Only stupid people believed in ghosts.
‘This is Eleanor’s best place.’ Now he would know she was a traitor. She flushed, already she had broken the morning’s resolution to be ’specially nice to Eleanor.
‘It would be. It’s full of insects, dead animals, hazardous places to climb and fall out of and secret hidey-holes. But what do you think, or didn’t you get a say?’
‘I think it’s a bit scary. My Mum says you get all sorts these days.’
‘Your Mum is right. You do indeed. Come on, I’ll take you away from here.’
These were the words that Alice had been dreaming of hearing Doctor Ramsay say. She had relived their encounter in the lane two days before, picturing his long brown arm resting along the sill of the car door with his fingers only inches from her nose while his other hand tapped on the steering wheel. The fantasy always ended with his suggestion that she come for a ride in his gleaming new car. The narrative had developed at quite a pace over a short time, from being a simple offer to drive Alice the short distance to her parents’ cottage to a more ambitious journey. Doctor Ramsay would whisk her to London: they would visit the Zoo and then go on to Madame Tussaud’s, where they had waxworks of the Royal Family and the Beatles. After a short while she would be his wife and make him happier than Mrs Ramsay did, who she had heard her Mum describe as a trial.
Her friend Jean at the Newhaven school had said the waxworks were like actual people. She had told Alice that she had asked a policeman in the entrance what time it closed and he hadn’t answered because he was made of wax. Alice had known that she would never be fooled as to whether a man was real or not.
Or maybe Doctor Ramsay would show her the big house he had in London. Alice had never known anyone with two houses. Her Mum had said the Ramsays were very important in London and had parties full of famous people that got reported in the papers. Eleanor was dismissive when Alice quizzed her. She preferred to talk about crane flies, cats and marbles. So Alice had been none the wiser. Doctor Ramsay would take her on a tour of all the sights. There was nothing she wanted more than to run away with him and leave Eleanor behind. Alice had to face facts; he would only take her home. She dared not hope for more.
For the first time since playing with Eleanor, Alice didn’t want to go home. The little cottage next to the post office was no longer a safe haven. Cracks and doubts had appeared on its perfect surface. Now the thought of her Mum and Dad and the way they lived made Alice uncomfortable.
‘I’m supposed to be with Eleanor. I’m not expected back until tea time.’
‘Oh, I see.’ He stuck out his lower lip and shrugged his shoulders. It was all up to Alice. Only she could take away his disappointment.
Alice was dumbfounded. She had never been in charge of a grownup before. The experience was terrifying and exhilarating. What should she do? She must not let this chance slip away. It was like Eleanor’s complicated rules. Alice had three lives and after saying ‘no’ to Doctor Ramsay a second time, she would have one life left. Perhaps she might not get a third go. He might not ask her again. His rules might be stricter than Eleanor’s and include fewer lives. She would never go with him to London, they would never see the glasshouses in Kew Gardens or the River Thames at the bottom of his road. Doctor Ramsay was going to leave her alone on this boiling hot path in the middle of nowhere searching for his daughter forever. Or worse he would dump her outside her boring house and never see her again. Alice made a snap decision:
‘Maybe it wouldn’t matter if we did go. Eleanor usually goes off by herself when she does hiding anyway. She has a lot of dens, and forgets we’re playing.’ She didn’t want to sound cross with Eleanor so quickly added: ‘I don’t mind. She has a lot to do.’ Alice didn’t pause to consider that Eleanor had never actually abandoned her during a game of hide and seek.
‘I’m afraid that’s the nature of the beast.’ Doctor Ramsay had cheered up. ‘Okay, let’s not give her another thought. She’ll make her own way home when she’s ready. Let’s give her a dose of her own medicine and hide too. I bet we can hide even better.’ Doctor Ramsay had become like Lucian, boyish and excitable. Alice watched in amazement…
‘I know a secret place that Eleanor has never seen. It’s ages until tea, shall I show you?’
‘But Eleanor knows all the secret holes.’
‘Not this one, she doesn’t. I promise you.’ Doctor Ramsay put out his hand to her. ‘Cross my heart?’
Without hesitation, and by now brimming over with joy, Alice grasped it. She couldn’t believe how things had turned out. She had made the doctor better.
‘Now, the quickest way is down here, but it’s very steep with lots of loose bits of chalk, so keep your eyes peeled. We’ll be very quiet in case Madam is spying. Stay close to me.’
‘But this is the way Eleanor went.’ Too late Alice remembered that she wasn’t supposed to know. ‘I think.’
‘Be very quiet. We don’t want her to hear us,’ he whispered. ‘And I mean, if she appears, I’m only taking you home. She can’t be cross.’
Mark Ramsay and Alice descended sideways down the steep winding track between the thick bushes of gorse and blackberry. They passed only a few feet from where Eleanor was crouching, deep in the undergrowth. As she heard their footsteps she shut her eyes and held her breath. But as they went by, she dared to lift a branch to see where Alice was going. What she saw made no sense.
She slumped back against a bush, settling into its armchair comfort, shifting until the springy branches finally stopped poking into her back. She didn’t know what to do now.
One, two, one, two.
She told herself the steps had surely been one person walking, and this is what she would later tell the policeman. She also said she had kept her eyes tight shut so she hadn’t actually seen Alice. If Detective Inspector Hall had realised that Eleanor was lying to him about hiding in a hedge by the lane, he might have guessed she was making up other things too. As it was, although he didn’t trust the scruffy little girl who was more like a boy, he had nothing concrete to go on.
Eleanor’s ears were pounding and to stop the sound she scrubbed at her hair and shifted about. After a few moments it dawned on her that there was no point in hiding. Alice wasn’t looking for her any more. That much had been clear. She came to her senses; there was no time to waste.
Thrusting aside brambles, she slithered along the floor of the leafy tunnel on her stomach until she reached the path. She stood for a moment, unsure whether to go down or up. Either way she risked being seen. Did it matter?
Then movement to her left caught her eye. There was a white shape like a giant flower on one of the bushes some yards back up the path to the Tide Mills. As she got nearer she saw it was a giant butterfly fluttering hopelessly in dying throes, too weak to disentangle itself from the blackberry thorns. Eleanor stumbled towards it, tripping on chips of chalk and nearly falling; her feet had pins and needles from sitting for so long.
The butterfly was a white handkerchief. She pulled it off and put it to her nose. The familiar sharp tang turned her stomach. There was embroidery on one corner, and Eleanor knew without looking what the letters were. The handkerchief might have been a coded instruction because it galvanised her into action. She knew what she had to do. In Eleanor’s mind she was doing it to save her mother’s life. In reality Isabel, at that moment curled in a light doze on her bed, was in no danger.
Eleanor plunged back into the dense bushes on her hands and knees, pushing deep through the small tunnels in the undergrowth. To prevent herself from hurtling down the steep slope, she held tight to the stronger branches and skidded downwards. Eleanor was reckless as thorns ripped at her skin. Soon bright beads of blood dotted the scratches. After a few minutes of shoving along, with her face close to the dry baked earth, she came out into blinding sunlight. She was yards from a sheer drop of about six feet down to the beach. Efficiently she scootered backwards on her bottom, then rolled on to her stomach and inched over the edge feet first, feeling for toeholds. There was one, but as she trusted her weight to it and searched for the next one, it gave way in a spray of chalk. She shot down and crash-landed on to the shingle, bruising her knee and jarring her ankles.