"Let me go!" she cried, trying to tug her arm from his grip, "I really will call the police if you don’t."
"What, and have me spend the night in jail when I would rather spend it with you?"
She eventually broke free and tried to slap his face. He anticipated her action and swayed his head out of the way.
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
"Who do you think you are? God’s gift to women!"
"No, my name’s Clayton Walker. Clay to my friends, but you can call me, anytime." He propped his arms at either side of her, forcing her against a shop window and stared into her emerald green eyes.
"Don’t tell women fall for those cheesy one-liners?" she said, looking right back at him.
"Look, I don’t expect you to do it for nothing. I’ll pay you fifty quid. What do you say?"
Her eyes showed surprise. "You make me sound like a cheap hooker!"
"Don’t flatter yourself darling, I’ve never had to pay for it yet."
She broke from his stare, her eyes flitting across the contours of his face, etching his handsome looks on her memory. She fought an urge to kiss him.
"What do I have to do to earn this money?"
"Have dinner with me tonight and I’ll tell you."
She signed. "I can’t, I have to study for my exams."
"Tomorrow then."
"Washing my hair."
He grimaced and pushed his face right into hers. " Are you always this obstinate?"
She nodded and smiled at the same time.
He threw his hands in the air and mumble angrily to himself as he walked away.
"But I’m free now, if that’s ok?"
*
They sat at a table in a nearby coffee shop, neither of them speaking in those first few awkward moments. Only the clumsiness of the waitress serving their coffee prompted a reaction when she spilled some of the hot beverage into Clay’s lap. He leapt to his feet. The waitress shrieked fearing she had burnt his genitals. Luckily, he pulled the steaming denim cloth away from the effected area just in time.
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
"Oh, I’m terribly sorry, it was an accident!" cried the waitress, pulling a tea towel from the pouch of her apron to dab the effected area, and then realizing the inappropriateness of her actions.
"It’s fine, no harm done!" said Clay, seeing the look of dread on the waitresses face.
"Looks like you’ve peed yourself." Rebecca said, holding her hand over her mouth trying to mask her amusement.
"Yeah, I know what it looks like!" He wasn’t a happy bunny.
The waitress returned with a fresh cup of coffee; only this time, she place it carefully in the middle of the table and stepped back slowly, as if it were a time bomb.
It was hard for Rebecca to concentrate on the words he was speaking, what with, staring into his black, shark – like eyes that seemed to hold danger inside them, and, occasionally glimpsing the wet patch around his groin as she leaned forward when resting her elbows on the table.
"Shouldn’t you be writing this down?" he asked, seeing her twisting her hair around her finger, as if bored. "This story could give you the break you’re looking for and get you noticed as a possible future investigative reporter."
"How?"
"Have you listened to anything I’ve said? I want "YOU" to write me the half front page spread and to follow up on any leads that you might get."
"The editor would never go for it! He decides who writes the front page news."
"I’m paying for this advertisement, so I want you to do it!"
He had her immediate attention. She took a notebook from her bag and scribbled shorthand sentences onto the unlined paper as she reiterated over the facts with him again.
*
Laying on the bed and fresh from the shower, Clay folded the newspaper in half and began to read his headline story the next morning. It was well written, straight to the point with the facts and dates and a smear of added sympathy right at the end that would tug on anyone’s heartstrings. It would be
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
too early in the day to expect any response at this hour, he thought, looking up at the clock on the wall, that’s if there were going to be any response at all?
*
It was like waiting to have a tooth pulled waiting for that all important call from Rebecca. The breakfast he was eating in the hotel dining room looked absolutely delicious, but didn’t seem to have any taste at all, he
thought. He played with the food making a face on the plate to amuse himself. The two fried eggs became eyes, a button mushroom a nose, bacon
around the edge as hair and a sausage made it a great smiley face. At seven thirty am, he was the only guest up and about at that time, so any conversation over the breakfast table was a definite non starter. He thought about going for a walk and taking in some fresh air, until one of the receptionists arriving for work dashed inside drenched with rain and looking like a drowned rat. He pushed his plate away and lit up a cigarette, but within seconds, one of the waiting staff pointed to the numerous, ‘ No smoking in the dining room,’ signs that littered the walls. Taking himself and his cigarettes into the lounge area, he sat facing the door hoping Rebecca Stephenson was going to dash inside at any moment with some great news.
