Shaping the Ripples (21 page)

I accepted the offer of a lift in Samuel and Ruth’s car to the crematorium. Not many of the congregation seemed to be following.

“Are you OK, Jack?” Ruth asked soon after we’d set off.

“I’m not great,” I answered. “But I’m sure that I will be alright.”

“How could anyone be so evil as to do such a thing?” Ruth questioned out loud.

“We saw a great deal of evil when we lived in The Sudan.” Samuel said. “Gangs of soldiers raping, killing and torturing innocent people. But this sort of evil is something else altogether. Evil that lies hidden in someone’s heart until they decide to let it free. It’s almost more frightening somehow. Once someone has let it out, I don’t think that they can ever contain it again.”

There didn’t seem to be any answer to this, so I kept silent. Before long, we had arrived at the Crematorium. Christopher’s coffin was carried and placed on a sort of conveyor belt at the far end of the chapel. The priest said a few short prayers and at the magic words “ashes to ashes”, velvet curtains closed and the coffin disappeared from view. Christopher was gone

A shudder passed through my body. Whether it was the finality of the curtains, or the echo of Samuel’s doom-laden prophecy, I couldn’t be certain.

Chapter Twenty Three

Katie was insistent that I wasn’t going to spend the weekend on my own so, in truth without putting up too much of a fight, I agreed to go around to their house just after lunch. When I got there, the two of them had coats and woolen gloves on.

“Is the heating not working?” I joked.

“Very funny,” Katie replied. “Come on, we’re going out.”

“Where to?” I asked.

“We’re all going ice skating for the afternoon,” Katie announced proudly.

“You are joking aren’t you?” I groaned. I had only been ice skating once in my life, when I was about eighteen. My memories of that was holding on grimly to the wooden rail at the side, and painfully shuffling around for about half an hour, before giving up completely and sitting on the side watching everyone else.

“No,” said Katie. “Come on, it will do you good.”

“It’s more likely to put me in hospital,” I grumbled, but let her lead me out to the car.

The two of them chattered cheerily in the car on the way to the rink. When Katie had gone to pay, and Rebecca and I were queuing up to get a pair of lethal looking boots, Rebecca suddenly took hold of my arm.

“Katie told me what’s been happening,” she said seriously. “I’m so sorry Jack.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m worried about Katie getting caught up in it all though.”

“Are you kidding?” she asked with a laugh. “Not only does Katie currently seem to think that you’re the best thing since sliced bread, now you’re the man of mystery and danger as well. You’ll be having to beat her off with a stick.”

Before I could reply, Katie re-appeared “Get your hands off my man,” she said in mock indignation.

Rebecca laughed and let go of my arm. “Keep your hair on,” she answered. “I’m just warning him about you before it’s too late.”

The ice rink was quite busy, with groups of teenagers gliding and spinning along. Here and there were parents with small children, almost motionless as they tried to help them build up confidence on the ice. Katie and Rebecca quickly laced up their boots, and looked expectantly at me. I was trying to take as long as possible.

“It’s alright, you two go on, and I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said casually.

“I don’t mind waiting for you,” Katie said.

“It’ll probably take a little while to find my feet,” I answered. “So you may as well go and skate while I’m doing that.”

“I’ll just do a couple of laps, and then I’ll come and find you,” she said slightly unwillingly, and she walked over to the gap in the boards with Rebecca, so the two of them could get onto the ice.

Having laced up my boots, there didn’t seem to be any way of further postponing the inevitable, so I hobbled across the floor and, carefully holding onto the side, put one foot tentatively onto the ice. It didn’t immediately slide from under me as I’d feared, so I risked the other foot. Success – I was standing upright on the ice, admittedly still holding onto the rail with my right hand. Still, it was a start.

“Come on, Jack!” Katie and Rebecca called in unison as they flashed past. I slowly moved one foot forwards and then the next. Still no sign of a slip, so I continued along the rail, to the far end of the rink. Katie and Rebecca slid to a halt beside me and watched my progress for a minute.

When they’d finished laughing, they tried to give me some advice.

