Down Cemetery Road (12 page)

Then he pulled his face off.

II

She wore a necklace of cubic wooden beads, like little dice but with letters, spelling WIGWAM. Which was probably fashion, but might just have been utilitarian: of all the people Sarah knew, the one most likely to need reminding of her own name was Wigwam.

‘I should have told you.’

‘You said he didn’t want people to know.’

‘He was embarrassed at first. A grown man dressing up. Then he was disappointed nobody recognized him.’

‘He wanted an Oscar?’

‘My performance, he calls it.’ Wigwam laughed. ‘
My performance went very well today
. I think he’s hoping a talent scout will clock him.’

‘If it’s being clocked he’s after, he almost had his wish. When he started pulling his mask off, he nearly got six kilos of assorted vegetables in his face.’

‘He was really sorry.’

‘So he kept saying.’ But Sarah had her doubts. There’d been a hint of malice in Rufus’s eyes when he’d seen how frightened she’d been; the kind of private glee a worm must feel when it turns. Though afterwards he’d hidden it, and complicated her attempts to pick her shopping up in his familiar ineffectual way. And then presumably reported in, because Wigwam had turned up before she’d been home ten minutes. ‘No harm done anyway.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Just a little on edge, that’s all.’

‘You’re not . . .’ Wigwam’s query trailed away, hardly worth the question mark.

‘Pregnant? No.’

‘Oh.’ With a carefully judged amount of sympathy in the tone: Wigwam was sorry, but aware that Sarah wasn’t. ‘Rufus and I are trying,’ she went on.

Several short remarks occurred to Sarah, any one of which could have destroyed their friendship. ‘Gosh,’ was what she said at last.

‘You think five’s too many, don’t you?’ said Wigwam, a little sadly.

‘I think one’s too many, sweetie. But that’s just me.’

‘At the moment.’

‘If you like.’ The kettle boiled, and she got up to pour. ‘I can see that Rufus might want one of his own,’ she said. ‘But won’t it make things awkward?’

‘Oh, he’s lovely with the kids. He really is.’

‘And that won’t change when he’s an actual father?’

‘Oh, no. It’ll strengthen the bond.’ Wigwam sounded like she’d memorized the manual. But still, she’d had the experience. What did Sarah know about children?

The phone rang in the other room, and she excused herself to answer it. Left to herself she could ignore a ringing phone, but Wigwam grew nervous in the face of such disrespect. What if it’s
important?
she’d say. A doctor, a policeman, the Queen. It was none of those, but it did turn out to be important.

‘Arimathea.’

‘What?’

‘Arimathea. As in Joseph of, no relation. It’s me, Joe.’

‘Hey Joe,’ she said automatically. ‘Rimat. Arimathea. Right.’

‘He was a merchant, a trader. Friend of the Christ family. You know, Jesus Christ, Mary Christ. Legend has it he supplied the tomb Jesus was laid in.’

‘That was kind of him.’

‘He got it back. Plus, the story goes, he brought Jesus to England as a lad.’ Not a minute of research was being wasted here. ‘And did those feet in ancient times, and so forth. The Holy Grail passed into his keeping after the crucifixion. Basically, he was the gospels’ Mr Fixit.’

‘Did you get his phone number?’

‘All it took was a certain skill at crosswords and an encyclopedic knowledge of everything. There’s no need to thank me.’

‘You’re a genius. So now all we want –’

‘It’s in Surrey. Little place called, well, Littleton.’

‘A hospital?’

‘An orphanage.’

Behind her, Wigwam had come into the room. She was carrying Sarah’s tea and her expression said I Am Not Listening To This Conversation. She hovered uncertainly, a strange reversal: a waitress trying to catch the customer’s eye. And was definitely capable of interrogation afterwards, so Sarah wrapped Joe up quickly. ‘When do we go?’

‘Let’s not get excited, Sarah.’ She could picture him adopting his Wise Man expression. ‘What are we looking at here, really? He makes donations to an orphanage. You’re saying he supplies orphans too? That’s quite a leap.’

‘Maybe it’s some complicated tax dodge.’

‘You could save more money not bothering. I owe you, Sarah, but this, it was just a puzzle. A word game. It’s not something to get hyperactive over. Maybe I should have kept the answer to myself.’

‘I’m a big girl now.’

‘This is what troubles me.’

‘I’ll talk to you later, Joe. Thanks.’

