Down Cemetery Road (13 page)

‘I’m not in charge here, Mr – ?’

‘That’s a good idea, let’s leave it plain Mister.’ He winked loudly. ‘Let’s not stand on ceremony.
Mr
Gold, Joe Gold. You can call me Joe.’ He put out a hand. ‘This is my assistant, Missy. We were just passing.’

Sarah had been reading the sign when she heard her new name: it read
The Arimathea Home
, and under that, in smaller lettering,
For Catholic Boys and Girls
. Gerard had stood there, on that patch of grass, bestowing his largesse on a tall, elderly priest – not this one – whose expression suggested it was he who was doing Gerard Inchon the favour. And now she was here, the pointlessness of it hit her: so this was where Gerard had his photograph taken. So what? She might as well have gone to that office block he’d had built, gone through it room by room. Looking for Dinah. Who would never be found.

‘Missy?’

‘It sure is a nice place,’ she said, letting some remembered Brummie creep into her voice.

It sure was. Spooky, true; deafeningly Gothic, but charming the way illustrations in old books of fairy tales were charming: the kind of houses that never existed, but ought to. This one had obviously found a loophole in the laws governing the fabric of reality, and had materialized in the Surrey countryside, presumably wreathed in fog, never to find its way back to Goblin Land. Which was what Joe was basing his pitch on, in fact. ‘You must get lots of offers.’

‘The property isn’t for sale, Mr Gold.’ With just that degree of irritation the Pope allowed when speaking to a Jew. ‘Now if you don’t mind, this area –’

‘Lord, man, I didn’t mean to
buy
it. You hear that, Missy?’

‘Certainly did, Goldie.’ Damned if he’d get to stay Joe.

‘I’m talking about an afternoon’s use, two days max. Just the frontage. Couple of good exteriors in the bag, we’re away down the road, you’re fifteen hundred richer. Never know we were there, otherwise.’

Sarah picked it up. ‘Interiors would be on the elevated scale, of course. That’d be two thousand and up. But only if we could use it. Depends on the ceilings, what do you say, Goldie?’

‘We need a boom rig in there, you’re talking twenty foot. Eighteen minimum. How big are the rooms, padre? Excuse me, Father.’

Father Sullivan was groping towards the daylight Joe let in with the mention of money. ‘You’re in television?’

Joe laughed. ‘Television, movies, video. All in the best possible taste, of course. Our properties win awards.’ He made like he was reaching for a cigar, but remembered in time he didn’t use them. ‘It’s like Missy says. We shoot interiors, the rate rockets. I shouldn’t be telling you this.’

‘Our ceilings are, um, spacious.’

‘We’re a ways from town, Goldie. You add catering costs, you’re looking at megabucks.’

‘Point.’ He grimaced. ‘Shame.
Excellent
frontage.
Classic
.’

‘Those turrets. They’d die for them, Stateside.’ Having lost all shame, Sarah was starting to enjoy herself.

‘Yeah, but they’re not as high as the overheads. Out-of-town is out-of-pocket, that’s what Quentin always says.’

The priest could see fifteen hundred, maybe two thousand, taking wing. ‘Would you like to see inside? The ceilings really are rather special.’

‘Missy?’

Sarah shrugged. ‘Come this far.’

‘Thanks, Padre. That’d be real.’

‘Quentin?’ she whispered, as they followed the priest through the main door.

‘Quentin Taylor. Runs the deli next to the office.’

Inside, the building lost a lot of charm, felt like a school: plenty of corridors, peeling paint. A smell of overcooked carrots and powdered custard. But strangely quiet, as if the children were kept sensibly gagged, or had been pied-pipered away; she asked the obvious as Father Sullivan led them into what must be the main hall and he explained, as you would to a primitive, about school hours in England. ‘There’s a good school two miles down the road. We bus them in.’

Joe was looking at corners through a little square he made by joining fingers and thumbs together. Perhaps, somewhere in the world, real people did this when sizing locations for filming. Even if they didn’t, Father Sullivan thought they did.

‘Are the ceilings high enough?’ he asked, a little anxious.

Sarah wasn’t much of a judge, but thought you could safely have juggled elephants.

‘We could squeeze in,’ Joe allowed doubtfully.

‘What’s your film about?’

‘Is there a little girls’ room?’ she asked.

‘Um, through that door, second on the right. No, third.’

‘Spare no details, Goldie,’ she urged as she left, intending to get lost.

