Silent Playgrounds Read online

  DANUTA REAH

  SILENT PLAYGROUNDS

  Dedication

  In memory of my father,

  Jan Kot,

  architect and artist

  1913–1995

  Przechodniu I powiedz Polsce, ze padlismy tu, stuzac jej wiernie. (Memorial to the Polish Parachute Brigade at Arnhem)

  With many thanks to the people who gave me help when I was writing this book. I would particularly like to thank the e-mail writers’ group, Sue and Penny, for their invaluable critical advice; Superintendent Steve Hicks for helping me again with details about police procedure; Professor Green for his clarification of details of forensic pathology, and for not laughing too loudly at some of my more off-the-wall ideas; to Richard Wood for his time and his advice about tracing missing people; to the staff at Kelham Island museum for answering my questions about Shepherd Wheel; to Teresa for all her support; to Julia whose editing makes all the difference; to Alex, and, of course, to Ken for seeing this book through with me from start to finish.

  People who know Sheffield will recognize many of the locations in this book – Endcliffe Park, Bingham Park, Hunters Bar, Sheffield University. Green Park flats, however, exist only in my imagination, and though I have used the university campus as a setting, the university that is described in the book exists, again, only in my imagination. The coffee in the Students’ Union is excellent, though.

  I often walk through Endcliffe Park and Bingham Park, through the woods, following the route taken by Suzanne. These are just two of the many parks in Sheffield that are gradually succumbing to vandalism and neglect. Sheffield is enriched by the wild places that run almost into the centre of the city. It is sad that the people who hold the purse strings of the city do not value these places the way the people of Sheffield do. They are irreplaceable.

  Epigraph

  Only the blue delphiniums show

  That these were gardens, long ago …

  (from Silent Playgrounds, Penny Grubb)

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  It was dark now, the blackness pressing close, concealing the high roof spaces, the far corners, the heavy, shrouded shapes. Water ran behind the shuttered window, drip … drip … dripdripdrip … drip. The only light came from the glowing coals. Under the grate, the ashes whispered down onto the hearth. The warmth of the fire was fading, but even at its height, it hadn’t pushed the shadows back far. The flagstones of the floor were damp; the timbers were rotting and crumbling. The metal of the grate was rusty. But the metal in front of him was bright, its edge catching the firelight, imprisoning it in the brightness of the steel, turning it a deep glowing red. The voices in his head:

  When?

  Soon, Ashley, soon.

  How soon?

  Now.

  TAKE CARE IF WALKING ALONE BY ALLOTMENTS

  The words were written in red felt-tip on a piece of lined A4. The paper was attached to the bottom of the notice at the entrance to the park, DOGS MUST BE ON A LEAD. The writing was unformed, the hand, perhaps, of a child. The paper gleamed white in the sun. It had rained in the night, but the paper wasn’t wet or smeared. The rain had stopped about five in the morning. At six, on that particular day, the contractors took their cleaning truck through the park, emptied the bins, collected the litter and the broken glass. A newspaper girl saw the paper as she cut through the park on the way to the next block of houses on her round. She stopped to read it, shrugged, then went on her way.

  It was still there when Suzanne passed shortly after ten. She had set herself the task of jogging through the two parks that formed a finger of green into the city, close to the street of red-brick terraces where she lived. There and back, it was probably about two miles, and yesterday she had almost managed it without a break. Today she would do it, and then look to extending her run further through the woods. She reviewed her plan for the day as she ran. Friday. A lot to do. It was her weekend to have Michael, and she liked to have those weekends carefully planned, filled with places to go and people to spend time with.

  The notice caught her eye, and she stopped to read it.

  Strange. What had happened to make someone put up a warning notice? She looked along the main path which ran on past the smooth grass and the carefully planted flower beds, narrowing and darkening as it disappeared into the shadows under the trees. About a year ago, a woman had been attacked in these woods. She looked round her. The park was deserted at this time in the morning, but the bright sun of early summer, the flowers and the fresh green of the new leaves made the woods look gentle and benign. Why the allotments? They were on the other side of the river.

  She shouldn’t have stopped. She was feeling tired now and she was cooling down. She could have gone on for ages if she hadn’t stopped. Her eyes went back to the piece of paper, and she felt a touch of unease at the thought of the lonely path through the woods, so busy at the weekends when families followed the route to the old dam, so deserted during the week when the children were at school and their parents at work. Stop it!

  She set off again at a brisk walk, watching the shadows as she passed out of the sun and under the trees. There was no wind, and the path was dappled and still. The park seemed empty. The early dog walkers had gone, and the late dog walkers weren’t out yet.

  The path forked. She could cross the river here and walk on the other side where the track was narrow and muddy. The Porter Brook ran through woods and parks now, but its banks used to house the small mills and workshops that harnessed the strength of the river to power the trip-hammers and grinding wheels of the nascent steel industry. You could still see the remains of the old works – places where the river was diverted with goits and weirs, the old dams that were abandoned, silted up or turned into playgrounds. At weekends or on holidays, people walked by the dams and fed the water-birds that inhabited them now, or sailed model boats or fished.

