The Various Haunts of Men (32 page)

‘You are in God’s hands, Karin. Safe now. You will be fully well. You need to rest and you should eat well, do not starve, do not deny your body. Give it what it asks for when it asks. Drink water, plenty of water. Rest. Goodbye.’

He stood motionless.
Karin lay, slightly light-headed, slightly bemused, but after a few seconds, she swung her legs off the couch and got up unsteadily. Dr Groatman neither helped her nor spoke and his facial expression did not flicker. She thought he was the man in the sports jacket who had come through the reception room, that he had twisted his body, padded his back and shoulder, mussed his hair – thought,
but could not be sure.

As she put her hand on the door leading back into the reception office, he said softly, ‘Mistrust and suspicion are dangerous companions. Keep an open mind and a generous heart, Karin, or you will negate my healing work.’ His voice was unpleasant and whatever accent there had been was quite gone.

Karin almost fell into the outer room.

Two people were waiting.

‘Please
sit down and drink a glass of water, Mrs McCafferty.’

‘No, I have to go, sorry …’

‘You really must. You need to centre yourself. Please.’

Trembling, she sat and sipped the paper tumbler of water; the woman was right, she needed it, she was thirsty and unsteady. The buzzer sounded for the next patient.

‘Do I pay you now?’

‘Yes please. Take your time; wait until you feel quite calm again.’

‘I’m fine. Thanks.’ Karin stood. She did not faint. The room remained still. She crossed to the desk and the
smiling woman handed her a small card.
Mrs K. McCafferty. For treatment: £100. Please make cheques payable to SUDBURY & CO
.

She came out into the fresh air, doing sums furiously. She had been in the consulting room perhaps ten minutes, no more. But say one patient every half-hour, allowing
for the waiting, from nine till five – sixteen patients a day, with an hour for lunch, fourteen patients, fourteen at £100 = £1,400.

Back in the wholefood café, she sat at a window table in the sun, and over tea and a carrot cake which was rich and delicious, she wrote pages in the loose-leaf notebook she had brought while the visit was fresh in her mind – smells, sights, sounds, what he had
said, what she had felt.

Back in the car, she rang Cat.

‘Dr Deerbon is out on an emergency call. Can I take a message?’

Karin left her name, and asked Cat to ring her that evening at home.

She drove back slowly to Lafferton, delighting even more in the sunshine, feeling released and relieved and trying to put the morning’s experience out of her mind. She had planned to spend the afternoon
in the garden clearing space for the seed potatoes. She went into the house, took the mail from behind the door, and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on before changing into her old jeans, jacket and boots. The sun was shining through the huge vase of daffodils on the table, making them blaze. Karin took the mug of tea over to the sofa with her letters. Five minutes later she was asleep. She
neither stirred nor dreamed and when she woke, over two
hours later, lay still, feeling an extraordinary sense of peace and refreshment. The sun had moved across the room and was making oblong blocks of brightness on the white wall. Karin stared at them. They seemed to radiate energy and to be beautiful beyond explanation or words.

She remembered the morning – Starly, the strange consulting room,
the man with the bent back and lame leg, his odd accent, his brusque remarks. She had been nervous and suspicious, relieved to get away. Yet now, lying looking at the white wall, she felt full of strength and well-being, as if something within her had indeed changed and her spirit been renewed. She wondered what she could say to Cat Deerbon now.

He wanted to know what was going on. There had been reports on the radio and in the local paper, which had been picked up, although only in small paragraphs, by some of the national press. The place was buzzing with talk. Worry. Speculation.

It would be too dangerous to go in the van.

He had spent the previous evening with Debbie Parker. He had written his post-mortem report and
filed it and then she had to be restored, the organs replaced, wounds sewn up. He liked to think he always did an immaculate job, and that he was respectful, always respectful. They had taught him that. There was often crude humour in the mortuary and at the post-mortem table, especially when the police were present; it was their way of dealing with what they witnessed and keeping the horror at bay,
but he had never approved of it, and certainly had never joined in, and now that he was alone, he worked in silence, or occasionally, to music. For Debbie he had played Vivaldi.

