39
October 24 . . .
That winter wasn’t far away could be seen in the shortening days and the falling of the leaves, in the stormy autumnal gloom giving way to night frosts and cold sunshine. Jack thought about Evie often, walked with her now and then, when he wasn’t working, her eyes still pinned to the ground for anything that the searches may have missed, only occasionally flickering elsewhere, along hazy lines of long-ago planted trees or upward, through the tangle of branches, toward the sky.
He wished he could have given her some answers. Words of wisdom that would have helped her when she most needed it, but who was he to explain what the grand plan was. There were two certainties in this life. You were born, and you died. The bit in between, either you embraced it and made the most of it, or you sat back and let it happen around you. Either way, it was brief.
He had a suspicion that Evie fell into the latter category. Life was too short to waste by being in the wrong places, in stifling situations, with the wrong people. She hadn’t been sure how she’d like living here, but over the months, the surroundings had crept under her skin and taken root. Or maybe it was the ghosts, she’d told him, because she could almost feel them, the ghosts of the people who had been born and had died during the centuries that had passed while the woods grew up. It made you wonder how many people had walked where they had, because an oak tree could live for a thousand years.
Jack thought of the stag. Then Josh.
There were many paths. They took a different one every time, kicking through last autumn’s leaves, scanning low branches for a ripped shred of familiar fabric, finding none. During one of their walks, she’d told him that the isolation, which she’d come to love, was now her enemy, because there were too many places to hide.
On that particular walk, the weather had made no difference. He had heard the rain in the distance, before it caught up to them, had felt the first cold drops, then pulled his collar up higher as Evie did the same, and had whistled to Beamer before burying his hands in his pockets.
* * *
A few days passed, during which he didn’t see her. Then one gray, damp morning, from deep in the woods, he heard a scream. Without thinking, he broke into a run. There was another scream. Jack ran faster.
Somehow he knew it was she. “Evie?” His voice echoed through the trees as, beside him, Beamer barked. “Evie? Are you there?”
She was crashing through the woods, not far from them.
“Evie? Wait . . . where are you?”
Suddenly Beamer ran off ahead. The crashing stopped, and he heard her call him.
“Jack?”
He followed the sound of her voice, was shocked when he caught up with her. Her eyes were wide and red with crying; her breath was coming in gasps.
“I found something. Quick! Follow me. . . .” He couldn’t get a word in. “This way. I need to show you.”
He followed her.
Then she stopped suddenly, turned round, a look of panic on her face. “I can’t find them. I don’t know where we are.”
“Find what?” Jack had no idea what she was talking about.
“Graves, Jack. In the trees. Two graves.”
A shiver ran down his spine. He could see why she was so upset. “Think, Evie. Which way were you walking?” They were on one of the main paths they both knew well.
“I-I’m not sure.” It wasn’t just her voice that shook. Her whole body seemed to be shaking uncontrollably.
Jack took her arm. “Come on. Let’s keep going straight on.”
They walked only a few yards before she veered off to the left and follow a different path. This path was narrow and overhung by brambles, so that if you didn’t know it was there, you’d walk straight past it.
“Are you sure this is right?” he asked, then watched the back of her head move as she nodded her reply.
Then, a few yards farther on, she stopped, pointed directly ahead of them. “There.”
He tried to see where she was looking, and then he walked past her to take a closer look. At first, under the covering of fallen leaves, it was hard to make them out, but after focusing for half a minute, he could see what she’d found. Side by side, unmistakably, were two graves. One of them was filled in, scattered with a covering of leaves; the other, empty.
* * *
It took two hours for Miller and Evans to find them on one of the main paths so that they could lead them to where the graves were.
“Thanks for showing us. We’ll get a team out to see what we’ve got here. Are you okay to escort Evie home?” Miller was clearly aware of how vulnerable Evie was.
“Of course.” Jack wanted to stay, but it was his day off. “Call me when you know more,” he said to Miller. “Evie? Shall we head back?”
He could see that she, too, was torn between staying and going. Between logic and fear that the daughter she wasn’t sure she had might be lying under the mound of earth, the fallen leaves. No way should she be here when they dug up the grave.
“Come on.” He took her arm. “I’ll walk you home.”
As they walked, she didn’t speak. Jack could imagine the scenarios she was running through her head. She must be in impossible turmoil—and limbo.
