The Sleep of the Dead

by Tom Bradby

  Sense of relief we’re behind Mitch. Was talking to Wilkes today who said he’d not thought about it before but was f****** grateful he had a commander he could respect and not some w***** out to make his career. The men feel Mitch is looking out for them.

  However, feel there is danger of falling victim to a ‘cult of personality’. Mitch doesn’t stand bullshitters or arse-lickers, but equally doesn’t really listen to a word anyone says. Any criticism is ‘negativity’. Sucks people in like a vortex. Personality so strong it can be overpowering. It’s ‘Mad’ Mitch all right. That’s leadership, but sometimes a little less force might produce more considered results. Still, rather him at this point than anyone else. He doesn’t leave you much room for doubt.

  Julia breathed in, exhaled forcefully, and shut the book, turning towards the window. She stood up. ‘Aristotle,’ she shouted, as she went downstairs. ‘Aristotle.’ He hauled himself up as she approached. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Walk.’

  She took her socks from the dresser, fished out wellington boots from the cupboard in the corner and let herself out into the lane. Aristotle loped ahead, sniffing the banks, pissing already.

  She turned right at the end of Woodpecker Lane and passed the darkened windows of the pub. As she reached the village green, Henrietta de la Rue emerged from the shop and climbed into a new Volvo estate. Julia stood on the edge of the grass and waited for her to come level. The window was lowered and Henrietta was leaning across, her alice band pushed to the back of her head, thin hair pulled taut over a narrow face. ‘Hello. Your mother said you might be coming home. How long are you here for?’

  Julia smiled. ‘I’m not sure yet.’

  ‘She’ll be so pleased to see you. Will you be there tonight?’

  Julia frowned.

  ‘We’ll be in the Rose and Crown. Alan didn’t want her … either of you to be alone tonight.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ Julia nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’ll catch up then.’

  Julia watched the car disappear up the hill then turn left into Woodpecker Lane. Aristotle was sniffing around the edge of the war memorial and she shouted at him.

  It was like Alan Ford to be solicitous of her mother’s feelings.

  Julia walked over the green and stood in front of the small cross at the entrance to the common. The words read, ‘In loving memory of Sarah and Alice Ford, taken from us’, a simple inscription that reflected the sorrowful anger of a community robbed of its innocence.

  Aristotle had ducked under the stile and proceeded down the path, and Julia took a step forward, then hesitated. She had thought of coming here on the long journey home from Beijing. It was a simple act, but not easy to achieve.

  She climbed over the stile and followed the dog down the path, watching the clouds drifting along the crest of the ridge opposite, making slow progress across the sky. For a hundred yards, the track descended through two of the de la Rues’ fields and, as she reached the entrance to the wood, the sun broke free again, fractured through the branches of the trees above.

  Julia stopped to listen. The path was dotted with puddles – it must have been raining these past few days – the mud soft, wet and glutinous, the air hazy with insects. As she walked, the wind picked up, whistling through the trees above and down the hedgerows, tugging at her hair.

  There was an overwhelming sense of timelessness about this place. She glimpsed one of the de la Rue maize fields on the other side of the valley, just as the trees began to thicken, beech and maple leaves obscuring the blue sky. The de la Rues owned so much of the land around here, enveloping the village in their wealth. The ivy was thick along the edges of the path, vying with bramble and fern, even holly here and there, as the ground turned from mud to grass. The sunlight provided dappled pools of light, which even the nettles, growing thick beside her, seemed to crane towards.

  The path twisted gently until the point where she had found Sarah’s body. Julia walked slower as she approached, then stopped in roughly the same place as she had that day.

  Nothing had changed. Her return, after so long, was as ordinary as she had determined it would be.

  Julia walked to the edge of the river and looked down into the dark pools of swirling water. She moved forward, so that the stream began to wash away some of the mud and grass from the toes of her boots. She looked about for Aristotle, but could see no sign of him. He was not a companionable dog.

  She waited. No ghosts assailed her and she felt her tension ease a little.

