The Loop

by Anabel Donald

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  ‘Bank’s a dead loss,’ said Nick. ‘Only a skeleton staff in because it’s a Bank Holiday, and none of them have ever heard of him, and none of them care either. I’ll try again tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t want to wait that long. We’ll have to use Grace and her director,’ I said.

  Nick looked surprised. ‘I didn’t think you’d want to,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not mad about it, but Jams has decided we should go ahead and she’ll take her chances with Sandra, so I don’t have a lot of choice.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have quit?’ Nick looked shocked. That was two expressions in under a minute. Maybe she was loosening up, or maybe I was just getting better at reading her face.

  ‘Yes, I’d have quit.’

  ‘Because you were scared?’

  ‘Concerned. About her and her baby, and about you.’

  ‘It’s soft to worry about other people,’ said Nick contemptuously. ‘Let them get out of their own messes.’

  ‘Which is why you followed me upstairs and kicked Nappy in the balls?’

  ‘That was different. That was a scam we were pulling together You don’t quit on your mates.’

  ‘OK. Where’s Grace?’

  ‘Still at the cottage.’

  ‘Give her a bell, ask her to get on to it, will you?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘He’s very important, you know,’ she said as she started to dial.

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘The director person. He’s one of the richest men in England. Really big in the City. Hi, Grace.’

  I took the receiver to hear a murmur of voices with snatches of song erupting. ‘Grace? Alex here. I was going to let Nick talk to you but she tells me Sir Malise Douglas is very important so this is a major-league grovel . . .’

  ‘Hi, Alex. Sorry about the noise, I’ve got friends staying. Do you want me to ring Malise?’

  ‘Please. I need to find out, urgently, if anyone knew Jacob Stone well when he worked at Catterstone Almack’s. Do you think your tycoon could swing it for me? On a Bank Holiday, yet?’

  ‘I’ll give it a try. Sod off! Sorry, some idiot put an ice-cube down my neck . . . I’ll be back to you. Bye.’

  She rang off before I could tell her I’d be out until late. Never mind, she’d leave a message.

  Polly was out for the day with Magnus, looking for houses in Gloucestershire. Dead handy for me: 1) I didn’t have to feel guilty about deserting her, 2) I didn’t have to see Magnus, 3) I had the use of her car. By one Nick and I were on the motorway heading north, and as far as I could see no one was following us. It would have been easy to spot because the motorway was all-but empty.

  We stopped once, for petrol, just past Northampton, and had a cup of coffee, but that was it. Nick was silent. All the way. A terrific gift, the girl had. I put Mozart on the stereo and I thought. Almost nonstop. For three and a half hours. And by the end I still had no answers, but I’d chewed over everything enough times so I knew exactly what I wanted to find out from Master.

  The nearer to Doncaster, the better the weather. The rain was blown away by the wind and the sun was scudding across the flat fields dodging the clouds and making lovely swooping shapes.

  Even the drab little streets around the Tubbies sparkled.

  The chippy next to Master’s was doing a roaring trade. It was the local teenage hangout. Some of them were perched on the low wall in front of the shop, some leaning against the window of the chippy itself, some in the small layby on motorbikes. The bikers were the top of the pecking order, three boys of about seventeen. The rest were much of a muchness except for one girl. She wasn’t with the motorbike boys but they wanted to be with her. She was the centre of the group of girls, the queen. Maybe fourteen, fifteen at the most. Small. Slightly chubby. With an astonishing curvy body and kitten-like soft face with a short nose and wide eyes and full pouting lips. She was wearing a tiny cropped tank-top over jeans. Her bare midriff curved seductively, her breasts strained the top, and, even though she wasn’t wearing a bra, her breasts thrust forward and up like the figurehead on a plastic surgeon’s yacht.

  As I parked outside Master’s house and Nick and I got out she looked towards us, made a joke, and all the others giggled.

  ‘Shall I sort her out?’ said Nick, contemptuous of these Northern hicks.