“You’re walking, not skating,” Rebecca said.

“Try keeping your feet on the ice, and just slide the skates forwards,” Katie suggested. “Point your feet inwards a bit to help you balance.”

“You two carry on skating, and I’ll give it a go,” I suggested.

“Alright,” said Katie. “But later on we’ll take you round with us.”

Once they’d moved off, I tried to put their advice into practice. It was a little easier, and I felt confident enough to let go of the side. I did stay fairly close to it just in case. The problem was, that as soon as I actually began to skate properly, and a foot was sliding smoothly over the ice, I had the sense of not being completely in control and panicked. This resulted in an undignified wobble to grab on desperately to the side. I managed not to fall over completely, but it was a close thing on several occasions.

Before long, Katie returned. “Hold onto me, and I’ll take you for a spin around the rink,” she offered.

I took tight hold of her right arm, and launched away from the side. The problem with this arrangement was that Katie was so nervous about making me fall over, that she began to lose the rhythm of her skating, and the two of us ended up looking something like Bambi when he first encounters ice.

Rebecca arrived on my opposite side. “It looks like the two of you could do with some help,” she laughed, and took hold of my right arm. Being sandwiched between the two of them worked rather better, and we were soon racing around the frozen arena. When I wasn’t desperately trying to stay vertical I had to admire Katie’s insight. Having to concentrate so hard on not falling over made sure that I had no time to think about Christopher or the writer of the notes.

As the two of them pulled me around, I did get some rather strange looks from the rest of the people on the ice. I have to confess that this was more than offset by the pleasure of having two such beautiful girls on each arm. I even found myself quite enjoying it.

Eventually, I insisted that they go on skating unencumbered by me, and concentrated on trying to skate a little by myself. By the time we were ready to stop, I was fairly proud to have managed three consecutive laps of the circuit without touching the side once. Admittedly, I was going at a pace which would probably have seen me overtaken by a determined snail, but it was a definite improvement!

It was, however, a relief to change back into ordinary shoes.

“We definitely need to bring you for a lot more practice,” Rebecca observed as the three of us thawed out with drinks of hot chocolate.

“Is this something you do a lot?” I asked them.

“At least once a month,” Katie answered. “And then we undo all the good work we’ve done by going and getting a burger!”

“Ah but,” Rebecca added, “we can eat it without feeling guilty, because we’ve already burned off all those calories.”

“On that basis, I’d better stick to a small salad,” I suggested, producing a smile from both of them.

“I’m sure that your right arm got a lot of exercise holding you up all that time,” Katie teased. I tossed my empty polystyrene cup at her in response.

The place that they took me to for the burger looked just like a normal house from the outside. Only the small sign with the words “Captain America’s Diner” gave a clue to what it really was. There were steps at the side of a house which looked at first as if they led to a basement. In fact, it was a comfortably furnished small restaurant with about half a dozen tables. Two couples sat together in the far corner but otherwise it was empty.

“Ladies, good to see you as always,” said the waiter as he came towards us. “And you’ve brought a visitor with you. Welcome, sir, to York’s best kept secret.”

We sat down together and the waiter handed us the menu. It was mostly burgers, but with some interesting sounding chicken, fish and steak meals as well. While we made up our minds he brought two jugs, one of iced water and one of ice cold Budweiser, and half a dozen glasses.

“I think I’m going to like it here,” I said, pouring out some of the beer. “How did you find it?”

“Someone at work told me about it,” Rebecca answered. It sounded like our sort of place so we tried it out and we’ve been back once a month ever since.”

“It gets full later in the evening,” Katie added. “So we usually skate and eat while there are still plenty of tables. All the food I’ve tried is good, but for a first time you really should try their burgers.”

All three of us ordered the burgers and I have to say that they fully justified the build up they’d had. As always, conversation was very easy with the two of them, and we carefully steered very clear of any difficult subjects, at least until the desserts had arrived.

Then Katie asked, “How was the funeral yesterday, Jack?”

“Not great,” I told them. “There was hardly anyone there, and it all felt very depressing. I ended up having to speak about him. I think I did it reasonably OK, but it’s not something I want to have to do again.”

