Ritual (22 page)

He tried to
step into the porch but Mrs Kemp stopped him. ‘He’s gone, hasn’t he?
Your
Martin?’

‘Yes, Mrs
Kemp,’ Charlie admitted. ‘He’s gone.’

‘What’s the
matter? Did you have an argument? Did his mother come to take him back?’

Charlie shook
his head. He was about to make an elaborate excuse, but then he thought,
What
the hell? Mrs Kemp lost Caroline, so at least she’ll
understand what fm going through. And maybe it’s time she knew that Caroline
hasn’t gone off to live in California; nor has she been raped and murdered and
her body left in some nameless ditch. It’s about time the parents of all those
children who have been lost to the Celestines got themselves together and did
something dramatic. If what Sheriff Podmore had told him was true – if the
government and the law refused to admit that what the Celestines were doing was
wrong; and if the television and the newspaper people did nothing but turn a
blind eye – then it was time for the nation’s bereaved parents to take a stand
on their own.

Because if they
had no other rights, as far as their children were concerned, parents at least
had the right to see them live.

‘Come inside,’
he told Mrs Kemp. ‘I want to talk to you.’

They sat
together in the front parlour and Charlie told Mrs Kemp everything that had
happened since he and Martin had left for West Hartford. Then he told her what
Sheriff Podmore had said about Susan. He watched her carefully as he explained
that Caroline had probably died in the way that all Celestine Devotees
eventually died. Her eyes betrayed no expression at all, as if somehow she had
known that this had happened all along.

When Charlie
had finished, she stood up and walked with mechanical steps to the bureau. ‘I
think you and I had better have a drink,’ she said. ‘I still have some Chivas
Regal left, from the time that Jerry Kogan used to stay here. Everybody used to
say, “Do you know Jerry? He’s in alcohol.”‘

‘Thanks,’ said
Charlie. He watched in silence as Mrs Kemp poured them each a hefty three
fingers of whisky. Mrs Kemp raised her glass and said, ‘To the ones we love. In
memory,
and in hope.’

Charlie said,
with a catch in his throat, ‘To the ones we love,’ and drank.

They shared
another drink, and then Mrs Kemp said that she had to go to the market to buy
supplies for supper if Charlie was going to be staying. Charlie opened up the
sagging doors of her garage for her, and backed out her old tan Buick wagon. He
stood at the front door and watched her as she drove off in a cloud of oily
smoke on her way to the shopping mall. Then he stepped back into the airless
house, and went up to the room in which he had slept only two nights ago with
Martin. He knew now that he had lost Martin then, after the dwarf-like David
had talked to him. If only he could go back forty-eight hours in time; to that
fateful instant when Harriet had let slip the name of
Le Reposoir
, the resting place, the little altar.

On impulse he
wrestled the Connecticut telephone directory out of the bedside cupboard, and
looked up the Litchfald Sentinel. With the directory balanced on his knees he
dialled the number and waited while the call tone purred.
After
a long while, a young woman’s voice said,’Sentinel?

If you want
advertising I’m afraid they’re gone for the day.’

‘I wanted the
editor,’ said Charlie.

‘Oh, well, I’m
sorry,
he’s not here, either. There’s a big business meeting
in Danbury.’

‘In that case,
forget it. I’m sorry I troubled you.’

‘Is it news?’
the young woman asked him. ‘I’m a reporter. I can take your story if that’s
what you want.’

‘I’m
sorry,
I really wanted to speak to the editor.’

‘Okay, have it
your way. He’ll be back in the morning. You’re sure I can’t help?’

Charlie lowered
the directory on to the floor. ‘I don’t know, maybe you can. My son’s gone
missing in pretty unusual circumstances. I thought it might help if I could
locate other parents whose children have gone missing.’

‘Well, that’s
incredible,’ the woman told him. ‘That’s exactly the story that I’ve been
working on.

You know the
Denver Post won a Pulitzer Prize for their investigations into the missing
children statistics; well, I’ve been assigned to do a follow-up, because we’ve
had so many kids missing in Connecticut lately.’

‘Do you know
any other parents who have lost their kids, apart from me?’ asked Charlie.