Which she did. The first door she chose, neither second, third, nor on the right, took her into a chapel: a cold, tidy, chapel, with the peculiarly religious air of being older than the house which contained it. Two rows of benches flanked an aisle; eleven deep on one side, seven on the other to accommodate the pulpit, a thoroughly traditional little chamber from which its doubtless thoroughly traditional incumbent could harangue his flock without needing a microphone. On its panels was embossed a strange device, which Sarah could not make out clearly. The only light, barring the small red altar lamp, came from two stained windows, each too high to help much, though she could see, around the walls, the Stations of the Cross glaring down: a particularly stern accounting of what was, she supposed, a particularly stern journey. No attempt here to gloss over the barbarism of judicial murder . . . For a moment childhood felt so close she could taste it, then shimmered away into the cold, faintly incensed air; a ghost of something that had not yet died, or at least not been laid to rest.

Funny that the air was so cold, though. On a day so warm outside.

. . . She had not told Joe what had happened in the market; nor would she tell him about this. But the chapel’s atmosphere reached into her, feeding its ache to her bones, and while she did not feel it as a
presence
, something in it spoke to her nevertheless, and nothing it had to say was welcome. It spoke of raw Catholicism; of threat not faith, death not resurrection, and all the accoutrements on view, from the First Station of the Cross to the last blade of glass in a painted window, seemed tricks for the propagation of a fundamental error. For as long as she’d had thoughts on the matter, she’d known religion meant nothing if it did not preach compassion. What she discovered now was that she’d always been wrong about this; a lesson learned at last in a chapel made of stone, built on rock, and hard as nails.

None of which was much use. What she had been hoping for was an empty office, an administrative nerve centre, a helpful register open on its desk with a brand new name inked in. Even if it hadn’t actually read Dinah Singleton, she’d have been prepared to accept the clue. The next door she knocked on, and when an elderly female voice responded hurried along the corri- dor, ducking into the first unoccupied room. Not a nerve centre. More like the staffroom of a second-rate public school – there was no rule that said such judgements had to be based on experience. What she saw: a worn three-piece suite; a little table with bottles of scotch and gin and a soda siphon. Bookcases around the walls, their contents all bound in drab leather; to the side of the one window was a little glass display case with more of the same. The view from the window showed the grounds to the rear: a well-mannered garden, a playing field, then just fields. The carpet beneath her was threadbare, the curtains dusty; the floorboards squeaked. The door creaked too, and opened now: she felt her heart thump as somebody entered.
Caught
.

‘Lost?’

‘Joe!’ You nearly killed me she was about to add, but Father thingy, Sullivan, was just behind him. ‘Third on the right going meant third on the left coming back. Right?’

‘Doubtless.’

‘Ah, miss, um, Missy.’

‘Did Goldie give you the rundown?’

‘He seems to think we might, ah, come to an arrangement. E.M. Forster, he tells me.’

‘
A Passage to India
,’ said Joe. Sarah raised an eyebrow. ‘Just for the flashbacks.’

‘You know, I’m sure I’ve already seen a film of that.’

‘This is a mini-series,’ Joe said firmly.

She turned to look out of the window, worried she’d start giggling, just as a phone rang which Father Sullivan answered. Joe sidled to a bookcase and began fingering spines; the phone call was about dinners; not the faintest hint of a clue. Which did not surprise her. The heart-stopping seconds when the door opened had given way to something deeper than anticlimax. There were no clues here; there was nothing to be found. If she’d wanted wild geese, she should have listened to Joe.

The phone call droned on. Sarah too plucked a book from the shelf; opened it at random.
So the first angel went and poured his bowl on the earth, and foul and evil sores came upon the men who bore the mark of the beast and worshipped its image
. She nearly dropped it when Sullivan spoke behind her: ‘Find something interesting?’

Joe strolled over. ‘Your books, they’re very nice. A worthwhile library.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I’m speaking as an educated man. Oxford. Perhaps you –’

‘Oriel,’ Father Sullivan said shortly.

‘Jolly good. Jolly good.’ Oddly, Joe didn’t pursue this coincidence. ‘So, Missy, time we were off? Scout some more locations?’

Admit defeat, in fact. She ignored him. ‘I believe Gerard Inchon’s a benefactor of yours.’

‘Mr Inchon. You know him?’

‘Just through friends,’ Sarah said. ‘The Singletons?’

The priest went through a phony memory search. ‘I can’t say I do.’

‘They’re dead now,’ Sarah said. ‘They were blown up.’

He looked pained. Joe said, ‘Missy?’

‘Just Dinah left now,’ she said. ‘Dinah. Singleton.’

‘What is this about?’ Father Sullivan asked.

‘Just one of those things,’ Joe said. ‘You’re in a new place, you suddenly remember being told about it –’

‘I’d heard she was here, you see. I’d heard this was where they’d taken her.’

