So she couldn’t have told Jim about my crash. “Well, now you know why I’m obsessed, and I hope you understand. Lesley doesn’t even know as much about Noble as you do.”
“How do you know he’s mixed up with the treatment your son’s getting?”
“I saw him there. They use his house near Ormskirk. It’s paid for by his followers, apparently. I went and confronted him.”
“Good for you, Dom. What happened?”
“He boasted about giving the children his ideas. I’ve heard some of them from Toby, and Toby’s mother has, only she won’t recognise them. They’re more of the sort of thing he wrote in his journal. Would you want anybody feeding them to Dominic and Robert?”
“I wouldn’t, but of course we’re Catholics.”
I hadn’t time to wonder if Jim meant this was why he found Noble’s beliefs anathematic or a defence against them. “Any more than I want it for Toby,” I said. “I’ve done all I seem able to do, but I can’t stop Noble by myself. Will you help?”
He paused, and then he sounded wary. “What do you think I can do?”
“Would you rather not talk about it just now? Shall I call you at home later?”
“Is there a reason you can’t talk now?”
“Of course we can if nobody’s listening in. We can if we won’t be saying anything we’d rather people didn’t hear.”
“I hope I don’t know what you mean by that, Dominic.”
My full name made the warning even more official. “I mustn’t have meant anything,” I said.
“Then of course I don’t care if anybody hears. So what are you asking me?”
“I know you must be busier than I am, but do you think you could find the time to investigate Noble and his operation?”
“Near Ormskirk, you said. I’m afraid that’s well out of my jurisdiction, Dom. I can’t really trespass on another force, even for a friend.”
I felt absurdly childish for having failed to take this into account and for feeling hollowed out by disappointment now. “Couldn’t you at least look into whatever he’s been up to since the newspaper exposed him?”
“Would you like me to see if I can have a word with someone on your local force?”
“No, don’t do that. Noble told me some of them were his people and if I called the police about him they’d deal with me on his behalf.”
“That’s a very serious accusation.” As I wondered whether Jim was blaming me or Noble he said “All the same, it isn’t necessarily against the law.”
“What, using the police for your own private ends?”
“Who are you saying is doing that, Dom?” I’d grasped that he might have me in mind by the time he said “We don’t know if he was telling the truth, do we? Did he mention any officers by name?”
“He didn’t, but I have to tell you I believed him.”
“Sorry to say no crime has been committed, though. There might be one if any members of the force targeted you on his behalf, but even then it could be hard to prove.”
“Doesn’t it matter if police are members of his cult? Is it allowed?”
“It isn’t in our mandate to interfere with people’s beliefs.” Jim hesitated, though not long enough to let me think how to go on. “Do you mind if I ask you something?” he said.
“Why would I when you’re a friend?”
“You know I’ve no time for the kind of thing Christian Noble believes, but is that as important as curing your lad?”
I had to swallow before I could speak. “What are you suggesting, Jim?”
“How long is the treatment supposed to go on?”
“No longer than I can help.”
“What I mean is it won’t be for ever, will it? Don’t you think he may grow out of whatever Noble tries to feed him? You were brought up as a Catholic just like me, but you aren’t one now.”
“That isn’t the same thing, not even remotely.”
“I know that. One’s the truth and the other one’s tripe. That ought to make it easier to wean him off it, don’t you think?”
“Not the way Noble works. Not when he’s got Toby so young.”
“Try not to despair, Dom. Remember how they used to say we never should at school. Can’t you separate the stuff Noble believes from the treatment your son’s getting?”
“I can’t. That’s precisely the problem.”
I could have said more, but I knew it wouldn’t convince Jim; he would only think the problem was my mental state. “Maybe you should try and trust his mother’s judgment,” he said.
“I thought you were a policeman, not a marriage counsellor.”
“I just thought I was your friend.”
“Of course you are.” I was embarrassed as only men could be with men in those days, and felt my face grow red. “I wouldn’t have called you otherwise,” I said.
