Read Online Night Visit by Priscilla Masters - Free Book Online

There was no one around to watch her.’
    Even then I knew the truth. That someone had been around to watch her. Someone knew exactly what had happened to the child. And that someone knew where she was now.
    And I was disturbed by the powerful image of the child in a red and white spotted dress, running across a field. I knew this vision would haunt me for the months ahead.
    ‘ If I’d been the fanciful sort,’ Vera was saying, ‘I’d have thought she really had been turned into a toadstool. There’s plenty out there, in the trees. One more, no one would notice.’
    ‘ And your son?’
    ‘ Believed the worst.’ She must have seen my face because she quickly added, ‘Oh, not about Reuben. Not even he could believe that about his own father. He held us responsible for everything else but not that. All the same I have heard nothing from him since then. Not a single word. I have heard they have another child. I suppose you can’t blame them for not wanting to bring it here. Maybe they think—’ She was struggling to keep the tears back. ‘Reuben and I wanted to drive down to London. We wanted to look at her, to see if she looked like our Melanie. But we never did. We wondered.’ Her eyes wandered past me to the empty sitting room. ‘Nights we’d sit down and wonder.’
    ‘ Does your son know his father’s dead?’
    ‘ I wrote when he was ill. I wrote again after Reuben died, telling him when the funeral was. I heard nothing. I’m surprised no one mentioned it to you.’
    ‘ I suppose if it was just gossip…’ I said lamely.
    She stood up. ‘You must want to see, Doctor.’ There was a disturbing cognisance behind her eyes as though she could read the motive that lay behind my professional talk. ‘I’ll take you there.’
    Neither of us spoke as we tramped across the field, through a herd of cows, and approached the tree-line and a long mound of freshly turned earth marked with a simple wooden cross bearing the name Reuben Carnforth, the date and the year. There was an inscription, unusual on most tombstones, logical on this.
    Seek and Ye Shall Find .
    But he hadn’t. Had he? I glanced around and had a sudden clarity of vision.
    ‘ Did he specify this precise spot?’
    Vera nodded.
    There was a rotting tree stump beside a post. Perhaps, ten years ago, a child might have used it to climb before jumping off the other side.
    Had Reuben known this ? By instinct ? Or had he seen her ?
    Vera was staring down at the grave, her fists clenched. ‘I have to know,’ she said. ‘I cannot leave this life not knowing, never knowing. It’s eating me up like a cancer. While I had Reuben it was at least bearable, just. We both could keep her alive by remembering her. And I knew if she was found that Reuben and I could go to London, to our son and make our peace. But it’s too late for him now. And one day it’ll be too late for me too. I just can’t stand that thought.’
    She was gripping the top rail of the fence as she spoke, facing not the house but the edge of the trees. ‘They know,’ she said. ‘Bloody things. Sometimes I think I hate them. It’s as though they grow to hide things. Damned trees,’ she said again and I knew she must have stood here and scanned the trees a thousand times before, through hot summers and chill winters, soaking autumns and bright green springs, and on New Year’s Eve too, longing for the child to pop out from behind one of the trees. Except she never did. Melanie had remained hidden. And now, surely, it must be too late. She must be dead.
    I didn’t mention the steep drop to the road. Vera must know about it and that possibility had surely been explored. I followed Vera back to the farm, leaving her at the door.
    ‘ I’ll come again,’ I said.
    ‘ If you like.’ At the door she paused, still scanning the skirt of trees. ‘If only Reuben was right and Doctors really did have some special powers. If only by some miracle you really could find out what had happened to