The Lake Of Lilies

Chapter 2-1

2

Lisa ran most of the way home. The memory of the violent row and the woman’s frightened face unnerved her, and after mooring her boat, she had been spurred on to inform her father of the incident. When she reached the shore, Lisa spent a good fifteen minutes looking in the area where she had last seen the couple. There had been no further sighting or sound of either of them. It was strange, they just vanished. Adrenaline drove her forward at a quick pace. It was usually a half hour walk from the secluded area of the lake to Lisa’s house, but today, she reached home in twenty minutes. Please, let someone be in, she thought desperately as she opened the gate and raced up the drive. Lisa briefly noticed Mrs. Foster, her elderly neighbour, out in the front garden, pulling weeds from the ground and tossing them into a weather-beaten, plastic bucket.

“Hello Lisa,” she called, looking up from her gardening and smiling. “Are you okay dear? You look a little flustered.”

“Yes … erm thanks,” Lisa replied politely, inwardly thinking, no, I have a really bad feeling about what I have just witnessed.

Reaching the shiny, blue front door, Lisa delved into her bag, searching for her house keys. In the process, she managed to send her purse and loose make-up upwards, and as she rummaged, they tipped out and fell to the floor with a clatter. Mrs. Foster rose to her feet, sniffing inquisitively, she surveyed the back of Lisa’s slender figure. That girl was an enigma, she thought, a little odd, and surely she should be married now at her age instead of gallivanting around bars singing.

Lisa turned the key in the door and collapsed inside the hallway shouting, “Mum, Dad, is anyone in?”

No reply. Of course not, they were still at work, the house was silent. She rushed into the kitchen, scanning the room for the cordless telephone. The room was tidy, dishes from the morning breakfast lay on the drainer next to unopened mail and morning newspapers. Sunlight seeped through the windows, illuminating the sparkling clean surfaces and casting shadows in the corners. The house was silent but in the distance, the sound of a mower whirring along long blades of grass filtered through the silence.

Lisa walked into the adjoining room. She found the phone lying next to a freshly cut vase of pale, pink roses, the scent of which filled the living room. With nimble, decisive fingers, Lisa dialled her father’s work number, and a lady answered the phone after three rings.

“Good afternoon, Little Hamsden Police Station.”

Lisa recognised the lilting, lucid tone of Janice Brewer, a friendly lady in her fifties, who had worked for the local police almost as long as her father Tom.

“Hi Janice … it’s Lisa … is my dad there please?” she sputtered discordantly into the mouthpiece.

“Hi Lisa,” Janice replied cheerfully. She could almost see Janice smiling into the telephone. “He’s not here at the moment, he’s out on patrol sweetheart,” a brief pause, “do you need to speak to him urgently? I can radio him for you.”

It was very rare for any of the Reynolds to contact Tom at work, but this was an emergency. Used to dealing with emergency calls, Janice could intuitively recognise this, by the urgency in Lisa’s tone of voice. Lisa nodded in affirmation and decided the best course of action would be to share the information with Janice. She blurted out what she had witnessed, stressing the heated altercation, the ensuing violence and the disappearance of the couple. Janice listened attentively, making notes and patiently waiting for Lisa to finish speaking. When she did, Janice relayed the information back to her.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Lisa agreed.

After being promised an immediate call to her father, Lisa hung up the phone, replacing it in its cradle. She made her way into the downstairs bathroom, where she splashed cold water onto her flushed cheeks and peered at her reflection in the oval, gilded mirror. A worried frown stared back at her, lines of apprehension etched onto her forehead. Lisa smoothed her face dry and wandered back into the kitchen. She perched on a stool and picked up the morning newspaper, flicking through it quickly, finding it hard to concentrate. Maybe this will be in tomorrow’s news, she thought gloomily. From the kitchen door Lisa heard a sudden scratching, she hopped down from the stool and let their four-year-old tabby cat, Minx, into the house. It purred around her ankles, its fur was warm and soft, and Lisa welcomed the distraction. She bent down to envelope the feline into her arms, as it rubbed its nose against her face, purring contentedly.

“Hello you,” she sighed, rubbing the cat's ear with her free hand. “Do you want feeding?” She asked.

Minx meowed in reply. Lisa opened the cream door of the overhead kitchen cupboard and was just in the process of emptying the contents into a clean dish, when the phone rang shrilly. Lisa dropped the empty can onto the work surface and clattered into the lounge. She reached the phone just before the call went to the automatic answer machine.

“Hello,” she spoke breathlessly, trying not to shout into the receiver, her nerves jangled, like the bracelets on her wrist.

It was her father.

“Hello darling,” he greeted her warmly and calmly.

“Dad, something awful happened at the lake this afternoon,” she gabbled.

“There’s a girl, and she is in trouble.”

“Janice has told me,” he replied, soothingly. “I’m on my way now to look around the area.”

“Please hurry Dad,” she urged. “It was awful.”