  ‘Leave it,’ I said, and we walked up the path to Master’s house.

  ‘I was expecting you, Alex Tanner,’ he said. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘My assistant, Nick Straker. Nick, this is Abraham Master.’

  ‘You may call me Master. She must wait outside.’ He turned and walked back into the house.

  ‘Master?’ said Nick. ‘Wait outside? What’s he on?’

  ‘We’ll have to go with it.’ I gave her the keys. ‘Wait in the car.’

  ‘Can I have expenses for the chippy? I’ll get background.’

  ‘Just don’t get into a fight,’ I said, giving her three quid. Then I followed him down the narrow hall, past the open door of a room set up as an office with wooden filing cabinets and on to the kitchen at the back.

  Wonderful set, was my first thought. Perfect thirties. Wooden dresser with plain white china plates, stone sink, scrubbed wood kitchen table, oil lamp, wooden chairs, stone flags on the floor, blue and white checked cotton curtains at the window. China jars marked Tea and Sugar and Flour, with cork tops. No plastic bags anywhere. No Harrison Ford either, though Maggie Whittaker was right, there was an overtone of Amish.

  There was also a strong smell of sweat. No deodorants for Tubbies, presumably. It was recent sweat; he did wash, but I hoped not to have to stay too long. Or make him nervous.

  He sat at the table and pointed out a chair. ‘Be seated, sister,’ he said. ‘You ask your questions. I will answer them, if you have the right to an answer. My yea is yea and my nay is nay, praise the Lord.’

  I sat. He wasn’t wearing a suit today, he was in uniform. Not the cod-Shakespeare kit the pikemen had worn in the chapel, but a contemporary uniform, dark blue serge, almost policeman-like, with bright brass buttons and a brass insignia TT on both sides of the collar.

  ‘Do you work for a security firm?’ I said.

  At first I thought he wasn’t going to answer. His wet mouth wobbled around ‘No’ then settled on, ‘Yes. I run one.’

  ‘You run one?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘TT Express. Owned and run and manned by the church. Can you get to the point, please, I have God’s work to do.’

  ‘Fine.’ I set the tape recorder running inside my bag. It shouldn’t have any trouble picking up his voice: it was deep and projected at me as if I was at the other end of his chapel. ‘As I told you, I’m employed to look for Jacob Stone, who seems to have disappeared. My client is a friend, Emily Treliving.’

  Master nodded. ‘Emily Stone. His wife,’ he said. ‘That is why I will answer your questions. She has the right.’

  ‘They’re married?’

  ‘In God’s sight. They exchanged vows.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘If you do not know, you should,’ he snapped.

  I looked at him, trying to get his measure. When I’d first seen him the whole bizarre set-up in the chapel had made me think of him as a freak, not as a person. But if I was going to deal with him now I had to make some assessment of him as a man, otherwise I wouldn’t get anywhere.

  He was self-important: not surprisingly, since he seemed to be in a position of near-total authority over his sect. He was not, physically, attractive. His balding short fair hair showed a dandruffed scalp, his eyebrows and eyelashes were very fair and made his watery blue eyes look pink, and his wet-lipped face was soft and blobby. But his body was muscular and moved well, and he was sharp enough: the expression in his eyes was confident and aware.

  Softly-softly wouldn’t do it.

  ‘You mean they were married when they met on the plane? As far as your beliefs are concerned?�
�� I said.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Not according to the laws of Britain,’ I said. ‘Nor of America.’

  ‘The laws of God are greater than the laws of the mumbo-jumbo men.’

  ‘The mumbo-jumbo men?’

  ‘Earthly power.’

  ‘But you enforce the laws of the mumbo-jumbo men, surely? As a security firm?’

  ‘We are the strong arm of the Lord. When he bids us, we fight for the mumbo-jumbo men. We fight in your wars. We serve in your army. I was a sergeant in your army. We fight to the death, and we fight well, to the Lord the glory.’