It had been a long wait. He’d lost count of how many cups of coffee he’d drank or cigarettes he had puffed on in the last couple of hours. Eventually, the smiling face of Rebecca Stephenson greeted him as she walked into the lounge. "Do you realize that I just left a warm, dry, comfortable office to bring you this information," she said, brushing her wet fringe from her eyes. She yawned long and loud and her eyes glossed with moisture as she flipped open her notepad and placed it on the table in front of him. "Four calls, two sounded like cranks and two anonymous calls, both giving the same name and village."
"Where is this place, Sampford Meavy?"
"About seven miles South East of here, a small village of less than a hundred houses. It’s best I come with you though, most of the roads leading there are not signposted, and I know this area like the back of my hand."
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
Silence reigned as they drove towards Sampford Meavy. Clay had to concentrate hard as the morning rain had made the surface of the roads quite slippery, and with the eagerness and anticipation of finding his real mother, his mind would occasionally wander. But their journey was fraught with problems right from the start; driving down a dead-end road and having to reverse all the way back again, the road being too narrow to turn around in. And a landslide had taken away part of a steep embankment making it a quite hair-raising ride as he tried to navigate around loose boulders and slippery slopes, and then to top it all, getting a puncture less than hundred yards from the edge of the village.
"Fuck! All I need now is to find out that my family moved to fucking outer Mongolia," he said, throwing the punctured wheel in the back of the 4x4 after putting on the spare.
Rebecca could see the stress on his face and the unsure look in his eyes. "Scared?" she asked.
"Does it show that much?" He ran his fingers through his hair.
"Just don’t expect too much. Just because you want to find out who you are, doesn’t mean to say that they will want to acknowledge you, should you find them, that is."
"Don’t you think I’ve already thought of that?"
The nerves had really started to get to him as he pulled up outside the address. He paused behind the wheel and took deep breaths. Looking across at Rebecca, he said, "Wouldn’t you like to go to the door and smooth the way? I’d just get all tongue tied and they’d think I was a bumbling idiot and slam the door in my face."
Her hand slid across the seat and enveloped his. "You have to face your own demons, but if you like we’ll go together."
His knees were shaking as they strode up the path. She squeezed his hand giving him reassurance, but before they could knock on the door it opened wide.
"Come in, I’ve been expecting you," said a voice from within.
Immediately he recognized the old lady as the silently one who was knitting when he visited the get –together club.
"It’s nice to have visitors, but I think you’ve had a wasted journey," she
said, offering them a seat.
"Why do you think that? I haven’t asked you any questions." He felt quite uncomfortable. The old lady was staring at him as if he had three heads.
"Because the baby my daughter had died along with her."
"Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know?" He saw the tormented look in her eyes and his heart went out to her. "Please accept my apologies, I didn’t mean to cause you upset. I have to checkout every possibility."
"I’m not upset, it happened a long time ago. I’m comfortable with talking about Mary now."
"Is this your daughter," asked Rebecca, lifting a school photo from the table beside her, "she’s very pretty."
"That’s my eldest daughter Margaret, she’s two years older." She walked across to a cupboard and wiped the dust off another school photograph that she took from a drawer. "This is Mary!"
Rebecca’s eyes widened and her head switched from the photograph to Clay’s inquisitive face. " My, God, it’s like looking in the mirror."
The resemblance was uncanny. The same dark, shark –like eyes, hair blacker than a ravens plumage and a small black mole at the same side of his chin.
"Don’t you see it?" Rebecca said to the old woman while holding the photo to the side of Clay’s face, "a blind man on a galloping horse couldn’t help but notice."
The old lady squinted and took out her spectacles from her apron pocket.
"Can’t see the resemblance myself, but that maybe because I suffer with Glaucoma."
When Clay looked at the photograph, somehow he knew instantly that he was staring at his mother’s face. "Tell me about Mary," he said, "what happened to her?"