Lisa closed her eyes, and an image of the girl’s petrified face flashed into her mind. He asked her a few more questions, what they were wearing and the location of where the incident had taken place. Reassuring her not to worry and that he would speak to her as soon as he had found any evidence of their whereabouts, Lisa hung up the phone. For the rest of the afternoon, she sat in the garden, attempting to relax, but checking the phone every half hour, in case her father had called and she had missed it. She frequently looked out of the window at the cars going past. Mrs. Foster was still in her garden. Lisa caught her eye once, noticing her puzzled look, she smiled at her neighbour and waved distractedly.

It was nearly two hours later that Tom arrived back home. The sirens on his police car had been silenced, but the blue lights were still flashing. Lisa could see them, revolving blue orbs, through the frosted glass of the front door. She recalled how, as a child, she had loved riding in her father’s police car. On occasions he had taken herself and Joe out, and they had sat in the back, wide eyed with excitement as they sped along the roads with the sirens screeching and blue lights flashing wildly. Lisa’s friends were a little in awe of her father for his well-known and respected status in the community and for his ability to cope with any situation calmly and fairly. He had worked diligently, and over the years had progressed to police sergeant, with a team of constables to supervise and instruct. There had been further opportunities for promotion, but Tom had declined them, as time with his family was more important to him. He had seen other policemen who had progressed through the ranks, taking early retirement because of stress and ill health, that had resulted from the pressures of the job. He didn’t want this to happen to him.

Although her father had always shown job satisfaction outwardly, often stating that he loved his job, there had been episodes when his choice of career had reduced him to tears and feelings of deep moroseness. There had been a short period when he had been on anti-depressants after a particularly bad road traffic accident. Tom had been the first one on the scene, called to an accident on a notorious bendy road on the outskirts of the town. There had been an elderly car driver involved in a head on collision with a young motor bike rider. It had been late at night, the car driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and swerved across the right-hand side of the road into the path of an oncoming motor bike rider. The elderly male had survived with whiplash and concussion, but the bike rider had been catapulted, like a stone from a sling, lying broken and surrounded by shards of glass. He died in Tom’s arms; he was only eighteen. At the time, it had affected him deeply, it exemplified the serious nature of his job, it was more than just a career, it was a vocation.

Lisa could see her father, a blur of dark blue police uniform, striding purposefully up the path. Lisa ran to the door and flung it open, almost collapsing into his arms.

“Dad,” she welcomed.

“Hello,” he replied, a smile twitching at the corners of his moustache. “Are you okay?”

He reached out and placed a comforting hand upon her shoulders.

“Yes …” she faltered. “I’m just worried about that girl.”

Tom frowned, removing his police cap and smoothing his dark brown hair.

“There’s been no sighting of them, Lisa,” he said. “Jim and I went straight to the lake after I spoke to Janice. We had a good look around, but,” he paused. “No sign of them.”

Jim was her father’s work partner and a close family friend.

“Oh,” Lisa said slowly, following her father into the kitchen.

“Then we went into town,” Tom continued, “asked around the shops on the high street if anyone had seen the couple you described … nothing.”

Lisa sighed and ran her fingers tersely through her hair in frustration.

“Try not to worry,” Tom stated simply. “I’ve logged an incident and made other officers aware of it at the station,” Tom paused, frowning at Lisa’s worried countenance.

He knew from past experience that she was anxious. He could tell by her stance and the way that she picked her fingernails, a habit which she indulged in at times of stress, this incident had really upset and frightened her.

“Lisa,” he began slowly. “How would you feel about coming back with me to the lake and going through exactly what happened?”

“Yes sure,” Lisa replied decisively. “Anything to help.”

She had to do something, she thought with a twinge of desperation.

A sudden gust of wind blew through the open door and into the hallway. Although still warm, the wind was stirring out of its slumber, and as the afternoon had progressed, the temperature had dropped cooler. Lisa grabbed her violet hoodie from the balustrade, shrugging into it, as her father closed the door securely behind them. She lifted her shoulder length hair free from the warmth of the fleece, and it blew around her, fanned by another gust of wind. She looked up at the skies above, the brilliant blue of lunch time was becoming broken by small patches of clouds here and there, driving the temperature down a few notches. Lisa walked quickly down the path, noticing Tom’s partner Jim, in the passenger seat. Jim smiled broadly at Lisa’s appearance.

“Hi gorgeous,” he greeted warmly, winding down the window and winking.

In her present frame of mind Lisa did not feel inclined for pleasantries, but she was unable to suppress the smile playing across her lips at the sight of Jim’s familiar, jovial face. She returned the greeting, her spirits lifting.

“Hi.”

She opened the back door of the car, bending her head carefully, as she sat in and snapped the seatbelt on instinctively. Tom took charge in the driving seat, banging the door shut firmly, he started the engine. It revved into life loudly, and he indicated before pulling away from the kerb edge. The roads were quiet at this time of day, before rush hour had begun. They passed a few cars and vans, and they sped past a mother walking with her children, enjoying the afternoon sunshine and being outdoors. Tom carefully steered his vehicle around a couple riding bikes, on their way to a picnic, laden with bags of food; books and blankets strapped to their backs. Spring flowers at the roadside passed by in a blur of colour, splashes of bright yellow daffodils and groups of fiery red tulips, blooming in the hazy afternoon sunshine, swaying softly in the afternoon breeze.