When he had finished, he sheeted her and slid her
body into the cold store beneath the others. Each drawer had a label but the names were what he chose for them, not their own, and he gave each one careful thought.

Achilles.

Medusa

He had written
Circe
neatly in black ink and slipped the card into the slot on the drawer containing Debbie Parker. Then he had unzipped his green lab suit, stepped out of it and put it into the washing machine before dressing in his own clothes and locking the unit, each section separately with its own double padlock, and going out by the side door, which rolled down and bolted
to the concrete floor.

He left the van in the car park of a public house and walked in the pleasant early spring evening towards the Hill.

It was still cordoned off with police tape and warning signs were placed at every entrance point. No one was about. The police and their vehicles and equipment had all left.

He walked round the perimeter path, looking up at the deserted slopes, the undergrowth,
the Wern Stones, to the crown of oaks at the top. There was no indication of how long the police would keep it closed, but even when the Hill was reopened it would take a long time for people to return as normal there. They would be anxious now, rumour would feed on rumour, no one would feel safe, everyone would be watched and the police would patrol visibly and regularly.

He walked away, taking
a different route back to the parked van. You could never be too careful, never drop your guard.

He went into the public house bar, which was empty,
bought red wine and a hot pasty, and borrowed the evening paper from the counter. It was a large, anonymous room, a public house for passing travellers. He was served without interest and would not be remembered. Two groups of men came in and did
not spare him a glance.

The
Lafferton Echo
had another article about Medusa and Circe. The pasty was delicious. The evening sun fell in ruby red through the glass lozenges of the window behind him, on to the newspaper. He felt content.

Sharon Medcalf had not been at choir practice that week, having sent a message that she had a bad cold, which had thrown Freya’s plan. Now, Sharon’s phone number was in front of her but she was still hesitating. She needed to talk to someone about Simon Serrailler, to get answers to some of the questions that preoccupied her whenever her mind was not focused on work, and on both occasions
when they had talked privately, Sharon had revealed herself as an enthusiastic gossip.

So why am I dithering? Freya asked herself now.

She walked away from the phone, poured a glass of wine and sat down to think. She wanted to talk about him, to hear his name and speak it herself, find out more about his life. Who else was there to ask? The people she had got to know best since coming to Lafferton
were work colleagues. Apart from acquaintances, mainly other choir members, the only person she could call a friend was Meriel Serrailler, who was naturally ruled out. Which left the dauntingly well-dressed Sharon Medcalf, who was divorced and owned two designer boutiques
in Bevham. But Sharon was a member of the choir and when the conductor had asked her to sing a few bars of a solo aria in the
Messiah
to illustrate a point he wanted to make, Freya had looked at her with new respect. Her soprano voice was glorious, rich and clear with impressive top notes. The rest of the choir had listened with absolute attention. There was more to Sharon Medcalf than expensive clothes. Freya had ceased to curse when her mind turned to Simon. Deep inside her a small, furious, independent voice muttered
scornfully from time to time. It also murmured warnings. She ignored them.

She switched on the television, hopped from a garden makeover programme to one about house-buying to a European football match and switched off again. She had caught up with the day’s papers and had no new book to read. She drank the last of her wine and pulled the phone nearer.

‘Is that Sharon?’

‘It is.’

‘It’s Freya
Graffham … I just rang to find out how you are. The message to choir was that you’d lost your voice.’

‘Bless you, yes, it’s been a stinker but I’m feeling much better today. How was choir?’

‘Good. It’s really shaping now, but the sopranos are definitely thinner without you. The other reason I rang was that I have a day off on Wednesday and I wondered if you’d like to have lunch? If you’re well
enough.’

‘It’ll be malingering by then. I’d love to. Where?’

If they were going to talk about Simon, they had better not be anywhere in Lafferton.

‘Somewhere out of town … what about the Fox and
Goose at Flimby? The food’s excellent but it only gets really crowded in the evenings.’