‘I’m afraid you’re mistaken.’

‘I don’t think I am.’

‘Sarah –’

Father Sullivan said, ‘You’re not making a film at all, are you?’

‘Sorry about this, padre, but we’re –’

‘I think you’re lying. I think she’s here.’

‘Jesus, Sarah – sorry, Father – you can’t accuse him of –’

‘I think you should leave,’ the priest said. ‘Both of you. Right now.’

‘We’re going,’ Sarah said. ‘But we’ll be back. And you can tell Gerard bloody Inchon I said so.’

Outside the weather was calm and unruffled; what few clouds there were hovered motionless above them.

Inside, Sarah was storms and hurricanes. Twisters. Summer madness.

They drove in silence until they reached a school a mile or two down the road, whereupon Joe pulled up and advised Sarah to wait. He was angry with her, as she was with herself. Once, as a teenager, she’d thrown up at her parents’ wedding anniversary bash. This felt worse.

‘What did you think you were
doing
?’ Joe had asked, once they’d got back to the car.

‘I don’t know,’ she said miserably. ‘I wanted to see how he’d react.’

‘You as good as accused him of child-molesting. Under the circumstances, I think he reacted very well.’

‘I did
not
!’

‘He’s a priest, Sarah. You accused him of having spirited a child away. Read the papers.’

But she hadn’t meant that. She wasn’t sure what she’d meant. Just that once she’d started, she couldn’t stop herself. Like being on top of a tall building, and falling all the way to the ground.

He was back within minutes. ‘Sometimes it’s quicker,’ he said, ‘to tell the truth.’ He pulled his safety belt on before starting up.

‘And?’

‘Mostly the truth. That we’re looking for an abducted child. Who possibly hasn’t been abducted. And may or may not be blonde. And might answer to the name of Dinah.’

Rubbing it in, yes. ‘Would you just tell me, Joe?’

‘I’ll just tell you, then. I’ve just driven all the way from Oxford and I’m just about to drive all the way back, so before I do that, I’ll just tell you what we’ve found. Nothing. No new child at this school, female, male or monkey. No Dinah Singleton. She isn’t here. She never was.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Paid in full, Sarah. No more favours.’

‘I really am sorry.’

‘Yeah, right.’ He sighed. ‘Me too. I’m sorry. But this vast trek across the country, Sarah, that’s it. All done. That was just an orphanage, Sarah. One you happened to see in a picture on the wall of somebody who happened to be at your house the night your neighbours died. That’s all. Not even a string of coincidences. Because coincidences mean something, and this doesn’t.’

‘I know.’

‘This girl, your Dinah, I don’t know what she’s mixed up in. Something to do with having a father who wasn’t really dead. But you’re not going to find her by throwing darts at a map. Are you with me, Mrs Trafford?’

‘Have you been checking up on me, Joe?’

‘Never trust the client. That’s lesson one in Private Eye School.’

‘Because that’s twice you’ve called me Mrs Trafford. And I gave you my maiden name.’

His voice turned clipped: very Basil Rathbone. ‘You thought you were being so clever, didn’t you? But you made one tiny error. And for that you must pay.’ She wasn’t amused. He sighed. ‘You wrote me a cheque.’

He started the car. For quite a long time, she thought she was going to cry.

III

For the rest of the lousy journey back, they hardly spoke: Sarah didn’t like to think about it afterwards. To her, it felt less a rupture in a friendship than the sudden descent of a wall between two worlds: the one she had inhabited until now, and the one she was about to fall into. The fact that when Joe did speak – comments on the traffic, the roads – he was perfectly friendly didn’t help. A blanket of misery fell over her anyhow, an all-enveloping lack of self-confidence undermining all she knew. Nothing she did could be trusted. When she gave a false name, she followed it up by writing a cheque.

And Mark, when he got home, matched her mood: his own day had been sodding awful. A deal had gone up in smoke, gone down the tubes; ‘Gerard’ had become ‘that
bloody
Inchon’. Without being Mark’s fault, it was his responsibility; a distinction existing solely in the workplace, as Sarah remembered from occasions when troubles had flared closer to home. She could barely piece together the details. The last two months, though, had just come crashing round Mark’s ears; the cultivation of Inchon, of Inchon’s
money
, had failed to produce the expected crop. This came out over the course of two bottles of wine, of which Sarah drank almost a glass . . . There was a letter too, a letter sent by
bloody
Inchon to bloody
Mayberry
, who was Mark’s bloody boss. The letter contained aspersions, downright
accusations
. . . It was libellous, obviously. Mark had said as much to a tight-lipped Mayberry.