  She walked to the opposite bank, climbed it and continued on up through the trees. The wood here was silent, the only sound that of her own breathing.

  As she emerged into the much larger clearing at the top of the slope and walked through the long grass, the sun fell gently on her face. The tree stump ahead of her was white, with a giant hole in the middle and long, bare, scarecrow branches. It was from here that they had begun the search on the night after Sarah’s murder and Alice’s disappearance. Julia listened to the crickets and watched the branches dancing vigorously in the circling wind. ‘Aristotle,’ she shouted. ‘Aristotle.’

  He was gone and would hide now if she went looking for him; let him find his way home in his own time. She retraced her steps, noticing a badger sett as she descended towards the main path and thinking she had been foolish to shy away for so long from returning here.

  And then a picture was emblazoned on her mind: of Alice’s red and blue check dress – the one she had worn to church that day – her white skin, with the scar at the base of her neck, where she had caught herself on a barbed-wire fence, her small hands, her pretty white socks and her dainty blue shoes, her muddy knees, her shy smile, her ragged breathing as she ran, and the fear … her looking back, the world closing in, her colliding with trees, too scared to cry, trying to think, looking for a place to hide, her capture …

  And then the last, silent moments.

  Did he stab her?

  After killing Sarah, where did the man reach little Alice? Did he hold her still, look into her eyes, as he slid the knife in? What did he see as she died?

  What did he do with her … dress?

  Did she fight? Scream? Cry?

  Did he drag her body to a car? Did he wrap it in plastic sheeting? Did he seek a place here where no one would find it?

  Was it still here, the small bones, infused with that terror, resting beneath her?

  Julia was back to the point where she had found Sarah’s body. ‘Come on,’ she muttered, under her breath.

  She turned for home and walked away, moving purposefully, the blood thumping in her head.

  When she reached the village green, there was still no one about. It was an ordinary, quiet afternoon. She waited for a while, but no one came past.

  A car approached slowly, but she did not recognize the middle-aged woman behind the wheel.

  Julia crossed the road and walked through the lychgate at the entrance to the churchyard, intending to visit her father’s memorial stone, then thinking better of it. She turned back, emerged on to the road and carried on up the hill, stopping briefly beside the Rose and Crown and looking down the narrow road beside it towards the former council house that had belonged to Pascoe’s mother. Now that she was dead, was it technically his? If they ever released him, was this where he would come back to? He shouldn’t be released. How could someone like that be allowed into any community?

  At home, Aristotle was waiting beside the front door. ‘Deserter,’ Julia told him.

  She gave him some water and watched as he slopped half of it on to the floor. ‘Pleasure before loyalty, that’s your motto,’ she said, before retreating to the living room and the giant CD holder she had given her mother on her last birthday. Ahead, the CD player stood next to their old stereo system, of its time, the family’s great luxury. Her father’s records were still stacked neatly in the corner beside it. She leafed through, wondering whether her mother ever listened to them, before picking one out, switching on th
e machine, pulling the needle across to the right track.

  The speakers crackled into life and her eyes were drawn to the big picture of her father on the mahogany card table. He was smiling, the turn of his mouth tilting his broken nose to the right. It was a good smile, the way he had been when he was about to make people laugh.

  Duke Ellington began. The tune was ‘In A Sentimental Mood’ and Julia turned up the volume so loud that the music echoed around the empty house. She faced the empty fireplace, closed her eyes and imagined it booming across the valley. The sweet sadness of the piano keys was mixed with the melancholy, languid drawl of the saxophone.

  Julia remembered the music drifting out of his study upstairs: Ellington, Stan Getz, Charlie Parker – Louis Armstrong, above all.

  Suddenly the volume was turned down, reducing the saxophone to a whisper. Her mother, Caroline, was standing beside her, smiling. Julia flung her arms around her.

  ‘I got your message,’ her mother said. ‘What a lovely surprise.’

