Missing Joseph

by Elizabeth George

  “That wasn’t the issue. You knew it at the time. I didn’t want to admit it. It was just an excuse.”

  “For?”

  “Fear.”

  “Of what?”

  “Moving forward, I suppose. Loving you more than I do at the moment. Making you too much of my life.”

  “Helen—”

  “I could easily lose myself in the love of you. The problem is I don’t know if I want to.”

  “How can something like that be bad? How can it be wrong?”

  “It’s neither. But grief comes with love, eventually. It has to. It’s only the timing that no one can be sure of. And that’s what I’ve been trying to come to terms with: whether I want the grief and in what proportion. Sometimes…” She hesitated. He could see her fingers move to rest on her collar bone—her gesture of protection—before she went on. “It’s closer to pain than anything I’ve ever experienced. Isn’t that mad? I’m afraid of that. I suppose I’m actually afraid of you.”

  “You have to trust me, Helen, at some point in all this, if we’re ever to go on.”

  “I know that.”

  “I won’t cause you grief.”

  “Not deliberately. You won’t. I know that as well.”

  “Then?”

  “If I lose you, Tommy.”

  “You won’t. How could you? Why?”

  “In a thousand different ways.”

  “Because of my job.”

  “Because of who you are.”

  He felt the sensation of being swept away from everything, but most of all from her. “So it is the tie after all,” he said.

  “Other women?” she said. “Yes. Marginally. But it’s more a worry over the day-to-day, the business of living, the way people grind at each other and wear the best parts down over time. I don’t want that. I don’t want to wake up some morning and discover I stopped loving you five years in the past. I don’t want to look up from dinner one night and find you watching me and read on your face the very same thing.”

  “That’s the risk, Helen. It all comes down to a leap of faith. Although God knows what’s in store for us if we can’t even manage to get to Corfu together for a week’s holiday.”

  “I’m sorry about that. About me as well. I was feeling boxed in this morning.”

  “Well, you’re free of that now.”

  “And I don’t want to be. Free of that. Free of you. I don’t want that, Tommy.” She sighed. It caught on the edge of what he wanted to believe was a stifled sob. Except that Helen had only sobbed once in her life that he knew of—as a girl of twenty-one with her world smashed to bits by a car which he himself had driven—and he seriously doubted that she would begin sobbing again for his benefit now. “I wish you were here.”

  “My wish as well.”

  “Will you come back? Tomorrow?”

  “I can’t. Denton didn’t tell you? There’s a case, of sorts.”

  “Then you won’t want me there to bother with, either.”

  “You wouldn’t be a bother. But it wouldn’t work.”

  “Will anything ever? Work, that is.”

  That was the question. Indeed it was. He looked down at the floor, at the mud on his shoes, at the floral carpet, at the patterns it made. “I don’t know,” he said. “And that’s the full hell of it. I can ask you to risk it all with a jump into the void. I simply can’t guarantee what you’ll find there.”

  “But then no one can.”

  “No one who’s truthful. That’s the bottom line. We can’t predict the future. We can only use the present to guide us hopefully in its direction.”

  “Do you believe that, Tommy?”

  “With all my heart.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know. That’s why I believe.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  MAGGIE WAS LUCKY. HE CAME OUT OF the pub alone. She’d been hoping he would ever since she saw his bicycle propped against the white gates that led into the Crofters Inn car park. It was hard to miss it, an odd girl’s bike with big balloon tyres, once the treasure of his older sister but since her marriage appropriated by Nick without a care in the world as to the queer sight he made on it, pedalling through the village towards Skelshaw Farm with his old leather bomber’s jacket flapping round his waist and the radio-tape player hanging from one of the handlebars. Usually something by Depeche Mode was rock-and-rolling from the speakers. Nick was particularly fond of them.