  Suzanne paused for a moment, then followed the path across the bridge to the narrow track that ran by the allotments. She picked her way round puddles formed where the mud had been churned up by the passage of mountain bikes. The path was still in the shadow of the trees, but the allotments were in full sun. She looked across at them. Some were carefully tended, neat rows of green, raked, weeded, staked; but most were neglected or abandoned, bushes and brambles and wild raspberries growing among and through old sheds and allotment huts. It was quiet. An elderly couple in jerseys and wellies were working on a patch near the stream, but the other allotments were empty. She could see a thin curl of smoke from a chimney protruding from the roof of a hut. She wondered if she should ask the couple about the notice. Take care …

  She frowned, then realized that her walk had slowed almost to a standstill. She speeded up her pace, and headed determinedly along the path. She began to alter her step to a jog again. Jog six, walk six, jog six, walk six. It was peaceful in the park, away from the demands of work and home. She could let her mind roam in a loose, unfocused way, watching the patterns of light on the path, the way the water swirled and eddied round rocks and banks. It was like the library, almost. A place where she cou
ld just be, with no thoughts ahead, and no thoughts behind.

  She got some of her best ideas in the library and the park. Suzanne’s life – now – was focused on her research into young offenders, young men who had a bleak and persistent history of crime, waste and violence. Young men like her brother, Adam. She had put together a proposal that gave substance to her intuition that many of these young men had problems with language, with communication. She wanted to see if she could quantify what she had previously only observed. Months of work in the library poring over journals, phone calls and discussions with other researchers and people who worked with young offenders had paid off and she had been accepted to start a research MSc. She had managed to get a small grant, and was now attached to a young offenders’ programme, the Alpha Project. If she could prove herself – and she could – she would get more funding and be able to go on to complete a PhD.

  She was at Shepherd Wheel now, one of the old workshops that had been restored in wealthier, more optimistic times. There used to be regular working days here, when the water was released from the dam to power the wheel and the wheel turned the gears and belts that worked the grinding stones. But the cuts had put paid to that piece of heritage frivolity, and now the building was closed, locked and shuttered, the water-wheel decaying. She slowed again and, on an impulse, walked along the path past the workshop and up the steps, through the gate that led to the yard behind the mill.

  The wheel lurked low down in a narrow pit. She could see the bucket boards that caught the water and turned it – empty now. She leaned over the wall and peered down into the darkness that housed the wheel. The sluice that held back the water was above her, and below her was damp stone and moss. An opaque reflection gleamed back at her. She waved, and her reflection waved back. A smell of stagnant water drifted up. She shivered. It had the darkness of a place that never got the sun.

  She turned back to the path, following it along the side of the dam. Just a few weeks ago, it had been like a lake almost, with fish and water-birds. Now with the dryness of the summer, it was a stream running through channels of thick mud. Suzanne looked at the prints where birds had walked, already filling with water and fading. Closer to the bank, the mud had been disturbed, the green moss that covered it churned up, as though someone had been digging there. The stone walls of the dam were crevassed and cracked with years of neglect. She walked on, coming out at the end of the park where the woods proper started. She almost crossed the road in a mood of defiance, but the sense of work to be done, work undone, made her pause and turn back. She quickened her pace into a jog again. The run back was all downhill. She could manage that.

  As she passed Shepherd Wheel for the second time, she saw a man slip out from behind the building, from the courtyard that housed the wheel where she’d been herself a short while before. Her heart jumped, and for a moment she felt a chill. Take care… Then, for a moment, she thought she recognized him: one of the young men from the Alpha Project, Ashley Reid. She got a glimpse of his face, white under his dark hair. She was about to smile and wave when she realized it was a stranger, another pale, dark-eyed young man. She looked away quickly, aware that she had been staring.

  Lucy sat on the swing and pushed it as far back as her legs would allow. She lifted her feet off the ground and pulled herself into the seat. Lean back and push, lean back and push. She hadn’t been able to swing herself at the beginning of the summer. Now she could swing herself far higher than Emma would push her. Lean back and push. She’d escaped from Emma. Emma would be pissed off – Mum’s favourite word. ‘Wait in the playground,’ Emma had said. She meant the small playground, but Lucy didn’t want to do that. She liked the big playground better, even if it did mean a long walk. She’d been waiting in the small playground, feeling cross and upset. It wasn’t fair! Then suddenly he was there – ‘Come on, Lucy. Quick!’ – and they were off on a magic ride to the big playground through the woods, across the big road she wasn’t allowed to cross by herself.

  Emma would know where to find her. First the swings, then the big slide, then an ice cream. If Emma wasn’t too pissed off. Lean back and push. The swing soared up. She thought she might be able to touch the leaves on the trees if she didn’t have to hold on. She closed her eyes and let the light flicker against her eyelids. Lean back and push. She worked the swing hard now, flying higher and higher, feeling the chain clank and jerk at the top of each swing. High enough! She let the swing swoop her down and up, and for a moment it seemed as though she was sitting still and the playground was a swinging blur around her. The swing dropped and lifted, dropped and lifted, a little less each time, and she began to scrape her shoes along the ground, catching each time the seat swung through its lowest point. Scuff. Scuff. She brought the swing to a stop and sat there, swaying gently, looking up. She had begun to twist the seat round and round, to give herself a twirly, when she saw that someone was watching her. He was standing by the bench at the edge of the playground, where the woods started. It was the Ash Man. She turned the swing again, and tried to twist the chain higher, to make it twirl faster. As she twirled round – chain swings were really not as good as the one her friend Lauren had in her garden, because they went jerk, jerk – she wondered where Emma was.