They both made sympathetic noises, and we changed the subject to what to do tomorrow.

“You don’t have to let me take up all your weekend, you know,” I said. “I can manage fine by myself tomorrow.”

“Not a chance,” said Katie. “You don’t get to escape from my clutches that easily.”

“Besides which,” Rebecca continued. “You’re my only hope of having a relatively intelligent conversation.”

“Alright then,” I gave in. “But it’s time that I cooked for the two of you.”

They both looked at each other. “Do you think it’s safe?” Rebecca asked in a tone of concern.

“Well, I’ve not tried his cooking yet. But he doesn’t seem to have poisoned himself yet,” Katie answered thoughtfully. “I suppose we could give him a try.”

With that agreed, we left the restaurant. Rebecca sat in the back of the car. Katie suggested I go back to theirs for a bit, but I needed to get some food in for them for tomorrow, so I resisted the temptation. Outside my flat, Katie stopped and leant across to kiss me.

“Oh, don’t mind about me you two. I’ll just sit here quietly,” came a voice from the back.

Katie’s lips pulled back from mine. “Shut up Becky” she said, and then continued the kiss. There was a mumbled grumbling from Rebecca, but she didn’t sound as if she meant it.

After a few minutes, I got out of the car and said goodnight to both of them. I thought of going up to my flat, but decided that it was easier to go shopping straight away. I drove the car out to the big superstore on the outskirts of the city, and spent a while choosing food and drink for the next day. I confess that I played it safe by buying frozen ready-made roast potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, to minimise the risk of disaster.

It was nearly nine o’clock as I parked the car back in the garage. The flashing red light on the phone told me that I had a message. I pressed play.

“Jack, it’s Liz. I’ve been out of town for a few days on business so I’ve only just found out about your vicar. What a dreadful thing to happen. Are you alright? I’m really worried about you. Remember you can come and stay here if you need to get away for a while. I’ll try you again a bit later on.”

I decided I’d wait until she rang back. It was only a few minutes later that the telephone rang.

“Hello,” I called, trying to sound as cheerful as possible to allay her fears. There was a rather puzzled silence for a few moments.

“Is that Jack Bailey?” an unfamiliar female voice asked.

“It is,” I said, trying desperately to work out if it could be one of my clients from the crisis centre. The next sentence gave me the answer.

“This is the York police. We’ve been notified that the burglar alarm is ringing at the Domestic Crisis Centre. Your name is on our list as one of the key holders. Would it be possible for you to meet one of our officers at the Centre as soon as possible?”

“I’m on my way now,” I answered, and hung up.

Although the centre had a burglar alarm, it had certainly never gone off before in my time in York. I couldn’t see why anyone would bother to break into it, as there was almost nothing worth stealing.

There was already a police car parked outside the Centre when I got there. The blue light on the front of the alarm box was flashing, and a loud siren sounded. After a moment, a police officer emerged from inside and came to greet me.

“Mr. Bailey,” he said, extending his hand. I recognised him as the officer who had taken my fingerprints on the day I found Jennifer. “PC Brian Taylor. I’ve had a quick look around inside, and whoever it was seems to have scarpered. I could do with you having a look through the building with me, to identify anything that may have been taken.

I made to go in, but he stopped me, and offered me a pair of plastic gloves. “We wouldn’t want to cover up any prints that may have been left,” he said.

I pulled on the gloves with some difficulty and then followed him towards the centre. The front door was wide open, and closer inspection revealed that the lock must have been kicked or struck hard, so that the wooden door frame had splintered inwards.

The reception area was a mess, with the box of toys scattered everywhere. I didn’t know if everything was still there, but it didn’t seem likely that someone had gone to the trouble and risk of breaking in just to steal some toys for their toddler.

“There really isn’t much worth stealing in here,” I said to PC Taylor as we continued our journey around the centre. The kitchen was in similar disarray, with cupboard doors open and things strewn across the floor, but as far as I could tell everything was still there. The two counselling rooms stood with their doors opened, but nothing seemed to have been touched so we carried on to George’s room.