  Caroline put down her bag on the chair behind her, took out a hair clip then replaced a strand of hair and refastened it. Her appearance was as neat as ever, a beautiful woman growing old with grace, age barely diminishing her.

  ‘Sorry,’ Julia said. ‘I wasn’t sure exactly when I’d get here.’

  ‘Don’t worry. How long will you be home?’

  Julia shrugged, then followed her through to the kitchen. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. She’d not considered what she was going to tell her mother about Beijing. ‘How was the gallery?’ she asked, stalling and wondering if the army had already said something.

  ‘It’s very quiet at the moment.’ Her mother put on the kettle and took down a teapot. ‘We’ve got an exhibition by a local painter, but he only does oil and that’s never as popular.’

  ‘I’m sorry I missed your exhibition.’

  ‘You didn’t miss much.’

  ‘Alan said they all sold.’ Julia thought of the letters from her mother and Alan, to which she had not replied.

  ‘I know,’ Caroline said. ‘There are a lot of fools around.’

  ‘I should have bought one.’

  ‘You hate still life,’ Caroline said.

  ‘I know, but it’s an investment.’

  Her mother laughed, almost inaudibly. Then she said, her expression serious, ‘Alan offered to take me to the pub tonight, just so that I’m not alone.’ She hated being alone on the anniversary of her husband’s death. ‘I think the de la Rues will be there … They’d all love to see you.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I saw Henrietta in the village earlier. She mentioned it.’

  ‘Unless you’d rather we were alone?’

  Julia shook her head vigorously. ‘No.’

  Caroline disappeared into the dining room and returned a few moments later with a piece of paper. ‘Professor Malcolm rang. He said you’d called and left a message saying you would be on this number. He can see you at ten tomorrow morning, if that’s all right.’ She passed the note to Julia and busied herself with the tea. ‘The de la Rues asked me to lunch on Saturday too,’ she went on, ‘but I’m sure you’ll be welcome if you’re going to be here that long. I didn’t really know when to expect you.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Julia said. ‘I should have given you some warning, but you know … it’s hard to say whether you’re actually going to be able to get away until the last minute.’ She felt as if she was cheating.

  ‘Are you going back to Beijing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did you find China?’

  ‘Cold in winter. Grubby, polluted. Rude. Interesting. Sometimes beautiful. Foreign. A very long way away.’ Julia was drumming her fingers on the table. ‘Lonely,’ she added.

  ‘I suppose it’s fortunate, in that way, that you’re not married yet.’

  ‘I suppose it is.’

  ‘It feels odd not being able to talk more about what you’ve been doing all this time.’

  ‘Yes, but at least you’re used to it.’

  Julia looked at her mother’s impassive face and wondered what she thought. Did she resent the lack of contact and the restriction on information imposed by the nature of the work? It was impossible to tell.

  ‘Did you manage to make any Chinese friends?’

  Julia smiled bitterly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Caroline said. ‘Was that naïve?’

  ‘No, ironic.’

  ‘It wasn’t that kind of assignment?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘What did you do when you weren’t working?’

  ‘We were always working.’

  ‘Always?’ Caroline was frowning. ‘You must have had some time to relax.’

  ‘Not really. I walked the Great Wall once, but was so convinced I was being tailed I thought it wise not to try again.’

  ‘What was it like?’

  ‘Being tailed?’

  ‘No.’ Caroline smiled. ‘The Great Wall.’

  ‘Long.’

  ‘You don’t say. Long! That’s a useful observation – taxpayers’ money well spent.’

  ‘All right, it was long, beautiful but crumbling. It’s falling down apart from the areas they’re restoring for the tourists. And the taxpayer, sadly, wasn’t paying me to go sightseeing.’

  ‘Don’t be such a bore.’ Caroline looked at Julia. ‘You must have got to know some of the embassy people.’

  ‘We didn’t socialize much.’

  Caroline frowned again. Julia could tell she did not think this much of a life for her only daughter, for all that Caroline was familiar with the sacrifices demanded by a Service career.

  ‘Well, I hope it was worth it,’ she said.

