The Buried Circle (25 page)
‘What the hell did you drink last night?’
‘Don’t ask.’
No need. The evidence is piled in the tiny sink: a sandcastle heap of lager cans. Sticking out of the top, like a flagpole, is a vodka bottle. At one end of the van there is a rumpled double bed, at the other a narrow fold-down table between two bench seats.
‘Is that Pot Noodle on the table?’
He has the grace to look ashamed. ‘Didn’t actually eat it. I only thought about it, like you do when you’re drinking.’
‘Christ, Ed, you must have put away enough to knock you out for a week.’
‘Take your pick of my excuses.’ He gestures towards the table, and a scatter of letters and torn envelopes next to the Pot Noodle. The top sheet of paper has a Barclays Bank logo. ‘On second thoughts, don’t look. I’d prefer you not to know the extent to which my life is falling apart. Sorry, it’s a pit in here. I probably stink, too. Let me get showered.’
‘I’m not staying long.’
‘Can hardly blame you.’ He wrinkles his nose. ‘No, even I can smell me, so unless you want one of us to stand outside and conduct this conversation at a safe distance through the open door, I’m going to have to insist you give me two minutes in the shower. Don’t panic, it’s perfectly private–you won’t have to see bits of me you’d rather forget.’
Can’t help a smile. ‘Really, Ed, no need…’ But he’s already pulling closed the sliding door that shuts off the bedroom end. I immediately start thinking about all the bits of him that I actually wouldn’t mind seeing again: what he looks like pulling his T-shirt over his head…
No
. To distract myself, I concentrate on the utter squalor around me.
The caravan would smell sweeter if the lager mountain in the sink was levelled. There’s a Waitrose carrier bag on the floor so I scoop into it as many empty cans as will fit, and drop it into the overflowing dustbin outside the door. From the other end, creaks and the sound of trickling water announce that Ed’s ablutions are under way. I don’t mean to pry into the pile of papers on the table, really, but I can’t help noticing–
Oh, my sweet lesus.
How
much?
…
would point out that you also already have an unsecured loan for seventy thousand pounds, the repayments on which are in default, and therefore on this occasion we are unable to advance any further monies
…
Seventy thousand pounds? No wonder the poor bastard’s in a caravan. And it’s not the only letter with a bank logo.
‘Don’t rub my nose in the shit I’m in, will you?’
I spin round, guilty. ‘Sorry, I–’
‘Kinda leaps out at you, doesn’t it? It’s been leaping out and twisting my balls for the last three months.’ Ed towels his hair, in damp black ringlets from the shower, releasing the clean scent of coal-tar soap. His shirt’s hanging open, revealing low-slung jeans, a flat stomach, a sparse fuzz of dark chest hair. Another cloudburst starts to hammer on the caravan roof.
‘How–’
‘–did I get into this mess? Nothing too dreadful, honest, guv, no gambling habit, no cocaine addiction, no drink problem, despite the evidence to the contrary in the dustbin. Costs roughly fifty thou to train as a helicopter pilot, more if you get a commercial licence for fixed wing as well, as I did. The idea is to pay off the loan with the fabulous wages we earn from our difficult and dangerous trade, and eventually take out another to buy our own chopper. Reality is that most of us lurch from financial crisis to financial crisis, and in my case to ultimate disaster.’
‘So the crash was the last straw?’
‘Give the lady a coconut. I was keeping up repayments until Luke sacked–sorry, let me go, as he so politely put it. The euphemisms people use. Lost the Bell, couldn’t afford to have it repaired, insurance people wouldn’t pay out until after the accident report, etc., etc. Only way I’m earning anything is because the guy who runs the show here took pity. Not that’s he’s doing so well himself at the moment.’
‘You’re an instructor? Teaching people to fly helicopters?’
It sounds more like a spit than a laugh. ‘Oh, I could. I’m qualified. But he thinks it’s better I don’t for the moment. I’m the fucking night security guard.’
Light dawns. ‘I saw the notice on the fence. Where’s the dog?’
‘It’s the Jack Russell at the cottages along the road.’
Can’t help it, I burst out laughing. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Ed, it’s just–’
‘I know, I know. It
is
bloody funny, when you think about it. I’m being paid for doing nothing–there’s never been a security guard here before, not much need. I suppose somebody might come along and steal a chopper, but good luck to them–they’d have to know how to fly it, and there’s an alarm system in the hangar that’d wake the bloody dead, let alone old Alan at the cottages. He’s up half the night anyway, killing small inoffensive creatures.’