“Then can I give you a bit more advice? They say once you’ve been a Catholic you’re always one deep down. Do you think if you found it again it might be the best thing for your lad? If you want to stop him believing Noble’s nonsense you ought to have some beliefs to give him. I wouldn’t say this if I weren’t your friend and you hadn’t got in touch about the situation, but maybe your dad would have wanted you to come back to the church.”
I gritted my teeth to trap retorting that he’d missed his way and should have joined the priesthood. All I could find to say instead was “He did ask me to pray the last time we spoke.”
“As I say, I’m going to, but you might as well. After all, he was your dad.”
“I’ll leave it up to you,” I said too low for Jim to hear, and louder “I promised him I’d do whatever it took to keep Toby safe.”
“Don’t get yourself into trouble with the law, Dom. Will you let me know how things work out?”
“I’ll be in touch, and thanks.” I hardly knew what I had to be grateful for, even when I said “Thanks for letting me talk.”
As I let the receiver slump into its cradle I heard voices along the corridor outside my office, and strained my ears to make sure that I wasn’t hearing Lesley—that she wasn’t on her way to urge me once again to seek help. At least Toby was at school today, not at Safe To Sleep, but my conversation with Jim had left me even more uncertain how to save my son. It hardly seemed worth bothering to make another call, but I supposed I should while I had time before the afternoon session, and I dialled the second number I’d copied out of my address book. The third pair of trills was cut in half by a woman’s voice. “Hello?”
It might have been a caution rather than a greeting. “Hello,” I said. “It’s Dominic.”
“Who are you saying? This is Carole Ashcroft here.”
“Hello, Carole. This is Dominic Sheldrake. We met at Bobby’s, at Bob’s launch.”
“Bob calls you Dom. She can’t cut me short, though.”
Since I couldn’t tell whether Carole was stating a fact or expressing defiance, I said “What have you two been up to?”
“By which you mean…”
I hadn’t thought my choice of words was quite so unwise as she made it sound. “Your work,” I said. “What have you been writing lately?”
“You won’t have read my series, then.”
“I don’t see your partner’s column usually either. I’m more of a television news man.”
“That’s you, isn’t it? Films are your life. I wonder how much longer anyone will have any time for print.”
“I’ve a good deal myself, and my students have as well.”
“I’m glad to hear you’re teaching them that at least.” Before I could react to this Carole said “But the world’s changing more than most people notice, or maybe they don’t want to be aware. A lot of this country that you might like to think is public has gone private, or it’s going.”
“My son is being treated at a kind of private clinic, and I’d say—”
“Well,” Carole said as if she had no time for my contribution, “that’s what my current series is about, and more peop
le ought to read it while they can still make a difference.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do for my son.”
“I know if you have a family you can think they count more than everybody else.” Without a pause Carole said “Were you phoning to speak to Bob?”
“I’d like to.”
“I’ll see how busy she is.”
The phone left me a thud followed by a silence just as dull, which had begun to feel like an omen if not a definite answer by the time I heard a rattle of plastic. “Dom,” Bobby said, “I should have rung you. My mother called last night, I was sorry to hear about your father.”
“Don’t worry, Bobby, I mean Bob. I suppose we could say one good thing has come out of it.”
“Bobby’s fine from you. What are you saying is good?”
“At least it put your parents back in touch with you.”
“My mother wasn’t out of it. My father still is.” As I made to commiserate Bobby said “You never told me you had a son.”
Rather than suggest this mightn’t have appealed to Carole I said “If I’d started talking about him I might have said too much.”
“What about, Dom? You can tell me now.”
“He’s got a sleep disorder, or at least that’s what they call it. Lesley and I thought we’d found a cure, but it turns out the Nobles are involved.”
The prospect of explaining yet again left me almost too weary to speak. What could Bobby offer besides sympathy, if even that? “You mean your old teacher,” she said, “and his daughter who I met once.”
