Property of a Lady(28)

‘It hardly ever happens. It can’t happen again,’ said Nell at once. ‘And you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’

‘I don’t remember it much,’ said Beth. ‘Except it was the nightmare sort of starting while I was awake. Nightmares aren’t supposed to do that, are they?’ She looked at Nell for reassurance.

‘They don’t, and they won’t again,’ said Nell.

‘Oh, you’ve brought the animal people,’ said Beth. ‘Can I have them in bed with me? Thanks.’ She wrapped her arms round the furry creatures Nell had asked Lisa to pack, then, not looking at Nell, said, ‘He was there, that was the really bad thing.’

‘The – man from the nightmare?’ Nell said this cautiously. She had no idea if she should let Beth talk or if it would be better to let her think it really had been a form of nightmare.

‘Um, yes. I didn’t look at his face, but I know there weren’t any eyes in it – just black holes.’ The shudder came again. ‘And he sings as he walks along.’

‘Sings?’

‘The rhyme about the hand and the dead man – I told you about that.’

Nell thought: oh God, the Hand of Glory. That’s what she means. Alice’s rhyme.

‘Open lock to the dead man’s knock . . .

Fly bolt, and bar, and band.

Sleep all who sleep – wake all who wake.

But be as the dead for the dead man’s sake . . .’

In as down-to-earth a voice as she could manage, she said, ‘Some people do sing to themselves. It does sound a bit odd though, doesn’t it? And I think that’s a local rhyme – a bit like a nursery rhyme.’

‘It was pretty spooky, actually. But what was really odd is that I sort of had to go after the music to find out about it. I know I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers and stuff,’ said Beth earnestly, ‘but I couldn’t help it, honestly, Mum. It sort of pulled me along, an’ it’s not even as if it was nice music,’ she said, indignantly.

‘Some music can do that,’ said Nell carefully. ‘It’s pretty rare, though.’

‘I thought,’ said Beth, ‘that if I ever met him properly, that man from the nightmare, it’d be really frightening. But it wasn’t. He’s very sad, and you can’t be frightened of a sad person,’ said Beth, suddenly sounding much older than her seven years. She paused, frowning. ‘But there was something else, Mum, an’ that’s why I wasn’t absolutely all-time frightened.’

‘Yes?’

Beth was studiedly picking at a thread in the sheet, no longer looking at Nell. In a low voice, she said, ‘It wasn’t me he wanted.’

‘Well – well, that’s good,’ said Nell.

‘Yes. I don’t ‘spect he’ll come to see me again, do you?’

‘Definitely not,’ said Nell. ‘Beth, why did you say you weren’t the one he wanted? That man?’

‘I don’t know, not ezzackerly,’ said Beth, frowning. ‘Might he have told me?’

‘He might. Yes, that’s very likely. Perhaps you look a bit like somebody else and he got mixed up.’

‘He really wanted Elvira,’ said Beth, and Nell looked at her sharply.

‘Who’s Elvira? Darling, who’s Elvira?’ Because if there was another girl somewhere, a girl called Elvira who might be in danger . . .

Beth hunched her shoulders. ‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘There’s no one at school called that. It’s a silly name, I think. Oh, did I tell you I’m having fruit trifle for supper? The nurse said it was today’s pudding. And scrambled eggs first. They won’t be as nice as the ones you make, of course,’ she said, confidingly. ‘But I’m ’strordinarily hungry.’

Nell smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours. That had been one of Brad’s expressions. ‘I’m extraordinarily hungry,’ he used to say. Beth had picked it up, and Nell liked hearing her say it. It’s all right, Brad, she said in her mind. We’ve got her back. She’s safe.

‘She’s checking out fine on all scores, Mrs West,’ said the young Indian doctor while Beth was tackling the scrambled eggs with reassuring enthusiasm. ‘We’ll keep her here overnight, just to be sure, but we can’t see any real cause for concern.’ He frowned slightly. ‘As to what happened – who can say? Temporary amnesia is a possibility. The trauma of her father’s death . . .’

‘I thought she was coping with that,’ said Nell quickly.

‘Again, who can say? One thing we are fairly sure of though, and it’s that she wasn’t in that churchyard very long. There was no hypothermia, no slowing of the body’s metabolism. If she was abducted, she was kept somewhere. Oh, and there were no traces of any kind of drugs,’ he said, clearly anticipating Nell’s next question.

‘The police are going on the assumption that she really was abducted.’

He spread his hands. ‘Police deal in facts. My belief is that this is something of the mind. Your daughter was somewhere during those hours, but you might never know where. She might not know, either. But she may have instinctively gone somewhere she felt safe. Even into the church. Are you a churchgoer? Was your husband?’