If things weren’t bad enough, for the last few days Eleanor had not been able to find Mrs Jackson’s glass amulet. Its disappearance worried her more than what had happened to Alice. She was certain it had last been in her Box of Secrets. This loss was the culmination of a land shift that had altered her perceptions. Wardrobes and wallpaper were different. They were angular and unfriendly, stripped of memory or association. Trees cast menacing shadows across the overgrown lawn and the milk on her cereal that morning had been slightly sour. Nothing was the same.
She had overheard Lizzie telling her mother that the police had opened an Incident Room in the church hall on the high street so today there would be no Bring and Buy sale. Instead most of the village helped in a search across the fields and along the riverbank. Gina and Lucian had been allowed to join in. Gina found a crisp bag that she was told might have a bearing on the case. Lucian hadn’t found anything so said the whole thing was a waste of time. At night Eleanor lay watching the creeping shapes on the ceiling made by sweeping headlights and dazzling film lamps. Intermittent rifle-fire of numerous car doors failed to penetrate the cotton wool quiet hanging over the Green. It reminded Eleanor of the muffled stillness inside her father’s car as outside he chatted on the busy pavement inches from the closed windows.
All day policemen and journalists consulted in hushed murmurs, perhaps because they knew they were getting in the way of everyday life. A life now deemed precious and lost to an age already passing. Then a reporter would aim a camera lens at the White House windows and, diving to the floor out of sight, Eleanor was her old self.
The house search did not produce Alice, but it did yield a packet of Gauloises in Gina’s knicker drawer and a welcome if momentary return to family responsibilities for Mark and Isabel. After administering a telling-off for which neither of them could muster up much remonstrative stamina, Gina was released to make only her second trip to the stables since Alice had hidden. That evening she stormed home in tears and standing in the hall, hurled her riding hat to the floor, where it bounced and rolled on the tiles, as she sliced the air with her crop. Seeing Eleanor strolling out of the kitchen munching on a ham sandwich, Gina had levelled the crop at her and screamed:
‘I ab-so-lute-ly hate you!’
Mark had come up behind Gina, car keys jangling, and grabbing her shoulders, he propelled her into the dining room, kicking the door shut behind him. The sandwich turned to sticky dough clogging Eleanor’s mouth. What was the matter? There was plenty of ham left, and loads of bread; in fact recently, along with cheese, Gina had stopped eating meat, so what did she care? She swallowed hard and trotted swiftly across to the forbidding dining room door. Squinting into the keyhole through which she could see nothing because of the key, Eleanor listened. Gina was shouting:
‘It’s not fair. I hate her. She’s ruined everything!’
Her father cajoled in a continuous rumble so that Eleanor could not make out separate words. She pulled a face as Gina carried on: ‘… and she gets away with it!’
The hatred in her voice made Eleanor hiccup on her sandwich.
She backed away from the door and told herself it didn’t matter about Gina, because her Dad had proved he was on her side. Whatever happened, Eleanor knew for certain that he loved her. This might make everything bearable. When she had got up the nerve to hear more they were talking calmly, although her Dad sounded like he was putting Gina to sleep as she made baby sounds, which should have been funny, but wasn’t.
A chair leg screeched and Eleanor dropped her sandwich. She moved fast, scooping up the scraps of bread, scooting to the kitchen, where she threw them in the bin, scuffling them under a damp wad of rubbish in case she was told off for wasting food with people starving. This made her realise that since Alice went she hadn’t been told off at all. As Eleanor retreated to the playroom – now the extent of her world – she wished they would be cross with her. Gina’s outburst had been a relief. Since Alice had gone, Eleanor had vanished too.
She settled on the floor and went on with her picture. Despite her gloomy mood, Eleanor was pleased with it. Two small spies creeping through thorny bushes followed by a tall murderer in sunglasses and a denim cap. She drew him, in thick black mixed with streaks of burnt umber and gashes of grey and brown, crawling over leaves and branches like a beetle. The spies were meant to capture the Mill Owner and hand him over to Richard Hall. She put in tumbles of gorse and brambles to rip his clothes and scratch him. Along the top of the paper she added the Tide Mills in the distance, and looming at the forefront, the Mill Owner’s house. Then she changed her mind about the thorns and coloured over them. She livened up as she filled the orchard with juicy, ripe pears that she decided the murderer should be allowed to eat because one of them was poisoned by the Chief Spy.
No mention of Gina’s explosion was made at supper. Usually Eleanor would have said something, but instead she chewed diligently, her elbows tucked in. Gina did not shout again, Lucian didn’t talk about logic and reasoning with cutlery acting the parts. Everyone stared at their plates and munched. As the meal wore on Eleanor propped herself on her elbow, her forehead leaning heavily on her hand, and loudly slurped reluctant spoonfuls of custard. No one told her off.
Isabel had set up camp in the dining room, smoking and talking to visitors, emerging only to take a phone call or get another coffee. The dining room was where Eleanor was asked to go and talk to Richard Hall. Isabel sat beside her, as Richard the Chief Inspector explained how she would be helping them with their enquiries. He was trying to make her feel special. Eleanor was suspicious.
The first time they talked, which was the afternoon after Alice went missing, Richard had asked her to think about playing hide and seek with Alice. He was sure that a clever girl like Eleanor could guess where Alice might be hidden. Eleanor had already informed him it was Alice’s turn to look, but he had forgotten. She decided Richard really was bonkers when he asked: ‘Elly, do you remember where you hid Alice?’
His mistake made her snigger: as if she could hide Alice! Eleanor imagined her, smooth and white and clean and hard to lift. It was easy to hide from Alice, because she wouldn’t look in dirty places. Alice, sharp as a pencil, sat bolt upright, asking impossible questions, always demanding the right answers. Alice was very difficult to hide.
She stopped counting before getting to ten.
Richard the Policeman had rubbed his chin, making Eleanor think of Robert Kennedy, at that point still alive and presumably lying on a hospital bed in America with his head in a bandage. This distracted her so that she jumped when her mother smacked her hand down on the table. Everyone stared at it. Eleanor was sure Richard liked the nails, polished and long, and she hoped he liked the rings, the sparkling diamond, and the gold signet on her mother’s little finger that made her father cross because it was from a ‘former life’.
‘Eleanor, bloody well pay attention. I’m sorry Chief Inspector.’ Eleanor knew the man didn’t like her mother swearing. His eyes stopped blinking like Alice’s. She clutched the sides of her chair as the room bent like the Hall of Mirrors on the Palace Pier. She didn’t remember saying anything. She was sure she hadn’t. She must have.
In an interlude of truce during tea after the Cheese day, Alice had confessed to Eleanor that she had failed her Underwater Proficiency test and had to be rescued by the instructor from the shallow end. She didn’t care that Eleanor had got her life saving certificate and had once swum a mile in a freezing pool covered with dead flies. She said Eleanor shouldn’t have pretended to drown by staying under because, she had explained, drowning was not funny. She told her it was rude that Eleanor had waved around in the air the stripey pyjama trousers she had just escaped from, when she finally bobbed to the surface. Eleanor had assured Alice that drowning was like going to sleep.