The Alembic Valise (11 page)

Lorna got the call the next day around noon. She knew it was Joel calling because she had his number in her mobile ever since that eventful night almost a year ago.

“Lorna?” He sounded out of breath and she felt a slight twinge of disappointment that he had said Lorna and not Lorna Z. The last few times that they had spoken he had referred to her thus and it made her feel like a heroine in one of his books when he had done so.

“Joel, I thought you were in Paris. You OK?” she enquired.

“I am, I am. Look to get straight to the point. Is your father around? It’s urgent. When I phone the station they just say he is away.”

Lorna’s disappointment deepened. “He, they are away, on safari in Kenya. It’s their honeymoon.”

“But they got married in May, I was there.”

Lorna was about to start explaining the complexities of the police-leave entitlement system, but thought better of it. “They are back next week, Joel. What’s the matter?”

“It’s Sophie. She has gone missing. She went out last night and never came home. The assistant manager at the Gate just called me. Dave is away, you see. Then I called the police but it is too soon for them to start a missing person’s enquiry.”

“Maybe she is with Jim,” stated Lorna.

“I thought they split up. But I haven’t got his number anyway. Have you?”

“Look, here is Deacon’s number.” Then after a moments hesitation she added. “I will call him, in fact, that’s easier, isn’t it? Then I’ll call you back. OK Joel?”

Deacon was on a retreat, a silent meditation weekend. It was a fortunate coincidence that he saw the screen of his phone light up and mutely display Lorna’s name whilst he was checking the time left until lunch. Having listened to her voicemail he replied with a text message explaining that he was on a weekend retreat with Jim, suggesting she called Seraphim for help finding Sophie.

Instead of making the suggested call immediately she first called Sophie’s mobile number. Lorna’s reasoning was that although Sophie was not taking calls from other people she might take hers. They had become friends over the last year and often spent time together at weekends. Sophie was usually desperate to get out of the Gate and get some fresh air, so Lorna would cycle down to the river and they would run or ride along the towpath to either to Putney or Barnes. Nothing had been arranged for today but Lorna was intending to call after the Gate’s busy lunch period was over. It was of course possible that Sophie had gone to a party, got off with someone and was having a lost weekend. Why not? When running and riding along the river if they had any breath to spare the talked about literature and history, but she did know that Sophie was not seeing Jim any more. She could also tell that Sophie was carrying a torch for Joel. Ah, the human heart she thought as she heard her call go to voice mail. Luckily I have managed to avoid those emotional entanglements so far. Dialling Sophie’s number gave no joy; Seraphim’s number did however, he sounded like he had a heavy cold.

“I have a helping hand to lend,” he said. “Give me your address.”

The black Mercedes drew up barely an hour later, the heavily tinted windows obscuring any occupants from Lorna’s view. When the door opened it was not Seraphim who stepped out but a young guy with dark hair and a goatee.

“You can’t park on that double red line, it’s an instant fine. Who are you? Where’s Seraphim?”

“I am Agim.” He lifted his shades and narrowed his eyes in what might pass for a smile, but not in Shepherds Bush. “Get in,” he said.

Cuthbert carefully pushed open the garden gate; he did not want to get any of the slimy green lichen on his tan mohair overcoat. He was here at the Sangham, not to join the spiritual retreat, but to give one or both of his sons an almighty bollocking. What a useless pair of shit-heads.

He followed the path and was about to enter the reception centre when he spied the two divtards of his loins walking away from him into a plantation of sick looking tropical plants. He did not call out as he knew that this was a silent retreat but instead set off after them. Deacon was at the back of the line of novices being initiated into the practise of ‘moving meditation’. Cuthbert picked up a small stone from the path and threw it, neatly clipping his favourite son on the shoulder.

“Apparently one of the monks here can fly. It says so in the brochure,” were Cuthbert’s first words.

“That would be Brother Ting Ting,” said Deacon. “Well that is what the other monks call him. Only thing is, I happen to know that Ting Ting means small cute penis, in Japanese.”

“Fly or just levitate.”

“I don’t know,” said Deacon.

“I remember years ago there was a crazy Rasta man on the island, who for months claimed that on such and such a day he would climb to the top of the Town Hall and fly. Eventually the day arrived and people from all over came to watch. They even wrote a song about it, I recall the final line being – Him Die!”

“Why are you here, Dad?”

“Go and get your brother, Son.”

By the time Jim and Deacon were finally sat side-by-side at one of the tables in the deserted refectory hall, Cuthbert’s attitude had softened considerably but he was not about to let that show.