  ‘Emma’s gone.’ She looked round. He was standing behind her and was looking down at her. ‘We’ve lost Emma.’ he said. Lucy sat very still. She didn’t like the Ash Man. He went on watching her. He got hold of the chains of the swing, twisting them so much that Lucy’s feet were right off the ground. The twirly rocked her dizzy. He looked down at her. ‘We’ve lost Emma.’ he said again.

  Lucy looked up at him. His face had a shadow on it from his hair. He’d said it twice. ‘I know,’ she said.

  It was after half past ten by the time Suzanne got back to the park gates. The traffic on Hunters Bar roundabout was heavy, and the air tasted hot and metallic after the freshness of the park. She walked up Brocco Bank and turned up Carleton Road, the short steep road where she lived. It was a typical Sheffield street, red-brick terraces climbing up the side of the hill, the pavement a mix of flagstones and asphalt, weeds and grass growing in the cracks and against the walls.

  She saw her friend and neighbour, Jane, sitting on her front step with a sketch pad on her lap and bottles of ink on the step beside her. Jane was an illustrator and most of her work appeared in children’s books. She smiled when she saw Suzanne. ‘Have you been in the park?’ Suzanne nodded, and paused to talk, leaning on the wall. She looked at the sketch pad. ‘It’s these shadows.’ Jane said. ‘I want to get the red of the brick and the black of the shadows while the sun’s just right. They want “a combination of the everyday and the eerie”.’ She looked at her painting for a moment, then rested her brush on the edge of the ink bottle. ‘What were you doing last night? That was a rather flashy Range Rover that dropped you off.’

  Suzanne sighed. Jane was currently on a campaign to spice up Suzanne’s life. The women had been friends since shortly after Michael’s birth six years ago. They had met in the park where Jane was throwing bread to the ducks for the entertainment of six-month-old Lucy. To Suzanne, her family life in chaos, struggling with post-natal depression, Jane’s Madonna-like calm had seemed like a haven.

  ‘It was just Richard Kean from the Alpha Project,’ Suzanne said now. Richard was one of the centre’s psychologists, and one of the few people there who seemed to have any real interest in Suzanne’s work.

  ‘Richard? He’s the tall one with dark hair, isn’t he? So what was he doing dropping you off in the middle of the night?’

  ‘It was half past nine,’ Suzanne retorted, goaded.

  ‘That is the middle of the night for you,’ Jane said reasonably. She didn’t approve of Suzanne’s monastic life.

  ‘Mm.’ Suzanne was non-committal. There was nothing to tell. She had attended an evening session at the Alpha Project and Richard had dropped her off on his way home. She wanted to get Jane off the subject, so she said, ‘I saw some
thing when I was in the park—’

  Jane interrupted her. ‘Did you see Em and Lucy there?’

  ‘Is Em back?’ Emma, Jane’s babysitter, had been away for the past week, and Jane had had to juggle her timetable and call in favours to cope with a rapidly approaching deadline. Jane had coped as she always did, wrapped in a hazy cocoon of abstraction.

  ‘Yes. She just turned up this morning out of the blue.’ Jane frowned and ran her finger along a sweep of pencil on her page. ‘No phone call or anything. Actually, it was quite useful.’ She looked at the drawing again, still frowning, still dissatisfied. ‘I can’t get this right. I don’t know what I want.’ She looked up at Suzanne. ‘Lucy’s got a hospital appointment. She didn’t want to go, so I said she could have an hour in the park with Em, and an ice cream afterwards.’ Suzanne shrugged in sympathy. Lucy suffered from bad asthma, and hated her regular trips to the hospital. The ice cream was a big concession. Jane was a health freak.

  Jane had been backtracking on the conversation. ‘You didn’t see them? They went to the playground.’ Suzanne had run past the playground. It had been empty. Jane frowned, pulling her attention away from her drawing. Her look of vague abstraction sharpened into focus. ‘They should have been there. I told Em not to take her to the café … You know, I’m not happy – Oh, it’s nothing serious,’ she added. ‘It isn’t so much the not turning up, it’s just …’

  For the past month, Emma had looked after Lucy for a few hours each week. Before that, Jane had had Sophie, a first-year undergraduate who rented a bed-sit in the student house next door to Jane. She’d turned up on the doorstep just before the start of term and introduced herself, offering her services as a childminder. Jane, after contacting Sophie’s parents, smallholders on the east coast, was happy to take up her offer, and the arrangement had worked well. Sophie was inexperienced and unsophisticated, but she was bright and sensible and fun. Jane liked her, Lucy adored her, she was just next door and could fit in with Jane’s elastic schedule. But then, quite suddenly, she’d dropped out of her course and left.