“There’s a grandson too.” I pulled up short of saying any more about the toddler who’d sat like an adult to watch me from the armchair. “Tina’s in maternity,” I said. “She’s sending children to the place her father runs. I think she runs it with him.”
“She’s keeping that secret, you’re saying. Because the hospital might have a problem with it, do you mean?”
“They would if they knew what she and her father are doing to the children. All the things we heard them talking about at his church, they aren’t just putting them in the children’s heads. They’re making the children take part in the rituals.”
“How do you know all this, Dom? Did your son say?”
“He’s said more than he might like us to realise, except Lesley can’t believe that’s what it means.” Fearing Bobby mightn’t either, I said “I confronted Noble but he doesn’t care. He thinks nobody can touch them.”
“Who do you think could?”
“I wish I knew. I can’t stop them by myself, and I’ve a feeling that the other parents will have been warned off listening to me.” In a bid to sound less paranoid I said “No doubt Noble thinks he can get away with anything because the place is private.”
“It sounds like a candidate for investigation.”
“You’re saying someone should do that?” I didn’t know how much hope I could feel for suggesting “You mean Carole?”
“No, Dom, I mean me.”
“I didn’t know that was the kind of thing you did.”
“Anyone who reads me knows I’m for privatisation, but shouldn’t journalists keep testing the evidence? Are the Nobles selling their treatment as a new technique?”
“That’s their trick, yes.”
“Then I could have heard about it, and I want to write a column about a good example of outsourcing. Do you think Mr Noble would go for that?”
“I fancy he might if you put it like that.” I was starting to feel I could hope after all. “You wouldn’t know he was involved, though,” I realised. “You’d need to speak to Phoebe Sweet. They make it look as if she’s in charge of Safe To Sleep.”
As I gave Bobby the address and phone number I began to grow nervous on her behalf. “You’ll be careful, won’t you? You don’t know what he may be capable of.”
“Dom, we aren’t the Tremendous Three any more. I’m a pretty well-known writer if I do say so myself. I’ve dealt with a lot worse than the leader of a cult, believe me.”
I seemed to feel a reminiscence of restlessness deep in my eyeballs. “Eric Wharton was a journalist too, remember.”
“Let’s not make too much out of him. I’ll be as careful as I need to be. I’ll let you know what’s happening when I’ve decided how I got the information and spoken to them.”
I was wishing that I hadn’t made it impossible for me to accompany her to Safe To Sleep when she said “Have you kept that copy you made of his journal?”
“It’s at home in my desk.”
“Could you fax it to me as soon as you can? It may help me focus what I’m looking for.” She gave me her fax number, and I promised to send her the material tomorrow. “Whatever I find out, that’s the truth I’ll be telling,” she promised. “Remember what we said.”
“Remind me.”
“Dom.” Just as reproachfully she said “We’ll always be friends, and—”
“We’ll always look out for each other.”
“That’s us, and I’m sure Jim will if he remembers.”
I gave in to wishing we could still act as the Tremendous Three, an adult version far stronger than we’d been. In the auditorium along the corridor I found my students arguing about the film I’d most recently shown them. Brendan was insisting it was disrespectful to laugh at a character even if he only fancied he was Christ, while Katy surprised me by agreeing, at least to the extent that it was wrong to laugh at madness. Jojo complained about the miracle the character appeared to perform—that it was absurd if not blasphemous—and Alysha spoke up for the students who’d been moved by the climactic resurrection. I felt compelled to suggest that Carl Dreyer depicted innocence as an aspect of faith, since it was actually a child who raised the dead in the film, though as soon as I mentioned the image I wished I hadn’t. “A little child shall lead them,” Brendan declared, but it wasn’t the Bible this brought to my mind.