The old lady sat back in her armchair, her hands were shaking as she took off her spectacles and wiped a single tear from her eye. "Mary was almost
sixteen when she died, she was a shy, quiet girl who loved to sing. She joined the choir at Torbridge Methodist church because that was her passion." Her
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
voice wavered at the end of the sentence and she had difficulty getting out the words. She took a deep breath and continued. "Christmas was supposed to be a happy time, but something had been troubling her for weeks. We thought it may have been the usual teenage pangs of growing up into womanhood or because of the cold wintry weather; Mary hated the winter months." Emotions got the better of the old lady and she broke down in tears, sobbing into her handkerchief.
Rebecca knelt beside the armchair and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Just the thought of her laying there under the snow for all those weeks tares me apart," continued the old lady. This time it was far to much for her to bear and she buried her head into a cushion and wept out loud.
Clay swallowed hard, but the lump in his throat seemed indigestible. Rebecca put the kettle on and made the old lady a cup of tea. But tea and sympathy would never take away the pain that tore at the old lady’s heart.
"Maybe we should go! Is there someone we could contact for you, I’d hate to leave you alone while you’re in such an emotional state?" said Clay.
Suddenly, she stopped crying and looked up at the clock as it chimed three times. "There’s no need, Mary will be home from school soon. I’ll have to make her tea before choir practice." The old lady got up from the chair and walked into the kitchen and started to prepare food.
Clay and Rebecca looked at each other with raised eyebrows as they were about to leave.
"Poor old dear! She must think Mary’s still alive," sighed Clay.
"Some people do that! It’s their way of coping, blanking out traumatic experiences and carrying on as if nothing ever happened. But let’s face it, you can’t get away from being the spitting image of Mary."
"But you heard her, she said the baby died with Mary."
Rebecca paused at the gate. "There’s something about this whole thing that doesn’t quite add up." Then she had a thought. "Take me to Tavistock library there’s something I want to check on."
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
Rebecca was intrigued by the old lady’s last statement. If Mary was found dead under the snow and the baby was with her, then it could only have been
just a coincidence that Clay had resembled her so much. And a tragedy like that would have certainly been reported in the local newspaper, she thought.
They carefully flicked through every page of the newspaper slides from the beginning of the year and found what they were looking for in the second
weekly copy of February 1973. It was reported that schoolgirl Mary Donovan was found near Whitchurch, three miles north west of Sampford Meavy, under a deep snowdrift ten days after her mysterious disappearance. A post-mortem revealed Mary had died from a combination of a hemorrhage after child birth and hyperthermia. It was suggested that she may have lost her way in the blizzard on the night of January 29th. Local Doctor David Shaw had told the inquest : ‘ I remember a young girl with an infant visiting my house on the night in question. She was in a quite emotional and exhausted state. The baby was obviously born premature, in my estimation, by at least three months. It was suffering breathing difficulties and hyperthermia and died within a few minutes after their arrival. I had to sedated the girl because of her erratic behavior, but when I went to check on her a few hours later, both her and the child had gone.’
Coroner Richard Blake said: ‘ The baby’s body was never found. All I can assume is that a wild animal of some sort had carried it away and eaten it while the mother lay dying.’
"That’s it! There’s no proof she carried the baby away with her," cried Rebecca, "she could have still left you on the church steps and, in a weakened delirious state, wandered off in the wrong direction."
"That’s plausible, but the Doctor said that the baby died!"
Rebecca looked excitable, snapping her fingers trying to find the right words. "Frozen inanimation! When a person shows no sign of life, but isn’t really dead. Like many people have suffered from when falling through thin ice into freezing water and then started breathing again hours later after being rescued."
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
Clay nodded slowly at her theory and looked thoughtful, then glanced at his watch; it was five thirty pm. "We have to talk to Mary’s sister, maybe she knows something we don’t."
"How do we find her?" asked Rebecca, "she may live miles away and is most probably married by now."
"You’re the expert," he said, pointing to the Microfiche, "check all the marriages in this area for the last twenty –nine years."
"But that could take me all night. I’m suppose to be studying for my exams."
"It’s all part of the learning curve, "he said, patting her on the back and grinning.
CHAPTER 3.
Margaret Bowman, nee Donavan, lived closer than expected. She married local farmer Harold Bowman in 1982 and if still living on the family farm as reported at that time, she lived less than a mile away.
It was dark as they pulled up outside a five bar gate at the entrance to the farm. A heavily built young man was detaching some kind of ploughing machinery from the back of a tractor in the yard as they walked towards the farmhouse. A large German shepherd dog lunged at them from a darkened corner, snatching the chain taut that was fastened around its neck and barked furiously as it lunged again and again.
