He had always been a careful, methodical sort of lad, she remembered now, from their shared days in the village schoolroom. The kind of boy who was interested in how things worked, and why – the type to make careful notes of everything.
Aware that she was coming to the end of the village houses now, she cast a very quick glance around, and only when she was confident that she was not being observed, did she dart off the lane, and, skirting a hedgerow, make her way stealthily across country.
Her heart was thumping in her chest, and she felt even more nauseous than ever. But she wasn’t going to stop now. She couldn’t. She had to be sure. Her hands felt clammy and she swallowed hard. Soon, she told herself, it would all be over. One way or another, things would be settled.
She had to hold on to that to give her courage. Iris was not the only one who could be brave and reckless when the need arose, she thought defiantly, surprised to find a smile on her face. If only her mother could see her now, she’d be shocked to her core! Who’d have thought she had it in her, she could almost hear the denizens of the Middle Fenton saying to themselves, if they knew just what she was doing.
But once again she shied away from contemplating just what might happen in the next hour, and turned her thoughts back to David Finch again – and his diary.
It was funny how fate could change your life in just one infinitesimal moment. Because as soon as the coroner and his pretty assistant had mentioned it, she’d been almost certain that she knew exactly where it might be hidden.
As a little girl, all the children of around the same age had played the same sorts of games, in the same sorts of places. And one of their favourite games had been hide-and-seek. And one of David’s favourite hiding places had been, of all places, behind the village primary school. Whilst she herself had always been happy, as a girl, to leave that place every afternoon at a quarter to four and never look back, David had enjoyed his lessons. So perhaps the place felt comfortable to him. And behind the village school was an old sports pavilion that gave way to the village playing field. Mostly used for the storage of cricket bats and footballs, oars and tennis rackets, it had never appealed to her as a particularly edifying place to visit.
But David, like most boys, had been fond of sports. And crawling under the space behind the wooden steps leading to the only door had been one of his favourite hiding places. So much so that once, when stuck for a place to hide herself, she’d used it too. And it had been whilst she was lying there, waiting for the ‘seeker’ to come, that she’d noticed that one of the wooden boards that blocked off the second step was a little ajar.
Curious, she’d investigated and found that someone had loosened one nail enough so that the board could be lifted up, like a window, revealing the space in between. And in that space she’d found a biscuit tin.
Naturally, she’d looked, and been disappointed to find no biscuits within, but only a motley collection of ‘treasure’ of the sort favoured by boys. A homemade catapult made out of willow and an elastic band, some colourful marbles, and a book – Treasure Island in this case. Inside, the name of David Finch had been written in pencil, so she’d known whose stash it was.
Funny how she hadn’t thought of that in years, until now. Now that the boy who’d created the hidey-hole was dead. Along with the girl he’d so foolishly, pointlessly, loved.
But she remembered that David had always had a secretive side to his nature, so it was perhaps not so surprising that he would choose to hide his precious journal there as well, and not at his home or anywhere else where it could be easily found. Especially if it contained something he might want to keep secret from his parents. He wouldn’t want to cause more worry for his mother for one thing, and perhaps had good cause to make sure that some of his more furtive activities didn’t reach the ears of his policeman father!
And so, last evening, she’d waited until it was getting dark and no one could see her, and then she’d made her way to the pavilion and regarded the steps thoughtfully. She knew it was pointless to try and struggle underneath the crawl space. Although she was slim, she wasn’t ten years old any longer! But, with the reach of her now-adult arms, she’d been able to grope around behind the steps, and sure enough, her questing fingers had managed to find the same plank of wood, which still swung open on its now rusty nail. And a larger, newer, airtight biscuit box had been hidden there – and within it, a small, dark leather-bound journal.
How her heart had leapt!
It had been too dark for her to read it then and there of course, so she’d had to take it home and sneak it into the house so that she could read it once she and her mother had gone to bed.
And what she’d read in that book, in David Finch’s neat and careful handwriting, had changed her world forever.
Of course, it would be just like David, she thought angrily now, to investigate what had happened to Iris with such a plodding, methodical obsession that it had finally led him to the truth.
Damn him! Damn him! Damn him!
Janet paused, aware that she was breathing hard now and almost sobbing.
Once again her mind went back to the moment, last night, when the village church clock had been striking eleven, and she’d read the final, momentous lines