‘Friend?’ asked Wigwam. On the off-chance, presumably, that it had been a wrong number.

Sarah took her tea. ‘Thanks. Somebody who did some work for me.’ Trying to make Joe sound like a jobbing plumber. ‘Do you want a biscuit to go with this?’

‘That’d be nice. He doesn’t do gardens, does he? This Joe of yours?’

‘I’d have to ask.’

‘Only I’ve a branch needs sawing down. It’s a bit high for Rufus.’

‘We’ve a ladder you can borrow.’

‘It’s safer going professional, isn’t it?’

Thus it was that, without actually having to lie or make false promises, Sarah arranged to ask the Private Detective if he did gardens at four pounds an hour. Not long after Wigwam left, she was back on the phone. There was little else for her to do. She’d not yet had replies to last week’s letters.

‘Oxford Investigations.’

‘Joe, I want to take a look.’

‘So take a look. I’m stopping you?’

‘Will you come with me?’

‘I’m a tour guide? Sarah, I want wild goose, I hang around Port Meadow in the autumn. I want a drive in the country, I head for the Catskills.’

‘Cotswolds.’

‘Whatever. Surrey, I don’t touch. It holds bad memories. I had a dreadful case there once.’

‘Murder?’

‘Flu. And I’m busy at the moment, or I expect to be. Any day now.’

‘Okay.’

‘So I’m not going.’

‘Okay.’

The silence down the line was very loud. The humming of unsaid words snarled up in the wires.

‘This happens in films,’ he said at last. ‘One scene you get the man saying no way is he doing it. The very next he’s doing it. Whatever it happens to be.’

‘I’ve seen that,’ Sarah said.

‘But that’s not going to happen here.’

‘No, Joe.’

Whatever she had been expecting, the building was a brilliant cacophony of wings and crenellations, with small round towers jutting up at available corners, suggesting that it had been built to the specifications of a six-year-old. But all of it was tired, too; rain-streaked, mossed over in patches, and even in the bright sunshine looking like it suffered a chill. Or an ague, Sarah amended. Sometimes only the old words fit.

‘Miss Havisham’s wedding cake,’ Joe said.

‘Gormenghast,’ she countered.

‘Bit obvious,’ he muttered as they got out of the car.

Oxford to Littleton had been no drive in the country, involving enough plastic bollards to throw a ring around the moon, and barricades of metal signs conveying cryptic instructions, small sandbags slung over their crossbars like dead piglets. Joe proved both neat and nervous behind the wheel; choosing his lane and sticking to it, and assuming every other road user was a homicidal incompetent. This didn’t stop him talking. ‘I need my head examined,’ he’d said.

‘You’re a very good man.’

‘I’m a schmuck. You know the expression?’

‘It doesn’t apply.’

‘I’m a sucker for a pretty face.’ He glanced at her sideways, but she didn’t register the compliment. ‘I need a tougher contract. No refunds, no guarantees. That way, I wouldn’t be taken advantage of.’

‘Is that what I’m doing?’

‘If the cap fits . . .’

‘You’ve probably got it in upside down,’ she finished, and immediately regretted it. ‘Joe, you’re kind to do this. But I’ll pay for your time.’

‘I promised,’ he sighed. ‘Remember?’

She did. And thought she was pretty good, actually, not to have reminded him herself. ‘At least let me pay for the petrol.’

‘Okay.’

They had set off early, no more than ten minutes after Mark left for work: as long as she was home before him, he’d never know she’d been gone. Except he might wonder why there was no supper. That was a problem she’d shelved; meanwhile she savoured the fact of setting out on what might be an adventure. With a real live private detective, authentically grumpy to boot. Though he thawed once they were under way; showed an alarming tendency, in fact, to wax nostalgic.

‘I remember when I first came to Oxford –’

‘Where were you born, Joe?’

He thought about it. ‘Croydon.’

‘Nice part of the world?’

‘You don’t want to hear about Oxford?’

‘I live there.’

They were jammed up already: lots of cars going God knew where on a midweek morning. Reps, Sarah supposed. Spare shirts on hangers hooked above back-seat windows. A sense of purpose to journeys like that: hers didn’t bear too much thought. If she pondered it too long, she began to see just how much weight she was hanging from a thin thin thread.

‘He said he was an orphan.’

‘Said it or suggested it?’

‘Well, suggested it. But there were pictures of him with this couple, they had to be his parents.’

‘Doesn’t mean he didn’t
get
to be an orphan. Everyone’s an orphan eventually.’

