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by Robert Barnard

  The voice that replied to her ring was female, and not speaking English.

  “Could I speak to Omkar Rani please?”

  “He not in.”

  “Could you tell me when he will be in?”

  “He home eight o’clock.”

  “Thank you. I’ll phone sometime after that.”

  When she did phone, at half past, the voice that answered was sharper and brighter, and hardly at all accented.

  “Omkar Rani speaking.”

  “Oh, hello. Er . . . I rang you earlier—”

  “Yes. My wife told me.”

  “It’s rather difficult. I’d better say at once it’s not a police matter. It is a philatelic one.”

  “Good. I almost never get rung on police matters at home, but it’s pleasant that it’s a philatelic call. What are you interested in?”

  Eve quickly put her thoughts in order.

  “I perhaps should explain from the start that I’m not in the least interested in stamps. I believe you went to Blackfield Road school. You probably remember my mother, who died ten days ago. May McNabb.”

  “Oh, Mrs. McNabb. I remember her so well, and I was so sad about her dying. Sixty-seven is no age these days. And I have so many happy memories from that school.”

  “I’m glad. Many people have told me that. The fact is, I received a letter a few days ago—it was a letter to my mother from someone who had not heard of her death. I don’t want to go into what upset me, but I would like to know the area it comes from. There is no address on the letter or on the envelope, no surname either in the signature. There is only the postmark.”

  “Yes. Isn’t that enough?”

  “It’s very faint, almost nonexistent. Part of the circle, just one letter of the place, and a barely legible SE for September. It’s one of the old style of postmarks.”

  “I see. They often are almost illegible these days. Well, if you would care to bring it round—”

  “I feel very cheeky. Of course I’ll pay you for your time.”

  “Mrs. McNabb’s daughter? Absolutely not. If I can help you, it will give me the greatest pleasure. But, Miss McNabb—that is your name?”

  “Yes it is. Eve.”

  “I think you will not want to show me the letter. But could you copy down anything in the letter that you do not mind me seeing. There may be indications there—I speak as a policeman now, not a philatelist—that we could take with the postmark and we may get a step or two further on.”

  “I’ll do that. Could I come around to your home? Or you come to me?”

  “Come around here. I may need books and catalogs. I finish work at six tomorrow. Could we say seven thirty?”

  “Seven thirty it is. And thank you in advance.”

  Eve rang off, somehow feeling greatly heartened. When the next evening she rang the doorbell of 23 Butterfield Road, a small street of late-Victorian houses, rather small and depressed, and close to a monster-size roundabout, the door was opened by Rani’s wife. She was holding a baby, and looked terribly young. There was also, Eve thought, a prevailing uncertainty, and perhaps an unhappiness, that mystified her. The woman opened her mouth, but she was forestalled by the door to one of the front rooms opening and a young man coming out.

  “This is the lady I told you about, Sanjula. We’ll be in the sitting room. I don’t know how long we will take.”

  He was a good-looking young man—young, but by no means as young as his wife: perhaps twenty-eight or thirty. He led Eve through to the sitting room, furnished in a slightly ornate style, and shut the door behind them. He gestured Eve toward one of the easy chairs.

  “I hope you weren’t eating,” she said. “I really don’t want to inconvenience you.”

  “No, no—I’d finished—all I wanted to eat. Now let us have a look at this mysterious envelope—made mysterious by our wonderful GPO.”

  “Well, yes,” agreed Eve. “But the writer didn’t put an address on it, or on the letter itself.”

  “Presumably because she knew the recipient—dear Mrs. McNabb—was perfectly aware of what it was.”

  Eve suddenly gave voice to a thought that had come to her on a walk that afternoon, but had not been closely examined.

  “That seems most likely. But isn’t it just possible that she knew my mother was dead, that the letter would be read by me and that she didn’t want me to contact her?”

  Rani nodded, but unenthusiastically, as if he thought she could have picked holes in that theory very easily if she had thought it through. Then he switched on a strong light and looked at the envelope through a magnifying glass.

  “We can forget the SE for September. Typically the most useless information is the clearest . . . The one letter in the place-name that is clearly visible looks as if it could be the last—looking at it in relation to the month . . . It seems to me it’s a D—would you agree?”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought.”

  “And then—which you couldn’t see with the naked eye—there’s just a shadow of another letter here . . . Just a stroke crossed by—or perhaps met by—another, shorter stroke.”

  Eve was leaning over his shoulder now.

  “Oh yes, I can see. But that could be quite a lot of things, couldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it could. I’ll need to consult my books to investigate the possibilities . . . Now, what about the letter itself—the parts you will let me read?”

  He said it neutrally, without a shadow of reproach. Eve took out the copy she had made of the parts of the letter she felt no qualms about his seeing.

  “I’ve left out the last two paragraphs. Somehow it’s too—”

  “Don’t upset yourself.”

  “There’s mention in the last bit of ‘the business with John.’ John was my father’s name—John McNabb of course.”

  “Of course. Women always took their husband’s name then, didn’t they?” He took the two pages of notebook paper and began reading them. When he finished, he sat for a moment, thinking. “Pardon me—I should know this—but isn’t Hay Fever a pretty well-known play?”