  He was fiddling with the radio as he left the pub, all his concentration apparently given to finding a station that he could tune in with minimum static and maximum volume. Simple Minds, UB40, an ancient piece by Fairground Attraction all bleeped by like people interrupted in the midst of a conversation before he found something that he settled with. It consisted mostly of high, screeching notes on an electric guitar. She heard Nick say, “Clapton. All right,” as he slipped the radio’s grip piece over the bicycle’s handlebars. He stooped to tie his left shoelace, and as he did so, Maggie melted out of the doorway shadows of The Pentagram Tearoom across the street from the inn.

  She’d stayed in Josie’s lair by the river long after the other girl had left to set the tables in the restaurant and to act the part of waitress there. She’d intended to go home eventually, when dinner was long past ruined and her continuing absence couldn’t be rationally assigned to anything other than murder, abduction, or in-your-face rebellion. Two hours past dinner would do nicely for that. Mummy deserved it.

  Despite what had happened between them last night, she’d put another cup of that horrid tea on the table in front of Maggie this morning, saying, “Drink this, Margaret. Now. Before you leave.” She sounded hard—not like Mummy at all—but at least there was no more of her saying it was good for her bones no matter the taste, filled to the brim with the vitamins and minerals that a woman’s developing body had to have. That lie was gone. But Mummy’s determination was not.

  Neither was Maggie’s, however. “I won’t. You can’t make me. You did it before. But you can’t make me drink it again.” Her words were high and shrill. Even to her own ears, she sounded like a mouse being swung by its tail. And when Mummy had held the cup to her lips, with her other hand locked on the back of Maggie’s neck, saying, “You will drink this, Margaret. You’ll sit here till you do,” Maggie had flung up her arms, dashing the cup and its liquid, hot and steaming, against Mummy’s chest.

  Her wool jersey soaked it up like a desert in June and moulded itself into a scalding second skin. Mummy cried out and rushed to the sink. Maggie watched in horror.

  She said, “Mummy, I didn’t—”

  “Get out of here. Get out,” Mummy gasped. And when Maggie didn’t move, she dashed back to the table and yanked her chair away from it. “You heard me. Get out.”

  It wasn’t Mummy’s voice. It wasn’t anybody’s voice that she’d ever known. It wasn’t Mummy at the sink with the ice-cold water flooding out of the tap, taking handfuls, throwing them against the wool jersey, with her teeth clamped over her lower lip. She was making noises like she couldn’t breathe. At last when she was through and the jersey was soaked with new water over old, she bent over and began to pull it off. Her body shuddered.

  “Mummy,” Maggie had said in that same mouse voice.

  “Get out. I don’t even know who you are,” the reply.

  She’d stumbled into the grey morning, had sat by herself in a corner of the bus all the way to school. She had slowly come to terms with the extent of her loss over the course of the day. She recovered. She developed a brittle little shell to protect herself from the whole situation. If Mummy wanted her out, she would get out. She would. And it wouldn’t be hard to do at all.

  Nick loved her. Hadn’t he said it over and over again? Didn’t he say it every day, when he had the chance? She didn’t need Mummy. How dim it was to think she ever had. And Mummy didn’t need her. When she was gone, Mummy could have her nice private life with Mr. Shepherd, which is probably what she wanted in the first place. In f
act, maybe that’s why she kept trying to make Maggie drink that tea. Maybe…

  Maggie shivered. No. Mummy was good. She was. She was.

  It was half past seven when Maggie left the river lair. It would be after eight by the time she made the walk home to the cottage. She’d go inside, majestic and silent. She’d go up to her room and close the door. She’d never once speak to Mummy again. What was the point?

  Then the sight of Nick’s bicycle had changed her purpose, taking her across the street to the tearoom with its recessed doorway out of the wind. She would wait for him there.

  She hadn’t thought the wait would be so long. Somehow, she’d believed that Nick would sense she was lingering outside and would leave his mates to find her. She couldn’t go in to him in case Mummy phoned the pub on a search for her, but she didn’t mind waiting. He’d be out soon enough.

  Nearly two hours later, he’d emerged. And when she sneaked up beside him and slipped her arm round his waist, he jumped with the shock of it and gave a cat’s yowl. He whirled around. The movement and the wind caught his hair and flung it into his eyes. He flipped it back, saw her.

