across two fields, stretching north and west.
‘Looks like your surmise was correct,’ Kiley said.
Resnick nodded. ‘Looks like.’
Anderson had gone silent, drawn back into himself. No more family games. Once, when Keiron had run over to him, excited about something he’d found, his father had just stared at him, blank, and the boy had backed nervously away, before running to his mother and burying his face against her chest.
Billie fretted and whined until Rebecca plaited her hair and told her the story of Sleeping Beauty yet again, the little girl’s face lighting up at the moment when the princess is kissed awake. She’ll learn, Rebecca thought, and hopefully before it’s too late.
‘How did the prince find her?’ Billie asked, not for the first time.
‘He cut his way through the undergrowth with his sword.’
‘Perhaps someone will find us like that,’ Billie said.
Rebecca glanced across at Anderson, but if he had heard he gave ho sign.
A light rain had started to fall.
Without preamble, Anderson sprang to his feet and pulled on his cagoule. ‘Just a walk,’ he said. ‘I’ll not be long.’
A moment later, he was striding through the trees.
Keiron ran after him, calling; tripped and fell, ran and tripped again; finally turned and came limping towards the tent.
‘He isn’t coming back,’ the boy said, crestfallen.
Rebecca kissed him gently on his head. ‘We’ll see.’
An hour passed. Two. Once Rebecca thought she heard voices and called out in their direction, but there was no reply and the voices faded away till there were just the sounds of the forest. Distant cars. An aeroplane overhead.
‘I told you,’ Keiron said accusingly and kicked at the ground.
‘Right,’ Rebecca said, making up her mind. ‘Put on your coats and scarves. We’re going.’
‘Where? To find Daddy?’
‘Yes,’ Rebecca lied.
Billie fussed with her buttons and when Rebecca knelt to help her, the child pushed her away. ‘I can do it. I can do it myself.’
‘Well, get a move on.’
‘I am.’ Bottom lip stuck petulantly out.
Calm down, Rebecca told herself. Calm down.
Billie pushed the last button into place.
‘All right?’ Rebecca said. ‘Come on, then. Let’s go.’
They were a hundred metres away, maybe less, heading in what Rebecca thought was the direction they’d originally come, when they saw him just a short way ahead, walking purposefully towards them.
‘Come to meet me? That’s nice.’
As the children went into the tent, he pulled her back. ‘Try that again and I’ll fuckin’ kill you, so help me.’
There were only a couple of hours of daylight left. By the time they had got a decent-sized search party organised there would be even less. Best to wait until first light.
‘I’ve been talking to the Royal Military Police,’ Resnick said. ‘Seems as though one sergeant going AWOL isn’t too high on their list of priorities. Too many of them, apparently, done the same. Not too keen on hurrying back to fight for someone else’s democracy. More interested in tracking down a batch of illicit guns, smuggled into the UK from Iraq via Germany. Bit of a burgeoning trade in exchanging them for drugs and currency. Cocaine, especially. Still, they’re sending someone up tomorrow. If we do find Anderson, they’ll want to stake their claim.’
‘Till then we twiddle our thumbs.’
‘Do better than that, I dare say,’ Resnick said.
Tony Burns was up from London, sitting in with a local band at the Five Ways. Geoff Pearson on bass, the usual crew. Last time Resnick had heard Burns, a good few years back, he’d been playing mostly baritone, a little alto. Now it was all tenor, a sound not too many miles this side of Stan Getz. Jake McMahon joined them for the last number, a tear-up through the chords of ‘Cherokee’. By now the free cobs were going round, end of the evening, cheese or ham, and Kiley was having a pretty good time.
Resnick had called Lynn and asked her if she wanted to join them, but instead she had opted for an early night. She’d left him a note on the kitchen table, signed with love.
Resnick made coffee and, feeling expansive, cracked open a bottle of Highland Park. They sat listening to Ben Webster and Art Tatum and then Monk fingering his way through ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’, Kiley not without envy for what seemed, in some respects, a fuller, more comfortable life than his own.
‘Well,’ said Resnick, finally, levering himself up from his chair. ‘Early start.’
‘You bet.’