  “Yes. It’s Noël Coward. Dating from 1925 or so—it’s a very twenties play. They would have to be very good amateurs to bring it off.”

  “When did Noël Coward die?”

  “Oh, 1970 or thereabouts.” Eve was bemused. “Why do you ask?”

  “Still in copyright. They would have to get permission and pay a fee to his publisher or agent, and the money would go to his heir. I think if you got in touch with his publishers, you would find they probably keep records.”

  Eve looked at him.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “All of a sudden there’s a road ahead.”

  Rani looked shy.

  “It was really very simple.”

  “Not to me. It’ll be Samuel French or one of those play publishers.”

  “Phone them. Tell them you’re the secretary to a new amateur drama group, and you’re thinking of putting on Hay Fever. You want to know if any amateur or professional group has put it on in West Yorkshire in the last year or two.”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t mention Yorkshire, though. She could have been talking about anywhere.”

  “That’s true. But if it’s a popular play with amateurs, you could get a whole string of names and places. You’ll have to play it by ear.”

  “I think I shall enjoy doing that. How long do you need to look at the postmark?”

  “I’m off tomorrow. And if you ring the publisher of Hay Fever tomorrow, we could confer in the evening. The point is, the two things go together. There could be a large number of places whose names could fit in with the postmark, but the play and the groups that want to put it on may tell us which one it is likely to be.”

  “Could you come to me? Then we wouldn’t be interrupting domestic routines.”

  Rani seemed to be about to say something, then just murmured that he would like that, and noted down the address and time. On her way back to the car, E
ve was conscious of a spring in her step and a feeling of promise even in the darkness of the autumn night.

  The next day she went early into Halifax, went to the library, and found out the name of the licensing agents for Coward’s plays. When she rang them in the middle of the morning, they couldn’t have been more helpful, and obviously were used to similar queries. A young man and his computer worked wonders in seconds.

  “Hay Fever? It’s up there with Private Lives and Blithe Spirit as one of the favorite Cowards. But we find that more groups say they’re going to do it than actually do. It’s fiendishly difficult—full of good parts that need first-rate playing. If you’re a new group, you may find something a bit more straightforward would suit you better.”

  “We’ve got a lot of very experienced actors—amateur actors, of course,” lied Eve.

  “With Hay Fever it’s a big advantage if they’ve acted together before . . . Let’s see. Newton Abbot Players in 2005, Pitlochry Festival, Fishguard Amateur Dramatic Society—all well out of your region. This year Aylesbury, London West End with Judi Dench—now that was a performance—Penzance, Derby—getting closer. Oh yes: the Huddersfield Comedy Club, with performances due in November, and Middlesborough—performances this month. Those are the nearest to you. Especially the Huddersfield.”

  “Yes,” said Eve. “We’d better put our thinking caps on again. Thank you so much for your help.”

  That afternoon she went to the one Crossley supermarket and bought several different fruit juices, some cans of beer, and a good white wine for herself. She was conscious of being much more lighthearted than she had been since her mother died—more happy than she had ever been, in fact, since she broke with Grant. “He’s a married man,” she told herself, “and years younger than you.” But that didn’t stop her feeling happy, and anticipating with something approaching excitement his visit in the evening. He was something different, something outside her everyday experience. In Evelyn Waugh’s distinction between cars, between those that illustrate “being” and those that illustrate “becoming,” Eve decided she was obviously one of the latter. She was always looking for experiences, people, destinations that could change her, develop her, deepen her understanding of herself and of the world.

  When she opened the door to Rani that evening, she saw a very spruce young man, in beautifully ironed blue shirt and slacks, who was already smiling in anticipation of an interesting session. Her heart skipped a beat, and she led him through to her front room and settled him on the sofa with a low table in front of him.

  “Fruit juice?” she suggested. “Or something stronger, if that’s not out of the question. But you’re Hindu, aren’t you, not Muslim?”

  “Yes, I am. But I usually don’t drink. In the police force beer doesn’t count as an alcoholic drink,” said Rani, smiling shyly. “It’s the liquid equivalent of bread—the staff of life. If you have any beer I would be happy—otherwise fruit juice will be fine.”

  When they were settled down on either side of the low table—and with every minute Rani’s stance showed him becoming more relaxed, even happy—he showed an enlargement he had made of the postmark on the envelope. He had shaded in the two less than clear letters of the town name.

  “Here is the month and day: all we have is the SE, but if the mark merely had SEPT it would leave plenty of room for the town name. There is no D in September, so it must be part of the town or region. Quite possibly the last letter, judging by what we have of the date. That leaves—”

  “The whole of the rest of inside the circle for the town,” said Eve, who was very competitive in quizzes and mysteries.

  “Exactly. Therefore possibly quite a long town name. Now, this other shadowy letter: an upward stroke with another stroke emerging from its right side, halfway up. Most likely an E, an F or an H. I considered whether it could be a P, an R or a B, but I think that little protuberance would have to show a sign of curving upward, and it doesn’t. Do you see?”

