Chapter Thirty-nine

I began at the village shop, for yet another packet of hard sweets, along with two tins of milk and a packet of biscuits. I wasn’t sure what a witch would consider a treat, but if nothing else, she could feed them to her familiar.

The doctor’s fine car was just pulling up as I came out of the shop. A handful of would-be patients, who had been waiting on the bench and in his entrance garden, surged forward, clearly intent on delivering the village news. Had he been alone, I might have stuck my face in his and pointedly asked where he’d been last night, just to see what happened, but I was too late. He was already encircled by half a dozen informants, and any reaction would be wrapped up in his response to them. I merely nodded as I went around them.

I started by walking along the road past the Stoica house, but as I’d expected, if there had been any tracks, dropped clues, or even spilt blood on the roadside, they were thoroughly ground into invisibility now. Half a mile further on was a much-used lane into the fields, beside which stood the ruins of a stone barn. Heavy vegetation along the entrance made the place hard to see, so I went to poke around it. I did find signs of life—crushed weeds, a scrap of tyre-print in the dust, a padlock on the door—but when I got it open, the light pouring through the missing section of its roof made it clear that although it was an occasional refuge for the neighbourhood youth, none of them were being kept here against their will at the moment. Indeed, nothing was being kept here, and any root cellars it might have held were long tidied away. I pushed the door shut and the padlock closed, and went back along the road to where the foot-path set off into the hills.

Under the growing heat of the afternoon, I was happy to enter the forest shade. The path was rough but clear, the birds busy all around. I could hear the occasional faraway voices of search parties, and I kept a close eye for any sign of unusual activity along the path—the print of a city shoe or a dropped handkerchief with the letters GS, perhaps. But with every passing hour, it became less likely that Gabi Stoica would be found a short walk away from Bran.

However, she, too, would be no shrinking victim, to be marched off into the forest. She was smart, strong, and full of life. She might have been abducted in the same way I was, but if she had not yet been discovered in the equivalent of an abandoned root cellar, it suggested she was beyond reach of an easy search. That left two possibilities: by road, or into the hills. A motorcar could be anywhere by now, and a cart almost as far. But if her abductor had slung her across a horse and ridden up into the hills, I might still have a chance.

Because the hills have eyes.

There was no sign of the deer at Mrs Varga’s house, although smoke in the air suggested a nearby curing shed. I walked out into the middle of the clearing, and paused, unsure of the local etiquette. A cat wandered down the vestigial foot-path, stopping ten feet away to take its midday bath. “Is your mistress here?” I asked.

It paused, then went back to its task—but when I glanced back at the house, she was standing at the front door, motionless as the wood itself. Had she been there all along?

I raised a hand, and walked up the path, circling a polite distance around the cat.

“Hello again, Mrs Varga,” I said, keeping my words slow. “I wish you a good day.” I held out the string bag—also bought from the shop—to offer her my gifts. She took it, glanced at the contents, dropped the handles over the door’s latch, and turned back, waiting for me to state my business.

“A girl is missing from the village. Gabriela Stoica. Could be by road. Could be into the hills. Would you know, Mrs Varga, if someone came this way?”

She chewed, either on the idea or on something at the back of her teeth. “Stoica,” she said at last.

“Yes, Gabriela. Brown hair, this tall, brown eyes—”

“Gabriela good girl. I birthed her. Mother die six, seven years ago. Father all right?”

“Um, I think so. Distraught—I mean, angry. Sad. Afraid. The men of the village are all out looking. None have come this way, yet?”

“No. I been out.” She gave a small jerk of the head towards the higher reaches, away from the searching men.

“Have you seen anything? Heard anything?”

“Lots of voices, down there.”

“That’ll be them. I don’t think she is lost. I think she was taken.”

“By?”

“Don’t know yet.” I noticed that I was adopting the English of the natives. Soon I would be dropping my articles and rolling my Rs. “It will take the men a while to get up here. Maybe tomorrow. So I thought I would come, and ask you.”

“Not seen her.”

“Well, thank you, maybe if you do—”

I was talking to her backside while she bent to paw through the bag. She pulled out a tin of milk and thrust it towards me.