“Did either of you have anything to do with Trulock having the crap beaten out of him?” Blank looks ensued. “Or do you have any idea who might have?”

“No Dad.”

Cuthbert stood up.

“Good luck with bonding.” He shook both of them by the hand. “Phone my accountant on Monday, Jim; he will give you a list of things to do on the first of every month. I may be living in Panama but it is business as usual back here. Understood?” Jim nodded as if he understood.

“It’s weird you should ask about Trulock,” said Deacon. Jim and Cuthbert both looked at him. “Because I got a call today saying that his sister has gone missing.” Cuthbert sat back down.

Twenty minutes later, as he was leaving, Cuthbert stopped at the reception desk and left two envelopes with the trustafarian administrator; one for each of his sons containing cheques for seventy five thousand pounds. Passing through the gate he took the Sangham brochure from his pocket and dropped it in the litterbin. He had two more stops to make. By tomorrow night he would be out of the country.

Lorna had become immediately and acutely attuned to Agim’s presence. With his razor cut, designer shoes and easy manner he made her feel like some dopey schoolgirl, even though he was probably only a couple of years older than her. They drove to the Gate. They parked close by and after getting out she waited as he protectively folded the driver’s side mirror inwards. Then as he lifted his head Lorna deliberately locked eyes with him across the black expanse of the car’s roof. She had already asked him if he worked for Seraphim, to which he had replied that he did not but was helping him out as a favour.

“Listen, we have to get something straight,” she said.

But as she, with apparent calm, spelled out that his role in this disappearance investigation would be negligible, a voice in her head was whispering -
oceans of fire, pyramids of ice, volcanoes of stars.

They were lines from a surrealist poem that she had studied at school and she felt that she was now entering a zone where these once puzzling lines, in which the poet delineated the coruscating and deranging power of love, began to make some sense.

Once inside the Gate they spoke to Gavin, the barman, who remembered seeing Sophie leave the previous day, getting a description of what she was wearing and how she was behaving. They fired up the laptop on Sophie’s desk and saw that she had viewed and printed a Google map incorporating journey-planner route information, Hammersmith to One Tree Hill by road. They could see only a school and community centre marked on the map, so they called directory enquiries to get the phone numbers. Their calls went straight to voicemail.

“Shall we print out the map?” asked Lorna.

“I know the way,” replied Agim.

As they walked back to the car Lorna’s mobile began to bleep. It was a text message from Joel, whom she had forgotten to call back. Quickly reading the content she looked up to see Agim studying her.

She walked on ahead and then stood by the passenger door waiting for her annoying companion to unlock it. Once they were out on the Great West Road Agim’s slender fingers caressed the buttons that were built into the steering wheel and the sound of Tony Bennett singing Boulevard of Broken Dreams crept from hidden speakers.

“Yeah, I know Joel. Nice guy, but he can’t hold his drink.”

Ahead in the distance was a church spire on top of a hill. As they crossed the Thames the straightness of the tree-lined road seemed to imply that the spire was their destination. A moment occurred when it seemed that they were following a magnetic trail that incorporated the energies of the earth and sky. Then Agim turned left and they were on the South Circular.

Thirty minutes on and Tony Bennett had launched into Once Upon a Time. Lorna had been staring mutely ahead as each new song seemed to be addressing some elusive but vital part of her emotions. Now as the strings soared she felt the beginnings of a sob building in her chest.

The car skimmed along, taking them from urban scary Brixton to urban bucolic Dulwich and she realised that they would soon reach their destination. In an effort to compose her self she took a deep breath and opened her notebook. All they knew about Sophie’s disappearance was in contained in half a page of Lorna’s scrawly handwriting. At the top of the page was Sophie’s mobile number and Lorna tried it again, just in case. It rang seven times then went to voicemail; Lorna pressed the disconnect key, she had already left a message.

Agim did seem to know the way but he also had the benefit of a large satnav display screen mounted on the dashboard. Lorna studied it for the first time.

“And?” Agim repeated, now looking a little exasperated. She turned away from his enquiring gaze. Through the ragged trees she could see glimpses of the city in the distance, familiar yet threatening against the bruised sky.

“And nothing,” she said. They crested the hill and both saw Sophie’s white Mini, parked exactly where she had left it eighteen hours earlier.

They found Mini’s doors to be locked and nothing inside of interest could be seen through the windows. A red light blinked on the dashboard indicating that the alarm was set. They turned their attention to the buildings set on either side of the parking area.

