“Back towards the city?” Kiley said, surprised.
“Could be,” Resnick said, “but for my money, more likely heading here. Annesley Forest.” He was pointing at a patch of green covering almost two squares of the map.
“Why there?”
“Couple of years back, just north of here, Annesley Woodhouse, this man was found dead outside his home, ex-miner, lacerations to the head and upper body, crossbow found close-by.”
“Robin bloody Hood,” someone remarked.
“According to what we heard,” Resnick continued, “there’d been one heck of a row between the dead man and a neighbour, all harking back to the miners’ strike, ‘eighty-four. When we went to talk to the neighbour, of course he’d scarpered, gone to ground right there.” Resnick pointed again. “Two and a half kilometres of woodland. Then, as if that weren’t bad enough, a second man, wanted for turning a shotgun on his own daughter, went missing in the same area. Bloody nightmare. We had extra personnel drafted in from all over, round five hundred all told. Dog teams, helicopters, everything. If that’s where Anderson ’s gone, he could stay holed up for weeks.”
“But we don’t know for sure,” Kiley said
“We know next to bugger all,” one of the officers said.
Resnick silenced him with a look. “There’s forest all around,” he said, “not just this patch here. A lot of it, though, is criss-crossed with trails, paths going right through. Sherwood Forest, especially, up by the Major Oak, even at this time of the year it’s pretty busy with visitors. But this is different. Quiet.”
Looking at the map, Kiley nodded. “How sure are we about the van?” he said.
“Traced the number plate. Citroen Berlingo. Rented from a place in north London -Edgware-two days ago. Name of Terence Alderman. Alderman, Anderson, TA, close enough. Paid in cash.”
“If he’s gone into the woods…” Kiley began.
“Then he’ll have likely dumped the van. We’ve got people out looking now. Until that turns up, or we get reports of a sighting, it’s still pretty much conjecture. And, as far as we know, nobody’s been harmed.”
“I doubt if he’s taken them for their own good.”
“Even so. I need a little more before I can order up a major search. Request one, at least.”
By which time, Kiley thought, what they were fearing, but not yet saying, could already have happened.
“I thought I might take a ride out that way,” Resnick said. “Want to come along?”
While Rebecca watched, Anderson had talked both children into a game of hide and seek, warning them not to stray too far. Billie giggled from the most obvious hiding places, waving her arms, as if the point of the game was to be found. Once, Keiron skinnied down inside a hollow oak and stayed there so silent that his father, fearing maybe he’d run off, had called his name in anger and the boy had only shown himself reluctantly, scared of a telling-off or worse.
They picked at the corned beef, ate biscuits and cold beans, drank the sweet syrupy peach juice straight from the cans.
“We should have done this more often,” Anderson said.
“Done what?” said Rebecca sharply.
“Gone camping,” he said and laughed.
Sitting on the ground outside the tent, he showed his son how to strip down the rifle and reassemble it again.
“Can we go after some rabbits?” Keiron asked.
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“Will we still be here tomorrow?”
He left the question unanswered.
Just out of sight, beyond some trees, Anderson had dug a latrine. Walking back, Rebecca was aware of him watching her, the movement of her body inside her clothes.
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.
“Seeing?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No.”
“No man then?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. I’m just not.”
“You should.”
She went on past him and into the tent.
The day was sealed in with grey. Low hedgerows and mudded tracks and the occasional ploughed field. Why was it, Kiley asked himself, they didn’t seem to plough fields anymore, ploughed and left bare? Londoner that he was, he could swear that was what he remembered, travelling north to visit relations in Bucks. Mile after mile of ploughed fields. That rackety little train that stopped everywhere. What was it? Hemel Hempstead, Kings Langley, Abbots Langley, Berkhamstead, Tring? His uncle, red-faced and-now, he thought, looking back-unreal, waiting outside the station at Leighton Buzzard, to take them home in a Rover that rattled more than the carriages of the train.
Resnick had opted to drive, the two of them up front as they made a careful circuit: Newstead, Papplewick pumping station, Ravenshead, south of Mansfield and back again, the A611 straight as a die from the corner of Cauldwell Wood, across Cox Moor to Robin Hood’s Hill and the supposed site of Robin Hood’s Cave. Then back down towards the forest, the trees at first bordering both sides of the road and then running thickly to the left.
“Do you ever miss it?” Resnick asked, out of nowhere.
It took Kiley a moment to respond. “Playing?”
A grunt he took to mean yes. What answer did he want? “Sometimes,” Kiley said. “Once in a while.”
“Like when?”
Kiley smiled. “Most Saturday afternoons.”
“You don’t play at all?”
“Not for years. Helped a friend coach some kids for a while, that was all.”
Resnick eased down on the brake and pulled out to pass an elderly man on a bicycle, raincoat flapping in the wind, cloth cap pulled down, bottoms of his trousers tied up with string.
“Up and down this road, I shouldn’t wonder,” Resnick said, “since nineteen fifty-three or thereabouts.”
Kiley smiled. “How about you?” he said. “County. You still go?”
“For my sins.”
“Perhaps we’ll catch a game sometime?”
“Perhaps.”
Resnick’s phone rang and he answered, slowing to the side of the road. “We’ve found the van,” he said, breaking the connection. “Aldercar Wood. No more than a mile from here. Off the main road to the left.”
It had been driven beyond the end of the track and into some trees, covered over with bracken, the inside stripped clear. The main area of forest was clearly visible across two fields, stretching north and west.
“Looks like your surmise was correct,” Kiley said.
Resnick nodded. “Looks like.”
Anderson had gone silent, drawn back into himself. No more family games. Once, when Keiron had run over to him, excited about something he’d found, his father had just stared at him, blank, and the boy had backed nervously away, before running to his mother and burying his face against her chest.
Billie fretted and whined until Rebecca plaited her hair and told her the story of Sleeping Beauty yet again, the little girl’s face lighting up at the moment when the princess is kissed awake. She’ll learn, Rebecca thought, and hopefully before it’s too late.
“How did the prince find her?” Billie asked, not for the first time.
“He cut his way through the undergrowth with his sword.”
“Perhaps someone will find us like that,” Billie said.
Rebecca glanced across at Anderson, but if he had heard he gave no sign.
A light rain had started to fall.
Without preamble, Anderson sprang to his feet and pulled on his cagoule. “Just a walk,” he said. “I’ll not be long.”
A moment later, he was striding through the trees.
Keiron ran after him, calling; tripped and fell, ran and tripped again; finally turned and came limping towards the tent.
“He isn’t coming back,” the boy said, crestfallen.
Rebecca kissed him gently on his head. “We’ll see.”
An hour passed. Two. Once Rebecca thought she heard voices and called out in their direction, but there was no reply and the voices faded away till there were just the sounds of the forest. Distant cars. An aeroplane overhead.