“Oh, no, that’s fine, you can keep it. Your cat would like it, if you don’t.”

“You take.”

I took. She hadn’t given me back the string bag, so I worked the tin into a pocket, hoping the seam didn’t split before I found someone to give the milk to.

She caught up a twisted walking stick as tall as she was and marched past me. By the looks of her, she intended a considerable hike.

But at the edge of the clearing, she stopped to look back, holding out one hand in the gesture that means, Well, aren’t you coming?

So I came.

I can’t say we walked together during the next half-hour, not even where the path was wide enough for us to be side by side. She led, I followed, and precisely no words were exchanged until we dropped down out of the hills, in a place I had been before, although by a different, and slower, route.

The Roma encampment, on the back road that led to Bran in one direction and the Brașov road in the other.

Holmes and I had walked past it, giving the residents a polite nod, or in his case, a tip of the hat to the women. Mrs Varga marched straight in, past the playing children and through the chickens and dogs to a sturdy little house at the centre of the encampment.

A man and a woman stood in front of the door, either because they were just leaving or because they had somehow intuited our arrival. Mrs Varga held out her hand at me. I stared at her outstretched palm for a moment, then worked the can of milk from my pocket and tentatively held it out. She grabbed it, thrust it at the woman, and started to talk.

I could tell, from the richness of their clothing, the angle of their chins, and Mrs Varga’s attitude of respectful camaraderie, that these two were important people. When she came to a halt and gestured at me, I took care to dip my head in recognition.

“Buna ziua,” I said.

They murmured greetings, then the man spoke up, in fluent English with an unexpectedly American accent. “Our friend tells us that a girl from the village is missing.”

“Yes, Gabriela Stoica. She walked home after work last night, and did not get there. We found her necklace by the side of the road.”

The woman asked something, and the man explained, translating what I had told him. “We know the Stoica family,” he said. “The mother was a good woman. She raised her daughters well.”

“Did you see anything last night that might help us find Gabi?” I asked, since that could be the only reason Mrs Varga had brought me here.

The two looked at each other, then walked off in separate directions. I raised my eyebrow at Mrs Varga, but the old woman seemed to think this a valid response, and walked over to some chairs around a low-burning fire. After a moment, I joined her.

Ten minutes later, half the camp was gathered before me.

More to the point, a girl and a boy, each with an adult hand on their shoulder, had been pushed to the fore. It would be hard to say which of the quartet looked more abashed.

The man started things off with a shake to the lad’s shoulder. “Tell her,” he said.

The boy flicked his eyes over at the girl, then winced as the fingers tightened and began to push out words. “A motor-cycle. Yesterday. In afternoon. Coming from Râșnov, going to Bran. We didn’t…look.”

The woman gave the girl a push forward, but unlike her beau, the young lady needed little encouragement. A stream of words poured out of her, in a tone of voice that declared her utter innocence and willingness to assist.

Fortunately, the man provided a running translation, although without the drama of the original.

The two young people had been sitting in a quiet place beneath a tree—merely sitting, talking about life—when the motor-cycle came quietly along the road, left to right, and although they expected the man to turn up for Fagaraș—why else come along that road, if not for Fagaraș?—instead he kept on the lane towards Bran. Such a beautiful machine, so shiny and new—nothing is shiny for long on these roads, unlike the cities, filled with gleaming motorcars, had I ever been to—(the man cleared his throat). Well, it was beautiful. And the engine was so smooth, they hadn’t even heard it until the machine was nearly on top of them, but they were just a bit hidden and the man on it didn’t see them, just kept on around the corner.

I managed to wedge a question into the flow. “Did you see what he looked like?”

Both of them shook their heads, and the girl answered. He was wearing a jacket, gloves, leather helmet, and goggles: his own sister would not have recognised him. Average size, neither thin nor fat. Not young, she thought. And probably a gadje, from the little skin that showed.

Not a Romany.

I thanked the two, thanked the man and woman, thanked Mrs Varga—and made haste to escape before the wrath of the heavens fell upon the young lovers.