‘Sure I
do,
dozens. The number of children who have gone missing in
the Litchfield area in the past five months is way up – forty-two per cent
higher than it was for the comparable period last year, and seventy-eight per
cent higher than it was the year before.’

‘And the police
keep telling you it isn’t a problem – just like the Denver Post won that
Pulitzer Prize for saying it wasn’t a problem.’

‘That’s right,’
said the young woman. ‘How did you know that?’

Charlie said,
‘For once in my life I seem to have gotten lucky. My name’s Charlie
McLean,
and I think that you and I ought to meet.’

‘Well, sure
thing. My name’s Robyn Harris. Where are you calling me from?’

‘Alien’s
Corners, but I don’t want to meet you at Alien’s Corners. Do you know a
restaurant in Watertown called the Loving Doves? How about meeting me there at
six-thirty? I’ll book a table in the name of Gunn.’

‘Gunn?’

‘You know, like
Ben Gunn, who was marooned on Treasure Island. You won’t miss me, I’m forty-one
years old and I look like I’ve spent my life driving from coast to coast and
back again.’

‘All right, Mr
McLean. You’re on. I look forward to meeting you.’

Charlie called
the restaurant and made the reservation, then cradled the phone and sat for a
while in thought. He wasn’t at all sure that he was doing the right thing, in
talking to the Press, but if he was careful he might be able to use Ms Robyn
Harris to make contact with other parents; and then there was a possibility of
concerted action

–
something
to bring the Celestines to the attention of
ordinary people, and to quarantine them for ever, if not kill them off.

As far as
Charlie was concerned, the Celestines weren’t a religion, they were a disease.
They were nothing better than a spiritual form of AID S.

He eased off
his shoes,
then
peeled off his socks. The day’s
tension had made him feel sweaty and sticky, and he needed a shower. As he
stood under Mrs Kemp’s rattling brass shower faucet, he tried to work out a
plan for snatching Martin out of
Le
Reposoir
, and getting him clean away.

He made himself
assume that Martin wouldn’t have started eating himself already. His mind
couldn’t cope with the idea that he might already have cut off his own ringers
or his own toes, and swallowed them.

He recognized
that he was going to need help, if only to drag Martin physically out of the
building. A man would be preferable, but a woman would do if she were
determined enough.

He also
recognized, reluctantly, that he was going to need a gun. Even though Sheriff
Podmore had told him that the Musettes had made no effort to stop him when he
had rescued his daughter, it was obvious that
Le Reposoir
had at least two security staff and probably more.

He would need a
third person, too – somebody who was not necessarily involved in breaking into
the building and heisting Martin out, but a getaway driver who was waiting to
speed them out of trouble and take them to the nearest airport.

Because that was the last essential.
There had to be air
tickets ready. First, a flight to somewhere within the continental United
States, because Martin hadn’t brought his passport with him, then a car or a
boat ride to Mexico.

After that,
exile for both of them, for a while at least, while Martin was deprogrammed,
and while Charlie tried to find another way of making a living.

Charlie stepped
out of the shower and towelled himself with one of the rough, cheap towels that
Mrs Kemp had left folded on the hot pipe. He knotted the towel around his waist
and walked across the landing to his room. He heard the front door open and
shut again, and leaned over the banisters and called, ‘Mrs Kemp?
That you?’

Mrs Kemp looked
up. She was standing in the hallway looking peculiarly wild-eyed, her hair
dishevelled and a button hanging off her coat. She carried no shopping.

‘Mrs Kemp?’
asked Charlie. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘It’s all
right,’ she said, tugging her coat tightly around herself. ‘I’m fine. I’ll go
fix you something to eat.’

‘Did you go to
the.
market
?’

‘I... forgot.’

Charlie looked
at her sharply. ‘What’s wrong, Mrs Kemp? Where have you been?’

But Mrs Kemp
disappeared into her kitchen without answering; and Charlie heard the door slam
behind her as an unequivocal warning that she did not want to be followed.

Charlie waited for
a moment, then shrugged to himself, and went to his room to get dressed. He
watched his face in the mirror on top of the bureau. He looked tired, and there
was a look in his eyes which he had never seen before. Wounded, but determined.
The look of a man who wants revenge.