‘I met him.’
‘Yeah, well. Man of few words, but generally to the point.’
‘Don’t you fly at all?’
‘Occasionally. My boss had great plans to run an executive air-taxi operation, as well as the flying lessons, but he hasn’t really pulled it together. There are a few charters flying rich gamblers to and from race meetings, and a couple of dodgy businessmen and the odd pop group have used his services, but there’s hardly enough work for him, let alone me. If it’s a weekend or a night-flight and he can’t be bothered, then it’s mine.’
A silence falls. The rain has stopped as suddenly as it started. Ed puts down the damp towel–on top of the letters, to block my prying eyes–and starts to button his shirt. In the corner, a fat droplet of water oozes through the metal roof-seam.
‘I hesitate to offer you a drink,’ he says, ‘but would a cuppa do?’
‘Lovely.’
While he’s putting on the kettle, I look round at Ed’s private world. There isn’t much of it, and what little there is is untidy. To sit down I have to shift a pile of box files onto the floor, next to a black bin-liner of washing–clean or dirty, impossible to tell. There are no books, no television, only the iPod and dock on a shelf, and a laptop computer, hiding under the papers. A half-open cupboard door reveals a tangle of boots and shoes.
But, of course, this isn’t the whole of his private world. Somewhere else, there’s a wife and a farmhouse. Although, if he’s in debt, maybe the farm and barns have already been sold. Or repossessed. Perhaps his wife is in a council house on the outskirts of Slough.
He flashes a bruised grin over his shoulder. ‘Sorry, have to rinse the mugs. There’s only two. Helpful in that it simplifies washing-up, but makes entertaining challenging. What brought you here?’
It hits me in the gut like a fist. I’d completely forgotten. For a moment I can’t find breath to speak.
Ed catches sight of my face. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Maybe you’d better break out the vodka again.’ Then to my horror my eyes start to fill with tears. ‘Bloody vultures. Voyeurs. Sick. Don’t know how they got hold of–’
‘This about YouTube by any chance?’
‘You
know?
Surprise stops the emotional leakage.
‘It’s been there a fortnight. Or, rather, it was. The Air Accident people managed to have it taken off earlier this week. I had about eight emails, sending me the link, from so-called friends.’
‘And you didn’t bother to tell me?’
‘It would have upset you. Don’t give me that look–it’s on your face that it upsets you. Only a matter of time before someone had it removed, if not the AAIB, then the family–though I bloody well hope
they
never heard about it. It was the last couple of minutes, mostly the crash itself, not what led up to it.’
‘You
saw
it?’
Ed looks uncomfortable.
‘You did, didn’t you?’
He sighs. ‘Yes, I watched it. Once, if that makes it any better.’ He picks up a tea-towel from the floor, wipes the mugs and drops a teabag into each, his back to me. ‘Shouldn’t ask this, but…’
‘Oh, my God,’ I say. ‘You want to know what I’m going to say at the inquest, don’t you? What I told the police?’
‘No,’
he says. ‘Well, yes. It would be helpful.’ He swings round to face me. ‘More to the point…Any chance you could get me a copy of the rest of the video?’
No way. I feel sick at the thought of it.
‘Jesus, Ed, even if I could…What the hell would you do with it?’
His fingers are worrying at a piece of loose skin by his thumbnail, reminding me of Martin on the first day of filming. ‘I thought I explained the shit I’m in. No money, no lawyer. If I lose my licence, I’m bankrupt for sure.
Do you
remember the exact conversation immediately before that last run across the crop circle? I sure as hell don’t, not word for word, but if it’s on the tape, the Air Accident Investigators will know precisely what Steve and I said to each other. I have to know what they know: it’s the only way I can plan my defence.’
‘You said OK. I remember that, I think–you said OK, like it was…a challenge.’
‘Is that all? Didn’t I say–that’s not a good idea? It’s dangerous? Nothing like that?’
‘I don’t know. You might have done. I don’t remember. But the conversation wouldn’t be on the tape anyway. We were planning to dub music and commentary over the pictures so we didn’t bother to take a feed from the headsets.’
Ed closes his eyes in relief. ‘I thought…There were screams on the YouTube piece.’
