Lost Summer

They had said he could choose which one of them he took on. Fucking generous of them. The one who’d stopped him was easily the biggest and exuded a kind of lazy confidence. The thin one was the smallest but obviously a nasty little bastard, as Kyle would say. Which left the one on the wall, who so far hadn’t spoken. He was trying to look tough but he was as nervous as Adam was.

They waited for him to decide and when he eventually pointed at the big one he was almost as surprised as they were.

Morris was intrigued. ‘Why did you do that?’

The truth was Adam wasn’t sure. He’d often wondered if it had been a sudden attack of bravery, the tactical response of those with balls of brass; take out the biggest guy and everybody else falls into line. Or had it been something less heroic. Instinct perhaps?

He shrugged in reply. ‘It was all over pretty quickly.’

He’d thrown a few wild punches and remembered at least one connecting with its target, and the expression of pained surprise the other boy wore before he retaliated by swinging his fist in a blur of speed. The blow caught Adam on the cheek with the force of a house brick and knocked him to the ground, but somehow, probably accidentally, he’d managed to grab the other boy’s legs. Next thing they were rolling on the tarmac scrabbling and flailing at one another amid shouts of encouragement from the other two.

‘Finish him, Dave!’

‘Hit him!’

There was blood in Adam’s mouth and his lip felt thick and swollen. Tears of humiliation pricked his eyes. His arms were pinned. Get it over with he’d thought. Fucking country bumpkins. He’d remembered his mother always telling him how great it would be living in the country. How London was full of crime and vandals. All those glue sniffers and thugs on the tower estates. But he’d never been beaten up there. He’d never had three kids try to rob him. At least there he’d had his friends.

And then unexpectedly he was being pulled to his feet and the other boy was half smiling as he wiped blood from his nose and examined it with faint surprise.

‘Shit! You alright?’

‘I think so,’ Adam said.

They faced each other awkwardly and then the boy fetched Adam’s bike. ‘Sorry. It was just a bit of a laugh really.’

Some fucking laugh. The other two boys hung back, the thin one scowling with sullen disappointment.

Adam fell silent, lost in reflection. All these years later and the memory of that day remained as fresh as if it had happened just a day or two ago. He remembered feeling a curious pride for having stood his ground. The boy he’d fought looked at him differently, with a kind of respect. Even then, at that very moment Adam realized that some bond had inexplicably formed between himself and the boy whom he later knew as David. He wasn’t the only one to feel it. The thin one who turned out to be called Nick sensed it too. His eyed had glowed with resentment.

‘What happened?’ Morris asked.

Adam shrugged. ‘They let me go. I didn’t see them again until term started. It turned out I was going to the same school as the one I had the fight with.’

Morris waited expectantly as if there was more. But Adam didn’t feel like going on. He looked at the clock and noted with relief that his time was up.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_132a9aef-b4d0-5312-bb72-20d822853fd4)

The house was set back from the road and all but hidden behind a hedge. All that was visible was the thatched roof, but earlier Adam had wandered past the gate, pausing at the end of the driveway to get a better look. It was the kind of quaint two-storey Sussex village cottage in demand by well-heeled city commuters. Cloud Cottage was the name on the wooden barred gate. A black Labrador trotted over and dutifully though half-heartedly barked before wagging its tail hopefully. It watched with disappointed eyes when he went back to his car.

The first houses on the edge of the village were around the bend several hundred yards away. The railway station was in the next town, where Liz had caught the train to Euston. Mr and Mrs Thomas lived in Cloud Cottage with their three children. Liz had been their baby-sitter until a year earlier, a piece of information Adam had only stumbled across when he’d asked Liz’s father, Paul Mount, to go to the station with him a couple of mornings in a row on the very long shot that he would see something or somebody that would open up a new avenue in what had become a fruitless search.

On the second morning Paul had nodded to a middle-aged man in a suit. ‘Alan Thomas. He works in the City I think. Liz used to baby-sit for them.’

What was it about Thomas that had triggered some kind of internal alarm? He was just another business commuter like hundreds of others. Nothing to mark him out from anybody else, but discreet questioning had revealed that Liz had stopped baby-sitting for the Thomases a year ago. Why?

‘I don’t know really,’ Paul Mount had said. ‘I think it was a bit far and they were often out late.’

Adam had moved into the village pub, which was called the Crown, and for several days had been quietly digging and watching. He knew Alan Thomas caught the seven-thirty-two most days, but sometimes he went in late or not at all. His wife was on the plain side but well groomed. She didn’t have any close friends in the village, which wasn’t unusual for incomers like the Thomases. They tended to socialize with other people like themselves from the country club up the road. Their children attended private schools.

Adam had learned that the police hadn’t interviewed the Thomases. There was no reason to. In the morning he went back to the station and watched the other people who boarded the seven-thirty-two. There was a young woman whom Thomas seemed to know. Adam followed her to her office in the City and after work introduced himself. He said he was a journalist and wondered if she had time for a drink.

‘Adam Turner?’ Her brow furrowed and then her eyes lit up with recognition. ‘I’ve read something of yours.’

Minor fame had its uses. In a wine bar near the station she answered his questions. He didn’t expect her to remember the day Liz had vanished, but in fact she did. Such strokes of fortune happened occasionally and he accepted them as his share of luck. Dig deep enough and often enough and sooner or later something has to fall into place, and he was nothing if not diligent. He hadn’t been home for a week.

‘Actually, it was my birthday,’ she said, as she sipped a Côte de Rhone. ‘So I went in late that day. I caught the nine o’clock. Wasn’t that the one this girl was supposed to be on?’

‘Yes. Did you see her?’

She shook her head. ‘If I did I don’t remember. I sat next to Alan.’

‘Alan Thomas?’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Not really. He was on the same train?’

‘Yes. I remember he said he was running late because his wife was away and he couldn’t cope without her or something. He made a joke of it. Anyway he promised to buy me a drink after work, but he never turned up. Actually, I was glad.’

‘Why?’

She hesitated. ‘It’s just that his wife was away, and you know, I wondered if he was making a pass. He didn’t actually say anything suggestive or anything. I’m probably being completely unfair.’

‘But something made you uncomfortable?’

‘A little I suppose.’

‘Intuition.’

She shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

But Alan Thomas had sat with her all the way to London, she was positive of that. Had she seen him again after they left the train? She hadn’t. Who was to say he hadn’t bumped into Liz on the platform?

The next day he went back to London and when he arrived home Louise told him that Morris had phoned. ‘You didn’t cancel your appointment,’ she said. Her arms were folded, a wine glass in one hand.

‘I forgot. I’ll call him tomorrow.’

‘Will you make another time to see him?’

‘I don’t know. I think I’m on to something with the Liz Mount story. I might have to put Morris off for a little while.’

‘Christ!’

She slammed her glass down on the counter.

‘Look, it’s just temporarily,’ he said.

‘Right. Your bloody work comes first. Again!’