  “Mag!” He grinned. The guitar on the radio climbed a few high, wild notes.

  “I was waiting for you. Over there.”

  He turned his head. The wind dashed his hair about his head once again. “Where?”

  “The tearoom.”

  “Outside? Mag, are you daft? In this weather? I bet you’ve gone all ice. Why di’n’t you come in?” He glanced at the lighted windows of the inn, nodded once, and said, “Because of the police. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  She frowned. “Police?”

  “New Scotland Yard. Got here round five, from what Ben Wragg was saying. Di’n’t you know? I thought for certain you would.”

  “Why?”

  “Your mum.”

  “Mummy? What…?”

  “They’re here to sniff round Mr. Sage’s death. Look, we need to talk.” His eyes darted down the road to North Yorkshire in the direction of the common where the car park across the street was supplied with an old stone shed of public toilets. There was shelter there from the wind, if not the cold, but Maggie had a better idea.

  “Come with me,” she said and with a pause for him to grab the radio—whose volume he lowered as if in understanding of the clandestine nature of their movements—she led him through the gates of the Crofters Inn car park. They wove between the cars. Nick low-whistled his admiration of the same silver Bentley that had been parked there several hours before when Josie and Maggie had walked to the river.

  “Where are we—”

  “Special place,” Maggie said. “It’s Josie’s. She won’t mind. Have you a match? We’ll need one for the lantern.”

  They descended the path carefully. It was slick with the night’s developing coat of ice, with rushes and weeds made constantly damp by the river that tumbled through the limestone boulders below. Nick said, “Let me,” and went on ahead, his hand extended back to her, to keep her steady and on her feet. Each time he slid an inch or two, he said, “Steady on, Mag,” and firmed up his grip. He was taking care of her, and the thought of that made her warm inside to out.

  “Here,” she said as they reached the old ice-house. She pushed against the door. It creaked on its hinges and scraped against the floor, rucking up part of the patchwork carpet. “This is Josie’s secret place,” Maggie said. “You won’t tell anyone about it, Nick?”

  He ducked inside the door as Maggie fumbled for the nail barrel and the lantern on top of it. She said, “I’ll need the matches,” and felt him press a book of them into her hand. She lit the lantern, lowered its glow to a candle’s softness, and turned back to him.

  He was gazing about. “Wizard,” he said with a smile.

  She moved past him to shut the door and, as she had seen Josie do earlier, she sprayed the floor and the walls with toilet water.

  “It’s colder in here than outside,” Nick said. He zipped his bomber’s jacket and beat his hands against his arms.

  “Here,” she said. She sat on the cot and patted the spot next to her. When he dropped down beside her, she took up the eiderdown that served as a coverlet, and they wore it like a cape.

  He loosed himself from it long enough to produce the Marlboros he favoured. Maggie returned him his matches and he lit two cigarettes at once, one for each of them. He inhaled deeply and held his breath. Maggie pretended to do the same.

  More than anything, she liked the nearness of him. The sound of his leather jacket rustling, the pressure of his leg against hers, the heat of his body, and—when she gave a quick look—the length of his eyelashes and the heavily lidded, sleepy shape of his eyes. “Bedroom eyes,” she’d heard one of the teachers call them. “Bet that bloke’ll be giving the ladies something nice to remember in a few more years.” Another had added, “I wouldn’t mind something nice from him now, actually,” and they all had laughed, stopping abruptly when they realised Maggie was close enough to hear. Not that they knew anything about Maggie and Nick. No one knew about them except Josie and Mummy. And Mr. Sage.

  “There was an inquest,” Maggie said reasonably. “They said it was an accident, didn’t they? And once the inquest says it’s an accident, no one can say anything else. Isn’t that it? They can’t do another. Don’t the police know that?”

  Nick shook his head. The cigarette glowed. He tapped ash onto the carpet and ground it in with the toe of his shoe. “That’s the trial part, Mag. You can’t be tried twice for the same crime, unless there’s new evidence. Sort of. I think. But that doesn’t matter because there wasn’t any trial in the first place. An inquest’s not a trial.”