  “Yes. It looks quite straight to me.”

  “So, a town name with a D to finish or nearly finish with, and an E, F or H halfway—or maybe a bit more than halfway—through. I could no doubt get an authoritative list from the post office if I used my police hat, but I’m reluctant to do that.”

  “Of course, I wouldn’t dream—”

  “I know you wouldn’t. And maybe it’s not necessary. The first thing I thought of was Harewood—an important place for Leeds. There would be the E in the middle, the D at the end. But I wondered whether it was long enough. And whether Harewood—in spite of the house, which must generate a lot of mail—is important enough to have its own postmark. Then I thought of that central letter as an F—”

  “Field,” said Eve, not letting on about her other information.

  “Exactly. Wakefield, Huddersfield, Sheffield and so on. The position of the middle letter in relation to the D made ‘field’ more likely than ‘ford’ to my eyes. Otherwise I would have considered Bradford, Stafford and so on. I think there is room for more letters than eight.”

  “Yes,” said Eve. “And I think there’s something I should tell you. One of the places where an amateur dramatic society has applied to put on Hay Fever is Huddersfield.”

  They looked at each other with delight. Then Rani punched the air in the manner of a football goal scorer and they smiled and cheered, and wanted to embrace but didn’t quite, didn’t yet, dare. “One day” said a voice in the back of Eve’s mind.

  “Of course nothing is certain,” said Rani. “But still . . . That is what I love about my job. You take one step, make a provisional decision—always remembering the question mark that there still is over it—but then you take a second step, and that leads to a third step, and then you have one part of the jigsaw in your mind.”

  “Always bearing in mind the question mark,” said Eve. They both laughed. “Is that why you joined the police force?”

  “Oh, that’s too simple. There was so much that I didn’t know about the police force. And so much that I thought I knew that was wrong. But yes—I thought there was a lot about the job that was brain work, involving logic, step-by-step reasoning, and that was true. Especially about detective work. I have been a detective some little time now. Very low down in the ranks, but still—wonderful work!”

  “And does philately call on the same skills?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. Not logic, not in the same way. Philately just fills some time in the other part of my life.”

  Eve, feeling daring, could not stop herself from fishing.

  “Competing with your little girl, and a thousand and one other things, I daresay?”

  “Yes. You saw my daughter? She is fine, and I ‘love her to bits’—I like that expression, and it’s so right.” The air was heavy with unasked questions. He stood up nervously. “I mustn’t take up more of your time—”

  “You are not taking up my time. You are filling it when it very much needs filling. Please have another beer.”

  He stood there, plainly nervous and pulled two ways.

  “Well, perhaps a fruit juice. I am driving. And to tell you the truth, I drink beer to make a statement, to fit in, but I don’t like it very much.”

  They laughed. It seemed to Eve that they laughed a lot, and that was fine, unless perhaps it was to cover over things they could not yet bring out into the open. It was too soon. Their acquaintance was too fragile.

  “It’s cranberry,” she said, as she came in with glasses. “I don’t think you can make much of a statement with cranberry juice.”

  Something in her remarks struck a chord, or perhaps he had been thinking, weighing the situation while she was in the kitchen. Suddenly he looked up at her and in his eyes there was nothing but misery.

  “You knew, didn’t you? When you came to my house? You sensed something?”

  Eve shifted in her chair.

  “Well, ‘didn’t sense’ is more like. I didn’t sense happiness. I felt tension, felt apartness.”


  “All of those things. I’m sorry. I don’t want to burden—”

  “You wouldn’t be burdening me. I’m interested. I’m always interested in people. Maybe that’s my mother’s influence. So you drink to make a statement. Did you get married as a statement too, perhaps? A quite different sort of statement?”

  “Yes. A statement that I was still an Asian, still an Indian Englishman. That I was quite happy with the rules and customs I grew up with.”

  “So it wasn’t a forced marriage?”

  “No, no, not at all, not for her or for me. Forced marriages occur, but not very often, in the Indian community. It was an arranged marriage, with a cousin from India. We had met. The family put it to us. She agreed. I agreed. She came over here and we got married.”

  “Is it England? Is that what makes her unhappy?”

  Rani looked down at the table.

  “Partly. She misses so much. She agreed to the marriage because it is the ambition of so many girls in India, at least in the rural parts, to find an English husband and live here.”

  “And what makes you unhappy? Presumably whatever it is makes her unhappy too.”

  There was a long silence.

  “What makes me unhappy? There is nothing there. Nothing between us. They say it comes gradually. You grow to know each other better, then that familiarity grows into love—and trust, and mutual support and all good things. But we began with nothing there, and there is still nothing there.”

  “Except your little girl.”

  She felt she had to say it—the thought troubled her greatly.

  “I love her so much, but she does not bring us together. She is a talking point, and we ought to be grateful for that, because we hardly have any others.”

  Eve thought for a moment.

  “Did you perhaps go into the police force against your family’s wishes?”

  “Oh yes. They thought I should be running a shop or studying to become a doctor or surgeon. They still do.”