"Quiet Major, HEEL!" ordered the young man.
The dog whimpered and backed away slowly, its steely eyes watching their every movement.
"Can I help you?" he asked.
"I’m looking for Margaret Bowman," replied Clay.
"MAAAAM ! SOMEONE TO SEE YOU," the young man called out loudly.
The door opened slowly. The light from inside illuminating the first few feet of the darkened courtyard. Clay stepped in to it, and from the reaction he received and the look on Margaret’s face confirmed what he believed.
"Oh, my, God!" Margaret’s face went ashen and her eyes filled with tears as her trembling hand reached out and touched Clay’s face. "I always knew in my heart that you didn’t die." She studied his face again, wiping the tears from her eyes that clouded her vision. "Mother said a stranger called today asking
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
about Mary, and I just knew……….." Her words tailed off as she burst into tears again, sobbing uncontrollably into the hem of her raised apron.
Clay felt uneasy, he never knew what to do at a time like this, when a woman cried like that.
Rebecca came to the rescue again, cradling Margaret’s shoulders and leading her over to a nearby chair. "This calls for the old magic cup of tea," said Rebecca, lifting the kettle to the water spout.
There were footsteps along the corridor that led into an adjacent room, a teenage girl peered around the door jamb, took one look at Clay and disappeared back the way she came.
"Ashley, is that you? Come here, I want you to meet someone," called Margaret, croakily.
Ashley walked in slowly, preening herself as she did so.
"This is……" Margaret suddenly realized she hadn’t asked his name.
"Clay Walker," he said, offering his hand.
Ashley walked nervously towards him. "Hello," she said, ignoring his outstretched fingers, "I don’t do handshakes, you never know where they’ve been."
"Ashley!" cried Margaret, with a look of disgust, "that’s no way to greet people."
Unmistakable, thought Clay, she certainly has the family trait. Same raven colored hair, the dark eyes, and, that certain arrogance that he sometimes showed.
"Who are you, anyway? Have you come about my horse?"
"No, but I could just about eat one right now. Whatever it is that’s cooking on the stove is making my mouth water?"
Clay laughed at the horrified look on Ashley’s face.
"You will stay for supper?" insisted Margaret, "I’m sure Harold and my son David would love to meet you. They should be finishing up soon."
"I’m to excited to eat! What I’m wanting to know, I need to know now."
The four of them retired into the lounge. It was a typical old English farmhouse, low ceilings supported by several large oak beams, quaint multi paneled wooden framed windows and a huge stone built fireplace for burning logs. Clay sat on a small two-seater sofa, Rebecca sat next to him and Ashley straddle the arm of the chair on which her mother was sitting. For the first few moments, Margaret just stared at Clay, her eyes following the contours of his face as the light was much brighter in that room.
"Do you know? You have the same black mole in the exact same place as Mary?" commented Margaret.
"It’s a beauty spot!" he replied smiling.
Margaret’s eyes widened and she laughed. "Incredible! Mary always answered the same when I teased her about hers."
"Mum, why are you talking about beauty spots. I thought he’d come to buy my horse?" Ashley asked, looking quite confused.
"God!" cried Margaret, "you and that bloody horse. Haven’t you listened to anything that we’ve talked about today? This is your cousin, Clayton."
It still didn’t seem to register and only added more to Ashley’s confusion.
"Cousin, but how? Dad is an only child and aunt Mary died………" The penny finally dropped. "The headline story in today’s newspaper, you mean….?"
"Maybe you should pay more attention to the things happening around you or, you may end up a scatterbrain like a waitress I met recently," commented Clay.
He felt a sharp dig in the ribs.
"Tell me about the events leading up to Mary’s disappearance and don’t leave out any minor details, you never know it might just give us a clue to what really happened."