  “Will there be one? Now?”

  “Depends on what they find.”

  “Find? Where? Are they looking for something? Will they come to the cottage?”

  “They’ll be talking to your mum, that’s for sure. They’ve already been holed up tonight with Mr. Townley-Young. I got money says he must’ve phoned for them in the first place.” Nick gave a little chuckle. “You should’ve been there, Mag, when he came out of the lounge. Poor ol’ Brendan was having a gin with Polly Yarkin and T-Y went white to his lips and dead-cod stiff when he saw them. They weren’t doing nothing but drinking, but T-Y had Bren outa that pub faster ’n anything. His eyes just sort of shot laser blasts at him. Like in a film.”

  “But Mummy didn’t do anything,” Maggie said. She felt a small, burning point of fear in her chest. “It wasn’t on purpose. That’s what she said. The jury agreed.”

  “Sure. Based on what they were told. But someone might’ve lied.”

  “Mummy didn’t lie!”

  Nick seemed to recognise her fears immediately. He said, “It’s okay, Mag. There’s nothing to worry about. Except that they’ll probably want to talk to you.”

  “The police?”

  “Right. You knew Mr. Sage. You and him were mates in a way. When the police investigate, they always talk to all the dead bloke’s mates.”

  “But Mr. Shepherd never talked to me. The inquest man didn’t. I wasn’t there that night. I don’t know what happened. I can’t tell them anything. I—”

  “Hey.” He took a final, deep drag of his cigarette before he squashed it against the stone wall behind them and did the same to hers. He put his arm round her waist. At the far side of the ice-house, Nick’s radio was hissing spasmodically, its station lost. “It’s okay, Mag. It’s nothing to worry about. It’s nothing to do with you at all. I mean, you didn’t exactly kill the vicar, did you?” He chuckled at the very impossibility of the thought.

  Maggie didn’t join him. At heart, it was all about responsibility, wasn’t it? Responsibility with a capital R.

  She could remember Mummy’s anger when she’d been told of Maggie’s visits to Mr. Sage’s house. To the shrill, outraged defence of “Who told you? Who’s been spying on me?”—which Mummy wouldn’t answer but it didn’t really matter, did it, because Maggie knew precisel
y who had done the spying—Mummy had said, “Listen to me, Maggie. Have some common sense. You don’t actually know this man. And he is a man, not a boy. He’s at least forty-five years old. Are you aware of that? What are you doing paying visits alone to a forty-five-year-old man? Even if he’s a vicar. Especially because he’s a vicar. Can’t you see the position you’re putting him in?” And to the explanation “But he said I could come for tea when I wanted. And he gave me a book. And—,” her mother said, “I don’t care what he gave you. I don’t want you to see him. Not in his house. Not alone. Not at all.” When Maggie had felt the tears rise in her eyes, when she let them trickle down her cheeks while she said, “He’s my friend. He says so. You don’t want me to have any friends, do you,” Mummy had grabbed her arm in a grip that meant listen-and-don’t-you-dare-argue-with-me-missy, saying, “You stay away from him.” To the petulant question “Why,” she released her and said only, “Anything could happen. Everything does happen. That’s the way of the world, and if you don’t know what I mean, start reading the newspaper.” Those words closed the discussion between them that night. But there were others:

  “You were with him today. Don’t lie about it, Maggie, because I know it’s the truth. As from now, you’re gated.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “What did he want with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t be sullen with me or you’ll regret it more than having disobeyed in the first place. Is that clear? What did he want with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What did he say? What did he do?”

  “We just talked. We ate some Jaffa Cakes. Polly made tea.”

  “She was there?”

  “Yes. She’s always—”

  “In the room?”

  “No. But—”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Stuff.”

  “Such as?”

  “School. God.” Mummy made a noise through her nose. Maggie countered it with “He asked did I ever go to London? Do I think I’d like to see it? He said I’d like London. He said he’s been there lots. He even went for a two days’ holiday last week. He says people who get tired of London oughtn’t be alive. Or something like that.”