He took a quick look around the room. Her mother was nowhere to be seen. ‘Will you excuse me?’ he said to Rushton.
The older man nodded. ‘Aye, go on, lad,’ he said. ‘Although, frankly, I’m not sure there’s much you can do for that one.’
62
‘OK, HERE ARE THE RULES,’ SAID EVI, LOOKING DOWN AT three alert, interested faces in front of her. They were in the family interview room at the hospital. The Fletcher children were sitting opposite her in three miniature, brightly coloured armchairs.
‘In this box there are some funny masks and also some quite scary ones,’ she went on. ‘So as soon as anyone starts to feel scared, or anxious or worried in any way, we can stop. Joe and Millie, if you want to go over to the table and draw, or play with the toys in the box, that’s fine. If you’d rather stay and help Tom, that’s fine too.’
‘I want to draw,’ said Joe.
Evi indicated the low table, already set up with paper, coloured pens and crayons. In the corner of the room sat Alice and Detective Constable Liz Mortimer. Evi had asked them both not to distract the children or make them self-conscious. Behind a large mirror on one wall of the room, DC Andy Jeffries was watching and making notes.
‘OK, Tom,’ said Evi. ‘Are you ready to have a look in the box?’
Tom nodded, looking anxious but also, Evi thought, quite enjoying the attention. Evi lowered herself to the carpet. Kneeling for any length of time was a seriously bad idea, one she’d pay for later, but it was unavoidable in this case. She took the lid off the cardboard box, conscious of Alice watching from under a canopy formed by her left hand, a magazine on her lap. Evi reached inside. ‘I think this one is…’ She peered quickly at the mask she was bringing out. ‘Scooby Doo,’ she said, holding up a cartoon dog’s face.
Tom smiled and visibly relaxed. ‘Can I try it on?’ he asked.
Evi handed it over as Millie wriggled off her armchair and headed straight for the box. Tom put the Scooby Doo mask over his head and turned to look at himself in the large mirror. Alice looked up, smiled and turned back to her magazine. Millie had picked up the box lid and was balancing it on her head.
‘Right,’ said Evi, reaching into the box again. ‘Next one is Basil Brush. Can I try this one?’
‘We’re going to the pantomime tomorrow,’ said Tom. ‘In Blackburn. It’s a school trip.’
The exercise was one it had taken several weeks to set up. The idea had occurred to Evi shortly after Tom had first confided in her about the strange little girl. After listening to his descriptions, she’d explained to the investigation team her theory that someone, probably an older child or young teenager, had been hanging around the house and had even crept inside on at least one occasion, wearing some sort of carnival mask. If they could pin-point the mask used, the police might have some chance of tracking down where and to whom it had been sold. It was a long shot, especially as there was no proof that Tom’s little girl was in any way connected to the attempted abduction of Millie, but it was one the police were willing to try.
Having decided to go ahead, the investigation team had gathered together every party, carnival and Hallowe’en mask they could find in the shops and on the internet. Evi had already discarded some that bore no relation to Tom’s description and had arranged the funnier, less threatening ones so that they came out of the box first.
Tom was reaching into the box himself now, turning round with each new find to see how it looked in the mirror. Millie was copying her brother, getting the elastic tangled in her hair. Joe was studiously ignoring both of them. Gradually, the masks became darker, scarier, no longer made with children’s parties in mind.
‘Mum, look,’ called Tom. He stood up tall, an oversized mask over his head. The mask seemed to depict a male, East European peasant with drooling mouth and very little brain.
‘What?’ said Alice, looking up from her magazine. ‘Oh, very nice.’
‘You know who I am,’ prompted Tom. ‘The servant from The Young Dracula. The one who makes them bat-bogey porridge for breakfast.’
‘Yeah, I must get some of that,’ agreed Alice. ‘Any nicer ones in there?’
Tom turned back to the box as Millie waddled over to her mother with an Incredible Hulk mask pulled over her face. It was upside-down.
Thirty minutes later, Tom had reached the bottom of the box and Evi was ready to admit defeat. On the plus side, none of the children appeared to have been disturbed by the exercise. Tom had treated it like a huge game, trying on every mask, even making Evi put on several. Millie, too, had joined in the fun, although she’d grown tired a while ago and was now sitting on her mother’s lap. Joe had completely ignored both his siblings and had concentrated instead on his drawing. He’d been working on the same picture for over half an hour now. He was just a little too far away for Evi to see what it was.
The clock in the corner of the room said it was twenty-five past six. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to stop now,’ said Evi, glancing at the large mirror. ‘Tom, thank you. That was very brave of you. And it was very helpful. Thank you, Millie.’ She glanced over at Alice and DC Mortimer in the corner of the room. Alice raised her eyebrows in a silent question. Evi shook her head. Alice stood up, Millie in her arms. The child’s eyes were glazed and she snuggled in close to her mother.
‘Worth a try, I suppose,’ muttered the detective, getting to her feet.
‘Come on, boys,’ said Alice. ‘What did we do with coats? Joe, are you done?’
Evi had almost forgotten about Joe. The boy had been so quiet all the time she’d been interacting with Tom and Millie. Now he stood up, examined the drawing he’d been working on and then carried it over to her. He held it out.
Evi took it, feeling her ribcage tighten. The drawing was exceptionally good for one done by a six-year-old. It showed a figure dressed in pale blue, with long fair hair and over-sized hands and feet. The head seemed large too, whilst the eyes looked huge and heavy lidded. The full-lipped mouth hung open and the neck was terribly misshapen. A movement at Evi’s side told her that Tom, too, was looking at his brother’s drawing. Alice and Millie drew close.
‘Ebba,’ said Millie, her eyes brightening as she reached for the drawing. ‘Ebba.’
‘That’s her,’ said Tom in a small voice. ‘That’s what she looks like.’
63
‘ALL THREE OF THEM? ARE YOU SURE?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Evi. ‘Joe drew her, Tom and Millie both recognized her. Millie even had a name for her. Ebba, she called her. She’s quite real, this Ebba person. The police just have to find her. Are you playing Springsteen?’
‘A man can dream. Hang on, I’ll turn it down.’ Harry picked up the remote control and the music faded. ‘So what is she?’ he asked. ‘A kid, a dwarf?’
‘Hard to say. Tom showed me on a height chart roughly how tall he thought she was. About 140 centimetres, which would put her on a par with an eight-or a nine-year-old child. But if Joe’s drawing was accurate, her hands, feet and head are disproportionately big. That might suggest an adult with stunted growth. And she appears to have some sort of lump, maybe a goitre, on the front of her neck.’
‘If someone like that lives in Heptonclough, people will know about her.’
‘Exactly. And she must live there. There are no other towns close enough.’
‘There are quite a few farms dotted about, some of them pretty isolated. She may come from one of them.’
‘The detective who was there mentioned that. He’s going to talk to his boss about getting a couple of officers to start visiting homes.’
‘They took all this seriously? I mean, at the end of the day, it was a six-year-old kid’s drawing.’