Margaret began telling him of the wonderful Christmas they had just a few weeks before Mary disappeared and how she teased her about putting weight on with all those mince pies and chocolate selection boxes she’d eaten. And of how Mary loved to go to choir practice and stay over at her friend’s house afterwards. Then Margaret’s tone changed and her eyes glared as if seeing that last dreadful day all over again unfolding in front of her. She said: "Mary was
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
upset after not being able to attend the funeral of Reverend Hamilton a few days earlier, and for some reason, had stopped visiting her friend at the
Rectory because Elaine was still in mourning for her father. We should have realized something was bothering her because Mary had always been a creature of habit. She always fed her guinea pig before she did anything else when she came home from school, even before tucking into her favorite treat that mother always made her; deep fried battered banana covered with hot golden syrup. But that particular day, Mary went straight upstairs to bed. We were slightly worried about her because she was the type that never got sick, but we looked in on her several times that evening just to ease our minds. Mary told me that she didn’t feel well and had a bad tummy ache. I suggested we call the Doctor because she looked so pale and gaunt, but Mary insisted it was probably the tummy bug half the school had gone down with recently and told us not fret. Now we know different!" Margaret swallowed hard and her lips quivered as she continued. "The next morning, mother thought she’d let Mary sleep in. The schools were closed because of the storm and most of the roads were impassible because of the huge snowdrifts everywhere. It wasn’t until later that morning mother looked in on her and ran into dad screaming hysterically. There was blood everywhere, it looked like she’d been butchered in her bed. One of her sheets and a blanket were missing, and there were streaks of blood leading downstairs and out through the back door. The police brought in sniffer dogs to follow her trail, but were hampered by another torrential snowfall. More police were called in from Cornwall to do a widespread search, but it was heavy going trying to wade through three feet or more of snow." Margaret’s tone suddenly became more sullen. "They didn’t find her until ten days later, frozen beside a fallen tree. But that wasn’t the only tragedy. Mary’s death killed my father in the end. He just seemed to give up and lost all interest in life after Mary died; finally dying of heart failure less than a year later."
Clay was choked up by the sad story and for a while there was a deadly silence in the room. Margaret finally forced a smile and stared at Clay again.
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
"At least something good came from all this. Now you’ve found us, I hope you’ll let us get to know you better?"
"Of course! I want to get to know all of you. I had no set time limit on finding you, so there is no rush to get back home." Now he knew what happened to Mary, there was still the burning question of who his father was?
"What about boyfriends ?" he asked. "Every girl has a crush on someone at sometime in their life, maybe she had a secret admirer or someone she was close too?"
"There was obviously someone. In her diary there were only references to ‘ him or he’. We asked most of her friends and they knew nothing; except her best friend Elaine Hamilton, who Mary confided with the most, but she had already moved away by then. Besides, whoever it was made her pregnant was hardly going to come forward. Mary was only fifteen!"
"Elaine Hamilton, is my mother or, should I say, the woman that found me on the church steps that night." He paused for a moment as the shocking revelation made Margaret gasp and swallow hard. "But I hope you understand, I will always regard Elaine as my mother."
"Rightly so, and a good job she’s done too by the look of you."
Rebecca tapped her watch, reminding him of the time and that she had to go.
Clay breathed a deep sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. "It’s certainly been a day of revelations, that’s for sure. It’s hard to decipher all this information in one go. Tell you what, how about we meet for lunch tomorrow at the Tavistock Tavern where I’m staying and maybe all of this will have sunk in by then? Bring the diaries with you, if you still have them, and maybe we can find a clue to who my father is."
Margaret had disappointment written all over her face. "Tomorrow! But I hoped you would stay for supper or even the night. We have plenty of room for you and your young lady."
Clay threw a sideways glance at Rebecca and smiled.
She didn’t look to keen on Margaret’s suggestion.
Fletcher / When casting no shadow.
He tried to imagine as they drove back towards town what life would have been like had he not been dumped on the church steps all those years ago. Would he have one of those strange Devonshire accents everyone spoke with, he thought. Maybe he would have been a farmer or a shepherd instead of a builder, there seemed to be a lot more sheep than people living in that area. Suddenly, he hit the brakes hard as the road disappeared into a blanket of fog. Rebecca shot forward and then jerked back into her seat as the 4x4 came to a sudden halt.
"Sorry about that, I couldn’t see a bleeding thing."
Rebecca massaged the back of her neck and grimaced. "What’s happened? I must have dozed off."
It was a real ‘pea souper’, so thick you could almost cut the fog with a knife.
"It just came out of nowhere, one minute the road was there and the next ….." He hunched his shoulders.
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