  ‘No, not really.’ Julia tried to smile, but an image of the agent’s pale, frightened face intervened. She could vividly see his thin, hairless hands, with their slender fingers and long nails, which always shook, sometimes violently.

  ‘I suppose it’s fascinating work,’ Caroline said.

  ‘How is everyone?’ Julia asked, changing the subject abruptly.

  ‘Mostly well.’

  Caroline stood up, filled the teapot and put it on the table. ‘Alan is off on another tour to Ireland,’ she went on.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Next weekend. Not this one, the one after.’

  ‘I might nip over and see him in a minute.’

  There was the warmth of combined affection and approval in Caroline’s smile. ‘He’ll be pleased if you do. I mentioned you might be home and he was hoping you’d be back before he went away.’

  ‘What’s happening in Ireland? I’ve not looked at a paper in eight months.’

  ‘Goodness.’ Caroline brought a tin of biscuits to the table and began to pour the tea. She had forgotten the milk – distracted, Julia could tell, by having her home – and went to get it from the fridge. Julia thought again how slim she was. She was as attractive as a woman of her age could be, even if she did her best to hide it in worn green jeans and an ill-fitting jumper. Only her face, and the lipstick she always wore, betrayed vanity.

  ‘Jessica de la Rue is getting divorced,’ Caroline said, apparently forgetting the previous drift of the conversation.

  ‘That’s awful. How are the family taking it? I mean …’

  ‘Jasper is very upset. Henrietta is … phlegmatic. I think she always thought the marriage had the potential to run into difficulties.’

  ‘They’ve children?’

  ‘Three.’

  Julia sipped her tea and thought of Jessica, with her long auburn hair. She was older and had always been wild. ‘It’s funny,’ she said, ‘I would have thought their reactions would have been the other way around.’

  Her mother didn’t respond.

  ‘After all that Jasper has done. I mean …’

  ‘I think Jasper believes very strongly in marriage.’

  ‘But not in monogamy.’

  For a moment, there was silence. This was not destined to be an easy topic of conv
ersation. Julia recalled Jasper’s slightly too affectionate dances with Jessica’s friends at teenage parties and weddings, and the casual way in which he stroked their buttocks.

  ‘You haven’t talked about Paul for a long time.’

  Julia shifted lower in her seat. ‘Yes, I probably should have said. But it’s not been edifying.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘He hung on for me and I didn’t see him for about a year after I went to Ireland because I said I was too busy. Then I came back to England for a weekend and dumped him.’

  Caroline did not respond to this, and Julia could see that her mother was upset that she had come back to England but not visited. She got up and turned up the volume on Duke Ellington. ‘Is it okay if I have a bath?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course.’ For a moment they looked at each other, then Caroline added, ‘I’m glad you’re home. If I may be permitted to say so, you look like you need a rest.’

  Upstairs, the water tank thumped loudly as Julia turned on the taps. She undressed and sank into the bath. Listening to the music from below, she thought again of Ellington and Armstrong drifting out from behind the closed door of her father’s study and wondered what he had been thinking in all those hours on his own.

  Eventually Ellington came to an end. Julia got out, dried herself and walked down the narrow corridor to her room. She could hear her mother moving the kitchen table and realized that she was sitting down at the piano. She waited, the towel resting lightly on her shoulders. Her mother began ‘Song For Guy’, by Elton John, which Julia, as a child, had often asked her to play.

  She went into her room, sat at the table in the corner and looked at the photograph albums stacked on the shelves ahead. The music was beautiful, haunting – comforting in its familiarity yet melancholic in the memories it evoked. Had her mother chosen it deliberately?

  She pulled down one of the albums. The first page contained a sequence of shots of Julia on her pony, Alfie, performing at the local Pony Club gymkhana, and the last picture was of her father in a scruffy green country jacket smiling into the camera at the same event. In almost every picture she had ever seen of him, the smile was the same: broad, genuine, as if he was seeking to share his amusement at the vagaries and uncertainties of life.