It was awful, unbelievable what had happened last night. I'm sorry Mum, John, you were right after all, I shouldn't have gone, it was dangerous. That man who picked me up couldn't have been a policeman, he wouldn't have acted like that if he was. But where were the police, why didn't they come looking for her? As soon as it got light enough they would be sure to search the wood again and then they would find her. But in the meantime the man who had raped her was still in the wood. It had to be the man named Foster, the one who had abducted Carol Embleton, probably killed Andy Dark, because it couldn't be anybody else. He must have left the wood, picked up another car and driven that same road again ahead of the policeman who was going to pick up Thelma, beaten him to it, taken advantage of the fog. Damn the fog, it was responsible for everything that had happened last night.
She felt sick, a combination of fear, cold and hunger leading to nausea. Perhaps she could find her way back to the road, it couldn't be all that far. Take a straight line in. she didn't know which direction. Everywhere looked the same in here, dead or dying twisted oaks, bogs and thick reeds. And the awful silence, not even a crow calling raucously. But she couldn't just stop because she might still be here when darkness fell again. Don't panic, they'll find you; they'll have to or else there'll be a public outcry. POLICE DECOY SNATCHED BY RAPIST. JAMES FOSTER STILL AT LARGE. They would move heaven and earth to find her.
She saw what appeared to be a well-trodden muddy path leading away through the trees, skirting some tall reeds, decided at once that she would follow it. She trod cautiously, fearfully. The rushes were tail and thick, could have concealed an army. She kept as far from them as the path would allow, started, almost screamed once, when they rustled as though somebody lurked in there waiting to spring out at her. It could not have been the wind because there wasn't any, not so much as a faint breeze. And the mist seemed to be thickening all the time. You'll never leave here, Thelma Brown. Nobody leaves Droy Wood when the mists cover it.
The path snaked on and on. She wondered who had made it, an uneasy thought. No cattle or sheep carne in here; wild animals then, foxes, badgers, rabbits travelling constantly to and fro through the night hours. She tried to convince herself that it was the creatures of the wild, might have done so had it not been for the total silence around her, a dead place which even the birds and animals shunned.
The path was cutting away to her left now, winding through the trees, going on and on, visibility down to less than ten yards. Thelma could not get that fiery sky out of her mind, that blazing aircraft, the parachutist. It had seemed so real at the time but it had to be an hallucination because it couldn't possibly have been real. The human brain played strange tricks on one when under stress.
She stopped, listened again. If only she could pick up the sound of a passing car or lorry, know that the road was not far away, that she was going in the right direction. But always there was just the silence. The ground beneath her feet was drier now, leaves rustling as her bare feet scuffed through them. The trees, too, mostly oaks, retained a vestige of browning greenery as though they had not surrendered completely to this place where everything died. Hope, hurrying. If only that man Foster had not been in the vicinity she would have yelled for help; the police must be starting to search for her by now.
And then she came upon the young girl, not much older than ten or eleven. Thelma started, thought it must be another trick her confused mind was playing on her. She stared, saw the child sitting on a dead tree trunk watching her, smiling, not in the least bit surprised. Long golden hair done up into pigtails, her head seemingly too large for her slender young body; pretty, wide blue eyes, a flowery blue dress that fell to the ankles of her bare legs. Quaint, old-fashioned, Thelma thought, just how Mum might have looked when she was young. Or even Grandma.
The child did not appear to be in the least frightened or concerned, holding some reeds which she had been attempting to plait, playing idly just as she might have done in the meadows on a hot summer's day.
'Hallo,' she said still smiling, 'fancy seeing you here.'
'Fancy seeing you here,' Thelma echoed, and for some reason another shudder ran over her body. 'Aren't you cold with just a summer dress on?'
"You haven't got any clothes on.' Almost a prudish accusation.
'No. no, I haven't, have I?' Thelma glanced down at herself, experienced an unfamiliar embarrassment.
'Why haven't you?' Wide questioning eyes demanding an explanation.
'Because. ' — I can't tell her I've been raped, and neither must I let her go wandering off on her own with him about — 'because I fell in the mud and my clothes got all wet and muddy so there wasn't much point in wearing them. I hung them on a tree.'
'My mummy used to say that you only wore clothes to stop other people from looking at your body, that we didn't really need them. She's dead now, though.'
'Oh, I'm sorry.' Poor kid.
'I'm sorry, too. But would you like to see my daddy?'
'Oh, yes… but I can't. like this.'
'He won't mind.'
Thelma knew she was blushing yet the spark of hope within her that had almost gone out was glowing again. A child and her father, they had to know the way out of Droy Wood. It was funny that she did not recognise the girl, though. She knew most of the locals but this one was a stranger to her. They were building some new houses just outside the village, though, on the city side. Perhaps she came from one of those. She had to because no local would go anywhere near the wood, particularly when the mist covered it.
'My daddy's back there,' she said pointing vaguely behind her. 'It's quite a way, it'll take us ten minutes to walk it.'
'That's OK. What's your name?' 'Elsie.'
'That's nice.' It's old-fashioned, too. People don't use names like that these days. Still, what's in a name?
'Come on then.' Elsie stretched out a hand.
Thelma took it, felt icy cold fingers entwining with her own, transmitting a shiver. The child was deathly cold. 'You're cold. You ought to wear more clothes or else you'll be catching your., (death). you'll be catching pneumonia.'
'I'm all right, I'm used to it.' Her voice was husky, almost as though she had a sore throat. 'It's not really cold, it's just the damp fog.'
Elsie was pulling on Thelma's hand, overtaking her as though there was some sudden hurry.
'What's your daddy doing in the wood?' Serve me right if she told me to mind my own damned business.
A pause, clearing her throat. 'He's always in the wood these days. You'll see for yourself soon, though.'
They walked on in silence, a slight uneasiness creeping between them.
'I miss my mummy.' A note of sadness, almost a sob. 'I loved her.'
'How long's she. '
'A few days. Would you like to see her grave?'
No, I wouldn't. 'Sometime perhaps but hadn't we better go and meet your daddy first?'
'I suppose so.'
The other's mood had changed; sullen, those cold fingers detaching themselves from Thelma's, walking faster, striding on ahead.
The wood was not quite so boggy here, the ground a thick carpet of dead leaves which had gathered over the years, the permanent smell of decay almost overpowering. A wide space, perhaps the trees here had been felled at some time or other or else they had just blown down and rotted. Ahead of her Thelma saw what appeared to be a huge circular hole in the ground, a pit of some kind that had once been dug out manually because there was a large mound on the opposite side. It grew weeds and moss so the excavation had been a very long time ago. She wondered what on earth anybody would want to dig here for.
'They used to get peat from here a long time ago, when my daddy was a little boy.' Elsie appeared to have the uncanny knack of being able to read your thoughts. If her father had been here as a boy then they couldn't live in those new houses.