  He paused, probably for a response, and I considered ‘Hallelujah!’ but rejected it as flippant, and probably un-Tubby. ‘How do you know what the Lord wants?’

  ‘He tells the Master.’

  ‘And who is the Master?’

  ‘I am the Master.’

  ‘Who was the Master before you? Your father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And if the Lord tells you to fight against the mumbo-jumbo men?’

  He gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Don’t waste my time, sister. Get on with your questions.’

  ‘When did you last see or hear from Jacob?’

  ‘In early November, last year.’

  The most recent sighting. ‘And what was he doing in England, from late September to when you last saw him, do you know that?’

  ‘He was preparing to set himself right in the eyes of the Lord.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You would not understand.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘In earthly terms, he was carrying out his mother’s last wishes. So he could join his parents with the elect in the Heavenly Kingdom.’

  ‘Join her soon?’ I said, jolted. Maybe we had a suicide here.

  ‘In the fullness of the Lord’s good time.’

  ‘What was he actually doing, then?’

  ‘He was preparing his presentation to the throne.’

  ‘Master, please explain.’

  He expanded, visibly, and his pink neck swelled over his high collar. ‘When one of the Lord’s anointed passes over to judgement, his name must be numbered in the book of the Lamb, at the throne of the Lord. Only some are elect, and they are numbered. By their birth-name. Our children are not born to us, they are chosen for us.’

  ‘And Jacob didn’t know his birth-name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  He looked annoyed. ‘I was not Master at the time.’ Hardly surprising, since he’d only have been seven or thereabouts. ‘The Master decided there were special circumstances. So the name was not given to Zeke and Janet Stone, only the means to the name.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘I do not know. But I have them, and Emily Stone has the right. And the duty. If Jacob has gone before, unnumbered, she must number him and follow him.’

  ‘You mean she must find his name and take it to the throne?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘There is no time with the Lord.’

  Just as well. ‘So you’ll give me the means?’

  ‘I will give them to you to give to Emily Stone.’

  ‘Why do you have them?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Janet Stone had them, is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she passed them to Jacob.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he gave them to you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why didn’t he keep them? If he was working on it?’

  He looked uncomfortable, for the first time. ‘He had no more need of them.’

  ‘Why? Because he’d found out?’

  ‘He thought so, yes.’

  ‘Then why give them to you?’

  ‘For safe-keeping.’

  ‘Did he tell you what he’d found?’

  ‘No.’

  He could perfectly well have explained to start with, and saved us all this hassle. I looked at him. He looked at me, warily. He’d laid out his ground-rules from the start. Ask, and he would answer. That put the burden on me to find the right questions, and he hoped I wouldn’t, because he was hiding something. At the same time his yea had to be yea and his nay, nay.

  It made me antsy. With Sandra behind me I was working against time, and I couldn’t telephone Master if I had follow-up questions. I’d have to make the time-consuming round trip north.

  ‘Did he think he was in danger?’

  ‘Possibly. Yes.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘He did not say.’

  ‘Are you a friend of his? Did he confide in you?’

  ‘We were comrades in the Lord. Confiding was not Jacob’s way. It is not our way.’

  Pause.

  ‘Could I have the means now, please?’

  He opened a dresser drawer, took out a packet and passed it to me. A wave of sweat-smell reached me as he moved, and I put my hand up to my face and smelt my own skin in self-defence. Then I opened the packet.

  It was a large folded brown envelope. Inside was a videotape. The printed label said Vari-Vision Video, with a Doncaster telephone number. There was nothing else inside the envelope.

  ‘Do you have a video recorder?’ I asked, thinking I knew the answer.

  ‘No. Electricity runs in the veins of the beast.’

  ‘Do you know what is on this tape?’

  ‘The means.’

  ‘Specifically, what the tape shows?’

  ‘Not specifically.’

  We looked at each other once more. This was a sensitive spot. I’d shift topics, briefly, and come at him again from another angle.