“I’ll have a look at the school, you see what what’s over there,” said Agim indicating towards the community centre. Both had notice boards outside. Neither provided any clue that would explain Sophie’s presence there the previous evening.

“The usual kind of things,” said Lorna, “crèches, community-liaison-outreach-dream-catcher-workshops for the socially excluded.” Agim laughed. “They do have a maze though, built by the school kids, in the summer so not very medieval.”

“OK, let’s take a look.”

Just then a car appeared, trundled over to the far side of the car park and stopped. They paused but nobody emerged. It was a car from the seventies, perfectly restored and polished, an old Rover. Agim walked over and Lorna followed.

“I do have a chair but it won’t go off road.” The elderly occupant of the car said after winding down his window. He was taking a flask out of the glove compartment when Agim had tapped on the window. A wire haired Jack Russell was sat in the passenger seat watching them intently with his ears cocked.

“I wondered if you could do me a favour and take Buster here for a trot. I saw you heading towards the woods and he so loves it in there. He’ll be no trouble, comes when he’s called and all.”

“There have always been stories. I grew up around here, you see. Even back then, tales of the place being haunted. Just kids stuff I suppose but it stays with you.”

“What ghosts and stuff?” asked Lorna.

“Yes, and underground passages that ran all the way to the river in one direction and Chislehurst caves in the other, used by smugglers, slave traders and ghouls. The cemetery is just over the other side, so our imaginations probably ran a little wild.”

Buster was eager to go and chase squirrels and was quivering with anticipation so they left his owner drinking his tea and listening to Radio 2 and followed the path into the woods.

“Look!” said Agim pointing to a notice stapled to a tree trunk. It said - This Way to the Labyrinth.

Agim’s pointy shoes gave him poor traction on the muddy path so Lorna and Buster arrived at the clearing first. There were spent fireworks and beer cans on the ground and someone had rolled the artificial stones into a mini Stonehenge; but the outline of the maze was intact. Agim slid to a halt beside her.

“So what is the difference between a maze and a labyrinth?”

Before she could reply Buster emerged from the shrubbery and dropped something at their feet, took a couple of steps back, then began to bark insistently. It was a blue duffel coat toggle. By the time they returned to the car park and Buster and his owner had departed with a wave and a woof, it was dusk.

“Bye,” called out Lorna.

“So?” she then said turning to Agim whom she thought was at her side. But he was opening the boot of the Mercedes and removing a flat leather computer case, then getting into the car. Lorna kicked her sneakers on the gravel to remove any mud then got in after him. Looking up from the computer he spoke first.

“Look I think you need to report this to the police. The car is abandoned, it will be vandalised if it is here any longer. They need to come here and check things out. Don’t you think?”

Lorna nodded and felt in her pocket for her phone. She would pull some strings. She was not Detective Z’s daughter for nothing. As she waited to get through to the Duty Officer she watched Agim, searching on Google for clues.

Lorna was impressed as he entered keywords and then segmented, drilled down and filtered. He got a hit, a news story about the Troy Town maze from a year ago. The page from the local paper was still cached and she read it with mounting excitement, leaning close to him to see the screen clearly. Agim searched for the KidzAction Project, who were mentioned as the beneficiaries of the discovered treasure, and saw from the website that they were currently parked right outside their registered office. But what has this got to do with Sophie, she wondered? Then the Duty Officer answered. Luckily she knew him, a long time colleague of her father’s.

Agim had stepped out of the car and was making a phone call of his own. She could see him talking animatedly as he leant against the bonnet, the collar of his jacket turned up against the evening breeze. As Lorna finished her call he got back in, started the engine and flicked the slider for the heating to the high position.

“You go first,” she said.

“She, your friend Sophie Trulock, works as a volunteer for KidzAction. There was a party here last night, to mark their relaunch after being bankrolled by a mystery benefactor, and she attended. I had to phone the Helpline number and pretend that I was the police. What about you, what did the real police say?”

“That they will start a missing person investigation tomorrow,” she said with a shrug.

“Ok let’s get out of here.”

It was now almost completely dark. Lorna felt the woods were closing in on them and found herself gripping the toggle in her pocket tightly. It was not until they had descended along the narrow unlit track and turned onto the main road that she spoke.

“OK,” said Agim. Then after a pause he continued. “Look I just may have a theory, but I need to use the logins on my computer to check it out. My flat is close by and we can be there in ten minutes, we can have tea and toast there too. How does that sound Lorna Z?