Endangering Innocents by Priscilla Masters Page A

somehow. She was somewhere. It was not possible for a little girl to vanish. Not in the real world. Only to appear to through the illusions elaborately set up by conjurors and their assistants using complicated equipment. She must look at the indisputable facts.
    Baldwin had hung around outside the school. For some unknown but guessable reason. Not good. This was an indisputable fact. And whatever explanation was the truth it must fit round all the facts, however seemingly inexplicable they might seem. Joanna sipped at her wine with a chill feeling of insight. Instinctively she believed that events sat around the issues of innocence and guilt. The child was - surely -innocent. But Baldwin? Common sense told her he was not innocent.
    And who else? Her eyes moved steadily around the room, drifting over the pine fireplace, skirting the door which led to the kitchen, around the few paintings and old, framed photographs which spattered the walls. One of her father, holding her hand when she had been a very little girl. They were both laughing. He straight into the camera, his mouth cavernously wide open. He had had a great sense of fun. She had a ribbon in her straight, dark hair and was wearing an orange dress. She could remember that dress still. It had been of a vaguely woolly material. Scratchy, uncomfortable and over-warm to wear. But her father had liked it. He had swung her round and around, telling her how pretty she looked. And so she had worn it. Frequently. When she stared at the photograph she could almost feel the dress making her back itch unbearably and making a stoical effort not to scratch. She was wearing white knee socks and fake crocodile skin shoes with pointed toes. They too had been uncomfortable. One sock had dropped to her ankle. Her leg looked very thin. Joanna closed her eyes against the feel of her father’s big hand encasing her tiny one. She had felt so safe then. So happy. How old had she been? Somewhere round about five.
    She opened her eyes again, deliberately moving them past the photograph. It did her no good to remember these events.
    On to the next. Matthew’s choice this one. A balance for her family photo. Him cradling Eloise as a tiny baby. Both Eloise and Matthew loved this picture. Eloise always made a point of standing right in front of it and insisting she remembered “Mummy” taking it. Even though she couldn’t possibly. She was too young. EvenEloise had not been blessed with cognisance when she had been a babe in arms.
    Families were pain.
    Joanna moved on.
    In the corner of the room stood a glass fronted corner cupboard. Not particularly old - nineteen thirties, mock Georgian, veneered oak with thirteen paned double doors. But it housed her collection of Victorian Staffordshire figures, bequeathed her by an aunt who had realised the young Joanna had an affinity for them. Joanna put her wineglass down abruptly on the occasional table, crossed the room, unlocked the cabinet and fished a figure that hid right at the back because it was so tall.
    Gelert.
    She’ d known it was there - all along.
    One of the most famous stories ever of wronged innocence.
    The baby lies safe in the cradle, the dog standing guard at its side. The wolf lies dead at the base. A cherub watches over the scene.
    It looks a pleasant figure. But the story behind it is not so pretty. Prince Llewelyn rushes in to his baby son’s nursery. The Prince who had doubted his devoted dog’s motive for refusing to join the hunt that day.
    The dog had smelt the wolf.
    The prince sees an overturned cradle. Blooodstained. No baby. The dog with bloody jowls approaches him. He assumes the worst and plunges his sword into the dog. The dog dies at his feet.
    The prince believes he has read the evidence correctly. He thinks he knows what has happened. He is wrong.
    The child is safe. Beneath the crib lies a dead wolf and a now crying baby. The dog protected it from the wolf,defending his charge to the death. While Llewelyn