  ‘Where was Jacob staying in England during late September, October and early November? Up till the time you last saw him?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘When I visited your chapel I saw some children in the congregation. Where did they come from?’

  ‘They are adopted. Plucked by the Lord from the ranks of the beast, and given to the children of light.’

  ‘Which particular beast were they plucked from?’

  ‘There is only one beast, named in the Revelation to John,’ he said, looking surprised at my ignorance.

  ‘Where did the children come from?’

  ‘Romania,’ he said. ‘They are orphans from Romania.’

  That made sense, although I wondered how legal the arrangements had been. He didn’t seem concerned, however.

  ‘I noticed the chapel was in good repair. That must be expensive. How do your finances work?’

  ‘You do not have the right to an answer.’

  ‘Did Jacob tell you what is in this tape?’

  ‘Hearsay,’ he said. ‘I will speak only of what I know.’

  ‘You know if he told you. You don’t know if what he told you was right. Did he tell you?’

  He expelled a breath. ‘Yes. He told me.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to Jacob after you saw him last November?’

  ‘I do not know,’ he said.

  Pause. His breathing was loud in the silence, and the sweat-smell pungent. Maybe my question had been too broad. ‘Do you know if Jacob is dead?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  There must be a question he was afraid of. I couldn’t put my finger on it. To gain time, I said, ‘Are you married, Master?’

  ‘I am not,’ he said.

  ‘Did Jacob still share your beliefs?’

  ‘This is between a soul and his Lord. Not for me to judge. I do not have the right.’

  ‘But you are the Master.’

  ‘I am the Master of those who choose to follow.’

  He was unruffled. The line of questioning was going nowhere. ‘The loop,’ I said.

  He started, like a bad actor registering surprise. His pale blue eyes popped and his mouth dropped open revealing a large wet pink tongue. ‘What is your question, sister?’

  ‘What does the loop mean to you?’

 
He expelled a long, relieved breath.

  ‘You do not have the right,’ he said.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘So the answer’s in the video,’ Nick said. ‘Maybe that’s what he meant by the loop. I want a full California Breakfast. Bacon, sausage, hash browns, mushrooms, and two eggs, pancakes with maple syrup and ice-cream, two toast, butter and marmalade, and a cafetiere of coffee. What’s a cafetiere? D’you reckon they really eat this lot for breakfast in California?’

  It was six o’clock and we were in a café in the first motorway services south of Doncaster. Before heading back to London I’d called on Maggie Whittaker – I’d plenty of questions for her – but there’d been nobody in. I was itching to get home and play the videotape, but we had to eat sometime.

  ‘A cafetiere’s a pot with coffee grounds in it. The thing you push down to pour. I’ve got one.’

  ‘Didn’t know the name,’ said Nick.

  ‘And I don’t think they eat breakfast in California. Just a multivitamin high-fibre high-fruit liquid drink before they check their cholesterol level.’

  We ordered. Two full California Breakfasts, and I logged it to Jams.

  ‘This is great,’ said Nick, looking round at the family groups crowding the café. ‘It’s like being away on a Bank Holiday.’

  ‘It is being away on a Bank Holiday,’ I said blankly.

  ‘I mean – not not being away. You must know.’

  Then I remembered, from my childhood, holidays were the worst. Christmas and Easter particularly. The lonely times, when I’d had to pretend to join in with foster families playing a happy-game whose rules were beyond me. Or, if I was with my mother and she’d taken me out, pretending not to notice that people were looking at her and making out I was enjoying myself so she wouldn’t be disappointed. I’d just wanted to be alone, then. Alone in my own place.

  But for Nick, evidently, it had been different. ‘You wanted to go on trips?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah. To an Adventure Park. And squabble on the way back. That’s what the others said about their trips. You got to eat in cafés and fight on the way home, in the back seat, with your brother. We never had a car.’

  ‘Why did you want a brother?’