‘But muffled, right? The camera’s inbuilt microphone might’ve picked up the odd sound at high volume, but any normal chat would have been drowned on the recording by wind and engine noise.’
The kettle starts to whistle. Ed crouches to open the tiny fridge for milk. He says something I can’t hear.
‘What was that?’
‘I said, would you be prepared to back me up at the inquest if I told the coroner I warned Steve about the danger but he insisted? I know it’s a lot to ask…’
My heart stutters. ‘I can’t do that. I told you, I don’t remember who said what.’
‘It wouldn’t exonerate me but it might make a difference.’
‘You’re asking me to lie for you.’
‘It’s not a lie. It’s what I’m sure happened.’
The kettle’s still shrieking. I reach over and turn off the gas. ‘Don’t bother with tea on my account,’ I say. ‘I have to go. You’re right. It
is
a lot to ask. Too much.’
He stands up and, for a second, I think he’ll block my way, but instead he flattens himself against the kitchenette so we don’t have to touch. There’s sadness in his eyes, but they crinkle up with his usual lop-sided smile. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘Friends, Indy?’
‘I’ll have to think about it.’
As I walk down the road towards the car, the Smiths blast out again from the caravan, singing about being human and needing to be loved.
I was so upset that I couldn’t summon enthusiasm for church that Sunday. Hard to kneel in front of God, remembering the thoughts in my mind when Mr Keiller tried to wrestle my handbag from me. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw his handsome face leaning over me, felt his hand slide across my bosom, accidental like.
Mam and I usually went to St James’s, where the serpent writhed round the old font and the saint trod on its wicked head. Dad never went; said he’d seen all he wanted of God in the trenches. Nor did Mr Keiller. Sometimes, like this week, we were too busy with guests expecting roast Sunday luncheon. Then I’d go to evensong instead, on my own if Mam was too tired. Sunday supper was always serve-yourself, a cold collation, sandwiches made from the left-over roast, and salad and cheese and pickles, and once we’d laid it out Dad looked after everything while I went to church and Mam put her feet up.
‘I’ll be glad when we’ve done with the guesthouse,’ she’d taken to saying. ‘It’s a chore and no mistake, these days.’
Tonight the evening was too lovely to sit in the dark nave of St James’s, I told myself, knowing it was only an excuse to have an hour to myself, thinking about Mr Keiller and imagining his fingers doing much more than brush accidental against my chest. So I went walking, the laburnum flowers in yellow drifts and the air smelling of fresh-mown grass. Over the footbridge, the Winterbourne shrunken to a reedy trickle, the ground was already pegged out at Trusloe for the foundations of the new houses. Lawrence of Arabia’s brother had put up some of the money. Strange to think these empty fields would one day hold a village.
I’d reached the far side of Longstones field–two big old sarsens down there, facing each other like wary boxers–when I heard bells floating across the air. Not St James’s: these were from the next village on, Yatesbury. My conscience tugged me. It was a fair step, but a pretty church. I’d be too late for the start of the service but I could slip into a pew at the back.
It was further than I’d thought. As I walked up the path between the yews, limping a little on blistered feet, the sun was dipping below the treetops. The wooden door was ajar, and I could hear the deep voice of the vicar intoning the words of the Collect:
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night
.
Leaning on a box tomb with his back to me, Mr Cromley was smoking a cigarette; I knew him by the slope of his shoulders in the dark green Morven blazer. I hesitated, but he must have heard my step on the gravel. To my dismay, he turned, dropping the glowing cigarette end onto the ground.
‘Miss Robinson! Beautiful evening.’ He had a winning smile, and I reminded myself it wasn’t his fault, what had happened at the picnic.
‘Didn’t have you down as a churchgoer, Mr Cromley.’
‘I don’t go into the service. I prefer to shrive my soul out here in the churchyard.’
‘You have a soul, then?’
‘You’re very cruel all of a sudden. And you’ve been avoiding me, Heartbreaker. You’ve missed most of the service, so come and sit down on–’ he looked at the slab between us ‘–William Cullis and his fine family and watch the sun go down with me. We can discuss the state of our souls.’
It was the first time he had called me Heartbreaker. The organist was hammering away at the closing hymn, ‘And Now the Wants Are Told’. I felt a snake twist in my belly, and I held his gaze, without saying anything, though the sun was against me and I couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes. I remembered the feel of his hands on my shoulders, pulling me down onto the grass while Mr Keiller knelt over me.