‘I haven’t been out there for yonks. If it’s a day like today it’ll set me up nicely. Thanks, Freya.’

‘Shall
we meet there at half twelve?’

Freya wanted to sing. Sharon had talked about the Serraillers when she had given her the lift home. She might not know Simon well but she would surely be able to answer the one question that had been gnawing at her since Freya had been to his flat. She could neither ignore it nor dismiss it. She needed to know.

She went to run a bath and while she was soaking in
it worried not about Simon but about work. The only piece of halfway positive information about either of the missing women had come from Jim Williams who was, so far as they knew, the last person to see Angela Randall, running through the fog. But fog was what shrouded her after that and there were no leads at all on Debbie Parker. The search of the Hill had yielded nothing. A couple of people
in Starly recognised her photograph and one had known her name but no one had seen her up lately. House-to-house inquiries, posters everywhere, another radio appeal, more in the papers – and nothing.

She wondered vaguely about Jim Williams’s dog Skippy. That had been last seen on the Hill and it, too, had vanished apparently into thin air – or thick fog. But dogs did run away, chasing after a
smell, or burrowing too far down a rabbit hole, and a missing dog was not a missing person. People stole dogs. Jim Williams had seen no one but he had reported hearing a vehicle. Did dog snatchers drag their victims into cars and roar off down the road? She remembered Cruella de Vil.

Spring had retreated and winter was delivering a late blast as she drove out to Flimby two days later. The wind
drove sleet and little pinheads of hail at the windscreen and as she parked at the Fox and Goose a biting northeasterly was driving straight across the fields towards her.

The pub was quiet and the log fire and amber-coloured lamps on the tables welcoming. On the far side of the hatch she could see that the snug had its small complement of the old countrymen who still lived in and around all
the villages. The low burr of their voices was like the humming of bees.

Freya bought a vodka and tonic and bagged a small table near the fire. There were women who could lunch out in country pubs like this every day if they fancied, but surely they would not get such pleasure from it as she did on a precious day off? In London she had never enjoyed such leisurely days. Her free time had been
a rush of catching up on domestic chores and trying to prove to herself, by preparing elaborate dinners, that she loved making Don happy.

Not any more, she thought, curling her toes up inside her boots, nor ever again.

As if a light had been switched on she saw Simon’s flat in her mind’s eye, the long, tranquil room with its pictures, books, and pieces of modern and antique furniture in harmony
together. She wanted to be there now, for all that she was enjoying the very different room she was actually in, with the gingham curtains and horse brasses. She wanted to be absorbed into Simon’s room so that she belonged there, fitted as perfectly as a vase or a stool or one of his drawings on the wall.

‘God, what a day!’

Sharon Medcalf was beside the table taking off her
long suede coat.
Freya had spent an hour choosing her own clothes and making herself ready, determined not to let herself down in the face of Sharon’s designer presentation, and when she had looked at herself in the mirror before leaving home she had been rather pleased. She had some decent clothes and she had mixed them with what seemed to be a bit of panache; she spent her working life in clothes that were neither
oversmart nor overcasual, and did not call too much attention to themselves; she had enjoyed the chance to make more of a splash. Confronted by Sharon now, she wondered why she had bothered. Sharon wore Armani with a startling scarf and dumped a Louis Vuitton bag on the floor beside her.

Freya could not resist reaching out to finger the pure silk of the vivid blue, white and fuchsia patterned
silk.

‘That is amazing … I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘You won’t … it’s vintage Ungaro.’

Freya sighed.

‘Oh, poof, it’s the job, I’d just as soon wear jeans from Top Shop.’

‘Hm. Anyway, how are you?’

‘Much better. Freya, thank you for asking me here. I value your wanting to be friendly.’ She said things like that and somehow they didn’t sound false.

Sharon Medcalf was probably late
forties, very tall, very slim, with very long, well-cut blonde hair which must cost a fortune to be so discreetly coloured. Her make-up could have been done professionally that morning.