Which was not entirely accurate, but Sarah let it pass.

‘What’s his business anyway?’

‘Inchon Enterprises.’

‘Sounds suitably vague,’ Joe allowed.

‘I’m not sure what they do, exactly. Something financial.’

‘There was an Inchon at Oriel,’ he began.

‘Is that a kestrel? Over there?’

Joe’s mouth set in a hard straight line, but Sarah suspected there was a smile in it somewhere.

They listened to the news: Oxford made the headlines. A local girl,
thirteen
, had died at what was still, apparently, called a rave; had died of dehydration, after taking Ecstasy. There followed one of those short interviews with an angry, grief-stricken parent which, as much as anything, were a hallmark of the decade.

‘Tragic,’ was Joe’s only comment. He turned the radio off.

They stopped for coffee and a strategy session at a service station: the coffee was okay but the strategy didn’t pan out. They could pretend to be prospective foster parents, but weren’t sure how the system worked; they could pretend to have money to donate, but didn’t think they could do a convincing rich. Or they could tell the truth, but this had all sorts of drawbacks.

‘Not least being,’ Joe said sourly, ‘that it’s a fools’ errand.’

But once they were back on the road he cheered up again, as if simply working towards a destination were enough for him, and the problems of what to do once he arrived could wait. Probably a good attitude for a detective, Sarah thought: concentrate on the mystery, not the solution. Though Joe, as he said himself, had never solved a mystery; just ironed out the odd problem.

‘So why this line of work?’

‘Lots of holiday. I only work one day in ten.’

‘No wonder you charge so much.’

‘Also, I’m a romantic.’

‘How nice for you.’

‘It’s a cross I bear. Women, they don’t want romantic men. Have you noticed this?’

‘No. But thanks for the tip.’

‘They want practical, they want plumbers and chefs. Not dreamers.’

‘Are you a dreamer. Joe?’

‘When I was at Oriel –’

‘What was your tutor’s name again?’

‘Morris. Abel Morris.’

‘And what years were you there?’

‘Ah, ’70 to ’73.’

‘Which staircase did you live on?’

‘What?’

‘What was your scout’s name?’

‘Sarah –’

‘That’s what they’re called, isn’t it? Scouts.’

‘Yes,’ he said glumly. ‘That’s what they’re called. Scouts.’

But when she started laughing he joined in, and after a while seemed to enjoy the joke more than she did.

And now they’d arrived, still with little idea of what they were doing. ‘It’s your party,’ he said, locking the car.

‘I want to explore. They’ll have records, files.’

‘They’ll say, Sure, go ahead. Look all you like.’

‘I wasn’t planning on asking.’

‘You’re a dangerous woman, Sarah Trafford.’

‘Can you distract their attention?’

‘Only because it can’t hurt. It’s an orphanage, Sarah. Stolen children, you’re not going to find. Likewise explosives and plans for world domination.’

‘You’re no fun.’

‘But you’d best take this,’ he said, handing her what, for one absurd moment, she thought was his asthma inhaler.

‘A rape alarm?’

‘Not that I imagine the fathers, they’re Catholic priests here, will be overcome with lust at the sight of you.’

‘
Thanks
, Joe.’

‘But if you meet any trouble, whistle and I’ll come.’

Already coming was a man who could only be a priest: not just for the black trousers, black shirt, white collar, but for that certain air of bland superiority Sarah remembered from her youth, much of which had been spent listening to withered virgins explaining how awful sex was. From the corner of an eye she registered the sign from Gerard’s photograph. Before she could take it in, the priest was upon them. ‘Can I help?’

A young man, twenty-two or -three, he had shiny cheeks and square black glasses as unflattering as anything Sarah had seen on a face, including acne and brush moustaches. Unfortunately, that was all she could think of, and saying it didn’t seem a fine idea. But before she could pretend to be sick, Joe spoke: ‘You see, honey? I told you there’d be priests.’

Everything but the accent was American.

The priest was understandably hesitant. Joe was smiling in such an open, friendly way, he looked deranged. ‘This is an orphanage,’ he said.

‘Of course it is, of course it is. And you are – ?’

‘My name’s Sullivan, Father Peter Sullivan.’ He pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘I’m an administrator.’

‘Ah, the man in charge.’

‘Well, not exactly –’

‘You hear that, honey? I told her, I said, you want something done, go straight to the man at the top. And here you are.’