He was tying up
his shoelaces when he heard the scuffing of tyres outside in the street. A
moment later, there was a ring at the doorbell.
Then another
ring.
He finished tying his shoelace and went out to the landing. ‘Mrs
Kemp?’ he called, but there was no reply. The doorbell rang again and so he
went downstairs to answer it.

It was Sheriff
Podmore, and he didn’t look pleased. He pushed the door open wide and stepped
into the hallway without being invited. ‘What did you tell her?’ he demanded.

‘I don’t know
what you’re talking about,’ said Charlie.

‘Don’t play the
stiff with me, my friend. You told Mrs Kemp what happened to Caroline, didn’t
you?’ ‘So what if I did? She has a right to know.’ ‘Jesus, McLean, what kind of
a cretin
are
you?

The reason I
didn’t tell her before was because she doesn’t have the mental strength to
accept anything like that. At least she used to have hope that Caroline might
still be alive. Don’t you understand that? Until they know what’s happened to
their children for sure, all parents believe that they may still be alive.
Hence the great myth about them all running off to California to
become go-go dancers or whatever.
One per cent of one hundred per cent
stay away for good.

One per cent of
that one per cent
make
a living as exotic dancers or
porno stars. The rest of them get killed, one way or another; or else they end
up as Celestines and kill themselves.’

Charlie said,
‘I still think she has a right to know.’ ‘Is she here?’ Sheriff Podmore asked
him. ‘She just came in. She’s in the kitchen.’ Sheriff Podmore stomped down to
the end of the hallway and rattled the door handle. ‘Ida!’ he shouted.
‘You in there?’

‘Go away!’ Mrs
Kemp shouted back. ‘You lied to me, Norman, I don’t want to see you and I don’t
want to talk to you ever again!’

‘Ida, will you
be reasonable?’ said Sheriff Podmore. ‘Go away! I don’t want to be reasonable!’

Sheriff Podmore
waited outside the kitchen door a little longer and then came sashaying back
down the hallway again, all belly and gunbelt. He lifted his hat to adjust it,
and said to Charlie.

‘You know what
she did?’

‘I have the
distinct feeling that you’re going to tell me.’ ‘She came down to the
sheriffs
office while I was out and she ripped the place
apart. Broke the windows, emptied out the file cabinets, and then she wrote
‘Norman Podmore Child-killer’ on my wall. So, what do you think about that?’

‘I think maybe
you deserved it,’ said Charlie, in a level tone.

Sheriff Podmore
looked at Charlie thoughtfully. ‘I hope you’re not thinking of causing me any
trouble,’ he said.

‘You’ll soon
find out if I am.’

Sheriff Podmore
jerked his thumb back toward the kitchen. ‘All I’m asking you to do is keep
your eye on her. She’s pretty overwrought. There’s no knowing what she might
do.’

Charlie opened
the front door. ‘I think you’d better leave,’ he told the sheriff.

At that moment,
however, the kitchen door opened and Mrs Kemp appeared, ‘Norman!’ she
screeched. The sheriff turned around. ‘Norman, you
be
warned! This isn’t going to be the end of it! I’m going to kill those people if
it’s the last thing I do! They took my Caroline, and I’m going to kill them!’

‘Ida,’ said
Sheriff Podmore, ‘you have to know that it’s illegal to make threats against
people’s lives.’

‘And it’s not
illegal to let people slaughter your children, is that it?’ Mrs Kemp shrieked
at him.

‘Ida, you take
care.’ Sheriff Podmore turned to Charlie again. ‘I’m just telling you, my
friend, anything happens here and I’ll hold you responsible.’

Charlie said
nothing, but let the sheriff out and stood by the door as he walked down the
path.

Mrs Kemp stayed
where she was, wringing her hands. Her cheeks were running with tears.

Charlie said,
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Kemp. It looks like I made a mistake.’

‘No, you
didn’t,’ she said shakily. ‘You were right to tell me. Up until now, I’ve been
feeling grief, but there was no way of telling if I had anything to grieve
about. I’ve felt angry, but I’ve never known who to be angry with. Now I know,
and now I can do something about it.’

‘You’re not
going to try to kill the Musettes, not really?’