Did fear have a smell that caught at the back of the throat and make it hard to breathe, Karl wondered when he opened his brother’s front door. That was how the house smelled, as if fear was a miasma, seeping from the pores of every room. Jenna, who had spent the night in an armchair, sounded hoarse with surprise that a new day had finally arrived. Justin’s eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.
They had chosen the photograph they would use for the Find Constance poster. Not a smiley one. Wherever Constance was, they knew she was not smiling. Her hazel eyes were her most arresting feature. Find me, they said. Rescue me before it’s too late. Karl emailed the photograph and the text for the poster to his deputy editor. Barbara promised to have it printed and the posters couriered to the community centre as soon as possible.
The family liaison officer arrived and brought an air of calm into the frenzied atmosphere. Specialist air and water units would be engaged in today’s search, Shauna told them. Nicole would look after the children and Karl would join in the search.
Volunteers and guards had already gathered at the community centre, cups of hot coffee in hand. Members from the local civil defence had also offered their services. They looked assured and well trained, but the mood was sombre as the searchers were organised into separate groups. Karl set off with his team in the direction of Turnstone Marsh.
He had seen it on television, the wide line of searchers slowly progressing across a rugged terrain, eyes down as they combed the ground for clues. It was always someone else’s story before, but now, it belonged to them.
Turnstone Marsh became a flood plain in winter but in the summer children scrambled their mountain bikes over the grassy mounds. When he was a boy Karl had broken his collarbone and cracked his ribs cycling on Toblerone Range, so called because of the serrated chain of humped earth stretching away from the highest peak. Races had been held regularly between the children who played on the marsh and Karl, by the age of ten, had held the record for descending the Toblerone on his bike at the fastest speed. According to Constance, who had tried and failed to beat his time, the record still held.
Last night’s rain puddled the ground and the mud splattered the legs of his trousers. The sun cast a hard, metallic sheen on the river as it flowed through the marsh. The volunteers all tensed when something blue and fluttering floated into view. A woman laughed nervously when they realised it was a discarded umbrella, the fabric bloated by the swell of the river. They stopped when they found a rusting fridge, abandoned in a thicket. A young guard stumbled back from the rank smell it released when he forced the door open.
At the end of the marsh, they crossed Orchard Road. The orchard that gave the road its name had become a wilderness since the death of its owner, Isaac Cronin. Karl and his friend, Domo Kelly, used to take turns robbing the orchard when they were teenagers. Climbing the wall, Karl had been agile and quick, his feet planted in Domo’s cupped hands, his knees working hard against the rough stone. On reaching the top, he had always experienced a moment of indecision as he looked down at the long drop into the orchard. Then he would jump, landing nimble as a cat, and take a ladder and bucket from Isaac’s shed. Once the ladder was propped against the wall and the bucket was full, he would lower it to Domo, who would transfer the apples to another container. This would continue until they had as many apples as they could carry and Mr Kingston – who drove a fruit and vegetable van, and never asked questions – would pay them a pittance for the lot.
Isaac Cronin never chased them. Too old and hobbling but, even if he had been fleet of foot, he wouldn’t have bothered. Karl’s mother used to say Isaac was born with a lazy backbone. An only child, who grew into a man-child, dependent on his parents until they died. They had successfully worked their orchard but Isaac had been content to fritter away his inheritance in the bookie office. He lay dead in his living-room for seven days before his body was discovered.
Karl was living in New York when Domo, or Dominick, as he now preferred to be called, rang with the news. A postman had raised the alarm when he realised that the same house lights were switched on each time he called. Dominick had been one of the first responders to the scene. A fireman, as he’d always planned. He said it was a grim discovery.
Karl had met Dominick earlier at the community centre. He was off duty but anxious to help. Like the civil defence team, he had an air of assurance about him. A man used to facing danger on a regular basis. He had joined the marsh search party and was picking his way carefully through the overgrown grounds surrounding the old house.
Isaac’s laziness had extended to dying intestate. No relations had been found to inherit the property, which had remained empty since his death. Two storeys high with grey walls, the house had always been a bleak, functional building. Now it was dilapidated. Roof slates and the front door were missing, the windows smashed.
The volunteers were silent as they approached the house. Graffiti artists had been busy; the grey walls were covered in swirls and loops, hard angles and the occasional expletive. Someone had sprayed an enormous pair of lips around the frame of the missing door. As the volunteers moved towards the entrance, it looked as if they were stepping into the maw of an inanely grinning beast.
They divided into smaller groups to examine the rooms on each floor. Note everything, Sergeant Moran advised them. Anything they saw that aroused the slightest suspicion should be reported and the police would decide its importance.
Karl climbed down the slippery steps to the basement where broken furniture had been dumped over the decades by the Cronin family. The woman beside him gasped and held her nose, the smell of rot and damp almost overpowering her. He sensed something menacing that was, as yet, undefined in this cheerless place. Constance… Constance… Constance… he repeated her name like a mantra. What would he do if he found her here? He shuddered as he thought of Isaac Cronin turning purple, slowly, irrevocably.