Who knew what was in the filled-in grave or whom the open one was intended for? God, he hoped it was an animal in there. But Evie’s daughter was still unaccounted for. He couldn’t bear even to think it, but what if they’d found her? When they reached her house, Evie barely said good-bye to him. Jack could see fear eating away at her. She’d seemed so accepting, but as he watched her, suddenly he realized that like him, she hadn’t given up on finding her daughter. Not deep inside.
“Will you be okay?” He was worried about her. The house was unlit, and it was too early for her police guard to be here. As far as he knew, she’d be alone.
She nodded, then turned to go in. He stood watching until she’d gone inside and closed the door.
* * *
At home, he couldn’t get the image of her out of his mind, haunted by what she had probably been thinking since they’d found the graves. In the end he decided to go back and check on her.
It was dark by the time he knocked on Evie’s door, carrying a dish. Concerned that she might not be eating, on the spur of the moment he’d brought the casserole he’d made for his own dinner. There was no answer. She clearly had nothing left, not even a polite hello for whoever had come to intrude. Intrusions into her small, desolate world—that was what people became when they continually arrived without warning, especially given that Evie was a private person. He pushed the door open and walked in.
“Hello? Evie? It’s Jack.”
There was no reply.
After placing the dish on the kitchen table, he carried on through to the sitting room. She was tiny, curled up on her sofa, as though finding the graves had somehow diminished her size. Looking around the room, he noticed that it was untidy, clothes thrown over the back of a chair, dirty plates on the low coffee table. A manifestation of her life now.
“I hope you don’t mind.” He paused. “I thought you should eat.”
Her head came up, as his voice had startled her.
Jack stood there, awkwardly. “I brought you food. I hope you don’t mind. . . .” He hedged, suddenly unsure how she felt about him letting himself into her house like this. “It’s just a casserole.”
“Thank you,” she replied, her response automatic. Her eyes drifted away from him.
“I hope you don’t mind.... I let myself in. . . .” He was repeating himself, trying to get her attention, but she seemed out of it. “The door was unlocked. Your police guard’s outside. He saw me come in.” Recognizing Miller in the car, Jack had knocked on the car window but hadn’t stopped. Miller had been talking on his cell. He hesitated. “I’ll put some on a plate, shall I? It’s chicken . . . homemade.”
The gesture of kindness was lost in what was already an obscure landscape of loss and uncertainty, where familiarity was absent, where uninvited people came and went at will. Jack remembered it all too well. Evie didn’t move, and he realized, after the events of the day, how exhausted she must be.
“Are you coming with me?” He made his voice matter of fact. It seemed to stir her. She sat up and slid her feet to the floor.
She followed him back to the kitchen.
“Where are your plates?”
After walking over to a cupboard, Evie bent down, reached for two plates, handed them over, then sat down. It was clearly too much effort for her.
“You didn’t have to.”
After hunting around for cutlery, he dished up the casserole and placed a plate on the table, in front of her. “I know what it’s like. How much effort it takes.” He placed his plate on the table and sat down.
After a couple of mouthfuls, she pushed her plate away. “I’m sorry. I’m just not hungry.”
Jack didn’t say anything, just carried on eating, noticing out of the corner of his eye as she picked up her fork again, picked at what was on her plate.
“Does your wife mind your coming here?”
Her question took him by surprise. He thought he’d told her. “My wife doesn’t live with me. She left me a couple of months ago.”
She stopped, her fork poised midway to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t be. To be honest, our marriage was falling apart long before Josh died. She’d been having an affair. I was going to broach the subject of divorce, only then the accident happened. Josh’s death kept us together—for the wrong reasons. We had grief in common. Nothing else.”
Evie didn’t comment.
Jack wasn’t used to talking about his marriage. Suddenly, he was awkward. “I should go.” She was clearly tired, and he didn’t want to outstay his welcome.
Evie got up. “Thank you. It was really kind.” Her eyes held his.
He left her the rest of the casserole. As he walked down the path to his car, he could feel drizzle on his face. A reminder of what always seemed like the endless rain of winter. He didn’t look forward to it.
Farther up the path, he could make out the shape of a police car, dimly lit from inside, and was reassured to know that someone was watching out for Evie. As he drove away, he couldn’t help wondering what the future held for her. He supposed at some point, her memory would come back. But maybe it wouldn’t.
* * *
That night, he couldn’t sleep; he lay awake as he went over what he’d seen that day. The graves Evie had found . . . He wondered whom the empty one was destined for, who or what had already been buried there.
Evie was at the center of everything; he was convinced of it. His gut was telling him loud and clear that this was far from over.