The debate broke up without reaching a conclusion about Ordet, not least because I felt unable to provide one, and I told myself the variety of views proved the film was stimulating. I was making for my car when I saw that several of the students who’d disagreed most fiercely with one another were at large on the campus, tearing down posters for a concert by a punk band, the Finals—Al Auschwitz, Bill Belsen, Ted Treblinka, Dan Dachau. Some of the objectors didn’t merely rip the posters off the walls but rubbed them against their buttocks before crumpling the paper. I might have argued that the names were meant to express horror at the Holocaust rather than endorse it, or at least to keep the memory alive, but I needed to be home.
All the way the sky shone blue, but I couldn’t avoid thinking of the darkness Toby believed it hid. Driving home felt like preparing not to raise any issue of the sort with him, though this involved pretending that such notions weren’t in his head. When I let myself into the house I was greeted by the aroma of the cassoulet I’d made, which Lesley had put in the oven. She was playing catch with Toby in the back garden, throwing a big colourful ball. It had been his favourite for years, and I tried not to find the wide-eyed grin of its moon face disconcerting, however much it spun and turned upside down in the air. I tapped on the workroom window, and Toby gave me a broad grin that might have been imitating the moony ball, while Lesley tried not to look tentative. “Don’t let me spoil the game,” I called and went to my desk to transfer the copy of Noble’s journal to my briefcase. But the exercise books weren’t in the drawer.
For a moment that felt like losing not just my physical balance I thought the concussion from the car accident wouldn’t let me recall where I’d put the books, and then a worse suspicion overtook me. I rummaged through the drawer, finding tales of the Tremendous Three and items clipped from newspapers but no sign of my copy of the journal. I strode to the window and tried to calm down before I opened it. “Who’s been in my desk?”
As Toby caught the ball with a double slap that amplified its hollowness, Lesley turned her gaze on me. “I’m sure nobody has, Dominic.”
“You’re saying you haven’t?”
“I’m saying nobody else either. What makes you think otherwise?”
“I think somebody knows.” I was sure Toby’s innocent expression was as manufactured as the one the ball wore. “Toby?” I said.
“I never was, dad.”
“You told me and your mother you had been.”
“I mean never now,” he said, and I might have been distracted by wondering what idea of time he had in mind—it sounded too close to Noble’s—if he hadn’t added “I never took your books again.”
I felt no less dismayed than triumphant to ask “Then how did you know they’re missing?”
“Dominic.” When I kept my eyes on our son Lesley said “Because we knew that’s what you must have meant. I expect you’ve put them somewhere safe. I hope you have.”
“Don’t play for a moment, Toby,” I said as he poised the ball for throwing to his mother. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“Mum did. You can come and play as well.”
“I want you to answer. We both know how you knew what’s gone.”
“Then you can tell mum.”
As he gave me an innocent smile over the fixed grin of the ball I struggled to control my voice. “Will you put that down while I’m talking to you.”
He twirled the ball as though he meant to aim its grin at me, and then flung his hands wide in a gesture resembling one I’d seen attributed to saints. As the ball bounced across the grass with a series of thin empty thumps, Lesley moved to stand behind Toby, holding his shoulders. “Dominic, can you please—”
“You need to hear this, Lesley.” I felt her gaze grow fiercer as I lowered mine to Toby’s face. “I won’t be angry so long as you tell me the truth,” I said. “Did someone ask you to take those books?”
His relentlessly guiltless look was enough of an answer for me, but he said “Who, dad?”
“Mr Noble, or is he calling himself Bloan as well?” At once I realised “Of course he is. That’s what you and Claudine called him in your game.”
Though I didn’t see Toby react, Lesley said “Dominic, you’re upsetting him.”
“If I am it’s because he knows it’s true. Are you going to speak, Toby? Then just listen to me,” I told both of them. “I’m guessing Mr Bloan who’s really Noble asked you to find a book I’d hidden somewhere. I’ve said I won’t be angry, I’m blaming him and not you, but did you tell him you thought I had some in my desk? Maybe you said you thought they were about the kinds of things you see when you’re at Safe To Sleep. What did he promise if you fetched them for him?”
Born To The Dark Page 17
