It was as well the police car was parked at a safe distance on the other side of Linden Drive. It was as well that no late-night reveller was walking home along the pavement outside Number 8 on this dark, cold night.
For suddenly there was an explosion – perhaps it would be better to say a detonation, as if a great cannon had been fired, Mons Meg at the very least! What followed seemed even more primitive. The startled policeman looked up to see a stone of huge size fall from the sky into the road. Like a missile flung from a medieval trebuchet, the frog had come hurtling high over the roof of the house into the front street. As it hit the ground, it split into three large lumps that became bouncing bombs hammering holes in the roadway. One hit a main and sent a jet of water whizzing up into the air.
After a few seconds that seemed like for ever, the constables in the car recovered enough to call for help, lots and lots of help. In a sort of hysteria they asked for emergency backup, the fire brigade, an ambulance and anything else that might be to hand. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it was a quiet night in York. There was an eagerness to answer this frantic summons.
‘You stay here, Andy,’ said the constable in the passenger seat, after the call had been made and answered. ‘I’ll go round the back of the house and see what I can see.’
Before he was halfway up the Gwynns’ front path, bells and horns could be heard as all the might of York’s emergency services gathered from different directions to come to the rescue. The constable continued round to the back garden, comforted by the knowledge that he would not be alone for long.
What did he expect to find there? Evidence of an earthquake? Signs that some unsuspected dormant volcano had erupted? No, strangely enough, he had this odd thought that there might be some gigantic catapult set up on the back lawn. He had the makings of a good policeman!
He was really quite disappointed to find Matthew and Alison Gwynn gazing speechlessly at a hole in the ground, with not a siege engine in sight.
‘What happened?’ he said.
‘We don’t know,’ said Matthew. ‘We heard this loud bang and came out here to see what it was. But we’re none the wiser. Except the frog’s gone.’
‘The frog?’
‘There was a huge ornamental frog sitting on the lily pad,’ said Alison, ‘a really ugly object, been there since we moved in. Whenever we cleaned the pond it took two of us to move it. Now it isn’t here.’
‘Whew!’ said the policeman. ‘I think I can tell you where it is. Not five minutes ago a great block of stone flew over your roof, landed in the front street and broke into pieces.’
The fire engine came speeding round the corner of Linden Drive at that moment, followed by two police cars, an ambulance and a medic on a motorbike. Doors and windows were flung open all over the street. The constable, Matthew and Alison looked at one another, appalled. It seemed to each of them that, mysterious though the blast had been, it was about to receive a disproportionate amount of attention.
‘Nobody hurt?’ said the constable, knowing what the answer would be.
‘Not back here,’ said Matthew. ‘What about at the front?’
‘Burst water main, but there wasn’t anybody around to get hurt,’ said the constable. Then, remembering that he was supposed to be watching this house and this couple very discreetly, he added, ‘We just happened to be passing; good job we weren’t too close.’
Detective Inspector Stirling took charge. Enquiries had now moved on to a much higher and more serious level.
What was needed was done and peace was restored. Then, and only then, the inspector turned his attention to the Gwynns who by now were standing out in the front street watching the proceedings.
Inside the empty house, the phone rang quite insistently for at least ten minutes, but no one was there to hear it.
‘I think we should go indoors, Mrs Gwynn,’ said the inspector. He was very soft spoken but his manner was that of one in authority. He ushered both of the Gwynns towards the house.
‘Back way,’ said Matthew. ‘That’s the way we came, and I haven’t brought a front door key.’
In the back garden, two policemen and an officer from the fire service were still busy inspecting the hole where the frog had been.
‘Any ideas yet?’ asked Inspector Stirling as they passed.
‘None at all. We’ll have to work on the theory that there has been a build up of underground gas,’ said the man from the fire service.
‘A natural accident?’
‘Not much else it could be, is there?’
Inspector Stirling shook his head.
‘I suppose not,’ he said, ‘but it seems odd that it should happen to this couple at just this time, when their young daughter has mysteriously disappeared.’
‘What do you mean?’ said the fire officer.
‘Well,’ said the inspector slowly, ‘I wondered rather whether it might not have been an accident at all. Could it have been in way deliberate? Could someone somehow have caused it?’
‘Practically impossible I should think,’ said the fire officer. Then he added, ‘But, to be honest with you, the natural accident will take a fair amount of explaining too.’
Matthew and Alison were already ahead of the inspector, going into the house. His conversation with the fire officer was not quite audible to them, but the words ‘natural accident’ registered with Matthew. It would be the most useful and least embarrassing explanation. Any hint that this might be due to extraterrestrial activities would be terrible. Especially now that we have burnt our boats!
‘That pond has always been a trouble,’ he said to the inspector as they entered the house. ‘Just last week I had to drain it because it had got choked and was overflowing.’
They went into the front room and sat down. The inspector did not sit in a comfortable armchair, but instead chose a hard, high-back chair as distant as possible from Mr and Mrs Gwynn. His appearance was so nondescript that people found it difficult to remember what he looked like. He had no charm and no desire to please.
‘The explosion, or whatever it was, is now the concern of the scientists, those wonderful forensic people who can see a world in a grain of sand,’ he said in his quiet, slightly sarcastic voice.
Alison shivered at the words. What did he know about grains of sand to speak so glibly? Now that she was committed to humanity it seemed to her more and more a poor exchange for what they had lost.
‘What I find hard to understand is your reaction to this strange event,’ he went on. ‘Most people would be up in arms, demanding to know the cause of the explosion, making allegations, demanding protection. Some of your neighbours have even wondered if the whole street should be evacuated as a precaution. You, on the other hand, just accept it. Does that not seem odd?’
‘Many people,’ said Matthew, ‘would be stunned into silence. It happened in our back garden. We were the first to see the hole in the ground. It is not an everyday event.’
‘Our neighbours,’ said Alison sharply, ‘are not worried about a missing daughter whom the police have done little to find.’
The inspector hid a yawn. It had been a long day. He did not like these incomprehensible people. He hated this incomprehensible situation.
‘That is my main concern,’ he said coldly. ‘Despite our best efforts, we have found no trace of Nesta. It seems at least possible that you know more about her disappearance than you care to say. I am not even sure whether there could be some connection between your daughter and this bizarre explosion, or whatever it was. Coincidence is much rarer than you might think.’
‘I don’t know what to say to that,’ said Matthew. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck as it dawned on him that this man thought that Nesta might have died at the hands of her own parents. What other interpretation could an intelligent listener put on his words?
‘Say nothing,’ said the inspector. ‘Tomorrow will do. What has happened here tonight is very strange and could be dangerous. We don’t know, do we? For tonight, for your protection as much as anything, I would like an officer to remain on the premises. I shall be here myself at nine o’clock in the morning. We can talk further then.’
The Gwynns made no protest. They had far too much to hide. But that was only part of it: the events of the night had been distressing in the extreme. And their daughter was still missing.
The officer, a dour young man in his late twenties, came in and settled himself down in the sitting room.
‘We are going to bed now, Constable,’ said Alison, glaring at him. ‘There is no point in us sitting here for the rest of the night.’
On her way out of the room, she surreptitiously unplugged the telephone. If there were any incoming calls, the phone must ring upstairs, not down. She could not risk her daughter’s call being answered by a stranger. By the time she and Matthew were settled in their own room, it was already five past three.
‘I won’t sleep,’ said Alison. ‘She could ring any time.’
She did not know, of course, about the call they had already missed.